The Department of Health and Human Services hosted Breitbart News and other media on a tour of a facility in El Cajon, California, on Friday where migrant children are being sheltered after being separated from their parents.

The children are separated from their parents — or, to be precise, from the adults accompanying them, who may or may not be their parents — when their parents cross the southern U.S. border illegally and are caught and detained.

Previously, under the “catch-and-release” policy, the adults would be released. Under the “zero tolerance” policy of the Trump administration, the adults are being detained and prosecuted. Children cannot be incarcerated with them.

However, families that arrive together at legal ports of entry and apply for asylum status are generally not split up and are permitted to stay in the U.S. pending the adjudication of their applications (which can take several years).

Democrats and the mainstream media have accused the administration of separating the children of “immigrants” from their parents and imprisoning them in “cages.” On Thursday, CNN analyst and Playboy reporter Brian Karem shouted at White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “These people have nothing. They come to the border with nothing and you throw children in cages.” None of the reporters in the briefing room corrected him.

The facility at El Cajon, however, is not a “cage.” It is a comfortable facility providing lodging, meals, clothing, medical care, education, recreation, counseling, and other services.

It is run by a nonprofit organization called Southwest Key as part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) Program, run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the Administration for Children and Familes (ACF).

The facility is located on a main street in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. It has 65 beds, occupied by boys ages 6 to 17. The rooms are spare, with three to four beds in each; the boys are responsible for cleaning the rooms and making their own beds. There is an outdoor recreation area with picnic tables and a small soccer pitch.

There is a classroom area, and English lessons. The goal is “reunification”: letting each child depart with a legal guardian.

Some 90% of the children at the shelter arrived at the border without adults; the other 10% were separated from the adults accompanying them. Once the children arrive — usually brought by U.S. Border Patrol agents — they are greeted in the “intake” office, where they receive any urgent medical care, are assigned a case worker, and are given food, a shower, and new clothing. They are also given toiletries and lessons in hygiene — literally how to flush a toilet, brush their teeth, and operate the shower, which some of the children may have never seen in their lives.

The children receive six hours of education daily, which include lessons in English and physical education. The boys interact with girls who are housed offsite and brought to the shelter during the day to access its services.

They have limited access to telephones to call relatives, both in the U.S. and abroad. They receive therapy, both as individuals and in group sessions. They enjoy field trips to local museums, parks, and the zoo, where they can explore the city beyond the shelter. And they also have social activities, including a recent “prom” for which they dressed up.

“Cages,” these are not. What is immediately striking about the facility is the enthusiasm and care of the staff who work there. One administrator greeted the journalists on the tour: “Welcome to our home.” The children at the facility seemed genuinely happy, despite their unfortunate circumstances and the trauma of their long journey.

The real scandal is how the media have portrayed the shelters. When MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff toured a similar facility this week in Brownsville, Texas, for example, he referred to the children there as being “incarcerated,” which is only true in the same sense that hospital patients, too, are not permitted to leave, for their safety. (One official who had seen Soboroff’s televised report accused him of “flat-out lying” about the facility — such as, for example, reporting on a mural of Donald Trump without noting 19 other presidents were similarly depicted.)

Southwest Key has operated its facilities — 27 in total, across California, Arizona, and Texas — since 1997, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Flores v. Reno that unaccompanied illegal alien minors could not be held in detention facilities. This is not a new problem, even though it took Trump to make the media realize it existed.

Update: HSS provided a video of the visit:

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Note: the photographs of the tour were provided by HHS after review by officials to ensure the privacy of the children in the shelter. Journalists were not allowed to take their own photos or videos, for the same reason.

This piece has been updated to add the information about field trips, which was inadvertently omitted.

Source: Breitbart

The Trump administration withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday in protest of what it perceives as an entrenched bias against Israel and a willingness to allow notorious human rights abusers as members.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has sought major changes on the council throughout her tenure, issued a blistering critique of the panel, saying it had grown more callous over the past year and become a “protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias.” She cited the admission of Congo as a member even as mass graves were being discovered there, and the failure to address human rights abuses in Venezuela and Iran.

“I want to make it crystal clear that this step is not a retreat from our human rights commitments,” she said during a joint appearance with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the department. “On the contrary. We take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights.”

Haley accused governments with woeful human rights records of seeking seats on the council to avoid scrutiny and then resisting proposals for reform.

“When we made it clear we would strongly pursue council reform, these countries came out of the woodwork to oppose it,” she said. “Russia, China, Cuba and Egypt all attempted to undermine our reform efforts this past year.”

The decision to leave the 47-nation body was more definitive than the lesser option of staying on as a nonvoting observer. It represents another retreat by the Trump administration from international groups and agreements whose policies it deems out of sync with American interests on trade, defense, climate change and, now, human rights. And it leaves the council without the United States playing a key role in promoting human rights around the world.

Now that America is out of the Iran deal, what’s next for US-Iran relations?

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will embark on an “unprecedented” pressure campaign against Iran meant to fundamentally change its foreign policy, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday.

Delivering his first major foreign policy address as top diplomat at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, Pompeo listed 12 sweeping and uncompromising conditions for a new nuclear deal with Tehran after President Donald Trump withdrew from an existing one earlier this month.

“The list is long” because Iran’s activities are bold in scope, the secretary said. “We didn’t create the list – they did.”

Among the demands are a complete end to Iran’s enrichment of uranium, currently allowed at a low level; a “full and public accounting” to the UN of its past experimentation and research on nuclear weapons technology (which Israel revealed through the publication of a trove of Iranian atomic files earlier this month, but which Iran has repeatedly denied); open-ended access for UN inspectors to all sites across Iran at any time, including its military facilities; and closure of its ballistic missile program, which is critical to the delivery of nuclear warheads but which Iran has claimed is defensive in nature.

Pompeo also included demands separate from Iran’s technical nuclear work, including the release of US prisoners held without charges or trial; an end to Iran’s support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad; and a full withdrawal of Iranian troops from Syria.

The list effectively demands a new Iranian government, although regime change was not among the explicit calls in Pompeo’s speech. The secretary claimed the administration is willing to negotiate with the existing regime if it demonstrates a “sustained shift” in its behavior. But he noted the upcoming 40th anniversary next year of the revolution that brought the Islamist government into power, and indicated he does not hold out hope for change at the top. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “will not live forever,” Pompeo said.

“We will apply unprecedented financial pressure on the Iranian regime. The leaders in Tehran will have no doubt about our seriousness,” he added. “The sting of sanctions will be painful if the regime doesn’t change… these will indeed end up being the strongest sanctions in history when we are complete.”

Pompeo acknowledged that European partners currently bristling over Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 accord – formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – will have to “give up economic activity” with an Iran, faced with these new US sanctions.

The European Commission is attempting to implement “blocking statutes” that would protect EU businesses from the harshest secondary US sanctions. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already warned businesses not to have unrealistic expectations over their efficacy. Major French and German corporations have already announced plans to draw down their operations in Iran.

“We cannot continue to create wealth for Qasem Soleimani,” Pompeo said, referring to the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force. “Everyone’s going to have to participate in this.”

The secretary said the administration hopes for an agreement with Iran that could garner enough support in Congress for passage of a formal treaty: two-thirds of the Senate. A bipartisan majority of both houses disapproved of the JCPOA in 2015, but the political agreement was able to stand as an executive plan of action.

Source: Jerusalem Post

We are living in a time when groups of Muslims are engaged in a war against Western civilization.  These groups are numerous and widespread, and although they constitute only a sliver of the larger Muslim population, they rely for their strength on a body of belief inspired by mainstream Islamic thought.

These Islamist groups have their differences, but they all agree about one particular tenet of the religion: sharia must achieve world domination.  Sharia is the immutable, divinely inspired legal code that the religion of Islam embraces.  Even many non-violent Muslims accept the idea that the global destiny for everybody – Muslim and non-Muslim alike – is to be governed according to the principles of sharia law.  Virtually all Muslims accept as inevitable that the laws of sharia will eventually achieve global dominance.  This is expected to occur under the guidance of a universally recognized caliph who will have absolute authority over its implementation.

Jihadist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood and Boko Haram and the many, many others may have lesser agendas that diverge, but on this overarching matter, calling for the imposition of sharia law, they are in solidarity.  Just as most believing Christians accept that Christ is the savior and that the judgment day is coming, the bulk of all Muslims accept the premise that ultimately, sharia law will prevail globally under the guidance of the caliphate.

It is, furthermore, mainstream Islamic thought that all believers are obliged to struggle for the achievement of that ideal condition.  This struggle is referred to as the lesser jihad, and no Muslim can deny its dogma.  Most Muslims give the lesser jihad a low priority in their daily lives, but few are the Muslims who would contend that the lesser jihad has no religious claim.

Sharia law and the caliphate are institutions that most Muslims feel an obligation to accept as expressions of Allah’s will.  The global imposition of sharia law and the caliphate are not distortions of true Islam; they are mainstream ideals that the religion expects all believers to pursue.  Many Muslims secretly admire the jihadists whose personal commitment to establishing sharia under a caliph is glorified by Islam.

The problem for the West is that Muslims view sharia law as the word of Allah, an absolute and uncompromising truth that can never be modified.  What makes the problem intractable is that Muslims accept the superiority of sharia law based on its foundation in faith rather than reason.  Not only do Muslims believe that law must come from Allah, but they reject out of hand the possibility that the existing laws of sharia can evolve as societal conditions change or that any new legal principle can be entertained if it relies on mere reason.

Compounding the problem for the West is the fact that Muslims believe in the caliphate, an absolutist form of governance in which a single individual exercises authority in the name of Allah – comparable to, but even more absolutist than, the old idea of “divine right of kings.”  The caliphate is even more absolutist because Muslims know that there can be only one caliph.

There is, in short, an unbridgeable gulf between Islam and the West, a difference founded in principles and therefore a difference that brooks no compromise.  Islam and the West are irreconcilable.

The West is being attacked by jihadists – Muslims who view the religious obligation to engage in the lesser jihad as a paramount duty.  The groups are many and diverse, but in pursuit of the lesser jihad, they all are united.  They wish to see Islamic law imposed everywhere because they believe that it will be good for the world.

Unfortunately, sharia contains a number of laws that contradict fundamental principles of modern Western civilization, one of which is that individuals have the right to free speech (meaningful only when critical things are said).  In stark contrast, sharia law stipulates that any criticism of Allah or Muhammad is prohibited and should be punished by death.  For everybody, and not just believers, Islam rejects the right of a mere human to engage in such criticism.

Another such principle is that church and state – religion and politics – must be kept separate, and partitioned so effectively that the state (which is responsible for worldly things) cannot interfere in the religious practices of those who follow any particular faith (unless, of course, those practices infringe on the rights of others).  Sharia law is adamant that precisely the opposite approach is the only legitimate one: church and state must be combined, with the tenets of Islam guiding the state and not the other way around.

A third modern Western principle is that people have the freedom to believe in whatever they want.  Religious freedom means not just no government control; it means no obligation to adhere to any sort of orthodoxy.  Sharia law vehemently contradicts this principle: the penalty for apostasy is death, and the price to be paid for failing to accept Islam is death for pagans and second-class citizenship for Christians and Jews.

Finally, Western civilization rests on the idea that government needs to be conducted on the basis of laws enacted by the people and designed using human reason.  In opposition to this, Islam teaches that law has been given to humanity by Allah and is not amenable to change.  Consequently, law designed using human reason is by definition ungodly.

These four examples highlight the fact that Western law and Islamic law are fundamentally incompatible.  When the underlying values of two rival systems are so completely different, it is foolish for either side to even attempt to compromise.

War has been declared on Western civilization by Islamic groups that recognize their own lack of conventional power but believe they can prevail by using terror as a weapon and by relying on the will of Allah.  If the West does not resist in this war, Muslims will continue to populate Europe and North America until their numbers permit peaceful seizure of the existing governments there.  Until that time, jihadists will continue to commit terrorist acts designed to discourage non-Muslims from speaking freely about Allah, Muhammad, and Islam.

Western beliefs are better than those of Islam.  Nonetheless, the West will lose this war and drown in the ocean of history if it does not find the courage to stand up and fight for its superior values.

Fireworks light up the sky over the Philadelphia Museum of Art during an Independence Day celebration, Wednesday, July 4, 2012, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)  (AP)

I am an Australian by birth, an American by choice and a Texan by the grace of God. I live in the greatest country in the world. I run a successful business. Three weeks ago, I married an amazing woman from Florida.

I dreamed all my life of coming to the United States. But no one has ever referred to me as a Dreamer. No politicians or pundits have expended any tears on my behalf. No celebrities have ever taken to Twitter to give me a voice.

The reasons are pretty simple. I came to America legally. I played by the rules.

It took me four years, and it was the most harrowing experience I’ve ever endured. I spent money I didn’t have. I suffered sleepless nights. At one point, I was even turned away at an airport because a political opponent in the Obama administration placed me in a situation where I was barred from traveling in the United States.

But I persisted – the most American virtue of all – and I prevailed.

Less than nine months after moving to the greatest country in the history of the world, I received the ultimate vindication. On March 3, 2017, President Trump took to Twitter to talk about my immigration story and endorsed my book, “Green Card Warrior: My Quest for Legal Immigration in an Illegals’ System.”

I didn’t come to America to let America slip away. I didn’t fight so hard to get into America to watch it become the country I left.

I persisted because I had a dream of living in a country with unlimited opportunity and freedom, that protected the individual, and had few gatekeepers with the power to suppress the success of a young man with promise, passion and a dream.

I founded FLAG – the Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness – because I saw new generations of Americans losing sight of that dream. FLAG works in public schools across America every day to teach civics and put patriotism back in America’s classrooms. We are doing it with unbelievable success and unrivaled impact.

While much energy is expended fighting the left on college campuses, the real battle is in our public schools. The reality is that in 2018, by the time a student sets foot on a college campus, the indoctrination that began on his or her first day of elementary school is nearly irreversible. That’s why we’ve developed reader-friendly student versions of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – to teach the truth while the message can still get through.

It’s the fight FLAG and I are devoted to.

I didn’t come to America to let America slip away. I didn’t fight so hard to get into America to watch it become the country I left.

I came to make sure America becomes greater than it has ever been. To expand the American Dream to reach more people than ever before. This Fourth of July, let’s rededicate ourselves afresh and anew to those principles that make America, as President Reagan said, “a shining city on a hill.”

Americans gifted more money to charities in 2017 than any other year in recorded history, surpassing more than $400 billion in donations!

According to GivingUSA.org Americans set a record in giving in 2017 due to a booming stock market and a strong economy.  All together Americans gave an estimated $410.02 billion in 2017, according to Giving USA 2018: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2017.

Giving exceeded $400 billion in a single year for the first time, increasing 5.2 percent (3.0 percent adjusted for inflation) over the revised total of $389.64 contributed in 2016. (Please see below for a more detailed breakdown of the numbers for each philanthropic source and sector.)

Giving USA, the longest-running and most comprehensive report of its kind in America, is published by Giving USA Foundation, a public service initiative of The Giving Institute. It is researched and written by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI.

“Americans’ record-breaking charitable giving in 2017 demonstrates that even in divisive times our commitment to philanthropy is solid. As people have more resources available, they are choosing to use them to make a difference, pushing giving over $400 billion,” said Aggie Sweeney, CFRE, chair of Giving USA Foundation and senior counsel at Campbell & Company. “Contributions went up nearly across the board, signaling that Americans seem to be giving according to their beliefs and interests, which are diverse and wide-ranging.”

Giving from all four sources and giving to all but one of the major types of recipient organizations grew in 2017, driven by economic conditions. While policy developments may have played some role in charitable giving in 2017, most of the effects of the tax policy changes adopted in late December 2017 likely will affect giving in 2018 and beyond.

“The increase in giving in 2017 was generated in part by increases in the stock market, as evidenced by the nearly 20 percent growth in the S&P 500. Investment returns funded multiple very large gifts, most of which were given by individuals to their foundations, including two gifts of $1 billion or more,” said Amir Pasic, Ph.D., the Eugene R. Tempel dean of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. “This tells us that some of our most fortunate citizens are using their wealth to make some significant contributions to the common good.”

In addition to the S&P 500, other economic factors, such as personal income and personal consumption, are associated with households’ long-term financial stability and have historically been correlated with giving by individuals. These factors also experienced strong growth in 2017.

The report summarized the numbers for 2017 by source –

• Giving by individuals totaled an estimated $286.65 billion, rising 5.2 percent in 2017 (an increase of 3.0 percent, adjusted for inflation).
• Giving by foundations increased 6.0 percent, to an estimated $66.90 billion in 2017 (an increase of 3.8 percent, adjusted for inflation). Data on foundation giving are provided by the Foundation Center.
• Giving by bequest totaled an estimated $35.70 billion in 2017, increasing 2.3 percent from 2016 (a 0.2 percent increase, adjusted for inflation).
• Giving by corporations is estimated to have increased by 8.0 percent in 2017, totaling $20.77 billion (an increase of 5.7 percent, adjusted for inflation).

Americans are the most giving people in history.  Thanks to President Trump’s policies that ignited the economy, charitable giving set a new record in 2017 and due to the tax cuts, the US is expected to set more records in 2018 and beyond.

Source: The Gateway Pundit

I have vivid memories of celebrating Independence Day in my hometown of Pawleys Island, South Carolina. Each Fourth of July I rode on a parade float down Myrtle Avenue, competed in watermelon seed-spitting contests with my cousins and watched colorful fireworks burst over the beach.

But even in my grade school years, I understood that the day when we celebrate our nation’s birth was about much more than the fun associated with it. My parents taught me its significance.

My earliest lesson about why we celebrate the Fourth of July came when I first noticed my father flinching during the beautiful light shows I loved. Mom explained that the fireworks’ bursts triggered terrible memories of the ferocious three-hour battle in Vietnam that cost the lives of two of his men and in which he gave his left arm and eye.

Over the years, Daddy taught me more about his experiences – how he had joined the Marines after seeing someone burn our flag and how he had survived war because Pfc. Ralph Johnson, a selfless Marine on his recon team, threw himself on a grenade to protect his friends. And I began to fall in love with our nation, its brave veterans, and its birthday celebration because of the passion I heard in my father’s voice.

My affection for the Fourth grew as my parents taught me more about our nation’s history. We traveled to Colonial Williamsburg, where costumed re-enactors brought history to life, providing the background I needed to understand why the Declaration of Independence was such an essential and pivotal part of our nation’s history. I loved this immersion in the Revolutionary era.

We also visited Fort McHenry, near where Francis Scott Key penned “The Star-Spangled Banner” after realizing that the Americans had – amazingly – held out against British invaders overnight during the War of 1812. With this visit, our national anthem took on a new life for me.

And we studied relevant family stories together, learning that our ancestor – Jeremiah “Pappy” Vereen – fought in the Revolutionary War and hosted George Washington on the first president’s tour of the southern states. We even discovered that after his overnight stay, Washington wrote about this in his diary.

My parents instilled in me a deep love for American history – our history – that led me to become an active and proud citizen. I want the same for my three children.

President Reagan summed up well the important role parents have in helping their children learn to appreciate our great country: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be … handed on for them … or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our … children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

It’s easy to get caught up in the swimming, shopping, and dazzling fireworks displays that accompany the Fourth. But even as we enjoy the fun, we need to take the time to remember – and to make certain the next generation knows – that it marks the day democracy was born. And that fight was costly. The baton is ours to pass along.

A Gallup poll conducted in June reveals 55 percent of American adults believe the best days for the country are “ahead of us.”

Those who said the best days are “behind us” came in at 41 percent.

The last time Gallup asked this question — December 2012, when President Barack Obama was president — only 47 percent of respondents answered “ahead.” That survey’s results also showed 50 percent of respondents answered “behind.”

The pollster says that Americans are inspired by President Donald Trump’s success in improving the U.S. economy, including the job market.

“The latest data, collected in a June 18-24 Gallup poll, come as satisfaction with the direction of the U.S. has reached a 12-year high, with 38% of Americans saying they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country,” Gallup reports on its poll.

“U.S. adults are also noticing the effects of a robust job market, with about two in three saying it is a good time to find a quality job,” the data firm continues. “By comparison, 23% were satisfied with the direction of the country in December 2012, and 19% said it was a good time to find a job.”

Gallup notes the usual break along party lines when it comes to optimism about America’s future, with about seven in ten Republicans (69%) and 54% of independents responding that the best days for the U.S. are ahead.

“Democrats, however, are split, with roughly equal percentages saying the best days are in the past and in the future,” the report says.

Gallup also notes that self-identified independents — who helped elect Trump in 2016 — represent the biggest shift in the numbers.

“As for independents, a small majority (54%) now say the best days are in the future, but in 2012, the opposite was true — a similarly sized majority (55%) said the best days were in the past,” the report states. “So, this group’s change in views is a big driver behind the change in the national figure.”

The “bottom line,” according to Gallup, is that most Americans believe the best is yet to come.

The poll is based on a random sample of 1,505 telephone interviews of adults 18 or older in 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points and a 95 percent confidence level.

Source: Breitbart

I believe that it is a wonderful time to be American and celebrate the 4th of July in America.

But not everyone seems to think so.  According to a USA Today poll, only 42% of Americans are proud to be Americans.  This, despite the fact that a lot of people from around the world are trying to get in here, and very few of the people who threatened to leave the U.S. if President Trump got elected have kept their promise.  Yet here we are.  Here’s how USA Today reported it, starting with the mush-mouthed headline:

Poll: On the 4th, what symbolizes the best (and worst) of America? It depends whom you ask

A new USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll about patriotism, pegged to this week’s celebration of the Fourth of July, finds an overwhelming majority of those surveyed say they are proud to be Americans.  But they split almost down the middle, 42 percent to 39 percent, when asked whether they are proud of America right now.

I do get a kick out of the federal worker quoted in the article referring to Trump as a totalitarian after he sat through eight years of President Obama.  Here’s what the discontented little fellow had to say:

“This is a very difficult time,” says Daniel Kugler, 66, a federal worker from Washington, D.C., who was among those polled.  “There’s not the norms that used to hold; they are not holding anymore.”  He worries about “a slide toward a totalitarian situation” in which Congress and others are afraid to speak up against President Trump.

As a federal worker, he was obviously extremely proud and happy that Obama was transferring power and money from the rest of the U.S. to the government as fast as he could, and that made the area around Washington, D.C. very wealthy.  It is sad that he and others don’t recognize how harmful that is to the rest of us, or else doesn’t care.

But here’s how I, and most of us in the heartland of America, see it:

I am truly proud to be an American, as I always have been, especially since we now have a president who:

• Has a goal to “Make America Great Again” instead of a president who wants to remake America.
• Is trying to give the power and purse back to the people through fewer regulations and lower taxes instead of a president who does everything he can to make the government more powerful.
• Has given us economic policies that have lowered unemployment rates for blacks and Hispanics to all-time lows instead of a president whose policies encourage people to be more dependent on government.
• Focuses on bringing back manufacturing jobs instead of constantly increasing regulations and declaring manufacturing jobs gone for good.
• Understands that if goods production continually moves to other countries, then eventually the same will come to our service industries, destroying our economy.
• Knows that capitalism is great and allowing corporations to keep more of the money they earn will help achieve economic growth and give people the opportunity to move up the economic ladder.  That beats the confiscation seen in the previous administration.
• Seeks to enforce immigration laws that Congress passed and recognizes that a country without borders is a dangerous country instead of a president who picked and chose which laws to enforce.
• Absolutely never considered ISIS the J.V. team.
• Has not left Americans to die while concocting a lie about a video to protect his political power.
• Has helped Ukraine defend itself against the Russians as we promised to do instead of being “flexible” with the Russians.
• Is pushing NATO countries to pay what they promised to pay, instead of having America bear the brunt of the cost.
• Does not give hundreds of billions of dollars to Iran to spread terrorism around the world, let alone pledges death to Israel and America.
• Keeps a promise to move our embassy to Jerusalem instead of previous presidents, who made empty promises.
• Gives people the freedom of choice of what type of health insurance to buy instead of a president who wants complete government control.
• Does not illegally spy on thousands of Americans, including political opponents.
• Does not use the IRS to stifle the free speech of political opponents.
• Does not have a gun-running operation to service Mexican smuggling cartels called “Fast and Furious.”
• Believes that cities and states should follow laws that Congress passes, including immigration laws.
• Understands that the climate has changed naturally through billions of years instead of a president who is so arrogant that he believes that the government can control temperatures, sea levels, and storm activity forever if people and businesses just fork over trillions of dollars.
• Wants to produce more oil instead of a president who does not care whether the price rises to unsustainable levels.

I am sure people can think of many more things they are currently proud of after eight years of a president who dictatorially bragged that he could rule with a pen and a phone.

Finally, I am extremely thankful and proud that we had Founding Fathers who knew that the power needed to reside in the hands of the people instead of the central government.  They understood that if only the king and the government had guns, they would also have all the power.  We would not be free if the people were unable to arm themselves in the many necessary wars we have had, as well as in other ways, to protect our freedom.

A trade war broke out Friday between the U.S. and China, when the U.S. imposed tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese products and China slapped tariffs on and equal amount of U.S. products. President Trump has said that would prompt the U.S. to impose up to $500 billion in Chinese products.

But things could get worse. The deterioration in U.S.-China relations could escalate and turn into a shooting war between two nuclear armed superpowers. In the worst-case scenario, this could result in massive casualties on both sides that could even lead to nuclear war.

Some will call such a statement pure hype – and I wish it was. But the facts lead us to a dark place when it comes to our relationship with China, which is becoming less of a partnership and more like a fight between mortal enemies looking to gain any advantage they can over the other.

We are all rightly concerned over North Korea’s nuclear weapons, Iran’s penchant for backing terror, and a rogue Russia that can’t seem to stop causing trouble all over the world. But these problems are nothing when compared to the China challenge. No other nation is as able to challenge American power on the world stage in the coming years.

Just look over the current state of affairs in the U.S.-China relationship. We see trade and military stand-offs, territorial disputes, and allies and partners of both nations squaring off or cybersecurity challenges. We see two nations on a collision course that seems more like the Cold War than the 21^st century.

But before we stare war with China in the eye, let’s consider the budding trade battle between Washington and Beijing.

The Trump administration new duties on $34 billion in on Chinese goods amount to a 25 percent tariff. The duties impact items such as X-ray machine parts, water boilers, airplane tires and industrial parts.

China slapped its tariffs on $34 billion worth of U.S. products such as soybeans, electric cars, pork and other products.

But the Trump administration is not ready to back down, and, in fact, seems itching for a scrap.

A senior Trump administration official told me Friday: “We are ready for a trade war. If they want it we are ready to fight it. They need to remember America would win that so-called war, hands-down. Our market is bigger, our consumers richer – we are the global innovator. All we ask is for an even playing field from the Chinese. If they won’t agree to that, then they will have to deal with the consequences.”

When I asked what those consequences were, the official was quite clear: “China will pay a price. We will impose costs on them. They need to be ready for that. We are.”

And one thing is quite clear: Washington does hold an advantage in a trade fight – the numbers don’t lie. America imports much more from China than China imports from the U.S.

And while U.S. consumers and businesses would be hurt in a full-blown trade war, China stands to lose out on a big portion of the $462 billion in goods and services America imports from that nation. Considering the fact that the Chinese economy is already slowing down, Chinese President Xi Jinping would be wise to back off.

But something bigger is afoot here – a seismic shift in international affairs that has been dormant, until now. As I have explained in these very digital pages, the U.S.-China relationship was bound to become adversarial as soon the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

The Soviet threat was the one thing that brought both China and the U.S. together in the 1970s. Beijing saw the confrontation with America coming, and was already beginning to modernize its armed forces and recalibrate its military posture to take on the looming challenge from across the Pacific.

While China certainly did prepare for what it felt was an inevitable encounter with America, time and circumstances seems to put any sort of showdown. Beijing’s ascension to the World Trade Organization in 2001 meant economic ties would grow between both nations quickly – and geopolitical tensions are not good for business.

The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks also meant Washington was forced to shift its attention from Asia and back into the Middle East for over a decade. A true showdown with China was averted – at least for a while.

Unfortunately, it seems the chances of a real clash with China – and even a military confrontation – are now spiking. With America less involved in the daily squabbles of the Middle East and no longer keen on letting Beijing take us to the cleaners on trade, any number of issues could see these two superpowers exchange blows.

For example, China over the last few years has been pushing absurd claims that seek to turn the waters around its coasts into its own sovereign territory. From the East China Sea all the way to South China Sea, Beijing is determined to ensure that is the master of the seas – and push Washington out of the region for good.

To support such claims, Beijing has made some key investments in its military to win a war with America. The centerpiece of this is a missile arsenal that is second to none, and is of such a size that U.S. missile defenses would be overwhelmed many times over.

Firing from shore, China would hope to destroy most of America’s military bases around the region as well as sink any warships as far out as Guam. The worst part of all – thanks to treaty commitments with Russia – is that Washington is unable to counter Beijing’s missile weaponry on land.

And from there it gets even worse. Backed by a massive militia that is nearly impossible to match, a growing navy armed with aircraft carriers and an air force that is producing fighter planes that strangely look like our very own stealth aircraft – because China stole the technology – Beijing’s claims in Asia are only growing more outrageous.

At one point a few years ago, it seemed China was even making veiled claims to Okinawa, a clear part of Japanese territory that is home to a massive U.S. military presence. Such claims have even fostered parody articles saying that China has claimed most of the Pacific and Hawaii, almost fooling an entire conference at Yale University a few years ago.

History tells us that nations with divergent interests and competing geopolitical goals with enough proximity tend to clash. In fact, as Harvard Professor Graham Allison reminds us, in 12 out of 16 cases studies where a rising power competed with an established power – think China vs. America – war was the result.

Therefore, when talk of a trade war with China heats up, I think of a very different type of war. And you should too.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo left for North Korea bearing an unusual gift for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un from President Trump: an Elton John CD with his song “Rocket Man.”

As Korean media reports, a Washington diplomatic source in Washington said, “The ‘Rocket Man’ CD was the subject of discussion during Trump’s lunch with Kim. Kim mentioned that Trump referred to him as ‘rocket man’ when tensions ran high last year. …Trump then asked Kim if he knew the song and Kim said no.”

Trump reportedly wrote a message on the CD and signed it.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported, “The United States appears to have shelved an ‘all or nothing’ approach to North Korean denuclearization as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo prepares to head back to North Korea this week hoping to agree a roadmap for its nuclear disarmament.”

Korean media stated that Pompeo will likely discuss the details of returning the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War as well as the timing of the North’s dismantlement of the Tongchang-ri missile engine test site and permission for U.S. monitors to observe the process.

Trump called Kim “Rocket Man” during an address to the U.N. General Assembly on September 19, 2017, saying, “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

Four days later, he tweeted;

Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017

Source: The Daily Wire

President Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit on July 7, 2017, in Hamburg. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seemingly failed to gain a single concession from North Korea after meetings Friday and Saturday in the communist nation’s capital of Pyongyang to discuss America’s demand that the North get rid its nuclear weapons.

In fact, it seems both sides can’t even agree on what was discussed or how the talks went, with the North now even threatening to walk away from its vague pledge to denuclearize.

Following Pompeo’s talks with high-ranking North Korean government official Kim Yong Chol, North Korea accused the Trump administration of making a “unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization” that was “deeply regrettable.”

In marked contrast, Pompeo called the talks “productive” and said: “These are complicated issues, but we made progress on almost all of the central issues.” However, Pompeo did not specify what progress was made.

Tellingly, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un – who rules with an iron fist and is the only one with the power to approve substantive concessions to the U.S. – did not even meet with Pompeo Friday or Saturday, although he has met with Pompeo before. That alone is evidence that Pompeo walked away from the talks largely emptyhanded.

This disappointing trip by the secretary of state can only mean one thing: The Trump administration has reached the same point that every other U.S. administration – Democrat and Republican – has reached with North Korea. When negotiations get to the point where North Korea must make concessions on its nuclear program that are substantive, officials from the North cry foul – and walk away.

Kim Jong Un seems to be carrying on a tradition in international relations begun by his grandfather and father, who ruled North Korea before him: lie, lie and lie again – and drag out talks with adversaries as long as possible without making any real concessions.

Mike Pompeo is not naive. In fact, the New York Times reported Saturday: “Privately, Mr. Pompeo has said that he doubts Mr. Kim will ever give up his nuclear weapons. And those doubts have been reinforced in recent days by intelligence showing that North Korea, far from dismantling its weapons facilities, has been expanding them and taking steps to conceal the efforts from the United States.”

North Korea is truly the land of lousy options. I fear we are headed right back to the brink with North Korea, all over again.

All this places the Trump administration in an awful bind. Clearly, we have reached a fork in the road when it comes to our dealings with Kim Jong Un that is looking more and more like a dead end.

After countless mid- and lower-level contacts between U.S. and North Korean officials, three sets of face-to-face talks between Pompeo and North Korean officials – and a historic summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un in Singapore June 12 – America has received nothing but an ambiguous statement signed by Kim and President Trump in Singapore.

In that statement Kim reaffirmed his past pledge to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” without even defining what that means.

President Trump made a major concession simply by meeting with Kim, and then by halting joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea – a long-sought North Korean goal.

Once again, Pyongyang is following its tried and true diplomatic playbook of pocketing concessions and stalling for time.

This is where things get hard and the stakes jump dramatically. For there are only three possible paths for the Trump administration now, all of which are unappealing.

Option 1: A full U.S. military assault on North Korea to rid the world of Kim’s weapons of mass destruction.

Clearly, as I have laid out in these pages on several occasions, this a very risky gambit. There is virtually no way even our superpower-sized military can guarantee the destruction of as many as 65 nuclear weapons that North Korea is believed to possess.

North Korea’s nukes are scattered around the country and likely deep underground – so they can’t be destroyed in one bombing raid on a single target.

Following a U.S. attack on the North, Kim would have every incentive to counterattack with whatever nuclear weapons he has left – as well as his countless tons of chemical and as biological weapons. That would ensure that Seoul, Tokyo and maybe even Hawaii and major cities on America’s West Coast become the largest graveyards in human history.

This option if so horrific it is unlikely to be used by the U.S.

Option 2: A U.S. policy of containment of North Korea on steroids, or what the Trump administration called “maximum pressure.”

The idea of this option would be to cut North Korea off from the world diplomatically and economically.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley would call for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, demanding a full export ban on North Korea, as well as the halting of all natural resources (such as oil) going to the North.

Unfortunately, the maximum pressure campaign could be tough to put back in place, because it would be completely dependent on China, which is not exactly happy with the Trump administration these days after President Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese imports and launched a trade war Friday.

With 90 percent or more of North Korea’s exports rolling through China in one form or another, it seems highly unlikely that Beijing has any incentive to help Washington.

China will now use North Korea as a bargaining chip on trade and perhaps even other disputes it has with the U.S. and other nations – such as Chinese territorial claims to Taiwan and parts of the South China Sea and East China Sea.

And there is already evidence to suggest Beijing won’t enforce existing sanctions on North Korea for long – and might already have started to pull back.

Option 3: Accepting North Korea as a nuclear power and moving on to deal with the bigger threat of containing China.

Since America already deals with other nations that have nuclear weapons – Russia, China, Britain, France, India, Pakistan and Israel – reality may dictate that we must reluctantly accept North Korea as a member of the nuclear club.

President Trump would surely be attacked on the right for being soft and on the left for changing his position if he accepts North Korean nukes, but doing this would allow the U.S. to increase its diplomatic efforts all over Asia to push back against the growth of Chinese power.

Also, with the nuclear issue removed and Kim Jong Un feeling secure – knowing that his regime has the ultimate insurance policy in place – many of the other security challenges the North poses to the U.S. could be settled once and for all.

For example, a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War – halted by an armistice in 1953 – could be signed.

There could be major arms control agreements signed limiting the size, scope and scale of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, with international inspectors on the ground to ensure any promises made are promises kept.

The U.S. and South Korea could even remove economic sanctions on North Korea, allowing billions of dollars of investment to flow into the North. This might allow America and its allies a greater say in Pyongyang’s affairs – and maybe even dilute Beijing’s control.

But this all comes at a price. Accepting a nuclear North Korea could set off an arms race in the region, with Japan and South Korea possibly someday opting for their own nuclear weapons arsenals and increased missile defenses platforms. This could make China nervous, ensuring Beijing builds up its atomic arsenal and missile defenses as well.

Clearly, as many Asia hands love to point out, North Korea is truly the land of lousy options. We know one thing for certain: when it comes to Kim Jong Un, nothing is certain. Even after the Trump administration made important concessions, the North does not seem any closer to giving up its nukes.

I fear we are headed right back to the brink with North Korea, all over again.

President Trump on Sunday praised the U.S. for its role in the rescue of members of a youth soccer team from a cave in Thailand.

“The U.S. is working very closely with the Government of Thailand to help get all of the children out of the cave and to safety,” he tweeted. “Very brave and talented people!”

The U.S. is working very closely with the Government of Thailand to help get all of the children out of the cave and to safety. Very brave and talented people!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8, 2018

This is Trump’s first comment on the rescue, and he did not provide specifics on the U.S.’s role in it. The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

A team of military personnel from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is assisting Royal Thai Navy SEAL divers in the search and rescue, along with elite British divers and other Thai military.

The president’s tweet came soon after several reports that the first boys had been successfully extracted from the Tham Luang cave complex.

The first members of the team were extracted from the cave Sunday, about eight hours after the rescue efforts began.

The rescue of all 12 boys and their coach could take days, according to officials.

Source: The Hill

KIEV, Ukraine—Russia’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced that a new weapon is very near completion of its test validation trials and will soon be placed into service.
If reports of its operational performance are accurate, it will threaten the survivability of every U.S. combat aircraft currently in service—particularly the newest U.S. fighter, the Lockheed Martin F-35.

The weapon is the Vympel R-37M air-to-air missile. Launched from a fighter aircraft, it is designed to hit targets at ranges of up to 188 miles, its warhead section contains 132 lbs of explosive material, and it is reported to be capable of speeds of up to Mach 6.

This missile gives Russian aircraft an advantage over U.S. combat aircraft in both speed and reach. The most advanced versions of the US-made Raytheon AIM-120 air-to-air missile top out at about Mach 4 and have a range of only about 110 miles.

Defense planners are alarmed at the number of fighters Russia plans to fit with this weapon.

The missiles that preceded the R-37M had been exclusive to the weapons fit for the Mikoyan MiG-31 aircraft. The MiG-31 mission was almost entirely dedicated to shooting down U.S. strategic bombers and other large aircraft that might pose a threat to Russian air space, so these missiles were typically not often seen outside of Russian territory.

However, according to MoD sources, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKO) are planning for Sukhoi model aircraft Su-30, Su-35, and Su-57 to all operate with the R-37M, in addition to the MiG-31. The missile will therefore be capable of being fired at almost any U.S. military aircraft in numerous theaters of operation worldwide and not just within Moscow’s territorial airspace.

The announcement has elicited nervous reactions from defense ministries and air staff commands from Poland to America’s allies in Asia. The only missile in the western arsenal that comes close to matching the Russian R-37M in speed and range is the ramjet motor-powered Meteor produced by the European consortium MBDA, which is not deployed on any U.S. aircraft.

There are also no missiles currently in the U.S. arsenal that match this Russian weapon’s performance. This has several nations asking if they should look at a purchase of the Swedish Saab JAS-39 Gripen fighter, which has Meteor already integrated into its fire control system.

Su-30SM and Su-35 model aircraft are operated by Russia’s military along the borders with NATO. Su-30 aircraft have buzzed U.S. warships and aircraft in both the Black Sea and in the Baltics, both aircraft were sold and are operated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force in China, and the VKO have also based them at the Russian military aerodrome in Latakia, Syria—where they are frequently in close proximity to U.S. forces. There have been rumors for years of an impending sale of either Su-30SM or Su-35 or both to Iran in large numbers.

Defense experts are concerned about how soon the R-37M will be in service with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Chinese Su-35 aircraft have been seen recently transiting Novosibirsk while flying back to Russian flight test facilities further to the West. Speculation is that some of the aircraft are returning to evaluate having this new weapon added to their Su-35s.

Russian sources describe the guidance system on the R-37Ms as being equipped with a high technology “brain” that is “immune to jamming from electronic warfare systems.”

The F-35 is one of the aircraft most vulnerable to this new weapon, an air combat specialist told the Washington Free Beacon. “The aircraft does not supercruise and does not have the ‘acceleration to escape speed’ that other aircraft are capable of. The F-35’s stealth characteristics have also been designed to contend with an increasingly older generation of threats, which means the aircraft is more detectable to newer sensors and weapon systems.”

This is a serious concern for the future of America’s allies. Japan and South Korea are both F-35 customers and both have to contend with China’s PLAAF on a regular basis. The F-35 is also being marketed to nations directly threatened by Russia such as Finland and Poland.

A former MBDA official told the Free Beacon that plans are in the works to try to even the score by integrating the Meteor missile on the F-35, but not until 2024 or later.

Source: The Washington Free Beacon

U.S. President Donald J. Trump went right to work in Brussels at the NATO summit Wednesday morning, taking truculent Germany to task for coming to the United States for defence, while simultaneously paying billions of dollars to the Russian Federation for energy.

Speaking at a bilateral breakfast meeting with the Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg, President Trump was blunt, calling out Germany for taking from NATO with one hand while giving to Russia with the other.

Bilateral Breakfast with NATO Secretary General in Brussels, Belgium… pic.twitter.com/l0EP3lzhCM

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2018

Bringing up the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Europe and how dependent it will make Germany and other European nations on imported Russian gas — which in a crisis could easily be turned off at source by the Russian government as happened with Crimea — the President said Germany was becoming “captive to Russia”.

Talking to Stoltenberg over the breakfast table, the President said: “…it is very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes and pays out billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia. We’re protecting Germany, we’re protecting France, we’re protecting all of these countries.”

Referring to Gerhard Schröder, the former German Chancellor who sits on the board of the Nord Stream 2 energy company, Trump continued: “The former Chancellor of Germany is the head of the pipeline company that’s supplying the gas… Germay is totally controlled by Russia — they will be getting 60-70 per cent of their energy and a new pipeline… I think it’s not [appropriate] and it’s a very bad thing for NATO…. I think we have to talk to Germany about that. And by the way, Germany is just paying a bit over one per cent, whereas the United States is paying in actual numbers 4.2 per cent of actual GDP [towards defence].

“We’re paying a lot of money to protect, this has been going on for decades… it’s very unfair to our country, it’s very unfair to our taxpayers… these countries need to step it up, not over a ten year period, but immediately.”

Trump’s comments on GDP spending on defence are likely to reflect the broader tone of the summit, which has long been anticipated as an opportunity for the President to encourage his fellow leaders into meeting their NATO treaty obligations to mutual defence, by spending at least two per cent on the military each. Most member states do not presently hit that minimum level.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was not invited to the breakfast, later responded to Trump’s criticism, stating that Germany was independent of Russia, despite their predicted increase in reliance on Russian energy imports. She said: “I am very happy that today we are united in freedom, the Federal Republic of Germany. Because of that we can say that we can make our independent policies and make independent decisions. That is very good, especially for people in eastern Germany.”

Oliver JJ Lane is the editor of Breitbart London — Follow him on Twitter and Facebook

Source: Breitbart

Leaders of member nations that belong to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) pledged their “unwavering commitment” to increasing their defense funding of the organization after President Donald Trump slammed the group for treating the United States unfairly.

The commitment from European leaders came after Trump publicly embarrassed NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg during a meeting early on Wednesday morning. Fox News reports:

The U.S. and European allies signed a declaration stating they are “committed to improving the balance of sharing the costs and responsibilities of alliance membership.”

The declaration comes after confrontational and testy discussions between Trump and other NATO leaders.

“So, we’re protecting Germany, we’re protecting France, we’re protecting all of these countries,” Trump said. “And then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they’re paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia. So, we are supposed to protect you against Russia.”

“You tell me if that is appropriate.” Trump continued. “This has been going on for decades. This has been brought up by other presidents, but other presidents never did anything about it.”

“It’s very unfair to our country, it’s very unfair to our taxpayers,” Trump told Stoltenberg. “And I think that these countries have to step it up not over a 10 year period— they have to step it up immediately.”

A Tuesday report from Forbes revealed that the U.S. spends more than double in defense spending for NATO than all other NATO members spend combined.

The United States' defense spending is more than double what every other NATO member spends on defense – combined.

US defense spending accounts for 72% of NATO's total defense spending.https://t.co/XzDj5f3v3E pic.twitter.com/D5MoR7Mxed

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 11, 2018

Trump continued hammering NATO after the early morning meeting, tweeting:

What good is NATO if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and energy? Why are there only 5 out of 29 countries that have met their commitment? The U.S. is paying for Europe’s protection, then loses billions on Trade. Must pay 2% of GDP IMMEDIATELY, not by 2025.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2018

National Review noted that Trump suggested that “a commitment of 4 percent would be required to achieve parity with U.S. defense expenditures.

NATO pledges to boost defense spending after stern words from Trump https://t.co/3c3DEHPn0a pic.twitter.com/8aW95klk0p

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 12, 2018

Source: The Daily Wire

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was conceived as a mutual defense pact against possible Soviet aggression in Europe following WWII, and the U.S., under President Harry Truman’s initiative, became one of the original twelve members in 1949. The unwillingness of the USSR to withdraw from various Eastern European countries at the end of WWII (which countries were then referred to by Winston Churchill as “behind the Iron Curtain”) gave considerable credibility to the idea that a mutual defense pact was needed in Europe.  Such a pact would only make sense with U.S. membership since our infrastructure and economy had not been devastated by the War, and in fact in many ways had flourished.

Although the underlying rationale for NATO was known to be anti-communist/anti-USSR, there are no statements to that effect in the actual NATO treaty. Fear and realism coalesced to lead to NATO’s creation.  Josef Stalin was still alive, and his ruthlessness and hatred for capitalism as well as his disregard for human life and paranoia were already well known.  Every reasonable person knows that you can only contain maniacs with force, not with friendliness. Thus, NATO was an important instrument of a policy known as containment (of communism) first enunciated by George F. Kennan after WWII, and subsequently adopted by President Truman.

In 1949, there were 12 members of NATO.  Now there are 29 members, and among them are numbered eleven countries that formerly were controlled by the USSR or part of Yugoslavia.  The Warsaw Pact was formed in 1955 to counter the perceived “threat” of NATO.  Six of the members of the former Warsaw Pact are now members of NATO.  Thus, there has been a complete turnaround and revamping of the polarization that made NATO necessary in the first place. To this writer, this dramatic reconfiguration as well as the collapse of the USSR means that the very need for NATO is in fact a legitimate question.

Additionally, one of the member states, Turkey, is only partially located in Europe, with the greatest part of its land mass and population in Asia. With Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s shift away from democratic values, the legitimacy of Turkey’s membership in NATO is also dubious.  His power grabs would seem to conflict with the phrase in Article III whereby NATO exists for “strengthening… free institutions.” Although NATO was a bulwark against Soviet expansion, no wars with the Soviets were fought by NATO, and its active combat was limited to two interventions in Bosnia and Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and with the U.S. in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. There was also NATO implementation of a no-fly zone over Libya in 2011, and there were a few other limited engagements.

However, NATO has had anything but a smooth road.  Few remember that France dropped out of NATO for thirty years when it became a nuclear power. The French did not like the controls the U.S. had over nuclear weaponry in the NATO arsenal.

Although President Donald Trump’s critics point out that his open and unedited criticisms of NATO are a threat to U.S. commitment to the all-important Article V of the treaty, which commits each member to come directly to the aid of any other member that is attacked, it seems that this concern about undermining Article V is mere carping.  It is carping because treaty obligations do not supersede a country’s sovereign responsibilities to its citizens.  Those responsibilities are financial as well as military.  The existence of a treaty does not amount to an abrogation of the member state’s sovereignty.  Even if a member of NATO were attacked, would our planes just take off and start bombing the attacker?  Would our troops just be loaded automatically into planes and ships to fight and die in the victim state’s land?  Similarly, does our membership imply that we just pay and pay disproportionately forever, irrespective of the other members’ abilities to pay, and the financial stresses we as a country are experiencing?  Such a view is not only untenable, but pathetic.  Treaty obligations cannot be treated as though they are an abrogation of sovereignty.

More important is the presence in Article II of the statement “They will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them.”  Trump is asserting that economic collaboration has not been maintained by the member states of NATO insofar as there has been a lack of commitment by most member states to the economic needs of the organization.  This subject has been broached before with NATO, but has not been brought into the public square by past presidents.  Yet, as an Article II issue, it is just as essential to the well-being of NATO as Article V.  Financial support is evidence of commitment.  Thus, Trump is not diluting U.S. commitment, but exposing the lack of commitment to NATO by most of the member states. The U.S. is committing 3.4% of its GDP to support NATO whereas most members have not even reached the goal of 2%, which they said they would reach by 2024.  Is that really the best they can do after 73 years of post-WWII recovery?

Further, Article I of the NATO treaty states:  “The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”  Thus, NATO from its inception was linked to the purposes of the United Nations, which the United States is also funding in a disproportionate way.  In short, global cooperation to reduce aggressions in the world increasingly looks like a manipulation of U.S. finances to buy peace, and to evade individual nation-state responsibility.

Yet, to Lt. Col. (ret.) Ralph Peters, appearing on Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN, Trump’s demands make the President an unworthy basket case.   He stated, “We’re faced with the real, immediate and perhaps irreparable damage to this greatest of alliances, NATO.”  While the President tends toward hyperbole and overdramatizing his positions — part of his showmanship ability of drawing public attention to his words and projects — his position regarding funding as evidence of commitment to NATO or the UN is not only reasonable, but consistent with the treaty that binds the signees to their common goals.  U.S. generosity such as the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII has gradually morphed into the U.S. becoming a cash cow for the world community.  This is both unwise and unsustainable, and our President is showing he is determined to shift us away from the unfair burdens which we have embraced.

Source: American Thinker

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for his meeting with “counterpart” U.S. President Donald Trump, a day after he described a scheduled summit between the two leaders as “difficult.”

Putin and Trump are entering their first formal, in-person summit in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday with a varied, somewhat open agenda, expecting to range from Iran’s role in the Syrian Civil War to Russia’s belligerence against post-Soviet states to the ongoing negotiations to attempt to denuclearize North Korea.

Peskov has not elaborated on what the topics on the docket will be Monday for the two leaders. On Friday, he responded to President Trump’s assessment that he and Putin are, “in a sense,” “competitors” because they are meeting to seek the best interests of their respective countries.

“He’s not my enemy. Hopefully someday, maybe he’ll be a friend,” Trump told reporters.

“[Putin sees Trump as] the President of the United States, a counterpart in the negotiations scheduled for Monday,” Peskov said Friday, according to the Russian news outlet TASS.

Peskov said only a little more on Thursday, lamenting that negotiations with Trump “will be difficult.” He added, however, the faint optimism that relations will probably not worsen: “you know the extent of the disagreements on the agenda, so it’s unlikely that anything else can complicate it now.”

President Trump has been slightly more detailed with the press on what he expects to discuss with Putin on Monday. Speaking to reporters at a press conference following the NATO summit Thursday, Trump said he was “not looking for so much” out of the meeting as much as having frank conversations with Putin.

“We want to find out about Syria … We’ll be talking about Ukraine,” Trump noted, appearing to refer to the ongoing war in that country triggered by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine’s east. Putin’s government invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014, subsequently continuing provocative actions such as constructing bridges in the region to keep Ukrainian ships out. Ukraine is a NATO member and, should they invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty in its conflict with Russia, the United States would be treaty-bound to defend Ukraine.

Trump noted that it was “very interesting to hear” Ukraine’s complaints about Russia.

In addition to those two topics, Trump told reporters that he would “of course ask your favorite question about [election] meddling,” though he added, “All I can do is ‘Did you?’ and ‘Don’t do it again.’”

Since Trump’s remarks, the Department of Justice issued 12 new indictments against Russian nationals affiliated with the nation’s military intelligence apparatus for allegedly using “spearphishing” techniques to hack into the email accounts of major players in the Democratic Party during the 2016 presidential election. The indictments make clear that no Americans were found to have had any knowing involvement in the scheme.

In remarks Thursday, Trump did not mention North Korea, though various experts suggest that it will be inevitable for the two leaders to discuss the ongoing talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

“Trump will mention North Korea [to Putin] to ensure that all parties are aware of his intended outcome,” Tony Nash, founder and chief economist at analytics firm Complete Intelligence, told CNBC Friday. “Every little bit of influence and information helps with North Korea.”

Putin will welcome a North Korean soccer delegation this weekend for the FIFA World Cup final, according to North Korea’s state Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Adding a wrinkle to Trump-Putin talks, the United States also formally accused Russia and China of violating United Nations sanctions on Thursday and selling North Korea oil, helping to prop up the communist regime and making it easier for dictator Kim Jong-un to resist denuclearization.

Syria appears to be the topic on which Trump has the most to gain from Putin. Russia has long supported dictator Bashar al-Assad in the country against largely Sunni Muslim rebel opposition, allying with Iran in the process. Over the past several weeks, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appear to have developed a united front in convincing Russia that Iran is an unreliable ally, in part because it is an Islamic theocratic dictatorship and the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. Under Putin, the Russian Orthodox Christian Church has grown increasingly influential because the Russian leader has made the argument publicly that Russia should be a protector state of the world’s Christians, particularly Syrian Christians.

Netanyahu, who enjoys friendly relations with Putin despite ally Iran’s consistent threats to destroy Israel, spent some time this week with Putin in Moscow, making the argument that Iran’s and Russia’s goals in Syria are incompatible. Netanyahu i reporotedly especially concerned about Assad’s control moving closer to the Israeli border and bringing Iranian troops and terrorist Hezbollah forces with it.

According to a report in YNet News, Israeli government officials are optimistic that Putin will be receptive. One official told the news outlet that a “realistic opportunity has been created to push Iran out of Syria.”

“It’s not wishful thinking. Russia, too, is not fond of Iranian presence in Syria, and even Assad understands that the Iranians are exploiting him to promote their own interests in the area. Therefore, it is important to coordinate with the Russians and others involved in this conflict,” the anonymous source said.

Ending an alliance with Iran may not necessarily require Putin, who has spent much of his domestic political capital on his involvement in the Syrian civil war, to abandon Assad, as the Trump administration has diminished the emphasis that predecessor Barack Obama placed on removing Assad from power. Assad has also largely avoided conflict with Christian communities, using them for propaganda purposes.

“With Assad’s removal from power no longer an actively sought objective, the focus has shifted to Iran’s influence in Syria,” the Associated Press notes in an analysis Friday. As of this week, Assad – on the brink of losing the war before Russia’s involvement – now controls the southern rebel stronghold Daraa, where the uprising against him began. The Islamic State is almost entirely eradicated in the country, thanks to the world of American troops and Syrian Kurdish militias – and not to Iranian or Russian forces.

Russia has outwardly given no signs that it is open to ending its alliance with Iran in Syria. On the contrary, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that any removal of Iranian troops from Syria was “absolutely unrealistic.” A panicked Iran responded to speculation through adviser Ali Akbar Velayati on Friday, who insisted only Assad could convince Iran to withdraw from Syria.

Trump and Putin will meet on July 16 in Helsinki, Finland.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

Source: Breitbart

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin briefly spoke to cameras before beginning a one-on-one meeting Monday that Trump said would include discussion of nuclear arms, China, and hopes of building an “extraordinary relationship.”

Trump and Putin met at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, to give opening statements before beginning their closed-door private meeting. Trump remarked that the U.S. and Russia have “not been getting along very well for the last number of years” and highlighted their common ground in their “mutual friend” the Chinese President.

President Putin spoke first to the cameras and to Trump through an interpreter. According to the interpreter, he opened with pleasantries about meeting with President Trump on Finnish soil. His brief remarks were followed by President Trump’s.

Trump said that he watched the final and semi-finals of the World Cup that were held in Russia and congratulated Putin on a “really great World Cup, one of the best ever.”

President Trump said he and Putin have a lot of “good things” to discuss, “everything from trade to military to missiles to nuclear, to China.” He mentioned their “mutual friend” Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“I think we have great opportunities together as two countries that frankly we have not been getting along very well for the last number of years. I’ve been here not too long,” said Trump. “I think we will end up having an extraordinary relationship. I hope so. I’ve been saying it and I’m sure you’ve heard over the years and as I campaigned that getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing.”

“I think the world wants to see us get along. We are the two great nuclear powers. We have 90 percent of the nuclear and that’s not a good thing, it’s a bad thing,” said Trump turning his attention from the cameras toward Putin. “And I think we hopefully can do something about that because it’s not a positive force, it’s a negative force. So we’ll be talking about that among other things.”

“With that, the world waits and I look forward to our personal discussion,” said Trump who noted that their expanded teams would join then after their one-on-one meeting concludes. “We all have a lot of questions and hopefully we will come up with answers, most importantly.”

“It’s great to be with you,” Trump said before sharing a firm handshake with Putin.

Trump has previously said that he will talk with Putin about Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Syria, Ukraine and the Russian annexation of Crimea, the Middle East, and nuclear proliferation. The U.S. President has also made clear that they are not going in with high expectations for this meeting.

President Trump comes into the meeting with Putin after last week’s NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, where Trump pushed for and many NATO partners agreed to increase their defense spending at a faster rate.

Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook

Source: Breitbart