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And:
Israel strikes. (See 1a below.)
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I listened to some of the impeachment testimony today and I have come to several conclusions that validate what I have thought all along.
Trump was concerned, maybe overly concerned, about Ukraine corruption and was offended that the nation's former leaders, who stole billions from the nation's treasury, opposed his election and were colluding with Russia in that regard.
This naturally ticked Trump off and Giuliani fed Trump's view point by focusing on, being obsessed with Ukraine corruption because of his investigation of Biden's son.. Trump also was aware of Biden's son's connection with this corrupt country and board position on the corrupt energy company and this made him even more suspicious about how American tax payer money was being spent.
Eventually, various un-elected American administrators, military officers and ambassadors were convinced Trump's viewpoint was not correct because Ukraine's new leadership sincerely wanted to end corruption and Trump subsequently released the funds which Ukraine's new leadership were not even aware was happening.
Furthermore, we have some evidence Lt. Col. Lindman is not everything Schiff has led us to believe and he did have contact with the whistle blower and may have even leaked information though he swore he does not engage in such activity.
What appears to be the issue is that a lot of people who heard things second hand have "feelings" that Trump was wrong but have no evidence he did anything impeachable.
We know liberals are touchy feely people and care about all the downtrodden otherwise, why would they want to flood our country with illegal people who want to come here for a variety of reasons?
My conclusion is that these hearings are turning into one big flop akin to AOC's cow "farting concepts. These are some other looney ideas radical progressive's hold. (See 2 below.)
Pelosi took the impeachment away from Nadler because he was blowing matters and turned it over to Schiff because she knew he would do anything to nail Trump. Seems like Schiff has, again, nailed himself.
In the final analysis, Mr. Morrison and Ambassador Volker testified under oath they found no evidence of anything that would cause Trump to be impeached.
And:
Another Foul-mouthed Democratic Congresswoman Says She Wants to “Impeach the [Expletive]!”
Trending Now
Pelosi Writes That It’s “Dangerous” to Let Voters Decide Who is President
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Greatness frequently overlooked. (See 3 below.)
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Doris
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1) Has The Iranian Empire Overreached?
By Shoshana Bryen, Senior Director Jewish Policy Center
Since December 2017, a sort of “rolling rebellion” has been occurring across Iran. It is bigger, deeper and stronger than the Green Revolution of 2009 and taking place in great measure outside Tehran, where the population is more diverse. There have been strikes of truckers, bazaar shopkeepers, teachers, farmers, and students. See #WhiteWednesday on Twitter to watch brave Iranian women go into the streets and take off their head coverings. Sometimes they dance. Sometimes their husbands, fathers, and brothers go with them. Sometimes they are arrested and sometimes they go to jail. Unfortunately, it took the suicide of a young woman facing seven years in prison for attending a soccer match to get the attention of the Western press.
In May of this year, widespread upheaval convulsed the country and thousands were arrested. This weekend, news of increasing protest in Iran comes from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) — an organization with a mixed record of acceptance by the U.S. government, but with indisputable reach inside the country. According to NCRI’s Washington office, at least 65 cities have seen violent demonstrations, with people killed and injured by authorities. Videos, presumably from cell phones, show that pictures of the Ayatollah Khameini have been set on fire and demonstrators are chanting “Death to the Dictator” and “Death to Rouhani.” You can follow @AlirezaNader for more.
As Iran spreads its tentacles abroad and builds its illegal nuclear capability, it is clear that the regime cannot fund domestic priorities and international revolution on the same budget — especially as that budget contracts.
Imperial overreach was the ruin of the Roman Empire, the Byzantines, Egyptians, Ottomans, Nazis, and Soviets. Could it be catching up with Iran? Wait, you say, Iran isn’t an empire. Not in the traditional sense. But it was always the belief of the hegemonic mullahs that instability across large regions, managed with a relatively small group of well-trained Iranian professionals and a lot of proxy fighters, would create a world in which Shiite supremacism held sway.
And it was working.
The Shiite Crescent — from Iran through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the Mediterranean — was a “lid” over Iran’s Sunni enemies Saudi Arabia and Jordan, plus Israel. It was also a wedge between Sunni Turkey and the Sunni countries below — Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Gulf states. Most of the proxy soldiers were Iraqi militias, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Pakistanis and Afghans brought to Syria under the command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The result was millions of Sunni Syrian refugees in the Middle East and Europe.
Sunni Hamas and Shiite Palestinian Islamic Jihad were both recipients of Iranian funds, weapons, and training to harass Israel.
There is also an underside Crescent, which is less well understood. It encircles the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia in the Gulf of Aden with a base in Yemen and a Houthi proxy at the bottom of the Red Sea, threatening the Bab el Mandeb Straits and the exit of Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. And the American base in Djibouti.
And Africa. Iran incubated Sunni jihadists in the poor, corrupt, and vulnerable states of the second tier — Sudan, Chad, Niger, and Mali. The result was waves of migrants headed north. The North African countries — Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria — were all in the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue group that helped control safety and security in the sea until the Obama administration toppled the Libyan government in 2011. Libya, no longer a member of the Dialogue, has become a hole in the dam through which hundreds of thousands of African migrants reached Europe.
But has the empire reached too far?
American-led sanctions have been an enormous financial blow to the mullahs, but sanctions are misunderstood. Not a mechanism for toppling a government, they are a means of forcing a government to make choices — between, revolution and agriculture, between weapons and water and sewer systems, between Palestinian jihadists and schools, and so forth. That is what Iran faced in 2011 and that is what led to the Iran/P5+1 negotiations. The fact that President Obama collapsed and paid off the mullahs allowed them to avoid those very choices and set back the operation by years and millions of deaths in the Middle East and Africa.
The restoration of sanctions means Iran has less to pay off its proxies — as well as less for its own people. European businesses, and even China, are leaving Iran and taking their money. Iran tried to compensate by stealing Iraqi oil.
And that’s where empire begins to break down.
There are explicitly anti-Iranian riots in Lebanon and Iraq. Hezbollah fighters have announced they will refuse to return to Syria for Iran. Iraqis have attacked Iranian bases and depots. Follow @HeshmatAlavi for the latest Iraqi moves and Iranian counter-moves. Because most of the mainstream press isn’t there.
But the biggest changes may be coming in Iran itself.
1a) IDF carries out 'wide-scale' strike in Syria, hits dozens of Iranian targets
Following Tuesday's rocket attack on Israel from Syria, the IDF says its fighter jets hit multiple targets belonging to Iran's Quds force, including surface-to-air missiles, weapons warehouses and military bases. Defense Minister Naftali Bennett: "The rules have changed. Whoever shoots at Israel in the day, won't sleep at night."
The IDF on Wednesday said it struck dozens of Iranian targets in Syria, carrying out a “wide-scale” strike in response to rocket fire on the Israeli Golan Heights the day before.
The army said its fighter jets hit multiple targets belonging to Iran's Quds force, the foreign operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including surface-to-air missiles, weapons warehouses and military bases. After the Syrian military fired a surface-to-air missile at the Israeli jets, following warnings to refrain from doing so, the IDF said a number of Syrian aerial defense batteries were also destroyed.
Syria's state news agency SANA said two civilians were killed and some wounded in the attack.
A war monitoring group said 11 people were killed, including seven non-Syrians who are most likely Iranians.
The figures come from Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition activist group with a network of activists across Syria.
The Observatory said the Israeli airstrikes targeted arms depots belonging to the Quds Force in the Damascus suburbs of Kisweh and Qudsaya.
Abdurrahman added that several other areas were targeted in Wednesday’s strikes, including the Mazzeh airbase in western Damascus where air-defense units are stationed.
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said Wednesday morning: "The rules have changed. Whoever shoots at Israel in the day, won't sleep at night. Such was the case last week and such was the case this week as well. Our message to the leaders of Iran is simple: You are no longer immune wherever you send your tentacles – we will sever them."
A senior defense official said Wednesday morning: "Why did we attack in response to rockets that missed? That's the thing. We are changing the rules. In the south we became habituated [to the situation] because our response was always proportionate. We are changing the equation. Even if the shooting is minor we are responding. Iran shot at the State of Israel. This is delusional and we won't tolerate it. Iran is an octopus whose head is in Tehran and which spreads its tentacles to surround us. The equation where they were immune was a-symmetrical. We still haven't threatened the head of the octopus, which is Tehran, but we are starting to get close to the head of the octopus."
"The decision [to retaliate] was made Tuesday morning. It received final approval during the night. The operation was carried out while being aware that the events taking place in Iran are the gravest since the Islamic revolution from the perspective of casualties. Our message to the Iranian public: The leaders of the regime with their terroristic adventures are putting you in danger," the official said.
The strikes further burst into the open what’s been a long shadow war between Israel and its archenemy Iran. The two foes have increasingly clashed over what Israel says is Iran’s deeper presence along its borders.
“Yesterday’s Iranian attack towards Israel is further clear proof of the purpose of the Iranian entrenchment in Syria, which threatens Israeli security, regional stability and the Syrian regime,” the IDF said in a statement, adding that it would “continue operating firmly and resolutely” against Iran in Syria.
"We acted against the Syrian host and Iranian guest," the IDF statement continued. "We are prepared to defend and to attack and will respond harshly to any retaliation attempt. We are ready for any scenario. We will not tolerate Iranian entrenchment. It is a red line."
In a possible indication of prior coordination with Russian forces stationed in Syria, the army also said, "We did not attack the batteries from where the rockets were fired at Israel on Tuesday. We didn't attack [Russian-made] S-300 air-defense batteries. In the morning [Wednesday] we will gain a better understanding of their casualties. We coordinated with the superpowers in the area."
However, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Wednesday that the Israeli airstrikes were a wrong move, and Moscow had contacted its allies about the incident, Interfax reported.
The IDF statement concluded: "We are ready for three scenarios: No response, a minor response and a more significant response. At the moment there are no special directives from the Home Front Command [to civilians]. Every target we struck was within a range of 80 kilometers (50 miles). Forces in stationed in the north have not received reinforcements."
Israel's Iron Dome air-defense system intercepted the four rockets on the Golan Heights on Tuesday which came amid heightened tensions between Israel and Iranian proxies along its borders. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a series of warnings recently about Iranian aggression throughout the Middle East.
Israel last week fought against the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group in Gaza, striking and killing a top commander in the coastal enclave and is widely believed to have struck and missed another leader of the group in Syria.
Iran has forces based in Syria, Israel's northern neighbor, and supports Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. In Gaza, it supplies PIJ with cash, weapons and expertise.
Netanyahu also has claimed Iran is using Iraq, where it operates powerful Shiite militias, and far-off Yemen, where Tehran supports Shiite Houthi rebels at war with a Saudi-led coalition backing the government, to plan attacks against Israel. Hamas also receives some support from Iran.
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Never has there been a presidential campaign where one party was running on a platform of massive tax increases and unimaginable spending.
The question is, are we getting the whole story?
Statements like, “the income of the top 20% of households is 60 times as much as the bottom 20%” can be heard day after day. Simple, direct, easy to understand, and a good media sound bite, but is it true?
No!
The bottom 20% households earn, on average, about $4900 (a very low number because so many have no income at all) while the average top 20% household earns $295,900, a ratio of 60 to 1. But it is not 60 to 1, not even close. Here is why.
The top 20% earn an average of $295,900 and pay $109,100 in taxes; left with $186,800 in, what I will call, available resources. Conversely, while the bottom 20% pay no income tax they are the principal recipients of $1.9 trillion in annual public transfer payments.
The average low-income household receives $45,400 in government transfers and $3,300 in charitable funds. They pay $2,700 in sales and property taxes.
The average bottom 20% household has $50,900 available resources ($4,900 plus $45,400 plus $3,300 minus $2,700).
So, the income inequity, touted particularly by candidates Warren and Sanders, is not 60 to 1 ($295,900 vs $4,900) it is actually 3.7 to 1.
One problem with the math is that the progressive/socialist democrat candidates lay out their programs piecemeal.
Today it is X dollars for education, the next day it is green stuff, then Medicare for All, and on it goes. As each is presented there is occasionally a feeble attempt to define how a particular program will be paid for. But what they never do is articulate the totality of it all, spending and revenue. So, let’s take a stab at that using projected costs and revenue over the next 10 years.
Medicare for All - $32 trillion;
Green New Deal/climate change - The American Action Forum estimates that the energy and environmental components would cost $10 trillion.
Free college tuition - $800 billion;
Cancel student debt - $1.6 trillion;
Open borders - Illegal immigrants currently cost $116 billion per year. Open borders could easily multiply that by a factor of 3 or $3.5 trillion over 10 years.
K-12 education - $800 billion;
Childcare plan - $1.07 trillion;
New infrastructure - $1 trillion;
Expanded tax credit to the poor - $2.5 trillion;
Affordable housing - $1.9 trillion;
Slavery reparations - Not included but estimates range from $17-50 trillion;
The total cost is $54 trillion in new proposals over the next decade, on top of the $12.4 trillion deficit projected by the Congressional Budget Office.
Over the next decade the federal government is projected to collect about $4.4 trillion per year and spend about $5.6 trillion. This is without taking into account a single one of the progressive/socialist democrats’ new proposals cited above.
In order to pay for the above campaign promises, we would need to increase the federal government revenue from $4.4 to $9.8 trillion per year.
That cannot possibly happen and even if it could be accomplished the national debt would still increase from today’s $21 trillion to $34 Trillion in a decade; dangerous territory.
Then there are the proposals to “tax the rich”. Increased revenue estimates range from $9.3 trillion under the best-case scenario and, more realistically, $3.9 trillion over the next ten years. In other words, if these politicians want to spend what they propose, they’ll have to impose enormous taxes on everyone who pays taxes including the middle class.
Additionally, draconian tax increases either across the board or just on the rich has some very scary side effects.
For example, A 70% tax rate on the rich may be smart politics, but it is not smart economics. Economists explain that higher tax rates on the rich have the potential to reduce capital formation, lower economic output, shrink the labor supply, depress levels of entrepreneurship, lead to lower middle-class wages, reduce economic mobility, drive away superstar inventors, lower levels of innovation, lead to higher taxes for everyone else, and encourage tax complexity. In other words, the potential to dramatically and negatively transform our economy.
These numbers are not partisan. They come from the Congressional Budget Office, top liberal think tanks, Wall Street Journal editorials, and various economists’ studies.
While these numbers are not exact and estimates are constantly changing, they paint a picture of the absurdity of the progressive/socialists democrat collective campaign promises.
In every campaign we hear people say, “politicians will say anything to get elected” and just pass it off as harmless rhetoric.
These numbers are not harmless. They are scary, dangerous and have the potential to severely alter the foundations of this country.
Wake up America.
Marv Covault
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3) Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was forgotten once, but never again
By Salena Zeto
GETTYSBURG, PA — In the days that followed Abraham Lincoln’s 272-word speech to thousands of onlookers in this small Pennsylvania farm town, few newspapers in the country immediately reported on the speech.
When they did, explains historian Michael Kraus, it was mostly dour examination, filled with misquotes of the 16th president’s words.
“There were a lot of mistakes in those first reports. Words weren't heard well, order was mixed up. The speech didn't appear in every newspaper the next day, or the next day, or the next day,” Kraus said from his artifact-filled basement office at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh, where he serves as the curator.
When it finally did, the reviews were sharply critical.
“A paper in Boston ripped it to shreds; so did other papers across the North,” said Kraus.
Even the local Harrisburg paper, the Harrisburg Patriot and Union, dismissed it as mindless gibberish. "We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of,” it opined.
In truth, it took decades for anyone to think much of the speech, or even think of it all.
“It wasn’t until well over a quarter-century later that it began to emerge in the American psyche across the country that this speech was more than a speech, it defined who we were for eternity,” said Kraus days before the 155th anniversary of a speech that took less than two minutes to give and nearly a 100 years to reach the reverence it holds today.
It is a lesson in understanding the effects of time. Time doesn’t always erode and bury the past. Sometimes, it helps us better appreciate what was long right in front of us.
“History shows us greatness often isn’t appreciated
Click here for the full story.
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