Tag: Iran

Still no cooperation deal for Cohen

Despite claims from Michael Cohen that he violated campaign finance laws on Trump’s behalf and that Trump knew ahead of time about the DNC hack, there is still no cooperation deal on the table.  That means prosecutors either for New York or Mueller have not come to Cohen to offer him a deal.  Additionally, some have noted that his attorney taking the claims to television rather than working with prosecutors behind closed doors underscores that Cohen has nothing to offer.  Cohen faces years in jail even with the plea deal and could face additional charges in the future.  His attorney, Lanny Davis, is a huge Bill Clinton supporter and Trump hater.

No cooperation deal yet for Cohen

“Deeply confused or dishonest” Bill Nelson was hit by the Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper after the FBI and DHS issued a joint statement that Nelson’s Russian interference claim was false.  Nelson had stated that Russia had infiltrated Florida’s election system, but the claim turned out to be a lie.  Scott’s charge that Nelson may be deeply confused may be a comment about Nelson’s age.  At 75 years old, Nelson is actually only the 16th oldest Senator.

Confirmed: Bill Nelson lied about Russian infiltration

Iran has a “new” fighter jet.  The Kowsar fighter jet is supposedly domestically designed and built by Iran.  There’s only one problem, the plane looks exactly like a US fighter jet from 1974.

Military experts say Iran’s new fighter jet is remake of 1970s US jet

Need to Know 8/7/18

Yesterday we wrote about a California politician saying the state needs to regulate every aspect of our lives.  Today it’s Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy applauding the removal of Alex Jones from the internet.  I’m not an Alex Jones fan, I think half the stuff he puts out is fake news and the other half is sensationalized news.  He’s on par with CNN.  But Murphy went on to say something scary.  Murphy tweeted that the censorship of internet sites by the major corporations like Facebook and Youtube is what our democracy depends on.

I’m going to disagree with Murphy and suggest that freedom of speech, political expression, and freedom of association are what our democracy depends on.  Our founders seemed to agree when they wrote the bill of rights.  Companies can do whatever they want with their own internet platforms.  But it’s scary to see a US Senator cheer on big corporate censorship of political views.

Democrat Senator suggests internet censorship will save our democracy

It’s always fun to go back and read the climate change predictions from the past and see how they have failed to materialize.  On the first Earth Day, everyone figured climate change would wipe out the planet by 2000.  Obviously that didn’t happen, but the predictions went on.  Climate change predictions have become a great way for one side to use fear mongering to pass their agenda.  Republicans have been wrongly accused of wanting dirty air and dirty water.  Here’s a link to an article highlighting some of the failed predictions since 2000.

2018 and the planet is still here

We are back to not accepting a nuclear Iran.  After canceling the Iranian nuke deal made by Obama, without congressional approval, Trump gave Iran months to come to the table and renegotiate.  After Iran’s refusal, Trump is now reinstating the Obama era sanctions in two stages.  the first stage went into effect yesterday, the second is coming in November.  Trump has also issued an ultimatum to our trading partners that the US will not deal with countries who deal with Iran.  The pressure is back on for Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions, although they now have billions more to work with thanks to Obama’s attempt at a legacy.

Trump reinstates Iranian sanctions over Iran’s refusal to negotiate new nuke deal

Several states go to the polls today for the midterm primaries.  Media outlets like CNN have chosen a special election in Ohio to focus on as their indication of how the blue wave is doing.  The special election is for a state senate seat and will be re-decided in November, so frankly we don’t care.  I’m looking more closely at the Missouri primary.  This will be an indication of any strides made by the Libertarian party in influencing the future of conservative politics.  Libertarian-turned-Republican Austin Petersen chose to run within the Republican primary rather than as a third party candidate.  A long shot win by the champion of liberty could set the tone for future incursions into the GOP by Libertarian hopefuls.  The Freedom Caucus has shown it can be done, and many Libertarians have grown wary of their own party that nominated perpetually high Gary Johnson and old school RINO Bill Weld in the 2016 Presidential race.

Libertarian candidate hopes for upset in GOP primary

Need to know 7/23/18

Iran, in trouble with their people and staring down the barrel of new US sanctions, began a tweet war with Trump over the “mother of all wars”.  Trump responded in all caps that Iran’s leaders would suffer consequences few others have.  In the end it’s likely all blowing smoke.  Iran doesn’t have nuclear capabilities and the US isn’t about to go invade another Middle Eastern country.  But the developments continue to show that despite the rhetoric and narrative, Trump has been tougher on Russia allies than Obama was.

Rouhani warns Trump about mother of all wars

Speaking of rhetoric on Russia, Trey Gowdy had a warning for Trump administration officials that they should steer Trump to take Russia more seriously or consider leaving their posts.  Gowdy has consistently chided the Trump administration for not being tough enough on Russia’s election interference, however he has also acknowledged the extreme prejudice shown by Obama’s intel apparatus. In addition to noting that James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan continue to show their anti-Trump bias in editorials, Gowdy recently took Inspector General Michael Horowitz to task over his failure to call out anti-Trump bias deeply rooted in the FBI.  Texts from Peter Strzok reveled that the Russia/Trump collusion investigation was an “insurance policy” to “stop Trump”.  But so far, nothing has actually tied Trump to Russia or proven collusion.

Anti-Trump bias in the FBI can’t be put aside

Speaking of bias, the FISA court warrant to spy on Carter Page and the Trump campaign has been released through a Freedom of Information Act request.  This extraordinary release marks the first time a secretive FISA warrant has been released.  It proves two things.  The first is that Hillary Clinton’s paid for political propaganda dossier played a major role in getting the warrant.  Second, that the secret warrant to spy on a US citizen during the Obama administration was obtained simply because there was suspicion that Russia was trying to recruit him.  It’s also important to know that the warrant was issued after Page was no longer with the Trump campaign. Spying on a US Citizen because there is a belief that a foreign power might try to recruit them is likely a violation of the 4th Amendment.

For some good reading, here is Andy McCarthy’s argument why suspicion that someone is being recruited by a foreign government is not good enough to secretly spy on a US Citizen.

If you want to read through the FISA Warrant, you can do that here.

What do Sacha Baron Cohen and James O’Keefe have in common?  Both used hidden cameras to expose the other side.  It’s interesting to see how many lend credence to what Cohen exposes compared to those who dismissed O’Keefe’s videos out of hand  because they felt he was using trickery or deceptive editing.  O’Keefe’s undercover operations exposed massive Democrat voter fraud and routine illegal activities being carried out by Planned Parenthood.  Cohen got a racist Georgia politician to drop his pants and shout the N word.  I wonder if the Left will dismiss Cohen so quickly.

Sacha Baron Cohen gets former GOP lawmaker to make racist jokes 

 

Fascist Beasts

Ask any American about Charlottesville and they can tell you exactly what happened there.  Ok, not exactly.  It depends on what side they are on. Neo-Nazis ran someone over. Conservatives ran someone over. A crazy, schizophrenic ran over a Communist aggressor. I guess it really depends on someone’s viewpoint. I like how Ted Cruz characterized it: someone committed a terrorist act in the United States.  But it wasn’t the only act of terror in the world this past week.

James Fields, aside from being crazy, committed an act of terror. He acted violently and killed someone because of their beliefs and how they conflicted with his. His beliefs, as a neo-Nazi, are that not only is his race better than your race, but the government should just acknowledge that and stop all the other races from oppressing his race. He is a Fascist.

Sidebar, I’ve often wondered how White Supremacists have not logically worked through their belief and seen where it falls apart. Nazis killed Jews because they saw the Jews as always doing better and oppressing them financially. They kill blacks because they see blacks as stronger and therefore dangerous. Eventually White Supremacists are going to put two and two together and stop thinking of themselves as the master race.

But putting that aside, let’s talk about Fascists for a minute. The difference between a Fascist and a Socialist is that Fascists wear their ill intentions on their sleeve. A Socialist will tell you they kill for the betterment of society, and actually sound good saying it. Look at Iceland where they are celebrating the elimination of down syndrome. They killed them all, but that’s not what they’ll tell you.

Fascists believe their (fill in the blank) is better. Therefore, they must eliminate any competition for power. The best example of modern day Fascism is not Charlottesville where a bunch of inbred white dudes carried tiki torches and chanted “We are the best” until the craziest one ran someone over.  The best examples were seen this past week in Barcelona and Turku.

In Barcelona, an Islamic Fascist terrorist ran people over with his car. Not because of voices in his head, not because he found the crowd threatening, but because in his view Islam is best and all others must be killed or intimidated into signing up. CNN stupidly pondered whether Barcelona was a Charlottesville copycat. Probably not, considering Islamic Fascist terrorists have used car terrorist attacks 11 times in Europe over the last two years. In Turku, Finland, an Islamic Fascist terrorist pulled out a knife and started indiscriminately stabbing civilians. That scares me more than a crowd of tiki torch wielding, racist frat boys.

Yet, the words Islamic, Fascist, jihad, and even terror remain verboten in much of the news coverage of these kind of terror attacks. The same people in the US who are sure that Trump is about to start the Fourth Reich with his approximately 20,000 neo-Nazi and KKK followers will pray for the victims of Barcelona without admitting Islam had anything to do with it. As slow as Trump was to call out the KKK and neo-Nazis, the Obama administration was far slower to even admit Benghazi was a terrorist attack.

Islamic Fascism is responsible for murder, rape, and slavery throughout the countries they control.  Christians, Jews, and Muslims are among the primary victims. While ISIS was the extreme version, it is still illegal in most Muslim countries to convert to another religion, or in some cases to even convert to a different denomination of Islam.  When Iran says they have no gays, it’s not because they all left or prayed the gay away and turned straight. It’s because the penalty for homosexuality in Islam is to be thrown off a roof.

There is nothing good, right, or sane about the tiny but loud pocket of Fascism rearing it’s ugly head in the US.  But until the Alt-Left gets the courage to call Fascism Fascism wherever it exists and regardless of how popular, they lack the credibility to confront neo-Nazi thugs.

I guess that leaves it up to the rest of us freedom loving Americans.