More sardonic food for thought? (See 1 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Wow, what a refugee problem. (See 2 below.) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A few days ago I spoke about the human element that is drawn to the seat of power, ie those in government who work in DC and are above the law. We now have an episode involving "Up Chuck" that validates what I wrote. (See 3 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
According to Theodore Galinides the mass media have misplaced their emphasis for political reasons. (See 4 below.)
And: If that is not bad enough the politicization of the nation's entire justice system is totally beyond/out of control.
a) Federal District Judges, due to political venue shopping, believe they can make rulings that totally supersede the rights and authority of the president in the execution of his powers to protect and defend our nation. Their judicial reach never was intended to extend as far as it now has .
More importantly, no independent counsel has the right to interrogate the president without first setting forth specific reasons and charges for doing so that suggest such interrogation is necessary because it is based on an actual violation of specific law of such a serious nature that it impacts the well being of our country. It cannoit be based on whim and/or desire.
Mueller's investigation of Russian Collusion has become so politically tainted that it does not serve the interests of the nation because it impacts the ability of the president to conduct the affairs of his office. I not not suggesting Mueller is engaged in a witch hunt just simply that his reach is beyond the legal length of the law and if he wants to question the president, any president, he must first set forth and announce the specific violation on which he has based his claim and right.
Rosenstein is in charge of Mueller and has allowed this investigation to go off track and there is much evidence to suggest that it has been done for the express political purpose of superimposing/extending the power of various agencies beyond the scope of their authority and beyond the reach of legitimate Congressional oversight.
Because of the threat of political fall out in the current super charged atmosphere Trump is incapable of exercising his rights/duties and thus, his ability to function , in accordance with his power under the constitution, has been impinged upon beyond what Our Founders intended.
I am not suggesting that this or any president is above the law but the president has specific rights and responsibilities that transcend those of an independent counselor whose authority also has limitations. (See 5 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One more U.N failure. (See 6 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)Everyone Is Smart Except Trump ;https://spectator.org/
spectator.org/everyone-is-
Political Hay
That's why they all are billionaires and all got elected president.
It really is quite simple. Everyone is smart except Donald J. Trump. That's
why they all are billionaires and all got elected President. Only Trump does
not know what he is doing. Only Trump does not know how to negotiate with
Vladimir Putin. Anderson Cooper knows how to stand up to Putin. The whole
crowd at MSNBC does. All the journalists do.
They could not stand up to Matt Lauer at NBC. They could not stand up to
Charlie Rose at CBS. They could not stand up to Mark Halperin at NBC
https://www.thedailybeast.
he-rise-and-fall-of-mark-
https://www.theatlantic.com/
-reaches-leon-wieseltier/
Rolling Stone, nor Michael Oreskes
https://www.msn.com/en-us/
arassment-report/ar-AAujZrC> at NPR, at the New York Times, or at the
Associated Press. But - oh, wow! - can they ever stand up to Putin! Only
Trump is incapable of negotiating with the Russian tyrant.
Remember the four years when Anderson Cooper was President of the United
States? And before that - when the entire Washington Post editorial staff
jointly were elected to be President? Remember? Neither do I.
The Seedier Media never have negotiated life and death, not corporate life
and death, and not human life and death. They think they know how to
negotiate, but they do not know how. They go to a college, are told by peers
that they are smart, get some good grades, proceed to a graduate degree in
journalism, and get hired as analysts. Now they are experts, ready to take
on Putin and the Iranian Ayatollahs at age 30.
That is not the road to expertise in tough dealing. The alternate road is
that, along the way, maybe you get forced into some street fights. Sometimes
the other guy wins, and sometimes you beat the intestines out of him. Then
you deal with grown-ups as you mature, and you learn that people can be
nasty, often after they smile and speak softly. You get cheated a few times,
played. And you learn. Maybe you become an attorney litigating
multi-million-dollar case matters. Say what you will about attorneys, but
those years - not the years in law school, not the years drafting legal
memoranda, but the years of meeting face-to-face and confronting opposing
counsel - those years can teach a great deal. They can teach how to
transition from sweet, gentle, diplomatic negotiating to tough negotiating.
At some point, with enough tough-nosed experience, you figure out Trump's
"The Art of the Deal" yourself.
Trump's voters get him because not only is he we, but we are he. We were not
snowflaked-for-life by effete professors who themselves never had negotiated
tough life-or-death serious deals. Instead we live in the real world, and we
know how that works. Not based on social science theories, not based on
"conceptual negotiating models." But based on the people we have met over
life and always will hate. That worst boss we ever had. The coworker who
tried to sabotage us. We know the sons of bums whom we survived, the
dastardly types who are out there, and we learned from those experiences how
to deal with them. We won't have John Kerry soothe us by having James Taylor
sing "You've Got a Friend" carols.
The Bushes got us into all kinds of messes. The first one killed the
economic miracle that Reagan had fashioned. The second one screwed up the
Middle East, where Iraq and Iran beautifully were engaged in killing each
other for years, and he got us mired into the middle of the muddle. Clinton
was too busy with Monica Lewinsky to protect us from Osama bin Laden when we
had him in our sights.
https://www.washingtonpost.
-and-the-missed-opportunities-
9; Hillary gave us Benghazi and more. And Obama and Kerry gave us the Iran
Deal, ISIS run amok, America in retreat. All to the daily praise of a media
who now attack Trump every minute of every day.
So let us understand a few things:
Negotiating with NATO:
NATO is our friend. They also rip off America. They have been ripping us off
forever. We saved their butts - before there even was a NATO - in World War
I. They messed up, and 116,456 Americans had to die
https://www.reference.com/
2bfa6; to save their butts. Then they messed up again for the next two
decades because West Europeans are effete and so obsessed with their class
manners https://britishmanners.com/> and their rules of savoir faire
https://www.understandfrance.
socialist welfare states and their early retirements
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/
nt-ages-in-Europe-compared.
stand up to Hitler in the 1930s. Peace in our time.
;https://www.youtube.com/
to save their butts again. And another 405,399 Americans
https://en.wikipedia.org/
died for them during World War II. And then we had to rebuild them! And we
had to station our boys in Germany and all over their blood-stained
continent. So, hey, we love those guys. We love NATO.
And yet they still rip us off. We pay 4% of our gigantic gross domestic
product to protect them, and they will not pay a lousy 2% of their GDP
towards their own defense. Is there a culture more
penny-pinching-cheap-and-
Atlantic Treaty Organization? These cheap baseborn prigs will not pay their
fare. They are too cheap. They expect America to send boys to die for them
in one world war, then another - hundreds of thousands - and then to pay for
their NATO defense even a century later.
And then they have the temerity to cheat us further in trade. Long before
Trump, they set up tariffs against us for so many things
https://ec.europa.eu/
n&; . If the average American knew how badly Europe has been ripping us off
for decades with their tariffs, no one in this country would buy anything
European again. We would say, as a matter of self-respect and personal
pride, "I no longer will buy anything but American, no matter what it
costs."
Every American President has complained about the cheating and imbalance -
the NATO penny-pinching-cheapness, the tariff and trade imbalances. In more
recent years, the various Bushes complained about it. Even Obama complained
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/
spend-more-on-defense.html?__
r=yahoo&;yptr=yahoo; about it. But they all did it so gently, so
diplomatically. They would deliver the sermon, just as the pastor
predictably tells the church-goers on Sunday morning that he is against sin,
and the Europeans would sit quietly and nod their heads - nodding from
sleeping, not from agreeing - and then they would go back out and sin some
more. Another four years of America being suckered and snookered. All they
had to do was give Obama a Nobel Peace Prize his ninth month in office
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/
let Kerry ride his bike around Paris
https://www.youtube.com/
So Trump did what any effective negotiator would do: he took note of past
approaches to NATO and their failures, and correctly determined that the
only way to get these penny-pinching-cheap baseborn prigs to pay their
freight would be to bulldoze right into their faces, stare them right in
their glazed eyes with cameras rolling, and tell them point-blank the
equivalent of: "You are the cheapest penny-pinching, miserly, stingy,
tightwadded skinflints ever. And it is going to stop on my watch. Whatever
it takes from my end, you selfish, curmudgeonly cheap prigs, you are going
to pay your fair share. I am not being diplomatic. I am being All-Business:
either you start to pay or, wow, are you in for some surprises! And you know
what you read in the Fake News: I am crazy! I am out of control! So, lemme
see. I know: We will go to trade war! How do you like that? Maybe we even
will pull all our troops out of Europe. Hmmm. Yeah, maybe. Why not? Sounds
good. Well, let's see."
So Trump stuffed it into their quiche-and-schnitzel ingesting faces. And he
convinced them - thanks to America's Seedier Media who are the real secret
to the "Legend That is Trump" - that he just might be crazy enough to go to
trade war and to pull American boys home. They knew that Clinton and Bush x
2 and Kerry and Hillary and Nobel Laureate Obama never would do it. But they
also know that Trump just might. And if they think they are going to find
comfort and moderating in his new advisers, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo,
alongside him....
Nuh-uh.
So CNN and the Washington Post and all the Seedier Media attacked Trump for
days: He is destroying the alliance! He attacks our friends!
Baloney. Obama was the one whom the Left Echo Chamber... Chamber... Chamber
never called out for attacking our friends - Israel, Britain
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/
-sends-bust-of-Winston-
others - while cozying up to Hugo Chavez;http://www.hurryupharry.org/
bowing to dictators
<http://www.frontpagemag.com/
uploads/2016/09/obama-bowing-
the tango for Raul
http://republicbuzz.com/wp-
nces.jpg; Castro. Trump is just the opposite: He knows who the friends are,
and he wants to maintain and strengthen those friendships. It is no
different from a parent telling a 35-year-old son: "I have been supporting
you for thirty-five years. I put you through college by signing four years
and $100,000 in PLUS Loans. You graduated college fifteen years ago. For
fifteen years I have been asking you nicely to look for a job and to start
contributing. Instead, you sit home all day playing video games, texting
your friends on a smartphone I pay for, and picking little fuzz balls out of
your navel. So, look, I love you. You are my flesh and blood. But if you are
not employed and earning a paycheck - and contributing to the cost of this
household - in six months, we are throwing you out of the house." That boy
is NATO. Trump is Dad. And all of us have been signing for the PLUS Loans.
Negotiating with Putin
Putin is a bad guy. A really bad guy. He is better than Lenin. Better than
Stalin, Khrushchev, Kosygin, Brezhnev, Pol Pot, Mao. But he is a really bad
guy.
Here's the thing: Putin is a dictator. He answers to no one. He does
whatever he wants. If there arises an opponent, that guy dies. Maybe the
opponent gets poked with a poisoned umbrella
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/
of-Georgi-Markov-
;https://www.bbc.com/news/
opponent is forced to watch Susan Rice interviews telling the world that
Benghazi happened because of a YouTube video seen by nine derelicts in
Berkeley and that Bowe Berghdal served with honor and distinction.
https://www.youtube.com/
opponent dies.
https://www.washingtonpost.
ritics-of-vladimir-putin-who-
.ec496913e41d;
Trump knows this about Putin. And here is what that means:
If you insult Putin in public, like by telling the newsmedia just before or
after meeting with him that he is the Butcher of Crimea, and he messed with
our elections, and is an overall jerk - then you will get nothing behind
closed doors from Putin. Putin will decide "To heck with you, and to heck
with the relationship we just forged." Putin will get even, will take
intense personal revenge, even if it is bad for Russia - even if it is bad
for Putin. Because there are no institutional reins on him.
But if you go in public and tell everyone that Putin is a nice guy (y'know,
just like Kim Jong Un) and that Putin intensely maintains that he did not
mess with elections - not sweet little Putey Wutey
https://queerty-prodweb.s3.
Small_050312012509_591w.jpg; (even though he obviously did) - then you next
can maintain the momentum established beforehand in the private room. You
can proceed to remind Putin what you told him privately: that this garbage
has to stop - or else. That if he messes in Syria, we will do "X." If he
messes with our Iran boycott, we will do "Y." We will generate so much oil
from hydraulic fracturing and from ANWR and from all our sources that we
will glut the market - if not tomorrow, then a year from now. We will send
even more lethal offensive military weapons to Ukraine. We can restore the
promised shield to Eastern Europe that Obama withdrew. And even if we cannot
mess with Russian elections (because they have no elections), they do have
computers - and, so help us, we will mess with their technology in a way
they cannot imagine. Trump knows from his advisers what we can do. If he
sweet-talks Putin in public - just Putin on the Ritz
;https://www.youtube.com/
has told Putin privately can be reinforced with action, and he even can
wedge concessions because, against that background, Putin knows that no one
will believe that he made any concessions. Everyone is set to believe that
Putin is getting whatever he wants, that Trump understands nothing. So, in
that setting, Putin can make concessions and still save face.
That is why Trump talks about him that way. And that is the only possible
way to do it when negotiating with a tyrant who has no checks and balances
on him. If you embarrass the tyrant publicly, then the tyrant never will
make concessions because he will fear that people will say he was
intimidated and backed down. And that he never will do. Meanwhile, Trump has
expelled 60 Russians from America, reversed Obama policy and sent lethal
weapons to Ukraine, and is pressing Germany severely on its pipeline project
with Russia.
The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, Donald Trump is over seventy years old. He has made
many mistakes in his life. He still makes some. He is human. But Trump
likewise has spent three score and a dozen years learning. He has seen some
of his businesses go bankrupt, and he has learned from those experiences to
be a billionaire and not let it happen again. No doubt that he has been
fooled, outsmarted in years past. And he has learned from life.
He is a tough and smart negotiator. He sizes up his opponent, and he knows
that the approach that works best for one is not the same as for another. It
does not matter what he says publicly about his negotiating opponent. What
matters is what results months later. In his first eighteen months in
Washington, this man has turned around the American economy, brought us near
full employment, reduced the welfare and food stamp lines, wiped out ISIS in
Raqqa, moved America's Israel embassy to Jerusalem, successfully has
launched massive deregulation of the economy, has opened oil exploration in
ANWR, is rebuilding the military massively, has walked out of the useless
Paris Climate Accords that were negotiated by America's amateurs who always
get snookered, canned the disastrous Iran Deal, exited the bogus United
Nations Human Rights Council. He has Canada and Mexico convinced he will
walk out of NAFTA if they do not pony up, and he has the Europeans convinced
he will walk out of NATO if they don't stop being the cheap and lazy
parasitic penny-pinchers they are. He has slashed income taxes, expanded
legal protections for college students falsely accused of crimes, has taken
real steps to protect religious freedoms and liberties promised in the First
Amendment, boldly has taken on the lyme-disease-quality of a legislative
mess that he inherited from Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama on immigration,
and has appointed a steady line of remarkably brilliant conservative federal
judges to sit on the district courts, the circuit appellate courts, and the
Supreme Court.
What has Anderson Cooper achieved during that period? Jim Acosta or the
editorial staffs of the New York Times and Washington Post? They have not
even found the courage and strength to stand up to the coworkers and
celebrities within their orbits who abuse sexually or psychologically or
emotionally. They have no accomplishments to compare to his. Just their
effete opinions, all echoing each other, all echoing, echoing, echoing. They
gave us eight years of Nobel Peace Laureate Obama negotiating with the ISIS
JV team, calming the rise of the oceans, and healing the planet.
We will take Trump negotiating with Putin any day.
Peabody Awards/Creative Commons
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2)
US report finds only 20,000 Palestinian refugees in the world
|
U.S. lawmakers pressure State Department to declassify Obama-era report on number of refugees from Israel's War of Independence • Republican Senator Ted Cruz: Access to report will help Americans have a transparent debate on U.S. funding of UNRWA.
By Ariel Kahana
Members of the U.S. Congress are demanding the State Department make public a key report that includes precise figures on the number of people who became refugees in the 1948 War of Independence.
The existence of the State Department assessment, compiled and classified under the Obama administration, was first disclosed by the Washington Free Beacon six months ago.
Lawmakers say the report could impact how the U.S. views the refugee issue when the actual number of refugees is made public and is significantly smaller than the number of Palestinian refugees according to the United Nations.
Once the largest donor to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which provides assistance to Palestinian refugees and their descendants, the U.S. in January
cut $65 million of a planned $125 million in aid funds to agency.
The agency, which asserts that there are 5.1 million Palestinian refugees worldwide, focuses on providing health care, education and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
All other refugees fall under the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, told the Free Beacon that access to the report was necessary for Congress to provide oversight for American taxpayers.
"UNRWA lashes out against America and engages in anti-Semitic incitement. Hamas terrorists use UNRWA facilities to target Israeli civilians," Cruz told the Free Beacon. "The American people deserve to see this reported State Department assessment, so Congress and the administration can have a transparent and productive debate about America's role in the organization."
Sources who have seen the report say that the State Department's assessment was that only 20,000 of the 700,000 Arab refugees who fled Palestine during the War of Independence are still alive and displaced from their homes.
While researching material for her 1984 book "From Time
Immemorial," American journalist Joan Peters learned that the United Nations made the conscious decision to differentiate Palestinian refugees from all other refugees. Refugees are generally defined as people who fled a permanent home, while in the Palestinians' case, someone who lived in Palestine for as little as two years prior to Israel's establishment in 1948 could be considered a refugee. In addition, unlike all other refugees, Palestinians refugees pass their status on to their descendants. As a result, Palestinian refugees are said to number in the millions.
Israel has begun to raise the issue in the international arena and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said U.N. funds should be transferred to Palestinians through the U.N. refugee agency and UNRWA should be abolished. Doing so, however, would require the U.N. General Assembly to pass a resolution in favor of the move, which is unlikely given the international forum's anti-Israel bias.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3)
Schumer calls flight attendant
who told him to turn off cell phone ‘bitch’
Charles Hurt
Sen. Chuck Schumer apologized today after word got out that he called a flight attendant a “bitch” for ordering him to follow the rules and turn off his cellphone before takeoff.
5) THE NEW YORK TIMES POTENTIALLY RISKS US INTEL ASSETS JUST TO TRY TO CATCH TRUMP IN A LIE
The four intelligence chiefs presented Trump with evidence that Putin ordered the efforts by Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, TheNYT reports, arguing that despite clear evidence the same Russian groups who have previously targeted the Department of State, White House, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even the NSA, the president has repeatedly questioned the extent of Russian interference. In certain cases, such as the Helsinki summit, he has made statements that contradict the assessments of his intelligence community. (RELATED: Director Of National Intelligence Says It’s ‘Clear’ Russia Meddled In The 2016 Presidential Election)
3)
Schumer calls flight attendant
who told him to turn off cell phone ‘bitch’
Charles Hurt
Sen. Chuck Schumer apologized today after word got out that he called a flight attendant a “bitch” for ordering him to follow the rules and turn off his cellphone before takeoff.
And his political protégé, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, initially provided him with public cover.
Schumer’s outburst was overheard aboard a US Airways flight from LaGuardia Airport to Washington on Sunday.
Schumer and his seatmate, Gillibrand, were chatting on their cellphones when the plane’s captain told passengers to turn them off.
But the two Democratic senators ignored the order and kept talking — prompting a flight attendant to ask them to follow Federal Aviation Administration rules, according to a House Republican aide who was seated nearby.
Schumer asked if he could finish his call. The attendant said “no” because the plane was waiting for him to finish so it could take off. The state’s senior senator ended his call, but then launched into an argument with her, claiming he was entitled to continue his chat until the cabin door was closed.
“She said she doesn’t make the rules, she just followed them,” the aide said, according to Politco.com.
“Bitch!” Schumer remarked to Gillibrand after the attendant walked away.
Gillibrand’s office initially gave Schumer cover, telling Politico.com that the senior senator was “polite” and that “he turned off his phone when asked to.”
Republicans seized on the slip to slam Schumer, circulating copies of news stories about the “bword” rouhaha.
Once word spread that Schumer had been less than friendly, Gillibrand’s office offered a second statement.
Her aide, Glen Caplin, said: “Chuck did the right thing by apologizing.”
He criticized Republicans for “trying to score cheap political points” from the incident.
After the flare-up was reported, Schumer said he was sorry.
“The senator made an off-thecuff comment under his breath after the flight attendant walked away. He shouldn’t have made it, he regrets it and he has apologized for it,” Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon said.
The attendant accepted his apology, Schumer’s office said. Schumer went back to Washington from La Guardia on US Airways yesterday. A flight attendant said he behaved himself.
“He was quiet. He wasn’t on his cellphone or anything,” she said. But other flight personnel said Schumer has a reputation.
“He’s not nice,” said a flight attendant who has served the senator before.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4)Did you know in the U.S.:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++2,700,000 kids have a parent in prison.On any given day there are over 400,000 kids in foster care.And 765,000 kids are separated from their military parent not knowing if they’ll see them again.But the media focuses on 2,000 kids who are temporarily separated from illegal immigrants.
5) THE NEW YORK TIMES POTENTIALLY RISKS US INTEL ASSETS JUST TO TRY TO CATCH TRUMP IN A LIE
- The New York Times published a story saying intelligence agencies briefed President Donald Trump on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election
- The agencies provided Trump with text messages and emails that show Russian President Vladimir Putin directed the meddling effort
- The New York Times reporting potentially compromises a high-level intelligence asset who is close to Putin and could put his life in danger
The New York Times published admittedly-sensitive information about U.S. intelligence sources close to the Russian president Wednesday in an effort to accuse President Donald Trump of muddying the waters on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The NYT reported Tuesday that intelligence heads showed Trump, prior to the start of his presidency, “texts and emails from Russian military officers and information gleaned from a top-secret source close to” Russian President Vladimir Putin who worked with the CIA on Russia’s malign activities. While the identity of the intelligence source was not disclosed in the report, the existence of the source, which was previously known to only a small group of individuals, was released to the public. It is unclear if the source referred to by TheNYT is still an active intelligence asset.
“Several human sources had confirmed Mr. Putin’s own role,” The NYT reports, “That included one particularly valuable source, who was considered so sensitive that Mr. Brennan had declined to refer to it in any way in the Presidential Daily Brief during the final months of the Obama administration.”
Former CIA Director John Brennan reportedly sent information from the source to former President Barack Obama and a handful of national security aides separately to ensure that the contents were kept secret. The NYT cites “nearly a dozen” people who were either present for or briefed on a meeting between Trump and Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the National Security Agency Adm. Mike Rodgers, and former FBI Director James Comey at Trump Tower on Jan. 6, 2017.
The four intelligence chiefs presented Trump with evidence that Putin ordered the efforts by Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, TheNYT reports, arguing that despite clear evidence the same Russian groups who have previously targeted the Department of State, White House, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even the NSA, the president has repeatedly questioned the extent of Russian interference. In certain cases, such as the Helsinki summit, he has made statements that contradict the assessments of his intelligence community. (RELATED: Director Of National Intelligence Says It’s ‘Clear’ Russia Meddled In The 2016 Presidential Election)
To make its argument that Trump has been misconstruing Russia’s role in the 2016 election, TheNYT has potentially put U.S. intelligence assets at risk, and this is not the first time something like this has occurred during the Trump administration.
The president allegedly shared classified details of an Islamic State terror plot with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a private meeting in May 2017. While the president, who has ultimate declassification authority, may have shared information with the Russian officials, it was the media, relying on leaks, that then shared that information with the world.
“Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State,” The Washington Post reported. Speculation from Axios following the report stated, “Several national-security experts tell me that lives could well be lost as a result of an ISIS mole hunt that’s sure to follow.” (RELATED: Former Senior Intel Officer: If There’s An ISIS ‘Mole Hunt,’ It’s Because Of The Leakers Running To The Press)
In their rush to highlight Trump’s purported blunder, WaPo revealed that the information was linked to terrorist threats to aviation, and TheNYT told the world that the U.S. ally that gave the intelligence to the U.S. in the first place was Israel. Several outlets disclosed the supposed plot involved the placement of a laptop bomb on a commercial airliner, and CBS News reported that “the laptop bomb that may evade airport scanners was built and tested by ISIS at Mosul University.” (RELATED: The Media Blasted All Over The World The Very Intel They Accused Trump Of Leaking To The Russians)
Regarding TheNYT’s reporting at the time, The Wall Street Journal said that while it had the same information about Israel at that time, the outlet chose not to publish because “Trump administration officials said disclosing it could damage the two countries’ intelligence relationship and jeopardize operations.”
TheNYT did not respond to requests for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation at the time of publication.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
6)
6)
Haley – Human Rights Council Is UN's 'Greatest Failure'
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley defended the Trump administration's June decision to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council, saying the body is the U.N.'s “greatest failure.”
Speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington on Wednesday, Haley, who is the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a member of President Donald Trump's Cabinet, told the audience that the council has not been “a place of conscience, but a place of politics.”
“The right to speak freely, to associate and worship freely; to determine your own future; to be equal before the law — these are sacred rights,” Haley said. “We take these rights seriously, too seriously, to allow them to be cheapened by an institution — especially one that calls itself the 'Human Rights Council.'”
She said Washington disagrees with the council's makeup, which includes some of the world's worst rights offenders, including China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
“More often, the Human Rights Council has provided cover, not condemnation, for the world's most inhumane regimes,” Haley said.
Even more upsetting to the administration is what it sees as the council's singling out of Israel for criticism of its treatment of Palestinians through an annual debate known as “Agenda Item 7.”
“No other country — not Iran, not Syria, not North Korea — has an agenda item devoted only to it,” Haley said. “Agenda Item 7 is not directed at anything Israel does, it is directed at the very existence of Israel.”
She said it is a “blazing red siren” signaling the council's “political corruption and moral bankruptcy.”
The 47-member Human Rights Council is generally seen as flawed but important, playing a serious role in the promotion and protection of global human rights. It has dispatched fact-finding missions and commissions of inquiry and produced reports on grave abuses, including war crimes from Syria to North Korea to Myanmar.
The HRC was created in 2006 to replace its dysfunctional predecessor, the U.N. Human Rights Commission, which was disbanded. The administration of George W. Bush opted against seeking membership and the U.S. did not join until 2009 under President Barack Obama, saying it sought to improve the council by working from within.
After failing to meet Washington's demands for reform, the administration announced its withdrawal on June 19. Some Western diplomats said its departure would further weaken the body, strengthening the position of countries that take a different view of human rights than their states.
Haley, who took no questions after her speech, said that fixing the HRC's flaws, “was, is and will remain” one of the United States' biggest priorities at the U.N.
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