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Follow-up on US-North Korea situation — part 1

August 15, 2018 in history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Two months ago, after writing about the Singapore Summit of Monday, June 12, 2018, I said I would analyse it the following week, largely because the media will not focus on this historic event:

Other meetings have taken place since then, and it seemed apposite to wait a while to see how things were progressing between the United States and North Korea as well as China.

Most recently, on August 1, Vice President Mike Pence presided over a ceremony and reception of fallen soldiers’ remains in Hawaii, part of the Summit agreement.

Going back to the Summit, it was reported that President Trump showed a special video about the United States to President Kim Jong Un and his negotiators:

The following day, North Korea’s state-run news bureau reported that Kim accepted Trump’s invitation to visit Washington for denuclearisation talks. This was hailed as a ‘radical switchover’ in relations between the two nations.

On June 13, Trump tweeted:

It wasn’t just Fake News. The cancer had spread earlier in the month to other television programmes, such as this one:

In an interview that day, Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s short-lived White House communications director from 2017, focussed on trade:

Despite the positive developments …

… on June 21, Trump renewed the ‘national emergency’ declaration regarding North Korea for another year. BT.com reported:

In an executive order on Friday, the president extended for one year the so-called “national emergency” with respect to the nuclear-armed nation, authorising economic restrictions against it …

It states that “the existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material” and the actions and policies of the North Korean government “continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States”.

The national emergency has been in place since 2008 …

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said on Friday evening that it has “indefinitely suspended” a major military exercise with South Korea, known as Freedom Guard and scheduled for August, as well as two Korean Marine exchange training exercises.

Officials had announced on Monday that planning for Freedom Guard had been suspended in line with Mr Trump’s decision to halt what he called US “war games” in South Korea.

A Pentagon spokeswoman, Dana W White, said further decisions about military exercises in South Korea “in support of diplomatic negotiations” led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will depend on North Korea “continuing to have productive negotiations in good faith”.

Air Force veteran Lisa Mei Crowley noted that change was in the air:

Fox News and The Daily Caller also reported on this welcome development, which the US secretary of state acknowledged:

Not surprisingly, ‘tensions’ were rising in China — North Korea’s controller — and defence secretary James Mattis visited the country, with subsequent stops in Japan and South Korea:

Meanwhile, the two Koreas had tensions of their own over human rights legislation.

The White House issued a strong statement about China and tariffs, which reads in part:

To stop China’s predatory attacks on America’s innovation base, President Trump is instituting a program of tariffs and is considering investment restrictions and strengthened export controls. These tariffs will help pressure the Chinese to stop engaging in unfair practices and fully open up its markets to U.S. products, including U.S. technologies. The correct response from China would be to stop stealing from Americans and give American products a level playing field to compete in China, not to retaliate and reinforce its own position.

Bloomberg asked how prepared China’s Xi was for a trade war. Hmm:

Xi Jinping vowed to match Donald Trump blow for blow in any trade war. Now as one gets closer, some in Beijing are starting to openly wonder whether China is ready for the fight — an unusually direct challenge to the leadership of the world’s second-largest economy.

In recent weeks, prominent academics have begun to question if China’s slowing, trade-dependent economy can withstand a sustained attack from Trump, which has already started to weigh on stock prices. The sentiments are being expressed in carefully worded essays circulated on China’s heavily censored internet and — according to interviews in recent days with ministry officials and foreign diplomats who asked not to be identified — repeated in the halls of government offices, too.

The Conservative Treehouse explained:

China has focused so intensely on durable-goods manufacturing, their consumable goods market (food) is dependent; they cannot feed themselves.  The U.S. can survive without exporting food, China cannot survive without importing food.  The U.S. economy can survive without importing durable goods; the Chinese economy cannot survive without exporting durable goods.  This is the unavoidable trade reality.  As a consequence President Trump has all the factual leverage.

June 28 was the 50th anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Mike Pompeo gave a speech about North Korea and Iran in this regard. Concerning the former, he said:

The next day, controversy arose as to whether North Korea was being honest and Obama’s national security advisor tried to make Trump into a chump:

On July 3, Trump refuted Rice and others:

Pompeo had returned to South-east Asia:

According to one South Korean press outlet, Pompeo had with him as a gift for Kim a CD of Elton John’s Rocket Man, a song he said he’d never heard. The State Department said that was false:

The State Department kept Americans updated:

On July 6, the other big news item was the US-China trade war. CNBC’s Jim Cramer said the American people supported Trump’s perspective:

“We simply, as a people, seem to be united that the president’s position is wrong. I hear more of that on TV than I hear reality. I think that there are a lot of people [who say], ‘Thank you for standing up for us,’” Cramer said on CNBC …

“There are a lot of companies that are doing quite well in the country. And I think if you’re going to take on the Chinese you do it from strength. And we have much more strength than they do,” he said. “Look at 211,000 jobs on average the last three months, this economy is very strong.”

Wall Street trader and Sarge986 President Stephen Guilfoyle agreed. He told Fox News that day:

President Trump’s trade policies have China “by the short hairs” and “right where we want them” in the bid to win any impending trade wars.

“They have retail sales in the hole… they’ve got industrial production in the hole,” Guilfoyle said. “The Shanghai Composite [stock index] is down 17 percent year-to-date. We’ve got these guys where we want them.

News about Pompeo’s trip and the trade war circulated, so they will comprise tomorrow’s post.

That said, most of the established media wanted to focus on the Mueller probe:

No wonder Trump got shirty about that and the short shrift he received for the Singapore Summit:

At least Asian nations appreciate his sterling efforts:

True. One cannot say better than that.

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Charlottesville one year on

August 14, 2018 in history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On Saturday, August 11, 2018, leftists attempted to revive the peculiar melee that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017.

Meanwhile, on August 11, President Trump hosted his biker supporters at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.

Charlottesville

In Charlottesville this year, the Left showed their true colours once again:

A Unite the Right 2 demonstration took place that day, just as it did last year. However, very few participants must have shown up, because Antifa were the stars of the show.

Antifa verbally abused reporters — ironically, the very people who defend them.

Breitbart reported (language warning in the link):

A crew with the left-wing anarchist group “Antifa” attacked and shouted at a USA Today reporter and photographer during a counter-protest in Washington, D.C. on Sunday.

In a counter-protest to the “Unite the Right 2” protest, Antifa mobs descended on the streets of Washington, D.C., attacking police and threatening onlookers. The Antifa group also threatened and shouted down members of the media, including a USA Today reporter who said she was simply trying to do her job.

Exclusive footage taken by Breitbart News shows two members of Antifa cursing at and shouting down the USA Today reporter, telling her to “Stop taking pictures!”

“Are you going to report how many people they tear-gassed?” the Antifa member shouted at a photographer.

“If we knew,” the USA Today reporter responded.

The Antifa members then verbally abused the USA Today reporter with foul language. An AFP (Agence France Presse) photographer was also caught up in the incident:

After the altercation, the USA Today reporter and a photographer with AFP said they were just trying to do their jobs.

Then, there is the curious attitude of NBC towards Antifa then and now in Charlottesville. As NewsBusters reports, last year, their political director and news programme host Chuck Todd (emphases in the original):

used his MSNBC program, MTP Daily to elevate Antifa’s violence as a legitimate tactic against the right. He even doubled down and allowed them to use the formerly prestigious Meet the Press as a platform to push their hate and violent methods. Todd has never condemned them.

How ironic, then, that last Saturday night, an Antifa protester shouted foul language at two of Todd’s colleagues:

Late Saturday night, NBC News reporter Cal Perry and his crew were in the thick of it as Antifa members ganged up on them and attacked. The next morning, NBC’s Sunday Today ignored the attack and suggested the media was simply “heckled” by their assaulters.

On Twitter, Perry was documenting the protesters as they marched through the streets of college town when they started to get “very aggressive with the media” and trying to block their camera shots. “Yeah. We’re getting a lot of this. Protesters trying to grab our camera,” he responded to one Twitter commenter telling him to “f**k off national media vulture.”

NewsBusters included a Cal Perry video and even warned about the language content.

Meanwhile, protesters were also assembling in front of the White House. The NBC reporter there, Garrett Haake, said there was violence in Charlottesville, but instead of showing Perry’s video of the altercation involving him and a cameraman, showed their other coverage.

The following day, Chuck Todd ignored the abuse of his colleagues and launched into another anti-Trump diatribe. NewsBusters has the relevant part of the NBC Sunday Today transcript.

This is worth noting:

CNN’s Brian Stelter was in no position to be indignant about Antifa’s attacks on the media:

Washington DC

On Sunday, the scheduled right-wing protest, beefed up by the media, was, in fact, a damp squib. The violent Left dominated once again. The building in the background, by the way, is the Trump International, formerly the Old Post Office:

Here’s more irony about the media, especially CNN, defending Antifa past violence:

Bedminster

Some of President Trump’s longest and most loyal supporters are the Bikers for Trump.

Trump welcomed 180 of them to his Bedminster golf club on Saturday:

The Daily Mail has coverage of the event, including photos:

President Donald Trump has met with a group of 180 bikers at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, reveling in the group’s loyal support as they bashed the press and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

The group, made up of veterans and members of the New Jersey chapter of Bikers for Trump, descended on Trump National Golf Club on Saturday in a procession of chrome and roar of exhaust pipes.

Claiming nearly 100,000 members across the country, Bikers for Trump is a major grassroots organization that supports the Trump administration’s agenda.

Driving rain at first pushed a planned outdoor photo-op into the club’s ballroom, where the White House press pool was ushered in at around 3.30pm and greeted with noisy chants of ‘USA, USA!’ 

Here, Trump greets the bikers:

When it began raining, Trump opened his clubhouse to his guests:

This video summarises a happy, fun event which served as a generous ‘thank you’ for their continued support:

Afterwards, Trump tweeted:

Indeed they are Americans who love the Great Republic. May God continue to bless them — and President Trump.

United States: Alex Jones, private social media companies and the First Amendment

August 10, 2018 in history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 comments

On Monday, August 6, 2018, Alex Jones’s Infowars was banned by several social media outlets.

Previously, these media outlets issued partial bans, but now, some have made no secret about removing him from their platforms entirely.

Contrary to what Big Media would have you believe, Infowars is the 7th most popular app in the US. Look at what Infowars is beating in the ratings:

Jones had anticipated this for at least three years. His apprehension started in 2015. After the election in 2016, even though Trump won, he was even more concerned about social media trying to cut off his access to viewers and listeners.

He details the various reasons for the ban in this video of his, made on the day it happened. It’s a keeper. Start with the video below (courtesy of variety) and continue on the link they recommend:

For a start, Apple and Google are working separately with China to develop censored social media projects and a search engine that filters and/or bans people and sites that go against the Establishment way of thinking. He says that the EU has also brought in censorship. (I recently heard a discussion about this on French radio, explained as, ‘They’re doing away with alarmist fake news, nothing more’, but it’s the same thing: silencing the opposition.) Then, there are the Democrats (example here) and their water carriers in the media who want to stifle support for Trump and the Republicans for the November mid-terms.

Jones says that none of the media outlets banning him have given him a specific reason why, other than to say ‘hate speech’. He says that there are people voting Infowars material down or flagging it as offensive.

Jones closed his video by saying people can still watch Infowars and read the news there on his own platform.

A lot of people don’t like Alex Jones, but, as he warns in the video, anyone could be next.

One rapper on Twitter says:

I don’t support or believe [what] ALEX JONES says but I don’t want powerful tech companies dictating what society is allowed to hear or see. They are too powerful. If they can delete anyone’s voice they want from the internet Who will be next?

Before going into further reactions, let’s look at two news reports about the Infowars ban. Emphases mine.

Howard Kurtz wrote a piece for Fox News, excerpted below:

Facebook said it has taken down some Jones pages “for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.”

Apple said it removed the “Alex Jones Show” and other podcasts from iTunes and its podcast app. The company said it “does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users.”

Google’s YouTube dropped the ax on Jones’ channel, telling The Washington Post that it terminates users who violate “our policies against hate speech and harassment or our terms prohibiting circumvention of our enforcement measures.”

And Spotify banned Jones altogether after earlier removing some podcasts, telling the Post: “We take reports of hate content seriously and review any podcast episode or song that is flagged by our community.”

Hate content is not representative of the Infowars many know, and, unlike cable news networks, at least Jones apologises when he gets it wrong. Even Kurtz had to admit that in his editorial.

CNBC had more:

Pinterest removed the official InfoWars board on Monday afternoon after multiple people alerted the company to policy violations.

“Consistent with our existing policies, we take action against accounts that repeatedly save content that could lead to harm,” a Pinterest spokesperson said. “People come to Pinterest to discover ideas for their lives, and we continue to enforce our principles to maintain a safe, useful and inspiring experience for our users.”

CNBC’s article got to the crux of the issue:

Tech giants have faced calls from both sides of the political spectrum to be more transparent about the way they approach content flagging and banning. On the left, there are critics who say these firms are not doing enough to take down harmful and offensive content, while on the right there are some who think internet firms are routinely censoring conservative posts.

As private companies, there is nothing in law to bar them from removing user-generated videos and audio as they see fit. But a number of mostly conservative commentators have framed the issue as a matter of freedom of speech.

The Conservative Treehouse made excellent observations:

The corporate thought police moved in unity today to unperson Alex Jones and his Info Wars media site from popular social media platforms.

Imagine if BP, Exxon, Chevron and Sunoco all moved, on the same day, at the same time, to charge $5.00/gal for gasoline at their service stations.  That would be illegal collusion to take advantage of a monopolistic position.  That’s essentially what happened today when Facebook, YouTube, Apple and Spotify simultaneously banned the Alex Jones broadcast from their platforms; in an effort to purge him from the internet …

Oddly enough this was entirely predicted.  Back in the Fall of 2015 Matt Drudge appeared on the Alex Jones broadcast to warn of this exact situation.  Drudge talked about the need to stay off their platforms, because he could see the political use of platform control was likely to happen in the next few years.  In hindsight Drudge was eerily prescient:

 

The political left, and all the control elements of the Marxist Silicon Valley monopoly gatekeepers are moving in unity, taking action they deem will influence the 2018 elections and beyond. In the big picture this coordinated effort is a move to attack political opposition by weaponizing and controlling social media platforms.

Regardless of anyone’s opinion of Alex Jones, all should take this action seriously and think through the long-term ramifications….

Meanwhile, many social media platforms allow questionable content, including what were once deviant, criminal practices — and still are, to many of us. Yet, when Alex Jones tries to expose the ugly, painful truth behind them, perverts want him censored:

Then, there are the foul television shows, but they’re okay, because that’s free speech:

And let’s not forget newspapers like the New York Times which recently appointed a woman with a history of racist tweets to its editorial board:

Yes, it’s odd that Twitter never called Ms Jeong out.

And what about the death threats against President Trump that are allowed to stay on social media?

And isn’t incitement to war an example of ‘hate speech’? Alex Jones is not guilty of that, but what about Big Media?

One woman called the Jones ban what it is — censorship:

Alex Jones would agree:

I said above that Jones will issue lengthy apologies and explanations when he gets things wrong. Others in media are not so inclined, like CNN’s Brian Stelter, host of Reliable Sources (!?):

Media analyst Mark Dice compared the Jones ban to book burning:

An independent journalist said:

Infowars’ English editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson had this to say about Facebook:

And censorship in general:

Another Englishman agrees:

So, is it time to break the social media monopoly?

In the meantime, this will not go down without a fight. Here’s investigative journalist James O’Keefe’s request (more at the Gateway Pundit):

He and his Project Veritas team want to know more about things like this:

Also, other platforms are making it clear they will continue to broadcast Infowars. Here’s one of them:

This situation is a slippery slope and extends beyond banning an independent media outlet. Lying is now considered ‘protected speech’. You could not make this up:

Good heavens! Whatever next?

Stay strong and frosty in the search for the truth.

The Mockingbird sings at 4 a.m. — August 2-3, 2018 news

August 9, 2018 in history | Tags: , , , , , , , | 3 comments

In further coverage of what used to be called Operation — or Project — Mockingbird, the diffusion of certain headlines via the media is still alive and well.

On Thursday and Friday, August 2 and 3, 2018, the subject was QAnon, who must have hit a huge nerve among the powers that be.

Here’s the flurry of American headlines from last Thursday:

The following day, a contributor to 8chan’s Q Research board posted the following international stories, all of which are about QAnon fostering Trumpian conspiracy theories:

Anonymous  e71061 (4) No.2430466>>2430476 >>2430709

Qanon MSM news exposure went global past 24 hours

Example for several countries

France

https://http://www.20minutes.fr/monde/2316919-20180803-qanon-groupe-pro-trump-adepte-theories-complot

Germany

https://http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/donald-trump-und-die-verschwoerungstheorie-qanon-trumps-trolle-kriechen-hervor-a-1221463.html

Netherlands

https://http://www.ad.nl/buitenland/qanon-rukt-op-in-amerika-complotgekkies-of-wakkere-patriotten~aa24a2ab/

Norwegian

https://http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/konspirerer-om-at-trump-star-bak-en-kommende-storm/70069810

Spanish

https://http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-45053116

Austria

https://derstandard.at/2000084612925/Paedophiler-Tom-Hanks-QAnon-nutzt-uralte-Diffamierungstaktik

Poland

https://http://www.wprost.pl/swiat/10143667/qanon-glownym-tematem-w-usa-media-odkryly-nowa-teorie-spiskowa-fanow-trumpa.html

Italy

https://notizie.tiscali.it/esteri/articoli/usa-mistero-qanon-complottisti-che-adorano-trump-00001/

Hungary

https://http://www.express.hr/top-news/poremecena-sekta-za-trumpa-izmisljaju-teorije-zavjera-16966

Czech Republic

https://http://www.info.cz/svet/trumpovi-stoupenci-se-zamilovali-do-bizarni-konspiracni-sekty-prostor-dostava-i-v-cesku-35063.html

China

https://paper.wenweipo.com/2018/08/03/YO1808030018.htm

Russia

https://echo.msk.ru/blog/karina_orlova/2252088-echo/

Korean

https://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2018/08/03/2018080300118.html

I read only the French article and the comments. The latter were particularly interesting, as the readers were divided. Someone wrote a characteristically critical remark about President Trump and his supporters, to which someone replied, ‘Inform yourself a bit before commenting. Trump’s doing a great job, especially with the economy’.

Back to the 8chan comment. Q responded (message 1806), emphases mine:

Q !CbboFOtcZs  d51ef9 (1) No.2430708

Full attack mode.

Washington Post leading?

[Sample Past 5hrs]

https://http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/08/03/this-is-the-moment-how-a-wave-of-media-coverage-gave-qanon-conspiracy-theorists-their-best-week-ever/?utm_term=.cf4f4e0f506c

https://http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/08/03/theres-a-virus-in-trumpland/?utm_term=.73cb6867bf8c

https://http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/08/03/qanon-meet-a-real-life-believer-in-the-online-pro-trump-conspiracy-theory-thats-bursting-into-view/?utm_term=.1c12101c8280

Who owns the Washington Post?

Amazon?

What ABC agency is heavily tied to Amazon?

https://http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-web-services-launches-secret-region-2017-11

https://http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-20/cia-tech-official-calls-amazon-cloud-project-transformational

Q

Why would the rest of the world need — or even want — to know about QAnon and Q-related boards, including Reddit’s greatawakening?

By design, this Nightingale’s song serves only to thoroughly discredit Trump’s followers. What if a false flag were to take place with a fake Q follower? These articles could set the stage. The world would say, ‘Oh, the QAnon story was in the papers. Yeah, crazy people’.

Therefore, this is important:

Interestingly, the Washington Post featured an editorial after the Trump-Putin Helsinki meeting: ‘God bless the “deep state”‘, an image of which is here. It begins with this:

Before this harebrained and reckless administration is history, the nation will have cause to celebrate the public servants derided by Trumpists as the supposed “deep state” …

God bless them. With a supine Congress unwilling to play the role it is assigned by the Constitution, the deep state stands between us and the abyss.

If you appreciate President Trump, please continue to pray for his safety and that of his family and administration.

Leftist assaults on good Americans

August 8, 2018 in history | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Left — Democrats — continue their long, hot summer of vandalism and violence.

At the weekend, Republican activist Scott Presler of Virginia went to Philadelphia to rally in support of the city’s police. This is what happened to his car:

He was able to get new tires and had a message for the Dems:

He graciously declined personal donations:

He gave this update:

True enough.

Brad Parscale, President Trump’s campaign manager for 2020, had this reaction:

Sign of weakness from the left. When people are desperate they resort to cowardly acts. Will Dem leaders stand up against this and stop the unnecessary damage it is causing?

Agree about the weakness and cowardice, but, on the other side of the country in Portland, Oregon, one good American not only had his flag snatched but was also beaten with what looks like an oar covered in black fabric. When his assailant hit him on the head, he collapsed immediately. No one immediately came to his aid:

Anyone who thinks voting Democrat is still a good idea should really think again.

Motorcade video: Trump makes unexpected stop to greet firefighters

August 7, 2018 in history | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

I’m not sure if the following event took place last week in either Ohio or Pennsylvania where President Trump held rallies, but the following video shows his motorcade making an unexpected stop so that he could greet local firefighters.

This is absolutely brilliant — and, no doubt, difficult for the Secret Service:

What other US president has ever done that?

Look at the difference between Trump and Obama:

The camera doesn’t lie.

United States: has anyone really investigated these servers?

August 6, 2018 in history | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 comments

Below is a graphic of four servers.

Each one has an important story behind it that could have an impact on national security.

Is anyone investigating these? (Image courtesy of a Trump supporter somewhere)

Click on the image to enlarge. It will open in a separate tab.

The DNC server was publicised before the Democratic National Convention in July 2016 and caused Deborah Wasserman Schultz (DWS in the graphic) to resign as head of the Democratic National Committee. Emails that planned to bring down Bernie Sanders’s candidacy emerged.

The House Democratic Caucus server was run by Imran Awan, a Pakistani-American citizen who worked in Washington DC for DWS and other Democrat legislators between 2004 and 2017. He was cleared in July 2018 of any wrongdoing involving data.

The Clinton Private Email server needs no explanation.

The Gmail server in North Korea must have an interesting story behind it.

Has anyone really looked at these forensically, regardless of past investigations? Is there more to the story than we already know?

News in brief — early August 2018

August 3, 2018 in history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The following news items from the past few days caught my eye.

First, Judge Brett Kavanaugh is currently undergoing vetting for the Supreme Court of the United States. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) pledged his vote on this condition:

Ahh, for the days of pipe smoking and the oh-so-fragrant tobacco aroma that went with it.

We cannot have that nowadays. I wonder how fragrant this vapour is by comparison:

Let’s not forget that tobacco helped fuel many great Christian sermons and books from days of yore:

Tobacco and 20th century Christian greats

Secondly, Dilbert’s Scott Adams went to the White House to meet with President Trump:

Thirdly, here’s Republican activist Scott Presler’s take on President Trump. I couldn’t agree more:

On that topic, LifeZette‘s Mark Tapscott has an excellent analysis from political blogger Bill Hobbs of what pundits and politicians don’t understand about President Trump: he knows how to go for an opponent’s jugular vein and hit it every time. Quotes below are from Bill Hobbs’s Facebook post (emphases mine below):

For all his boorishness and other faults, Donald Trump has a singular talent and it may explain a whole lot of his governing style, and his success. Donald Trump instinctively knows almost immediately where his opponent’s jugular vein is, and that is where he attacks, and that is where he exerts the most pressure and the most leverage to get the best deal.

For example, in the primary, Jeb Bush was the odds-on favorite to win. He had the money, the Establishment, the résumé, and the name. All of the other candidates tried to attack him on his record and his ties to the Establishment, and all of them failed. Except Trump.

Trump didn’t attack him on any of that. He simply noticed that voters wanted action, and that Jeb Bush was a very slow, deliberate, plodding sort, and labeled him ‘Low Energy Jeb,’ and it was over. Bush’s jugular vein was crushed.

Fast-forward to last week, when Trump is negotiating with the head of the European Union. Having threatened the EU with high tariffs, to get better leverage in trade negotiations, Trump sat down with the head of the EU and hammered out a decent first-step deal.

The most important part of that deal? It got little notice by the press. It was the EU’s commitment to a large increase in purchases of liquid natural gas from the U.S. This has nothing to do with the EU’s ‘jugular vein,’ by the way.

This was all about Russia. Russia is, basically, a well-armed gas station. Without high profits from the sale of oil and natural gas, Russia’s economy is nothing. And so, with his trade deal with the head of the EU, Trump went right for Russia’s jugular. He said overly nice things to Putin in Helsinki, then went back to Washington and, through his EU deal, stomped on Russia’s throat.

Now we’re on the verge of what may be huge tariffs on Chinese imports … 

But China’s economic jugular vein is their reliance on exports, with the U.S. being their largest customer. Meanwhile, the U.S. exports very little, comparatively, to China. Simply put, they can’t win a trade war with the U.S. We slap big tariffs on all their exports, they respond in kind, and it’s their economy that crashes, not ours.

And they know that. And Trump knows that. He knows what their jugular vein is, and he’s about to stomp on it. Trade wars are bad. People on both sides get hurt. But in the end, it will be China that loses, and it will be China that opens its doors to more U.S. exports, and it will be the U.S. that wins.

Mark Tapscott explains that Trump is going for the jugular on those who oppose his domestic policies, too:

Trump recognizes that Democrats’ jugular on the immigration issue is illustrated every time an illegal immigrant commits a horrendous crime like that of Alejandro Alvarez Villegas, who allegedly tried to kill his wife in front of their three children in San Diego. Villegas is what ICE calls a “serial immigration violator” who has been deported at least 11 times …

Trump thus is the guy trying to protect Americans, while his opponents in both parties refuse to make the hard decisions required to keep people safe. According to the conventional wisdom, that’s an untenably risky tactical gamble on Trump’s part.

In fact, it’s his opponents’ tactical jugular. Trump’s not the conventional president. What if the shutdown happens and Trump lets it go on long enough for voters to see Social Security checks still go out, essential services remain in place and maybe those hundreds of thousands of furloughed bureaucrats aren’t needed after all?

Trump’s opponents know he just might push a shutdown that far. And if he did, it would be catastrophic for them. The president is targeting their strategic jugular.

And, finally, artist John McNaughton, who has painted thought-provoking canvasses of the Founding Fathers, President Trump and 21st century Americans received bad news from Facebook about his latest work:

SAD!

The lengths social media go to stifle American values is PATHETIC.

August 1, 2018: Vice President Pence in Hawaii to receive US remains from Korean War

August 2, 2018 in history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 3 comments

Yesterday’s post was about American soldiers’ remains from the Korean War.

On Wednesday, August 1, in Hawaii, Vice President Mike Pence presided over the latest return of 55 remains from that war, which never officially ended. For a number of American families, the past six decades have been troubling, as they cannot be sure whether their loved ones’ remains will ever be recovered.

The Singapore Summit between President Trump and Chairman Kim produced this latest return of remains:

This video has the full Honorable Carry Ceremony:

The Vice President was honoured to preside over the ceremony:

The following tweets summarise his tribute:

President Trump tweeted his appreciation:

The vice president and Mrs Pence had special guests accompany them:

Fox News has more:

The vice president said that when Sanfilippo was 4 years old she lost her father in the Korean War during a recon mission, and that when Downes was just 3 years old he lost his father operating radar on a B-26 bomber …

Fox News’ Pete Hegseth, who was traveling with Pence in Air Force Two, recalled the touching stories of the heroes’ now-grown children.

“We picked up probably the two most important passengers on that plane: a man and woman who were 4 and 3 years old — little girl and little boy in the 1950s  — when they sent their fathers, then young men, both pilots, both first lieutenants, both went to fight in the Korean War,” he said on “Fox & Friends.”

“They dedicated their lives for the last 60 years finding out what happened to their fathers, what happened though those patriots, warriors who went to fight for us, for every generation of Americans,” Hegseth continued.

I hope they find peace and closure.

The remains now need to be analysed in order to identify them — a painstaking process that will take weeks, if not months.

Many more remains are still in North Korea, yet to be discovered. I pray that they are discovered soon. This long and painful chapter of history must come to a close — as does the Korean War.

July 27, 2018: North Korea releases 55 remains of US soldiers

August 1, 2018 in history | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 comment

One of the outcomes of the Singapore Summit on June 12, 2018, was North Korea’s release on July 27 of 55 remains of US soldiers.

On July 31, the New Yorker reported that this is not the first time North Korea has released soldiers’ remains from the Korean War. Also note that the US has funded these recovery operations (emphases mine):

The United States has paid North Korea twenty-two million dollars to fund recovery operations. Between 1990 and 1994, Pyongyang handed over two hundred and eight boxes of remains. Between 1996 and 2005, another two hundred and twenty sets of remains were recovered. It’s a tiny fraction of the missing.

The latest remains will be analysed, a painstaking task:

On July 27th, North Korea turned over fifty-five remains of U.S. soldiers. There were no pallbearers; there were no caskets. There was no need. The remains—mostly fragments of bones—were in medium-sized boxes draped in blue-and-white U.N. flags. On August 1st, they are scheduled to be flown to a military lab in Hawaii that specializes in identifying remains. It’s a process that can take years, even decades. Vice-President Mike Pence, the son of a Korean War veteran, is scheduled to attend the repatriation.

The New Yorker‘s reporter, Robin Wright, interviewed 85-year-old Noreen Loper, the sister of Air Force airman James O’Meara, who wrote his family that he had one more air mission to complete before returning home early in 1953. However, no one ever saw him again after that mission.

Robin Wright also interviewed an Air Force trainee, Jerry Abrahamson, 85, who was on O’Meara’s flight. The crew of 14 had completed their mission in a B-29 and were half an hour from base when their plane was attacked by enemy fire on January 29, 1953:

O’Meara jumped right before Abrahamson. “That was the last time I saw him,” Abrahamson told me. “We were still at twenty thousand feet. It took a long time for us to come down. We got scattered.” Abrahamson and three other Americans were captured, separately, by the North Koreans. At each transfer site, often after gruelling marches, Abrahamson asked other prisoners of war about O’Meara. No one had seen him. Abrahamson ended up in a harsh Chinese-run P.O.W. camp near the Yalu River. Of those four men, one died in captivity and another was repatriated to the United States three months later, during Operation Little Switch. Abrahamson and one other were freed during Operation Big Switch, after the Korean War armistice, seven months later. Abrahamson, now eighty-five, is the last crew member still alive.

At one point, 149 American POWs were released by China to the United States in 1953. They were ill and/or seriously injured. This short news reel shows the relief the parents and friends of New Yorker George Hart felt when he, being one of these men, rang home to say he would be with his family soon:

The O’Meara family was less fortunate, and the New Yorker interview explains their anxiety. Not having heard any news about James, they finally decided to assume that he was dead. A special memorial ceremony for those who had died during the war took place at Arlington Cemetery in 2006, at which point the O’Mearas decided to place a gravestone for him there:

“The boys said we should have something official while a few of us were still living,” his eighty-five-year-old sister, Noreen Loper, told me. They arranged for a simple white cross with O’Meara’s name on it. They had no body to bury in 2006, however. They still don’t.

Even today, Noreen Loper yearns for certainty:

“It’s been a long, long time now,” Loper told me. “For most people, Korea is the forgotten war. For me, there’s never been any closure. These days, I keep thinking, Am I going to find out in my lifetime? I’ve got to know what happened to him, even if it’s only some bones.”

She said that she could not understand why any country would want to hold on to POWs’ remains. I cannot help but agree with her. What purpose does it serve?

I hope that her brother’s remains are among the 55.

The Daily Mail has more information on the return of these remains.

President Trump expressed his gratitude to Kim Jong Un for fulfilling his promise:

Donald Trump thanked North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un on Friday for ‘fulfilling a promise’ to return the remains of American servicemen who died during the Korean War.

‘At this moment a plane is carrying the remains of some great fallen heroes from America back,’ he said following a press announcement about the domestic economy, calling the matter one ‘of profound importance.’

‘I want to thank Chairman Kim for keeping his word. We have many others coming, but I want to thank Chairman Kim in front of the media for fulfilling a promise that he made to me,’ Trump declared.

‘And I’m sure that he will continue to fulfill that promise as they search and search and search.’

A US Air Force C-17 aircraft brought the remains back after a memorial ceremony at the Osan Air Base in South Korea:

The ceremony saw U.S. servicemen and a military honor guard line up on the tarmac of the air base to receive the remains, which were carried in boxes covered in blue United Nations flags.

A total of 36,000 American soldiers were killed in the devastating Korean War from 1950 to 1953, and 7,700 bodies are listed missing in the war. A total of 5,300 are believed to still be in North Korea. 

As July 27 was the date the armistice — not an official treaty — was signed in 1953, North Korea held commemorative ceremonies of their own. Kim Jong Un visited the graves of Chinese People’s Volunteers who died in the war.

All being well, the Korean War will finally come to an end in the foreseeable future.

Until then, it is essential to remember that China still pulls North Korea’s strings.

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