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« on: January 30, 2019, 05:18:03 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 1-30-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Jan. 30, 2019 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/60870-mid-day-digest
THE FOUNDATION
“America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” —James Madison (1787)
https://patriotpost.us/fqd/60868-founders-quote-daily
IN TODAY’S EDITION
Did the intelligence community really rebuke Trump?1
Wheeling and dealing on judicial nominations continues.2
Daily Features: More Analysis3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Memes6, Cartoons7, Opinion in Brief8, and Short Cuts9.
IN BRIEF
Leftmedia Spin on the U.S. Intelligence Threat Assessment10
President Donald Trump loves this country and strongly advocates and advances an “America First” foreign policy. Whether it’s withdrawing from the terrible nuclear deal with Iran or the hamstringing climate accord from Paris, he’s moved to undo the “America Last” agenda of his globalist predecessor. And the Leftmedia hates him for it.
So we’re treated to New York Times headlines such as “On North Korea and Iran, Intelligence Chiefs Contradict Trump11” that are meant to portray Trump as an uninformed rube blundering his way through foreign policy. The topic at hand is the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment12 prepared by the U.S. intelligence community. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, CIA Director Gina Haspel, and FBI Director Christopher Wray testified Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding the assessment.
The trio warned about threats from Russia and China, which the assessment says are “more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s.” They also addressed North Korea, Iran, and ISIS. On each nation, Coats, Haspel, and Wray did indeed contradict some of Trump’s more brash assertions. For example, in announcing the U.S. withdrawal from Syria13, Trump declared, “We have won against ISIS; we’ve beaten them, and we’ve beaten them badly.” By contrast, Coats said the Islamic State will continue “to stoke violence” in Syria.
In our humble shop, however, we consider this to be another instance when Trump should be taken seriously but not literally. While Barack Obama effectively created14 ISIS, Trump has done a lot to beat it back. Unfortunately, by making hyperbolic, black-and-white declarations, he opens himself up to eye-rolling “fact-checks” by the media and others. Trump has a maddening ability to be both wrong and right at the same time.
On North Korea15, he did the same thing, saying after his summit with Kim Jong-un, “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” Yes, there is, says the intelligence assessment. “We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival,” Coats said. “Our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization.”
Naturally, a good deal of time was spent on Russia’s election interference through Facebook. But Terence Jeffrey astutely argues16 what grassroots Americans are thinking: “The top national security issue facing the federal government today has nothing to do with deceptive political speech on social media. It has everything to do with our southern border.”
In the final analysis, the intelligence threat assessment is done in conjunction with the White House — these are executive agencies, after all — and the apparent disagreement arguably strengthens the American position in negotiations with our geopolitical foes. How? By keeping them off balance and on the ropes. Meanwhile, here at home, the Leftmedia is happy to keep churning anything that can be spun to make Trump look bad, reporting on complicated issues as checker games rather than chess matches.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/60866-leftmedia-spin-on-the-us-intelligence-threat-assessment
About Those Omitted Judicial Nominees…17
Thomas Gallatin
Has President Donald Trump caved to Democrat demands in his choice of judicial nominees? That’s the position taken by The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board in a piece entitled “A Bad Judges Deal18.” The Journal notes that the names of three judicial nominees that had previously appeared on a list of more than 50 judges Trump sent to the Senate last year were conspicuously omitted when the list was resubmitted earlier this month. Those three individuals had been nominated for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. So why were they removed?
The Journal speculates that the omissions are due to White House interactions with the two Democrat senators from California: “Ms. [Dianne] Feinstein and the White House counsel’s office have been pen pals on this for some time. In a November letter to new White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Ms. Feinstein and Ms. [Kamala] Harris requested ‘that the White House work with us to reach an agreement on a consensus package of nominees.’ The Democrats want to pick one name from the White House list, one from their own, and a third consensus nominee.”
Clearly, there has been some backroom dealing going on, possibly in an effort to get Democrats to end their obstructionist tactics that have effectively slowed the judicial confirmation process to a crawl. As we have repeatedly noted19, Trump is way behind his predecessors in judicial confirmations and that is entirely due to Democrat obstruction. Being in the Senate minority, Democrats can’t prevent Trump’s judicial nominees from being confirmed; they can, however, play procedural games to slow-walk the process as much as possible. Has a frustrated White House opted to try to make a deal with Dems in order to get them to end their delay tactics?
Possibly, but there is very likely much more behind this decision than merely a deal with Democrats to speed up the confirmation process. Before getting too concerned, it would be best to wait and see who Trump nominates rather than ring alarm bells over what names have been omitted.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/60865-about-those-omitted-judicial-nominees-dot-dot-dot |
