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Amazing:@akashtv1soni on Twitter
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Is war drawing nearer for Israel? (See 1 below.)
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If a group arranges for a nation to be invaded by illegals is that meddling? Should Mueller investigate?
Does anyone in Congress care?
https://www.investors.com/poli
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The economy is moving along at a decent pace, corporate earnings continue at a decent pace but the market is nervous . Why? I can offer several reasons but I cannot weight them for you.
a) First, October, historically, is a volatile month.
b) The economic recovery and "bull" market have been around for a long period and could be closer to their reversal than prospects for a significant extension.
c) The election brings with it a great degree of uncertainty because The Democrats offer nothing that is basically constructive. They are angry, bitter and want to stop Trump at any cost.
d) Our trade confrontation with China is not likely to end any time soon and though it may be hurting China more than us it signals a new "cold war" could be starting.
e) Trump has decided to face up to reality rather than continuing to ignore it but that means confrontations and voters are uncertain about his ability to be successful despite evidence to the contrary because the mass media continue to sell him down the river and his own quirkiness undercuts his credibility.
f) In his campaign to "Make America Great Again" he has proven to be quite adept at accomplishing his objectives and the spill over threats have not occurred as we were told they would. Jerusalem is Israel's Capital and The Middle East did not fall apart.
g) Trade deals have been renegotiated and the world did not fall apart.
h) NATO nations have been told they must assume more responsibility and NATO is still there.
i) The tax cut did boost the economy and inflation did not soar.
j) Obamacare was modified and people still are receiving health care but this remains a serious unresolved issue.
k) Veterans are receiving better medical care and in a more timely fashion and incompetents can be fired for failing to perform. Imagine that!
l) Illegal immigration, like Obama Care, remains a thorny matter mostly because Democrats are unwilling to assist in re-drafting a comprehensive overhaul of our immigration laws.
m) Our support of The U.N with American tax dollars has been modified and we no longer support that organization's anti-Semitism and utter incompetent agencies that have proven to be bastions of welfare.
n) The budget deficit mounts and must be addressed but no one wants to touch the third rail. McConnell has brought the matter to the front but can do nothing without the votes.
o) The Fed is withdrawing liquidity from the economy and who knows where that ends.
p) Trump and McConnell have been highly successful in redirecting the course of the Federal Judiciary.
q) The Saudi assassination has certainly thrown a curve ball- hot potato at Trump who is caught between the need to respond judiciously and those who cannot come to grips with balancing realism and morality.
r) If all of the above is not enough we still have N Korea, Iran, Russia and Syria to contend with and massive illegal immigration is another threat to our nation in terms of drugs, health issues, costs related to illegal's welfare and terrorism.
s) Trump has lessened our dependence on foreign energy sources and is finding markets for our own which is resulting in many high paid job opportunities. Employment, in general, has shown a remarkable recovery as well as the rise in GDP.
t) Meanwhile, all of the above sends mixed signals so the market has plenty to worry about. Some argue the election is already discounted and if it results in gridlock investors would actually favor that but I am not so sure.
u) Corporate earnings continue apace and corporate cash flows continue to grow at a good pace.
We are a very divided nation and I see nothing on the horizon that will reverse the discord. Democrats have become a radicalized party and only in the past few weeks have Republicans begun to show any Moxie. However, I never can trust them to follow through.
My take on Trump, for those who actually read these memos, is a mixture of despair and praise.
First, Trump is unlike most presidents and that, I find, refreshing. I know where he stands and I can trust him to stick with his core beliefs which are mostly common sense driven.
Second, he is tireless and indefatigable. He thrives on bullets aimed his way, remains upbeat against odds that would crush most and is willing to walk the plank and fight for what he believes important.
Third, he does not know when to shut his mouth and that is unhelpful.
Fourth, he is brash, often uncouth and that provides ammunition for those who hate him for a variety of reasons.
Fifth, to date he has been an effective president but will never be given due credit but history will probably treat him better. We will simply have to wait and see.
I am not overly sanguine about the rancor gripping our nation but then I am a pessimist. (See 2, 2a and 2b below.)
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This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader. Was sent to him by a relative and aligns with my own thoughts. Erdogan is no better than those he attacks.
"This article explains the basis of the level of scrutiny on the Khashoggi affair, and the complexities of Middle Eastern diplomacy. Khashoggi himself was a proponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, which made him anti-Saudi family, pro-Turkey, anti-Israel, and thus pro-Iran. He was a proponent of democracy only insofar as it would undermine Middle Eastern strongmen including the Saudi royal family. It was the policy favored by the Obama Administration. We saw how well that worked in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and in the Iranian deal, never mind the blackballing of Israel. Disengagement = Leading from Behind: how's that working for you in Europe (1MM Syrian refugees in Germany alone), Libya, Syria, Iran, and Lebanon/Gaza? Trump's counter is based on the Saudi alliance reaffirmation, aligning the Saudis, Eqyptians, together, for the first time, with Israel. So this Khashoggi fixation becomes the way to undermine it - call it the revenge of the Obamanista foreign policy establishment. Too bad the Saudi's handed them the issue in such a ham-handed manner that would appear to work better when done within their own borders.
It is not as though the Saudi's are angelic. The question is which is worse? We had to make similar choices in WWII and the Cold War. Recall the aphorism: The Enemy of my Enemy is My Friend."
Dick
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1) Defense Minister – Israel is on its way to war
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman (C) arrives to a Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee meeting at the Knesset, on October 22, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
“We have examined all the options and Israel’s final resort is to strike at Hamas,” Defense Minister Liberman said.
By Jack Gold, World Israel News
Egyptian mediation has failed and Israel is on its way war. That was the message Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman delivered Monday to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Israel has recently seen an increase in the intensity and the volume of violence and attacks emanating from Gaza, which culminated in Wednesday’s rocket attack on Israel which destroyed a home inBeersheba.
Palestinian riots on Israel’s border with Gaza are not “popular protests” as Hamas depicts them but rather carefully orchestrated violence organized by the terror group, he said.
“Fifteen thousand people do not show up by foot at the border fence,” Liberman said. “We have been talking since March 30 about the tens of millions [of shekels] Hamas has spent … They pay for every person killed $3,000, each seriously wounded $500, and a moderately injured [rioter receives] less than $200.”
No deal with Hamas
“When we talk about an arrangement and I’m expressing my opinion here – I do not believe in any arrangement with Hamas. It does not work, it has not worked in the past, it will not work in the future,” the defense minister stated.
Israel has “reached a situation where there is no alternative – anything other than the hardest, heaviest blow that we are capable of dealing Hamas in the Gaza Strip – will not help. We are in a state of ‘no choice,'” he added. “We have arrived at that point where we need to arrive at decisions, we have examined all the options.”
Hamas has called for war on Israel, and Hamas means what it says, he noted, and “therefore, we need to reach clear conclusions, and beyond the conclusions we need actions.”
The Security Cabinet met Wednesday night to consider its response to a rocket attack from Gaza. Its discussion was not made public.
According to The Daily Wire:
It seems that Obama believes in facts that are convenient to him. This is just another example of the media bias between Obama and Trump. Obama gets the benefit of the doubt while Trump gets attacked on a daily basis.Obama actually said this: "Unlike some I actually try to state facts. I believe in facts. I believe in a fact-based reality and a fact based politics. I don't believe in just making stuff up."
This astonishing statement flies in the face of that stubborn thing called the truth. Here are just a few of the times Obama has wrought havoc with the truth as he sold (and sells) his bill of goods to America:
1. Rated the “Lie of the Year” by left-wing Politifact, Obama said, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” Politifact noted in 2013, “So this fall, as cancellation letters were going out to approximately 4 million Americans, the public realized Obama’s breezy assurances were wrong. Boiling down the complicated health care law to a soundbite proved treacherous, even for its promoter-in-chief. Obama and his team made matters worse, suggesting they had been misunderstood all along.”
2. Obama said this year about his administration: “We didn’t have a scandal that embarrassed us.” Oh, really? He conveniently forgot the IRS scandal, the Benghazi scandal, the Fast and Furious Scandal, letting Hezbollah funnel cocaine into the United States, and secretly wiretapping AP reporters.
2a)
A Naval Message for China
Two U.S. warships sail through the Taiwan Strait.
The Editorial Board
A pair of U.S. warships sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Monday, a welcome show of support for America’s friends in Taiwan and the right to open navigation in international waters.
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The USS Curtis Wilbur, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, and the USS Antietam, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, completed the 16-hour transit on Monday, the U.S. Pacific Fleet said. The voyage “demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Cmdr. Nate Christensen, deputy spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet. “The U.S. Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.”
China’s government hadn’t responded to the trip by the time we published Monday, but you can bet its defense ministry was unhappy. Beijing wants to turn the Western Pacific into a Chinese-dominated lake where it can dictate navigation rights. It views the Taiwan Strait between the mainland and Taiwan with particular concern because China claims the island democracy as part of its territory.
The U.S. is the only nation with the naval firepower to deter China’s ambition. The warships’ trip also sends a note of reassurance to the government of Taiwan, which China has increasingly tried to isolate in global forums by using promises of investment to cause Taiwan’s few remaining friends to throw the island over.
The sail-by looks to be part of the Trump Administration’s larger effort to push back against China’s military aggressiveness. This has included more frequent trips past atolls on which China has built runways and other assets to project power in the South China Sea. Like Russia and Iran, China took advantage of the Obama years to expand its influence and try to become a dominant regional power. The Trump Administration is showing that the days of this free ride may be over.
2b) Trump Is No ‘Isolationist’
He’s overseeing a risky but ambitious effort to contain global adversaries By Walter Russel Mead
While the world was transfixed by the drama over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Trump administration last week doggedly pressed ahead with some of the most dramatic shifts in American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.
President Trump’s foreign policy is anything but isolationist. It is ambitious, interventionist and global. Having determined after almost two years of trying that the three revisionist powers—China, Russia and Iran—cannot, at least for now, be pried apart, the administration is preparing to take them on all at once.
This means, above all, intensifying competition with China. In the two weeks since Vice President Mike Pence’s speech laying out the far-reaching U.S. strategy for containing Beijing, the administration has not let up: The trade war has escalated; Mr. Trump announced U.S. withdrawal from an 1844 postal-services treaty that, in his view, gives Chinese shippers unfair advantages; and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Panama to warn that country’s leaders against Chinese debt-trap diplomacy.
Perhaps more surprising to some of its critics is the Trump administration’s increasingly hard line against Russia. In the same week that Mr. Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing Russian noncompliance, an American aircraft carrier visited the Russian Arctic for the first time in almost 30 years. Meanwhile, A. Wess Mitchell, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, described a new era of U.S.-Russia competition in a blistering speech Thursday at the Atlantic Council.
“From the Baltic to the Adriatic, across the Balkan Peninsula and through the Caucasus, America’s rivals are expanding their political, military and commercial influence. Russia is again a military factor in this region, following the invasions of Georgia and Ukraine. Well beyond the frontier, in the countries of Central Europe, Russia uses manipulative energy tactics, corruption and propaganda to weaken Western nations from within and undermine their bonds with the United States,” Mr. Mitchell said. He went on to hail “Ukraine, Georgia and even Belarus” as a “bulwark against Russian neo-imperialism” and signaled increased U.S. support for their independence and sovereignty.
The storm over U.S.-Saudi relations has not deterred the administration from intensifying its campaign against Iran. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is still flying to Riyadh to coordinate U.S. and Saudi economic actions to isolate Tehran. The U.S. remains on schedule to reimpose its most powerful sanctions against Iran on Nov. 5.
Traditionally, countries headed toward confrontation with adversaries look to strengthen their alliances. This has not been the Trump administration’s approach. Without mentioning Germany by name, Mr. Mitchell sharply criticized its dealings with Russia and Iran: “We expect those whom America helps to not abet our rivals. Western Europeans cannot continue to deepen energy dependence on the same Russia that America defends it against. Or enrich themselves on the same Iran that is building ballistic missiles which threaten Europe.”
Yet Mr. Mitchell also signaled a deeper U.S. involvement in Europe that Berlin should welcome. He noted that “many of America’s closest allies in Central Europe operate networks of corruption and state-owned enterprises that rig the system in favor of China and Russia.” Joint efforts by the U.S. and the European Union to stabilize democracy in Central and Eastern European countries could help give the old trans-Atlantic alliance a new lease on life.
As Mr. Trump’s ambitious foreign policy takes shape, the hopes of Jeffersonian realists for a more inward-looking, less globally engaged U.S. are fading away. Instead of reducing American military commitments overseas, Mr. Trump is doubling down on them. Instead of abolishing the Overseas Private Investment Corp., Mr. Trump has expanded it. Though the administration’s stalling on the Khashoggi affair attracted widespread criticism, human rights are climbing back onto the agenda as the administration attacks China for its repression of Uighurs, Tibetans and Christians.
Can the Trump administration unite a deeply divided country behind an expensive, risky and ambitious foreign-policy agenda to block the objectives of America’s determined rivals? And can its strategy work?
There are skeptics. Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Trump administration’s threats to penalize European companies that trade with Iran are “a huge strategic mistake” born of a hubristic sense of American power. “I think this is a typical mistake made by any empire,” Mr. Putin said, when it believes itself “so strong and stable that there will be no negative consequences. But no, they will come sooner or later.”
Perhaps. We cannot know in advance whether President Trump’s outsize foreign-policy venture will finish in triumph, tears or somewhere in between. But he appears determined to upend the international system as thoroughly and disruptively as he has upended American politics.
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