TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~
Russian Puppet Iran and the Saudi Attack
National Security Desk
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We've lost sight of the real scandal
By SHARYL ATTKISSON
{ thehill.com } ~ What will Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s latest investigation reveal? Will Congress hold hearings about it? Will former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe actually get indicted?... After all, it’s said that a motivated prosecutor can “indict a ham sandwich” if he really wants to. We’re so wrapped up in the daily tick-tock, we could be losing sight of a big picture that’s come into focus over the past two years. For the first time in our nation’s history, an inspector general — one appointed by President scumbag/liar-nObama — has determined that at least two men who sat in the top spot at the FBI committed multiple violations that warrant possible prosecution. That in itself is a scandal with national implications deserving of headlines, congressional hearings and promises to overhaul a broken system. Of course, the complicating factor in the whole mess is that the government entities responsible for addressing any wrongdoing are the same ones inextricably tied to the alleged wrongdoing. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI employ enough people to populate a mid-sized city — more than 113,000. Both agencies are much more than the top men or women in charge. Even as certain personalities are divested, tentacles run deep; ties cross administrations and party lines. The recent past provides little reason to think this behemoth can always be neutral when it comes to its own. The machine has proven it can move swiftly when it comes to criminal cases against certain politically connected figures for relatively small infractions — but it has shown less commitment when it comes to others. By way of a few examples, we can start with the scathing 2016 election-year ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). It found the National Security Agency (NSA) guilty of “institutional lack of candor” in its spying on U.S. citizens. The court also said the NSA’s practices raised serious constitutional issues. It sounds pretty serious but, as far as we know, the FBI pursued no investigation into any responsible officials. And after years of surveillance abuses well-documented by the FISC and others, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress that there have never been any... https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/461599-weve-lost-sight-of-the-real-scandal .
If John Bolton still had the president's ear,
he'd counsel against appeasing Iran
By Clifford D. May
{ washingtontimes.com } ~ John Bolton’s sudden departure from the White House last week cheered progressives who believe America has no enemies, just friends whose grievances we’ve failed to address... as well as those conservatives who believe if we leave our enemies alone, they’ll return the favor. And you thought there was no common ground between left and right. Count me among those not cheered. Mr. Bolton calls himself an Americanist, meaning he believes this nation must be strong and resolute enough to daunt its enemies because enemies we shall always have, and reassure its friends because friends are good and useful to have. President Trump’s former national security adviser is no proponent of nation-building in the sense of planting democracy in arid soils. At the same time, he recognizes that if the United States doesn’t shoulder some significant global responsibilities, no other nation — and certainly no transnational organization — will. My point is not that you — or, more consequentially, Mr. Trump — should admire Mr. Bolton’s moustache and agree with his every policy preference. My point is that Mr. Bolton has been providing the president with strategic thinking grounded in a serious reading of our adversaries’ histories, ideologies, intentions and capabilities. H.R. McMaster, who preceded Mr. Bolton as national security adviser, did the same. Their personalities are very different — Gen. McMaster is an even-tempered soldier/scholar, Ambassador Bolton a bit of a firebrand — but both brought to the Oval Office useful perspectives and reasoned policy options....
Next for Turkey? Nuclear Weapons!
by Burak Bekdil
{ gatestoneinstitute.org } ~ During the 17 years he has ruled NATO-member Turkey, the country's Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan... has rarely missed an opportunity stealthily to convert Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's secular, pro-Western establishment into a rogue state hostile to Western interests. Erdoğan now wants to make it a rogue state with nuclear weapons. "They say we can't have nuclear-tipped missiles, though some have them. This, I can't accept," Erdoğan said in a September 4 speech, while conveniently forgetting that Turkey has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1980. In other words, Turkey's elected leader publicly declares that he intends to breach an international treaty signed by his country. Turkey is also a signatory to the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear detonations, for any purpose. For several decades, Turkey, being a staunch NATO ally, was viewed as the trusted custodian of some of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In the early 1960s, the U.S. started stockpiling nuclear warheads at the Turkish military's four main airbases Ankara Mürted, Malatya Erhaç, Eskişehir and Balıkesir. If ordered, Turkish air force pilots were tasked with hitting designated Warsaw Pact targets. Squadrons of jets designated for carrying nuclear bombs were kept at each airbase first F-100s, followed by F-104s and finally by F-4s on a round-the-clock basis. Each base housed a small U.S. military unit in charge of the nuclear stockpile. In addition, a Turkish-U.S. military base in Incirlik in southern Turkey kept nuclear warheads to be operated by U.S. military. "With that role Turkey significantly added to NATO's deterrence in Cold War years," said Yusuf Kanlı, a prominent columnist and president of the Ankara-based think tank, Sigma Turkey, in a private interview on September 9. After the end of the Cold War, the nuclear weapons in Turkish possession (at the four airbases, except Incirlik) were gradually removed, while nuclear guardianship came to a halt. Presently, the nuclear warheads at Incirlik still remain at the disposal of the U.S. military under a special U.S.-Turkish treaty... https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14896/turkey-erdogan-nuclear-weapons .
Israeli Exit Polls: No Majority for Netanyahu,
Blocs Essentially Tied, Lieberman Kingmaker
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Illegals sue to collect welfare
& resettle in the US permanently
By S.Noble
{ independentsentinel.com } ~ Barack scumbag/liar-nObama granted illegal aliens the right to stay in the United States, live off welfare, and obtain green cards which will lead to a path to citizenship... However, a new ‘public charge’ rule will soon come into play. It will mean that immigrants obtaining green cards or attempting to permanently resettle in the U.S. will basically be at risk of deportation if they use welfare programs. It always used to be that way. Now we have two illegal aliens, sponsored by the open borders group CASA de Maryland, suing the administration to allow them to collect welfare and resettle in the U.S. The aliens are DACA and were unconstitutionally given the right to stay in the U.S. by President scumbag/liar-nObama. DACA recipients are very sypathetic. American taxpayers spend about $60 billion a year to pay for welfare, crime, and education for the 1.5 million low-skilled immigrants each year. “The new rule would allow immigration officials to deny Lawful Permanent Resident status to many immigrants in an arbitrary and discriminatory way,” Amy Marshak, senior counsel at ICAP, said in a statement. “This is by design. President Trump and his advisors have expressed animus toward non-white immigrants, and studies already have shown that the new rule will disproportionately affect immigrants of color.” The racist claim infects everything these days. Despite the resistance from the left, Hispanic American and U.S. voters support the rule. People should come here to contribute or stay at home. It becomes cost-prohibitive for hard working Americans to support foreigners. https://www.independentsentinel.com/illegals-sue-to-collect-welfare-resettle-in-the-us-permanently/ .
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Russian Puppet Iran and the Saudi Attack
National Security Desk: Saturday’s drone attack on the Abqaiq oil facility in Saudi Arabia, the largest oil-processing plant in the world, temporarily cut off an estimated 5% of the world’s oil supply — about 5.7 million barrels per day. Oil prices spiked nearly 20% before settling back down a bit on Saudi promises to dip into reserves. Could there be a clearer illustration of the need for American energy independence?
President Donald Trump said, “I have authorized the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, if needed, in a to-be-determined amount sufficient to keep the markets well-supplied.” He also warned that the U.S. is “locked and loaded” for a response against “the culprit … depending on verification.”
Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have been battling the Saudis in a proxy war, claimed responsibility for the attack, while Iran itself denied any role. But U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded that there was “no evidence the attacks came from Yemen,” and he instead pointed to Tehran: “Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply.”
If Iran was indeed the culprit, the timing is noteworthy. National Security Advisor John Bolton, a hawkish and staunch critic of Iran, left the White House last week amidst disagreement on policy, particularly pertaining to Iran. President Trump, who did rightly nuke Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s bad deal with Iran, has sent numerous signals of late that he wishes to soften policy toward Tehran. That includes floating a personal meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at this week’s UN General Assembly confab, as well as contemplating support for a possible $15 billion bribe to the mullahs from the French. Iran is testing Trump.
Iran may also hope to boost its struggling economy with higher oil prices. An unstable oil market would pressure the U.S. to lift sanctions on Iranian oil exports. The Iran-supporting Russians may also benefit from higher prices given that well over half of Russia’s exports are oil and gas, as would their socialist fellow travelers in Venezuela. In any case, Shia Iran most certainly seeks regional hegemony, and Sunni Saudi Arabia is the most sizable and capable Islamic opposition. As Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies put it, “This competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia is a struggle for both the sacred and profane: for leadership of the Muslim world, for individual Muslim hearts and minds, for the Middle East regional balance, and for oil.”
Going forward, there are a lot of questions. Primarily this from National Review’s Jim Geraghty: “Nobody — or perhaps its more accurate to say few Americans — want a war with Iran, but the Iranians get a say in that, too. Assume the coming days bring proof that Iran launched an attack that shut down half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production. What would the appropriate response from the United States be?” ~The Patriot Post
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