https://cms.frontpagemag.com/
Sure, that money could help actual affected people, but during an economic crisis and a pandemic, Democrats will use big donor money to smear President Trump and undermine the administration. How patriotic .
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I know I have been harsh on Schumer, Schiff, Pelosi et. al but today I heard Schumer, with his syrupy , sanctimonious, speak in a way that justifies everything I have said about this worm. He began with a soulful, downbeat message and then shifted to blame Trump for everything we face. Schumer is not a leader. He is a slimy politician seeking to place blame and when it comes to an opportunity to demonstrate statesmanship he fails miserably. He is the face of the Democrat Party.
From time to time I also have been critical of Trump. Whether we could have begun an earlier response or not I will leave that for partisans to debate. We are now addressing the challenge as best we can and cheap shots should be swallowed.
Lynn and I are doing what we have been advised: a) because it is in our own best compromised health condition interest, b) because it is important to others we love and even those we do not know and c) because we care more about our country than we do about playing the blame game.
If you want to do the latter then point yourself in the direction of China. Nations who are Communist and Socialist led are evil nations and mean the world no good. America remains the world's best hope and no one should ever forget that. We make mistakes, sometimes big and unpardonable ones but our intentions are mostly honorable. We neither seek what others possess nor do we seek territory. We wish all peoples were free and their lands bountiful. Such is not the case so America pitches in and does more than most nations combined. This is who we are and why we are who we are so now we must turn inward and show ourselves we can and will muddle through as the English/Churchill demonstrated in WW 2.
China holds many, many billions of our bonds. We should advise them we are going to either cancel all our debt to them or they will have to pay us for the ultimate costs and damage done to our economy by their withholding of information and putting the entire world at risk because of their live animal policies and wet storage facilities.
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As for me, the one thing I refuse to give up is my weird sense of humor.
A Partisan had been captured by the Germans and was before the firing squad in May. He was asked did he have one last request. He said he would like to postpone his being shot til Christmas. The Lt. in charge of the squad said that was a long time off and the prisoner responded: "I can wait."
Also:
In New York people who do not pay the subway fare and jump over turnstiles have been seen wiping them first with Purell.
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Lebanon was a magnificent country until radical Islamists took over.
The viruses of Lebanon
More debilitating than COVID-19 are the terrorists beholden to Iran’s rulers
COVID-19, the virus from Communist China, has not yet hit Lebanon harder than other nations but no one will be surprised if it does. A small country sandwiched between shattered Syria and dynamic Israel, Lebanon is in failing economic health. Among the symptoms: rising debt, spiraling inflation, soaring unemployment, falling foreign currency reserves, and an eroding Lebanese pound.
Electricity and water do not flow reliably. The country’s hospitals are short on funds for salaries and medical supplies.
This month, for the first time, Lebanon failed to repay a $1.2 billion Eurobond. “How can we pay the creditors while there are people in the streets without the money to buy a loaf of bread?” asked Prime Minister Hassan Diab. About 40 percent of Lebanese are now poor. That could soon rise to 50 percent, according to the World Bank.
Lebanon might not be in such terrible shape today were it not infected by Hezbollah, the disease-causing agent of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In the early 1980s, Iran’s rulers created Hezbollah, providing funding and 1,500 Revolutionary Guards to train fighters for the “Party of God.” Hezbollah’s power has been growing ever since. It’s appetite for blood-letting has remained constant. I’ll mention just a few instances.
In 1983, on orders from Tehran, Hezbollah bombed the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 258 Americans.
In the 1990s, Hezbollah, again instructed by Tehran, bombed Jewish targets in Argentina. Hezbollah operatives have boasted about it.
In 2005, Hezbollah used 2,200 tons of TNT to assassinate former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri along with 21 others traveling in his motorcade in Beirut. A U.N. Special Tribunal confirmed that conclusion.
In 2006, Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into a 34-day war with Israel. More than a thousand Lebanese were killed, as were 165 Israelis. The U.N. Security Council resolution that halted the conflict called for Hezbollah’s disarmament. Needless to say, that was not even attempted.
In 2008, Hezbollah forced the Lebanese government to sign a “power-sharing” agreement that has effectively given it a veto over all decisions. Since then, fewer and fewer decisions of significance are made independent of Hezbollah.
It’s true that the river of funds from Tehran to Beirut has slowed since the Trump administration began its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran’s theocrats. But Hezbollah remains flush nevertheless. The reason: Its extensive partnerships with South American drug cartels and other international criminal organizations.
These lucrative relationships have been extensively researched and documented by Emanuele Ottolenghi, my colleague at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). A law enforcement effort to break up the narco-terrorist alliances, Operation Cassandra, was dismantled by President Obama to facilitate the nuclear weapons deal he cut with Iran’s rulers.
What could make Lebanon much sicker? Another war with Israel would do the trick.
Hezbollah now has up to 150,000 missile aimed at Israel. It’s worth noting that many of these missiles have been emplaced in schools, hospitals, mosques and homes to make sure that Israelis, to defend themselves, will have to kill a large number of Lebanese civilians. That will provide Hezbollah with talking points for media outlets and transnational organizations eager to scapegoat Israelis while ignoring the fact that using “human shields” clearly violates international law.
Israel has so far tolerated this missile buildup, confident that its Iron Dome defense system is capable of preventing most rockets from reaching population centers.
However, Hezbollah lately has been replacing dumb missiles that are relatively easy to intercept with Precision Guided Munitions (PMGs) whose trajectories can be altered in flight, making them both more evasive and more accurate. In sufficient numbers they also could overwhelm Iron Dome.
Should Hezbollah’s Iranian-supplied PMGs inflict mass casualties, a full-blown war between Israel and Lebanon would be inevitable.
PGMs are built in factories in Lebanon and Syria which the Israelis bombs when they can. But dumb missiles also are being converted into smart missiles by Iranian-trained technicians equipped with Iranian-supplied kits that cost only about $15,000 per projectile. Hezbollah is estimated to have between three dozen and 300 PGMs at this point, with a new one being added perhaps every day and a half.
Sooner or later, Israel may decide it needs to go beyond killing crocodiles and begin draining the swamp. Last month, Israel announced that it was setting up a new military command devoted to planning kinetic responses targeting – if you’ll forgive my switching metaphors -- not the puppets in Lebanon but those pulling the strings in Tehran.
A treatment to help Lebanon recover is not difficult to prescribe. In association with the International Monetary Fund, the Lebanese government could initiate structural economic reforms and become eligible for billions of dollars in loans and grants. Lebanese banks handling Hezbollah’s illicit finances could be sanctioned and/or shut down. Endemic corruption could be tackled.
The Lebanese Armed Forces could reassert Lebanese sovereignty, remove the missiles threatening Israel, and disarm Hezbollah, insisting it transform into a political party competing with other political parties, rather than a militia that menaces other political parties and is beholden to a foreign regime.
None of this is remotely likely. The Hezbollah virus has debilitated Lebanon beyond the point where it can heal itself. The U.N. and the “international community” are, as usual, doing nothing useful.
We should expect the disease to spread. Actually, it already has. Terrorists, criminals, and their neo-imperialist patrons in Tehran have been bringing death and destruction to Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza – whomever and whatever they touch. There are means by which these vectors could be eliminated. Easy and painless they are not.
Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times.
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Perhaps there is a silver lining to the Coronavirus crisis. It probably ended Bernie's desire to turn America into a Socialist one beyond what it already has embraced.
Tristan Justice is a staff writer at The Federalist focusing on the 2020 presidential campaigns. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.
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