Netanyahu responds- Quit Pampering Palestinians.
Boat has left Abbas on the docks. (See 1 and 1a below.)
And
Markets are getting a bit frothy but still specific stocks that are not cheap but long term still off decent total return like: MRK, , CVS, WPP, SBUX, AMGN, maybe even KO.
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Are Democrats ready to challenge Trump and un-fund our debt? I would love to see Trump call their bluff because he is willing to give on DACA if they are willing to modify immigration (merit based), eliminate chain immigration (limit to immediate family members) and fund some form of construction.
This is called compromising and doing what is best for America and immigrants who are here and productive.
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Klavan shocked. (See 2 below.)
And
What most Americans want but are not likely to get as long as Schumer, Durbin, Feinstein, Pelosi, Waters remain in power. (See 2a below.)
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Kudos to Sec. Nielsen's performance today because she made the Democrats asking her "gotcha" questions look like fools. And she is a beautiful, composed lady as well and if that is sexist then so be it.
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Dick
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(1)PM: WORLD HAS PAMPERED PALESTINIANS, TRUMP FIRST TO TELL THEM THE TRUTH
“If we ever want to get to reconciliation and peace, there needs to be an understanding why this conflict has continued for so many years,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
NEW DELHI - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas revealed with his fiery and intransigent speech Sunday that the real reason for the lack of peace in the Middle East is the Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish state in any border, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.
Netanyahu, in a briefing with reporters after a series of meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said that Abbas’s words will help Israel “present the truth” to the world. While much of the comments about the speech have centered on attacks on US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu said that what Abbas said, not only the shrewd way in which he said it, will help Israel get its point across.
If we ever want to get to reconciliation and peace, there needs to be an understanding why this conflict has continued for so many years,” Netanyahu said. “There is always an attempt to hide this, and I have worked for many years to try and get across the truth that the root of the conflict is the continual and, unfortunately, unchanging denial of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state within any borders.”
He said that without a change in the position stated by Abbas, “there will not be peace.”
Netanyahu also said that Abu Mazen's outburst was because he was concerned about the diplomatic plan that the US administration is working on, and wanted to remove the Americans from involvement in the process. “The world has pampered the Palestinians, and not told them the truth,” he said. “I think Abbas is reacting. For the first time someone [Trump] is telling them the truth.”
Turning to Trump’s speech Friday, in which the US president said he would waive nuclear sanctions on Iran for the final time to give the world powers a last chance to alter the 2015 nuclear accord, Netanyahu said that this appears to be the last chance for the western powers to fix the agreement.
Netanyahu said he told European leaders he met recently in Brussels that they should take Trump’s words about this matter seriously, but that many thought that he would never withdraw from the agreement, and that his words were “empty.”
“I think that after his speech on Friday, people are starting to understand -- maybe late -- to take his words seriously,” he said.
Netanyahu said that French President Emmanuel Macron told him in a recent phone conversation that while he agrees with Israel's position regarding the danger of Iran's ballistic missile development, support for terror and aggression in the region, he does not agree with Israel vis-a-vis the nuclear deal.
“I told him that if this agreement is not changed, then the aggressiveness of Iran in the region -- terrorism, even missile threats toward France -- will increase many fold,” he said
1a)
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Given the turbulent political climate, one wonders whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has any regrets and, if so, if he would gladly roll back time a decade. In 2008, the PA boss was firmly entrenched in Ramallah despite a year earlier having been unceremoniously—that is, violently—ejected by Hamas from Gaza in an internecine war. Nevertheless, the world was seemingly at Abbas' doorstep, his Muqata compound the address where kings, heads of state and a never-ending parade of diplomats flocked to with a view to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, considered at the time by many as the central malaise plaguing the Middle East.
It was within this context that then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert offered Abbas a fully comprehensive peace deal that would have created a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with only minor land swaps, and with east Jerusalem as its capital. A limited number of Palestinian refugees would have been allowed to "return" to Israel. But when Olmert, after a score of meetings, urged Abbas to sign on the dotted line, the PA leader said he needed to consult with other officials but never got back to the Israeli premier. Sometime later, Abbas was the first of his colleagues to receive a phone call from newly-inaugurated US President Barack Obama, who vowed to put "daylight" between Washington and Jerusalem. This manifested in pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to implement an unprecedented ten-month construction freeze in Jewish communities located in the West Bank. But Abbas still refused to negotiate for the first nine months of the building suspension and, when he finally did, demanded that the policy be renewed indefinitely. It was an untenable political situation for Netanyahu precluding the possibility of talks getting off the ground. This pattern repeated itself during Obama's second term, when a new initiative, spearheaded by then-secretary of state John Kerry, forced Netanyahu to release, in four tranches, more than 100 terrorists from Israeli jails. But once again Abbas found a pretext to walk away from the peace process. By then, the Middle East had descended into total chaos in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring, while Shiite Iran was flexing its muscles throughout the region. The outbreak of wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and beyond had little to do with Israel or solving Palestinian "problem," effectively marginalizing the conflict. This confluence of events, in turn, stimulated a rapprochement between Sunni Muslim nations and the Jewish state, which share a desire both to curb Tehran's expansionism and potential nuclearization and counter the threat posed by terrorist groups such as the Islamic State. As the geopolitical situation slowly changed, countries that previously supported the Palestinians unconditionally no longer viewed matters in shades of black and white, but, rather, increasingly in blue and white; this, prompted by a growing acknowledgment that Israel, as opposed to the PA, has much to offer to regime's that likewise view the Islamic Republic as an existential threat. Enter US President Donald Trump, who is perhaps the least ideological—and unpredictable—American leader in history. While his White House has invested political capital into jump-starting the peace process, President Trump is not beholden to any preconceived notions nor does he appear willing to pander to Palestinian sensibilities. This was made stark by his recognition in December of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, to which the Palestinians reacted with unhinged fury. Instead of accepting the new playing field and adapting, the PA adopted a scorched-earth policy, effectively boycotting Washington and threatening to withdraw recognition of Israel, thereby abrogating the Oslo Accords. This, notwithstanding the apparent tacit acceptance by Arab states of President Trump's Jerusalem declaration, and while the US Congress moves to cut off aid to the PA over its "pay-for-slay" policy of disbursing salaries to Palestinian prisoners. Domestically, the situation is not much better, with a recent survey showing that some seventy percent of Palestinians want Abbas to resign. Under his rule, the PA has lost legitimacy within the eyes of its people, who near-uniformly view the leadership as a corrupt kleptocracy unable to advance their interests. Specifically, the West Bank economy is completely underdeveloped and the territory lacks almost all of the basic infrastructure of a functioning state despite the tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid that have flooded into the PA's coffers. Moreover, the Palestinians remain divided between the West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, with the latest attempts to forge national unity, like those before them, having thus far amounted to nothing. According to Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Gilead, formerly the director of policy and political-military affairs at the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the PA leader does not believe that his positions are being adequately considered, leading to increased inflexibility as his days become numbered. "This may be the last call, as Abbas is very old and has said he may not be here next year. So it looks like there is no hope for the peace process. "Abbas may not take any concrete steps moving forward," Gilead expounded, "but he does not have to. He is telling us what his legacy will be. As such, Israel should reconsider its positions and try to find way to forge a peace agreement with him or it may need to abandon the process entirely. Nobody knows who or what will come after Abbas and whether they will have the legitimacy to deal with Israel. It is bad news that it appears as though he will be leaving no options for peace." Abbas has found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place, and while European nations, along with Russia and China, may agree to step in and fill part of the vacuum left by the US, without the firm backing of Sunni countries, who are closely aligned with Washington, there appears little chance for the PA to secure a soft landing. "Abbas appears to be desperate," Dr. Anat Kurz, Director of Research at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies and a former member of track-II Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, told The Media Line. "He is shooting in all directions and acting as if there is nothing to lose with the American administration or in terms of resuming talks with Israel. The Palestinians feel as though they have lost the ability to influence the course of developments," she elaborated, "not only because it appears the international community is exhausted after years of failed efforts to forge a settlement, but also because of what has happened in the region, mainly the ongoing tensions between the Sunni Gulf monarchies and Shiite Iran. "There are also the wars going on throughout the Middle East," Kurz concluded, "which has lessened the importance of the Palestinian issue. Given all of these elements, Abbas does not know who to turn to or how to proceed." Another thorn in Abbas' side is the Israeli government, which has gradually shifted to the right and contains many members who publicly oppose the two-state solution. The ramifications for Israel of the Palestinian leaderships' precarious predicament will be numerous, especially if Abbas decides to throw in the towel and dissolve the PA, a move that effectively would shift the responsibility of supporting West Bank Palestinians onto Jerusalem. In the short-term, this could necessitate deeper entrenchment of the Israeli army's positioning in post-1967 areas in order to prevent the outbreak of total anarchy and, equally important, to ensure, in the absence of security coordination with the PA, that Hamas is unable to seize control of the West Bank. Over the long-term, the disintegration of the PA would require Israel to implement its own unilateral measures, perhaps including the annexation of Area C of the West Bank—as designated by the Oslo Accords with both Israeli administrative and security control. With the walls closing in on Abbas, he doubled-down Sunday during a meeting of high-ranking Palestine Liberation Organization officials. In what many construed as a tirade, the PA boss went off on Washington, affirming, in reference to President Trump, "may God demolish your house," before describing Israel as "a colonial project that has nothing to do with Jews." Regarding the White House's soon-to-be-unveiled peace plan, Abbas seemingly confirmed that Abu Dis, a suburb on the very outskirts of Jerusalem, will be offered as the capital of a future Palestinian state, evidencing the degree to which the political climate has evolved. "We can say no to anyone and we have said no to Trump and others," Abbas reportedly asserted, rejecting the US proposal out-of-hand and insinuating that various regional countries back the terms of the initiative. "The deal of the era is the slap of the era," he concluded. For many, the PA chief's speech made stark that he is caught in a time warp, unable to escape the past by coming to terms with the fact that what is being proposed is, in reality, the deal of this era. In this respect, while Abbas may be in his golden years, it appears that the golden age of global acceptance of his maximalist demands are over. |
1b)
Beyond the Iran Nuclear Deal
U.S. policy should be to end the Islamic Republic before its 40th anniversary.
By John Bolton
President Trump seemingly served notice Friday that the days are dwindling for Barack Obama’s Iran agreement. Although deal proponents also gained time to pursue “fixes,” this is a forlorn option. No fix will remedy the diplomatic Waterloo Mr. Obama negotiated. Democrats will reject anything that endangers his prized international contrivance, and the Europeans are more interested in trade with Tehran than a stronger agreement.
There is an even more fundamental obstacle: Iran. Negotiating with Congress and Europe will not modify the actual deal’s terms, which Iran (buttressed by Russia and China) has no interest in changing. Increased inspections, for example, is a nonstarter for Tehran. Mr. Obama gave the ayatollahs what they wanted; they will not give it back.
Most important, there is no evidence Iran’s intention to obtain deliverable nuclear weapons has wavered. None of the proposed “fixes” change this basic, unanswerable reality.
Spending the next 120 days negotiating with ourselves will leave the West mired in stasis. Mr. Trump correctly sees Mr. Obama’s deal as a massive strategic blunder, but his advisers have inexplicably persuaded him not to withdraw. Last fall, deciding whether to reimpose sanctions and decertify the deal under the Corker-Cardin legislation, the administration also opted to keep the door open to “fixes”—a punt on third down. Let’s hope Friday’s decision is not another punt.
The Iran agreement rests on inadequate knowledge and fundamentally flawed premises. Mr. Obama threw away any prospect of learning basic facts about Iran’s capabilities. Provisions for international inspection of suspected military-related nuclear facilities are utterly inadequate, and the U.S. is likely not even aware of all the locations. Little is known, at least publicly, about longstanding Iranian-North Korean cooperation on nuclear and ballistic-missile technology. It is foolish to play down Tehran’s threat because of Pyongyang’s provocations. They are two sides of the same coin.
Some proponents of “strengthening” the deal propose to eliminate its sunset provisions. That would achieve nothing. Tehran’s nuclear menace, especially given the Pyongyang connection, is here now, not 10 years away. One bizarre idea is amending the Corker-Cardin law to avoid the certification headache every 90 days. Tehran would endorse this proposal, but it is like taking aspirin to relieve the pain of a sucking chest wound.
Putting lipstick on this deal will not fix it. Why would Democrats facilitate Mr. Trump’s inclinations to withdraw from the deal entirely? If he’s going to abrogate it, why be complicit by adding new conditions that Iran will fail to meet? Sen. Ben. Cardin has correctly observed the president already has all the authority he needs.
To avoid that danger, some senators have suggested restricting the president’s ability to withdraw from the deal without congressional approval. This folly is so obviously unconstitutional it fully warrants a Trump veto.
Europeans are collectively following a Micawberesque approach of counting their revenues and hoping for the best. They rightly fear that if U.S. intellectual property again falls under sanctions, they will be barred from selling Tehran products containing that technology. U.S. withdrawal is therefore critical to breaking Europe’s addiction to Iranian commercial prospects.
U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has reasonably asked what the alternative policy would be. Iran’s recent widespread demonstrations against the ayatollahs provide the answer. Tehran’s rulers are far more unpopular than previously believed. Like many seemingly impregnable authoritarian regimes, the facade belies the reality. Iran’s opposition needs external support, material as well as rhetorical, to continue its momentum. It would be tragic not to torque up the economic pressure by reactivating all sanctions now under waiver, and adding more.
America’s declared policy should be ending Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution before its 40th anniversary. Arab states would remain silent, but they would welcome this approach and might even help finance it. Israel can also remain silent but pressure Iran’s forces, as well as its clients, in Lebanon and Syria, to maximize the stress on Iran’s security assets.
Recognizing a new Iranian regime in 2019 would reverse the shame of once seeing our diplomats held hostage for 444 days. The former hostages can cut the ribbon to open the new U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Mr. Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad” (Simon & Schuster, 2007)
2)
Of Crudeness and Truth
Thoughts on President Trump’s latest verbal tempestNothing scandalizes a leftist like the truth. Point out that women and men are different, that black Americans commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime, that most terrorist acts are committed by Muslims, and the Left leaps to its collective feet in open mouthed shock, like Margaret Dumont after a Groucho Marx wisecrack. This is racism! This is sexism! This is some sort of phobia! I’m shocked, shocked to find facts being spoken in polite company!
No one is really shocked, of course. This is simply a form of bullying. The Left has co-opted our good manners and our good will in order to silence our opposition to their bad policies. The idea is to make it seem impolite and immoral to mention the obvious.
The bullying is highly effective and very dangerous. In England, in the city of Rotherham, at least 1,400 non-Muslim girls, some as young as 11, were brutally raped by Muslim immigrants over a period of years in the 2000s. Police and other officials worked to keep the facts hidden because, according to multiple reports, they were afraid of being called racist. Think about that: police officers did not want to seem racist, so they stood by and let their city’s children be raped. The same thing goes on in other cities in England and throughout Europe. And in fact, some who have spoken out have had their careers curtailed by manufactured scandal. The message is clear: it’s just not nice to tell the truth. It’s just not done. Don’t do it.
Here in the states, the First Amendment has so far allowed old-fashioned American loudmouths to fight the system whenever they could find ways around our monolithic corporate media. But the Empire of Lies is quick to strike back. Google/YouTube now stands charged by multiple accusers of singling out conservative voices for censorship, “fact-checking,” and demonetization. Hidden-camera videos released by Project Veritas this week show Twitter employees conspiring to “shadow ban” conservatives on their system. On campus, intelligent conservative speakers of good will like Ben Shapiro, Charles Murray, and Cristina Hoff-Somers have faced violent protests meant to shut them up.
No person of importance on the right seeks to silence anyone on the left. The Left, on the other hand, is broadly committed to ostracizing, blacklisting, and even criminalizing right-wing speech.
Enter President Donald Trump. He is a rude and crude person. He speaks like a Queens real estate guy on a construction site. And because he does not have good manners, he thoughtlessly breaks the rules with which the Left has sought to muzzle those who disagree with them. In this regard, I frequently compare Trump to Randle Patrick McMurphy, the loudmouthed, ill-mannered roustabout from Ken Kesey’s brilliant novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy comes into an insane asylum controlled by a pleasant, smiling nightmare of a head nurse named Ratched. Nurse Ratched, while pretending to be the soul of motherly care, is actually a castrating, silencing tyrant. Her rules of good manners, supposedly fashioned for the benefit of all, are really a system of mental slavery. All of McMurphy’s salient character flaws suddenly become heroic in the context of her oppression. Only his belligerent ignorance of what constitutes good behavior can overturn the velvet strangulation of her rule.
For Nurse Ratched, read Hillary Clinton, CNN, the New York Times, Yale University, Twitter, and Google/YouTube—all the tender ministers of polite silence and enforced dishonesty. If Donald Trump’s boorishness crashes like a bull through the crystal madhouse of their leftism—well, good. It’s about time.
I don’t know exactly what Trump said in a closed-door meeting with senators at the White House this week. Unnamed sources say that he referred to some African countries and Haiti as “shitholes.” Maybe so; sounds like him. In any case, when it comes to a chance to attack Trump, our journalists don’t waste time with fact-gathering or source-identifying. Like Madonna, they just strike a pose. Various media knuckleheads have reacted to the alleged comment by calling Trump “racist,” “Nazi,” “Evil,” and a “terrorist sympathizer.”
(Personally, my first thought on hearing about the remark was: “What squirrely little tattle-tale of a weasel went running to the press with that?” But never mind. That’s just me.)
Let’s state the obvious. Some countries are shitholes. To claim that this is racist is racist. They are not shitholes because of the color of the populace but because of bad ideas, corrupt governance, false religion, and broken culture. Further, most of the problems in these countries are generated at the top. Plenty of rank-and-file immigrants from such ruined venues ultimately make good Americans—witness those who came from 1840s potato-famine Ireland, a shithole if ever there was one! It takes caution and skill to separate the good from the bad.
For these very reasons, absurd immigration procedures like chain migration, lotteries, and unvetted entries are deeply destructive. They can lead to the sort of poor choices that create a Rotherham. Trump’s suggestions—to vet immigrants for pro-American ideas and skills that will help our country—are smart and reasonable and would clearly make the system better if implemented.
So, when it comes to the Great Shithole Controversy of 2018, my feeling is: I do not care, not even a little. I’m sorry that it takes someone like Trump to break the spell of silence the Left is forever weaving around us. I wish a man like Ronald Reagan would come along and accomplish the same thing with more wit and grace. But that was another culture. History deals the cards it deals; we just play them. Trump is what we’ve got.
For all the bad language, for all the loose talk, I would rather hear a man speak as a man without fear of the Nurse Ratcheds in the press and the academy than have him neutered and gagged by a system of good manners that has been misused as a form of oppression. Better impoliteness than silence. Better crudeness than lies.
We have seen the effect of uncontrolled immigration on Europe. It is very, very bad. The fact is: some countries are shitholes. I don’t want this to become one of them.
The phrasing recognizes that the political class are “bought and paid for.”
The basic premise seems correct:
If you listen to Trump, he's hitting many of the hot buttons of the electorate. But you have to listen to him and not be distracted by his showmanship.
I like the list of 13 things that I, as a senior American citizen, want.Trump is at least talking about issues that most Americans are concerned about.
My mantra about Trump is this: Truthfully, we are usually in agreement with most of what he says, but perhaps wish someone else was saying it. We may be slightly offended by his brash manner, but what matters is that he covers most of the 13 things we as seniors want....at least I do.
1. Hillary: Held accountable for her previous wrongs!
2. GOD: Put “GOD” back in America !!
3. Borders: Closed or tightly guarded!
4. Congress: On the same retirement & health care plans as everybody else.5. Congress: Obey its own laws NOW!
6. Language: English only!
7. Culture: Constitution and the Bill of Rights!
8. Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before & during Welfare! (include all politicians, that would eliminate a lot of the problems)!
9. Freebies: *NONE* to Non-Citizens!
10. Budget: Balance the thing!
11 Foreign Countries: STOP giving them OUR money!
12. Fix the TAX CODE!
And most of all:
13. “RESPECT OUR MILITARY AND OUR FLAG!!”
We the people are coming! +++++++++++++++++++++
If you listen to Trump, he's hitting many of the hot buttons of the electorate. But you have to listen to him and not be distracted by his showmanship.
I like the list of 13 things that I, as a senior American citizen, want.Trump is at least talking about issues that most Americans are concerned about.
My mantra about Trump is this: Truthfully, we are usually in agreement with most of what he says, but perhaps wish someone else was saying it. We may be slightly offended by his brash manner, but what matters is that he covers most of the 13 things we as seniors want....at least I do.
1. Hillary: Held accountable for her previous wrongs!
2. GOD: Put “GOD” back in America !!
3. Borders: Closed or tightly guarded!
4. Congress: On the same retirement & health care plans as everybody else.5. Congress: Obey its own laws NOW!
6. Language: English only!
7. Culture: Constitution and the Bill of Rights!
8. Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before & during Welfare! (include all politicians, that would eliminate a lot of the problems)!
9. Freebies: *NONE* to Non-Citizens!
10. Budget: Balance the thing!
11 Foreign Countries: STOP giving them OUR money!
12. Fix the TAX CODE!
And most of all:
13. “RESPECT OUR MILITARY AND OUR FLAG!!”
We the people are coming! +++++++++++++++++++++
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