by G.W. Thielman
{fdd.org} ~ During the presidential campaign, the outlier in Donald Trump’s foreign-policy orations was his treatment of Iran... On Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia remember President Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s “off-mic” tête-à-tête with President Dmitry Medvedev?, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump largely followed his predecessor. Differences existed, certainly in style and manner, but the overlap between the two men on most of the big foreign-policy questions was profound. When it came to the clerical regime in Iran, however, the two men were polar opposites. Trump thought the nuclear agreement with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was “the worst deal ever.” He also let loose against Tehran’s Islamic radicalism, terrorism, quest for regional hegemony, and fondness for sowing mayhem in the Middle East. Trump’s serrated rhetoric stood in contrast to the comments of scumbag/liar-nObama, his secretary of state, and other senior officials, who had muted their criticisms of Tehran in their pursuit of the atomic accord and, as important, a new strategic realignment, wherein a less interventionist America might, so the theory went, find a modus vivendi with a richer, commercially engaged, and moderating Islamic Republic. As president, Trump followed through. The nuclear deal went down, the sanctions came back, and despite moments of wobbliness concerning troop deployments in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the Trump administration held fast in the Middle East. National-Security Advisers H. R. McMaster and John Bolton, United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, and, perhaps most of all, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out a new approach to the Islamic Republic. The Trump administration wasn’t inclined to roll back the clerical regime, but it did seem ready to contest and contain Iran’s Shiite imperialism in Syria, Yemen, and even in Iraq, in which the president had never evinced much interest. Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, concurrently with his intention to drastically reduce the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan and the likely soon-to-be-announced further drawdown of U.S. personnel in Iraq, has made mincemeat of the administration’s efforts to contain Iran. If you add up who wins locally by this decision the clerical regime in Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite radicals, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and who loses Jordan, Israel, the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds and Sunni Arabs, everyone in Lebanon resisting Hezbollah, the vast majority of the Iraqi Shia, the Gulf States, it becomes clear that the interests of the United States have been routed...
by Bryce Buchanan
{americanthinker.com} ~ President Trump’s central election promise to build the southern border wall seems about to slip out of reach, with Democrats vowing to oppose any funding of the border wall... While the Democrats deserve a large share of the blame for this failure, if the Senate fails to use budget reconciliation to pass the $5.7 billion in border wall funding, it will be the fault of Republican Senate leadership. Failure to build the border wall will likely have significant negative consequences for national security and will bode ill for Republican hopes for victory in 2020 elections. For the past few weeks, President Trump and Republican leadership in the Senate have repeatedly almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the fight for the border wall. The Senate has not pushed using budget reconciliation to fund the border wall, allowing the time to fly by as the clock ticks down on Republican control over the House of Representatives. This will be the last opportunity Republicans have of funding the border wall until at least 2021 assuming Republicans control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. As recently as December 18, it appeared that President Trump had agreed with Senate leadership to indefinitely push off border wall funding in favor of passing the remainder of the 2019 budget. It seemed like the long awaited border wall funding had finally slipped into the political abyss. Then, under withering criticism from conservatives and other supporters of the border wall, President Trump reversed course, making it clear that the remaining portions of the budget will only be signed once he receives funding for the wall. On December 20, Republicans in the House of Representatives responded by passing substantial border wall funding in the form of a bill allocating $5.7 billion for the wall and close to $8 billion in disaster relief for areas hit hard by this year’s hurricanes and wildfires. While the $5.7 billion falls short of the $21.6 billion that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimated it would take to complete the border wall, it is a substantial step in the right direction. DHS estimated that the $21.6 billion would fund a border wall that would extend almost the entire length of the border and would add about 1,250 miles to the border wall, which stood at 654 miles at the time of the DHS report. $5.7 billion would fund over one-quarter of the border wall and allows President Trump to construct approximately 330 miles of additional border wall in the most vulnerable and dangerous parts of the border... https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/12/the_senate_must_fund_the_border_wall_with_budget_reconciliation.html
Among the most notable advice he offered was a warning about the danger of those who would seek to divide the nation in order to empower their own partisan interests. He noted that the “love of power and proneness to abuse it” would result in “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled” political leaders who would “organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party.”
He warned that their “foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation” would “usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests,” and that we should “distrust the patriotism of those who, in any quarter, may endeavor to weaken” our nation’s bonds.
Here, Washington’s advice is as enduring as his legacy. The current partisan political tensions are more troubling than in any period since the 1960s, and his words are applicable.
The unanticipated election of Donald Trump in 2016 resulted in the rapid disintegration of the tenor and tone of discourse between Republicans and Democrats. Given the latter’s rapid transformation from a once-proud political party into an unhinged socialist camp, the systemic assault on Liberty has never been as organized, well-funded, and targeted as it is today. Nor did it ever have the tacit approval of a major political party.
The level of incivility and confrontation has entered very dangerous territory, but the fomenting of fear, anger, hatred, and division is the Left’s only political play to consolidate its identity-politics constituency.
The most recent manifestation of the Democrats’ politics of disunity was the emergence of toxic feminist mobs incited by their Demo-gogue leaders to protest the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. These protests are an indication of how very adept Democrats, in collusion with their Leftmedia machine, have become at fostering deep discontent among many Americans.
To date, the Democrat’s most successful model for achieving disunity in the last decade, has been to utilize race-bait hustlers who promote “black privilege” but who actually don’t think black lives matter beyond their usefulness as voter constituency pawns. The same can be said about their more recent concern for illegal immigrants.
Beltway Democrat strategists are now effectively using immigration, as they have race, to foment discontent among their largest voter constituency, female voters, whom they consider to be emotionally incontinent dupes. Recent research bears out the Left’s angry-female-voter strategy, with 43% of women reporting they are interested in taking to the streets in protest.
“This is what Democrats do,” said Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. “They try and divide our country. They try and incite anger.” She also referenced Democrat intent with their target constituents: “Let’s make women so angry,” they say.
Even Democrat Party Chairman Tom Perez thinks most of his constituents are idiots... ~The Patriot Post
Comments
Bonnie
I stand with you on your response. There is no doubts and you hit it right on the nose.
I HAVE BELIEVED THAT THE MUELLER SO CALLED INVESTIGATION IS A COVER UP. IT WAS DESIGNED BY ALL OF HIS FRIENDS AND HILLARYS TO COVER UP THE CRIMES SHE AND OBAMA AND THE FBI; DOJ; NSA; DNI; AND OTHERS COMMITTED. HE , MUELLER, DESTROYED THE STRZOK AND PAGE TEXTS THAT IS OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE WOW HOW IS HE NOT IN PRISON. YEP THIS IS THE COVER UP TO ALL THE CRIMES. IT WAS A DESIGN THAT ALL OF HILLARY AND OBAMAS FRIENDS AND HIS ADMIN CONCOCTED PRIOR TO HER LOSS OF THE ELECTION.