Combat veterans have lashed out at 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden over the last 24 hours after Biden falsely declared that President Donald Trump&#8217;s decision to pardon members of the U.S. Armed Forces &#8220;betrays the rule of law.&#8221;
&#8220;Trump&#8217;s intervention in the American military justice system to pardon service members accused or convicted of war crimes betrays the rule of law, the values that make our country exceptional &amp; the men and women who wear the uniform honorably,&#8221; Biden tweeted. &#8220;He is not fit to command our troops.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Trump&#8217;s intervention in the American military justice system to pardon service members accused or convicted of war crimes betrays the rule of law, the values that make our country exceptional &amp; the men and women who wear the uniform honorably. He is not fit to command our troops.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1196093459486191616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
Biden&#8217;s claim that Trump&#8217;s decision &#8220;betrays the rule of law&#8221; is categorically false. The president has the power to essentially pardon anyone he chooses, according to Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution, which <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/article/article-ii">states</a>:
<blockquote>The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.</blockquote>
CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/trump-us-presidential-pardons-history-clemency-constitution.html">added</a>: &#8220;So as long as it doesn’t have to do with impeachment, most federal, but not state, crimes are fair game for pardoning.&#8221;
Robert J. O&#8217;Neill, the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden, responded to Biden: &#8220;You said &#8216;no&#8217; to the bin Laden raid. Then you announced &#8216;SEAL Team Six&#8217; when we did it. I still had my body armor on when you turned my life around. How dare you&#8230;&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
You said “no” to the bin Laden raid. Then you announced “SEAL Team Six” when we did it. I still had my body armor on when you turned my life around. How dare you&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/EveMzo0qUE">https://t.co/EveMzo0qUE</a>
— Robert J. O&#8217;Neill (@mchooyah) <a href="https://twitter.com/mchooyah/status/1196291215844495360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
Fox News contributor Jessie Jane Duff, who served in the Marines, wrote: &#8220;Thank you for letting ALL of the military know you won&#8217;t stand with them if you send them into war with the most vicious &amp; violent enemies of our nation. The Obama Biden Admin made this very clear for [eight] years &amp; we will NEVER forget the hell you put us through. #VeteransForTrump.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Thank you for letting ALL of the military know you won&#8217;t stand with them if you send them into war with the most vicious &amp; violent enemies of our nation.
The Obama Biden Admin made this very clear for 8 years &amp; we will NEVER forget the hell you put us through. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/VeteransForTrump?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#VeteransForTrump</a> <a href="https://t.co/D0AOvIb8iX">https://t.co/D0AOvIb8iX</a>
— Jessie Jane Duff (@JessieJaneDuff) <a href="https://twitter.com/JessieJaneDuff/status/1196153914724421632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
Army Lt. Clint Lorance, who was pardoned by Trump, responded to Biden, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/clint-lorance-trump-pardon-joe-biden">saying</a>: &#8220;With all due respect to the former vice president, that seems to be a partisan answer. That seems to be something that he&#8217;s just toeing the party line on. I highly doubt the vice president, being the patriotic man with a son in the military like he had, I highly doubt that he really believes that. And I think that what he&#8217;s doing is, he&#8217;s toeing the party line. He&#8217;s doing what he thinks his donors and the people that are signing his paycheck are expecting him to do. And I think if you were to sit down with him face to face I think he&#8217;d have an issue saying that&#8230; face to face.&#8221;
Biden&#8217;s comments also ignore history and statistics, as the U.S. Department of Justice reports that Trump has granted by far the fewest number of pardons in history, according to available records.
The DOJ had <a href="https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-statistics#DonaldJTrump">statistics</a> available for all presidents going back as far as William McKinley. The list shows the number of people pardoned by each president from highest to lowest:
<ol>
<li>FDR – 2,819</li>
<li>Truman – 1,913</li>
<li>Eisenhower – 1,100</li>
<li>Wilson – 1,087</li>
<li>Johnson – 960</li>
<li>Nixon – 863</li>
<li>Coolidge – 773</li>
<li>Roosevelt – 668</li>
<li>Hoover – 672</li>
<li>Carter – 534</li>
<li>Kennedy – 472</li>
<li>Clinton – 396</li>
<li>Reagan –393</li>
<li>Taft – 383</li>
<li>Ford – 382</li>
<li>Harding – 300</li>
<li>McKinley – 291</li>
<li>Obama – 212</li>
<li>W. Bush – 189</li>
<li>Trump – 16</li>
</ol>

joe biden

Combat Veterans Slam Joe Biden Over Remarks About Military Justice System

2020 Election

Democratic Party

Joe Biden

Military

Iconic Canadian broadcaster Don Cherry was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-don-cherry-fired-for-telling-immigrants-to-honor-fallen-vets-responds-to-backlash">fired</a> from his job with Sportsnet this week after using his “Coach’s Corner” segment to encourage immigrants to honor fallen troops. Cherry was apparently upset that a diminishing number of people in the Toronto area wear the traditional poppy pins to commemorate Canada’s Remembrance Day. He (not unreasonably) connected this drop off in traditional observance to the increasing number of immigrants in the area. Here’s how he put it:
<blockquote>“You people love — you, that come here, whatever it is — you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey. At least you could pay a couple of bucks for poppies or something like that. These guys paid for your way of life, that you enjoy in Canada.”</blockquote>
The worst thing you could possibly say about these comments is that they’re a little bit gruff. But Don Cherry is 85 years old and 85-year-old men have earned the right to be gruff. Other than this lack of diplomacy, there is nothing remotely offensive or bigoted in his point of view on this issue. He isn’t telling immigrants not to come to Canada. He isn’t saying they are inferior to, or less than, himself. He certainly isn&#8217;t saying anything &#8220;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/2019/11/11/don-cherry-fired-racist-anti-immigrant-comment/2566800001/">racist</a>,&#8221; as USA Today matter-of-factly put it. He doesn&#8217;t mention race at all and could just as easily be talking about immigrants from a mostly white country. His only point, it seems to me, is to lament a perceived deficit of patriotism and gratitude.
Of course, we live in a time when the only thing more lacking than patriotism is fortitude, so everyone associated with Cherry immediately threw him under the bus and prostrated themselves before the outrage mob. The president of Sportsnet, Bart Yablsey (a fitting name, somehow), announced Cherry’s firing while publicly scolding him for &#8220;divisive remarks&#8221; that &#8220;do not represent our values.&#8221;
The NHL chimed in with its own bit of finger-wagging, accusing Cherry of saying things &#8220;that are in direct conflict with the values of diversity and inclusion that we embrace as pillars of the sport.&#8221; Hockey used to be a game where rough men got their teeth knocked out. Now the National Hockey League delivers lectures on &#8220;inclusion.&#8221; We are truly living in &#8220;Idiocracy,&#8221; except everyone has lost their spines as well as their brains.
<iframe title="Media and Hollywood Rally Behind Convicted Rapist and Murderer | The Matt Walsh Show Ep. 369" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BlehMV5yg8U?start=1366&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Speaking of spineless, Cherry’s longtime co-host, Ron MacLean, who sat and nodded while Cherry was making these comments, tried desperately to keep his job by knifing his friend in the back. MacLean, doing his best to pretend that he understands why people are upset about this nonsense, called Cherry’s remarks &#8220;hurtful, discriminatory&#8221; and &#8220;flat-out wrong.&#8221; He even thanked the whiney masses for &#8220;calling Don and me on that&#8221; and teaching them a &#8220;great lesson.&#8221; Then his skin turned translucent and he morphed into a literal jellyfish on live TV.
I think there are two points to be made about all of this.
First, Don Cherry was correct. It is indeed important to inculcate patriotism and gratitude in all citizens. As for immigrants, it is their responsibility to assimilate themselves to their new country and show a proper respect for the traditions of their adopted home. Cherry’s point is a good one: If you’re immigrating to a country in order to enjoy its freedoms and luxuries, you should appreciate that many people had to die in order to provide you that opportunity. If there is not enough appreciation for that fact, who should we be scolding — Don Cherry, or the people who made his comments necessary in the first place?
Second, let’s pretend for a moment that Don Cherry’s comments really were &#8220;hurtful&#8221; and &#8220;discriminatory,&#8221; like his aquatic broadcasting partner claims. Could they possibly be more hurtful and discriminatory than a blackface costume? And if they don’t &#8220;represent the values&#8221; of Canadians, then does a man who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/blackface-photo-justin-trudeau-surfaces-trudeau-ryan-saavedra">wore blackface multiple times</a> represent them?
The hypocrisy is so blatant that it probably doesn’t need to be pointed out, but I will anyway. There was so much outrage in Canada over opinions expressed by a television host that the host was fired. Yet the prime minister of the country wore blackface and still won re-election. Of course, we Americans have no room to gloat. Megyn Kelly was fired from her job at NBC just for talking about blackface.
It just goes to show that these faux-racism outrages are political and performative. Calling the outrage mob &#8220;sensitive&#8221; or &#8220;snowflakes&#8221; misses the point and gives them too much credit. They aren’t sensitive — they’re just frauds.

Don Cherry

WALSH: Legendary Canadian Broadcaster Fired For ‘Racist’ Comments. But Blackface-Wearing Trudeau Remains In Office.

Canada

Immigration

Political Correctness

Sports

With fires raging constantly in California, no one would reasonably argue to cut the firefighters’ budget. Yet several leading Democratic presidential candidates recently called for cutting American military aid to Israel despite it increasingly acting as the primary bulwark against rising Iranian aggression and instability across the Middle East. Now is not the time to reduce Israeli military capabilities, but to enhance them.
Just three years after President Obama signed the current 10-year military aid package to Israel, saying it would “make sure that Israel has the full capabilities it needs in order to keep the Israeli people safe … and defend itself, by itself, against any threat,” several Democratic presidential candidates are threatening to void that commitment.
Speaking at the J Street National Conference recently, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), an influential leader of the Democratic base and party, blamed Israel for the dire conditions in Gaza. He argued, “If you [Israel] want military aid, you are going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza,” adding that “it is fair to say that some of that should go right now into humanitarian aid in Gaza.” Gaza is controlled by the virulently anti-Semitic, anti-Israel <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">Islamic extremist organization Hamas</a> — which is armed by Iran, is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, and regularly launches missile attacks against Israeli civilians. Sanders’ position effectively means a permanent reduction in U.S. military aid to Israel while rewarding Hamas for immiserating Gaza.
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg suggested a U.S. military aid cut if Israel annexed the West Bank. And Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the seeming Democratic frontrunner, said a couple weeks ago: “It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table.”
Yet former Vice President Joe Biden rejected conditioning Israel aid as “absolutely outrageous” and a “gigantic mistake.” His view is obviously important and welcome, but his policy views don’t seem to resonate with the Democratic base; his political position, furthermore, is slipping.
The focus on conditioning Israeli aid is a very recent phenomenon. Elizabeth Warren co-sponsored a security assistance bill declaring it the policy of the United States “to ensure that Israel maintains its ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military, or emerging, threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors.” This passed the Senate in August 2018 with no objection from Bernie Sanders.
The new position for conditioning or cutting military aid to Israel based on the Palestinian-Arab situation misunderstands the purpose of the aid.
U.S. aid doesn’t go to the Israeli government for discretionary spending, but to defense contractors that are overwhelmingly U.S. companies — thereby providing jobs for American workers, who then provide the weapons to Israel.
More important, cutting military support for Israel would undermine U.S. interests. America needs a strong Israel to lighten our own military footprint and financial commitment in the Middle East, as the Democratic presidential candidates all claim they seek. We also need a strong Israel to help reduce threats to U.S. interests in the region.
Israel is an asset of growing importance in confronting the Middle East’s twin threatening forces: Sunni radicalism and Iran’s regional and nuclear expansionism.
With its relentless attacks in Syria, as well as increasingly in Lebanon and Iraq, the democratic Jewish state is the only actor effectively rolling back Iran and its proxies in the region. These proxies pose an existential threat not only to the Jewish state, but also to American allies Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan. Israel is working with Egypt to fight ISIS in Sinai and the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas) in Gaza. It is working with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to protect it from external and internal enemies. The more active the Israeli military is, the less active U.S. soldiers need to be in the region.
America strategically needs a strong Israel now more than ever. Instead of threatening to cut military aid, the U.S. should now be focused on bolstering Israel’s military and deterrent capabilities. For example, accelerating delivery of weapons to Israel, replenishing and updating U.S. weapons prepositioned in Israel, undertaking more joint research and development, elevating Israel’s status for sharing military technology and intelligence with the United States, and concluding a narrowly defined mutual defense pact.
Recently, House Republicans overwhelmingly voted with Democrats to reject President Trump’s policy on Syria. Now congressional Democrats should work with Republicans to reject leading Democratic presidential candidates’ demands to cut aid to Israel, and work with President Trump to bolster Israel’s military and deterrent capabilities.
&nbsp;
Michael Makovsky, a former Pentagon official in the George W. Bush administration, is president and CEO of the <a href="https://jinsa.org">Jewish Institute for National Security of America</a> (JINSA).

U.S. and Israel flags

MAKOVSKY: Calls To Cut Aid To Israel Detrimental To U.S. Interests

Israel

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

In honor of Veterans Day, Chris Pratt, beloved by middle America as one of the few big names in Hollywood willing to defend traditional values and openly discuss his faith, posted a statement on Instagram on Monday expressing his admiration for his veteran older brother, Cully, and urging his followers to &#8220;look at our veterans for who they are, actual people, with siblings and parents, with children and funny pasts&#8221; and, in doing so, &#8220;approach our relationships to them with compassion and understanding.&#8221;
&#8220;This is my older brother Cully. #happyveteransday,&#8221; Pratt declared on Instagram Monday in a post that includes a picture of his brother in uniform.
&#8220;I always wanted to be exactly like him. We were the same size despite our three year difference in age so as a kid I would wear the same clothes he wore, literally the day after he wore them — picking them up off the floor in his room. What can I say? He knew how to match and I liked the smell,&#8221; continues Pratt, famous for his self-deprecating humor. &#8220;One day his friends started to notice and he kindly urged me to wear my own clothes.&#8221;
&#8220;He is a good big brother,&#8221; writes the &#8220;Jurassic Word&#8221; and &#8220;Guardians of the Galaxy&#8221; star. &#8220;He’s always led with love. Growing up we wrestled for hours every day and smashed every bit of furniture in the house but never actually fought. He taught me everything. He put up with me and my incessant hyperactivity and forced his friends to do the same.&#8221;
&#8220;I say all this to point out that he’s a real person,&#8221; Pratt explains. &#8220;And the more we can look at our veterans for who they are, actual people, with siblings and parents, with children and funny pasts- the more we can approach our relationships to them with compassion and understanding.&#8221;
&#8220;My brother didn’t join the Army because he wanted to be Rambo,&#8221; he continues. &#8220;He joined because it was an opportunity for a hard-nosed kid who couldn’t afford college, somebody who wanted to get the hell out of his small town and probably wanted his own clothes.&#8221;
&#8220;We have the greatest armed forces the world has ever seen,&#8221; Pratt stresses. &#8220;It’s made up of real people who joined for myriad reasons. Brave men and women who sacrifice a whole hell of a lot. Today is their day. So celebrate a veteran today.&#8221;
&#8220;Today I celebrate Cully, as well as my cousin Curtis, Uncle Steve, Uncle Skip, second Cousins, Joey, Ryan and Alex, besties Jared and Jeffrey, all those I’ve fished for hunted with, those who’ve blessed me with their challenge coins as I’ve encountered them on press junkets and in my travels, the many in the film industry working both in front of and behind the cameras,&#8221; Pratt concludes. &#8220;To those currently serving and those out thanks for your service. We appreciate you!&#8221;
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<a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B4ueswlJoLc/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">This is my older brother Cully. #happyveteransday I always wanted to be exactly like him. We were the same size despite our three year difference in age so as a kid I would wear the same clothes he wore, literally the day after he wore them- picking them up off the floor in his room. 🤷🏼‍♂️ What can I say? He knew how to match and I liked the smell. One day his friends started to notice and he kindly urged me to wear my own clothes. He is a good big brother. He’s always led with love. Growing up we wrestled for hours every day and smashed every bit of furniture in the house but never actually fought. He taught me everything. He put up with me and my incessant hyperactivity and forced his friends to do the same. I say all this to point out that he’s a real person. And the more we can look at our veterans for who they are, actual people, with siblings and parents, with children and funny pasts- the more we can approach our relationships to them with compassion and understanding. My brother didn’t join the army because he wanted to be Rambo. He joined because it was an opportunity for a hard nosed kid who couldn’t afford college, somebody who wanted to get the hell out of his small town and probably wanted his own clothes. We have the greatest armed forces the world has ever seen. It’s made up of real people who joined for myriad reasons. Brave men and women who sacrifice a whole hell of a lot. Today is their day. So celebrate a veteran today. Today I celebrate Cully, as well as my cousin Curtis, Uncle Steve, Uncle Skip, second Cousins, Joey, Ryan and Alex, besties Jared and Jeffrey, all those I’ve fished for hunted with, those who’ve blessed me with their challenge coins as I’ve encountered them on press junkets and in my travels, the many in the film industry working both in front of and behind the cameras. To those currently serving and those out thanks for your service. We appreciate you! 🙏♥️🇺🇸</a>
<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" href="https://www.instagram.com/prattprattpratt/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> chris pratt</a> (@prattprattpratt) on <time style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;" datetime="2019-11-11T13:07:38+00:00">Nov 11, 2019 at 5:07am PST</time>
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Pratt also linked to his Instagram post on Twitter:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This is my older brother Cully. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/happyveteransday?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#happyveteransday</a> I always wanted to be exactly like him. We were the same size despite our three year difference in age so as a kid I would wear the same clothes he wore, literally… <a href="https://t.co/5WSJnRkZEA">https://t.co/5WSJnRkZEA</a>
— chris pratt (@prattprattpratt) <a href="https://twitter.com/prattprattpratt/status/1193877964024360960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Response online to Pratt&#8217;s tribute to his brother has been overwhelmingly positive, many thanking him for taking a moment to honor the service and sacrifice of our veterans.
&#8220;Let’s hope people listen to what you just said sir,&#8221; wrote one fan. &#8220;We all need to respect, love and be eternally grateful for every single man or woman who has ever served our countries. No matter what political party you belong to. We all owe respect, and gratitude for these selfless people.&#8221;
&#8220;Beautifully stated about being real people,&#8221; wrote another. &#8220;My spouse is a police sergeant, and it saddens me how people forget they are humans with lives. Blessings to all the veterans.&#8221;
&#8220;Love it Chris!&#8221; exclaimed another. &#8220;Amazing tribute!&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tv-guide-warns-readers-about-chris-pratts-james-barrett">TV Guide Warns Readers About Chris Pratt’s ‘Problematic’ Offscreen Life</a>

Chris Pratt

Chris Pratt Posts Terrific Tribute To His Veteran Brother

Hollywood

Veterans

Federal prosecutors have accused a New York-based firm of falsely claiming security equipment sold to the U.S. military was made in the U.S. when it was actually produced in China.
The Associated Press <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/11/07/illegally-sold-chinese-surveillance-equipment-installed-at-military-installations-feds-say/">reported</a> that Aventura Technologies Inc., based in Long Island, allegedly “sold tens of millions of dollars in Chinese-made surveillance and other sensitive security equipment to customers, including the U.S. military to use on aircraft carriers, by falsely claiming the goods were manufactured in America.”
U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue is now investigating the company, and said evidence suggested “individuals in China were well aware of what was going on,” though it does not appear as though the Chinese government was directly involved with the purchases.
The equipment was “installed on dozens of Army, Navy and Air Force bases, Department of Energy facilities and, among other places, on Navy aircraft carriers,” according to the criminal complaint reviewed by the AP.
Not only did the company allegedly falsely claim its products were made in America, but prosecutors accuse it of covering up its lies by relabeling merchandise to show U.S. labels. The AP reported that the company “also circulated a photo that an Aventura executive, Jack Cabasso, showed the company’s assembly line, but was actually an image of workers in a Chinese facility.”
In 2018, Cabasso emailed an employee of the Chinese manufacturer and implored him to make sure the products couldn’t be traced back to China. He feared customers would see the Chinese company’s logo on circuit boards. Cabasso asked the company to hide the logos, the AP reported. More from the AP:
<blockquote>The scheme began to unravel after the company sold 25 body cameras to the U.S. Air Force, security analysts discovered downloaded images including a logo of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security on the devices, the complaint said. A software analysis found indications that the camera’s manufacturer in China “had been aware that the U.S. Air Force was the intended end user of the camera.”</blockquote>
Cabasso and six other current and former employees have been charged “with conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud,” the AP reported. Cabasso’s bank accounts have been frozen and his 70-foot yacht has been seized.
The International Business Times <a href="https://www.ibtimes.sg/new-york-firm-sold-chinese-surveillance-tools-us-military-claiming-theyre-made-us-34070">reported</a> that the products sold by Aventura presented a cybersecurity risk for the U.S. government. Donoghue said the company’s actions were of “grave concern” for America’s cybersecurity, since the products carried a security risk.
The outlet reported that Aventura made $88 million since 2010, $20.7 million of which came from federal government contracts.
This criminal complaint comes on the heels of another <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/05/30/dod-bought-phony-military-gear-made-in-china-including-counter-night-vision-clothing-that-didnt-actually-work/">military purchasing scandal</a>. This one, from May, also involved a New York-based company. In that case, the company sold the U.S. military counterfeit equipment produced in China, including Multicam APECS Parkas that were supposed to counter night vision goggles, but didn’t.
“The sales were in violation of the Berry Amendment and the Trade Agreements Act, which require goods sold to the military and certain government buyers to be manufactured in either the United States or select countries,” the Military Times <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/05/30/dod-bought-phony-military-gear-made-in-china-including-counter-night-vision-clothing-that-didnt-actually-work/">reported</a>.

U.S. Navy Warship

U.S. Military Has Chinese Surveillance Tools Installed Thanks To New York Company Accused Of Lying About Who Made The Products

China

One of the few points of unbounded bipartisan agreement in Washington has for decades been that U.S.-Israel security cooperation is right, good, mutually beneficial, and worth every nickel spent on it. It is well–grounded in facts and has acknowledged benefits to both sides.
However, at the J Street Conference last week, left-of-center political candidates and hostile-to-Israel speakers questioned the utility of American aid to Israel except, perhaps, as “leverage” to force Israel to meet their left-of-center and hostile-to-Israel demands. Candidates were willing to “explore” the issue. But it was left to J Street president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, to get to the heart of the conversation – Ben Ami isn’t interested in “leverage,” but in de-legitimizing the aid. “American aid is not intended to be a blank check. As Israel receives that $3.8 billion in aid, what is it being used for?”
Actually, it’s not, a secret. The United States is Israel’s ally of first choice. And Israel remains the one country the United States can rely upon to defend itself by itself and in coordination with American interests. And most of the money is then spent by Israel in the U.S.
The origins of U.S.-Israel security cooperation are in the Cold War understanding that the United States could not engage all the adversaries of all its allies and friends around the world. It was embraced warily at first — the Americans were unconvinced they would receive anything of value and the Israelis were concerned about continued freedom of action. But it worked. Israel went from being considered a net security consumer to a net security producer, meaning the United States did not have to expend resources to defend Israel. And Israel participated in making the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean regions more secure due to its presence.
The following list of Israeli assets was developed in 1979 as a “quick reference guide” to security cooperation:
<ul>
<li>A secure location in a crucial part of the world</li>
<li>A well-developed military infrastructure</li>
<li>The ability to maintain, service, and repair U.S.-origin equipment</li>
<li>An excellent deep-water port in Haifa</li>
<li>Modern air facilities</li>
<li>A position close to sea lanes and ability to project power over long distances</li>
<li>A domestic air force larger than many in Western Europe and possessing more up-to-date hardware</li>
<li>Multilingual capabilities, including facility in English, Arabic, French, Farsi, and the languages of the (former) Soviet Union</li>
<li>Combat familiarity with Soviet/Russian-style tactics and equipment</li>
<li>The ability to assist U.S. naval fleets, including common equipment</li>
<li>The ability to support American operations and to provide emergency air cover</li>
<li>A democratic political system with a strong orientation to support the United States and the NATO system</li>
</ul>
Added in 1996: Israel’s military research and development capabilities complement those of the U.S. Its intelligence services cooperate closely with ours — to our benefit. And large numbers of American troops train in Israel.
Added in 2006: The establishment of police-to-police counterterrorism training in Israel.
Nothing has ever been removed.
Not a single American serviceperson needs to be stationed in Israel. Aside from training missions, there have been American soldiers stationed in Israel since 2009, only working with the American/Israeli co-designed X-band radar system — a deployment that helps the U.S. and Israel monitor threats from the east.
Israel’s missile defense capabilities — developed and produced in conjunction with American industry — not only protect Israel from Hamas and Hezbollah missiles, but protect the United States from emerging threats from North Korea and Iran. Various branches of the U.S. military have purchased a variety of Israeli-developed systems and participated in joint development of anti-tunnel defenses, the Arrow Missile Program, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Plane, THEL Laser Program, the Advanced Urban Combat Training Facility, as well as Iron Dome.
Israel has been a partner in U.S. and multi-lateral military exercises for years; interestingly, Israel and the United Arab Emirates flew together in one. Combined exercises have taken place on NATO territory, in the U.S., in Israel (where the Luftwaffe flew above Israeli territory, making a few people blink), and the Pacific Ocean. Not a single country has opted out due to Israel having opted in.
The two countries are drawn together by common values and common threats. The bipartisan support of our ally Israel has been a testament to those values, as well as to the practical recognition that the threats require cooperation in intelligence, technology, and security policy.
The volatility of the Middle East is unlikely to be constrained. The United States, desirous of removing its soldiers from the region even as it understands the risk attendant to a resurgent Russia and increasingly desperate Iran, is as much in need of capable allies now as it ever was.  It would be a shame if rampant J Street politicization of the relationship were allowed to do damage.
&nbsp;
Shoshana Bryen is senior director of <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/">The Jewish Policy Center</a>. Portions of this article appeared in the Jewish Policy Center magazine, inFOCUS Quarterly.

BRYEN: U.S.-Israel Security Cooperation Is A Win-Win

J Street

National Security

United Arab Emirates (UAE)

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/who-will-win-democratic-primary-latest-2020-josh-hammer">Leading</a> 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has come under fire, of late, for her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-elizabeth-warren-says-shes-open-to-cutting-off-aid-to-israel">suggestion</a> that U.S. foreign aid to our ally Israel could become jeopardized by an oh-so-very obstinate Israeli governmental refusal to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-yes-palestinian-state-far-more-dangerous-josh-hammer">commit national suicide</a> at the jihadist altar of the &#8220;two-state solution&#8221; cartel. &#8220;It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution,&#8221; Warren <a href="https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1186052533405528067?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1186052533405528067&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Fwatch-elizabeth-warren-says-shes-open-to-cutting-off-aid-to-israel">intoned</a>, &#8220;and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table.&#8221; Similarly, today comes news that fellow 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg <a href="https://twitter.com/merica/status/1191415957731848192">believes</a> that the U.S. must &#8220;take steps to make sure th[at] US taxpayers [are] not contributing&#8221; to policies counter to the much-ballyhooed &#8220;two-state solution.&#8221;
Sounds a lot like a <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1191416211537616897">quid pro quo</a>, no?
Alas, none of this anti-Israel braggadocio is particularly new for the Left. Many today forget that Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin&#8217;s thunderous 1982 Zionist vow that he was &#8220;not a Jew with trembling knees&#8221; was issued in <a href="https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/menachem-begin-to-joe-biden-i-am-not-a-jew-with-trembling-knees/2015/04/03/">direct response</a> to &#8230; wait for it &#8230; then-Sen. Joe Biden&#8217;s (D-DE) threat to cut off U.S. aid to Israel. Yes, that would be the same purported &#8220;moderate&#8221; now once again seeking his party&#8217;s presidential nomination. Similarly, when ham-handed former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/john-kerry-israel-apartheid-palestine-peace-process-2014-4">dropped the &#8220;apartheid&#8221; word</a> in 2014 to describe the oh-so-very dire possible outcome of failed Israeli-Palestinian <del>capitulation to jihad</del> &#8220;peace talks,&#8221; it seemed obvious that the bumbling Bostonian had in mind a withholding of U.S. aid to Israel as one plausible penalty.
The status quo of <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf">mass U.S. aid to Israel</a>, therefore, amounts to a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles#Sword_of_Damocles">sword of Damocles</a> that empowers hardened anti-Israel U.S. policymakers to wield U.S. aid as a cudgel toward achieving their leftist, capitulatory, Islamism-empowering policy goals. There is no reason to ever expect this to change: Contra the bemused lecturing of the likes of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), such quid pro quos and strings attached on foreign aid beneficence are intrinsic to the entire foreign aid edifice itself. The result is to denigrate Israel as little more than an American satrap that must act according to the capricious whims of a foreign superpower. Israeli sovereignty is a casualty — as is Zionism itself.
It therefore ought to make sense that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20070425_RL33222_ee97f8a100b2abd96b43a0f4d0cc6848e74efb26.pdf">suggested</a> a reduction and eventual phasing out of U.S. aid (technically just economic aid, but Netanyahu&#8217;s logic also applies to military aid) to Israel during his initial prime minister stint during the 1990s. Caroline Glick — arguably the single most consistently <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Israeli-Solution-One-State-Peace-Middle/dp/0385348061">arch-Zionist</a> commentator of the past two decades — has long <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Column-one-Time-to-walk-away-from-US-aid-462677">believed</a> in phasing out U.S. aid to Israel, going so far as to call military aid a &#8220;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/carolineglick/posts/i-believe-that-us-military-aid-to-israel-is-a-poison-pill-israel-subsidizes-us-m/859228864147869/">poison pill</a>&#8221; for Israel. Venerable Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, a longtime stalwart of the pro-Israel community, <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/2016/09/05/israel-doesnt-need-american-foreign-aid-n2213875">agrees</a>. Not only are Israeli self-determination and Zionism itself undermined, but the median American&#8217;s opinion of the morally and strategically indispensable U.S.-Israel alliance is sullied by crass fiscal considerations. To state the obvious, phasing out the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid from receiving any foreign aid would redound to the interests of U.S. taxpayers.
True, this phasing out cannot happen overnight. True also, there have historically been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/israel-how-bernie-sanders-could-actually-hurt-the-palestinians">real American gains</a> from U.S. aid to Israel. But the reality is that in the long run, contra the more organizationally myopic views of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-what-exactly-current-role-aipac-josh-hammer">powerful organs</a> of the Jewish and pro-Israel establishment, both the United States and Israel alike would benefit from a phasing out and gradual winding down of all U.S. aid to Israel. This conclusion surely strikes many in the pro-Israel community as counter-intuitive, but it is ultimately correct. The integrity of the Zionist project would only be fortified by the Jewish state&#8217;s slowly weaning itself off Uncle Sam&#8217;s fiscal teat.

U.S. Israel flags

HAMMER: The Pro-Israel Case Against U.S. Military Aid To Israel

American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

Foreign Policy

Middle East

It took a dog meme to reveal the full extent of the mainstream media’s decay. The saga began yesterday, when The Daily Wire posted a joke on our social media accounts that depicted President Trump awarding a bronze paw print medal on a two-dimensional blue ribbon to the dog who chased down Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The caption read, “Please, @realDonaldTrump.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Please, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a>. <a href="https://t.co/nYSJSGlJ8L">pic.twitter.com/nYSJSGlJ8L</a>
&mdash; The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1189241705746386944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 29, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The president apparently liked the joke and reposted it, tweeting, “AMERICAN HERO!” 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
AMERICAN HERO! <a href="https://t.co/XCCa2sGfsZ">pic.twitter.com/XCCa2sGfsZ</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1189601417469841409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 30, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
The exchange offered a pleasant moment of levity. Even in an age as politically divided as ours, at least we can still come together and laugh at a picture of a goofy-looking dog to celebrate a military victory.
Or so we thought, until the mainstream media decided to take the picture seriously. “A WH official said ‘the dog is not at the WH,’” tweeted CNN&#8217;s Jim Acosta.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
A WH official said &quot;the dog is not at the WH.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/eJLqBMyKna">https://t.co/eJLqBMyKna</a>
&mdash; Jim Acosta (@Acosta) <a href="https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1189658623431102465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 30, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Voice of America’s Steve Herman rushed to fill the gaps in Acosta’s groundbreaking report. “I’ve requested details from the @WhiteHouse on this photo,” he tweeted. “There was no such canine event on today’s @POTUS schedule but there is a Medal of Honor ceremony set here for later today for an active duty Green Beret.” 
USA Today also deemed the tweet newsworthy and described the meme as a “doctored image.” The New York Times assigned not one but two investigative reporters to cover the joke, which it described in its headline as a “faked photo.” Apple News users received a push notification using the same phrase.
<div id="attachment_59649" style="width: 289px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-59649" class="size-medium wp-image-59649" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IMG_2062-279x300.png" alt="" width="279" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/IMG_2062-279x300.png 279w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/IMG_2062-768x826.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/IMG_2062-953x1024.png 953w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/IMG_2062.png 1120w" sizes="(max-width: 279px) 100vw, 279px" />(Apple News/Screenshot)</div>
“Fine, just the president of the United States disseminating a doctored image created by a right-wing propaganda site,” wrote S.V. Date of HuffPost, a left-wing propaganda site.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Fine, just the president of the United States disseminating a doctored image created by a right-wing propaganda site. <a href="https://t.co/Ky26zdDaXe">pic.twitter.com/Ky26zdDaXe</a>
&mdash; S.V. Dáte (@svdate) <a href="https://twitter.com/svdate/status/1189602652511965187?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 30, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Then The Washington Post published the pièce de résistance. “Trump tweeted a photo of a Medal of Honor recipient — who was edited out and replaced by Conan the dog,” read the headline. 
The Post’s story marked the media’s third distinct attack of the day. The first round of reporting about the dog meme wondered if the image had been an act of deception — fake news from The Daily Wire. The next narrative suggested Trump had unwittingly spread an intentional joke. Neither attack gained traction beyond the widespread mockery of normal people stunned by the humorless press. So The Washington Post settled on the third and strongest charge: Trump had somehow disrespected the actual Medal of Honor recipient in the photograph by mashing up the image with the hero pup.
That attack too fell flat because the hero from the original photo found the dog meme funny. The Washington Post tried and failed to track down 73-year-old Medal of Honor recipient James McCloughlan, but the Times managed to reach him by phone. McCloughlan laughed, assured the reporters he did not take offense, and even applauded public recognition of the dog. “This recognized the dog is part of that team of brave people,” he explained. “They are very courageous.” So much for that angle.
Undeterred, the Post continued to insinuate wrongdoing on the part of the meme-makers. “Jeremy Boreing, the chief operating officer at The Daily Wire, dismissed emailed questions about whether the altered photo originated from his publication,” reported the Post. 
In fact, Jeremy responded directly to reporter Alex Horton’s request that he confirm The Daily Wire had “digitally removed Medal of Honor recipient James McCloughan and replaced him with a dog.”
“Alex,” wrote the Daily Wire COO. “On the record: You’ve got to be f***ing joking. Please quote me on that.” The Post was not joking, and it did not publish Jeremy&#8217;s response.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
So, WaPo asked my business partner, <a href="https://twitter.com/JeremyDBoreing?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jeremydboreing</a>, about our Medal of Honor dog meme. His glorious response is screencapped below. Their report then suggested Jeremy refused to answer questions about the picture. Um, no. We just think you’re being f***ing insane. <a href="https://t.co/pEyOH96hEr">pic.twitter.com/pEyOH96hEr</a>
&mdash; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1189757002408267776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The most dishonest headline of the day came from the Sun: “Donald Trump baffles internet with bizarre Photoshopped pic of him giving medal to hero dog ‘Conan.’”
 Trump didn’t baffle the Internet. He didn’t baffle anyone — other than the mainstream press, which has become so consumed with hatred of the president and his supporters that it can’t recognize an obvious joke.
You can tell fanatics by their lack of a sense of humor, which requires a sense of proportion and reality. An image of a dog receiving a presidential medal is a funny joke. But it&#8217;s not as funny a joke as the fanatical leftists in the press who took it seriously.

Baghdadi Raid Dog

KNOWLES: Democracy Dies In Barkness

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Dogs

Donald Trump

Islamic State (ISIS)

Media

Media Bias

Syria

Update: We have a photo of the hero!
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi! <a href="https://t.co/PDMx9nZWvw">pic.twitter.com/PDMx9nZWvw</a>
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1188909031403900928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Original story: During Saturday night’s military raid that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a military working dog was injured.
While no human U.S. military members were injured, the dog received severe injuries after al-Baghdadi blew himself up to avoid capture. The dog, whose name and breed have not been disclosed, chased al-Baghdadi, cornering him in a tunnel in his compound. The terrorist leader was wearing a belt lined with explosives. He detonated the belt, killing himself and at least three of his own children, to avoid being captured by U.S. authorities.
My former employer The Washington Examiner <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/special-breed-of-courageous-delta-force-operator-hails-valor-of-military-dog-wounded-in-baghdadi-raid">reported</a> that it was the heroic actions of the military dog that led to al-Baghdadi’s death.
&#8220;The dog is a war veteran and a valued member of the team,&#8221; a soldier assigned to Delta Force told the outlet. &#8220;The injury to the dog is an injury to one of us. These dogs are a special breed of courageous.&#8221;
As the outlet reported, military dogs such as German shepherds or Belgian Malinois are used at all levels of operations. The breeds are “capable of a variety of tasks, including attacking the enemy and bomb-sniffing,” the Examiner reported. During the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a Belgian Malinois named Cairo assisted Navy SEALs in storming the al Qaeda leader’s compound.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that several military dogs were involved in chasing al-Baghdadi.
“He reached the end of the tunnel, as our dogs chased him down,” Trump said. “He ignited his vest, killing himself and the three children.”
The president added that one dog was injured.
“Our ‘K-9,’ as they call it,” Mr. Trump said, “I call it a dog. A beautiful dog — a talented dog — was injured and brought back.”
On radio host Hugh Hewitt’s Monday program, Deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates announced that the injured military dog will recover.
Trump, on Sunday, praised the military working dog, but also referred to al-Baghdadi as a dog &#8212; a slur.
“He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is now a much safer place,” Trump said when <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-president-trump-confirms-death-of-isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi">he confirmed al-Baghdadi’s death</a> Sunday morning.
“He died like a coward,” Trump added. “The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread, terrified of the American forces bearing down on him.”
Al-Baghdadi oversaw ISIS, which has been responsible for more than 140 terrorist attacks in nearly 30 countries, resulting in more than 2,000 deaths. One of the attacks inspired by al-Baghdadi was the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016. The shooter called 911 just after he began his attack, and pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi. Forty-nine people were killed during that attack and another 53 were injured.
The terrorist leader’s death was treated differently by members of the media than bin Laden’s death was treated under President Barack Obama, a Democrat. The Washington Post, for example, struggled to adequately label the terrorist leader in its obituary for him, calling him at one point an “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/58280">austere religious scholar</a>.”

Military Dog

Military Dog Injured During Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Raid Will Be Okay, Administration Official Says [Updated]

President Donald Trump revealed on Wednesday that the hardest part of his job is having to write letters to the parents of soldiers that have been killed and having to see the pain and suffering from the parents as they see their child returned to the United States in a coffin draped in a U.S. flag.
Trump&#8217;s remarks inside the White House come as the U.S. decided to pull its forces back from an area in Syria, which has allowed Turkish forces to invade the area where they are reportedly attacking the Kurds.
&#8220;The hardest thing I have to do, by far, much harder than the witch hunt, is signing letters to parents of soldiers that have been killed,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;And it&#8217;s not only that &#8212; in areas where there&#8217;s not a lot of upside, if there&#8217;s any upside at all, and in many cases, it&#8217;s only downside.&#8221;
&#8220;The hardest thing I have to do is signing those letters. That’s the hardest thing I have to do. And each letter is different,&#8221; Trump continued. &#8220;We make each letter different. And last week, I signed five of them for Afghanistan; one in Iraq; one in Syria, from two weeks ago. And sometimes I call the parents. Sometimes I see the parents. I go to Dover, when I can, but it&#8217;s &#8212; it&#8217;s so devastating for the parents that &#8212; you know. It&#8217;s so devastating when they bring that boy or young woman out of the back of those big, powerful planes in a coffin, and the parents are there.&#8221;
Trump has been widely criticized by both Republicans and Democrats for his decision to pull forces out of the area, with many stating that the U.S. was &#8220;abandoning&#8221; its Kurdish allies.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The hardest thing I have to do as President&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/6bzwh78I00">pic.twitter.com/6bzwh78I00</a>
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1182075837962690560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
Partial transcript of Trump&#8217;s remarks:
But it was time to bring our soldiers back home. So I see &#8212; and I will tell you: The hardest thing I have to do, by far, much harder than the witch hunt, is signing letters to parents of soldiers that have been killed. And it&#8217;s not only that &#8212; in areas where there&#8217;s not a lot of upside, if there&#8217;s any upside at all, and in many cases, it&#8217;s only downside.
And especially when that solider was killed in a Blue-on-Green attack. You know what that is, right? That’s where a solider being trained or whatever turns his gun on an American solider. &#8220;Here, son. Take your gun. You know how to use it.&#8221; And he takes the gun and he turns it. And he shoots one &#8212; we have many of them in Afghanistan &#8212; in particular, in Afghanistan.
The hardest thing I have to do is signing those letters. That’s the hardest thing I have to do. And each letter is different. We make each letter different. And last week, I signed five of them for Afghanistan; one in Iraq; one in Syria, from two weeks ago. And sometimes I call the parents. Sometimes I see the parents. I go to Dover, when I can, but it&#8217;s &#8212; it&#8217;s so devastating for the parents that &#8212; you know. It&#8217;s so devastating when they bring that boy or young woman out of the back of those big, powerful planes in a coffin, and the parents are there.
You know, we have people that do that. That’s what they do. They &#8212; they work that. They accommodate everybody. That’s what they do. They an incredible job. And they said &#8212; I said, &#8220;The parents seemed to be okay.&#8221; I&#8217;ll get there early. &#8220;The parents seemed to be okay.&#8221; &#8220;Well, actually, sir, they aren’t.&#8221; &#8220;No, no. The way they’re talking. They&#8217;re really okay, aren’t they?&#8221; &#8220;Sir, you never know until the back of that massive cargo plane opens up.&#8221; And they walk down holding a coffin with four or five great soldiers on each side of it, representing our various forces. That you never know.
And then I see it. And I see people that were smiling, &#8220;Oh, Mr. President, thank you for being here. Thank you for being here.&#8221; And I think they&#8217;re doing great. And then, twenty minutes later, we&#8217;ll be outside when that big plane pulls up and that door comes down, and they are walking the coffin with their boy inside this coffin with an American flag over the top. And they&#8217;re walking that coffin down this ramp. And I&#8217;ve seen people that I thought were really incredible the way they were ta- &#8212; I didn’t even understand how they could take it so well &#8212; scream, like I&#8217;ve never seen anything before. Sometimes they&#8217;ll run to the coffin. They&#8217;ll break through military barriers. They&#8217;ll run to the coffin and jump on top of the coffin. Crying mothers and wives. Crying desperately.
And this is on these endless wars that just never stop. And there&#8217;s a time and there&#8217;s a place, but it&#8217;s time to stop.
And just to finish, last Friday, I went to Walter Reed. And I gave out five Purple Hearts to incredible young men &#8212; in this case, all men. And they took a beating. Beautiful people. They took a beating. One couldn’t be there because the beating was so great that he was at a totally different part of the world. He lost a leg. He lost an arm. Ryan. He had tremendous damage, beyond even what these young folks went through.
But I&#8217;ll tell you what: For me, it&#8217;s very hard when I see that. It&#8217;s very hard. It&#8217;s easy to talk tough. You know, tough guys. All of these tough guys. &#8220;Let&#8217;s keep fighting. Let&#8217;s keep fighting.&#8221; If they had to go to Walter Reed &#8212; where they do unbelievable work. I have to tell you, these doctors are unbelievable. You know, it&#8217;s easy to say, &#8220;Oh, they&#8217;re not the…&#8221; They&#8217;re the best in the world. I&#8217;ve never seen anything like it.
One young man, last week, had his nose rebuilt. And they said it was in a thousand pieces. And, I said, &#8220;So where were you hurt?&#8221; He said, &#8220;My face, sir, was almost obliterated.&#8221; I said, &#8220;You have a better face than I do.&#8221; (Laughter.) And he said, &#8220;Sir, I had a doctor who was unbelievable, and they put it together.&#8221; They said &#8212; he said “a thousand fragments.” Now, I don’t if that’s even possible. But a thousand fragments. And they put it together.
And his father, who was crying, came up to me and said, &#8220;You&#8217;re not going to believe this, but my son didn’t have a great-looking nose and now his nose is better.&#8221; (Laughter.) Okay? It&#8217;s an amazing thing.
But when you see these &#8212; and the Purple Hearts &#8212; you see this kind of thing &#8212; and I see a lot of it at Walter Reed. And, again, the job those doctors and the people do at Walter Reed, it&#8217;s something to be commended.
Thank you all very much. Thank you.

President Donald J. Trump

WATCH: Trump Reveals What The Hardest Part Of His Job Is During Emotional Speech

The controversy swirling around Warner Bros.’ new standalone DC film “Joker,” which tracks the psychological spiral of a failed comedian (played by Joaquin Phoenix) into a murderous sociopath, took a decidedly more alarming tone this week after reports of the FBI and the U.S. Military issuing warnings about the “credible” threat of a mass shooting by an “incel” extremist at a screening of the film.
In a memo sent on September 18 and confirmed by U.S. Army officials on Tuesday, service members were informed about threats on social media about a mass shooting at a “Joker” screening. While the memo states that at the time there were “no known specific credible threats to the opening of the Joker on 4 October,” a separate memo sent Monday by senior officials of the U.S. Army’s criminal investigation division cited “credible” intelligence of such a threat gathered by Texas law enforcement.
“A separate memo, issued on Monday by senior officials in the U.S. Army’s criminal investigation division, stated that the Army had obtained ‘credible’ intelligence from Texas law enforcement officials pertaining to ‘disturbing and very specific chatter’ on the dark web ‘regarding the targeting of an unknown movie theater during the release,’” <a href="https://io9.gizmodo.com/u-s-military-issues-warning-to-troops-about-incel-viol-1838412331">Gizmodo</a> reported Tuesday.
An Army spokesperson told Gizmodo that military officials send out similar warnings &#8220;routinely because the safety and security of our workforce is paramount.”
“We want our workforce to be prepared and diligent on personal safety both inside the workplace and out,” the spokesperson explained.
“Posts on social media have made reference to involuntary celibate (‘incel’) extremists replicating the 2012 theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, at screenings of the Joker movie at nationwide theaters,” the September 18 memo published by Gizmodo reads. “This presents a potential risk to DOD personnel and family members, though there are no known specific credible threats to the opening of the Joker on 4 October.”
“Incels are individuals who express frustration from perceived disadvantages to starting intimate relationships,” the memo continues. “Incel extremists idolize violent individuals like the Aurora movie theater shooter. They also idolize the Joker character, the violent clown from the Batman series, admiring his depiction as a man who must pretend to be happy, but eventually fights back against his bullies.”
The memo then provides instructions on how to be vigilant at theaters. “When entering theaters, identify two escape routes, remain aware of your surroundings, and remember the phrase ‘run, hide, fight,’” it explains. “Run if you can. If you’re stuck, hide (also referred to as ‘sheltering in place’), and stay quiet. If a shooter finds you, fight with whatever you can.”
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/joker-under-fire-phoenix-walks-out-interview-james-barrett">The Daily Wire</a> reported this week, backlash against “Joker” has been building ahead of its October 4 release. Two non-profits sent a letter to Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff Tuesday morning expressing concerns about the film’s potential to inspire violence and called on the studio to donate funds to groups that promote gun control and aid victims of gun violence.
Five family members of victims of the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado in July 2012 — which took place during a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” — signed the letter, including Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, founders of the nonprofit Survivors Empowered.
“We are calling on you to be a part of the growing chorus of corporate leaders who understand that they have a social responsibility to keep us all safe,” reads the letter. <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/aurora-shooting-victims-voice-concerns-joker-emotional-letter-warner-bros-1241599">The Hollywood Reporter</a> notes that the letter “does not seek to halt the release of the film nor to rally gun critics to boycott it.” Instead, the letter asks Warner Bros to “end political contributions to candidates who take money from the NRA and vote against gun reform.” It also asks the studio to use its “political clout and leverage in Congress” to “actively lobby for gun reform.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/joker-under-fire-phoenix-walks-out-interview-james-barrett">‘Joker’ Under Fire: Phoenix Walks Out Of Interview; Shooting Victims Send Letter To Warner Bros</a>

Joaquin Phoenix

‘Joker’ Controversy Gets Serious: U.S. Military Warns Of Threats Of ‘Incel’ Violence At ‘Joker’ Screenings

The Department of Defense has been forced to apologize for a tweet it sent out on Friday, threatening to stick the Air Force on the hundred or so revelers who showed up for the &#8220;Area 51&#8221; fest.
The tweet, which took aim at Millennials (even though attendance seemed multi-generational), suggested that the &#8220;last thing&#8221; party-goers who gathered at the edges of the government&#8217;s secretive desert base in Nevada would see would be the B-2 spirit bomber, rather than the aliens they&#8217;d hoped for.
&#8220;The last thing #Millennials will see if they attempt the #area51 raid today,&#8221; the tweet read over a photo of the stealth bomber parked on a runway behind a host of Air Force personnel.
It didn&#8217;t take long for social media to panic, even though it was clear the Department of Defense probably didn&#8217;t actually intend to bomb the event.
&#8220;The military should not be threatening to kill citizens, not even misguided ones,&#8221; one respondent chided.
The DOD realized their mistake on Saturday and deleted the offending tweet. DVIDSHub, the Air Force outreach account that originally posted the photo, apologized publicly.
&#8220;Last night a DVIDSHUB employee posted a tweet that in NO WAY supports the stance of the Department of Defense,&#8221; the group wrote. &#8220;It was inappropriate and we apologize for this mistake.&#8221;
Thousands of people descended on Nevada and parts of Arizona last week for the &#8220;Area 51&#8221; festival, which evolved out of a Facebook event purporting to organize a mass on-foot invasion of the storied government facility that allegedly plays host to the government&#8217;s collection of alien spacecraft (and, if you believe the Facebook event, a handful of actual aliens).
The event, &#8220;Storm Area 51, They Can&#8217;t Stop Us All,&#8221; had millions of RSVPs and residents of the small towns that surround Rachel, Nevada, where the main event was set to take place, had worried earlier in the month that as many as 50,000 people could descend on the military facility, taxing local resources. At one point, organizers even officially &#8220;cancelled&#8221; the event, fearing things might get out of hand.
Only a few thousand people actually showed up to &#8220;storm&#8221; the base, though, with most event attendees preferring to stay in Las Vegas, where a handful of concerts and parties took place. The ones that did manage to find their way to the &#8220;alien base&#8221; spent most of their time in the desert partying to sets by DJ Paul Oakenfold and other B-list musicians. <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/area-51-raid-alienstock-were-more-like-a-music-festival-with-tin-foil-hats/">According to CNe</a>t, which sent reporters to cover the event, at one point only three people were at the event&#8217;s main stage, grooving to the alien-themed music.
But if the attendees didn&#8217;t take the alien mission seriously, the Air Force certainly did. <a href="https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/09/23/dod-apologizes-for-tweet-suggesting-millennials-would-be-bombed-if-they-stormed-area-51/">The Air Force Times reports</a> that, although the B-2 bomber probably wasn&#8217;t going to be deployed to the Nevada desert to strike an impromptu electronic music festival, Area 51 is still a secret government facility and the government intended to protect it.
&#8220;Our nation has secrets, and those secrets deserve to be protected,” Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told the outlet several days before the planned event. “People deserve to have our nation’s secrets protected.”
The security plan, though, was pretty standard: &#8220;There’s a lot of media attention, so they’re expecting some folks to show up there. We’re prepared, and we’ve provided them additional security personnel, as well as additional barricades,&#8221; acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan added.
The festival went off without a hitch — mostly. The two-day event reportedly fizzled after a single day and one cow was killed, though not at the hands of a chupacabra or from alien experimentation, as many attendees probably hoped. It perished in a car accident.

&#8220;Alien&#8221; demonstrator

DOD Forced To Apologize For Tweet Threatening To Bomb Area 51 Festival

Twitter

Last week’s announcement that U.S.-led peace talks with the Taliban had been called off relieved many, but distressed others who were hoping for an end to our longest war. After a suicide bombing killed 12 people on Thursday, September 5th, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-camp-david.html">acknowledged</a> that the Taliban failed to live up to its commitments. Trump tweeted: “What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position?” Welcome to the Art of the Deal, Taliban-style.
Perhaps Trump is learning from his experiences with Israel’s longest war with the Palestinians and the difficulty he has experienced with his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51599/israel-jason-greenblatt-has-done-crucial-work-gideon-israel">“Deal of the Century”</a> proposal. While each situation differs in some significant ways, both serve as illustrations that wars don’t end when only one side wants it to end. Until one side wins and the other acknowledges defeat, a war will continue.
The Trump administration’s desire to “finally get the hell out of Afghanistan” might be an admirable one, but our departure before the Taliban has acknowledged its defeat will be interpreted as victory and embolden the group to return to its old ways. Though the Taliban and the Afghan ISIS groups are currently at least in part rivals, no one should preclude the possibility of a union between the two.
After the first Gulf War, enough Israelis believed that their war with the Palestinians could finally come to an end. But their generosity to the dispersed PLO, exiled to Tunisia, was interpreted as weakness. The PLO exploited it to recruit a new generation of fighters — a generation they educated with their newfound autonomy. Palestinian terrorism escalated dramatically, both in the number and severity of attacks.
Soon after the talks with the Taliban were scuttled, word came out that there was a plan for members of the Taliban to join members of the Afghan government and U.S. representatives at Camp David. Some believed that having Taliban negotiators on U.S. soil on September 11th, 2019 would be worse than “bad optics” — their presence would defile the venerable retreat in Maryland. But here too, the PLO’s Yasser Arafat had already accomplished that feat, soiling the grounds with his presence in 2000. During the Clinton presidency, Arafat <a href="http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ArafatArticles.html">spent more time</a> in the White House than any other foreign “leader.”
Inviting bad actors, even those with American blood on their hands, is acceptable only after they have been defeated and have acknowledged their defeat. Until both the Taliban and whomever the Palestinians choose as their leaders acknowledge their defeat, their presence should not be tolerated on U.S. or Israeli soil, respectively.
Perhaps neither our war against the Taliban nor Israel’s war against the PLO/PA/Hamas is actually winnable. But both are certainly lose-able.
A complete pullout of all U.S. troops and advisors from Afghanistan will be celebrated from Kandahar to Quetta as a Taliban victory. Recall how Taliban propagandists compared Obama to Gorbachev when the new U.S. president simultaneously announced both a troop surge and a subsequent date for their departure from Afghanistan.
Likewise, any Israeli offer of more accommodations, cash, and autonomy to the PLO/PA/Hamas will be seen as weakness and will be exploited. Recall Arafat’s not so-secret messages to the Palestinian critics of Oslo that the “peace process” would buy them time to gain strength and continue the fight.
For American and Israeli lawmakers, the time to talk about peace will only come when the Taliban and the Palestinians feel their defeat and believe that they have better options than continuing to fight. Until then, the best we can hope for is a managed conflict, limiting our own casualties, and inflicting more severe casualties on our enemies.
A.J. Caschetta is a Ginsburg-Ingerman fellow at the <a href="https://www.meforum.org">Middle East Forum</a> and a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

U.S. And Afghan Forces Battle Taliban In Kunar Province

CASCHETTA: War Isn’t Over Just Because You Want It To Be Over

Afghanistan

Hamas

Palestinians

Radical Islam

Radical Islamic Terror

At around 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, authorities were made aware that a cargo ship had started to lean into the water on its way to possibly capsizing in St. Simons Sound, off the coast of Georgia, according to the <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDHSCG/bulletins/25ddf59​">U.S. Coast Guard</a>.
After departing port, and attempting to make a starboard turn, the ship, called the Golden Ray, began to tilt toward its port side. 20 of the 24 crew members on board the ship have been rescued, but dangerous conditions forced officials to halt the ongoing operation.
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During a press briefing concerning the incident, Captain John Reed, commander of Coast Guard Sector Charleston, spoke about the rescue effort being undertaken:
<blockquote>Coast Guard crews along with partner agencies and commercial assistance providers, as well as South Carolina Department of Natural Resources and Moran Towing, made several rescues from the vessel at multiple points. 20 of the 24 people on board have been rescued at this time. As smoke and flames began to appear, our crews along with the Glynn County heavy rescue team assessed that the situation was too risky to further go inside the vessel to attempt to locate the four individuals who remain missing at this time.
We are working with the salvers, Coast Guard Salvage Engineering Response team, the surveyor, and the company to stabilize the vessel. Once salvage professionals have determined the vessel to be stable, we will identify the best option to continue our rescue efforts for the four crew members who remain on board.</blockquote>
The Coast Guard&#8217;s Marine Safety Unit (MSU) Savannah Commander Norm Witt stated that in addition to the rescue efforts, actions had been taken to &#8220;mitigate&#8221; the potential dispersion of pollutants into the water.
The Georgia Department of Public Health <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/coastalhealth91/status/1170792361686962176?s=21">posted a tweet</a> warning swimmers to stay out of the water due to potential contaminants:
<blockquote>We&#8217;ve issued a precautionary swimming advisory for #SaintSimons and #JekyllIsland beaches after a cargo ship capsized in the St. Simons Sound. @CoastalGADNR will conduct water quality sampling; until the testing is complete, we advise against swimming or wading in the water.</blockquote>
When a reporter asked if this would be a &#8220;recovery or a rescue,&#8221; an official at the press briefing noted that it was a &#8220;complex situation,&#8221; but continued to refer to the operation as a &#8220;rescue,&#8221; seeming to indicate a belief that the four remaining crew members are still alive.
Regarding why the ship began to capsize in the first place, Commander Witt stated that it was an &#8220;ongoing investigation.&#8221;
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At 5:22 p.m., the Coast Guard Southeast Twitter account released a video of the earlier rescue operation:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">A <a href="https://twitter.com/USCG?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USCG</a> Air Station Savannah helicopter crew and port partners rescued 20 people early this morning after the Golden Ray, a 656-foot vehicle carrier, was reported disabled and listing. 4 crew members are still unaccounted for. Video available here: <a href="https://t.co/WxHwVs9LPN">https://t.co/WxHwVs9LPN</a> <a href="https://t.co/dD92UPuHH9">pic.twitter.com/dD92UPuHH9</a>
— USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) <a href="https://twitter.com/USCGSoutheast/status/1170809746250711041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The most recent tweet, from approximately 6:55 p.m., reads: &#8220;A damage assessment team from the @USCG Atlantic Strike Team prepares to depart from #USCG Station Brunswick. The team is assessing the impacts of the Golden Ray and are just one of many specialized teams working diligently in the complex response.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">A damage assessment team from the <a href="https://twitter.com/USCG?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USCG</a> Atlantic Strike Team prepares to depart from <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/USCG?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#USCG</a> Station Brunswick. The team is assessing the impacts of the Golden Ray and are just one of many specialized teams working diligently in the complex response. <a href="https://t.co/gU4cPYV96Y">pic.twitter.com/gU4cPYV96Y</a>
— USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) <a href="https://twitter.com/USCGSoutheast/status/1170833023132217344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
As of publication, the four missing crew members have not been rescued or recovered.

Cargo Ship Off Georgia Coast Rolls; 4 Crew Members Still Missing

Do you have an extra $8.5 million lying around? Then you’re in luck, because Jet Lease, an aircraft brokerage and leasing firm, has a 1980 F-16A/B Fighting Falcon for sale just for you — if you are also a specific kind of defense contractor.
Business Insider <a href="https://amp-businessinsider-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.businessinsider.com/fully-operational-f16-on-sale-in-florida-for-8-million-2019-9">reported</a> that this aircraft is unique because it “has not been demilitarized, a key difference between it and other F-16 jets that have been privately purchased.” From Business Insider:
<blockquote>In fact, the aircraft has been enhanced and includes modern features such as a Link16 datalink, a night vision-compatible cockpit, a data-bus for guided weapons and a Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, according to The Drive.
Likewise, the aircraft has undergone updates allowing it to fly at least 8,000 hours. Its maximum speed is Mach 2.05 at 40,000 feet &#8211; which translates to approximately 1,573 miles per hour.</blockquote>
The outlet reported that Jet Lease is marketing the Fighting Falcon “to contractor air service providers who conduct testing services and other things on behalf of the Defense Department.”
The Drive <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29462/here-is-the-lowdown-on-that-f-16-being-sold-in-florida">reported</a> in mid-August that Jet Lease actually has multiple F-16s for sale, which the outlet joked “could be sold together to create a private F-16 mini-squadron.” From The Drive:
<blockquote>These aircraft are F-16AM and BM Block 20 Mid-Life-Update (MLU) jets that are imported from Jordan. That country had bought dozens of second-hand F-16s from America&#8217;s NATO allies in Europe—Belgium and the Netherlands—between 2008 and 2017 under the Peace Falcon III to Peace Falcon VI initiatives. They have subsequently been in the process of liquidating some of their older F-16s in recent years, including selling Block 15 F-16s to Pakistan.</blockquote>
The Drive also reported that anyone looking to purchase one of the F-16s “must comply with and successfully navigate the strict ITARS (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">International Traffic in Arms Regulations</a>) rules surrounding acquiring and operating a weapon system like an F-16, which keeps these planes out of the hands of those who shouldn&#8217;t be able to pull them apart, let alone fly them.”
These aircraft are thus different than some of the other demilitarized planes owned by the rich and powerful. Business Insider also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-cofounder-paul-allen-mig-29-fighter-jet-for-sale-2019-8">reported</a> that a Cold War-era MiG-29 fighter jet owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was for sale. The outlet reported that Allen “collected a fleet of helicopters, jets, and specialized aircraft.”
Allen sadly died in October 2018, leaving behind his collection. Business Insider reported that some of his collection is being sold, including the fighter jet. From Business Insider:
<blockquote>With a top speed of 1,491 mph (around Mach 2.25) this MiG would leave even America&#8217;s premier F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in the dust. In fact, this MiG would beat just about anything that isn&#8217;t an F-15 in a drag race, which is impressive for a combat aircraft, but even more so for a civilian jet with functioning ejection seats you could feasibly take to visit your mom in Orlando. In fact, at top speed, you could get there from New York in less than an hour.</blockquote>
No price is listed for Allen’s plane on the seller’s website.

F-16 Falcon

An F-16 Is For Sale In Florida For $8.5 Million – But There’s A Catch

<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-eyes-a-new-real-estate-purchase-greenland-11565904223">News broke</a> a couple of weeks ago that President Donald Trump is apparently interested in acquiring for the United States the barren, remote Arctic island of Greenland. Trump is hardly the first president to express an interest in acquiring the Danish semi-autonomous region for the United States. As Hank Berrien of The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50701/trump-considering-buying-worlds-biggest-island-hank-berrien">noted</a> at the time, the possibility of acquiring Greenland has been publicly floated by previous administrations: &#8220;President Harry Truman offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for $100 million in 1946&#8221; and &#8220;the State Department during the tenure of President Andrew Johnson considered buying Iceland and Greenland in 1867.&#8221;
At first blush, Greenland might not make a whole lot of sense as a potential acquisition object of the president&#8217;s affection. The island&#8217;s population is a whopping 56,000, and over three-quarters of the landmass of the largely politically autonomous island contains the world&#8217;s only permanent ice sheet outside Antarctica. Overall, due to its harsh climate and sprawling terrain, Greenland is the least densely populated territory in the world.
But from a geopolitical standpoint, Trump is completely correct to seriously look into acquiring Greenland. Doing so, as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/opinion/politics/greenland-trump.html?action=click&amp;module=Opinion&amp;pgtype=Homepage">persuasively argued</a> in The New York Times earlier this week, would strongly redound to America&#8217;s national security interests. There are at least four main reasons why: Russia, China, energy, and Space Force.
Russia was the primary reason why Truman considered acquiring Greenland in the incipient stages of the Cold War. Greenland is a massive landmass that, from its upper Atlantic Ocean Arctic perch, looks down upon Iceland, Northern Europe, and Russia. Despite failing to formally acquiring the island, Truman and subsequent Cold War presidents used Greenland — eventually centered around Thule Air Base — as a strategic base to deter Russian (then Soviet) hegemony in the Atlantic. Today, a formally acquired Greenland would allow American presidents to install serious missile defense infrastructure — which would largely serve to deter Putin&#8217;s Russia, but could also serve to deter other would-be intercontinental ballistic missile hostile regimes, such as the theocratic Islamist regime in Iran.
China, as Cotton noted in the Times, has actually formally attempted numerous times to purchase naval and aerial infrastructure in Greenland over the past few years. While Denmark ultimately rebuffed each request, it is nonetheless harrowing to consider that the far-East nation of China — the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47057/hammer-china-americas-greatest-21st-century-threat-josh-hammer">number one geopolitical threat</a> to the United States in the 21st century — has expressed so much interest in acquiring a military foothold on the outskirts of North America. The Chinese desire to acquire territory in Greenland accords with China&#8217;s over-arching recent <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/06/pompeo-arctic-china-russia-1302649">desire to expand its military presence in the broader Arctic</a>, more generally. The Trump administration has been concerned about China&#8217;s Arctic ambitions for awhile, and Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/06/pompeo-arctic-china-russia-1302649">reported</a> in May that the administration had already been worrying that Greenland was &#8220;vulnerable to encroaching Chinese influence.&#8221; An American acquisition of Greenland would therefore not merely allow for the imposition of missile defense materiel to deter Russia; it would also allow for a solidified stronghold to thwart the hegemonic ambitions of the world&#8217;s single most pernicious geopolitical actor, China.
Furthermore, Greenland is replete with all sorts of natural resources. The island has huge oil and natural gas reserves and many other reserves of rare-earth minerals that are indispensable to America&#8217;s tech and defense sectors. Despite the shrill cries of the enviro-statists and bovine flatulence-despising &#8220;Green New Deal&#8221; Jacobins, oil and natural gas will continue to power the American — and global — economy for the foreseeable future. And while the miraculous shale revolution has already made the United States one of the globe&#8217;s leading oil and natural gas producers, acquiring Greenland would only help more in fueling the literal and proverbial engines of the world&#8217;s preeminent macroeconomy. True energy independence — that constantly sought-after goal for every rational self-governing nation-state — would be that much closer for the United States, were it to successfully acquire Greenland.
Finally, it must also be said that the island of Greenland presents a highly intriguing potential base for the future U.S. Space Force that the Trump administration seems — at least if the president is re-elected — increasingly serious about establishing. The administration has not announced where Space Force would be based, but Greenland potentially makes a great deal of sense as a central hub. Wherever Space Force is based, there is sure to be no shortage of surrounding military infrastructure and high-grade weaponry. Greenland&#8217;s potential as a hub for Space Force would thus further solidify the island&#8217;s purpose vis-à-vis Russia and China alike — as a genuine deterrent to either arch-geopolitical foe&#8217;s potential desire to expand hegemonic ambitions into the northern Atlantic Ocean region.
Don&#8217;t believe the naysayers who claim that the Trump administration would be making a modern-day &#8220;Seward&#8217;s Folly&#8221; in acquiring Greenland. Just as the 1867 acquisition of Alaska has proven to be immensely beneficial for U.S. military, geopolitical, and energy interests, so too would a modern-day acquisition of Greenland redound to U.S. interests.

Greenland Village

HAMMER: Trump Is Completely Right To Try To Buy Greenland

Denmark

Greenland

Russia

Trump Administration

During a Twitch livestream on Tuesday night, &#8220;The Young Turks&#8221; commentator Hasan Piker, who is the nephew of &#8220;Young Turks&#8221; co-creator Cenk Uygur, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50893/watch-young-turks-host-mock-dan-crenshaws-war-amanda-prestigiacomo">mocked</a> U.S. Military veteran Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) for losing an eye in combat.
&#8220;This guy has the understanding of foreign policy of, like, a 12-year-old. What the f***. What the f*** is wrong with this dude? Didn&#8217;t he go to war and like literally lose his eye because some mujahideen — a brave f***ing soldier — f***ed his eye hole with their d***?&#8221; Piker rambled, adding, &#8220;Isn&#8217;t that how he f***ing lost his dumba** eye, because he got his f***ing eye hole f***ed, by a brave soldier?&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Cenk&#8217;s Nephew called the man who took <a href="https://twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DanCrenshawTX</a>&#8216;s eye a &#8220;brave fucking soldier&#8221; This is what happens when you&#8217;re gifted a job by your Uncle you know you didn&#8217;t earn &amp; it eats away at your mental state. <a href="https://t.co/BohESrbvJ6">pic.twitter.com/BohESrbvJ6</a>
— Sean Fitzgerald (@IamSean90) <a href="https://twitter.com/IamSean90/status/1164213830760747008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Crenshaw responded to the vile remarks made by Piker on Wednesday. &#8220;[Hasan Piker] seems to confuse &#8216;Improvised Explosive Device&#8217; with some weird terrorist fantasy,&#8221; he wrote via Twitter. &#8220;Lol sorry for triggering you Hasan.&#8221;
&#8220;You&#8217;re no Pete Davidson, stop trying so hard,&#8221; the Texas representative added, referencing a &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; comedian who made a much-maligned joke about Crenshaw&#8217;s wartime injury last year. Unlike Piker, Davidson <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38214/watch-dan-crenshaw-graciously-accepts-pete-ryan-saavedra">apologized</a> for the (in comparative terms, mild) joke about Crenshaw, who, in turn, graciously appeared alongside the comedian for a powerful SNL segment.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">.<a href="https://twitter.com/hasanthehun?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@hasanthehun</a> seems to confuse “Improvised Explosive Device” with some weird terrorist fantasy.
Lol sorry for triggering you Hasan. You’re no Pete Davidson, stop trying so hard. <a href="https://t.co/0w2Cp95ctt">https://t.co/0w2Cp95ctt</a>
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) <a href="https://twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX/status/1164371091592232963?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 22, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Crenshaw lost his eye during his third deployment from an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast.
&#8220;Dan was hit by an IED blast during a mission in Helmand province, Afghanistan,&#8221; the Republican&#8217;s <a href="https://crenshawforcongress.com/about/">campaign website</a> explains. &#8220;He was evacuated and awoke from his medically induced coma learning that his right eye had been destroyed in the blast and his left eye was still present, but badly damaged. Dan was completely blind and the doctors did not believe he would ever see again. Tara stood by him every day and night, keeping faith and praying he would see again. After several difficult surgeries, he eventually regained sight in his left eye, a miracle according to the head surgeon.&#8221;
Crenshaw served two more deployments following the serious injury and has received recognitions including two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.
Along with his mockery of the war vet, Piker said during the same livestream that &#8220;America deserved 9/11,&#8221; a terrorist attack that left 3,000 innocents dead. The left-wing politico defended such remarks on Twitter, writing, &#8220;Americas foreign policy decisions has lead to 911. This would&#8217;ve been a controversial thing to say in 2001. Stop being a f***ing idiot.&#8221;
Piker added, &#8220;We supplied arms to and trained Bin Laden. We destabilized the region long before 911. And now we&#8217;re stuck in perpetual war, which Dan Crenshaw was trying to justify in that clip. It&#8217;s exactly this kind of attitude that has sent thousands of young men and women overseas to die.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50893/watch-young-turks-host-mock-dan-crenshaws-war-amanda-prestigiacomo">The Young Turks’ Hasan Piker Says ‘America Deserved 9/11’, Mocks Dan Crenshaw’s War Injury: ‘Brave Soldier F***ed His Eye Hole’</a>

screen_shot_2019-08-22_at_10.17.28_am

Dan Crenshaw Crushes ‘Young Turks’ Commentator Who Said ‘Brave Soldier F***ed’ His ‘Eye Hole’

Dan Crenshaw

The Young Turks

Reviewing a clip of U.S. Military veteran Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) talking to podcast host Joe Rogan, Hasan Piker of &#8220;The Young Turks&#8221; mocked Crenshaw&#8217;s lost eye, a wartime injury, in vile fashion and said America &#8220;deserved&#8221; 9/11.
&#8220;This guy has the understanding of foreign policy of, like, a 12-year-old. What the f***. What the f*** is wrong with this dude? Didn&#8217;t he go to war and like literally lose his eye because some mujahideen — a brave f***ing soldier — f***ed his eye hole with their d***?&#8221; Piker said, during a Twitch livestream on Tuesday night.
He added, &#8220;Isn&#8217;t that how he f***ing lost his dumba** eye, because he got his f***ing eye hole f***ed, by a brave soldier?&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Cenk&#8217;s Nephew called the man who took <a href="https://twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DanCrenshawTX</a>&#8216;s eye a &#8220;brave fucking soldier&#8221; This is what happens when you&#8217;re gifted a job by your Uncle you know you didn&#8217;t earn &amp; it eats away at your mental state. <a href="https://t.co/BohESrbvJ6">pic.twitter.com/BohESrbvJ6</a>
— Sean Fitzgerald (@IamSean90) <a href="https://twitter.com/IamSean90/status/1164213830760747008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Piker posted a series of tweets on Tuesday mocking Crenshaw for discussing Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson&#8217;s joking about the Republican’s injury, though Crenshaw <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38214/watch-dan-crenshaw-graciously-accepts-pete-ryan-saavedra">swiftly accepted</a> Davidson’s apology and appeared alongside the comedian on SNL.
&#8220;You may be surprised to hear that he&#8217;s a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno movie,&#8221; Davidson tastelessly joked in 2018. &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry. I know he lost his eye in war or whatever.&#8221;
&#8220;Dan crenshaw is crying on a comedian&#8217;s podcast about how not offended he was about a joke made against him almost an entire year ago. Right wing victimhood is a brain disease,&#8221; Piker said, adding the following tweet: &#8220;crying from his remaining eye *.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">crying from his remaining eye *
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) <a href="https://twitter.com/hasanthehun/status/1164015229585387521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Joe rogan is comedy policing cus pete davidson didn&#8217;t call him a hero LMAO this is brilliant,&#8221; he added.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">joe rogan is comedy policing cus pete davidson didn&#8217;t call him a hero LMAO this is brilliant.
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) <a href="https://twitter.com/hasanthehun/status/1164016067489886208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, lost his eye in an IED explosion during his third deployment in Afghanistan. Crenshaw&#8217;s <a href="https://crenshawforcongress.com/about/">campaign website</a> describes the incident thusly:
<blockquote>On Dan&#8217;s third deployment in 2012, his life changed forever. After six months of combat operations, Dan was hit by an IED blast during a mission in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was evacuated and awoke from his medically induced coma learning that his right eye had been destroyed in the blast and his left eye was still present, but badly damaged. Dan was completely blind and the doctors did not believe he would ever see again. Tara stood by him every day and night, keeping faith and praying he would see again. After several difficult surgeries, he eventually regained sight in his left eye, a miracle according to the head surgeon.</blockquote>
During the same stream, Piker said the United States &#8220;deserved&#8221; to have the Twin Towers targeted by suicide bombers on September 11, 2001, killing 3,000 innocents.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Twitch Streamer who’s (Far Left) says “America deserved 911” <a href="https://twitter.com/Twitch?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Twitch</a> has NOT banned him <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DramaAlert?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DramaAlert</a> <a href="https://t.co/N0ZpcJ90Ia">pic.twitter.com/N0ZpcJ90Ia</a>
— KEEM (@KEEMSTAR) <a href="https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1164176260504969217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
In tweets addressing the remark, Piker wrote: &#8220;Americas foreign policy decisions has lead to 911. this would&#8217;ve been a controversial thing to say in 2001. stop being a f***ing idiot.&#8221;
&#8220;We supplied arms to and trained bin laden. we destabilized the region long before 911. and now we&#8217;re stuck in perpetual war, which dan crenshaw was trying to justify in that clip. it&#8217;s exactly this kind of attitude that has sent thousands of young men and women overseas to die,&#8221; he said in a follow-up tweet.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">we supplied arms to and trained bin laden. we destabilized the region long before 911. and now we’re stuck in perpetual war, which dan crenshaw was trying to justify in that clip. it’s exactly this kind of attitude that has sent thousands of young men and women overseas to die.
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) <a href="https://twitter.com/hasanthehun/status/1164199101044387840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50909/dan-crenshaw-crushes-young-turks-commentator-who-amanda-prestigiacomo">Dan Crenshaw Crushes ‘Young Turks’ Commentator Who Said ‘Brave Soldier F***ed’ His ‘Eye Hole’</a>

Hassan Piker and Dan Crenshaw

The Young Turks’ Hasan Piker Says ‘America Deserved 9/11’, Mocks Dan Crenshaw’s War Injury: ‘Brave Soldier F***ed His Eye Hole’

It seems sexual assault allegations keep cropping up after President Donald Trump nominates someone to an important position.
Trump’s pick to become vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. John Hyten, was accused of sexual misconduct conveniently after he was nominated. Hyten is currently the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees America’s nuclear arsenal.
Once Hyten was nominated, Army Col. Kathryn Spletstoser came forward to accuse him of sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions in 2017. The same major media outlets that ran with the uncorroborated and outlandish accusations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh picked up her story immediately, even though it was investigated twice and found unsubstantiated. The Washington Post leaped to personally interview her and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/a-colonel-accused-a-four-star-general-of-sexual-assault-a-senate-panel-will-decide-what-happens-next/2019/07/28/4a19ccfe-afbd-11e9-a0c9-6d2d7818f3da_story.html">publish her story</a> and suggest the multiple investigations into her claims were not impartial and lacked credibility.
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-truth-about-gen-john-hyten-11565214500?shareToken=sta8bce1ec4e3e4db587025a3f923191d1&amp;reflink=share_mobilewebshare">In The Wall Street Journal</a>, retired U.S. Army major general Heidi Brown – who worked at Stratcom with Hyten and Spletstoser, wrote that the allegations “are discredited by evidence.” She wrote that she reviewed the written record and a redacted report and spoke to those involved. Her timeline of the allegations certainly calls in to question their credibility, as she said Spletstoser confided in her about many things – but never any assault from Hyten.
Brown suggests the allegations stem from an allegation against Spletstoser in late 2017 that called into question her “toxic leadership.” Hyten approved an investigation into Spletstoser, which agreed that she was abusive and threatening toward subordinates. Hyten removed Spletstoser from her position.
Later that same day, police were called to Spletstoser’s home, where she threatened to kill herself if Hyten didn’t reverse his decision within 24 hours. More from Brown:
<blockquote>Beginning in June 2018, Col. Spletstoser launched a dizzying avalanche of charges against her superiors, including Gen. Hyten, his chief of staff, and officers who investigated her. Gen. Hyten told the Armed Services Committee that she made 34 different accusations against the Strategic Command hierarchy: 24 against the chief of staff, six against Gen. Hyten, two against his deputy commander, and two against the officer who investigated her. Charges ranged from conduct unbecoming an officer to misuse of a government cellphone. None of these accusations involved sexual misconduct. None were substantiated by the Army’s Inspector General Office, and the Pentagon’s Inspector General Office validated that conclusion.</blockquote>
It wasn’t until just days after Hyten was nominated by Trump that Spletstoser accused him of sexual assault, according to Brown, adding that this wasn’t the first time Spletstoser had made sexual assault allegations against her superior.
In 2009, Spletstoser accused a commander of sexual harassment after she received a modest rating on her Officer Evaluation Report. The Army Board for the Correction of Military Records deemed her “scorched earth attack” to be mostly “patently specious” and to undermine “her overall credibility.”
The Board also wrote that Spletstoser didn’t offer any witness who could corroborate her account.
Brown also reported that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations “interviewed 53 witnesses in three countries and found insufficient evidence to justify Col. Spletstoser’s nine specific claims of sexual misconduct.” The office did, however, find contradictions. From Brown:
<blockquote>She claimed that damning evidence of Gen. Hyten’s misconduct would be proved by email correspondence. Investigators reviewed 195,000 unique emails preserved by Stratcom servers, and turned up nothing.
She claimed Gen. Hyten called her frequently after her dismissal. A review of phone records Col. Spletstoser provided found no calls between the two after her firing.
She said she did not want to travel with Gen. Hyten due to his unwanted sexual advances. But multiple witnesses claimed she became livid after Gen. Hyten told her she was prohibited from traveling with his detail until her toxic-leadership investigation was resolved. Her screams from his office were loud enough to alarm Gen. Hyten’s personal security detail, who rushed to the office.</blockquote>
Hyten survived a Senate Armed Services Committee vote on his nomination and now goes before the full Senate for confirmation. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) voted against his nomination in committee, claiming the allegations against him were “disturbing.” Gillibrand is part of the “Believe All Women” crowd, which will likely come out in force moving forward on Hyten&#8217;s nomination.
Brown suggested Spletstoser be investigated for making false accusations.

Senate Armed Services Committee Holds A Hearing On Establishing The Space Force

Air Force General Nominated By Trump Accused Of Sexual Misconduct. The Allegations Don’t Pass Scrutiny.

Sexual Assault

On Tuesday, after he spotted men serving in the U.S. Army, Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield reportedly refused a directive to stop signing autographs and come back to the team. Baker took time with every single soldier, signing whatever they&#8217;d asked of him and taking photos with the servicemen.
&#8220;Baker Mayfield was called off the field by the team when autographs were supposed to be over. He refused and signed and took selfies with every soldier remaining on the field,&#8221; Cleveland.com reporter Hayden Grove captioned the video of Mayfield on Twitter.
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Baker Mayfield was called off the field by the team when autographs were supposed to be over. He refused and signed and took selfies with every soldier remaining on the field. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Browns?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Browns</a> <a href="https://t.co/gY8zm525yK">pic.twitter.com/gY8zm525yK</a>
— Hayden Grove (@H_Grove) <a href="https://twitter.com/H_Grove/status/1158785978074632192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 6, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The soldiers told the quarterback of his &#8220;biggest fans&#8221; from other cities and thanked the NFL star for taking the time for them.
The NFL, in recent years, has been plagued by controversial national anthem protests, seen by many Americans as a slight to the men and women who fight for our freedom. As reported last month, former 49er&#8217;s quarterback Colin Kaepernick directed Nike to cancel a Betsy Ross-style American flag shoe. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/nike-nixes-betsy-ross-flag-sneaker-after-colin-kaepernick-intervenes-11562024126">According</a> to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Kaepernick found the Revolution era sneaker &#8220;offensive.&#8221;
Mayfield&#8217;s small nod to those who serve in the U.S. military is a look in the other direction.
Mayfield made headlines in May, too, when he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47159/nfls-baker-mayfield-rips-school-dropping-amanda-prestigiacomo">took a swing</a> at political correctness. The 24-year-old ripped into administration at an Ohio high school for dropping valedictorian and salutatorian honors out of sensitivity to students who don&#8217;t earn the awards and a concern for the overall &#8220;mental health&#8221; of students.
&#8220;This is so dumb,&#8221; he wrote in a tweet captioning the news. &#8220;You&#8217;re telling me competition doesn&#8217;t bring out the best in people? If you want something bad enough, work for it.&#8221;
&#8220;People are too soft,&#8221; added Mayfield.
The message went viral, racking up over 51,000 re-tweets and 242,000 likes.
Despite mild criticism from opponents for his aggressive on-field attitude, the charismatic QB has developed a notable role as a motivator on his own team. In a &#8220;mic&#8217;ed up&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39934/video-micd-browns-qb-baker-mayfield-must-watch-james-barrett">video</a> posted by the Browns in January, Mayfield drops endless silly one-liners, encourages his teammates and celebrates their successes, and even offers to block for his running backs.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39934/video-micd-browns-qb-baker-mayfield-must-watch-james-barrett">VIDEO: Mic&#8217;d Up Browns QB Baker Mayfield Is Must-Watch</a>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47159/nfls-baker-mayfield-rips-school-dropping-amanda-prestigiacomo">NFL’s Baker Mayfield Rips School For Dropping Valedictorian: &#8216;People Are Too Soft’</a>
WATCH:
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