https://youtu.be/G87UXIH8Lzo?t
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From a friend and fellow memo reader. A very bright lawyer:
"🇻🇪 is a sad basket case. So much opportunity and natural resources. My college roommate was from Caracas and remains heartbroken. Here's the deal though: pure Socialism is both unworkable and can only be managed autocratically which is where Venezuela devolved. Similarly pure Capitalism is ruthless and creates a permanent underclass that can only be suppressed autocratically. USA, Norway, Sweden are all hybrids of both. We can argue til the cows come home about the best balance but Democracy and Freedom can only thrive in a mixed economy. The business motivation in America is primarily Capitalist, our safety net is Socialist. It works. Not always perfectly but the best alternative in History
Yesterday was an interesting day."
The key for our Republic is to maintain the stability of this blend between Socialism and Capitalism.
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First, I had lunch with a good friend and fellow memo reader who is conservative, deeply religious and a doctor. Over the years he confessed his oath has led him to believe abortion is murder and is associated with the first cell leading to life. He is willing to make exceptions in the case of incest and rape.
I understand where he is coming from and, though I do not totally share his view regarding murder, I respect his views and we had an interesting and rational discussion.
In the evening, I attended a lecture by a retired Sino CIA field operative-analyst and also former intelligence officer of various agencies. I did not take notes and am not capable of repeating the many points he made but I am able to give a few highlights.
The main point he made is we do not understand China, have not devoted enough resources to understand China and it will come back to haunt us.
He acknowledged we have improved but have a long way to go.
China is a Communist ruled country though less than 10% of the population are Communists and the remaining billion plus are distinctly opposed to living under the Communist's thumb.
The current leader is walking, a more or less, tightrope.
The nation's leadership is totally corrupt and because so much money is invested in Hong Kong and so much of Hong Kong's currency has been squirreled away by Communist leaders he suspects China will tolerate resistance. for the time being.
Eventually, however, he also believes China will move on Taiwan when they feel the time is more favorable.
He discussed China's investments (The Silk Road ) throughout the world and though the Chinese people are opposed and would prefer their own lot be improved the Communist Party is willing to ignore these wishes because domination is their ultimate goal.
The Communist, unlike the average Chinese person in the street, is paranoid when it comes to America and it's intentions. They see everything American through the darkest and most suspicious glasses.
He has personally met the current Chinese leader and says he is a most dour man and does not understand why he was willing to agree to the recent trade pact.
He discussed the 400,000 Chinese students studying here and what they are learning which gives them a singular advantage in understanding America. These students, however, are watched carefully by homeland operatives and are not allowed to mingle and basically are here to carry out one mission - lull Americans into seeing China the way they wish.
As he talked, I thought about how we sold steel and raw materials to Japan which returned in bombs on Pearl Harbour.
I specifically asked him to describe his understanding of the Chinese - N Korean relationship and he said N Korea's leader was truly stupid and China did not need N Korea as a protective buffer. He said China keeps N Korea several inches before the surface and if they ever wished to walk away N Korea would drown.
Because of the reading I do as a subscriber to The Naval War College publications I believe I am reasonably acquainted with China's naval activity and, from time to time, discuss what I read in these memos. I have no doubt, China is America's greatest threat both militarily as well as commercially. Nothing I heard last night changed my view and, in fact, went a long way toward confirming my deepest concerns.
We remain naive when it comes to the long term threat posed by China and need to hasten our speed of better understanding this Communist Nation's intentions and improving our ability to penetrate their society so we have a greater capability of manipulating them to our will is possible.
He spoke under the auspices of The Savannah Council on Foreign relations.
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I have a Board Meeting of The GMOA in Atlanta this coming Wednesday, and immediately after the meeting ends we are driving to Miami and departing on the 26th of January for a brief cruise returning on Feb 6th. No memos during this period nor will I be watching the Impeachment Hearings.
In typical Kavanaugh fashion, Schiff has come up with more evidence, at the last minute, which is basically nothing new. Trump, no doubt, wanted to get some dirt on Biden and his son, before he allowed tax dollars to be spent in what allegedly was an inappropriate/corrupt deal. The money was subsequently released, no laws were broken and, once again, much ado about nothing, nor impeachable.
The Democrats wanted to do a rush job, failed to do a thorough one and now want to rule the Senate.
Pelosi is using optics to pressure Republicans to create a semblance of guilt where none of an impeachable nature exists in order to drive more stakes through Trump's candidacy.
Mrs Petulant has cast herself in the role of having us believe she is saving our Republic from the evil doer president named Trump because she allowed herself to be driven into a corner by the likes of radicals within her own party. The women is all political sleaze.
The nation deserves better but Democrats have chosen to seek another path which, if allowed to take, will result in more nails added to our nation's coffin. Obama sought to transform America and began his carpentry by bringing over radical immigrants and congregating them in a manner that would allow them to burrow their way into government through elections. In addition, he used government agencies to intimidate conservatives, spread distrust among ethnic and racial groups, displayed contempt for the leader of our closest ally, emboldened our enemies by his weakness, spent like a drunken sailor on wasteful "ready" projects, weakened our military and skirted the constitution at every turn.
He was assisted in his nefarious efforts by a mass media who , to this day, would like to finish what Obama began because of their own antipathy towards this nation.
That is what I see, that is where we are as the Impeachment of Trump begins and the thin threads that still hold this nation together continue to be shredded because Democrats refuse to accept their 2016 defeat. Trump is basically correct in calling all that has transpired a sham, something that no president should endure.
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Everything Trump does is challenged and/or rejected by Democrats who hate him but they also never offer solutions and/or alternatives. (See 1 below.)
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Monday, the nation will celebrate MLK's birthday. As I have noted in previous memo's, MLK was a hero of mine - perhaps a flawed one in some ways, particularly being a minister, but were he alive today his oratorical abilities and his dedication to non-violence would be an instrumental lesson to all and most particularly to young radical blacks whose bitterness is, perhaps, understandable but misplaced and whose behaviour is in need of modification.
Far too many do not have the slightest idea of the progress their community has made and the pain and suffering those who came before them endured.
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Dick
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1)
What’s the alternative to Trump on Iran?
The Democratic presidential candidates agree that wars are bad and so is the president. But they aren’t presenting any serious policy options to deal with Tehran.
After months of focusing on domestic policy and their animus for President Donald Trump, this week the Democratic Party presidential candidates turned their attention towards foreign policy. Security issues have moved to the top of the agenda due to Trump’s willingness to challenge Iran. Trump’s decision to have U.S. forces kill Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani has, for the moment, diverted Americans from economics and also engendered fears about the possibility of the targeted killing launching World War III among some on the left. But by the time the six contenders who qualified addressed viewers on stage in Des Moines, Iowa, for their seventh debate, the Democrats’ attempt to hype a war scare had already faded.
There were some fireworks in which Sen. Bernie Sanders attempt to relitigate the vote to authorize the Iraq war in 2003 in order to attack former Vice President Joe Biden. But the attempt by the CNN moderators to determine how exactly the six Democrats would deal with Iran didn’t inspire much confidence in their capacity to present a coherent alternative to Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy against the Islamist regime.
After absorbing the stunning loss of Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Tehran regime backed down after contenting itself with a symbolic missile attack on two U.S. bases in Iraq that caused no casualties. That meant that Trump had proven once again that the conventional wisdom of the foreign-policy establishment that had long guided the policies of both Republican and Democratic predecessors was wrong.
The belief that Iran would burn down the region if the United States sent them a powerful message about terror was mistaken. Trump has showed the regime that it will pay a high price if it doesn’t cease terrorist provocations, such as those orchestrated by Soleimani, who had the blood of hundreds of Americans and countless others on his hands. Even more to the point, the notion that Iran could credibly threaten a war or even a major escalation of hostilities against the United States was a gigantic bluff that fooled both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but apparently not a foreign-policy novice like Trump.
Less reported but no less important are the recent developments on the nuclear front. Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimposition of economic sanctions has placed tremendous pressure on Tehran. In response, Iran has threatened to start enriching uranium again—in excess of the amounts the nuclear pact permits—that could be used to build a bomb. But rather than having the intended effect of getting panicked Europeans to defy U.S. sanctions, the opposite has happened.
Though the Germans, French and British would prefer to go on trading with Iran and pretending that the nuclear deal is working, they simply can’t continue along that route. Reluctantly, they have begun the process that can lead to their joining America in reimposing sanctions, completing Tehran’s isolation and tightening the noose around its economy.
The Democrats have interpreted Iran’s actions as proving that Trump’s withdrawal from the deal was a disaster since all of them erroneously claim that it was working to prevent a nuclear bomb. But they all fail to mention that leaving Iran’s advanced nuclear infrastructure in place and putting sunset clauses into the pact only ensured that it would eventually get a bomb anyway.
Every one of the Democratic candidates says they would reinstate the deal as soon as they take office. But anyone who is serious about preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, as they all claim to be, must demand that it be renegotiated. Lifting sanctions will make that impossible since it will remove the leverage Trump has obtained for the West. Pledging allegiance to Obama’s deal is good politics for a Democrat, but not a strategy for dealing with the mess he left the country concerning Iran.
The regime’s economy is failing, and the resulting unrest it has generated inspired the people of Iran to increasingly take to the streets to protest against the corrupt rule of the ayatollahs and their IRGC henchmen. In November, Soleimani’s troops gunned down hundreds of demonstrators. But that act of mass murder hasn’t deterred a new round of protests in the wake of the regime’s shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet.
When asked about Iran, not a single Democratic candidate spoke up to praise the courage of the protesters, who want freedom from Islamist oppression. And while Trump has used his bully pulpit on Twitter to speak out against the IRGC’s atrocities against Iranian civilians, the total of tweets on the subject from the Democrats candidates was exactly zero.
The Democratic candidates all say that the killing of Soleimani was a reckless provocation, even if they agree he was a terrorist. What would they do to restrain Iran’s terror? The only answers they have involve talk about diplomacy and avoiding another war like the one fought in Iraq, which almost all Americans now agree was a blunder. But what Trump has proved with his sanctions and targeted killing of Soleimani is that it’s possible to call Iran’s bluff without starting a war.
Resuming Obama’s appeasement policy, avoiding military conflict at all costs and saying that everything Trump does is wrong may be effective talking points for persuading Democratic primary voters. Yet they are a poor substitute for a strategy aimed at rolling back the gains Iran made after it was enriched and empowered by the nuclear deal or actually stopping the regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon sooner or later.
Many voters care about the threat Iran poses to the West, the Middle East and to Israel, and are eager to vote against the president in November. But judging by the answers heard on the debate stage in Iowa, none of the Democrats seeking the chance to oppose Trump have a clear idea about what to do about the issue.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS— Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
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