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Left Laments Trump's Environmental Success
Thomas Gallatin
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Palestinian Commander: We Will Capture
Gaza Border Towns in Future War
By TZVI JOFFRE
{ jpost.com } ~ We will take the settlements bordering Gaza. In any future war, the enemy must expect groups behind enemy lines to enter and control those settlements,"... said a commander of one of the terrorist groups in Gaza to the Lebanese Al Akhbar newspaper on Wednesday. The commander added that scuba units will also play a "very important role" in an upcoming conflict. Israel has recently completed the construction of an underwater barrier to prevent infiltration from Gazan commando scuba units. During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, five Hamas frogmen tried to infiltrate Kibbutz Zikim. Armed with automatic weapons, fragmentation grenades and several types of explosive devices, they were engaged and killed by the IDF in a combined attack from the sea, ground and air. In 2015, the IDF began deploying dozens of sensors as part of a new system named “Aqua Shield,” which can detect and alert the navy to suspicious underwater movement. The sensors were placed on the sea floor near both Gaza and Lebanon’s water borders with Israel. The last round of fighting in May is a "slight fraction of what the enemy might face in the future, especially since this round exposed Israeli weaknesses," said the Palestinian commander. These "weaknesses" include the ability to target the Iron Dome batteries directly and the ability to target IDF soldiers by dropping bombs from Gazan drones, which the Gazan commander claimed Israeli intelligence did not know about until they were put into action. One of the most significant lessons that the Gazan terrorist groups learned from the 48-hour escalation in May, is that the Iron Dome could be overcome and even targeted directly in some places. According to the commander, 700 rockets were fired in the last round of fighting, with the Iron Dome only succeeding to intercept 240 rockets. The terror groups in Gaza found that, "if shells are fired from areas close to the Gaza border, there is a weakness in the Iron Dome's response," the commander told Al Akhbar....
Senate Resolution Cautions Against Federal
Bailout of Fiscally Irresponsible States
by Rachel Greszler
{ dailysignal.com } ~ Most of the public was outraged when, during the financial crisis of 2008, Congress provided a massive financial bailout... including $70 billion of taxpayers’ money to insurance giant AIG and $80 billion to U.S. automakers General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford. Even most politicians who voted in favor of the bailouts did so begrudgingly, in part because they considered it a way to contain the damage from arguably unforeseen circumstances. By contrast, state and local governments have accumulated many trillions of dollars in debt with clearly foreseeable consequences. If states want to make good on their obligations, many will have to drastically increase taxes, severely cut services, or default on their debts and lose access to credit. However, it’s only a matter of time before state policymakers, not wanting to face those consequences, seek a federal bailout. That’s why Sen. Tom Cotton’s sense of the Senate resolution (S. Res. 268), expressing the position that the federal government should not bail out any state, is so important. Considering that states cannot declare bankruptcy, many states’ failure to confront absolutely unsustainable pension and other obligations shows that they are counting on a federal bailout....
Prosecutors Reveal ‘Surprising Last-
Minute Development’ In Case Against
Michael Flynn’s Ex-Lobbying Partner
by CHUCK ROSS
{ dailycaller.com } ~ In a “surprising last-minute development,” federal prosecutors said they consider Michael Flynn to be a co-conspirator in a case involving an alleged Turkish lobbying scheme... and no longer plan to call him as a trial witness against his former lobbying partner. Flynn, who served as President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, was expected to be called to testify against Bijan Rafiekian, an Iranian-American businessman who is charged with operating as a foreign agent of Turkey during his work for Flynn’s consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group. But in a July 3 court filing unsealed Tuesday, federal prosecutors handling Rafiekian’s case say they will not call Flynn to testify at Rafiekian’s trial, which begins in Alexandria, Virginia, on July 15. Instead, they expect to introduce statements made by Flynn outside of court as hearsay evidence. Lawyers for both Flynn and Rafiekian expressed outrage at the maneuver, though for different reasons. Rafiekian’s lawyers accused prosecutors in a July 5 court filing of reversing course on Flynn because they no longer consider him to be a credible witness. That poses a problem for prosecutors, they argue, because “the government’s case against Mr. Rafiekian was made possible only through the extensive cooperation of Michael Flynn — a convicted liar.” Rafiekian’s legal team also alleges that Flynn “likely” made false statements to a federal grand jury regarding Rafiekian. If true, “that would provide strong grounds to dismiss the Indictment,” they argue. In a filing submitted on Monday, Flynn’s lawyers argue that the government’s decision to portray Flynn as an unindicted co-conspirator is “extremely prejudicial” against the retired lieutenant general. “The government’s reversal also sounds an alarm of possible retaliation and may have ramifications for Mr. Flynn beyond this trial,” said Jesse Binnall and Sidney Powell, who Flynn hired last month to replace his previous legal team....
Count on Migrants from the World Over
to Exploit U.S. Immigration Laws
by BETSY MCCAUGHEY
{ spectator.org } ~ Word is spreading worldwide — even as far as sub-Saharan Africa — that the U.S. has an open southern border and an open checkbook... This summer, thousands of Africans from Cameroon, Congo, and other violence-plagued countries are forming caravans and preparing to cross our southern border. Border agents from the Del Rio area of Texas sounded the alarm on May 31 about a group of 116 African migrants. Agents provided photos of women with babies strapped to their backs and young men in T-shirts and gym shorts sitting on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande waiting to be arrested. Then, in early June, agents in Eagle Pass, Texas detained another group of Central African families. Agents said they were startled to see so many “immigrants from countries not normally encountered.” All in all, more than 500 Africans in a single week crossed the Del Rio border zone. Late in June, agents arrested yet another 310 mostly Haitian and African migrants. Raul L. Ortiz, the Chief Patrol Agent in the Del Rio Sector, reports that migrants “from around the world are traveling thousands of miles just to enter the United States illegally to exploit our immigration laws.” These migrants know that if they come with children and utter the word “asylum,” they will be temporarily detained, then released inside the U.S., where they can easily disappear. Until recently, African migrants headed northward to the Mediterranean, embarking on a treacherous sea crossing to Europe. But the European Union has slammed the door on migrants, cutting the number entering from 180,000 in 2016 to a mere 880 in the first four months of 2019. Now African migrants who head to Europe face indefinite detention in facilities on the north coast of Libya. According to the UN, these detention centers are “an outrage to the conscience of humanity.” Toilet facilities are nonexistent, food is crawling with maggots, many adults succumb to severe malnutrition, and rape and torture are commonplace. That’s why many African migrants are heading to the U.S. They’re cobbling together airfare to Ecuador which has a no-visa policy and then trekking through Panama, north through Central America to the U.S. border. The African migration is indicative of how much larger the humanitarian crisis at the southern border could get. Unless Congress acts....
Fed Chief Goes to Capitol Hill
by HUNT LAWRENCE and DANIEL J. FLYNN
{ spectator.org } ~ Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before Congress on Wednesday. President Trump, wanting lower interest rates, talks of firing or demoting Powell... But The Wall Street Journal reports that Powell likely finds a friendlier audience on Capitol Hill than at the White House. “Donald Trump is too smart to do something like that,” Senator John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, says in the Journal. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in Powell, and he’s done a damn good job.” President Donald Trump won the election in large part due to presenting himself as the champion of the common man and his opponent as a swamp creature carrying the bags of elites. The aggressive push to squeeze interest rates lower, a common enough desire of presidents seeking reelection, runs counter to what elected Trump in the first place. This helps banks, the mortgage industry, and the stock market. Perhaps more importantly to a president facing voters, it helps reelection prospects. But lower rates do not necessarily help many of those who voted for Trump in 2016. Evidence of money manipulation in other nations indicates that, like most drugs, the stimulating effect tends to wear off. European 10-year rates sink to below zero percent despite the European Central bank holding the same two percent inflation target as the U.S. Federal Reserve. In Asia, where the economy grows at a faster rate, higher rates generally prevail. China has higher interest rates in the five percent range and an inflation rate in the two percent range. Other Asian economies — India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam — show real interest rates in the three-percent range five percent 10-year yield and two percent inflation. China and other Asian economies show real GNP growth in four to six percent range. In the U.S., rates for 10-year treasury notes sunk below two percent, their lowest level since 2016, in late June. It now hovers slightly above two percent. This neatly mirrors the rate of inflation. The real rate, then, comes in slightly above zero... https://spectator.org/fed-chief-goes-to-capitol-hill/?utm_source=American%20Spectator%20Emails&utm_campaign=a9bb0b4620-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_07_10_12_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_797a38d487-a9bb0b4620-104608113 .
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Left Laments Trump's Environmental Success
Thomas Gallatin: On Monday, President Donald Trump praised his administration’s work on the environment. He spoke of the Environmental Protection Agency’s refocusing on its “core mission,” noting, “Last year, the agency completed more Superfund hazardous waste cleanups than any year of the previous administrations. … We have done tremendous work on Superfunds.” He also highlighted his signing of the Save Our Seas Act, a joint agreement with Canada and Mexico to combat the growing problem of ocean trash.
Meanwhile, Trump was critical of the Democrats’ Green New Deal, asserting, “It’ll kill millions of jobs. It’ll crush the dreams of the poorest Americans and disproportionately harm minority communities. I will not stand for it. We will defend the environment, but we will also defend American sovereignty, American prosperity, and we will defend American jobs.”
He also highlighted the fact that even after he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord, America leads all other signatory nations in emissions reductions. Trump argued, “A strong economy is vital to maintaining a healthy environment,” adding that he believes an environmental policy that penalizes Americans is counterproductive to both Americans and the environment. He cogently observed, “For years politicians told Americans that a strong economy and vibrant energy sector were incompatible with a healthy environment — that one thing doesn’t go with the other.” However, Trump declared, “That’s wrong.”
Predictably, leftists panned Trump’s speech and environmental record because he never acknowledged their pet alarmist issue: climate change. The Hill’s headline serves as case in point: “Trump touts environmental policies, but says nothing of climate change.” The fact of the matter is, Trump recognizes there are actual environmental policies that can be implemented that bring real, demonstrable change. Strangling the economy to fight alleged anthropogenic climate change is simply not one of them. This reality is demonstrated by the fact that the only solution offered is a massive government takeover of the economy to institute some form of socialism, which in turn offers no viable solution to pay for the $93 trillion price tag and for avoiding the certain bankruptcy such a policy would bring upon the nation. And even if we were to implement these drastic draconian policies, we are told that impact upon the global climate would be minimal at best.
So the question is: Who has the better environmental record? Trump has a far better case than do the ecofascists. ~The Patriot Post
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