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~ Featuring ~
Red Lines & Lost Credibility
by Pat Buchanan
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Choice for Veterans
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https://cached-assets.patriotpost.us/images/2015-06-24-2ca98b41_large.jpg" width="454" height="227" />by Thomas Gallatin: Ever so slowly, Veterans Affairs malpractice is being addressed, with current VA Secretary David Shulkin having committed to establishing greater transparency within the agency. This past June the agency voluntarily released its ratings for all of its 146 medical centers, which unfortunately showed little improvement over last year’s ratings. It’s clear that it will take more than a commitment to transparency to correct the problems plaguing the VA.
On that note, the House Veterans Affairs Committee will soon vote on a measure that would overhaul and make permanent the Veterans Choice Program, the temporary program Congress created in response to the 2014 VA scandal. Committee chairman Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN), who introduced the bill, stated, “I’ve said this from day one: The way to make the VA better is to make the VA compete and put veterans in charge of health care decisions. Just like we do in the private sector, if I don’t like my particular primary care doctor I can change. Veterans can do the same thing. That’s what I was really shooting for — to put some power in the veterans hands so the veteran and doctor can be making those decisions, not the VA bureaucrats, and that’s exactly what I think we’ve got with this bill.”
The bill, which enjoys strong bipartisan support, would effectively cut government red-tape giving veterans greater flexibility to pursue care outside the VA’s network of health care facilities. The bill would also establish a permanent network of private sector providers within each of the VA’s regions for veterans to seek care that the VA couldn’t offer. Essentially, the bill aims at empowering and freeing veterans to seek the best care available for their needs.
The American Legion positively responded to Roe’s bill, stating that it “will allow the department to provide greater access and develop stronger relationships with non-VA providers, ultimately moving toward a more integrated system with the veteran at the core.” However, the conservative non-profit Concerned Veterans for America does not believe that the bill goes far enough, stating that it had “some positive reforms” but “falls short of delivering real health care choice to our veterans.” Still, this bill is a step in the right direction, which Congress should be able to get behind in positively working toward correcting the VA’s dismal record. Come on — it’s Veterans Day weekend. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52370
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John Podesta Caught Lying To Congress,
Good Thing For Him Sessions Is AG
https://rickwells.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/1049-john-podesta-1200-940x400.jpg" width="454" height="193" />by rickwells.us
{rickwells.us} ~ John Podesta isn’t as good of a liar as liar-Hillary Clinton or Hussein liar-nObama and if he were a regular citizen he might actually be in trouble for lying to Congress... But he’s a swamp creature tied to the money that keeps our crooked politicians in power. For elites like him, transgressions are just “honest” mistakes that anybody could make. He must have just been tired from running that crooked daily lie-fest that was the liar-Clinton campaign and forgotten about the $12 million they paid to Perkins Coie and the $1 million paid by the pretend “president” liar-nObama he used to be Counselor to. Surely he’s got a reasonable explanation for how that funding doesn’t demonstrate he had knowledge that his campaign was orchestrating the production of the Steele dossier. The New York Times reports that Podesta met with Glenn Simpson, one of the founders of Fusion GPS, just after the fabricated hit piece was published. That meeting could be problematic since Podesta recently testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had no idea who paid Fusion to put the hit piece on Trump together... What the hell is wrong with Session away? https://rickwells.us/podesta-lying-congress-sessions/.
GOP Rep: Either Mueller Must Resign…
or Trump Must Fire Him
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How the Senate Tax Plan
Differs From the House Legislation
http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/Hatch-tax-1250x650.jpg" width="356" height="185" />by Fred Lucas
{dailysignal.com} ~ Senate Republicans released a tax plan Thursday distinct from the House plan in that it delays the corporate tax cut until 2019... but would slightly cut the top individual rate and keeps the status quo in the number of brackets. The Senate Finance Committee proposal goes a step further than the House plan, released a week earlier, by eliminating altogether the deduction individuals can take for state and local taxes. The House Ways and Means Committee plan eliminated state and local income tax deductions, but still allowed property tax deductions of up to $10,000. Declining wages and keeping business in the United States are key benefits of the plan, said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a Senate floor speech Thursday... http://dailysignal.com/2017/11/09/senate-tax-plan-differs-house-legislation/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0dFMk16Sm1PRFJoWkRGaSIsInQiOiJQXC9rd1djYjNBRUtyUHIwY1ZzRE1Rc1lleXRKOU4wZkpYeWQ5b0xcLzZCb1Rubk5pd2dTZmJOeXlocjJqVEdFOGRuUXBRdHoxMEwxeWoyRzNoT0dsakFUMkdpWjhDV0dnekZJNW5iS2dFN0FhMzBLdk9xdmlmdUhGd3hLWGdYNFVpIn0%3D.
Ukraine Turns to American Coal
to Defend Itself Against Russia
http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/171109_EnergyWar_Peterson-1250x650.jpg" width="325" height="169" />by Nolan Peterson
{dailysignal.com} ~ KYIV, Ukraine—Sometimes, wars aren’t won by tank battles and infantry assaults. Sometimes, it comes down to keeping the heat on... As Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine nears its fifth calendar year—and as Ukraine’s infamously cold winter draws near—American companies are incrementally cutting into Russia’s de facto monopoly as a supplier of nuclear fuel and coal to Ukraine, thereby undermining a longtime coercive lever of Russian influence over Kyiv. “In recent years, Kyiv and much of Eastern Europe have been reliant on and beholden to Russia to keep the heat on. That changes now,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said in July, announcing an $80 million deal to ship more U.S. coal to Ukraine... http://dailysignal.com/2017/11/09/ukraine-turns-american-coal-defend-russia/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0dFMk16Sm1PRFJoWkRGaSIsInQiOiJQXC9rd1djYjNBRUtyUHIwY1ZzRE1Rc1lleXRKOU4wZkpYeWQ5b0xcLzZCb1Rubk5pd2dTZmJOeXlocjJqVEdFOGRuUXBRdHoxMEwxeWoyRzNoT0dsakFUMkdpWjhDV0dnekZJNW5iS2dFN0FhMzBLdk9xdmlmdUhGd3hLWGdYNFVpIn0%3D.
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DNC Chair Tom Perez Dodges When Asked If Sen. Menendez Should Resign If Convicted.
U.S. Navy Three Carrier Formation in Western Pacific Ocean Off Coast Of Korea.
How Palestinian Schoolchildren Are Taught To Hate Jews.
The Untold Truth Of Sinkholes.
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Red Lines & Lost Credibility
https://media.townhall.com/townhall/reu/ha/2017/308/426949ea-d940-411c-9e31-1b0f03703bb5.jpg" width="379" height="193" />{townhall.com} ~ A major goal of this Asia trip, said National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, is to rally allies to achieve the "complete, verifiable and permanent denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."
Yet Kim Jong Un has said he will never give up his nuclear weapons. He believes the survival of his dynastic regime depends upon them.
Hence we are headed for confrontation. Either the U.S. or North Korea backs down, as Nikita Khrushchev did in the Cuban missile crisis, or there will be war.
In this new century, U.S. leaders continue to draw red lines that threaten acts of war that the nation is unprepared to back up.
Recall President liar-nObama's, "Assad must go!" and the warning that any use of chemical weapons would cross his personal "red line."
Result: After chemical weapons were used, Americans rose in united opposition to a retaliatory strike. Congress refused to authorize any attack. liar-nObama and hanoi-John Kerry were left with egg all over their faces. And the credibility of the country was commensurately damaged.
There was a time when U.S. words were taken seriously, and we heeded Theodore Roosevelt's dictum: "Speak softly, and carry a big stick."
After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1991, George H.W. Bush said simply: "This will not stand." The world understood that if Saddam did not withdraw from Kuwait, his army would be thrown out. As it was.
But in the post-Cold War era, the rhetoric of U.S. statesmen has grown ever more blustery, even as U.S. relative power has declined. Our goal is "ending tyranny in our world," bellowed George W. Bush in his second inaugural.
Consider Rex Tillerson's recent trip. In Saudi Arabia, he declared, "Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against ... ISIS is coming to a close ... need to go home. Any foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home."
The next day, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi responded:
"We wonder about the statements attributed to the American secretary of state about the popular mobilization forces. ... No side has the right to intervene in Iraq's affairs or decide what Iraqis do."
This slap across the face comes from a regime that rules as a result of 4,500 U.S. dead, tens of thousands wounded and $1 trillion invested in the nation's rebuilding after 15 years of war.
Earlier that day, Tillerson made a two-hour visit to Afghanistan. There he met Afghan officials in a heavily guarded bunker near Bagram Airfield. Wrote The New York Times' Gardiner Harris:
"That top American officials must use stealth to enter these countries after more than 15 years of wars, thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars spent was testimony to the stubborn problems still confronting the United States in both places."
Such are the fruits of our longest wars, launched with the neo-Churchillian rhetoric of George W. Bush.
In India, Tillerson called on the government to close its embassy in North Korea. New Delhi demurred, suggesting the facility might prove useful to the Americans in negotiating with Pyongyang.
In Geneva, Tillerson asserted, "The United States wants a whole and unified Syria with no role for Bashar al-Assad ... The reign of the Assad family is coming to an end."
Well, perhaps? But our "rebels" in Syria were routed and Assad not only survived his six-year civil war but with the aid of his Russian, Iranian, Shiite militia, and Hezbollah allies, he won that war, and intends to remain and rule, whether we approve or not.
We no longer speak to the world with the assured authority with which America did from Eisenhower to Reagan and Bush 1. Our moment, if ever it existed, as the "unipolar power" the "indispensable nation" that would exercise a "benevolent global hegemony" upon mankind is over.
America needs today a recognition of the new realities we face and a rhetoric that conforms to those realities.
Since Y2K our world has changed.
Putin's Russia has reasserted itself, rebuilt its strategic forces, confronted NATO, annexed Crimea and acted decisively in Syria, re-establishing itself as a power in the Middle East.
China, thanks to its vast trade surpluses at our expense, has grown into an economic and geostrategic rival on a scale that not even the USSR of the Cold War reached.
North Korea is now a nuclear power.
The Europeans are bedeviled by tribalism, secessionism and waves of seemingly unassimilable immigrants from the South and Middle East.
A once-vital NATO ally, Turkey, is virtually lost to the West. Our major Asian allies are dependent on exports to a China that has established a new order in the South China Sea.
In part because of our interventions, the Middle East is in turmoil, bedeviled by terrorism and breaking down along Sunni-Shiite lines.
The U.S. pre-eminence in the days of Desert Storm is history.
Yet, the architects of American decline may still be heard denouncing the "isolationists" who opposed their follies and warned what would befall the republic if it listened to them.
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