03/23/17

Vetting Trump’s Foreign Policy Team

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

President Donald Trump fared much better in the House Intelligence Committee hearing on Monday than the left-wing, establishment media would have you believe. The American Spectator’s George Neumayr captured the essence of the findings: “…the core claim underlying Trump’s tweets is true: people acting on the authority of Obama opened an investigation into Trump’s campaign, then criminally leaked mention of it to friendly news outlets in an attempt to derail his election. When is Obama going to apologize for that?”

But for weeks now, CNN and MSNBC have been calling Trump a liar, saying that there is no evidence to support his tweets, and demanding that he back down and apologize for his accusations against former President Barack Obama.

But Trump is also taking hits from people who have generally supported him, but who feel he is failing to live up to his promises. One such example is a recent column by Ann Coulter, who criticizes Trump for supporting the Ryan-Trump American Health Care Act as the replacement for Obamacare, and for his slow start on getting control of the illegal alien issue and border security. Coulter says that “This is starting to look like every other Republican administration.” Yes, his administration is just two months old, so maybe it’s too early to judge on those issues.

Another issue that is raising concern is how Trump is doing on foreign policy and national security matters. Does President Trump need additional assistance in vetting his nominees to administration posts? An examination of his national security appointees raises the question of whether his team knows what questions to ask, and if they are properly vetting his staff.

The political activities of former Defense Intelligence Agency director Michael Flynn, who also served a short time as national security advisor to Trump, demonstrate the administration’s inadequate scrutiny. Flynn resigned for “withholding the full story of his communications with Russia’s ambassador,” reported The New York Times. But that wasn’t the end of the conflicts of interest. After leaving office, Flynn retroactively registered as a foreign agent working on behalf of Turkish interests; he had earned $530,000 for that work. If Trump’s team wasn’t aware of this, they should have been, just by paying attention to the public record, including a column that came out on Election Day that read like a paid advertorial for the Turkish government.

Although Flynn’s contract ended in November, the Times reported that a transition lawyer and a White House lawyer told Flynn that it was “up to him” whether to disclose his activities.

Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary, retired Marine General Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis, initially selected as undersecretary of defense for policy Anne Patterson, who inspired Egyptian protests due to her support for the Muslim Brotherhood. “She [Patterson] came under fire for cultivating too close a relationship with the regime and for discouraging protests against it—and White House officials are voicing concerns about those decisions now,” reports Politico. Criticism of Patterson, and an uncertain confirmation process, led Mattis to withdraw this nomination.

Personnel is policy, and Trump ultimately holds the reins of power in the administration—if he does not abdicate that responsibility. Calling on 46 U.S. attorneys to tender their resignation was a good first step, and in keeping with past presidents.

But President Trump has signaled his unwillingness to fill many of his political appointee posts. “A lot of those jobs, I don’t want to appoint, because they’re unnecessary to have,” Trump told Fox News. He continued, “You know, we have so many people in government, even me. I look at some of the jobs and it’s people over people over people. I say, ‘What do all these people do?’ You don’t need all those jobs.”

That’s clearly true, but unfortunately, when key personnel spots go unfulfilled, the administration is ceding power to the bureaucracy, which may, in turn, empower those still loyal to Obama and intent on crippling the Trump presidency. “If you don’t have a philosophy, if you don’t have a view, the risk is extraordinarily high that the bureaucracies at the State Department, the CIA, the Defense Department will co-opt the new secretary, the new head of the agency,” argued former UN ambassador John Bolton, speaking as a guest on the Breitbart News Daily show. “The bureaucracy’s policies will become their policy, and then if the White House doesn’t resist, they’ll become the administration’s policy.”

Lee Smith of The Weekly Standard wrote a much talked about piece last week for The Tablet titled, “Will Obama’s Foreign Policy Wizards Save Trump?” “What’s really bizarre is that the Trump team keeps blaming damaging leaks to the press on Obama holdovers—when the Trump team is hiring Obama holdovers,” writes Smith. “They may have caught Anne Patterson before she got past the velvet rope, but Obama people staff key positions elsewhere, on Israel, Iran, ISIS, and Syria issues. Which makes sense, since the policies they are tasked with carrying out are so far exactly the same as they were under Obama.”

By leaving in place Obama political appointees President Trump risks that these people will work to undermine his stated agenda. For example, Michael Ratney, former U.S. consul to Jerusalem, who Conservative Review describes as “one of John Kerry’s closest confidantes,” now heads “the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio at the State Department.”

Smith describes another Obama holdover, “Yael Lempert, a National Security Council staffer from the Obama administration that the Trump team decided to keep on.” Smith quotes a former Clinton official who said that Lempert “is considered one of the harshest critics of Israel on the foreign policy far left. From her position on the Obama NSC, she helped manufacture crisis after crisis in a relentless effort to portray Israel negatively and diminish the breadth and depth of our alliance. Most Democrats in town know better than to let her manage Middle East affairs. It looks like the Trump administration has no idea who she is or how hostile she is to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Are these rookie mistakes or does Trump not care if his campaign promises regarding Israel, combating the Islamic jihadis, and ripping up the Iran deal go unfulfilled? On the plus side, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is doing great things to re-define America’s role in that institution, after eight years of Susan Rice and Samantha Power occupying America’s seat at the UN.

Trump’s new national security advisor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, has stated that he believes that radical Islamic terrorism is a perversion of Islam—not an outgrowth of the principles contained within that religion. The New York Times reports that McMaster “told his staff” that “‘radical Islamic terrorism’ was not helpful because terrorists are ‘un-Islamic.’” That newspaper heralded this as McMaster rejecting “a key ideological view of other senior Trump advisers and signaling a potentially more moderate approach to the Islamic world.” Trump himself doesn’t hesitate to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism.” Shouldn’t they be on the same page?

What this demonstrates, in fact, is McMaster’s blindness toward the roots of Islamic terror. As long as he remains the national security advisor to Trump, his rhetoric should be considered sanctioned by the administration.

Even more disturbing are rumblings that Trump may renege on his promise to “rip [the Iran deal] up.” In an opinion column for CNN, “Why Trump won’t tear up Iran nuclear deal,” David Andelman argues that “you don’t hear that ‘rip it up’ language any longer. And you won’t.” Reuters reports that the Trump administration is using the same messaging to the Board of Governors as used under Obama: “Iran must strictly and fully adhere to all commitments and technical measures for their duration.” Lee Smith pointed out that “former National Iranian American Council (NIAC) staffer Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, Obama’s NSC director for Iran, is now on the policy-planning staff in Trump’s State Department.” NIAC is effectively the Iran Lobby in the U.S.

If Iran is supposed to honor their commitments in the unsigned deal, will Trump also uphold the misguided U.S. political commitments as well? Trump’s pick to head the CIA, former Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS), has called this agreement “nothing more than a press release and just about as enforceable.”

It is the media’s responsibility to hold Trump accountable for keeping his promises to the American people, instead of working to undermine his policies. But Trump needs to do a better job of filling key positions and vetting the people who are making and carrying out his policies. Otherwise, his administration could turn out to be a disaster.


Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

07/28/16

The Damage Done by Hillary Backer Soros

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Rebuilding Economics: George Soros

The reporter exposed as having filed a story with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) before publication in Politico is out with a puff-piece about Democratic Party money bags George Soros.

The main force behind the agenda to flood the country with high-potency mind-altering marijuana through legalization campaigns, Soros also underwrites the “Big Death lobby” to pull the plug on sick people through “palliative care” schemes. Yet, Soros is described in the Kenneth P. Vogel story in Politico as dedicated to human rights, democracy, and “healthcare and education” on a global basis.

Soros has also financed various Marxist groups, such as Critical Resistance, a group founded by communist Angela Davis and dedicated to abolishing prisons.

This has got to be the biggest whitewash of Soros ever to appear in print. Soros, an atheist, is a major funder of the Democratic Party, as Vogel says, but he neglects to mention that much of Soros’s wealth has been put into causes such as abortion rights, gay rights, drug legalization, voting rights for felons, euthanasia and rights for immigrants and prostitutes.

It’s an agenda that dovetails nicely with Cultural Marxism.

Rachel Ehrenfeld of the American Center for Democracy points out, “Pretending to support an ‘open society,’ Soros uses his philanthropy to ‘change’ or more accurately deconstruct the moral values and attitudes of the Western world, and particularly of the American people.” This agenda makes them susceptible to a takeover from within by the socialists in the Democratic Party.

It’s the emerging “Big Marijuana” industry where Soros and his millions have really made a difference. Ehrenfeld comments that “…by working diligently to legalize drugs, Soros advances the greatest slavery ever—drug addiction. This sits well with his rejection of the notion of ordered liberty, in favor of a progressive ideology of rights and entitlements.”

Interestingly, his fortune has skyrocketed from about $9 billion before President Obama took office to over $24 billion today. It’s a form of crony capitalism designed to usher in a socialist state.

Vogel claims Soros amassed his fortune “through risky currency trades,” a sanitized version of what he actually did to make his money. Convicted of insider trading in France, another fact ignored by Vogel, Soros is a financial speculator and hedge-fund operator who manipulates the currencies of the nations of the world in order to make himself rich. He capitalizes on global instability and exploits human suffering for financial gain.

Vogel’s signature left-wing bias can be found throughout the piece, such as his statement that Soros has committed $5 million to a non-profit “devoted to fighting conservative efforts to restrict voting…” Of course, conservatives are trying to “restrict voting” to those who can prove they are American citizens.

Vogel says that Soros “warned voters” against voting for Donald Trump and Ted Cruz because he didn’t think these candidates understood how “to effectively fight terrorism.”

Soros’s idea of fighting terrorism was to finance the legal defense of Marxist National Lawyers Guild attorney Lynne Stewart, who was prosecuted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for violating the law against supporting terrorism. She had provided illegal support to her client, the “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel-Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The Obama administration freed Stewart from prison on medical grounds.

One thing Vogel gets right is the personal relationship Soros has with Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.

He cites the memo from Neera Tanden, the head of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress, about their close relationship. “I sat next to George Soros at dinner during the Democracy Alliance and after the topics of Europe and China, he started discussing President Obama,” Tanden says to Hillary. “I told him I worked for you in the primaries and he said he’s been impressed that he can always call/meet with you on an issue of policy and said he hasn’t met with the President ever (though I thought he had). He then said he regretted his decision in the primary—he likes to admit mistakes when he makes them and that was one of them. He then extolled his work with you from your time as First Lady on. You probably have heard this all before but on the off chance you haven’t, I thought I should let you know.”

According to this memo, Soros apparently believes Mrs. Clinton is more radical than Obama and would implement more of the billionaire’s objectives as president.

The Democracy Alliance is a secretive “dark money” group, the kind that progressives usually complain about when they operate on the conservative side.

Vogel suggests that Soros has recently been reluctant to get involved politically, but in fact he emerged as a big Wall Street backer of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Vogel could easily determine the truth of this statement by conducting a search of Politico’s own website and bringing up a story about a “who’s who of New York’s liberal finance scene” backing Warren. The list included Soros.

Warren, of course, postures as an enemy of Wall Street, in much the same way that she claimed to have Indian heritage to get a university teaching job.


Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

07/28/16

Why Putin Loves Hillary

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Putin

The media are shedding crocodile tears for Hillary Clinton. “Why Putin Hates Hillary” is the headline over a Politico story by Michael Crowley and Julia Ioffe about the stolen Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails. To the contrary, Russian President Vladimir Putin loves Hillary. He has taken advantage of her once, in the “Russia Reset,” and is preparing to take advantage of her again. She is the ultimate dupe. Putin has Hillary just where he wants her. He has access to some of Hillary’s deepest and darkest secrets.

The idea that Mrs. Clinton and the DNC have been victimized by Putin is absurd. This isn’t Putin’s fault. It’s the fault of the DNC. They didn’t maintain security over their email operations.

But, of course, neither did Hillary.

Politico says Putin is angry at Clinton for challenging the fairness of Russian elections. Almost on cue, Time magazine is out with a story taking a similar line. Time says Putin is mad that Hillary encouraged protests against his rule. In retaliation, the story goes, his hackers stole the DNC emails.

The other propaganda line from the media is that Putin favors Donald J. Trump over Hillary because Trump has business deals in Russia, and may even be in debt to some of Putin’s friends. According to this logic, which makes some sense, Putin has leverage over Trump, too.

There will be a way to test this theory.

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggests that Trump’s views on Russia may change once he’s briefed on Russia’s aggressive intentions. This is an excerpt of an exchange with Cotton from a CNBC interview:

CNBC’s John Harwood: One of the questions that has been raised about Donald Trump is, ‘Is he more friendly with Russia than it is in America’s best interests to be?’

Senator Cotton: Vladimir Putin was a KGB spy and he never got over that. He does not have America’s best interests at heart and he does not have any American interests at heart. I suspect, after this week, when Donald Trump is the nominee and he begins to receive classified briefings, similar briefings to what I receive as a member of the Intelligence Committee, he may have a different perspective on Vladimir Putin and what Russia is doing to America’s interests and allies in Europe and the Middle East and Asia.”

What Cotton is saying is that Trump’s soft-on-Russia policies could, and should, change after these briefings have occurred. If they do not, then Republicans will have a serious problem with their nominee.

On the other hand, Mrs. Clinton was burned once by Putin, during the Russian reset, and could get burned again. Remember that the Associated Press reported last October that the private email server running in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s home basement when she was secretary of state “was connected to the Internet in ways that made it more vulnerable to hackers while using software that could have been exploited…”

FBI Director James Comey confirmed that the emails were at risk. He said that while investigators did not find direct evidence that “hostile actors” hacked into Mrs. Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, “given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence” (emphasis added). He did say that hostile actors “gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account.” He added, “We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.”

From a security standpoint, therefore, one has to assume that these hostile actors did in fact gain access to her email system. Those hostile actors have to include Russia. You cannot proceed on any other assumption.

In a July 25 editorial, The Washington Post blamed Trump for the Russian hack of the DNC, saying he had somehow given them the “motivation” for such an attack because of his soft-on-Russian foreign policy positions. The Post said that Russia favors Trump over Hillary and wanted to sabotage her candidacy with the leak of the DNC emails on the eve of her convention.

But if Russia has Mrs. Clinton’s emails, and the evidence strongly points in that direction, it can be safely assumed they have potential blackmail material to use against her. Those emails probably involve not only a number of sensitive government activities but information about Mrs. Clinton personally, her family, the Clinton Foundation and her aides. The material could involve information of a financial or personal nature.

Moscow’s judgment, the Post editorial claimed, is that “it stands to reap a geopolitical windfall if Donald Trump is elected president.” That will only be the case if Trump persists in his pro-Russia policy and ignores the intelligence information about Russia’s aggressive intentions that Senator Cotton says he will receive. Trump still has time to reverse course on matters involving Russia, NATO and national security.

By contrast, Moscow already reaped a geopolitical windfall when Hillary was secretary of state and used the reset to invade Ukraine and expand militarily into the Middle East. Despite anti-Russian language in the 2016 Democratic platform, Mrs. Clinton has shown extremely bad judgment on Russia in the past. It’s possible she has changed her position. But Putin has so much potentially damaging information about Mrs. Clinton in those emails that this former KGB officer may think he can keep her in line. All that he has to do to keep a President Hillary Clinton in line is threaten to release some of the damaging information already in his possession. The leaks could come through WikiLeaks, the source of the DNC emails, or the Edward Snowden network.

These are the choices: Trump can reverse course and say and do the right thing about Russia. Hillary can talk tough about Russia during the campaign and do Putin’s bidding under threat of blackmail as president.

In short, Mrs. Clinton is a proven risk to national security. She is under effective Russian control. Trump could turn out to be a security risk if he deliberately ignores the evidence of hostile Russian intentions and aggression that is being presented to him. We can assume that Senator Cotton will follow up on his comments to CNBC and watch Trump for changes in his approach to Russia. America will also be watching.


Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

07/28/16

Bear Witness: Open Letter to Donald Trump on national security and Russian/Chinese threat

By: Trevor Loudon | New Zeal

My Trump friendly friends at Bear Witness Central have written to the candidate with some some concerns and suggestions re foreign policy and national security. Well worth a read.

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Dear Mr. Trump:

We are writing to you on behalf of the Florida-based conservative organization Bear Witness Central. We congratulate you on your primary victories and for your energizing many average Americans who would never normally consider voting for a Republican candidate. While Bear Witness Central cannot endorse candidates in any election, we admit that there are many areas of common agreement with your platform. Your positions on trade, immigration, the abuse of H-1B visas, and subversion through Islamic refugees are identical to that of Bear Witness Central. We believe that trade reform, a strong military, and responsibly tight border controls are conducive to achieving a sovereign America again.

Another area of concern for Bear Witness Central and many Americans are the twin threats of Russia and communist China. Both are on record as opposing American interests and seeking to eviscerate our power in the world.

Unfortunately, the Cold War never conclusively ended. Instead, the old Soviet Communists repositioned themselves and gained tremendous advantages in the areas of arms control, technology transfers, and trade concessions. While this assertion is not politically correct, it is grounded in solid factual information.

Russia continues to conduct military exercises and maneuvers against the US (sometimes in tandem with China); export weapons to rogue anti-American states; develop global alliance of communist and Islamic powers; commit espionage and subversion against American interests; and pay fealty to communism. Communist China continues to threaten the American mainland with annihilation; support global communist parties and even al-Qaeda/Taliban forces; destroy American manufacturing through predatory trade practices; proclaim their fealty for global Marxism-Leninism; and cooperate with anti-US regimes in Iran, Cuba, and other likeminded nations.

Let us proclaim with crystal clarity: the leadership and activist base of Bear Witness Central do not prescribe aggressive actions which would lead to a global war. We are seeking to avoid a Third World War by recommending the following measures:

  • Educating American citizens and political candidates of all parties on the nature of the global threats emanating from Islamo-totalitarianism, Russia, and China.
  • Requesting the political class to publicly identify that Russia, communist China, and Islamo-totalitarianism represent an existential threat to the survival of the United States.
  • Develop a national program of civil defense, comprehensive anti-missile (ABM) systems, and revitalization of our ground, naval, and air forces.
  • A progressive weaning away from any dependence on strategic materials and manufactured goods imported from Russia, China, and volatile regions in the Middle East.
  • Military intervention only when American interests are directly threatened.
  • An unequivocal admission that our industrial economic power is synonymous with the redevelopment of superior military superiority.

We argue that the proposed measures would strengthen our power at home without sacrificing the lives and limbs of American soldiers and officers. Restoring American power on the home front is critical in the effort to rebuild our Nation’s economic-military power.

Lastly, we kindly encourage you to review some of these quotes and reports mentioned below. They are attached in this letter in order to provide a factual basis for the concerns of the membership and leaders of Bear Witness Central and many other patriotic Americans.

“I want to warn Americans…You believe because the Soviet Union no longer exists, Russia now is your friend. It isn’t, and I can show you how the SVR (i.e., KGB) is trying to destroy the U.S. even today and even more than the KGB did during the Cold War.” Defecting KGB/SVR Col. Sergei Tretyakov quoted in Earley, Pete. Comrade J

“Russia continues to conduct aggressive offensive missile training in the Pacific against U.S. and Allied Forces. We should understand that they look at ‘reset’ differently than we do…They look at it as regaining their previous USSR position as a superpower.” Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney quoted in Russia Reform Monitor Number 1827 April 26, 2013

“Russian intelligence activity against this country (the United States) is much more active than it was in time of the former Soviet Union. And this activity just now is much more dangerous for this country than it was before.” Defecting GRU Colonel Stanislav Lunev quoted in Pry, Peter Vincent. War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink

In 2001, Russian troops joined in a Chinese PLA nuclear attack exercise conducted against the United States for assistance rendered to Taiwan. The exercises involved strategic bombing runs conducted by Russian Air Force Tu-22 and Su-27 planes near Japan. The Tu-22s were equipped with nuclear cruise missiles. The details of this Sino-Russian exercise was contained in this report of the following sequence of events: “The Asia scenario began with a Chinese military attack on Taiwan that was followed by the use of U.S. ground troops on the island, said one official. Next, China escalated the conflict by firing tactical nuclear missiles on the U.S. troops in Taiwan, prompting U.S. nuclear strikes on Chinese forces. Russian nuclear forces then threatened to use nuclear missile strikes on U.S. forces in the region, including strikes on troops in South Korea and Japan.” Russia also fired ICBMs from land launchers and SLBMs from submarines in this exercise. Washington Times April 30, 2001

“The Myth that the Cold War has ended is the greatest delusion of the West. Let us ask a simple question: When did the Cold War finish–what date? When the armistice agreement was signed? And who admitted defeat?” he asked with a hint of sarcasm. Many believe that the Soviet Union was defeated. But maybe it has only gotten smaller. In fact, I do not see a large difference between the current Russia and the Soviet Union. Especially because some of its former republics – independent on paper – are still governed by the Kremlin; and if you try to approach any passerby on the Russian street and ask him if the Cold War is finished, he will tell you that it is not so, and that the U.S. is running the Cold War against Russia. He knows it from Russian state propaganda.” KGB/SVR defector Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy quoted in Worldnetdaily January 8, 2001

“Both Russia and China know America’s vulnerabilities, and they are exploiting them as much as they can.” KGB/SVR defector Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy quoted in Worldnetdaily January 8, 2001

“I liked Communist and socialist ideas very much and I like them still.” Vladimir Putin, 2016 quoted in Newsweek, January 25, 2016

“Russia has chosen to be an adversary and poses a long-term existential threat to the United States and to our European allies and partners…Russia is eager to exert unquestioned influence over its neighboring states in its buffer zone…so has used military force to violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, Georgia and others, like Moldova.” Supreme NATO commander Philip Breedlove, 2016

In conclusion, the leadership of Bear Witness Central would like to meet with you or your top representatives (e.g. Stephen Miller) to discuss these issues in greater detail. We are willing to meet with you anytime at any location within the State of Florida. Let us join together in our common goal to “Make America Great Again” through truthfulness, solid analysis, and patriotism.

Sincerely,

Bear Witness Central Directors

Bear Witness Central is a communication and action group composed of Americans who have experienced Socialism and/or Communism intervention during their lifetime joined by other concerned Americans. We are a non-partisan group and our main objective is to labor to safeguard our Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the American way of life. Bear Witness Central covers the U.S.A. and has members in the 50 states.

07/25/16

The Trump-Sanders Coalition

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Trump

You know the terms “left” and “right” are losing meaning when left-wing websites are praising the Republican presidential candidate and attacking the Democrat, and Russia seems to be intervening in favor of the GOP.

The Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA), which has been pulling for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race, has sent out an advisory entitled, “What Trump is Right About: NATO.” On the other hand, Mrs. Clinton’s pick for her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), has been depicted by the same group as a creature of Wall Street.

The IPA is not alone. Journalism Professor Jeff Cohen, co-founder of RootsAction.org and communications coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network, has been quoted as saying that Kaine is a “corporatist,” or stooge of Big Business. Cohen’s colleague, Norman Solomon, calls Kaine a puppet of the “oligarchy.”

At the same time, WikiLeaks has released an email database from the Democratic National Committee, demonstrating that the DNC intervened in the primary contest against Sanders and in favor of Clinton. Since Russian hackers obtained the DNC emails, it means that Moscow wants to cause mischief on the Democratic side just as Hillary is getting the presidential nomination this week in Philadelphia.

An explanation for this interesting series of events may be found in the IPA news release on Trump and NATO, quoting Professor David N. Gibbs as saying that “Trump’s recent criticisms of the NATO alliance are reasonable.” He adds, “Trump is right to question NATO’s value in promoting U.S. security, and also to raise the issue of the enormous financial cost of this alliance to the U.S. taxpayer.” Gibbs has appeared on RT, the Russia Today propaganda channel.

Trump’s pro-Russian outlook has caused great consternation among conservatives who see the Vladimir Putin regime as the aggressor in Europe and interfering in the Middle East. Trump’s allies vetoed tough language in the Republican platform urging heavy weapons for Ukraine to fight Russian aggression. Instead, the Trump forces inserted language about providing “appropriate assistance” to Ukraine.

By contrast, the Democratic platform is tough on Russia and attacks Trump’s position on NATO. It says, “Russia is engaging in destabilizing actions along its borders, violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and attempting to recreate spheres of influence that undermine American interests. It is also propping up the Assad regime in Syria, which is brutally attacking its own citizens. Donald Trump would overturn more than 50 years of American foreign policy by abandoning NATO partners — 44 countries who help us fight terrorism every day — and embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin instead. We believe in strong alliances and will deter Russian aggression, build European resilience, and protect our NATO allies.”

These words sound great, except for the fact that, as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton had an opportunity to be tough with the Russians and blew it. Her Russian reset led to the invasion of Ukraine. It also masked the uranium deal highlighted in the movie “Clinton Cash,” based on the book, a deal in which the Russians bought 20 percent of America’s uranium production as millions of dollars flowed to the Clinton Foundation and hundreds of thousands of dollars went to Bill Clinton personally.

Has Hillary Clinton changed her mind on Russia? That’s what the platform would suggest. If so, it would be a big opening for Trump to pounce on her flip-flops. But he hasn’t done so. Instead, he refuses to take on Russian aggression in Europe or the Middle East.

In his speech, however, Trump openly appealed to Sanders supporters, saying they “will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade deals that strip our country of its jobs and wealth.”

Trump’s appeal to Sanders supporters is based on trade. But it appears that his pro-Russian foreign policy has some appeal to them as well. If the Sanders supporters perceive Hillary Clinton to be a hawk on foreign policy, as Sanders himself suggested during the campaign, it’s possible they could either sit out the race or vote for the New York billionaire.


Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

06/5/16

#NeverDrunkUncleOrRobotGrandma – Shapiro’s Truth Hits Fox News Anchor’s Funny Bone

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Hat Tip: The New Americana

Funny

Ben Shapiro is wickedly smart and incredibly funny. Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro had Fox News host Leland Vittert laughing so hard he couldn’t remember what question he wanted to ask. It was epic. The whole conversation revolved around foreign policy and how Donald Trump would approach it vs. Hillary Clinton. Hilarity ensued.

Vittert asked Shapiro, “Who wins this fight?”:

Well, America loses. To call this election cycle a dumpster fire is far too cruel to dumpster fires, which at least destroy garbage rather than making them president. The problem here is that every attack that Hillary leverages against Trump on his lack of foreign policy knowledge, experience and basic common sense can be doubly true of her. He can basically reverse everything; she attacked him in that speech on his Russian policy; this is a lady who handed a reset button to the Russians and helped define a policy that handed Syrian control over to the Russians as well as Ukraine over to the Russians.

Every time she attacks Trump, with regard to, for example, his policy in the Middle East on ISIS, she helped create ISIS with her Iraq and Syria policy. When she says that he can’t be trusted with the nuclear button, first of all, her own husband apparently lost the nuclear football when he was President of the United States, according to Buzz Patterson. This is the same lady who set up a private server that made America’s national security secrets vulnerable, specifically for her own personal self-aggrandizement. The problem is that only Hillary can make Trump look like a legit candidate, and only Trump can make Hillary look like a legit candidate.

Then came the question that left them rolling in the aisles laughing… Vittert asked innocently, “Ben, I guess we can all keep dreaming that we are going to apply some substance and some real depth and probity to this discussion but it seems like it’s just not there; we have, to your point, a dumpster fire.”

Shapiro nailed it:

I think that what you’re looking at right now is Donald Trump is running to Hillary’s left on half of her foreign policy and she is in an uncomfortable position because the truth is that she was actually in some areas very hawkish and in some areas very dovish when she was Secretary of State. And now she is having to run to Trump’s right in a time when Bernie Sanders is running hard to her left. It puts her in a very difficult position on foreign policy, and he, no one expects him to even be mildly coherent on foreign policy; he’s so wildly all over the place; he’s throwing the kitchen sink at her.

As far as personality types, when you say there are two different types of personality, I think that’s kind to both of them; I think that Donald Trump has the personality of the drunk uncle who doesn’t drink and Hillary Clinton is more robotic than anybody in the history of presidential politics. You can almost hear the “beeps” and the boops” emanating from her mouth every time she talks.

Enjoy the video:

Sadly, in the end the lack of foreign policy competency isn’t funny and America loses. But Shapiro has an incredible wit and calls it like he sees it. Foreign policy may not dominate this election, but it should. It’s that serious and that deadly an issue.

04/28/16

Trump’s Incoherent, Inconsistent, Russian-Loving Foreign Policy

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Trump Foreign

Far be it from me to agreed with a Marxist, but CNN’s Fareed Zakaria did a great job listing just how incoherent and inconsistent Donald Trump’s foreign policy is.

He listed everything except for the gem where Trump touted that 9/11 was a tragedy because Italians died in it.

Trump used a prepared speech and teleprompters yesterday. He mispronounced ‘Tasmania’ and stumbled left and right. He talked about reducing weapon stockpiles. He talked about not getting in further conflicts, but he would still defeat ISIS. That makes no sense. He chooses a slogan of ‘America First!’ that was a slogan in the 1930’s for the Nazis in America to keep us from fighting the Germans. No one knows how to use Google in the Trump camp evidently. He also talks about the Cold War ending… it never did… it shifted. Trump’s speech was a disaster all in itself.

My friend Denise Simon noted several things yesterday… I have no doubt that Donald Trump is firmly in bed with Russia. He had the Russian Ambassador sitting in the front row of his speech. He has a campaign manager who represented Russian interests. He has foreign policy advisers that are friendly to Russia. Trump himself is fond of Putin and can ‘negotiate’ with him. You see, Trump is even more flexible than Obama was.

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04/27/16

Trump: America First, Foreign Policy Presentation

By: Denise Simon | FoundersCode.com

Trump

Good for Donald Trump, America should be first when it comes to policy and diplomacy. Applause to the Donald for that standard. Well said.

Tell us again how to pronounce Tanzania or San Bernardino.

What was not said however is disturbing for those who have a keen interest in foreign policy. Of particular note, the Ambassador of Russia was sitting on the front row. Perhaps this is but one reason, Trump never mentioned Russia or Vladimir Putin.

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03/17/16

Trump’s Pro-Russian Policy Threatens Israel

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Donald J. Trump has received the endorsements of conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Something doesn’t make sense here.

Schlafly has always been a realist on the matter of the aggressive foreign policy of the old Soviet Union and now Russia. On the other hand, as noted by Josh Rogin at Bloomberg View, Trump has a “pro-Russian foreign policy” that could have something to do with the businessman’s history of trying to do business in Russia.

Trump is threatening riots if he doesn’t get the Republican nomination. But rank-and-file conservatives who make up the Republican Party could themselves protest if Trump walks out of the Cleveland convention with the nomination. Indeed, they could walk out on Trump and back a third party conservative candidate. It’s not just Trump’s pro-Russian views. It’s how his support for Russia and Putin threatens Israel.

The Forward has run an article claiming that Trump has the strongest Jewish ties of all the GOP candidates. He has raised money for Jewish causes and members of his family are Jewish. But none of this can justify his support for Putin’s Russia. It is Russia that is backing Israel’s enemies in the region, most notably Iran.

Trump can’t have it both ways by supporting Russia while attacking Iran. The two regimes are engaged in a military alliance.

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