A Further Perspective: Mattis, McMaster, and North Korea

The American Spectator

"Capable, experienced U.S. military leadership will be critical in this brewing conflict."

"North Korea has the potential to become the greatest foreign policy crisis for the Trump administration. Fortunately, President Trump has a very capable Secretary of Defense, and an exceptional National Security Advisor that are uniquely qualified on this issue. North Korea is also one of the few issues where there is still some bipartisan consensus.

"Having a prestigious former General Officer as Secretary of Defense only strengthens our hand. His 44 years of distinguished service (1969-2013) gives Secretary Mattis extensive expertise in both the largely outdated Soviet-era hardware of the North Korean military as well as the modern equipment in our military.

"Lieutenant General McMaster, became a legend in the Army, when during the Gulf War, then-Captain McMaster led 9 M1A1 Abrams tanks and 23 Bradley fighting vehicles and destroyed 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 personnel carriers, and 39 trucks without any American losses. This was part of the Battle of 73 Easting.

"Military historians have called this engagement the “last great tank battle of the 20th century.” In the Gulf War, the Iraqis had Soviet-made T-72, T-62 and T-55 tanks as well as the Chinese Type 59 tanks.

Except the T-72, the North Korean have the same tanks that Iraq had. The only difference is that these tanks are 25 years older and they have built a bad copy of a T-72 tank that they reversed engineered.

"Both Secretary Mattis and General McMaster have led troops in battle. Although many Americans are war weary after more than 15 years in Afghanistan and Iraq, these two men have the credibility with the American people, and Congress, to tell them when they have exhausted every option before military force is deemed necessary." . . .

Obama's full frontal blast at the sitting U.S. president from abroad and his own personal character

His logic is that because President Trump doesn't want the U.S. taking orders from petty little unelected eurocrats someplace in Germany, there's somehow a lack of U.S. leadership.

Monica Showalter

The worrisome thing is how this irresponsibility will be taken abroad. Is Obama trying to get foreign leaders to thumb their nose at President Trump and oppose him at every turn? To undercut him by telling them he's the 'real' president? And the White House is his house? Sure looks like it.
In reality, it's his ego he's defending, he was all in for that Paris Climate Accord to bolster the global warming superstition and remains bitter at the dismantling of his legacy.
Leadership, and legitimacy itself, in his mind, is premised on how much U.S. leaders agree with his policies. Obama considers the U.S. state less important than Democratic politics. This is the same mindset that Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez have demonstrated - the state subordinate to the political party.
Is there any question as to why so many voters questioned this man's patriotism?

Thomas Lifson gives his estimate of the former President's character

 Obama was a wuss who CNN and everyone else handled with kid gloves because they feared being called a racist if they told the truth about him.
CNN went Full DPRK News in praising Obama's IQ, basketball prognostications, and oratory skills. That last one was disproved every time the teleprompter went out and he was left to sputtering until he said Okie Dokey, or something equally inane.

 The vindictiveness of Obama shown during the government shutdown
However, the Obama Administration is going out of its way to take unreasonable and unnecessary steps to block public access to parks and monuments that isn’t warranted by a government shutdown. For example, open air parks and national monuments, places without doors or gates, where people are allowed to visit 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, have been barricaded off. In addition, none of these D.C. memorials were closed during the last government shutdown in 1995-1996 under the Clinton Administration. The Obama Administration’s closing of these sites is not something they are required to do; it’s something they are CHOOSING to do. The Obama Administration wants the effects of this government shutdown to be as painful as possible.

Like Haman Being Hanged on the Scaffold He Built for Mordechai

CNN has been hurt the most for its around-the-clock promotion of the claims against Trump.

Clarice Feldman  "An online friend watching the week’s events observes that they remind her of the villain Haman being hanged on the very scaffold he had built to hang Mordechai in the biblical Book of Esther. That sums up the week in which the federal investigators are themselves under investigation and the press is forced to recant the lies it has been publishing about the administration. Having watched the deep state eviscerate gentleman G.W. Bush and his administration on the Plamegate fiction, this turn of events warms my heart. It’s long overdue.

1. The Attempted “Russian Collusion” Coup Fails

. . . 

"They keep chasing that red dot and ignore the fact that the EPA can no longer claim the puddle in your driveway gives them jurisdiction over your property. Your son will no longer have to face a university star chamber if some gal claims he invaded her safe space. The military halted endorsing the recruitment of transgenders. No longer will energy sources be locked up from exploitation, or our allies be left hanging while we send a plane with pallets full of cash to the murderous mullahs. NATO members are paying more of their shareof defense costs.  Abbas has stopped paying terrorists in Israeli jails. 

"A real revolution is underway which is knocking the arrogant incompetent elites off their feet. They can scamper about all they want. There’s no catching that red dot at the end of the laser beam."

Iran to finally pay for role in September 11 attacks

Jordan Schachtel

"Jury rules Manhattan-based charity is front for Iranian regime; feds seize its NYC building."

 

"The Islamic-theocracy ruling Iran will finally pay for its role in helping facilitate the Sept. 11 and other acts of terrorism against the United States.

"The New York Times reports a jury decided that the U.S. government has the right to take over a New York City building majority-owned by the Alavi Foundation — a supposed charity that is deeply connected to the Iranian regime. The foundation owns 60 percent of the building, while the Assa Corporation, an Iranian state-run bank, owns 40 percent.

"In what prosecutors called the “largest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in United States history,” the federal takedown and seizure could bring as much as $1 billion to the families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, and the 1983 bombings of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon.

"In 2011, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that Iran was heavily connected to the 9/11 attacks. Moreover, the 9/11 Commission found “strong evidence” that Iran harbored and aided senior members of al-Qaida prior to 9/11, brokering a key alliance with the Sunni group. Confidants of Osama bin Laden frequently traveled through Iran, where they reportedly participated in al-Qaida training, the deceased terror mastermind’s memos reveal." . . .

CNN screws up — again

Page Six

. . . "We’re told CNN flew into a panic on Friday after it accidentally aired a fake National Enquirer cover during Jake Tapper’s broadcast.

"Tapper did a segment on his “The Lead” show about Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s claim that Donald Trump tried to blackmail them with a hit piece in the National Enquirer.

"During the piece, it showed a cover from the tabloid, which seemed to be about a scandal involving GOP senator Ted Cruz and his wife, Heidi Cruz.

Hat tip: Weasel Zip

"Unfortunately, the cover is — literally — fake news.

"The cover — which has the headline “Heidi Cruz: Betrayed by Cheating Husband!” and promised details on a “sordid threesome, sleazy love letters and sensational photo proof — has never appeared on the National Enquirer, according to sources at the magazine.

"It seems that it may have been created as clickbait." . . .

To Tweet or Not To Tweet

Even while desperately wishing Mr. Trump would lose his phone, one might compare President Trump's tweeting with General U.S. Grant's drinking. Under pressure to fire Grant over his drinking, Lincoln responded, "I can't fire this man; he FIGHTS!"

 J. Marsolo: President Trump: Keep using Twitter, you are winning   "The daily news as reported by the mainstream media, as part of the Opposition Party consisting of the Democratic Party, MSM, Never-Trumps, and the Obama bureaucrats imbedded in the federal government, is an obsession with President Trump's use of Twitter and other social media.  The MSM for the most part ignore the real issues, such as nuclear proliferation by North Korea and Iran, which Obama either ignored or contributed to by giving Iran 150 billion dollars.  Instead, the MSM report on the hurt feelings of Wolf Blitzer and Joe and his sidekick Mika.

"Simply put, the MSM are not used to having a Republican president telling the leftist MSM to shove it.  Aside from Newt Gingrich calling out the debate questioners during the 2012 campaign and George H.W. Bush calling out Dan Rather in 1988, the Republicans usually act like a punching bag.  The best example is George W. Bush, who failed to respond to the brutal attacks by the likes of Harry Reid and the MSM.  Currently, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan make George W. Bush look like President Trump." . . .

Jonah Goldberg at NRO: Put Down the Phone, Mr. President

"Look, I think Trump’s defenders make some perfectly valid points. Laura Ingraham, for example, rightly notes that all of the people freaking out about Trump’s misogyny were all too happy to drag Bill Clinton’s victims through the mud."

"Now, to be fair, I think the more accurate analysis would be to say that the tweeting hurts more than it helps. Not every one of Trump’s tweets is the political equivalent of taking a sock full of quarters and smashing himself in the crotch, only some are. If he just tweeted within relatively sane and presidential parameters, it would be an asset for him. Feel free to discount my advice, and just listen to Victor Davis Hanson, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, or virtually every Republican member of Congress who understand that Trump’s tweets distract from his agenda, cause chaos among his staff, make it harder for Republicans to embrace him, and harden attitudes among Democrats and winnable voters." . . .
 Read more.

Still No Collusion Evidence

Andrew C. McCarthy

"The latest ‘bombshell’ tells us more about media bias than about election meddling"

 "So here’s the latest big “collusion” story that has been, er, broken by the Wall Street Journal. 

"About ten days before he died in mid-May, an 81-year-old man who did not work for the Trump campaign told the Journal he had speculated that, but did not know whether, 33,000 of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails had been hacked from her homebrew server. 

"The now-deceased man, “a longtime Republican opposition researcher” named Peter W. Smith, had theorized that the e-mails must have been stolen, “likely by Russian hackers.” But he had no idea if this was actually so, and he himself certainly had nothing to do with stealing them. 

"Smith’s desire to obtain the hacked emails, if there were any, peaked around Labor Day 2016 — i.e., during the last weeks of the campaign. This was many months after the FBI had taken physical custody of Clinton’s homebrew server and other devices containing her e-mails. It was also two months after the Bureau’s then-director, James Comey, had told the country that the FBI had found no evidence that Clinton had been hacked . . . but that her carelessness about communications security, coupled with the proficiency of hackers in avoiding detection, meant her e-mails could well have been compromised throughout her years as secretary of state. 

"In other words, Peter W. Smith was one of about 320 million people in the United States who figured that Clinton’s e-mails had been hacked — by Russia, China, Iran, ISIS, the NSA, the latest iteration of “Guccifer,” and maybe even that nerdy kid down at Starbucks with “Feel the Bern” stickers on his laptop." . . . Read more

Watch: GOP Senator Torches Obama's Weakness On Russia

Matt Vespa at Townhall   . . . "By contrast, President Obama famously pressed the reset button a few weeks into his tenure, six months after Russia invaded Georgia. He mocked Mitt Romney for calling Russia our number one geopolitical foe. He asked Dmitry Medvedev in a hot mic moment to wait until after the election to discuss missile defenses because he would have more flexibility. Despite bipartisan support in the Congress, President Obama refused to send lethal weapons to Ukraine. He stood idly by as Russia returned to the Middle East for the first time in 40 years, and he stood idly by, as we’ve heard today, in the 2016 election." . . .

Trump vs. the media

President Trump is changing the norms that empower his media antagonists   Thomas Lifson defends Trumps tweets, but I cannot work up the same enthusiasm. I still support President Trump much more than I admire him (The use of triple personal pronouns in the foregoing is Obama-esque). TD

Pictured: CNN journalists.

. . . "President Trump understands that the current informal-but-very-real rules of the game have allowed Mika and Joe (and the rest of the media-political world as well) free rein to savage him and his family, while he is supposed to be a gentleman and just take it while they get support for attacking him." . . .

Why Trump’s Vengeful Tweeting Matters  . . . "It’s a sad symbol of our times that one feels compelled to actually make an argument why the president is wrong here. The pitiful reality is that there are people who feel like the man who sits in the seat once occupied by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan should use his bully pulpit for schoolyard insults and vicious personal attacks. But this is what we’re reduced to. So, here goes." . . .Read more.

So who is 'presidential'?  "For the last several years, if you disagreed with President Obama or the Democrat agenda on immigration, gay marriage, gender bathroom rights, climate change, higher taxes, more regulations, you could be called xenophobic, sexist, racist, homophobic, and stupid.
"Or to put it in brief form, as Hillary Clinton did, "irredeemable" and "deplorable."
"If you dared disagreed with anything in the climate change agenda, you were called "a denier," and the public was told that you shouldn't be listened to.
"Members of the Tea Party were compared to domestic terrorists." . . .

Who cares what Trump tweets to some media pinhead?  

"What matters to voters is that he is getting things done."

On Morning Joe, Deutsch Calls Pres. Trump “Physically Disgusting,” a “Pig”   "I’m taking the low ground here. "

The MSNBC show is a window on a tiresome and deluded chattering class.
Morning Joe hosts with Valerie Jarrett (Obama's alter-ego)

. . . "The nonsense never ends. The American people know perfectly well that Trump isn’t a saint. They don’t need the media to hold endless powwows on this subject. What’s more, they know that even with his flaws he is a hell of a lot more serious than the smug “sophisticates” always sniping at him."

From Law Nuze: Mika Shouldn’t Just Be Annoyed, She Should Sue The Heck Out of Trump  . . . "Yep, that’s what I said. Mika Brzezinski should consider suing Trump for defamation. After all, sometimes a well-timed civil lawsuit can have some pretty profound consequences. Just ask Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky.   Would I typically advocate litigating over two moronic hate tweets? Absolutely not. I have serious disdain for nuisance lawsuits and the unethical lawyers who make their parasitic living off them. But a successful defamation lawsuit to call out President Trump for his obnoxious twitterbuse of media figures would serve an important purpose, and I’m not the only one who thinks so." . . .

Part 3 of the Project Veritas attack on CNN

Althouse

And this is especially interesting right now, when everyone purports to be shocked that Donald Trump tweeted that Mika Brzezinski was "bleeding badly from a face-lift": Carr says that Kellyanne Conway "looks like she got hit with a shovel."

"This time the victim of secret filming is Jimmy Carr, who is said to be the Associate Producer for CNN’s "New Day." James O'Keefe tells us Carr is based in Brooklyn, and urges Paul Farhi — the WaPo writer who made much of the failure to say that the victim in Part 1 was based in Atlanta — to take note that he's naming the place." . . .

A word missing from CNN's frontpage: Russia

Ann Althouse   "The narrative has changed."

"I do see — look closely — "Van Jones: O'Keefe video is a hoax." The video is the one where we hear Van Jones say "That Russia thing is just a big nothing-burger." But the teaser on the front page doesn't give us a clue that the video had to do with Russia, and even when you click through, there's no mention of the substance of what we hear Jones say in the video, just the assertion: "CNN's Van Jones says the ambush video of him done by notorious provocateur James O'Keefe is a hoax." 

"And how is the video a hoax? I think Jones is misusing the word, because he does not deny that he is the man in the video or that there's some context that would change the meaning of his statement. He indicates that he could have said other things, but not that he did actually on that occasion say more and O'Keefe had it edited out. 

"ADDED: I'm just noticing that among the things CNN is trying to tease us with this morning is: "Prostitutes: Senate health care bill will devastate us." Prostitutes!

"ALSO: The Washington Post also has a front page that doesn't mention Russia but does — amazing! — have sex workers. Click to enlarge: 

Charles Krauthammer asks: "Why do they even play the game?"

"In sports, the pleasure of winning is less than the pain of losing."

Orange County Register

"In mathematics, when you’re convinced of some eternal truth but can’t quite prove it, you offer it as a hypothesis (with a portentous capital H) and invite the world, future generations if need be, to prove you right or wrong. Often, a cash prize is attached.

"In that spirit, but without the cash, I offer the Krauthammer Conjecture: In sports, the pleasure of winning is less than the pain of losing. By any Benthamite pleasure/pain calculation, the sum is less than zero. A net negative of suffering. Which makes you wonder why anybody plays at all.

"Winning is great. You get to hoot and holler, hoist the trophy, shower in champagne, ride the open parade car and boycott the White House victory ceremony (choose your cause).

"But, as most who have engaged in competitive sports know, there’s nothing to match the amplitude of emotion brought by losing. When the Cleveland Cavaliers lost the 2015 NBA Finals to Golden State, LeBron James sat motionless in the locker room, staring straight ahead, still wearing his game jersey, for 45 minutes after the final buzzer.

"Here was a guy immensely wealthy, widely admired, at the peak of his powers — yet stricken, inconsolable. So it was for Ralph Branca, who gave up Bobby Thomson’s shot heard ’round the world in 1951. So too for Royals shortstop Freddie Patek, a (literal) picture of dejection sitting alone in the dugout with his head down after his team lost the 1977 pennant to the New York Yankees." . . .