++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Speaks for itself. (See 1 below.)
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The future direction of the deal? (See 2 below.)
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Nothing "peachy" about impeachments anymore but radical Democrats might keep trying. (See 3 below.)
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Some interesting op eds:
Can Barr Restore DOJ After Obama Admin Abuses? Thaddeus McCotter
Once a Curiosity, Trump Rallies Now Joyous Celebrations David Marcus, Federalist
Are Democrats Willing to Let Bloomberg Buy the Nomination? Joe Lockhart, CNN
Has Trump Altered the Course of U.S. Foreign Policy? Jacob Heilbrunn, Natl Interest
Is Political Change Coming to China? Yuen Yuen Ang, Project Syndicate
1) BOMBSHELL: U.S. Atty. John Durham Is investigating Whether Obama Admin Hid Evidence of Russian Meddling
According to a bombshell report from the New York Times Friday morning, U.S. Attorney John Durham has been investigating whether Obama administration officials hid or perhaps manipulated intelligence about Russia's meddling.
Of course, that's not exactly how the New York Times wants you to see this story. From the very first paragraph, the NYT tries to spin the story as a partisan fishing expedition, not a legitimate investigation of Obama-era corruption. "Trump administration officials investigating the government’s response to Russia’s election interference in 2016 appear to be hunting for a basis to accuse Obama-era intelligence officials of hiding evidence or manipulating analysis about Moscow’s covert operation, according to people familiar with aspects of the inquiry."
Mr. Durham appears to be pursuing a theory that the C.I.A., under its former director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result — and was nefariously trying to keep other agencies from seeing the full picture lest they interfere with that goal, the people said.
The NYT then not-so-subtlely suggests that Trump is simply using the Justice Department to "go after his enemies," but there are legitimate questions about what the Obama administration did (and didn't) do when it was made clear that Russia was attempting to meddle in our elections.
It's been previously reported than Barack Obama, and thus, his administration, was not only aware that Russia was trying to interfere, but actually prevented any sort of response to it.
According to the Washington Post, Barack Obama was first alerted by John Brennan about Russia's efforts in early August of 2016. However, despite the alarm given, Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice literally gave a “stand-down” order to Obama’s cyber security czar, rather than respond with full force. You don't have to take my word for it. This was first revealed in the book, Russian Roulette, by left-wing authors Michael Isikoff and David Corn. What was Obama trying to hide?
It seems like John Durham is trying to answer that question, and the New York Times is afraid of what the answer is.
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2) The Deal of the Century as a prelude to the Jordan Option
By Ted Belman
Trump’s Deal of the Century embodied in Peace to Prosperity recently tabled is not a two state solution because what is being offered to the Palestinians falls far short of being a state. Though it enlarges their territory beyond Areas A and B (as defined by the Oslo Accords) to amount to a total area equivalent to the whole West Bank, it diminishes their autonomy. For instance, their government will be required to “adopt[ing] basic laws protecting human rights, protecting against financial and political corruption; stopping the malign activities of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other enemies of peace; ending the incitement of hatred against Israel; and permanently halting the financial compensation to terrorists.” For purposes of this article, I will refer to what they are being offered as a “statelet”.
This deal does not give them, what they, the leadership, want, namely to enrich themselves and to destroy Israel so why should they accept it. The Palestinians have no say in the matter.
I have yet to read of any pundit who believes that such a statelet will be created.
Surely the Trump team knows this. So why did they table the vision?
In my opinion, he wanted to present a new vision to replace the old vision. During the next four years they will advance their vision and negate the old vision.
The old vision, was basically Oslo Accords signed in 1993 1nd 1995 and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative which demanded 100% withdrawal by Israel. In addition, it demanded the right of return for all Palestinian refugees and the division of Jerusalem. This initiative was premised on the Palestinian narrative that presented the Palestinians as indigenous and the Israelis as interlopers, oppressors and occupiers.
Til now, the US has done its utmost to “shrink Israel down to size” which was its stated goal according to Henry Kissinger in 1975. When PM Begin made peace with Anwar Sadat he was under great pressure by Pres Carter to agree to withdraw from every inch of the Sinai, which Begin agreed to do, and create a Palestinian state in the rest of the territories recovered by Israel in the Six Day War in 1967. The best he could get from Begin was that he would give the Arabs there, autonomy.
A few years later, Carter declared, on dubious grounds, that all Jewish settlements in the territories, were illegal.
When Israel was forced to rout Arafat and the PLO in south Lebanon in the early eighties due to their campaign of terror in Israel, she was stopped by Pres Regan just as she was preparing to deliver the coup de gras. Regan stepped in and arranged for the transport of Arafat and his men to Tunisia.
Though the US had assured Israel that she would not talk with the PLO, the US worked behind the scenes to make them a negotiating partner with Israel. When Pres H.W. Bush was preparing for the Madrid Conference in 1991, he insisted on the PLO being present as part of the Jordanian delegation and he insisted that Jerusalem be put on the negotiating table. PM Shamir, under great duress and in need of US financial guarantees to enable Israel to finance the Russian immigration, accepted.
Shimon Peres began negotiating with them in secret to cut a deal rather than to have one imposed on Israel by the US. The outcome of this was the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995.
The Oslo Accords were supposed to be an interim solution only. According to the Peace to Prosperity document,
“The Oslo Accords, however, left numerous key issues unresolved pending the completion of permanent status negotiations, including, among other items, borders, security, refugees and Jerusalem. Those agreements did not create an effective path for neutralizing the kinds of crises that emerged during the implementation of Oslo, including waves of terror and violence.”
The Accords became a permanent constitution articulating the division of powers between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) over Parts A, B and C as delineated by the Accords. They enabled the PA to wage war on Israel and to reject any compromise.
The final status issues were impediments to reaching agreement because the PA was not prepared to compromise. In fact, they were not prepared to make an end of conflict agreement on any terms.
The new vision is built on recognizing “Israel’s valid legal and historical claims”.
President Trump, soon after he was inaugurated, began to undo the harm foisted on Israel by the US, the EU and the UN.
To this end, he has
- undermined UNRWA and cut its funding and questioning its legitimacy.
- undermined the PA, by kicking it out of Washington and reduced its financial support,
- recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and has moved the US Embassy to it. In other words, he took Jerusalem off the table
- declared the settlements as not illegal
- induced Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, and others to abandon the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 upon which the old vision is based
- challenged the UN and the EU for their efforts to delegitimize Israel
- questioned the number of real refugees remaining
Peace to Prosperity also takes many issues off the table. It recognized that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel, that the “refugees” will have to be settled in places other than Israel and that Israel can extend its sovereignty over most of its settlements and the Jordan Valley long before an agreement with the Palestinians is reached. It also asserts,
“The State of Israel and the United States do not believe the State of Israel is legally bound to provide the Palestinians with 100 percent of pre-1967 territory (a belief that is consistent with United Nations Security Council Resolution 242).”
That being the case, why did the document require Israel to give the statelet some of its own land?
As for the neglected Jewish refugees from Arab countries it provides;
“The Jewish refugees who were forced to flee Arab and Muslim countries also suffered. Most settled in the State of Israel and some settled elsewhere. The Jewish refugee issue, including compensation for lost assets, must also be addressed.
“Additionally, the State of Israel deserves compensation for the costs of absorbing Jewish refugees from those countries. A just, fair and realistic solution for the issues relating to Jewish refugees must be implemented through an appropriate international mechanism separate from the Israel-Palestinian Peace Agreement.”
This is long overdue.
While it does provide that “the status quo at the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif should continue uninterrupted”, it insists:
“Jerusalem’s holy sites should remain open and available for peaceful worshippers and tourists of all faiths. People of every faith should be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, in a manner that is fully respectful to their religion, taking into account the times of each religion’s prayers and holidays, as well as other religious factors.”
This totally contradicts the present practice of limiting Jewish and Christian prayer there. As such it is a welcome relief.
It also provides preconditions to the establishment of the statelet.
“The following criteria are a predicate to the formation of a Palestinian State and must be determined to have occurred by the State of Israel and the United States, jointly, acting in good faith, after consultation with the Palestinian Authority:
‘The Palestinians shall have implemented a governing system with a constitution or another system for establishing the rule of law that provides for freedom of press, free and fair elections, respect for human rights for its citizens, protections for religious freedom and for religious minorities to observe their faith, uniform and fair enforcement of law and contractual rights, due process under law, and an independent judiciary with appropriate legal consequences and punishment established for violations of the law.
‘The Palestinians shall have established transparent, independent, and credit-worthy financial institutions capable of engaging in international market transactions in the same manner as financial institutions of western democracies with appropriate governance to prevent corruption and ensure the proper use of such funds, and a legal system to protect investments and to address market-based commercial expectations. The State of Palestine should meet the independent objective criteria to join the International Monetary Fund.
‘The Palestinians shall have ended all programs, including school curricula and textbooks, that serve to incite or promote hatred or antagonism towards its neighbors, or which compensate or incentivize criminal or violent activity.
‘The Palestinians shall have achieved civilian and law enforcement control over all of its territory and demilitarized its population.
‘The Palestinians shall have complied with all the other terms and conditions of this Vision.”
Let us assume that all pundits are correct, namely that the statelet will not be created within the four years provided or ever. What are Israel’s options?
Israel can extend sovereignty throughout all the land and contend with the Arabs living there. Thus the Arabs will constitute 1/3 of the residents of Israel. Some Israelis want to offer them a path to citizenship. Others are vehemently opposed. If the Palestinians do not have citizenship after annexation, criticisms of Israel as being an apartheid state will dramatically increase. What’s to be done?
The present vision is to give Palestinian citizenship to all of them but if there is no Palestinian statelet, then what? With the cooperation of Jordan, Jordanian citizenship can be given to them instead. In fact, all of them currently have Jordanian citizenship but Jordan has attempted to retract or limit this citizenship.
Jordan has been a big supporter of the creation of Palestine pursuant to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. King Abdullah saw that as the only way to prevent Jordan from becoming Palestine. After all, 80% of Jordanians are Palestinian.
Let us imagine that Jordan changes its mind and agrees to become the Palestinian state in place of the one that fails to materialize pursuant to the Deal of the Century. This change of mind can come about either through the King having an epiphany or being replaced as ruler by Dr. Mudar Zahran, the Leader of the Jordanian Opposition.
Were this to happen, all Palestinians in both sides of the Jordan R. would become full Jordanian citizens. without restrictions. The two roads connecting this proposed statelet to Jordan would be completed facilitating transportation between Palestinians on both sides of the Jordan R.
Jordan would take over the administration of Areas A and B and Gaza in place of the PA and Hamas. Jordan would also fulfill the role of UNRWA in providing education, welfare and health care to all the current day refugees. By granting them citizenship they would no longer be refugees.
Rather than build the tunnel connecting Gaza to the rest of the statelet, at a cost exceeding $15 Billion, Jordan can invite all residents of Gaza to relocate in Jordan to receive these benefits. It is not too far-fetched to believe that the 1.7 million Arabs living in Gaza could be incentivized to relocate to Jordan which is only 100 miles away or to any other country prepared to accept them. The same goes for the Palestinians living in Judea and samaria.
It would not be necessary for Israel to give up any parts of its territory.
Israel would extend its law to all the lands west of the Jordan R including Gaza, if and when the population is greatly reduced, and the Arabs would become foreign residents in Israel with Jordanian citizenship.
The $50 Billion pledge to this vision could be provided to Jordan to enable it to become the home for all Palestinians, and provide them with jobs, education and healthcare.
Instead of investing in industrial parks in Area C in Israel to benefit the Arabs as proposed by Min Bennett and PM Netanyahu, these zones should be created in Jordan thereby incentivizing Arabs to emigrate to Jordan.
This is a two step solution.
The first step is to change the vision as above set out.
The second step is to make Jordan, Palestine.
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3) Democrats Aiming for More Impeachments
With their ludicrous impeachment exercise, Democrats have forever destroyed impeachment as a political tool even as they ensured that it will get pulled out of the drawer repeatedly by their radical political progeny in the years ahead. It took mere milliseconds following acquittal before the raging impeachaholics started fantasizing about the next round.
The latest round of impeachment hysteria was triggered by President Trump's removal of the villainous Vindmans, the failed ambassador par mediocre, and other assorted swamp creatures. Patriotic Americans wondered why it took so long. Those with TDS reprised the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but instead of seeing witches everywhere, every word and action magically transformed into an impeachable offense.
First, you had the world's most jealous husband, curiously crazy George, floating a trial balloon in the Bezos Impeachment Post.
Jake Tapper and Eric Swalwell followed that up by fantasizing at impeaching Trump over Attorney General Bill Barr stepping in to adjust Roger Stone's obscenely unjust sentencing recommendation on the Impeachment News Network. It's notable in this case that it was the so-called journalist initiating the impeachment call, with hapless Swalwell just trying to keep up. Why report the news when you can create it?
Impeachment fever is starting to crescendo again, even as Nancy Pelosi fights the urge to rip the dam holding back the quickly building crazy in half.
If normal Americans tuned out the last effort, imagine how seriously they will take the next go at it. The "Hunter was a legitimate Ukrainian energy czar" impeachment, which was the equivalent of Caddyshack II both in narrative power and believability, was essentially copied from the failed Mueller investigation script. The next impeachment will be something even uglier: a copy of a copy meant to both indict and distract from revelations likely coming soon from the Durham investigation.
There is a great line from the movie Multiplicity when a cloned copy of the main character points out to the real character why another clone is nuttier than a Pelosi.
"You know how when you make a copy of a copy, it's not as sharp as...well...the original." True, but even more so when the original was the artistic equivalent of a Yoko Ono album.
When Democrat talking heads caveat conversations by saying Democrats don't wake up each morning thinking about impeachment, chances are that they wake up each morning dreaming of impeachment.
Below are five key takeaways from the failed impeachment gambit as we head toward more of the same:
1. It's hard to imagine a weaker or more disgraceful case than the last round, but stay tuned. Every single Democrat in the Senate voted for a charge so comically weak that it could exist only under the blanket of protection deployed by a virulently dishonest national media. The House charged the president and his team with obstructing Congress because they did not like that the White House's team asserted executive privilege, something Bill Clinton did 14 times. It is hard to conceive of a charge that could be any weaker, although trying to impeach the president for removing traitorous staff members might clear that low bar.
Executive privilege is a foundational protection built into U.S. separation of powers. We have the Judicial Branch to decide these questions. House Democrats were so sure that they had an ironclad case that they rushed to...not respond to the White House's legal arguments.
If going to the courts to argue executive privilege is impeachable, then everything is impeachable, and high crimes and misdemeanors has no meaning.
If this weren't a pure political exercise, that charge would have been decided 100-0. It was so outrageous that even Benedict Pierre's magical conscience could not vote for that one. Yet not a single Democrat had the courage to vote against something so blatantly foolish and risk angering their rabid base.
2. Moderate Democrats are a myth. There is simply no room in a party that has been hijacked by radical Marxists for moderate voices, which is why the differences between the Democrat candidates are defined more by style than content. Today's Democrat "moderates" will always vote with their party and against their constituents on key votes that matter to their party. Joe Manchin is counting on West Virginians having short memories. They won't. Should he elect to run again, this will be the vote that does him in, as he will never be viewed the same in West Virginia.
3. Doug Jones knows he is done. He decided that it was more in his interest to maintain a strong relationship with his party than to save his Senate career. Jones had the worst situation heading into this year's election, trying to survive in beet-red Alabama with presidential election turnout.
His corollary, the Republican with the toughest uphill climb, is Cory Gardner in Colorado. That once swing state, like Virginia, is getting bluer by the cycle. Despite the tough environment, Gardner stood with the president against the bogus impeachment, likely figuring that his best chance of survival is to generate as much Republican turnout as he can. Good call. If he loses in November, it won't be because of this vote, but a nod to math and the demographic transformation of the state.
Gardner's vote was made slightly harder by Mitt Romney, who has the distinct honor of being the only senator stupid enough to vote completely against his political interest. He clearly desires to fill John McCain's vacated role as the "good" Republican who is trotted out and patted on his head by the national media after riding on the roof of their car.
4. Much of the media coverage has focused on whether the president learned his lesson from impeachment. That's backwards. The right question is whether the Democrats have learned their lesson. Based on the rising impeachment chatter being stoked by the media, they have clearly not. President Trump will likely become the first president to be impeached multiple times. If the president is re-elected and Democrats hold the House, they will almost immediately begin plotting another impeachment attempt, if it even takes that long.
5. The media are to blame since they created the environment for and demanded runaway Democrat impeachment trains. It speaks to how far out on a radical limb the national media have wandered that in their circles, Jake Tapper, who is agitating for more impeachment, is considered a voice of sanity. While impeachment has been destroyed as a real constitutional remedy, it has been normalized as a tool for Democrats to attack Republican presidents. It is doubtful that there will ever be another effective Republican president saddled with a Democrat House who will not be impeached. In fact, at this point, it would be more of an indictment for Republicans in that circumstance to not be impeached since it would mean they were not fighting for Americans. Being impeached by today's Democrat party should be viewed as a point of pride, since being liked and admired by the national media and their anti-American party is about as strong of a character indictment as exists in modern America.
Democrats aim to see how many times they can meaninglessly impeach the same Republican president. It's left to voters to throw them out if they want to end Groundhog Day.
Fletch Daniels can be found on Twitter at @fletchdaniels.
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