From a dear friend and fellow memo reader. "I understand your pessimism but I remain a staunch fighter for the Constitution and all that it has made possible in this great country. People want to change the past because they have no plans for the future except to replay the past.We need to walk confidently into the future knowing that the Constitution gives us the power to be a great nation that gives everyone freedom to be what God has empowered them to be.
God Bless America,
M------"
And: From another dear friend and fellow memo reader:
"Dick, I share your fears for our country, but we have made it through worse times than this (e.g., the Civil War). The only truly great person I ever have known personally was your father. He was an optimist. After working with him and learning from him for thirteen years, I became an optimist also. I still have confidence this country will work its way through our current problems. I also believe the best years for this country and the human race are ahead. To quote Ronald Reagan, “I would not trade one of America’s tomorrows for all of her yesterdays.” M---"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Kim reminds coal miners that Hillary does not dig them. (See 1 below.)
Meanwhile, Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton reports: "FBI Found Clinton EMails She Tried to Destroy Or Hide In Obama White House."
And:
Keinon writes: "EU's next foreign policy czar – will make Israel pine for Federica Mogherini. (See 1a below."
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Biden accuses Trump of being a bully and inflammatory and then proceeds to call him every name in the dictionary and that he is going to punch him in the mouth. I love it when liberals do what they project on others. The hypocrisy oozes out of their every pore. Biden is a fool and if he wants to get in a food fight with Trump he will eventually lower himself and better get a big wash cloth because he is going to have a lot of egg yolk to wife off his face.
Trump is constantly stymied by liberal judges but instead of going outside the Constitution he seeks legal ways to overturn their decisions, This is the president who haters tell us wants to be a monarch. Perhaps they have Obama in mind regarding what he did to stuff Iran will pallets of cash.
It is obvious Obama withheld making the economy grow while he was president so he could help Trump increase employment after he became president.
Another reason to hate and distrust Trump is because he fired Mueller in order to stop the investigation proving he colluded with The Russians and Putin.
Most important of all, remember when Trump told us we could keep our doctor and he would drain the Swamp of the establishment. Well Schummer, Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler among other "gators" are still there.
Next to last, we were told Trump would restrict freedom of speech. A few days ago he called out the military to attack Antifa Thugs wearing masks who beat up a photographer in Oakland.
Finally, Trump lied when he told us Mexico would pay for an extended border wall. Actually Democrats in Congress refused to pay for an extended wall because they want to keep our borders porous and also want to get rid of ICE.
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When will the showdown with Iran come for Israel?
When and if it does that would be another reason to re-elect Bibi.(See 2 below.)
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Dick
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1)
Hillary’s Hot Advice
They’re repeating her acknowledged biggest mistake with radical climate proposals.
Even liberal commentators are expressing some alarm over the mass hara-kiri the Democratic field committed on stage in last week’s debate, at least on the issues of health care and immigration. They are gently warning that 150 million Americans have private health insurance and won’t take kindly to its elimination. They note that it is possible for a significant majority of Americans to be simultaneously in favor of a path to legal citizenship and opposed to open borders.
Yet missing in all these words to the wise is any mention of last week’s other category of ideological extremism: climate change. Quite the opposite. The intellectual elite is griping that the candidates didn’t have more time to wow viewers with their radical plans for tackling this “existential” threat. This may prove the most self-defeating Democratic bet of 2020.
Ask the last loser. Many of Mrs. Clinton’s excuses for her loss are hard to credit, but her book devotes a chapter to the comment she most regrets. At a March 2016 town hall in Ohio, Mrs. Clinton bragged on stage that her administration was “going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” Republicans used this to great effect, and Mrs. Clinton acknowledges it did her huge damage among working-class voters.
Candidate Barack Obama said much the same in 2008, when he vowed to “bankrupt” the coal industry. He got away with it because climate-change policy was gridlocked in Washington, and few recognized his threat. By the time Mrs. Clinton came along, the industry and workers had suffered years of crushing climate regulations. Mr. Trump promised to liberate them, and he has followed through.
Which is what makes the issue even more perilous for Democrats this time. Swaths of the country now understand the economic pain of a climate regime, which they watched Mr. Obama implement through regulatory fiat. Every Democrat has vowed to make it a priority, and they have that Obama blueprint. They don’t need Congress. Mr. Trump will make clear that the election of a Democrat guarantees an immediate return to struggling rural economies.
The president will get even more traction explaining the inescapable realities of this field’s proposals—most of which make Obama-Clinton climate ambitions look meager. Mr. Obama was hostile to coal, pipelines and some offshore drilling. But at the same timely he shrewdly (if quietly) allowed the fracking revolution to thrive and help keep the laggard economy afloat. These Democrats have no such tolerance; their plans are extreme job slayers.
Elizabeth Warren, for instance, promises to impose a moratorium on all new offshore and onshore drilling leases her first day—taking a significant percentage of U.S. oil and gas production offline. Tens of thousands of jobs and billions in royalties for federal and state governments: gone. Bernie Sanders would ban all offshore drilling, and also ban nuclear energy. Other candidates hide behind calls for “net zero” emissions by certain dates, but the effect is the same. Hitting those targets would erase entire sectors—drilling, refining, liquid-natural-gas terminals, pipeline installation, manufacturing and all the industries that support those areas.
Democratic leaders initially assured us the Green New Deal was a (far-fetched) blueprint. But the real candidate plans make clear the awesome government control necessary to make a climate agenda work. Even Joe Biden vowed last week to take away all his union members’ gas- or diesel-powered pickup trucks, explaining he wanted 500,000 charging stations and a “full electric-vehicle future” by 2030. See how that plays in rural Michigan or Pennsylvania.
Democrats are aware this is toxic for the working-class voters they need to win back. That’s why most lead with patronizing promises to invest tens of billions to “retrain” entire communities. But ranchers, farmers, factory workers and wildcatters don’t want to be the guinea pigs of the left’s green experiment, nor do they trust politicians who come bearing vague promises to create “renewable” jobs for them one day.
Democrats seem blithely unaware of the political record of this full-on approach—locally and globally. State voters continue to reject ballot initiatives for carbon taxes. “Quiet Australians” recently rebuked climate alarmists by re-electing conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison. France has spent months wrestling with the “yellow vests,” who protest fuel costs and taxes.
Voters care about immigration and health care. But the 2020 climate agenda is a direct assault on the things they prize most—jobs, prosperity, electricity and gasoline prices, individual choice. Democrats go there at their political peril.
1a) Top EU foreign policy nominee has record of slamming Israel, praising Iran
By HERB KEINON
If past comments are any indication, Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell Fontelles – nominated on Wednesday to be the EU's next foreign policy czar – will make Israel pine for Federica Mogherini.
And Jerusalem was not particularly fond of Mogherini, for the most part cutting her out of the Mideast loop because of a perceived pro-Palestinian bias.
Mogherini has not visited Israel in some four years on a working visit, though she did attend the funeral of Shimon Peres in September 2016. The last time she met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was during an icy meeting in Brussels in December 2017 following US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a move she blasted and which she wanted the EU to condemn. This move failed, however, because of an inability to reach a consensus on the matter among all 28 EU states.
In late 2015, as a result of the EU's decision to label products from the settlements, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended diplomatic ties with the EU for a “reassessment.” Though Israel has lifted that suspension, the relationship with Mogherini never recovered.
Mogherini and the EU foreign policy apparatus she led were viewed in Jerusalem as staunchly pro-Palestinian and as a cheerleader for the Iranian nuclear deal, even after US President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2015.
She had planned a trip here in June 2018 to take part in the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum, but canceled when it was made clear that Netanyahu would not meet with her.
And now, under Borrell, things might actually become more difficult.
When Mogherini took over the helm of the EU's foreign policy apparatus in 2014, few outside of her native Italy had heard of her. The same cannot be said of the Spaniard Borrell, from the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) party, who has been a fixture on the European political scene since the 1970s, serving as president of the European parliament form 2004 to 2007, and as Spain's foreign minister since June 2018.
As such, Borrell has left a long paper trail, and not one that will necessarily win hearts in Jerusalem.
For instance, regarding the Palestinian issue, he has come out in favor of EU countries unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state.
EEU, the Spanish news agency, reported in September that he was leading efforts to get Madrid to recognize “Palestine” as a state.
“The EU officially still supports a two party state system for the area of conflict, but the Spanish minister for foreign affairs and his government believe the bloc needs to ‘readdress this issue and take decisions’ as a matter of urgency,” the report read. The story quoted Borrell as saying, "It is obvious that the situation in Palestine must not continue as it is. If the EU is not able to reach a unanimous decision, then each to their own."
In a scathing op-ed piece in the Spanish digital newspaper Republica.com in May of 2018, after the Nakba Day riots along the Gaza border which took place as the US was moving its embassy to Jerusalem and led to the deaths of dozens of Palestinians, Borrell said Trump was “encouraging the warlike arrogance of Netanyahu.”
He referred to the incidents that day in Gaza as a “black Monday” that “reflects the dehumanization of the Palestinians by a large part of the Israeli political class and society.”
The irritation those opinions obviously triggered in the Prime Minister's Office likely pale to the anger at what he has said about Iran.
In an interview in February with Politico, the future EU foreign policy czar said that everyone just has to get used to the fact that Iran wants to destroy Israel
Asked about the nuclear deal, and whether it was dead, Borrell replied:
“The Americans decided to kill it, unilaterally as they do things without any kind of previous consultation, without taking care of what interests the Europeans have.”
Asked whether the US might “have a point about Iran,” given its vow to destroy Israel and its malignant behavior in the region, he said, “We are not children following what they [the Americans] say. We have our own prospects, interests and strategy and we will continue working with Iran. It would be very bad for us if it goes on to develop a nuclear weapon … Iran wants to wipe out Israel; nothing new about that. You have to live with it.”
On November 6, a day after the US reimposed a last tranche of sanctions on Iran, Borrell joined Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in blasting the US for the move. The Spanish foreing minister said that he rejected “any kind of position that resembles an ultimatum from anyone and also from the United States.”
In February, on the anniversary of the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran that led to the fall of the Shah and brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power, the Spanish diplomat posted a tweet thread somewhat sympathetic to the regime.
"Today marks 40 years of the Islamic revolution of #Iran. This regional power has changed a lot during this time,” he wrote. "In 1976, the literacy rate was 35%. Now it's 84%. In 1980, 5% of the women employed were university students. Now they are 47%, but only 16% of the workforce is female, and the unemployment rate of women is double that of men.”
Iran, he wrote “is a key country in the Middle East region. It has had an essential role in the #Syria war, helping Assad while the Americans are pulling out."
He noted the strong competition that Shia Iran has with Suni Saudi Arabia, and then wrote of the two “hard defeats” of the United States in the 19790s: the flight from Saigon and the takeover of the US embassy in Theran. Forty years later, he wrote, “Vietnam is a productive power fully integrated into the world economy and has excellent relations with the United States.”
In contrast,he said ,”Iran remains an obsession for the US Government. They still do not have diplomatic relations and Trump has also withdrawn from the Nuclear Pact and has imposed sanctions. Surely Iran can survive the sanctions if Trump is not re-elected. Otherwise, the regime could reactivate the nuclear program for military purposes and multiply its interventions in the region.”
These opinions about Iran are not only causing concern in Jerusalem, but in other countries in the region as well. This was the headline in UAE-based newspaper “The National” reporting on the appointment: “Nomination of Josep Borrell for EU High Representative sparks outcry.”
The subheadline read, “A supporter of the Iranian regime, Mr Borrell will handle the EU's negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal.”
According to the report, “Borrell is a known supporter of Iran and has made several comments during his time as foreign minister, which were construed as being sympathetic to the regime.”
Borell himself addressed the Knesset in June 2005 as the president of the European parliament, and noted his history with Israel.
“This is not a strange land to me,” he said. “Thirty-six years ago, in 1969 when I had just graduated, I came to Israel to work on a Kibbutz - the one in Galon, following in the footsteps of other young Europeans attracted by that experience.”
Borrell met his first wife there.
European Council President Donald Tusk announced on Wednesday that the European Council would nominate Borrell. In addition, the Council nominated German Defense Minister Ursula Von der Leyen as new president of the European Commission, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel as nominated as head of the European Council, and Christine Lagarde – currently the head of the International Monetary Fund – was nominated to head the European Central Bank.
All those nominations must now be approved by the European Parliament. One diplomatic official said that it was “almost certain" that the nominations would be confirmed.
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2) The dark shadow Iran is casting on the world
The twin issues of Iran and North Korea illustrate how the isolationist right and the universalist left march hand in hand.
In Israel, as the drumbeats of war grow ever louder, people are preparing with a mixture of dread, stoicism and determination for the long-feared, ultimate showdown with Iran.
After reported Iranian attacks on two oil tankers last month near the Straits of Hormuz, Iran also shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone. Following this, U.S. President Donald Trump said he had cancelled an airstrike on Iranian targets with only 10 minutes to spare because of last-minute concerns that the likely number of casualties would be disproportionate.
Earlier this week, Iran announced that it had breached the limit for low-enriched uranium set in the Obama-brokered 2015 nuclear deal. Last May, President Trump pulled the United States out of this deal and reimposed crippling sanctions that Britain and Europe, which still endorse the deal, have been trying hard to bust.
On Wednesday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani threatened further that Iran would increase its enrichment of uranium this Sunday beyond the level set by the nuclear deal—a move that could generate enough high-enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon.
Even the European Union has responded with horror to Iran’s breaches of the uranium limits. But the E.U. facilitated and still defends the shocking deal that facilitated Iranian terrorism and its regional power grab by funneling millions of dollars into this terror state, while paving the way for its genocidal and fanatically anti-Western regime to develop nuclear weapons.
Last year’s Mossad coup in raiding Iran’s nuclear archive produced conclusive evidence that Iran had constructed an elaborate pretense of peaceful nuclear development to conceal its nuclear weapons program. The International Atomic Energy Agency subsequently discovered numerous Iranian violations of the deal.
Yet those in the Western intelligentsia and mainstream media who view events through the Orwellian prism of the enemies of the West and the Jewish people are blaming Iran’s belligerency on President Trump’s reimposition of sanctions, thus sanitizing and denying Iranian aggression.
There’s no doubt that the Iranian regime is feeling intense pressure from sanctions and is accordingly upping the ante to test Western resolve. So it’s vital that the West doesn’t blink. So far, however, Iran’s provocations and sabre-rattling have been no more or less than that.
Trump’s policy is to impose intolerable pressure through sanctions; this is already working and should be given time to work still further. Either the regime will (hopefully) implode under the strain or it will finally feel forced to overstep its belligerency. That would be the time for military action against it, not before.
But in this phase of shadow-boxing, actions have symbolic significance that send signals to the other side.
There is a close alliance between Iran and North Korea, which is suspected of helping Iran advance its nuclear weapon program. How President Trump acts towards North Korea therefore has significance not just for addressing that particular issue, but also for Iran, which is watching intently how the North Korea drama plays out.
So it was unfortunate that President Trump chose to take his much-ballyhooed step across the demilitarized zone into North Korea without his hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton, accompanied instead by Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Last month, Carlson called Bolton a “bureaucratic tapeworm” for whom war was “always good business.” Carlson later rationalized North Korean atrocities, saying that leading a country “means killing people.”
President Trump, meanwhile, dialed down his original demand for full denuclearization to the lesser requirement of a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program. Significantly, a few hours after President Trump’s step across the line, Bolton tweeted that he was currently in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator, thus signaling that Trump’s foray was a strategic mistake that had nothing to do with him.
It is astonishing and alarming that the American president should so conspicuously elevate the advice of a blowhard talk-show host over a foreign-policy official as sober and experienced as Bolton.
It suggests that Trump is trapped by his own contradictions. On the one hand, he rightly saw through the appalling Iran deal and realized that the regime needed to be brought to heel through crippling sanctions.
On the other, he doesn’t seem to understand that there are some, like North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who, although they are not religious fanatics, are nevertheless psychopaths for whom a civilized deal is never possible. To stop his behavior, the only course of action is to undermine and destroy their unconscionable regime.
The twin issues of Iran and North Korea illustrate how the isolationist right and the universalist left march hand in hand. This alliance was on ugly display over the Iraq war, when both sides united in declaring that we were “taken to war on a lie” because of a conspiracy stretching from Jerusalem to the White House to do the bidding of the Jews and put the rest of the world at risk.
Given the ubiquity of this malevolent Jewish-conspiracy canard at the time, it is absurd that people now profess to be astonished at the current epidemic of Jew-hatred and Israel-bashing in Britain, Europe and America.
The indifference shown to this Jew-baiting over the past two decades and more has helped legitimize and embolden ever more unambiguous demonstrations of this deranged mindset, along with a wider cultural confusion.
Four months ago in Britain, upon learning that the best-selling novelist Richard Zimler was a Jew, two cultural organizations dropped their invitations to him to appear at their events. They said they feared protests by their members and others if they invited a Jewish writer.
Against the backdrop of a bill in the Irish parliament, the Dail, to boycott Israel, an Irish News columnist Brian Feeney wrote that Iran was “the only democracy in the region—no, Israel isn’t.”
After U.S. Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) demeaned the Holocaust by comparing detention centers on America’s Mexican border to Nazi concentration camps, political and cultural figures piled in to support her. When the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum voiced concern about using Holocaust analogies in this way, more than 430 scholars who research the Holocaust and genocides urged it to retract its criticism as “fundamentally ahistorical.”
In Britain, the government wants to build a Holocaust memorial next to the Houses of Parliament to combat Holocaust denial. Yet Britain is still an enthusiast for the Iran deal, even despite the recent discovery of a Hezbollah bomb factory in London.
Sweden, where the authorities notoriously turn a blind eye to rampant anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement, intends to hold a conference on anti-Semitismnext year in Malmö. That’s quite a statement. For Jew-hatred in Malmö is so bad that last month the spokesman for its Jewish community said it might close down altogether in the coming decade.
This is the international background against which Iran is ramping up for war. In Israel, there’s a grim acknowledgement of a world which, while paying ever more extravagant lip service to the victims of the Holocaust, prepares to betray them at every turn.
More than half-a-century ago, the West fought off Nazism. That fight is what it really means by “never again.”
Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for “The Times of London,” her personal and political memoir, “Guardian Angel,” has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, “The Legacy,” in 2018. Her work can be found at: www.melaniephillips.com.
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