Nice Way to Come Back

I've been off helping my daughter move, and I got back to today's vote on the impeachment rules resolution in the House.  It's interesting to note, that despite the whole hearted support of the media, the Democrats couldn't get any Republican to join them in passing the resolution.  The opposition, on the other hand, was bi-partisan.  If you really had any doubts about whether or not there is any substance to the accusations being leveled at the President by the Democrats, this ought to make it easy to come up with the answer.  Not a single one of the 200 Republicans in the House thought enough of this charade to vote in favor of an investigation.  Remember, this was not a vote to impeach, just a vote to investigate.  The Dems don't even have enough to convince one Republican to support this call for investigation.

On the other hand, the investigation was just too much for some of the Dems.  That's why the opposition was bi-partisan.

Can’t They Accept A US Victory

It’s amazing. The long time leader of ISIS and his chief spokesman are killed by the US military and the mainstream media can’t accept the victory. The Washington Post calls the disgusting murderer who headed ISIS an “austere religious leader” and Newsweek announces that the ISIS leader really wasn’t important. I don’t normally read Newsweek (who does?) but the WaPo is still a real media outlet. It should know better. A victory for the USA is a hell of a lot more important than the silly political views of the paper that can’t stand to see president Trump have a success. 

Key Thing To Remember

With the news that the DOJ probe into the “origin” of the Trump Russia investigation becoming a criminal investigation, the media and the Dems are busy denouncing it all as a witch-hunt (sound familiar).  But here’s the key point:  the investigation would not have changed to a criminal matter unless DOJ found evidence from which one could conclude a crime was committed. It doesn’t mean a sure conviction, just that evidence of real wrongdoing exists. No wonder the Dems are having a meltdown.  

A major Shakeup in the Democrat Race

There was a major shake up today in the Democrat primary/caucus race for the 2020 nomination.  Tim Ryan withdrew his candidacy.  OMG! 

Okay, if you're like most people, you're saying "who?" at this point.  Ryan is a congressman from Ohio.  He's polling at something like 0.01% in the national polls.  In fact, the pollsters don't even mention his name since he does so poorly in the polls.

All of the jokers in the race should withdraw.  

How Dumb Are They?

In the last few days, we keep being told about the opening statement from William Taylor for the "impeachment hearings".  Taylor's testimony is still secret, but his 15 page statement was conveniently released.  The Republicans present all say that the positions in the opening statement all collapsed during questioning, but, of course, the Democrats and Adam Schiff in particular have kept that secret.

Well, now we have something that isn't secret.  It is now being reported that Taylor has a long term and close relationship with Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma.  For those who may have forgotten, Burisma is the company that gave Hunter Biden hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars to be a director of the company.  Biden had no experience with natural gas and couldn't even speak Ukrainian, but he did have a father who, at the time, was in charge of US policy regarding Ukraine.  Indeed, Biden had a father who used threats of a cut off of all US aid to Ukraine to get a prosecutor fired who had investigated Burisma for corruption.

As the Church Lady used to say on SNL, "Isn't that special!"

So we have a guy who has financial ties to Burisma who releases a "statement" that falls apart on cross examination, and the Democrats let the statement be released but keep the testimony secret.  These are unAmerican tactics worthy of a corrupt dictatorship in some fascist or communist state.

The Polls Cannot Be Trusted

There are three polls out in the last two days that merit mentioning.

The first is the CNN poll of Democrats nationwide as to whom they would prefer as their 2020 nominee.  It shows Biden with 34%, Warren at 19 and Sanders at 16.

The second is the Quinipiac national poll on the same question.  It shows Warren at 28, Biden at 21 and Sanders at 15.  That puts Warren up 9, Biden down 13 and Sanders down 1 compared to CNN.

The third poll is the Economist/YouGov national poll on the same question.  That shows Biden 24, Warren 23 and Sanders 16.

These are three "respected" polling organizations, but clearly at least two (and maybe three) are incorrect.  There's no way that three samples of Democrats would give Biden 34, 21 and 24 percent.  These are not variations within the margin of error.  These are errors.

The same is true with the scores for Warren.  They too cannot be made to mesh.  They are wrong.

Sanders, however, gets basically the same score in all three polls.

I have always felt that Quinipiac polls are skewed to favor Democrats, and in particular left wing Democrats.  I've written about it many times in the past.  That could explain the above numbers, but most likely it is more than that.  These polls are inherently garbage.

Katie Hill Should Resign

Freshman Democrat congressman Katie Hill should resign.  Hill is the subject of a House ethics investigation because she had an "inappropriate" relationship with one of her staffers.  The story broke a few days ago.  According to reports, Hill and her then husband engaged in a three way relationship with the staffer.  There were text messages confirming all this and even a picture of Hill sitting combing the hair of the staffer.  Hill was nude in the picture.  Hill's husband also alleges that Hill has started another relationship with a different staffer since the Hills filed for divorce.

Hill denied all of these allegations and blamed them on either her husband or vindictive political opponents.  As of yesterday, Hill was vowing to fight the allegations to the end.

Today, that all changed.  Hill now admits that she had an inappropriate relationship with one of her staff.  I guess it was just too hard to explain away the picture and all those text messages.  Hill is still denying the second relationship, but most likely that will change soon too.

At this point, Hill should resign.  It's totally improper for a congressman to have a sexual relationship with someone on his or her staff.  Further, it's just wrong that Hill blatantly lied to the people, especially her constituents, when the story first broke.

Hill should do the country a favor and resign.

Distortions and More Distortions -- Oh, Let's Just Call Them What They Are - LIES

One insurmountable defense offered by President Trump and his defenders to the charge that he threatened Ukraine that military aid would be withheld by the USA unless the Ukrainians investigated Joe Biden and his son is that the Ukrainians didn't know that aid had been delayed.  It's truly hard to threaten someone without telling them.  After all, if the Ukrainian president didn't know that there was a delay in military aid, he would hardly be motivated to do anything in response.

Today, the New York Times and all of the mainstream media are trying to overcome this rather huge obstacle.  The story is out there that Ukraine knew about the aid cut off before it became public.  OMG!  This story is supposed to show that when the president says that Ukraine didn't know about the aid cut off, he is wrong, or worse he is lying.

But here's the point.  The NY Times says that Ukraine found out through back channels at the end of the first week in August that military aid by the USA had been held up.  Let's assume that is true, although it has been denied by the president of Ukraine and not a single witness who has testified in the secret sessions held by the Democrats has confirmed it.  The phone call which is at the center of this whole mess took place on July 25th.  That means that President Trump spoke to the Ukrainian leader two weeks earlier.  That was Trump's only communication with the Ukrainian president.  So, when Trump spoke to the Ukrainian and didn't mention military aid (which is confirmed by the transcript), there's still no way that the Ukrainian could have tied Trump's off hand request to military aid, since the Ukrainian didn't know for another two weeks (at a minimum) that there was any issue there.

It's also worth pointing out that the so called "whistle blower" contacted Adam Schiff about the phone call with Ukraine's leader PRIOR to the Ukraine supposedly finding out about there being any issue with military aid.  I bet that if a full and FAIR investigation were done, we would find that the source that informed the Ukraine of an aid cut off was someone tied to Schiff and the Democrats.

But guess what?  Do you know what fact is missing from the NY Times' "blockbuster" article?  That's right.  The Times doesn't bother to mention that Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian leader was two weeks earlier than when even the Times says the Ukraine found out about a delay in aid.  It's quite a telling omission.

The Deal In Syria

President Trump just announced that an agreement brokered by the USA has been reached with the Kurds and the Turks for an end to all fighting in northern Syria.  There will be a 20 mile safe zone along the border.  The US sanctions on Turkey will be lifted.  The ISIS terrorists will remain in jails both in and out of the area.  Not all of the details have yet been made public, but it sounds like there will be no Syrian government forces or Russian forces inside the "safe zone."

This is great news.  The Kurds ended the threat to their safety from the Turks.  The Turks got the Kurdish forces who Turkey considers to be terrorists to pull back at least 20 miles from their border.  The civilians in the region are free from the threat of war.  The ISIS jihadists remain in prison.  The USA didn't have to suffer any casualties to its armed forces. 

The Canadian Election

Canada voted this week and the outcome presented a great illustration of the usual hypocrisy.

Justin Trudeau will remain prime minister as his Liberal party won the most seats in Parliament.  His party lost its majority in that body, however.  That makes Trudeau the head of a minority government which will be dependent on other parties to pass legislation.  It's a rather poor result for Trudeau, the first Canadian PM in almost a century to lose his majority in his first try for re-election.

The second place party is the Conservatives.  The won about 25 fewer seats in the 338 seat Parliament.  The Conservatives, however, won the nationwide popular vote.  About 1.5% more voters chose the Conservative party than chose the Liberals.  Because of the quirks of the Canadian election system, however, the Liberals got more seats.  In many ways, this is the rough equivalent of America's electoral college.  The winner has to win in many states (provinces) rather than getting high margins in a few states (provinces).

I've been looking for the outcry from the left about how the Canadian outcome is an ontrage that deprives the majority of its voice.  You know, like the outrage expressed when Hillary lost to the President in 2016 despite her lead in the popular vote.  I haven't found a single article on the subject.  Oh well, I guess outrage is only appropriate when the liberal loses.

Beto Throws In The Towel

Beto O'Rourke has given up.  Over the weekend Beto gave a speech to Democrats in Alabama where he proclaimed that America is "racist in its core."  Amazing.

Beto has reached the point where he is jumping the shark in political terms.  He tried announcing that if he were president, he would have all guns confiscated.  It got him some coverage, but no votes.  He remained at 1 percent in the polls.

Next, Beto tried supporting suppression of speech liberals didn't like.  Again, he got coverage (although less than on the guns) but no meaningful increase in votes.

Now, he's proclaiming the inherent racism of America.  It's such BS.  Beto isn't even old enough to remember what actual racism across the USA was like.  It's the rough equivalent of a guy with a paper cut denouncing the carnage of that cut to a group of war veterans.

Beto thinks that by denouncing all manner of progressive "outrages", he will secure votes for his candidacy.  The truth is something quite different.  Beto just exposes himself as a fool.  You can't attack the basic rights of Americans and hope to gain their votes.  You can't hate on the USA and expect Americans to support you.  Beto is just a fool. 

It's time for Beto to shut up and go home.  He has no future in politics.

What Will The Outcome Be In Canada

If you're like most Americans, you are completely unaware that Canada is voting today in a national election.  The polls are very close although the final ones show, on average, a tiny lead by the Conservatives over Prime Minister Trudeau's Liberal party.  In Canada, however, voters chose 338 separate members of parliament in individual districts.  Thus the national poll results don't really matter.  The Conservatives win in Alberta by a huge margin and the Liberals win big in the Atlantic provinces.  Normally, the contest comes down to which party does best in Ontario and Quebec.

All the "experts" are predicting that neither of the main parties will win a majority in parliament.  That would leave the balance of power with the NDP or the Bloc Quebecois.  The results could really go in a lot of different ways.

One thing is certain.  Trudeau has not won the love and support of his country.  If he loses the majority, it will be the first time in nearly 100 years that a prime minister up for re-election the first time has failed to hold onto his majority.

No matter what happens in the voting, the relationship between Canada and the USA is unlikely to change.  

The Politics of Bigotry

The Anti Defamation League is one of the oldest groups in the USA to fight anti-Semitism.  Now, it's becoming more political and less diligent in its fight.  It just issued a report that found there were about 800 anti-Semitic incidents nationwide so far in 2019, a number that was almost exactly the same as the same period in the previous year.  Sadly, though, the ADL chose to highlight white supremacy as the big threat facing Jews.

Don't get me wrong.  I certainly don't support white supremacy or anti-Semitism of any sort.  I just think it is myopic for the ADL to overlook two other major issues of anti-Semitism.  Those are left wing anti-Semitism and radical Muslim anti-Semitism.  On the left, especially on many college campuses, there is a rabid attack on Jews and Israel.  On certain campuses, supporters of Israel have been threatened and even attacked.  They certainly have been prevented from speaking.  Does the ADL think that these leftist thugs are actually white supremacists?  No way.  But does the ADL mention them?  No way again.  And in Congress, who is it that accused Jewish members of that body of having dual loyalties, and old anti-Semitic canard?  It wasn't white supremacists.  No, it was the left wing thought leaders in the Democrat party, namely, the Squad.  The ADL should not be silent about left wing anti-Semitism. 

Nor should the ADL ignore the Muslim anti-Semitism we see in various places across America.  It's not fashionable on the left to mention radical Islam in the USA (or anywhere else for that matter.)  As a result, the ADL remained silent about this threat in its latest report.  When Jews are attack on a street in Brooklyn by local Muslims, does the ADL think that the black attacker is actually a white supremacist?  Nope.  It's just that the ADL doesn't want to upset the leftist sensibilities of the Democrats.

Bigotry needs to be confronted, no matter what the source.  That includes real bigotry based on race, religion, or sex.  People cannot get a pass because of their other political views; it's just too dangerous.

Little Bits Of Importance

Sometimes, it's worth taking note of small points that are truly important.  Here are a few examples:

1.  President Trump had said that he was going to have the G-7 meeting at one of his properties in Florida and to do so at cost.  The mainstream media and the Democrats went crazy claiming that Trump was profiting from his office.  As a result, they're moving the G-7 meeting elsewhere at a much greater cost to the US taxpayer.  The media and Democrats are calling this a "victory".   Why?

2.  Since Trump relocated US forces in Syria (about 50 of them), the Democrats are strong advocates for defending the border of Syria against a Turkish incursion.  Why will the Democrats defend the borders of Syria but not of the USA?

3.  Turkey has been home to about 3.6 million refugees from Syria for the past few years as a result of an agreement between the Turkish government and the EU that the Turks would prevent the refugees from going beyond the Turkish borders to the countries in Europe like Germany where most of these refugees prefer to be.  The Turks told the Europeans last week that if they interfered in the fighting between the Turks and the Kurds in Syria, Turkey would release these refugees to move on elsewhere in Europe.  The Dems have denounced this move by the Turks as immoral.  Why are the Dems against the release of Syrian refugees to Europe while they so much want those same refugees settled in the USA?  Why is it immoral for Turkey NOT to keep refugees seeking asylum from moving on while they say it is immoral for Mexico to keep purported refugees from moving on to the USA?

4.  Democrats who control California have put in place a tax for any citizen residing in that state who does not have health insurance.  At the same time, the state government also passed measures to provide illegal aliens with free health care.  Why do citizens need insurance but illegals get the same care for free?

5.  We learned this week that in 2015 officials of the Obama State Department notified vice president Biden that the position of his son Hunter as a director of Ukrainian gas company Burisma at the least looked like major corruption and could in reality be actual corruption.  Biden, of course, has famously said that he never discussed with Hunter his position with Burisma and only learned of it from the media years later.  This morning, the Sunday shows supposedly covered politics, impeachment, and the rest, but only FNC mentioned Biden's obvious lie about the corruption of Hunter and Burisma.  Why isn't uncovering an obvious and important lie by Biden worthy of discussion.

6.  The Louisiana primary vote in the last week showed a major jump in voting among Republicans that far outstripped the small increase among Democrats.  Exit polling also showed that something like 25% of the black votes went to the Republicans.  Once again, the mainstream media hasn't even mentioned these figures.  If 25% of blacks vote for Trump in 2020, there will be a GOP landslide.  Why isn't this actual vote worthy of mention while every poll taken gets major coverage?

Tulsi Up -- No Surprise There

The Clinton effect on the campaign of Tulsi Gabbard is now being reported by the AP.  There are no polls yet to measure the boost that the hated Hillary gave to Tulsi, but anecdotal evidence from the AP reporter who covers Gabbard is that her crowds are larger and more supportive in Iowa where she campaigned yesterday.

The reality is that having a disgusting liar like Hillary Clinton call you a "Russian asset" while offering no evidence of any sort to support that charge is a great way for Tulsi to get needed attention.  Instead of being tenth or eleventh in a huge field of candidates, Tulsi became the one with major coverage.  For a day there were more stories about Tulsi and the Hillary drive by attack on her than there were about whatever the latest excuse from Joe Biden about corrupt activities by Hunter is.  The Tulsi coverage in the media even rivaled the negative coverage of whatever President Trump did that day.  It's the kind of free media coverage that a campaign like Gabbard's could never get before.

Meanwhile, Clinton seems to have disappeared from the spotlight again.  Rumor is that she is home in Chappaqua having cocktails.

Jordan Greets Nancy and Adam

There's a congressional "delegation" visiting Amman, the capital of Jordan today.  It's led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff and the announced purpose is to meet with King Abdullah and his government for a first hand look at the situation in the region.  It's strange to watch this group do their best to undermine American policy in the region;  it's not surprising, but it is strange nevertheless.

Here's an example:  a few days back the vice president and secretary of state went to Turkey and got an agreement from the Turkish president to a five day cease fire in the northern Syria where the Turks are fighting the Kurdish militia.  We are still in the middle of that five days.  Pelosi took the opportunity of her visit to Jordan to denounce that cease fire as a "sham".  She, of course, offered no solution, but she was certain that the ceasefire was bogus.  What kind of a moronic move is that?  Isn't it a shared goal to see the fighting end between the Turks and the Kurds?  Both sides announced that they accept the cease fire, although both sides accuse the other of violating that cease fire.  Still, there haven't been any major attacks since the ceasefire went into effect.  Why would Pelosi want to undermine that ceasefire?  The obvious answer is that the ceasefire is the outcome of diplomacy by the Trump administration, and Nancy denounces everything that the President does, no matter what it is.

Pelosi is also calling the trip a "bipartisan" move.  It's all Democrats except for one Republican from Texas who is retiring this year.  At least this line has some basis, though since there is one GOP representative added to the 11 Democrats.

The one who is truly fun to watch, though, is Adam Schiff.  The delegation held closed door meetings with King Abdullah and his ministers.  Schiff seemed baffled as to what to do after the meeting.  What should he leak?  It was a conundrum for him.  According to the NY Times, in the meeting King Abdullah promised to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election in exchange for a promise from the Democrats that they would pass additional foreign aid to Jordan.  (Just kidding, but it doesn't sound all that far-fetched does it?)

What A Moron - or -- Kamala Harris on CNN

Kamala Harris was on Anderson Cooper's show yesterday.  She denounced Rudy Giuliani (the president's private attorney) as "having broken many laws".  At that point, Anderson asked her "Are there any specific laws that you say Giuliani has broken?"

Kamala's response was priceless.  "Well I don't know.  That's something we will find out......"

It's amazing that Harris is still running for the presidential nomination.  What kind of a moron says that someone has broken many laws but has no idea what laws when asked to elaborate?  Remember, Harris was a prosecutor in California before she became a senator.  More than most others, Harris understands that you can't be said to have broken many laws without there being specific laws involved.

Harris is truly a moron, and that's being kind to her.

Biden Loses Another Excuse

In the "impeachment investigation" yesterday, Congress was told by a high state department employee that in 2015, he was so concerned about Hunter Biden taking a position with Ukrainian company Burisma that he raised his concerns in writing directly with then VP Biden's office.  He got no response from Old Joe Biden.

Think about that.  Old Joe has told us that he didn't ever discuss Hunter's business dealings with his son and didn't know about what Hunter was doing.  Well, that excuse has now been exposed as a lie.  Biden got a formal written complaint in 2015 about Hunter and Burisma from a high State Department official, but now he wants to tell us that he knew nothing about it.  I don't think so.

And when Biden got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired, it just happened to be the one who had investigated Burisma.  Old Joe says he was just "fighting corruption", but we're supposed to believe that in a country filled with corruption, this one prosecutor just happened to be the one that the vice president picked as the focus of his anti-corruption fight.  The tie to Hunter was just a mere coincidence.

The truth is that Joe Biden lost another excuse with this latest news about his having been warned about Hunter by the State Department in 2015. 

It really is time for Biden to pull out of the race for president.  His corruption is out there for everyone to see.

So What Now For Tulsi Gabbard

As of the day after the Democrat debate, I thought we had seen the last of Tulsi Gabbard.  The congressman from Hawaii had missed the third debate because her poll numbers were too low (below the required minimum of 2% support in four polls) but she just squeaked into the fourth debate with poll results the week prior to the event.  Gabbard has languished with extremely low levels of support and it just didn't look like she could get much attention.  Even at the debate, the moderators hardly called on her.  For example, Warren got three times more air time than Gabbard.  Now, that seems likely to change and all because a crazy Hillary Clinton decided to attack Gabbard with preposterous charges of being a Russian agent.

At this moment, three of the trending topics on Twitter are about Tulsi.  I don't recall that ever happening with any other Democrat this year.  Tulsi has broken through and actually gotten major coverage in the media.  My guess is that she will be up substantially in the next round of polls.  Of course, at 4% support, Tulsi would have a major bump up but still be an also ran.  Nevertheless, Hillary's crazy attack may be enough to keep Tulsi in the race.

Tulsi Gabbard of the Russian Secret Service

Hillary Clinton today accused Tulsi Gabbard of being a Russian asset who is being groomed by Moscow to run as a third party candidate in 2020 so as to help President Trump get re-elected.

I'm not making this up; the old lady from Chappaqua actually said this.

Let me be clear:  I don't like Tulsi Gabbard who is a Democrat congressman from Hawaii and a presidential candidate.  Tulsi has had a large impact in the debates so far.  She's the one who exposed Kamala Harris as a hypocrite.  In the last debate, she also slammed both Warren and Biden.  She's also the only Democrat candidate who hasn't been pushing impeachment; she says Trump should be voted out of office by the people, not the senate.  One thing I can promise, however, is that Gabbard is not a Russian agent.  Nope, Gabbard is a veteran who served in combat for this country (something that the Hillster never did.)  Gabbard is someone who doesn't try to blame everything bad that ever happens on someone else (another thing that Hillary has never accomplished.)  Gabbard didn't use a "foundation" to siphon hundreds of millions of dollars given by corrupt donors who were buying influence.  (We all know Hillary did that.)  Gabbard didn't get where she is because of who she married (again something Hillary can't say.)

It's disgusting that someone, even someone as despicable as Hillary Clinton, would make false accusations of this sort without so much as a tiny bit of evidence to back it up.

Hillary is truly scum.

UPDATE  The amazing thing about Hillary Clinton's disgusting attack on Tulsi Gabbard is the reaction is engendered on Twitter.  (That's the only social media I checked.)  If you just look at references to Tulsi, you will see that all sorts of maggots have come out of the sewer to attack Gabbard on Hillary's say so.  It's disgusting.

Can't the Facts Actually Matter?

Could someone explain how the Ukrainian government was threatened with a cut off of military aid by the USA if the Ukrainians didn't know about it.  We've heard from many sources now that it was nearly a month after the famous phone call between Trump and Zelezny when the Ukrainians were first told that aid had been delayed.  Very shortly after that, the aid was released without the Ukrainians doing anything connected to any investigation.

Let's think of a similar situation.  Let's say that you are walking down a street and a robber points a gun at you from behind a bush.  You don't see him.  You just keep walking.  So, were you forced to do anything because of the gun you didn't know about?  Of course not.

That's where we are.  There can be a hundred witnesses and a thousand documents that the Congress looks at (without, of course, letting the country see them), but the basic fact doesn't change.  The Ukrainian leader cannot have been pressured by a cut off of aid if no one told him that aid was or would be cut off.

Everything going on now is a total waste of time.

The Overwhelming Hypocrisy

Fighting inside Syria began almost a decade ago.  At first, Sunni Muslims marched in protest against the Assad government as part of the Arab Spring.  The Assad response was to put snipers on top of nearby buildings and to pick off a few protesters at random.  The hope was to break up the protests, but the result was huge anger at Assad and a rebellion/civil war inside Syria.  President Obama did nothing.  Thousands were killed in the fighting.  Then things escalated.  Hundreds of thousands of people died and millions had to flee their homes.  At one point there were six million Syrian refugees deposited around the region.  All that time, Obama did nothing with one exception:  he warned Assad not to use chemical weapons in the conflict.  Of course, Assad dropped chemical weapons on the rebels, killing thousands.  At that point, Obama still did nothing.  By that time, at least a quarter of a million Syrians were dead in the conflict. 

As the fighting continued in Syria, the more moderate factions among the Sunnis were replaced by those affiliated with terrorists.  The al Nusra front (an affiliate of al Qaeda) took the lead in many areas.  They got that position because they were able to get weapons to fight the Assad troops.  The Russians came in to support Assad and so did the Iranians and their proxies, the terrorists of Hezbollah.  Then ISIS appeared in the region.  The ISIS terrorists took over about a third of Syria and brought the levels of killing to new heights.  ISIS killed tens of thousands of civilians because they were not Sunni Arab Muslims.  Yazidis, Christians and Kurds were slaughtered.  Obama still did nothing until ISIS started televising their beheadings of prisoners.  Finally, Obama allowed some effort by US forces against ISIS.  By that time, something like 600,000 people had been killed in the fighting in Syria.

It's worth stopping here to remember the reaction of America's mainstream media to all of this.  There was some minor coverage of the fighting in Syria, but the slaughter went on and on and on with essentially no outrage and no reports on the death by the media.

Then President Trump took office.  He took the restrictions off of American forces confronting ISIS.  The coalition fighting against ISIS included the Kurds who fought valiantly against the ISIS terrorists.  With wholehearted US support, especially in the air, ISIS was destroyed.  No portion of the ISIS caliphate remains under ISIS control.  The killing in Syria finally mostly stopped.

There were problems that remained in Syria, however.  One was the animosity between the Kurdish militia that had done much of the fighting in northern Syria and the Turks.  The Turkish government in Ankara views the Kurdish militia as a terrorist group because of many attacks that group carried out inside Turkey over the last 25 years.  To be clear, you should know that the USA also labelled the Kurdish militia in question, the PKK, as a terrorist group because of those same attacks in Turkey.  Nevertheless, we fought with the PKK against ISIS as one of the Kurdish groups in our coalition.  That alliance against ISIS removed American opposition to the PKK, but it didn't satisfy the Turks whose country had been the target of PKK attacks in the past.

Two weeks ago, the Turkish president told America that it was about to launch a cross-border assault into Syria to push the PKK away from the border with Turkey.  The USA did not have forces in the region that could have resisted such a Turkish invasion, and there were tens of thousands of US military stationed in Turkey and huge numbers of US civilians inside that country as well.  President Trump pulled out our 50 or so special operations forces that were in the zone that the Turks said they would attack.  He also ordered all American forces pulled back from northern Syria.  That move affected about 300 US troops.

When the Turks attacked, there were Kurdish casualties.  Estimates so far vary widely, but at most there are a few hundred who have been killed or wounded.  The response from the mainstream media has been enormous.  This is a "catastrophe" we are told.  It's a wholesale slaughter of the Kurds, we are told by the mainstream media.  It's a foreign policy disaster for the USA.  Russian officers are inspecting the bases that US forces abandoned, according to the mainstream media.

Think about that.  When 600,000 Syrians died and Obama sat by and did nothing, the media barely noticed.  When Assad used chemical weapons to kill thousands, the mainstream media did nothing until video of an attack was smuggled out of Syria and broadcast on Fox News.  Obama's foreign policy did nothing to protect these poor Syrians, but the mainstream media didn't care.  Then ISIS came to the fore and again Obama did nothing.  The mainstream media didn't criticize him; they provided a little coverage of the outrages of ISIS, but they didn't criticize Obama's failure to stop them.  Now, however, Trump has moved a few hundred US troops and the media acts as if it is akin to a second Pearl Harbor or 9-11 as a US disaster.  A few hundred casualties among the Kurds are treated as if they are earth-shaking even though 600,000 dead and millions wounded among the Syrians was given essentially no coverage.

Don't get me wrong.  I do not like US policy that has let the Turks inflict casualties on the Kurds.  It would have been preferable to arrange some sort of deal between the two sides that could have avoided the fighting.  Nevertheless, the hypocrisy of the mainstream media in the way it covered the Syrian civil war and the gross failures by Obama compared to the current relatively minor fighting and how President Trump handled it is overwhelming.

It gets worse though.  This afternoon, vice president Pence announced that as a result of a meeting he held in Ankara this afternoon with the Turks, Turkey would stop fighting for five days to allow the PKK time to pull out of the area.  If the PKK pulls back, the Turks say that they will not resume fighting.  The reaction from the mainstream media has been "too little, too late."  Unbelievable!

I Wasn't The Only One Bored

The big Democrat debate on Tuesday was boring.  At least, that was my opinion.  Now, we learn that I wasn't alone in that opinion.  The ratings for the debate were truly terrible.  During the 8 o'clock hour, CBS outdrew the debate audience by about 30% with NCIS.  That show is in its 17th season.  Other shows on the main networks also outdrew the debate.  For example, The FBI (also on CBS) outdrew the debate during the 9 o'clock hour.  Other shows did as well.  The debate drew only a small percentage of the people watching TV during the time it was on.

Another trend that the ratings make clear is that the audience for the debate trailed off during the night.  The three hour extravaganza turned into a snooze fest rather quickly.  By the time each of the candidates got his or her chance to denounce President Trump and to call for his impeachment, something like a third of the opening audience had left.

The ratings were so poor and the trend so bad that I wonder if it wasn't done intentionally.  Surely CNN knew that starting with yet another impeachment serenade would lead to the departure of many voters.  Has CNN judged the Democrat candidates as so bad and with so little appealing to say that it is now actively trying to reduce the audience to no one other than the die hard Dems who will vote for their party no matter what the eventual nominee has to say at a debate?  It sure seems so.

Peters Peters Out?

Gary Peters is a Democrat senator from Michigan.  He's up for re-election in 2020.  Nearly all the "experts" rate his chances of winning as "likely", but new polling may change that.  A poll by MRG just released shows Peters ahead of his likely GOP opponent John James by just 43 to 40 percent.  A three point lead a year before the election hardly means all that much, but for a poll of an incumbent to show just 43% is a very bad sign.  Remember, Peters has been representing Michigan for many years, so voters know him fairly well.  If he can only get the votes of 43%, you have to wonder where the other votes will come from to make up the majority.  Add in the fact that only 20% of the voters polled rated Peters job performance either excellent or good, and you have a recipe for a loss by Peters.

It's just one poll, and it could be an outlier.  Nevertheless, it certainly looks like this seat is going to be in play.

One Side Fits All

It's a rather strange experience to watch the mainstream media "report" on events when you know something about the subject and then to realize that only one side of the story is being told.  It's even stranger when you realize after seeing multiple reports that the entire mainstream media is reporting only one side, the same side.

Let me give you examples of this phenomenon.

1.  Yesterday, there was a meeting at the White House between President Trump and Congressional leaders.  Both the GOP and the Democrat leadership was there.  The meeting lasted only a very short time before it ended when the Democrats walked out.  So far, this story was what was reported everywhere.  The mainstream media reported that the Democrats walked out because President Trump had a "meltdown" and viciously insulted Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  Supposedly, Trump called her a "third rate politician" and mentioned that some of the groups in Syria were Communists and the Democrats might like that.  That's the version told by the Democrats at a news conference that they just happened to have called immediately after the walk out.  (How convenient!)  The White House and the GOP members at the meeting told a different story.  They say that Pelosi blew up at the President and that she is the one who had a meltdown.  Then, as if pre-planned, the Democrats walked out.  I saw this reported nowhere in the mainstream media.  Of course, none of the reporters were in the meeting, so they have no way of knowing which story is correct.  They just ALL chose the one that helps the Democrats and makes the Republicans look bad.

2.  It's not limited just to US politics, however.  Over the night, a Brexit deal was announced.  The UK and the EU made a tentative agreement to achieve Brexit.  It's substantially better than the one that former PM May had made.  At least, it goes quite a way towards meeting the objections that had been raised to the May deal.  The mainstream media reported this as the EU making a deal.  Seriously, British Prime Minister Johnson is hardly mentioned in the stories.  Of course, Johnson only became PM because of May's inability to close a deal on Brexit.  Johnson promised to get Brexit by the end of October.  If this deal is approved, he will have succeeded in meeting that promise.  None of the mainstream media mentioned that.  One of the key parts of the deal is that there will be no customs stops on the border between the Republic of Ireland and the British region of Northern Ireland.  The mainstream media treats this as a big deal, but they don't mention that before both sides of that border were in the EU, there were no customs stops on that very border.

3.  Sometimes, the story is simply not covered by the mainstream media.  Let's stick in the UK for our example.  The Labour Party under its leader Jeremy Corbyn has become a center for anti-Semitism.  Yesterday, a senior long-serving Labour member of Parliament resigned from the party because of its failure to rid itself of the anti-Semitism.  The mainstream media didn't cover this.  Imagine the coverage if a senior Republican senator in the US became an independent because of bigotry in his party; the coverage would be wall to wall.  To be fair, though, if it were a Democrat leaving that party for the same reason, the coverage would be uniform in "finding" that there is no bigotry among Democrats.  In Britain, however, yesterday's move is not some random act.  Since Corbyn became leader of Labour, over a dozen members of Parliament left the party due to its anti-Semitism.  Have you ever seen a report in the mainstream media of this story?  I doubt it.

4.  Then there are stories that get a slant where none should be.  Yesterday, congressman Ellijah Cummings passed away.  Cummings had a long career in Washington.  So what did the mainstream media cover?  Every article I saw went quickly to President Trump calling Baltimore (Cummings district) a "rodent infested" dump.  We also got to hear Cummings response.  Seriously, this was treated as the high point of Cummings career.  It wasn't, but since it was a chance to take a shot at Trump, that's what the media covered.  Of course, none of the media bothered to explain how this dispute came to happen; it didn't matter to the media.  For them it's one side fits all.

Biden Caught Lying About Hunter

I doubt many people saw it, but on CNN reporter Olivier Knox put the lie to Biden's claim that he didn't know about his son Hunter becoming a board member of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma.  Knox was on a panel discussion after last night's debate.  Knox related how years ago, when Hunter took the position with Burisma, he called the then vice president's office to get a comment on that event.  Biden's people told Knox at the time that Hunter was a private individual and that any comment should come from him.  They also said that the vice president had no comment on the matter.  Think about that for a moment.  Biden's office not only knew about Hunter being on the board of Burisma, but they also had a strategy for dealing with questions on that subject that were raised by reporters.  Biden's current claims that he had never heard of Hunter's position on the board of Burisma are obvious lies.

It's important to remember one other thing.  Olivier Knox is a rather left wing member of the media.  He is not from a conservative site trying to stick it to Biden.  This is one of Biden's own who is just telling the truth.

The Experts Strike Again

In December of 2017, the tax cut legislation repealed the individual mandate that was part of Obamacare.  As a result of that change, starting in January of 2019, it was no longer required by federal law that Americans buy health insurance or face a penalty/tax. 

When this change was being debated, the "experts" came out and told the media that the deletion of the individual mandate would reduce the number of people covered by insurance by approximately 20 million.  The figures varied a bit, but the Democrats produced experts who put the loss of those with coverage at something between 18 million and 23 million with the average being around a loss of 20 million.

Well, it has been nearly a year since the individual mandate went away.  Did the number of people without coverage soar by anything like 20 million?  No, and it wasn't even close.  The latest estimate is that the number of people without coverage went up in 2019 by between 1 and 2 million people.  These are estimates, however, and the actual number could actually be unchanged.  That means that all those experts who predicted a massive increase in the uninsured once the individual mandate was repealed were WRONG.  In fact, they weren't just wrong, they were EXTREMELY WRONG.

It's also worth noting that in 2018, when the individual mandate was still in place, there was a bigger decline in the numbers with coverage.  That's correct, the number of people losing coverage in 2018 was HIGHER than it was in 2019 when the individual mandate went away.

The one important thing to take away from these numbers is just this:  when you see people called experts with regard to medical coverage and the government, remember that they really don't know very much.

I'm Still Waiting

After last night's "debate" among the Democrat candidates, we should have gotten some clarity about what these people think the USA should have done regarding the Turkish moves in Syria.  We got nothing, however, except that all of the candidates agree that whatever President Trump did was wrong.

I had hoped that one of these gurus would have explained just how America was supposed to stop the Turkish invasion.  I wondered if one of these candidates would have the guts to say that he or she would have used American military force to stop the Turks.  After all, almost all of them say that we had to "support" the Kurds and we shouldn't have abdicated our "responsibilities".  But again, the question arises as to just how that was supposed to have been done.  How does one stop a military invasion if not by using a superior military force.

I also wondered what these candidates would say they would have done to safeguard the tens of thousands of American military and civilian personnel in Turkey right now in the event that America used its military to stop Turkish forces.  Again, I'm still waiting.

There are some who claim that had President Trump left the US forces on the battlefield, the Turks would not have dared to attack for fear of killing Americans.  These are people who want to use American servicemen and women as pawns whose lives are expendable in the event that the Turks decided to call our bluff.  I was waiting to hear if any of the candidates would support that view.

Sadly, America didn't get to hear anything intelligent about the Syrian situation last night.  Instead of talking about real issues, we got about a third of the evening devoted to impeachment and statements about how much each of the candidates hate Trump.  I think it's safe to say that all America knows that the Dems hate Trump.  Why couldn't the candidates talk about something relevant to most Americans.  We heard nothing about job creation.  We heard nothing about economic growth.  Indeed, the only discussion of economics was the Democrat consensus view that corporations are evil and the wealthy don't pay enough taxes.

Could the next debate be just about solutions to problems?  I guess not.  The Democrats, it seems have no solutions.

Democrats Ignoring The Truth

I've watched a bit of the Democrat debate tonight.  There's a limit to the amount of this stuff any sane person can take.  In the part that I've seen, it's been amazing just how dishonest these Democrats are.

Let me give you a good example:  the candidates all seem to agree that the economy isn't working for the middle class and the poor, just for the rich.  That's really not true; in fact, it is just the opposite.

During the eight years of Obama, the rich did get richer while the middle class had stagnant wages and the poor remained poor.  Income inequality skyrocketed with the Democrats in charge.  Then Trump and the Republicans took over in 2017.  Since then, the poor have done much better.  Unemployment for the poor has plummeted.  The number of folks on food stamps has declined by more than 10%, or some seven million people.  The number of people receiving welfare has also declined big time as the poor have seen higher incomes due to having jobs.

Things have been even better for the middle class.  Wages have risen each year under Trump.  That's the first time in a long, long time that middle class incomes have moved up.  The percentage increase in middle class income has been nearly twice as high as the percentage increase in the income of the wealthy.  The benefits have been particularly major for minorities.  Blacks and Hispanics and Asian/Americans have seen all time low levels of unemployment.  The creation of new businesses by minorities are way up and have reached the highest levels ever recorded.

Put all this together, and what you find is that for the first time in many years, income inequality is actually lessening in the USA.

The Democrat candidates all want to go back to the failed policies by Obama that increased income inequality.  So these losers say they want to fight inequality by following policies that promote inequality.

Then you have the nonsense with taxes.  Every Democrat on the stage wants to increase taxes.  Unlike years gone by when the Dems denied wanting to increase taxes, they now proudly proclaim this as their goal.  They don't tell us, however, just what all this new cash will be used to accomplish.  There will be Medicare for all, but they don't really tell us how that will work.  I'm still waiting for just one Democrat candidate to explain why government run healthcare won't end up like the VA system in which veterans under Obama waited for up to two years just to get in to see a doctor.  We'll have a healthcare system under which everyone gets equally poor care.  Who wants that?

The individual performances have been fun to watch.  Old Joe Biden is clearly having trouble remembering the lines that were written for him.  You can see the anger and fear on his face as he struggles to remember his lines.  Surely, nothing better reveals that the guy is over the hill than this.  Then there's the amazing moment when Liz Warren once again sidesteps the question of whether her medical plan would result in a massive middle class tax increase. (It would)  The first twenty times she sidestepped the question was bad enough.  Now she just looks evasive and like a liar.

Questions We Won't Hear Tonight

Tonight there will be a "debate" among 12 Democrat candidates for the presidential nomination.  Without a doubt, we will hear about climate change, gay rights, impeachment and all sorts of ways in which President Trump is "bad". and the like.  Here's a list of questions that are unlikely to come up:

1.  By show of hand, do you think that the American economy is doing well.  Raise your hand if you think it is doing well.

2.  What are your plans for improving the rate of growth of the economy?

3.  The USA has signed a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico called the USMCA.  It replaces NAFTA.  It is currently awaiting a vote in Congress on whether or not to approve USMCA.  Raise your hand if you are in favor of approving the USMCA.  Raise your hand if you think that the House should hold a vote in the next month on whether or not to approve this treaty.

If you are against the approval of USMCA, please tell us specifically why.

4.  Now that ISIS has been defeated, should the USA maintain troops in Syria on a long term basis?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

5.  Should the USA use the imposition of tariffs on Chinese made products as a means to force China to end its theft of American intellectual property?  If not, why not?

6.  Was it appropriate for Hunter Biden to take a job as a director of Ukraine's largest natural gas company at a time when his father was in charge of American dealings with Ukraine?  If not, why not?  If so, why?

7.  Are you in favor of ending production of natural gas and oil in the USA by means of fracking?  If so, how will the USA get the energy to run our economy if the oil and gas from fracking is no longer available?  Also, if so, how do you plan to find jobs for the millions of American workers whose jobs depend on the continuation of the use of fracking.

8.  For the second year in a row, the prices paid by Americans for prescription drugs have fallen.  Those are the only times in the last 40 years when such a decline has happened.  Would you continue the Trump policies that have brought this decline about?

These are just a sample.  Wouldn't you like to actually know the answers to these questions?

Hunter Biden Speaks

Hunter Biden has caved in after the WHERE'S HUNTER push by President Trump, and he has come forward to give an interview to a friendly reporter.  Even so, his statements in the interview were truly interesting. 

Here's my favorite.  Hunter was asked whether he would have gotten the job as a director of the Ukrainian gas firm Burisma if his last name were not Biden.  Hunter says, "probably not."  He well understands that his position was just the result of his father being vice president.

Hunter also says that the reason he flew to China on Air Force Two with his father wasn't to finalize the deal for the $1.5 billion investment fund (which he did on that trip).  No, it was because he took his daughter along on the trip.  That's right.  It was just an outing with the kid.  It's amazing that Biden could actually say this without laughing.

Biden also says that he focused on corporate governance during his time on the Burisma board.  Think about that.  Corporate governance is another way of saying shareholder rights.  A board focused on corporate governance is one that makes sure that management is doing things that will benefit the many shareholders of a public company.  But here's the problem:  Burisma is a private company which is controlled by one man, one Ukrainian oligarch who is closely connected with Vladimir Putin and the Russians.  In fact, when the government changed in Ukraine a few years back while Hunter was on the board of Burisma, the owner of the company fled to Moscow in order to avoid arrest.  There's no issue of corporate governance for a company like Burisma.  Someone obviously told Hunter to use that phrase as a cover story.

It's also interesting that in the interview, the reporter didn't bother to ask Hunter about his earlier forays into super-well-paying jobs gotten for him by his father.  Remember almost 20 years ago, Hunter was hired as a well paid "consultant" the bank MBNA which was one of the largest issuer of credit cards in the nation.  We are supposed to believe that it was just a coincidence that Old Joe Biden (then a senator) was leading a push for legislation that helped the credit card companies.

This interview raises as many questions as it tries to answer.  

Why Act As If This Is A Surprise

The Kurdish militia in northern Syria has now allied itself with the Assad government so as to allow Syrian army forces to join in the fight against the Turks who have sent their army into Syria.  The media acts as if this is some sort of big surprise.  It isn't.

Let's go back five years or so.  When ISIS first burst onto the scene by taking a wide swath of territory in Syria and Iraq, president Obama pretended it was no big deal.  He called ISIS the "jayvee team" of terrorists and said they weren't important.  Then ISIS started mass killings of all those who weren't Sunni Muslims, in particular Yazidis, Christians, and Shiites.  They also distributed videos of these beheadings and Obama couldn't stand by any more.  Obama didn't want to upset his strategy of being a friend to Iran, however, by moving into Syria where the Assad regime was an Iranian client state.  As a result, Obama used the strategy of teaming up with the Kurdish militia in northern and eastern Syria.  This Kurdish militia (as opposed to the Kurds in Iraq) was on good terms with both Assad and Iran.  America was helping a friend of the Iranians.  No matter with whom the Kurdish militia was friends, of course, they fought ISIS valiantly.  With US help in the air and in intelligence, the Kurds pushed back ISIS.

Now, the Turks have crossed the border.  The Turks see the Kurdish militia as a terrorist group and have done so for decades, indeed many years before anyone had ever heard of ISIS.  They don't want territory controlled by the Kurdish militia on their border.

President Trump has withdrawn American forces in northern Syria so that they won't be caught in the fighting.  The Kurds are outgunned and need help.  It's no surprise that they went to Assad for that help.  Assad is no friend of the Turks.  He sees the current Turkish action as an invasion of Syria.  He is a friend of the Kurdish militia. 

It will be interesting to see if Syrian and Turkish forces actually clash in northern Syria.  It may well be that the Turks will take a strip of territory and then stop with a resulting confrontation of the two armies across a new line of demarcation.

It would have been much better if the USA had been able to stop the Turkish invasion through diplomacy.  We have a debt to the Kurds for their fight against ISIS.  Given that this was not achieved, none of what is happening now is a surprise, though.

Biden And His Son Did This Before

News flash:  in 2001 when then senator Biden was pushing a bill to help the credit card industry, MBNA, the largest credit card company in Bidens state hired Hunter Biden as a “consultant”. Hunter had no experience in banking of any sort at the time. This story was reported by CBS in 2008. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mbna-paid-bidens-son-as-biden-backed-bill/


Old Joe has been using his son to get cash in this way for decades

Hunter Steps Down -- Sure He Did

Hunter Biden announced that he is stepping down from the board of the Chinese controlled investment fund.  He also says that if his father becomes president, he will no longer work with any foreign entities.  The statement was released through Hunter Biden's lawyer.

One thing that Hunter did not say is that he would sell the 10% of the Chinese controlled company that he owns.  That's important.  The issue, remember, is whether or not the Chinese shoveled money to the Bidens so as to influence Old Joe Biden starting when he was vice president.  The ownership of the Chinese company is by far larger and more important than Biden's position as a director. 

This whole China thing came about because Hunter formed an investment group with John Kerry's step son and Whitey Bulger's nephew.  Then Hunter flew to Beijing on Air Force Two with his father when Old Joe was vice president.  Amazingly, while Hunter was in Beijing with his father, the Chinese just happened to invest 1.5 billion dollars with the new company.  That's about 1.5 billion dollars more than the Chinese government invested with any other start up fund.  It's about 1.5 billion more than the Chinese government invested with people who had no meaningful experience in investment management.  Who knows; maybe the Chinese government official responsible tripped and just happen to drop a certified check for $1.5 billion in Hunter's lap by accident.

The point is that this investment is extremely suspect.  There seems to be no basis for the Chinese to have made this huge investment aside from wanting to buy influence with Old Joe Biden.

By the way, it's worth noting that the Bloomberg News article reporting on Hunter's PR resignation actually says this:

"Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani have repeatedly claimed, without providing evidence, that Hunter Biden made millions of dollars from China while his father was vice president."

That's crazy.  Evidence?  The $1.5 billion in the fund was placed there by China.  A customary fee for that investment would be roughly 1% per year.  That's 15 million dollars per year.  Over five years, that's $75 million.  Hunter owns 10% of the company (which he hasn't promised to sell).  That would give him $7.5 million on the investment.  And this is wholly aside from Hunter's share in any profits earned on the investments made by the fund.  That could be a much higher amount.  And there's also Hunter's salary and director's fees.  How's that for evidence?

Keeping Things in Perspective

To read the mainstream media, you would think that American foreign policy has collapsed into a heap following President Trump's decisions regarding US troops in Syria.  Actually, though, the old adage of making a mountain our of a mole hill comes to mind.  Let's start with the actual facts:

1.  Prior to any moves by Trump in the last week, American forces inside Syria numbered just under 1000.  Almost all of them are special operators assigned to training and coordination missions.  Fighting against ISIS or its remnants ended many months ago.  The bulk of US forces are located along the borders of Syria with Iraq and with Jordan.  The presence of US forces at those locations act as a deterrent to stop Iranian shipments of weapons to Hezbollah forces located inside Syria close to Damascus.

2.  The area which was the subject of Trump's latest moves is a strip of land along the border between Syria and Turkey.  As of two weeks ago, this region is largely under the control of a Kurdish militia.  America had 50 troops in the region.  In other words, the USA had at most a very minor presence in the region.

3.  The Turks and the Kurds are not friends, but this is much more complicated that one would think.  About one-quarter of the population of Turkey itself is Kurdish.  The Turkish government is very concerned about any move to incite that population to push for an independent Kurdish state which would take a large chunk of Turkish territory.  There are also substantial Kurdish populations in Iraq, Iran and Syria.  The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the Middle East without its own state.

4.  Not all the Kurdish groups get along with each other.  The Kurds in Iraq come the closest to having their own government.  It is in the form of the provincial government in the Kurdish area of Iraq.  That government does not have warm relations with the Kurdish militia forces inside Syria, although the relationship is certainly better than that with the Turks.  For example, the Kurds in Syria have warm relations with Iran while the Kurds in Iraq are aligned against the Iranians.

5.  Turkey is the formal NATO ally of the USA.  We have no treaties with the Kurds.  The Iraqi Kurds, however, have fought alongside US forces during the Iraq War  and the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds both fought ISIS.  The Turks fought ISIS in a rather half hearted manner.  During the early days of ISIS taking power, the Turks stood back in the hopes that ISIS would destroy the Kurdish militia.

That brings us to the moves made by President Trump.  Here's what he did.  He ordered the 50 US troops in the relevant region along the Syria/Turkey border to relocate.  That's it.  He took that action in the face of news that the Turks were going to try to clear that region of the Kurdish militia. 

To the Turks, the Kurdish forces are "terrorists" because they try to push for an independent Kurdish state inside Turkey.  In the past, the US State Department had designated these same Kurdish militias as terrorist groups.  That was wrong in my opinion, but it remains a fact.

The Turkish move left the President with a choice:  he could keep US forces in the region and tell the Turks that were they to move in, the USA would consider it an attack on American forces.  That would put the USA on a course to go to war with our ally the Turks.  It was not a good choice.  Trump could also sign some sort of pact with the Kurds to indicate our support for them.  That's a variation of the first choice, but not much different.  Trump could also send weapons to the Kurds so that they could better defend themselves against the Turks.  That just incites a bloodier conflict between the Kurds and Turks, but it resolves nothing.  Trump could have done what he did.  Finally, Trump could have just pulled all American forces out of Syria.  That would have opened the borders to the Iranians to supply the Hezbollah terrorists.

There is no good choice.  The USA should be recognizing the Kurds for their cooperation during the various wars in the region.  Just how that gets done, however, is a conundrum.

The Results in Louisiana

I wrote yesterday about the primary election for governor (and other offices) in Louisana.  Final results show that governor Edwards got just 46% of the vote.  It was well short of the 50% he needed to be re-elected.  That's important since polls prior to the voting had shown Democrat Edwards was likely to beat the 50%.  Those polls, of course, all came prior to President Trump's rally in Louisiana for the GOP on the night prior to the voting.

There's no way to prove for certain that Trump swung this election, but it certainly looks that way.  Now, in November, there will be a race between a Democrat and a single Republican candidate (there were 3 yesterday).  The likely result is still a close election, but the odds right now have to be about even as to who will win.

Once again, Trump demonstrates the force of his followers.

Fighting A Dishonest Battle

I got a kick out of an article in USA Today in which pollster Stanley Greenberg "reports" that Americans have rejected the "anti-immigration" position espoused by President Trump.  Greenberg says that Americans embrace immigration as something good for our country. 

The article is an amazingly dishonest bit of reporting.  I've watched and read and listened for the last four years during which Donald Trump has been active on the political scene.  Trump has never been anti-immigrant.  Indeed, he's been very clear.  Trump favors legal immigration under a more workable legal system than our present mess.  Trump only opposes ILLEGAL aliens.  He wants immigrants to come to the USA, but to do so in accordance with American law.  Sure, Democrats have tried to portray the GOP and Trump positions as being against immigration, but that's just plain nonsense.

The poll results that Greenberg discusses are ones that ask about the contributions of immigrants.  That would include basically the ancestors of nearly every American.  The polls, however, did not ask about ILLEGAL immigration, only about immigrants in general. 

Personally, I'm tired of watching the media, even second rate media like USA Today, lie about the President's positions and then to attack him for the false position they created.

Something To Watch Today

There's a primary in Louisiana today that is well worth watching.  Governor Edwards (the Democrat) is running for re-election against two Republican candidates.  In Louisiana's unusual system, they all run in the same primary and the top two vote - getters then face off in November's general election.  If one candidate gets 50% plus one vote today, however, that person is elected governor and there is no election in November.  Most of the polls have shown Edwards at something like 50% for the last few weeks.  The Republicans have been splitting the other half.

Then last night President Trump went to Louisiana for a final get out the vote rally.  As usual, his rally was packed with tens of thousands of raucous voters.  Today's primary is a good way to gauge how effective these Trump rallies really are.

If Edwards wins over 50%, it will be a failure by Trump.
If Edwards wins with just under 50%, then there will be no way to know what the Trump effect was.
On the other hand, if Edwards wins with 45% of the vote or less, then there will be an unmistakable indication that either the President's visit was very effective or that about six polls of the election by different pollsters were totally wrong.
In the extremely unlikely event that one of the Republican candidates leads the results, the Democrats in DC better start figuring out how they are going to end the impeachment extravaganza without looking too idiotic.

We'll know the answer to all this by tomorrow morning.

Shaping The News

Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, spoke in closed session today to one of the congressional committees "investigating" impeachment.  It was a farce.

The NY Times issued this tweet about her testimony before it was even completed:

Marie Yovanovitch, the recalled U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told Congress in scathing testimony that President Trump pushed to have her removed based on "false claims" and warned that private influences are undermining the nation's interests

Remember, the testimony was not public.  Nevertheless, the NY Times was able to summarize what she supposedly said.  It's also clear that what the Times is reporting as Yovanovitch's position is clearly false.  Trump didn't need any reason to have Yovanovitch removed.  He's the President.  All he has to do is decide to remove her and she's gone.  As a career employee of the State Department, Yovanovitch would still have a job, but she would no longer be the ambassador in Kiev.  And we've all seen President Trump fire a great many people in his administration is he was dissatisfied with the job they were doing.

What all this means is that either the NY Times is reporting something that is false, or that Yovanovitch is delusional.  Clearly, she's angry at Trump for her dismissal as ambassador.  Still, most likely the Times is just reporting the news that it wants to believe.  That's what it did all during the Russia hoax.  Why should anything have changed now?

A Poll Of A Different Sort

There was a huge push to promote a recent poll done for Fox that showed 51% of those questioned favoring impeachment.  The poll has been criticized because it included 48% of self-described Democrats and only 12% independents, the first group being too large and the second too small.  This plus the order and nature of the other questions seemed designed to give a result that was bad for President Trump.  That's a dispute for others right now.  There is other polling information, however, which can be read as indicating the public's view of the impeachment moves by House Democrats.  This other data comes in the form of the generic congressional ballot.  Periodically, polls are done in which the question is "If the election for Congress were today, would you vote for the Republican candidate or the Democrat candidate?"  [The order of the parties is reversed with each new person polled.]  These polls give a general view by the public of its perception of the two parties.

The generic congressional polls have been running about 8-10 points in favor of the Democrats for the last half year.  That is, however, until October after the impeachment storm started.  In two polls just released, the Democrat lead has been cut to 3-4%.  That's not the sort of move one customarily sees in these polls.  It's a very large move towards the Republicans in Congress.

Nothing has happened in the last three weeks in Congress or the news other than impeachment which could account for this move.  This poll also has the benefit of not including the name Trump in the question.  Those who don't want to say they support the President but who actually do, can answer without having to mention the President.

The two polls in question were both done by rather liberal outfits.  One, for example, was done for NPR.  If this trend continues, it bodes quite ill for the Democrats.  It's worth watching these numbers as they come out.

Now We Know

Reports said that the Inspector General had noted that the so called whistle blower had connections to one of the Democrat candidates for president this year.  Guess what?  It turns out that the connections are with Old Joe Biden.  According to press reports, the whistle blower worked with Biden when he was vice president.

As the Church Lady used to say on SNL, "How convenient."

The Trump Rally in Minneapolis

President Trump held a rally in Minnesota this evening.  It was a quintessential Trump performance.  For those who watched the speech (which was carried live on some cable networks), Trump gave a clear explanation of his views on removing US troops from the Middle East.  He also expounded on the corruption of the Washington swamp and its attacks on him and his administration.  He explained in a very clear way just why Old Joe Biden has such a problem given the fact that his son appears to have been the conduit for both China and Ukraine buying influence with Biden.  Trump also spoke about a long list of items, as he usually does at these rallies.

The key takeaway from the speech, though, is that once again, it was fun to watch Trump.  This was not a boring speech from a candidate who drones on and on.  It was performance art.  And it was very persuasive.

No doubt the coverage of the speech will be distorted, but for the millions who watched, its message was clear.

An Interesting Question

In Syria, the USA moved 50 special operations troops from a region along the Turkish border just prior to the current Turkish strike into that country.  That was the extent of the move that President Trump made that has been a major news item this week.

I have already written that it is a bad idea to abandon the Kurds who fought with us as allies against ISIS.  A new question was raised, however, which is worthy of discussion here.  That question is whether or not authority exists for American forces to be used in fighting between Turkey, our NATO ally, and the Kurdish militia in Syria, our fried and ally in the fight against ISIS.

This may sound like a minor issue, but it is far from that.  US forces were sent into Syria by Obama pursuant to an authorization for the use of force passed by Congress in 2001 right after 9-11.  That authorization provides that US forces can be used in military action against the terrorists.  There's no way to include a confrontation and military action against Turkey as authorized by that resolution.  The War Powers Act would let President Trump respond to any attack on US forces for up to 60 days prior to there being a need for congressional action (although there are doubts as to whether or not the War Powers Act is even constitutional.)  Trump could also take action pursuant to treaty requirements, but the only treaty we have is with Turkey, not with the Kurds.  We could defend the Turks were they attacked, but absent congressional action, it doesn't seem as if US forces can just be sent into the fight on the side of the Kurds.

It's a wonder that no one talks about this.  If Congress wants to protect the Kurds, it can declare war on Turkey.

CBS Now Protecting Warren

CBS News decided that it had to cover the controversy surrounding the claim by senator Warren that she was fired from her first job for being pregnant.  This claim is a staple of her stump speech.  She uses it to illustrate the double standard with which women must contend.  According to Warren, after her first year teaching in a school district in New Jersey, she was "visibly pregnant" so the principal fired her.  That turns out to be another Warren lie about her history, just like her claim of being a Cherokee.

CBS News covered the story by comparing Warren's current story told in her speeches with what she said in an interview in 2007.  In that interview she said that she left teaching because she didn't have the education courses needed for long term employment.  That doesn't fit with the current story, but it's not all that big a deal.  Maybe she was being demure in 2007, not wanting to go into the actual details.  So CBS can say it covered the story, but it really won't harm Warren.

But here's the thing:  CBS coverage is also a lie.  The reason the Warren story is now coming to the fore is that another source went back and found the school board minutes from back in the day.  Warren wasn't fired!  In fact, the school board approved her retention for a second year.  It was a few months after the end of the school year when Warren resigned, and the school board "reluctantly" accepted that resignation.

The truth puts the lie to Warren's current story.  Her claim of being fired (no matter the reason) is false.  Obviously, if she wasn't fired, then she wasn't fired for being pregnant.  Warren, once again, is lying about her background.

CBS News makes no mention of the actual facts shown by the minutes of the school board meetings.  Once again, they are trying to protect Warren.

So What Would You Do?

I'm not happy with American policy towards the conflict in Syria between the Turkish army and the Kurdish militias.  Both sides in this conflict have been our allies in the fight against ISIS.  In particular, the Kurds have sided with America during the Iraq war, the battle against ISIS, and every other conflict in the Middle East for the last two decades.

That being said, I'm find it strange to hear various senators and congressmen saying that the USA should "stand with the Kurds."  What does that mean?  Do these people want American forces to engage in battle against our NATO allies, the Turks, in order to stop the fighting?  We have a huge air base in Turkey at Incirlik where there are many thousands of American servicemen and women who would become instant targets in the event of such a conflict.  There are also tens of thousands of American civilians in Turkey who could also be targeted.  So I say again, what does it mean to "stand with the Kurds?"

Now It's Beyond Silly

The Democrats in the House are rushing to try to get President Trump impeached based upon a complaint from one (or more) so called whistle blowers who claim that in a phone call with the president of Ukraine, President Trump pressured the Ukrainian to interfere in the US elections by "digging up dirt" on Joe Biden and his son.  It's impeachment based upon a phone call.

The Democrats' complaint, however, has been falling apart rather rapidly, something that has forced them to resort to lies.

First, the whistleblower's complaint turned out to come from someone without first hand knowledge of what was said in the phone call.  It was all hearsay.  That didn't stop the Dems or their media allies.  They announced that Trump had pressured the Ukrainian seven or eight times during the phone call to investigate Biden.  Trump supposedly had told the Ukrainian that all aid would be cut off unless Ukraine opened an investigation into Biden.

That all fell apart when Trump surprised the Democrats and released the transcript of the call.  The entire country got to see what was said.  Biden was mentioned only once in passing.  Trump never pressured the Ukrainian.  Indeed, the subject of aid was never even mentioned.

The Demcorats' and media response was to characterize Trump as a "mob boss" who didn't explicitly mention the aid cut off but used it by implication to get the Ukrainians to open an investigation into Biden.

The President of Ukraine said publically that he never felt pressured during the call.  It didn't matter, though.  The Dems/media just said "what else would you expect from him?"  In essence, they called the Ukrainian leader a liar.

Then it came out that although a decision had been made to hold up release of some of the aid to Ukraine, the Ukrainians didn't know about this at the time of the call.  No one had told them.  So the Dem's argument about Trump as "mob boss" using proceeding to threaten Ukraine by implication fell apart.  Even for delusional Democrats it would be hard to explain how Trump threatened the Ukrainian without mentioning the aid cutoff or letting the Ukrainians know about it in some way.

Still, that didn't stop the Dems.  Adam Schiff just lied about it all.  He pretended to "read" from the transcript and put words into President Trump's mouth that Trump never said.  In fact, Schiff had Trump saying things that weren't even close to reality.  When Schiff was called out on this lie, he actually claimed that his lie was just a "parody".  Even if it were a parody (which it wasn't), Schiff's lie doesn't change the basic fact that Trump couldn't have threatened the Ukrainians if they never knew about the aid cut off.

But now it has gotten still worse.  We have now learned that many months before the phone call, Ukraine had reopened its investigation into Burisma.  That's the natural gas company the "hired" Hunter Biden as a director and paid him $600,000 or more even though Biden had no experience or qualifications for that job.  It just happened that Hunter got hired a month after Joe Biden was put in charge of Ukrainian policy by then president Obama.  About a year later, Old Joe Biden actually threatened Ukraine with the withholding of all US aid to Ukraine unless it fired the prosecutor who was investigating Hunter's employer.  The Ukrainians collapsed in the face of Biden's threats.  They fired the prosecutor who was looking into Hunter Biden's company, Burisma.  Earlier this year, even before the new president took office, the Ukrainians decided to reopen the investigation into Burisma.  It is also being reported that the reopening of the Burisma investigation was well known to the Trump administration.

Think about that for a moment.  The Dems/whistleblowers say that Trump pressured the Ukrainian president in that phone call in late July to open an investigation into Biden.  Trump didn't pressure the Ukrainians during the call.  The Ukrainians didn't know about the aid cutoff which was the supposed mechanism for the application of pressure.  And now.....Trump already knew that the Ukrainians had reopened the very investigation which the whistleblower says Trump wanted many months earlier.  That means THERE WAS NO NEED FOR TRUMP TO PRESSURE THE UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT for an investigation that already existed.

This entire matter is now beyond silly.  The Dems should stop this nonsense right now.

Key News Being Ignored

Here's the key first sentence of an article in the Wall Street Journal reporting on a major international development that has gotten essentially no coverage in the mainstream media:

"China National Petroleum Corp. has pulled out of a $5 billion natural-gas project in Iran as escalating tensions threaten to sever Beijing’s trade with Tehran, a key lifeline for the Islamic Republic."

The Journal goes on to report that the Chinese are likewise pulling back from other ventures in Iran mainly as a result of major pressure from the USA.  No matter what the reason, however, this lost investment is a major blow to the Iranians.

Think about this.  Five years ago, president Obama ended all sanctions on Iran, gave the mullahs roughly $150 billion and guaranteed Iran a nuclear weapons in ten years.  That was the "wonderful" deal that Obama dishonestly claimed ended the threat of the Iranian nuclear program.  Last year, President Trump pulled the USA out of that bogus deal and began pressuring Iran to actually negotiate an end to its nuclear program which had continued on after the Obama travesty was signed.  In the last year, the new sanctions that President Trump put on Iran have pushed the Iranians into a corner.  Iran has been testing the resolve of the USA by taking indirect military actions.  Iran wants to know how far it can go before America responds militarily.  Most of all, however, Iran is trying to get President Trump to cave in and lift the sanctions.  Trump, however, has stood his ground and the sanctions just keep getting tighter and tighter.  This latest move by China is a killer blow because China is the main power who the Iranians thought could resist the USA's pressure.

There's no way to know for sure what has motivated this move by the Chinese, but it some experts say that it is tied to the recent Iranian attacks on the Saudi oil facilities.  China gets a huge amount of oil from the Middle East, so the loss of the Saudi production was a blow to China much more than to oil-exporting America.  The Chinese, no doubt, fear that a huge $5 billion investment in a gas project could be destroyed should the Saudis and the Iranians come fully to blows -- with or without American involvement.

This move by China will put intense pressure on the mullahs in Teheran.  It remains to be seen how they react.  

Warren's Next Lie Exposed

In her stump speech senator Elizabeth Warren repeatedly tells the story how she was fired from her first teaching position in New Jersey because she was "visibly pregnant".  Warren goes on from that story to talk about how there is discrimination against women in the workplace.  Well, guess what?  It turns out that this whole story is a lie.    The Washington Free Beacon went back and researched the records of the school board at the close of Warren's first year in teaching.  They show that the board voted to approved a contract for Warren for a second year.  Two months later, the same board noted in its minutes that it had accepted Warren's resignation "with regret". 

There is video from about seven years ago in which Warren says she left her teaching job because she decided to go to law school.  There was no mention of any pregnancy or of her being asked to leave.  Now we have the actual school board records to back that up.

Warren lied.  First she lied about her Native American heritage and how she used that phony claim to get a very prestigious and high paying job at Penn and at Harvard Law School.  Now we have her second big lie about her history. 

Why can't Warren just be who she actually is?  Why can't she be honest?  More important, what else is she hiding?

One Lie Ends

Congressman Ilhan Omar filed for divorce from her husband in Minnesota today.  So ends a lie that the Minnesota Democrat has been pushing for months now.  It was last Spring when the wife of a DC political consultant sought a divorce and alleged in her filing that her husband had been having an affair with Omar.  That was more than just problematic since the husband/consultant was on Omar's campaign payroll and traveled with her on many occasions at the expense of the campaign.  If Omar used campaign funds to pay for her lover's travel and expenses, it would be a campaign finance law violation.  Omar denied the allegations and said all was well with her own marriage.

Of course, word got out that Omar and her husband were separated.  As more and more articles appeared reporting on the truth, Omar had to throw in the towel.  Thus she has now filed for divorce herself.

It's interesting to watch all this play out and to look for any coverage of the story in the mainstream media.  It isn't there.

Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds

It's not clear what is about to happen in northern Syria.  The Turks are launching an operation that will bring their forces into that region in much greater numbers.  They are taking charge of all the ISIS prisoners left in US hands (or so it seems).  US forces will not oppose the Turkish presence.  The Turks being in place will protect the local population from the Assad puppet regime which is backed by Iran.  But what seems not yet fully clear is what happens to the local Kurdish population and its militia forces.  Remember, the Kurds were the only group in Syria that fought effectively against ISIS in the early days of (and throughout) the ISIS caliphate.  They were our closest allies in Syria.

It would be a terrible mistake to abandon the Kurds now to Turkish control.  Turkey itself is about one quarter Kurdish and the government in Ankara views the Kurdish militia as a "terrorist" group.  We ought not abandon American allies to face Turkey and its army alone.  Our presence there and our opposition to any action by the Turks has been enough to prevent any major fighting between the Turks and the Kurds.  In my opinion, we owe a debt to the Kurds for their brave fight in Syria.  There are also a great many Kurds in Iraq who have also been loyal American allies.  What will they think if they watch the Trump administration abandon their brethren in Syria?

Only One Way?

The NY Times has written a "report" which is actually an opinion piece describing how many of the so-called Never Trumpers of 2016 now support the President.  The Times seems oblivious to actual reality.  For example, the Times notes that any conservative or Republican who criticizes the President is met with fury by his supporters.  I don't doubt that, although my own observations are that this is an overstatement.  There have been plenty of disagreements among Republicans which have not led to any sort of furious response.  On the other hand, the Times ignores the incredible hatred directed at blacks or other minorities who say anything in support of the President.  The left goes nuts each time there is a credible minority voice raised in support of Trump.  Indeed, the level of destruction aimed by the Dems and the media at anyone who supports the President is terrible.  Somehow, though, the Times misses this.

Even more important, though, the Times also misses a major reason why the never-Trumpers became supporters.  This reason is the conduct of the Democrats and the media.  It's one thing to disagree with Trump on some policies or to dislike his personality.  It's something else to stand by and watch the Dems and the media spend two years trying to destroy Trump with the Trump/Russia collusion hoax.  It's not easy to read a Mueller Report that exonerates the President only to watch the Dems lie about it and claim that Mueller's Report would support impeachment.  Now, the never-Trumpers are told that a phone call for which there is a transcript forms the basis for a new move towards impeachment.  The media feeds the public half truths or obvious lies about what Trump said.  Morons like Adam Schiff actually blatantly lie in Congressional hearings about what was said in a call for which we have a transcript and then when he gets caught, Schiff claims it was only a "parody".  Watching this sort of unfair and outrageous attack on the President pushes the never-Trumpers towards supporting Trump here if only for the sake of fairness and decency.

The Show Must Go On

After seeing the headlines today about a second "whistleblower" who is about to come forward, I can only say "the show must go on".  Think about it.  According to the reports, this second person has "first hand" knowledge of the events at the center of the first whistleblower's complain.  That means that he has first hand knowledge of the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian president Zelezny.  The media is making a big deal of this, but here's the thing:  WE ALREADY HAVE A TRANSCRIPT OF THE CALL.  In other words, we already know exactly what was said in the call.  What difference does it make if there's a second person coming forward?

This is all part of an orchestrated plan to attack Trump.  It would have been fine if Trump had not released the transcript, but now it just looks silly.  What could this second whistleblower add to the conversation?  What nonsense!