Happy Birthday, America

Independence Forever: Why America Celebrates the Fourth of July  . . . "As a practical matter, the Declaration of Independence publicly announced to the world the unanimous decision of the American colonies to declare themselves free and independent states, absolved from any allegiance to Great Britain. But its greater meaning-then as well as now-is as a statement of the conditions of legitimate political authority and the proper ends of government, and its proclamation of a new ground of political rule in the sovereignty of the people. "If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence," wrote the great historian Samuel Eliot Morrison, "it would have been worthwhile.' " . . .  
And, sadly:

One charge that Jefferson had included, but Congress removed, was that the king had "waged cruel war against human nature" by introducing slavery and allowing the slave trade into the American colonies. A few delegates were unwilling to acknowledge that slavery violated the "most sacred rights of life and liberty," and the passage was dropped for the sake of unanimity. Thus was foreshadowed the central debate of the American Civil War, which Abraham Lincoln saw as a test to determine whether a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" could long endure. . .

 Lincoln's vital understanding of July 4th  "British prime minister Margaret Thatcher famously once said, "Europe was created by history.  America was created by philosophy."  Nearly all European nations trace their beginning to a common ethnic kinship or a cultural characteristic, but America was created by exiles united in voluntary assent to shared political beliefs.  That's why British writer G.K. Chesterton visited the United States for the first time and remarked that America was "a nation with the soul of a church" – not because of its religiosity, but because of a common creed enshrined in "sacred texts" of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution." . . .

Obama warns Americans about too much patriotism — on July 4th weekend!  Sorry. I must have got carried away. TD

Obama’s Socialist Housing Projects Coming to a Neighborhood Near You

Out of his movement came the Furthering Fair Housing Act. HUD mapped every neighborhood in the country. At the same time, he administration established massive databases of Americans by race, class, and income. The goal of all this is to force people to live according to the government ideal of what a neighborhood should look like.

S. Noble  "If the left has their way, Socialist, crime-ridden housing projects will end up in every neighborhood in the nation.

"The social engineers are pushing for low-income housing in rich and middle class neighborhoods. The movement begun by Barack Obama continues to gain steam on the left. The NY Times had a hit piece out this week. According to them, anyone who doesn’t think it’s a good idea is a racist.

"Former Missouri state Representative Don Calloway went on Monday with Tucker Carlson to argue for redistribution of public housing in America.

. . . "The leftist Democratic Party today is no longer liberal. These people want to tell you what to eat, to drink, to smoke, to wear, what to watch on the news, and they want to tell you where to live.

"It’s a nationalization of the housing sector with housing projects known for crime put into every neighborhood where people move to get away from exactly that." . . .

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." . . .