July 17, 2016
Jul 17 00:27 Trump rips Obama, Hillary Jul 17 10:20 Some alternatives available Jul 17 15:58 Columnist: Hillary doesn't get it Jul 17 17:20 Obama's statement too little
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Trump rips Obama, Hillary
Donald Trump is onto something that might change the dynamics of the presidential race. I don't know whether it's enough but it's difficult picturing him not painting the Obama-Clinton foreign policy as anything but a failure. He certainly did in this article , saying "The Middle East today is more unstable than ever before", adding that "She led him right down a horrible path. He didn't know what he was doing."
HINT TO MR. TRUMP: He still doesn't. It isn't that he's stupid generally speaking. It's that he's foolish because his ideology won't let him see reality. Steve Hayes has said multiple times that "Obama sees the world that he wants to exist, not the world that does exist." That's exactly right.
Hillary suffers from the same mental disease. On March 27, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said "many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer." Hillary is the idiot that gave Russia the infamous reset button. That's been a disaster for the entire region, starting with Ukraine, then advancing into Syria to stabilize Assad and protecting ISIS.
With ISIS-planned or ISIS-inspired attacks happening more frequently, we can't tolerate a terrorist 'new normal'. We need clear-thinking people that aren't afraid to tell the American people the truth and who won't hesitate in killing terrorists. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is one of those guys. Watch this video and tell me that he isn't a clear-thinking expert:
John Bolton is another clear-thinking expert:
If there is a Trump administration, Gen. Flynn should be Trump's Secretary of Defense; Bolton should be his Secretary of State. These are serious men who see the world that exists and that are willing to help Islamic terrorists meet their allotment of virgins. It's time the US had a national security team that took the world seriously. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry haven't taken the world seriously in the last 8 years.
Posted Sunday, July 17, 2016 12:27 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 17-Jul-16 07:24 AM
If "she led him" why are other Republicans such as Larry Klayman calling him "The Muslim in Chief?"
You guys cannot have it both ways.
And then, after saying a policy led to the Middle East in chaos, would the alternative of a strong unified Muslim culture and worldview be the outcome you favor?
Islam, Stronger Together?
Again, you cannot have it both ways.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 17-Jul-16 03:07 PM
What Mr. Klayman says is beyond my control so it's irrelevant to me. As for Obama & Clinton totally fucking things up in the Middle East, that's indisputable. When George W. Bush left office, al-Qa'ida had been decimated & run out of Iraq, Iraq had been stabilized, Syria was quiet for fear that Assad might meet Saddam Hussein's fate, north Africa was quiet, Iran was isolated & ISIS didn't exist. Plus Putin was in his cage.
Eight years later, ISIS is killing citizens worldwide on a monthly basis, Putin is destabilizing the Middle East, Iran is on its way to getting nuclear weapons, Syria is emboldened thanks to Putin's support & Iran is destabilizing Iraq.
If that's your picture of success, I don't share that opinion.
Comment 2 by eric z at 17-Jul-16 07:47 AM
Another one you can blame on the Clintons, since it happened in 1998. And the reality of it dwarfs other worries.
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Pakistan/PakTests.html
Would a nuclear unified Islamic world, Sunni and Shia embracing, be better or worse than what exists now?
I would never in a million years trust an overzealous ideologue such as Bolton to make that call. That guy is downright crazy-frightening.
Comment 3 by JerryE9 at 17-Jul-16 08:26 AM
"crazy-frightening" is EXACTLY what we need right now. The Islamofascists are not afraid of our feckless and weak-kneed leaders today. Trump said he would declare war on them and they can die in fear or die bravely, their choice.
Response 3.1 by Gary Gross at 17-Jul-16 03:09 PM
These jihadists want to claim their 72 virgins? Fine. Let's hook them up ASAP.
The biggest point to this is that people are getting tired of living in fear. When Obama took over, Americans were war-weary. Now they're tired of all the terrorist attacks. Thanks to Obama's & Clinton's policies, the American people have done a 180.
Some alternatives available
This weekend, I wrote that I was skeptical of reports that a special session would be called this August. After reading Don Davis' article , I'm hoping that a special session only happens if Republicans stand steadfast against SWLRT.
In the article, Sen. Bakk thinks that, with regards to SWLRT, "there appear to be some alternatives available." Here's hoping that Speaker Daudt shoots that down immediately and harshly. Anything that gets SWLRT built is unacceptable. Any Bakk-favored alternative should be shown the door in as hostile a manner as possible.
LRT projects are a disaster. If communities want to build them, let them build them with their tax revenues. Then let them subsidize their operations with their property taxes or their sales taxes. Talk that the business community wants them isn't justification for building SWLRT. If businesses think LRT is so fantastic, let them pay for building them.
The dirty little secret is that LRT isn't worthwhile except if taxpayers build it and subsidize its operations. Even then, these projects benefit the few while hurting others. Ask the displaced businesses in St. Paul if they're fans of LRT. Hint: when asking that question, wear a bullet-proof vest.
There is some good news in the negotiations:
Dayton said he is more optimistic than ever that there will be a special session. "Where there is a will, there is a way." The governor said he gave up all spending he earlier wanted to come up in a special session other than work needed on sex offender facilities and at the state hospital in St. Peter.
That's the benefit of steadfastly saying no to unreasonable spending demands. Give Speaker Daudt and Sen. Hann and their caucuses credit for that. It wouldn't have been possible if members of their caucus had left their reservation.
That's why Speaker Daudt needs to return to that position and why Sen. Hann needs to be given the title of majority leader. Conservatives would applaud them shutting down Gov. Dayton's reckless spending demands. Minnesota's economy would improve by not having the legislature and the governor pile tons of new regulation on small businesses, too.
Posted Sunday, July 17, 2016 10:20 AM
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Columnist: Hillary doesn't get it
The Boston Globe's Joan Vennochi is one of the most consistently liberal columnists in the nation. That's her persona. Think of this morning's column as the literary equivalent of Vennochi taking a wooden spoon to Mrs. Clinton's political backside.
It didn't take long for Ms. Vennochi to break out the punishment, saying "One man driving a truck, 84 people dead. Donald Trump wants to declare war on that. It isn't real policy. It's rhetoric, a direct appeal to the gut, to the anger and fear people experience when they watch the reports from Nice. Hillary Clinton wants us to be smarter, talk to our allies, and maybe hold a summit. Her typically wonky response reflects little understanding of what average Americans feel when they see bodies, strollers, and a stuffed animal strewn along a beach promenade."
I haven't been a fan of Mr. Trump but I'd be intellectually dishonest if I didn't say that, when it comes to terrorism, Donald Trump gets it. Hillary's litany of foreign policy mistakes is proof that she doesn't get it. Ms. Vennochi wasn't done. A couple paragraphs later, she wrote "Statistically, the likelihood of a terror attack may still be small, but at a certain point, statistics don't matter. After terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, and Istanbul, such violence feels possible in any major city. And attacks at home, in San Bernardino and Orlando, instill fear of the lone wolf terrorist next door, making us suspicious of each other. Last week's murders of five Dallas police officers were not inspired by any foreign terrorist cause, but elevate the fear and suspicion."
Dissertations aren't in order when terrorists hit a soft target. That's for the professors to deal with a year later. Leaders need to lead. One of President Bush's highest moments came while standing on a pile of rubble at Ground Zero:
That's what leaders do. They rally their citizens to a cause bigger than themselves. They don't issue 5,000-word dissertations on where terrorists start. They don't explain why we need to understand the terrorists. They tell people that terrorists are evil and, like with other evil people, they need to be destroyed ASAP.
That doesn't require a 2-year commitment of 250,000 ground troops in a distant country. That's Iraq, not ISIS. To win this war, we need to listen to people like Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and others who think like him. ISIS is constantly morphing and transforming itself. It's essential that we do the same to keep them at bay and prevent their attacks.
Posted Sunday, July 17, 2016 3:58 PM
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Obama's statement too little
In the aftermath of this morning's assassinations of 3 Baton Rouge police officers, half-hearted statements from the Commander-in-Chief aren't enough. What's required are strong actions that tell the world that assassinating cops won't be tolerated.
Right after Philando Castile, Gov. Dayton opined that Castile might still be alive if he were white. It was an ill-advised statement that Gov. Dayton never should've made.
As long as it's out there, though, it's important that we flip this around. In light of the assassinations of the 5 DPD police officers last week and the assassinations of 3 police officers this morning in Baton Rouge and the I94 #BlackLivesMatter riots in St. Paul that left 21 officers injured, isn't it time to ask whether #BlackLivesMatter should shoulder at least some of the blame for the assassinations of these police officers? Shouldn't Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, especially Sharpton for his fiction of 'Hands up, don't shoot' in Ferguson, be blamed for throwing white gas on a raging racial fire?
In light of those things, the thing we didn't need was a half-hearted statement from President Obama:
I'll admit that it'd be difficult for President Obama to take Sharpton to the political woodshed but it's what's required. That's what a leader would've done. Here's what I would've written if I were the President's chief speechwriter:
This morning's assassinations of 3 police officers breaks my heart, especially knowing that it was another black man that shot those police officers. While I won't pretend that police officers always treat minorities the same way they treat whites, I won't pretend that black leaders like Al Sharpton and #BlackLivesMatter haven't stoked the fires of racial animosity, either. It's time for the police officers across the nation to review their procedures. Likewise, it's time that the black community realize that most officers think that their job is to protect and defend the people in their city.
It was wrong for Gavin Long and Micah Johnson to murder in cold blood 8 police officers whose only sin was protecting people. It's wrong for Al Sharpton to stoke the flames of racial animosity with chants of "Hands up, don't shoot".
Frankly, it's time that both sides worked together rather than fighting each other.
That's a statement President Obama doesn't want to give, which is why it's a statement that won't be released.
Posted Sunday, July 17, 2016 5:20 PM
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