Did Trump give the Palestinian's and Israeli's a "lay up" if they have the good sense to take it? From peace can come additional blessings and opportunities. From continued hatred and strife more tragedy.
Once again, will the un-orthodox carry the day where other's have failed?
Trump likes to get things done and understands what it means to work outside the box. (See 1 below.)
While I am on the subject of Trump, it is evident to me Trump Haters miss the essence of what Trump has accomplished. First, he has altered the office of the president forever. In some ways good in some ways not so.
He has certainly proven taking a different approach can and does work. He also has proven presidents can keep their campaign promises and, as a Republican, he has proven you can fight back and do not have to cave when Democrats seek to destroy you.
On the negative side, he has proven no matter what you did prior to being president you would be wise to curb your excesses and act with a degree of dignity that may not have been your more undisciplined life style.
Like him or not, Trump embraces American values, believes we have been a tremendous and positive force in terms of our contribution to making the world a better and is willing to be blunt when it comes to his view of the respect we are due from others and most particularly our so-called allies.
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Is Bernie, America's death rattle? (See 2 below.)
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Corey's view. (See 3 below.)
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Kim hits the nail once again. I said pretty much the same in a previous memo. (See 4 below.)
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Finally, those who know me and read my memos understand why I believe our youth should receive a rigorous education. However, they are being cheated by liberals whose support of self-serving unions has proven an unmitigated disaster.
I recently gained new insight into how Savannah schools continue failing our youth save for a few special curricula ones including an equally few number of charter schools. Apparently, the improved economy has given former teachers more employment options. Many are fleeing our schools and the stress accompanying discipline issues. I was told there are over 200 unfilled teaching positions.
Meanwhile, administrative staffing has exploded.
If America is going to compete effectively we cannot afford another generation of poorly educated youth due to partisan politics. and liberal PC'ism.
Frankly, I have little confidence matters will change. I had a creative and dedicated friend who tried, lost the battle and left town with his lovely family.
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Dick
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1) Elections will determine whether Israel seizes or squanders a historic opportunity
Israeli law will be applied in our communities in Judea and Samaria once the mapping process is completed • A Palestinian state that supports terror will not be established, rather a demilitarized democratic entity • The deal of the century will enhance security and ensure our future • Special to Israel Hayom, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu details the plan: Here are the facts – these are the lies.
The "deal of the century" presented by my friend, US President Donald Trump, offers the State of Israel a historic opportunity that won't return: to protect and defend our country, determine our borders, and ensure our future. We must do all we can to capitalize on this opportunity and not squander it.
Ever since the plan was revealed two weeks ago, many things have been said and written in the media to distort it. Here are the facts to counter the false claims:
Claim one: Trump's peace plan won't lead to the application of Israeli law in the Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley.
Fact: It will do just that! For the first time since the establishment of the state, the deal of the century will grant American recognition of our sovereignty over these regions of our homeland. This is the realization of the Zionist vision.
As US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman explained, the application of Israeli law in these territories requires the completion of the mapping process by the joint American-Israeli committee – because we must map out the 800-kilometer (498-mile) line, which will encompass the area where Israeli sovereignty will be applied. We will finish this process as quickly as possible.
I reject the claim that President Trump won't keep his word. He promised to exit the dangerous nuclear deal with Iran – and followed through. He promised to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital – and followed through. He promised to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem – and followed through. He promised to recognize our sovereignty on the Golan Heights – and followed through.
On the matter of sovereignty in our homeland, he will follow through. Together with President Trump, I will apply Israeli law in all our communities in Judea and Samaria, the Jordan Valley, the northern Dead Sea, and additional large swathes.
Claim two: Trump's peace plan creates a Palestinian state that supports terror.
Fact: The plan does the exact opposite. It imposes strict and rigid conditions on the Palestinians in exchange for a future deal. Among other things, the plan requires Palestinian society to fundamentally change and become a democratic entity.
Israel and the US will determine whether the Palestinians are fulfilling these conditions, of which there are many. To enter negotiations the Palestinians must do the following:
- Immediately cease all "salary" payments to terrorists and their families.
- Halt all efforts to join international organizations without Israel's approval.
- Pull their lawsuits against Israel at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
All these are preconditions the Palestinians must meet just to enter diplomatic talks. To conclude such negotiations, they must fulfill each of the following conditions:
- Recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state.
- Recognize a united Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
- Agree to Israeli security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River – on land, at sea, and in the air.
- Cease any and all incitement against Israel, including in school textbooks and curricula, and in all Palestinian Authority institutions.
- Completely demilitarize Gaza and the entire Palestinian population.
- Completely cede the "right of return."
- Disarm Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations.
- Hold free elections, safeguard freedom of the press, protect human rights, protect freedom of religion, and grant equal rights to religious minorities.
And again, Israel and the US will be the ones to determine whether the Palestinians have indeed met these conditions, before finalizing an accord even becomes possible. Moreover, if after the signing of such an accord the Palestinians fail to meet their security conditions, Israel will be able to reverse the processes outlined by the accord.
Claim three: This peace plan isn't different from past initiatives.
Fact: Not true! This is the friendliest plan toward Israel ever proposed. It is a historic turn of events for the future of our people. For the first time, Trump's plan is doing the exact opposite of previous diplomatic proposals.
Instead of demanding concrete "gestures" from Israel (such as the release of terrorists and construction freezes in our communities) just to begin talks, without demanding anything of the Palestinians – this plan is a complete reversal. Irrespective of Palestinian acceptance or rejection, we are getting American recognition over parts of our homeland, while the Palestinians must make considerable concessions just to enter talks!
Earlier diplomatic plans were predicated on the warped view that Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the Jordan Valley are all "occupied" lands that need to be negotiated. For the first time, an American administration is proposing a plan that recognizes the historical bond and our national rights in the Land of Israel, our biblical and ancestral homeland.
The plan even calls for the establishment of an international mechanism to resolve the issue of Jewish refugees who were forced to flee Arab and Muslim countries. It calls on Arab countries to terminate anti-Israel initiatives in the United Nations and other international bodies.
Claim four: The deal of the century won't truly impact Israeli citizens.
Fact: This plan will dramatically affect every single citizen in Israel. The safety of Israelis everywhere – especially in the main cities such as Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Petah Tikva, Netanya, Rishon Lezion and others – depends on us maintaining security control in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.
The deal of the century ensures this. It will eliminate the prospect of missile attacks on Israeli cities and Ben-Gurion International Airport from the hills of Judea and Samaria. The US plan deals with more than just applying Israeli law in our homeland. It is a historic moment of defining our identities and ensuring the future of our homeland. This is our heritage, the essence of our culture, the deep biblical link between our people and the Land of Israel.
The choice we make in the coming weeks will define our nation forever. After 11 years of working against previous American administrations' policy of withdrawals and uprooting, after three years of working closely with President Trump and his team – we finally have the opportunity to bolster our security, determine our borders and ensure our future.
Claim five: The upcoming elections won't affect the deal of the century.
Fact: These elections will determine whether Israel seizes or squanders a historic opportunity. I will implement the deal of the century. Our political adversaries will implement the "miss of the century." For the sake of realizing the historic opportunity, for the sake of the Land of Israel, we must not miss this moment.
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2) Bernie Sanders's Rise is Like Death Knocking on America's Door
When Barack Obama vowed five days before he was first elected to fundamentally transform the nation he soon would lead, few who voted for him thought to ask themselves, Transform it into what? America always needs improving, but is it such a sorry place that it must be fundamentally transformed? Apparently so, according to Obama. And that goes double for the Democrat who would follow him, post-President Trump, Bernie Sanders. To fundamentally transform a nation means to bring about profound changes to its principles, values and institutions. In the case of America, that means radically transforming the economic and governing systems that made it the greatest nation the world has ever known.
Bernie Sanders is leading Democratic polls, and in this regard, he's assuming the mantle of Obama, like death again knocking at America's door.
Which is why the Obama presidency should be re-examined. A long trail of circumstantial evidence indicated that Obama was intent on upending our two-party constitutional democracy in favor of single-party socialist rule. That's not different from what Sandes openly espouses. If not for a corrupt mainstream media, Obama would never have succeeded in hiding his socialist ideology. Dating to his childhood, he has been influenced by a long trail of hardcore socialists, including his parents and the revolutionary communists listed below.
Frank Marshall Davis
A 20th century African-American journalist and labor activist, Davis was an unapologetic communist who loathed his country and its capitalist system. The subject of a 600-page FBI file, Davis was a card-carrying, pro-Soviet member of the Communist Party USA. His loyalty to communism ran so deep that he was placed on the FBI Security Index, meaning he was a prime suspect for treason had the U.S. gone to war with the Soviet Union.During the time Davis lived in Hawaii, he was introduced to a young Barack Obama by the latter’s maternal grandfather. The two developed a close and trusting relationship, with Davis arguably serving as Obama’s single most important adolescent mentor. In his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, Obama acknowledged a deep admiration for Davis, mentioning him in glowing terms 22 times, without once disclosing that Davis was a hardened communist who loathed America. When Obama released the audio version of his memoir in 2005 as an aspiring presidential candidate, all references to Davis were quietly purged, a fact that went unreported by the mainstream media. That Davis’s communist leanings rubbed off on Obama is evidenced throughout Dreams, including the part where Obama acknowledges an affinity he had for Marxist professors and student groups when he was in college.
William Ayers
When Obama moved to Chicago after graduating from Harvard Law School, he was introduced to unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, who attempted to incite a violent communist revolution in the 1960s as a leader of the Weather Underground. Ayers is a self-declared communist revolutionary who has devoted his entire adult life to destroying America’s capitalist system: “I wake up every morning and think, today is the day I will end capitalism. I go to bed disappointed every night, but am back at work tomorrow because that is the only way you can do it.” Although Obama knew about Ayers’ strident anti-American views, he chose to launch his political career in the living room of Ayers’s Chicago home.
When explosive revelations about Obama’s close association with Ayers were reported by Fox News during the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama tried to dismiss Ayers as “just a guy who lives in my neighborhood, not somebody I regularly exchanged ideas with.” The evidence shows otherwise. The two served together for five years on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), a progressive educational foundation that appointed Obama as its executive director. According to an investigative report in The Wall Street Journal, Obama operated CAC in a manner wholly consistent with Ayers’ concept that public school classrooms should be used as political lecture halls to indoctrinate students with his belief that America is such a racist and unjust place that things can be made right only by the total dismantling of its economic and governing systems.
Saul Alinsky
Another radical socialist who loathed America and its capitalist system became one of Obama’s most important political mentors years before Obama moved to Chicago. The win-at-all-costs political theories of Saul Alinsky, who died in 1972, had so much influence on Obama that America’s future first black president taught Alinsky’s ends-justify-the-means election tactics at University of Chicago.
Alinsky believed that destroying the character of political opponents is far more effective at getting Democrats elected than trying to sell the utopian promises of socialism. In his book Rules for Radicals, Alinsky wrote this: “The despair is there. It is now up to us to rub raw the wounds of discontent and galvanize them for radical social change.” The radical change to which he referred is the takedown of America’s free-market capitalist economy and its two-party constitutional democracy. In keeping with Lenin’s observation that a lie told often enough becomes the truth, Alinsky taught Democrats that the most effective way to defeat Republicans is to relentlessly slander them as racists. Forty-eight years after his death, the Chicago community organizer who despised his country remains the most revered political strategist of the modern Democratic Party.
Jeremiah Wright
When Obama arrived in Chicago, he sought to gain street creds for his political ambitions by joining Trinity United Church of Christ, a predominately African-American congregation led by its firebrand pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Rev. Wright taught Black Liberation Theology, a religious teaching based on victim vs. oppressor ideology, the essence of Marxism. By their own admission, Barack and Michelle Obama regularly attended Trinity United for 20 years. During that time, they listened to hundreds of Wright’s “God d**n America” sermons in which he angrily blamed his country for problems in America and the rest of the world. A passage from the audio version of Dreams From My Father reveals sympathy Obama had with the anti-white views of Wright, whom Obama quotes in Dreams as saying, “White folks’ greed runs a world in need.”
Obama and Wright are known to have associated with Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic, anti-white and American-hating minister of the Nation of Islam. Hidden from voters by the mainstream media until after Obama’s re-election was secured, this photo shows Obama and Farrakhan at a 2005 meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus, an organization whose members have lavishly praised Fidel Castro and Cuba’s communist system. The photo doesn’t necessarily mean Obama is close friends with Farrakhan, but does show he has no problem socializing with a man who hates his country with every fiber of his being.
Obama’s trip to Cuba
In early 2016, when Obama no longer faced re-election, he visited Cuba, where he defiantly posed before a six-story likeness of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Standing in front of a massive image of Guevara that adorns the Ministry of the Interior in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución (Revolution Plaza), America’s first black president stood shoulder to shoulder with officials of the brutal communist regime that worships Guevara as a national hero. That Obama would stage such a photograph leaves little doubt in the minds of many about the true ideological beliefs of the man who vowed to fundamentally transform the United States of America.
The only difference between self-avowed socialist Bernie Sanders on the one hand, and Obama and the party he leads on the other, is that Obama and his party are being coy about their unbreakable affinity for socialism.
Wake up, America. Death is knocking on your door.
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3)
The state of the Democratic primary: Heading to a brokered convention?
BY COREY R. Lewandowski—
A couple things can be learned from New Hampshire’s “first in the nation” primary election.
President Trump showed historic strength, winning a record number of New Hampshire primary votes as an incumbent president running for reelection. “The Revolution” is no longer cancelled, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) edged out a hard-fought win in the same race he dominated four years ago. Former vice president Joe Biden, in a slight to New Hampshire, slipped away before the votes were even counted. And two candidates with three-syllable last names might make the four days of the 2020 Democratic National Committee’s convention much longer than DNC chairman Tom Perez would ever want.
What does this all mean? Well, if you were hoping for a little more clarity after the Iowa Democratic Caucus’s “Appageddon,” you’ve got it. It just might not have been the kind of clarity you were looking for.Biden’s probably done. This is likely the beginning of the end of former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign. Bailing on a state in which your campaign workers, volunteers and donors invested before hearing the results isn’t strategic: it’s disrespectful. Retreating to his supposed “firewall” of South Carolina, he’ll find no position of strength. Rivals Tom Steyer — who, yes, is still in the race — and Sanders are surging there and, after his weak performance in New Hampshire, some donors might find it is time to place their hopes in somebody else.
Bernie could become the nominee. It’s a fragmented field, but New Hampshire reminded us that Bernie’s support is strong and his supporters are committed. Having fought and lost against the rigged system of the DNC once before, we know Bernie’s ready for a long fight. If the field narrows, and his popularity with the Democratic base consolidates, he could win it outright. However, it’s looking more and more likely that many of the top candidates will be in it for the long haul and prevent Bernie from reaching the delegate threshold.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar have made the race interesting. Be honest — these two people, who you hadn’t heard of before they announced their candidacies, have pulled off amazing feats. In two states in a row, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., has kept Bernie from big-margin victories, and the senator from Minnesota has made the media recognize who she is. Do the results in New Hampshire, then, serve as the start to some glorious underdog story? Probably not. But what they do show is that some (unexpected) candidates may stay stubbornly popular deeper and deeper into the primary season, making it hard for any candidate to win the nomination outright.
Elizabeth Warren … I’m not even going to talk about Sen. Warren (D-Mass.) because she’s made herself irrelevant.
Bloomberg entering the race on Super Tuesday will make it even more muddled. Personally, I don’t think his $350 million and counting investment in his candidacy will pay off in some big, dramatic way. It was bad enough being a billionaire in a party that believes it is immoral for billionaires to exist. But combining that with his tough-on-crime stance as New York City mayor, and his comments on “stop-and-frisk” that have just resurfaced, should make the Democratic base run away. However, some of the older, more moderate Dems who lost their faith in Biden may happily jump over to Bloomberg, spreading the party’s pledged delegates out more and more.
What actually happens if no candidate wins the nomination by convention time? Here’s how it works:
There are 4,750 total delegates to be committed this primary season in the Democratic Party; 3,979 of them will be pledged to different candidates by voters, based on the results of each state’s primary or caucus. And 771 of them are “superdelegates” — important elected officials in the Democratic Party who aren’t committed to any candidate (i.e., who can vote for anyone to become the nominee).
If any candidate wins 1,990 (more than half) of the 3,979 delegates pledged through state primaries and caucuses, that person becomes the nominee. However, if no candidate breaks past this number after every primary contest has been held and after the first convention ballot, then all 4,750 delegates become free to vote for any candidate they choose. Whichever candidate gets the majority of these 4,750 delegate votes, then, becomes the nominee.
Can you imagine what that would look like? Bloomberg handing out stacks of cash to delegates on the floor. Mayor Pete running from delegation to delegation, campaigning like he would to be president of his college politics club. Joe Biden wandering in circles. And the party figureheads, the “superdelegates,” thinking to themselves how Bernie isn’t fit to be the nominee and maybe running Hillary a second time is the best idea.
I might buy a ticket to that convention.
Corey R. Lewandowski is President Trump’s former campaign manager and senior adviser to both the Trump-Pence 2020 campaign and the Great America Committee, Vice President Mike Pence's political action committee. He is co-author with David Bossie of the books “Trump’s Enemies” and “Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency.” Follow him on Twitter @CLewandowski_.
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4) The Trials of Bill Barr
Bureaucrats bristle as the attorney general delivers on his pledge of accountability.
Bureaucrats bristle as the attorney general delivers on his pledge of accountability.
By Kimberley Strassel
The Roger Stone sentencing uproar is deeply important, and not because it’s another Trump “scandal.” Rather, it’s a clash that was always coming—the moment at which an ungoverned bureaucracy smacked up against Attorney General William Barr’s promise to restore equal justice and accountability at the Justice Department.
Democrats and the media are in a tizzy over the department leadership’s Tuesday decision to file a sentencing memo calling for Mr. Stone to receive a shorter prison sentence than four line prosecutors originally recommended. The reversal came not long after President Trump tweeted his own outrage over the initial sentencing memo, leading to the inevitable conspiracy theories and calls for investigation.
Democrats claimed Mr. Trump politically interfered with justice, bullying the department into going easy on a political crony. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer proclaims “a crisis in the rule of law.” Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Impeachment) declared another “abuse of power.” The press is casting it as Example A of how a postacquittal Trump feels emboldened to ignore the law.
This has it entirely backward. Here’s what actually happened: Justice sources tell me that interim U.S. Attorney Tim Shea had told the department’s leadership he and other career officials in the office felt the proposed sentence was excessive. As the deadline for the filing neared, the prosecutors on the case nonetheless threatened to withdraw from the case unless they got their demands for these stiffest of penalties. Mr. Shea—new to the job—suffered a moment of cowardice and submitted to this ultimatum. The filing took Justice Department leaders by surprise, and the decision to reverse was made well before Mr. Trump tweeted, and with no communication with the White House. The revised filing, meanwhile, had the signature of the acting supervisor of the office’s criminal division, who is a career civil servant, not a political appointee.
This is Mr. Barr getting rid of politics in justice—as he promised. In his confirmation hearing, the attorney general vowed an “even-handed application of the law” rather than judgments based on politics or favoritism (see Clinton investigation vs. Trump investigation). Before the president’s tweet, even liberal commentators were acknowledging the initial recommendation of up to nine years in prison was harsh, given that Mr. Stone is a first-time offender. The request came from a prosecutorial team—which included two members of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s staff—that wanted to punish Mr. Stone for his ties to a president they loathe.
And don’t forget the mitigating factors. Remember how Mr. Stone ended up in the Justice Department’s crosshairs. It was after Team Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and Fusion GPS weaponized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to go after political opponents. Mr. Mueller could easily have unraveled this ambush. Instead, he rampaged through dozens of lives, and—unable to find collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, his original charge—obtained indictments for process crimes. That’s no excuse for Mr. Stone’s behavior, but his sentence ought to reflect that he was prosecuted by an overzealous, politicized Justice Department.
Mr. Barr also promised accountability, and the permanent bureaucracy is displaying its contempt for that mission. Line prosecutors made clear up front that they’d cause a political spectacle unless their demands were met. When overruled, four went on to withdraw. In a Washington Post op-ed, former Justice Department employee Chuck Rosenberg summed up the resistance to supervision: “We all understand that the leadership at the top of the department is politically appointed, and we make peace with that.”
Make peace with that? The Constitution provides for the election of the president and Senate. They appoint the officials who call shots and make policy. Career civil servants aren’t some aristocratic class entitled to immunity from supervision. They are employees. The danger isn’t political authority, but rather an unelected mandarin class that believes itself exempt from democratic accountability.
Mr. Barr’s reassertion of basic principles is overdue and important. The pity is that President Trump is ruining the moment with ill-considered tweets and statements that feed the conspiracy narratives. Mr. Trump is right to distrust the bureaucrats, but he should trust the attorney general to do the right thing—and give him the time and space to do it. His every comment on Mr. Stone puts Mr. Barr in a more difficult position—and for what? Mr. Barr on Thursday publicly asked the president to lay off, and he should.
Yet the real story this week is that in the end the Justice Department requested a reasonable sentence for Mr. Stone, and Mr. Barr schooled overzealous prosecutors in the importance of evenhandedness, integrity and respecting the chain of command. The only scandal, yet again, is that so much of partisan Washington is willing to throw mud on this progress in the name of damaging this White House.
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