~ Featuring ~
Middle East 'Insanity'
Charles Paige
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Trey Gowdy Joins Trump’s Team
Fighting Impeachment Inquiry
By Hank Berrien
{ dailywire.com } ~ On Wednesday, it was formally announced that former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who chaired the House Select Committee on Benghazi from 2014 to 2016, had joined President Donald Trump’s personal legal team... as it counters the impeachment inquiry process launched by the House of Representatives against President Trump. Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow stated, “I am pleased to announce that former Congressman Trey Gowdy is joining our team as Counsel to the President. I have known Trey for years and worked with him when he served in Congress. His legal skills and his advocacy will serve the President well. Trey’s command of the law is well known and his service on Capitol Hill will be a great asset as a member of our team,” as NBC News reported.In late September, appearing on Fox News, where he was a contributor, Gowdy said of House Democrats, “A lot of them have already made up their minds. If there’s a smoking gun there — I can’t even find the gun, whether it’s smoking or not.” Gowdy is not unaware of the proper role of Congress; in 2012 he stated, “The notion that you can withhold information and documents from Congress no matter whether you are the party in power or not in power is wrong. Respect for the rule of law must mean something, irrespective of the vicissitudes of political cycles.”As The Daily Caller reported, “The View” co-host Meghan McCain warned the liberals on her show who mocked Gowdy for his 2012 statement, “You can go on about Trey Gowdy. But he’s one of the great congressmen. He’s someone I have respected for years. You can laugh all you want, but the fact he’s joining Trump’s team is good news for Trump, and bad news for Democrats.” She added, “…by the way, right now if I was in a fox hole, I would want Trey Gowdy in there with me.” Last Friday, as The Washington Examiner reported, Gowdy said House Intelligence Committee Chairman scumbag-Adam Schiff had made himself a “fact witness” in his dealings with the whistleblower who had targeted President Trump for his dealings with Ukraine. Gowdy said on Fox News, “How long is Speaker liar-Pelosi going to put up with scumbag-Adam mishandling this investigation? She has already taken it away from scumbag liar-Jerry Nadler. I’m sure the guys and gals on the Judiciary Committee are not happy about having scumbag-Adam Schiff do it. But if you are going to do it, at least don’t screw it up, scumbag-Adam.”...
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Social Security Changes Coming In 2020
Trump Adjustment Could Affect Millions
By Adam Casalino
{ patriotjournal.org } ~ President Trump just made a change that could affect millions of Americans... The Democrats are fighting hard to win over voters. They are promising everything while accusing Trump of letting down America’s most vulnerable: retired citizens. But Donald Trump has vowed to protect Social Security benefits. And over his time in office, he’s made good on that promise. Despite the Left’s ongoing efforts to impeach the president, he continues to look after America’s retired. A new report has come out that will mean good news to SS recipients. Here’s what Trump is doing: Earlier this morning, the BLS reported September’s inflation data, allowing for the concrete announcement that Social Security’s COLA in 2020 will be rising by 1.6%…What does this mean for the pocketbooks of Social Security beneficiaries? Based on the fact that the average retired worker and disabled worker were bringing home $1,473 and $1,236, respectively, a month as of August, a COLA of 1.6% should lead to a raise of about $24 a month for retirees and a little under $20 a month for the long-term disabled. The new cost-of-living adjustments have come out, revealing that benefits will receive a meaty bump up in 2020, more than usual...
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Dems storm out of Syria meeting with Trump
'We have to pray for his health'
By Gregg Re
{ foxnews.com } ~ Senate Minority Leader Chuck scumbag-Schumer, House Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader scumbag-Steny Hoyer announced at a news conference outside the White House on Wednesday... that they had just walked out of a meeting with President Trump on Syria policy, after he apparently called liar-Pelosi a "third-rate politician" and angrily suggested the Democrats probably appreciated communist Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East. "What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown, sad to say," liar-Pelosi, D-Calif., remarked. She said later, at the Capitol: "I pray for the president all the time, and I tell him that -- I pray for his safety and that of his family. Now, we have to pray for his health -- because this was a very serious meltdown on the part of the president." A Democratic source familiar with the conversation told Fox News that scumbag-Schumer, D-N.Y., started to read the president a quote from former Defense Secretary James Mattis from Sunday: "And, in this case, if we don't keep the pressure on, then ISIS will resurge. It's absolutely a given that they will come back." According to the source, Trump cut scumbag-Schumer off and responded that Mattis was "the world’s most overrated general. You know why? He wasn’t tough enough. I captured ISIS. Mattis said it would take two years. I captured them in one month."Trump reportedly said fewer than 100 ISIS prisoners had escaped amid Turkish aggression and the U.S. troop pullback in the Middle East, and that the escapees were "the least dangerous" ones. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, according to the source, confirmed the president's number, but not that those terrorists were the least dangerous. "I don't know that," Esper told scumbag-Schumer, the source recounted. The meeting devolved into the president calling the speaker a name, the source said, noting that Trump was "quite nasty, so she stood up to go. She started to sit back down but scumbag-Hoyer got her to go. liar-Pelosi and scumbag-Hoyer walked out of the meeting." The source said scumbag-Schumer stayed back for a minute to push Esper on whether the U.S. had specific intelligence that the Turks or Syrians definitely would guard the other ISIS prisoners. Esper reportedly said they didn't have any such reports. The White House did not immediately comment. scumbag-Schumer, standing alongside liar-Pelosi at the news conference outside the White House, claimed the discussion fell apart while the politicians were discussing the president's pullout from Syria -- and that Trump had said that "some of ISIS were communists, and that might make you happy."...
This is not the first time the dems have walked out. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-dems-trump-syria-white-house-meeting-storm-out .
House Votes Overwhelmingly To Condemn
Trump’s Decision To Remove Troops From Syria
by SHELBY TALCOTT
{ dailycaller.com } ~ The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to condemn President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from Syria... The White House announced Oct. 6 that Trump told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the U.S. would be clearing out of northern Syria. The news sparked bipartisan backlash because it could make it easier for Turkey to invade Syria and go after Kurdish fighters, who have worked with the U.S. to beat the Islamic State.Republicans and Democrats alike approved a resolution opposing Trump’s decision. The measure passed 354-60, The New York Times reported. A bipartisan group of congressional leaders was set to meet with Trump about the issue shortly after the resolution passed. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence are traveling to Ankara, Turkey, to discuss a ceasefire. “The Vice President will voice the United States’ commitment to reach an immediate ceasefire and the conditions for a negotiated settlement,” according to a press release from the Office of the Vice President. More than 150 Kurdish soldiers have reportedly died since Trump announced he would withdraw American troops and Turkey launched “Operation Peace Spring” on Oct. 10, the country’s defense military announced. Turkey’s Defense Ministry said the number is higher, according to Fox News. The resolution is mostly symbolic, but noted that America’s withdrawal is “beneficial to adversaries of the United States government,” including Russia, Syria and Iran. It called for Erdogan to end military action in northern Syria, The NYT reported. Trump has stayed strong behind his decision, noting Wednesday that Turkey invading Syria is “not our problem” and that the Kurds “are no angels.”
Why didn't the dems condemn scumbag/liar-nObama when he pulled out of Iraq..
Jim Jordan Corners scumbag-Elijah Cummings Accuses Him Of Violating Bi-Party Agreement
By Ben Dutka
{ patriotjournal.org } ~ They’re obviously willing to do anything to get an edge on the competition, and this includes violating major agreements... Democrats and Republicans had an agreement: they wouldn’t let bipartisan politics affect law and order. In other words, their biases couldn’t override basic protocol. But surprise! A leading Democrat has been accused of violating that agreement. This time, scumbag-Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) has subpoenaed two Department of Homeland Security officials … and the GOP says this is breaking the rules. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio … accused scumbag-Cummings of letting partisan politics supersede standard protocol by issuing subpoenas to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Matthey Albence. Apparently, agreements don’t mean anything to Democrats like scumbag-Cummings! Democrats flipped out when the Trump administration said non-citizens could no longer receive deferred action due to “non-military special circumstances.” In other words, they couldn’t avoid deportation just because they issued a special assistance request. But that didn’t fly, and the deferred action was reinstated on Sept. 19. So, why should scumbag-Cummings hit these DHS guys with subpoenas? Democrats already got what they wanted; the program is back in place! This is just bullying and abuse, as Jim Jordan said in a letter to scumbag-Cummings...
https://patriotjournal.org/jordan-cummings-agreement/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pjnewsletter .
Never-Before-Seen Trump Tax Documents
Show Major Inconsistencies
by Heather Vogell
{ propublica.org } ~ Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how Donald Trump’s businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings... giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender — and less profitable to the officials who set the buildings’ property tax. For instance, Trump told the lender that he took in twice as much rent from one building as he reported to tax authorities during the same year, 2017. He also gave conflicting occupancy figures for one of his signature skyscrapers, located at 40 Wall Street. Lenders like to see a rising occupancy level as a sign of what they call “leasing momentum.” Sure enough, the company told a lender that 40 Wall Street had been 58.9% leased on Dec. 31, 2012, and then rose to 95% a few years later. The company told tax officials the building was 81% rented as of Jan. 5, 2013. A dozen real estate professionals told ProPublica they saw no clear explanation for multiple inconsistencies in the documents. The discrepancies are “versions of fraud,” said Nancy Wallace, a professor of finance and real estate at the Haas School of Business at the University of California-Berkeley. “This kind of stuff is not OK.” New York City’s property tax forms state that the person signing them “affirms the truth of the statements made” and that “false filings are subject to all applicable civil and criminal penalties.” The punishments for lying to tax officials, or to lenders, can be significant, ranging from fines to criminal fraud charges. Two former Trump associates, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, are serving prison time for offenses that include falsifying tax and bank records, some of them related to real estate. “Certainly, if I were sitting in a prosecutor’s office, I would want to ask a lot more questions,” said Anne Milgram, a former attorney general for New Jersey who is now a professor at New York University School of Law. Trump has previously been accused of manipulating numbers on his tax and loan documents, including by his former lawyer, Cohen. But Trump’s business is notoriously opaque, with records rarely surfacing, and up till now there’s been little documentary evidence supporting those claims...
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Middle East 'Insanity'Charles Paige: “Insanity!” That’s the way one Special Forces soldier who helped train and advise Syrian-based Kurds described President Donald Trump’s policy change in the region. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results — that’s an apt summary of the situation.
George W. Bush was rightly criticized for his premature “Mission Accomplished” banner, and Barack scumbag/liar-nObama was rightly criticized, to this day, for his politically motivated withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq, giving rise to the Islamic State and creating a massive humanitarian crisis. Now, President Donald Trump is being criticized for his assertion that “we 100% defeated the ISIS caliphate” and withdrawing U.S. advisers from northeastern Syria — in effect, green-lighting a Turkish invasion. We can hope for a better outcome this time around, but, as military planners are fond of saying, “hope is not a viable strategy.”
The absence of a viable strategy has plagued U.S. military employment in the “Endless Wars” for some time. In fact, the wars are seemingly endless precisely because of the lack of an overarching strategic vision. With no clearly defined goal, we muddle along, occasionally stipulating what we won’t do — maintain troop levels past a predetermined date or conduct “combat” operations — rather than what we intend to accomplish. Stream-of-consciousness tweets don’t constitute a strategy, and our unilateral withdrawal from Syria is more likely to exacerbate than solve the problems President Trump cites. For example, we’ve already seen our soldiers threatened by Turkish shelling. Increased involvement from Russia and Turkey, along with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad — none of whom share our interests — threatens to expand both the scope and intensity of the fighting. Detention centers have been left unguarded, allowing hundreds of ISIS leaders and fighters to escape and replenish the terrorists’ ranks, already undermining the “100% defeated” claim.
Our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq started with clear objectives that earned broad bipartisan support in the form of Congressional Authorization(s) on the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Critically, both were also presented to the public in a way that rallied support (at least temporarily) for the policies. While there has been some healthy discussion in military and foreign-policy circles, and a few politicians have attempted to generate interest in a review of the AUMF, our military and political leaders have failed to define and communicate what we should do with these national security challenges and why we should do it. In the absence of a compelling narrative outlining our national interest, cries of “not another American life” and “make the other guys pay their share” resonate, even if it will mean more American lives and dollars in the long run.
This is not the forum to outline a coherent military or national security strategy. The mechanisms are already in place to debate and document those ideas, but they are meaningless if the public is unaware of and our politicians ignore their contents. Congress largely abdicated its role in the process after passing the AUMF. President Bush made the case for the “surge” in Iraq in 2007 at great political risk, but domestic politics have consumed presidential agendas since then. Given the current environment in Washington, that’s unlikely to change in the near term. We will continue to muddle along in this gray area between peace and war until American citizens’ interest and involvement in national security expands beyond thanking service members for their service.
As Thomas Jefferson once said, “An informed citizenry is the true repository of the public will.” ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/66103?mailing_id=4588&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4588&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
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