Ignatius: Fighters in Syria Cheer Mention of Trump’s Name

"More seriously, the big attacks that have taken place around Raqqa, one in particular, a surprise landing by helicopter, I was told, by the top U.S. commanders, would not have taken place if it hadn't been for President Trump's decision to delegate military authorities down to the level of command," Ignatius said. "Under Obama, that would have taken a couple weeks of White House meetings, and they still wouldn't have made up their mind."

Free Beacon

"Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said Monday that during his travels in Syria, rebel fighters there cheered any mention of President Donald Trump's name.

"Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Ignatius prefaced his comments by warning that he would say something "sympathetic to Trump." It was only the second airing of the show since Trump touched off a firestorm with his tweets mocking Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

" 'As I traveled across Syria meeting with Syrian fighters who were trying to take down the regime of Bashar al-Assad, every time the name President Trump was mentioned, there were cheers from the audience," he said in a clip flagged by Legal Insurrection.

"One Syrian Kurdish commander, Ignatius said, colorfully remarked Trump had the equivalent of what would be called "cajones" in Spanish. Ignatius said Trump's looser approach allowed commanders on the ground to more expeditiously carry out operations." . . .

Max Boot: "We Didn’t Kick Britain’s Ass to Be This Kind of Country"

Foreign Policy  "On July 4, 1776, church bells rang out across Philadelphia. The Continental Congress had approved a Declaration of Independence to inform the world that the goal of the colonial revolt, which had begun more than a year earlier, was not mere autonomy within the British Empire. Rather, the rebels were seeking the creation of an independent republic the likes of which the world had never seen. Their demands were couched in the then-novel language of natural rights; “all men are created equal,” they wrote, and “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The authors of this revolutionary text warned all governments to respect these rights or else face the consequences: “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”

"This was a radical stance to take in a world still dominated by kings who claimed to rule by divine will, and it would have profound implications for the new republic’s foreign policy. Unlike their cynical, Old World counterparts, American statesmen could never be content with a realpolitik foreign policy based on Thucydides’s admonition that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” The Founding Fathers, writes Robert Kagan in his history of American foreign policy, Dangerous Nation, had “unwittingly invented a new foreign policy founded upon the universalist ideology that the Revolution spawned.” As Thomas Jefferson said, “We are pointing out the way to struggling nations who wish, like us, to emerge from their tyrannies.”

"Admittedly, America’s devotion to its ideals has always been incomplete and imperfect; in its early years it tolerated slavery and in more recent times it has done deals with dictators. Nor have our ideals always translated into foreign policy success; sometimes, as in Vietnam or Iraq, they have led us astray. But . . .

U.S. ready to let Russia decide Syria

The Daily Caller

"Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the U.S. is prepared to allow Russia to take the lead in negotiations over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad so that Washington can focus on eradicating ISIS from its strongholds in Syria.

"Tillerson told U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres during a private Department of State meeting Wednesday that the U.S. will yield to Russia on questions about Assad’s future, and that the Trump administration’s priority remains defeating ISIS, three diplomatic sources familiar with the exchange told Foreign Policy Monday.

"The secretary of state also reportedly assured Guterres that recent U.S military action in Syria is not part of a larger policy of regime change. Washington’s goals in Syria are limited to deterring future chemical weapons attacks by Syrian government forces and protecting U.S.-backed elements fighting ISIS, reports Foreign Policy. " . . .

Your place or mine? Texas liberals and California conservatives swap states

UK Guardian

"Paul Chabot is a native Californian who stood for Congress last year as a Republican, in a district near Los Angeles. After his defeat, he decided the only option was to move to Texas.

'A good friend in the White House': how Texas became Trump's frontline

 

Read more

“California’s become a lost cause,” he said. “I was born and raised there when it was a Republican state. Ronald Reagan was from there, Nixon was from there, we had great schools back in the 70s and 80s, low crime, great paying jobs. Now it’s a 180, it’s a complete opposite of that.

“I lost to a very liberal Democrat that the people elected and I came to the conclusion that you can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves. That really was the end of it for us in California. We realised then that the majority of the people around us no longer shared the same values that my wife and I believe in.”

Chabot, his wife Brenda and their four young children relocated to Collin County, which covers some of the most affluent and manicured suburbs of Dallas and where a four-bed home can be yours for under $350,000. And all 38 elected officials, from the sheriff to the district attorney to the tax assessor-collector, are Republicans.

“In California we always jokingly said, ‘If this state goes to hell we’ll end up moving to Texas.’ And a lot of people say it and some people actually do it,” Chabot said." . . .

Ever read about Harry Truman's opinion of the press?

My dad couldn't stand the man and he was the topic of much dinner table conversation. Naturally as a grade-schooler with a "skull full of mush", I couldn't stand the man either because of what I heard at home. TD

Harry Truman once compared the press to ‘prostitutes’  . . . "Truman’s letter – in which he uses the word “penis” – is expected to get $150,000."

"Harry S. Truman and the News Media; Contentious Relations, Belated Respect"  . . . "Based upon extensive research in the papers of President Harry S. Truman and in several journalistic collections, Harry S. Truman and the News Media recounts the story of a once unpopular chief executive who overcame the censure of the news media to ultimately win both the public's and the press's affirmation of his personal and presidential greatness.
. . . 

"President Truman's advocacy of a liberal Fair Deal for all Americans and a prudent and visible role for the nation in world affairs drew fire from the anti-administration news media, particularly the publishing empire of William Randolph Hearst, the McCormick-Patterson newspapers, the Scripps-Howard chain, and the Time-Life newsmagazines of Henry R. Luce. Despite press opposition and the almost universal prediction of defeat in the 1948 election, Truman was victorious in the greatest miscalled presidential election in journalistic history.

"During his full term, Truman's relations with the news media became contentious over such matters as national security in the Cold War, the conduct of the Korean War, and the continuing charges of communism and corruption in the administration. Although Truman's career in politics was based on honesty and the welfare of the people, his early political alliance with Thomas Pendergast, Kansas City's notorious political boss, provided the opportunity for a portion of the press to charge Truman with subservience to Pendergast's own agenda of corrupt government." . . .

Never trust a tyrant’s tale

"As I read and listened to the details of the show trial, I was reminded of the fact that a bizarre number of progressive commentators seem to believe Warmbier had it coming, and that his “white privilege” led him to think he could steal."

Lahav Harkov

"Thirty-three years ago, Soviet dissident Yuli Edelstein was arrested by the KGB and sent to the gulag for committing the “crime” of being a religious Jew and a Hebrew teacher. Last week, Edlestein, now the speaker of the Israeli Knesset, addressed the Russian parliament in Hebrew.

"It was a memorable reminder of the free world’s victory over Communism. And its timing was apt. Edelstein took the Israeli press on a brief tour of his life as a refusenik, and eventually we found ourselves in the courtroom in which Edelstein was convicted and sentenced.

"I couldn’t help but notice the important lessons Edelstein’s story holds for those trying to make sense of another totalitarian prisoner whose fate was much more tragic: Otto Warmbier, the American man sentenced in North Korea in 2016 to 15 years of hard labor under the pretense that he stole a poster. He was released while in a coma last month, and died days after reaching the United States.

"And for some reason, many commenting on the case are taking at face value the North Korean government’s version of events. Prisoners of totalitarian regimes, like Yuli Edelstein, could show them the folly of such credulity." . . .

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.