There is something for most everyone above unless you truly hate Trump, then you will have to find your own.
Meanwhile have a Great Independence Day.
Finally something from FOX but still worth a read: https://fxn.ws/2tHz65M
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This from a very dear friend, fellow memo reader and outstanding tour guide:
"Dick as always, your columns fascinate me, as does this column! I fear the forces that are leading us to "a new, divided America." The numerous demonstrations that are occurring all over the US, raise in my mind the possibility of a central coordinating organization, possibly outside the US. What are your thoughts regarding such a possibility? B--"
My response: "First, I hope you and yours are well.
Second I have no way of proving my answer to your question but I believe Soros and his kind are behind a lot of funding when it comes to these protests and marches.
We know Russian money was behind the protests relating to our wanting to build more pipelines and efforts to lift more oil through fracking because the more our energy industry can lift and deliver oil to the world the the more it threatens Russia's economic plight and the more it could ease Europe's dependence on Russian energy sources.
I have a speaker coming in November who is more intimately familiar with these kind of threats and I will put the question to him. Stay well and in touch.
I also believe the fires in our forests are not all weather related and assorted human pyromaniacs. The economic cost and frequency has to be terror related but, again, I have no proof just my conspiratorial nature. Me
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++The election in Mexico seems a foregone and forlorn event. The fact that it is held on a Sunday is something we should embrace.
The favored candidate will simply make our increasingly hostile relationship worse . https://tiny.iavian.net/nmni
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I have several daughters who are good writers. This is something my oldest daughter, Debra, wrote about her granddaughter, Olivia, our first great granddaughter: http://pictureaconversation.co m/big-lessons-from-a-tiny-pers on/
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Humor that hits home:
Husband: My wife of 15 years is missing.
She went shopping yesterday and has not come home!Sheriff: Height?Husband: I'm not sure. A little over five-feet tall.Sheriff: Weight?Husband: Don't know. Not slim, not really fat.Sheriff: Color of eyes?Husband: Sort of brown I think. Never really noticed.Sheriff: Color of hair?Husband: Changes a couple times a year.Maybe dark brown now. I can’t remember.Sheriff: What was she wearing?Husband: Could have been pants, or maybe askirt or shorts. I don't know exactly.Sheriff: What kind of car did she go in?Husband: She went in my truck.Sheriff: What kind of truck was it?Husband: A 2016 pearl white Ram Limited 4X4with 6.4l Hemi V8 engine ordered with the Ram Box bar andfridge option, led lighting, backup and front camera, Moosehide leather heated and cooled seats, climate controlled airconditioning. It has a custom matching white cover forthe bed, Weather Tech floor mats. Trailing packagewith gold hitch, sunroof, DVD with full GPS navigation,satellite radio, Cobra 75 WX ST 40-channel CB radio, six cupholders, 3 USB port, and 4 power outlets. I addedspecial alloy wheels and off-road Toyo tires. It hascustom retracting running boards and under-glow wheel welllighting At this point the husband started choking up.
Sheriff: “Take it easy sir, we'll find your truck."
And:
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Is the ultimate collapse of the Iranian regime getting closer? (See 1 and 1a below.)
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I have said, and repeat my concern regarding Trump's meeting with N Korea, should the N Korean's play us, as they have all others, for believing fools then Trump will have backed himself into a corner leaving him virtually no other option but to take them off the map.
I believe talking with N Korea was a positive approach, a hopeful beginning but I always believed what then if they duped us as they have all others? How can Trump back off now? Having drawn a red line how can he allow himself to turn into Obama?
N Korea is going to prove Bolton's thinking has been correct all along. So what now? (See 2 and 2a below.)
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Will Ellison eat his own words? Perhaps, but I doubt he will swallow them. Like N Korea, Ellison is a deceptive liar. (See 3 below.)
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Finally, will the stark difference between Democrats and Republicans center around the former favoring lawlessness and the latter favoring the rue of law? Perhaps we shall learn the answer after the mid-term elections are behind us.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
1) The Oil Weapon Can Fell the Ayatollahs
U.S. sanctions and Saudi production are a potent combination.
By Nawaf E. Obaid
Mass protests are nothing new in Iran. But nearly 40 years into the failed experiment of the Islamic Republic, an end may be near.
Iran’s economy is in shambles and its public finances are teetering. Given that about 60% of Tehran’s budget comes from petroleum exports, the best way for the U.S. to hasten regime change is to tighten sanctions while closely coordinating with regional allies to increase global oil supplies and lower prices. The State Department’s recent announcement that countries will face stringent sanctions if they don’t halt Iranian oil imports by Nov. 4 is a crucial first step. Tehran’s mullahs cannot survive a sustained oil price of $60 a barrel with practically no export revenue.
Regime change in Tehran is vital to Saudi Arabia’s national security. Stopping Iran’s efforts at establishing regional hegemony is the kingdom’s highest foreign-policy priority. Riyadh is already spending tens of billions of dollars combating Iranian destabilization campaigns from Syria and Lebanon to Yemen to even Morocco. With some $500 billion in foreign reserves and one of the cheapest oil extraction costs in the world, the Saudis can weather lower oil prices for years.
Three main factors are pushing Iran to the financial breaking point: public-debt obligations on the brink of default, President Hassan Rouhani’s massive subsidies to politically powerful farming communities, and the mounting costs of its attempts to foment chaos throughout the Arab world.
For the U.S., sustaining a policy of economic pressure will require unprecedented cooperation. There are three preconditions for success, one of which is already being met.
First, Saudi Arabia and Russia—the world’s top two oil exporters—have reached an agreement to increase output. The Saudis plan to ramp up production to as much as 11.5 million barrels a day to drive down prices and eventually make up for lost Iranian oil. Since Moscow is in a position to benefit from a policy freeing it from production quotas and in no position to stop it, it agreed.
Second, as Iran suffers from its lack of indigenous capital and technology to increase sustained oil production and exports, Saudi Arabia and its allies, especially the United Arab Emirates, should join the U.S. in instituting sanctions against the few international oil companies that will still be willing to invest in Iran’s upstream industry.
Third, because Iran lacks access to foreign financial markets and U.S. banks are banned from doing business there, its remaining hope is European, and to a lesser extent Asian, banks. The Treasury should send a clear message to foreign financial institutions, including those based in Dubai, that they’ll lose access to U.S. capital markets if they float new credit to Tehran in any form after Nov. 4.
If President Trump, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and their allies wish to end the widespread terror caused by this so-called Islamic Republic, they should commit to using oil as a nonlethal weapon.
Mr. Obaid is a visiting fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
1a) As Anti-Regime Protests Heat Up in Iran, Israel’s Netanyahu Lauds Economic Pressure on Tehran Regime
A past anti-regime protest in Iran. Photo: Screenshot.
A top Iranian official called for calm on Sunday after anti-regime protests in a southern city turned violent overnight with reports of police shooting at demonstrators who attacked banks and public buildings.
“Our effort is to bring these protests to an end as soon as possible with restraint from police and the cooperation of authorities, but if the opposite happens, the judiciary and law enforcement forces will carry out their duties,” Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
Shots could be heard on videos circulated on social media from the protests in Khorramshahr, which has been the scene of demonstrations for the past three days, along with the nearby city of Abadan.
According to an Al Arabiya report, at least four demonstrators have been killed.
At a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the current situation in Iran, stating, “The Iranian regime is feeling very well the coming reimposition of the economic sanctions against it. The Iranian economy is at a low point. One needs to see the data in order to believe. Iran is investing billions of dollars in financing terrorism in the region and around the world, and in aggression in the region, instead of investing them in the Iranian people, and the Iranian people are protesting this, and rightly so.”
“The change in the US position toward Iran is a strategic turnaround in Israel’s situation,” the prime minister went on to say. “I believed that this change was possible when I stood up against the entire world in order to cancel this bad agreement. Our goal is what it always has been: To prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons and to break the cash machine that the agreement gave Iran, which finances its aggression in the region including Syria.”
“At a time when the US is economically striking at the Iranian regime, we are working to prevent Iranian forces and those of its proxies from establishing a military presence anywhere in Syria, and we will continue to do so,” Netanyahu added.
A number of Iran experts told The Algemeiner last week Western nations could “do a lot” to help anti-regime protesters who recently returned to the streets of the Islamic Republic.
Videos posted on social media last Monday showed demonstrators in Tehran chanting, “Death to Palestine!” — a slogan highlighting discontent with the Iranian regime’s expenditures on terrorist proxy groups throughout the Middle East, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
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2) U.S. intel believes N.Korea making more nuclear bomb fuel despite talks
By REUTERS
WASHINGTON - US intelligence agencies believe North Korea has increased production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months and may try to hide these while seeking concessions in nuclear talks with the United States, NBC news quoted US officials as saying.
In a report on Friday, the network said what it described as the latest US intelligence assessment appeared to go counter to sentiments expressed by President Donald Trump, who tweeted after an unprecedented June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that "there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."
NBC quoted five unidentified US officials as saying that in recent months North Korea had stepped up production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, even as it engaged in diplomacy with the United States.
The network cited US officials as saying that the intelligence assessment concludes that North Korea has more than one secret nuclear site in addition to its known nuclear fuel production facility at Yongbyon.
"There is absolutely unequivocal evidence that they are trying to deceive the US," NBC quoted one official as saying.
The CIA declined to comment on the NBC report. The State Department said it could not confirm it and did not comment on matters of intelligence. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The NBC report raises further questions about North Korea's readiness to enter serious negotiations about giving up a weapons program that now threatens the United States, in spite of Trump's enthusiastic portrayal of the summit outcome.
NBC quoted one senior US intelligence official as saying that North Korea's decision ahead of the summit to suspend nuclear and missile tests was unexpected and the fact that the two sides were talking was a positive step.
However, he added: "Work is ongoing to deceive us on the number of facilities, the number of weapons, the number of missiles ... We are watching closely."
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at California's Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said there were two "bombshells" in the NBC report.
He said it had long been understood that North Korea had at least one undeclared facility to enrich nuclear fuel aside from Yongbyon.
"This assessment says there is more than one secret site. That means there are at least three, if not more sites," he said.
Lewis said the report also implied that US intelligence had reporting to suggest North Korea did not intend to disclose one or more of the enrichment sites.
"Together, these two things would imply that North Korea intended to disclose some sites as part of the denuclearization process, while retaining others," he said.
North Korea agreed at the summit to "work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," but the joint statement signed by Kim and Trump gave no details on how or when Pyongyang might surrender its nuclear weapons.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week he would likely go back to North Korea before long to try to flesh out commitments made at the Trump-Kim meeting.
On Thursday, the Financial Times quoted US officials as saying that Pompeo plans to travel to North Korea next week, but the State Department has declined to confirm this.
Ahead of the summit, North Korea rejected unilaterally abandoning an arsenal it has called an essential deterrent against US aggression.
Trump said last week North Korea was blowing up four of its big test sites and that a process of "total denuclearization ... has already started," but officials said there had been no such evidence since the summit.
In a report on Friday, the network said what it described as the latest US intelligence assessment appeared to go counter to sentiments expressed by President Donald Trump, who tweeted after an unprecedented June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that "there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."
NBC quoted five unidentified US officials as saying that in recent months North Korea had stepped up production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, even as it engaged in diplomacy with the United States.
The network cited US officials as saying that the intelligence assessment concludes that North Korea has more than one secret nuclear site in addition to its known nuclear fuel production facility at Yongbyon.
"There is absolutely unequivocal evidence that they are trying to deceive the US," NBC quoted one official as saying.
The CIA declined to comment on the NBC report. The State Department said it could not confirm it and did not comment on matters of intelligence. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The NBC report raises further questions about North Korea's readiness to enter serious negotiations about giving up a weapons program that now threatens the United States, in spite of Trump's enthusiastic portrayal of the summit outcome.
NBC quoted one senior US intelligence official as saying that North Korea's decision ahead of the summit to suspend nuclear and missile tests was unexpected and the fact that the two sides were talking was a positive step.
However, he added: "Work is ongoing to deceive us on the number of facilities, the number of weapons, the number of missiles ... We are watching closely."
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at California's Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said there were two "bombshells" in the NBC report.
He said it had long been understood that North Korea had at least one undeclared facility to enrich nuclear fuel aside from Yongbyon.
"This assessment says there is more than one secret site. That means there are at least three, if not more sites," he said.
Lewis said the report also implied that US intelligence had reporting to suggest North Korea did not intend to disclose one or more of the enrichment sites.
"Together, these two things would imply that North Korea intended to disclose some sites as part of the denuclearization process, while retaining others," he said.
North Korea agreed at the summit to "work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," but the joint statement signed by Kim and Trump gave no details on how or when Pyongyang might surrender its nuclear weapons.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week he would likely go back to North Korea before long to try to flesh out commitments made at the Trump-Kim meeting.
On Thursday, the Financial Times quoted US officials as saying that Pompeo plans to travel to North Korea next week, but the State Department has declined to confirm this.
Ahead of the summit, North Korea rejected unilaterally abandoning an arsenal it has called an essential deterrent against US aggression.
Trump said last week North Korea was blowing up four of its big test sites and that a process of "total denuclearization ... has already started," but officials said there had been no such evidence since the summit.
North Korea Keeps Enriching Uranium
Troubling new evidence that Kim Jong Un isn’t honoring his promises.
By The Editorial Board
New satellite photos show that Kim Jong Un is continuing to develop his nuclear weapons program, and U.S. intelligence sources say they believe North Korea has increased its production of nuclear fuel at multiple sites. This wasn’t supposed to happen after the Donald Trump-Kim summit last month in Singapore.
According to an analysis by experts at the Stimson Center in Washington, North Korea has improved the cooling system of its plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon. Activity also continues at a nearby building where plutonium is extracted from spent fuel, and staining on the roof of another building suggests the North is enriching weapons-grade uranium using centrifuges. U.S. intelligence sources essentially confirmed this news by telling news agencies last week that the North has been increasing its production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
After the June 12 summit with Kim, President Trump said that he trusts the young dictator and expects him to start fulfilling his promise to denuclearize immediately. “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” Mr. Trump tweeted the next day.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the President meant the threat from North Korea has been reduced. But the photos of Yongbyon show that isn’t true. Though the North stopped firing missiles and testing warheads, it can produce more weapons of mass destruction. The White House has declined to comment on the intelligence reports.
Part of the problem is that Mr. Trump didn’t get Kim to commit to a timeline for denuclearization, and Mr. Pompeo says the U.S. will not press for one. The President also failed to get the North to commit to giving the U.S. a complete list of its nuclear facilities. The U.S. could then check the list against intelligence to see if the North is being honest. Kim may now be exploiting these missed opportunities. Kim promised to dismantle a missile-testing facility at Sohae, but there’s no evidence he is doing so.
Even if there were a timeline for denuclearization, North Korea might not follow it for long. Kim’s father and grandfather reneged on every denuclearization deal they signed. But at least the U.S. could use missed deadlines to make a case for new sanctions at the United Nations Security Council.
The Administration’s best chance of convincing Kim to give up his nukes was the “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign. But China loosened its enforcement after the summit, allowing smugglers to move goods across the border, as Mr. Trump has acknowledged. The North will exploit loopholes in the existing sanctions to earn more hard currency from slave labor.
The continuing nuclear-fuel production suggests the North will follow its traditional pattern of dragging out open-ended talks for as long as possible and extracting new U.S. concessions at every step along the way.
The activity at Yongbyon shows that Kim has pocketed the carrot of a presidential summit without taking steps to denuclearize. If Mr. Trump doesn’t call him on it, Kim will conclude he can keep getting away with it.
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3)
Jake Tapper Questions Keith Ellison Over Farrakhan Ties
‘You were talking quite a bit about the bigotry in your view of President Trump, the bigotry in your view of this travel ban. I thought it was worth asking about somebody, a bigot, with whom you used to associate.’
Last night, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, went on CNN to talk about the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Trump administration’s travel ban. A few minutes into the conversation, the interviewer, Jake Tapper, asked Ellison a pointed question.
“You’ve been decrying President Trump’s bigotry,” Tapper said. “Obviously you used to follow somebody who continually expressed sexist, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-Semitic bigotry, Louis Farrakhan.”
“I don’t have any support for what the individual you just mentioned stands for,” Ellison said. “Anytime someone tries to say something’s unfair or bigoted, if you’re going to say, ‘well, one time you sort of said something or somebody said you said something …”
Tapper wasn’t moved by the congressman’s attempt to distance himself from Farrakhan, for whose organization, the Nation of Islam, Ellison worked for 18 months in the mid-1990s and with whom he had admitted to dining as recently as September of 2013. “You were a follower of Farrakhan,” Tapper said, a claim which Ellison denied. “No I wasn’t,” the congressman said, “that’s not true, Jake.”
Ellison went on to argue that bringing up his past affiliation with Farrakhan was somehow unfair. “I want to say if anyone who raises concerns about bigotry then is put in a position to have to defend themselves, then we never get to talk about bigotry,” he said. “I hope that is not what your purpose is, Jake, because you’ve stood for an equal society, but if you’re gonna try to put me on the spot and have to explain myself. I didn’t pass a Muslim ban.”
Tapper, however, persisted, telling the congressman that his claim of having had no relationship with Farrakhan had been fact-checked by the Washington Postand awarded Four Pinocchios, meaning that it was found to be an outright lie. Ellison called the Post‘s reporting “wrong,” and went on to express his disappointment with Tapper for asking about Ellison’s relationship with Farrakhan.
“Farrakhan said in 2016 that you met with him in his hotel suite in Washington, D.C.,” Tapper went on. That, Ellison interrupted, “did not happen.” When Tapper continued to ask whether Ellison, then, was accusing Farrakhan of lying, the congressman said, “I don’t know if he’s lying or not. I can tell you I was in no such meeting.”
Tapper then told Ellison he’ll take the congressman at his word. “I certainly believe you more than I believe Louis Farrakhan,” Tapper added. When Ellison again complained that the conversation ought to have been focused solely on Trump, Tapper explained his reasoning. “You were talking quite a bit about the bigotry in your view of President Trump, the bigotry in your view of this travel ban,” he said. “I thought it was worth asking about somebody, a bigot, with whom you used to associate, though you have distanced yourself and condemned him since.”
Tapper deserves every praise for asking the tough and necessary questions. And Ellison ought to have done better than try again to deny what has already been repeatedly proven. No worthwhile conversation about bigotry can proceed without courage and candor.
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