[American Thinker] Volodymyr Zelensky was wiping his face from the crumbs of a 125-million-dollar meal, fed to him by the Pentagon between March and July of 2019, when he spoke to President Trump on July 25.
The president needs better legal counsel, as do the American people. The current impeachment illusion is based on a pandemic mirage. The nation has been hypnotized to believe that $391.5 million for Ukraine was held back, frozen, slow-walked, canceled, or subject to a nefarious threat by Trump. Wake up, America. Every penny of Ukraine monetary aid, the alleged carrot dangled before Zelensky, was spent on time, according to law, before, during, and after the July 25 call.
The Department of Defense certified Ukraine reforms in a May 23, 2019 letter from John C. Rood to Congress, but this certification was only necessary to release the second $125-million tranche. Read the letter. The tables therein refer to that $125 million as "Tranche 2." So what happened to the first $125 million? It was already spent on Ukraine before the July 25 phone call with Zelensky.
On February 28, Rood wrote to Congress about the first $125 million. He informed Congress the Pentagon was going ahead with this money for Ukraine. It was spent by July to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression. This is the real reason why neither Zelensky nor any other Ukraine official knew that assistance was "held up." The money was flowing freely to them, never subject to nefarious Trump subterfuge. How do I know this? It's hiding in plain sight.
#1
It appears contracted arms in the pipeline continued to arrive. The 55 day delay might have eventually impacted future deliveries. No word on the Obama approved blankets and MRE's.
#2
This could have ended the moment Zelensky said there was no quid pro quo. He could have made things clearer if he wanted. A statement like 'Trump never threatened to withhold anything' would have been the correct thing to do. But there he is making obtuse statements like 'We are feeling left out' and 'US doesn't understand our problems'.
#4
what Trump actually did was sound grumpy in Washington about giving aid to Ukraine.
He told that to Senator Johnson.(but he added:'you will like what we will do')
This I think had the effect of making Democrats enthusiastic about thwarting him, by voting for more aid, and indeed 250k in lethal aid was approved by Congress for fiscal year 2020. Having already sent the smaller amount approved for lethal aid in 2019, he then, following the dictate of Congress. approved more lethal aid on the day that fiscal year 2020 began.
Diplomatically, this allows Trump to tell Putin this was Congress and not himself that did this, and further satisfied Zelensky.
So was Trump's grumpiness about helping Ukraine real, or put on to get Democratic support for it?
Posted by: Daniel ||
11/21/2019 17:07 Comments ||
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[Summit] Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán says that the situation in western Europe means that the continent must look to central European countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic for a bright future.
Orbán gave a speech in Prague on Sunday in memory of the 1989 Velvet Revolution in 1989, which saw the end of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia.
"Thirty years ago we thought that Europe was our future, but today we think we are Europe’s future, and we are ready for this mission," said Orbán.
The Prime Minister warned that globalists in western Europe are currently in the process of wiping out a European society based on nation states and Christian culture and that central European countries were standing up to this.
"We want to live as free nations, not as provinces or subordinates to empire," said Orbán, adding, "We are Central European Democrats. Therefore, we must defend the sovereignty of nation states, because if we abandon it, it will mean the end of democracy."
One way Orbán is trying to rebuild his country is by encouraging its citizens to have children in order to eliminate the need for mass immigration.
Hungary is offering €30,600 to married couples who have three or more children.
A married couple receives the €30,600 as a loan from the government upon getting married. The loan then has to be repaid until the couple has three children. At this point, the debt is completely forgiven.
The impact of pro-family policies in Hungary has been massive.
Abortions dropped from 40,449 to 28,500 from 2010 to 2017, divorces fell from 23,873 in 2010 to 18,600, and marriages increase by a huge 42 percent. Another reason Soros and Democrats (BIRM) hate him
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/21/2019 8:55 Comments ||
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#6
>Soon after the Immigration Act of 1965 was passed, real wages of low-skilled workers soon stopped growing and have gone nowhere ever since. The incomes of the rich, however, accelerated upward.
[Free Beacon] Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) on Wednesday called for more Americans to serve in the military despite her support for military budget cuts.
Asked if the percentage of Americans serving in the military should be higher during the Democratic debate in Atlanta, Warren responded "yes." But the senator has promised to "take a sharp knife" to America's military budget as president, telling reporters in September, "if the question is, ’do I think we should cut the military budget,' the answer's yes."
Although Warren eventually mentioned inducing more people to "serve in our federal lands to help rebuild our national forests," the bulk of her answer centered around her brother's deployment to Vietnam, which has featured heavily in the Massachusetts senator's stump speech.
"I think the notion of shared service is important," Warren said. "It's how we help bring our nation together ... It's also about how families share that sacrifice."
"I remember what it was like when I was a little girl," Warren continued. "My brother, my oldest brother who served five and a half years off and on in combat in Vietnam, what it was like for my mother every day to check the mailbox."
Warren's Medicare for All proposal calls for $800 billion in revenue from cuts in military spending and commits to pulling out of "endless wars" in the Middle East. According to national security expert Giselle Donnelly, Warren's proposed spending cuts would be "crippling" for the nation's military and would "immediately handicap military readiness."
#2
"I remember what it was like when I was a little girl," Warren continued. "My brother, my oldest brother who served five and a half years off and on in combat in Vietnam, what it was like for my mother every day to check the mailbox."
...Given Senator Warren's relationship with the truth, I must now question whether or not she was ever a little girl, whether or not she actually had a brother, or whether or not there is someplace called Vietnam.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/21/2019 6:56 Comments ||
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#3
"Lets start by forming special Antifa battalions to deal with domestic enemies"?
I thought that was already taken care of by a lesser known and dubious part of Obamacare.
#6
Is she talking about drafting people? The military hates having draftees, most of whom are unmotivated and not at all interested in serving.
Besides, she seems to think that the military can be used like FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps. No, Liz, the purpose of the military is to kill people and break things. Everything else is secondary or tertiary to that.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/21/2019 8:12 Comments ||
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#7
Miss Warren like a lot of congresscritter have no understanding of the Constitution. She sits in the legislative branch whose powers defined by the Constitution reads -
16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
It's already on the books so to speak. The implementing authority is Title X USC
§246. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
That is what the 'Draft' is, the activation of the federal militia, aka selective service. Apparently, she doesn't mind the outright sexism of the disparate impact upon the male prostate portion of the existing law.
Her kind however, want the return of cheap slave labor cause they believe the citizenry exist to serve the state like any color of the Left's 'isms.
#9
A cowgirl from out of Fort Worth
Was drivin' her cattle up north
But got in some jimson
And woke up all crimson...
Well, leastwise, one ten-twenty-fourth.
#10
An "Indian" maiden, Red Herring,
Played princess, and slick was her bearing!
Deplorable bourgeois,
Removing her rouge ("Whaaa?"),
All thought misbegotten
And fishy -- no, rotten! --
Her vision of socialist Chering.
#12
If she wants draftees so she can send them on dumbass, bloody misadventures overseas she can piss up a rope.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/21/2019 13:51 Comments ||
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#13
Be like the Mormons.
Everybody serves the minimum then joins the reserves.
College stipend, monthly beer call prayer meetings, 2 week summer campout, second income until retirement.
10% to the temple taxes.
#14
I wouldn't mind some system to get kids to join the Peace Corps and see the socialist third world dumps their teachers have put on a pedestal.
Cancel one of those new fighters and we can send an entire generation to Africa to unlearn and remove the brainwashing that it's all the wests fault. In the long run our country will be better off.
h/t Instapundit
[PJMedia] I've been wondering for weeks just what about the famous July 25 phone call (VIP) was so threatening to LTC-yes-that-means-Lieutenant-Colonel Alex Vindman that his reaction to the call was to be "literally shaken" and then bring it up with counsel, the infamous first Eric Ciaramella whistleblower, and eventually with the Democratic staff of the House Special Permanent Committee on Intelligence.
But while never revealing his name to Schiff or something.
All along, I've been wondering two things: why was this phone call enough to make a combat veteran visibly shaken, and where was the Macguffin. But it was more and more clear that this wasn't just a matter of which political side was winning, because while politics might make you mad, they don't generally make you scared.
So today, while the inquisition was putting the thumbscrews on Ambassador Sondland, ZeroHedge has a story that Burisma, through founder Nikolai Zlochevsky, has been indicted for money laundering, including the accusation that "Hunter Biden and his partners received $16.5 million for their 'services' as part of a money laundering operation that also involved the [former President Viktor] Yanukovych family is suspected, in particular, with legalizing (laundering) of criminally obtained income through Franklin Templeton Investments, an investment fund carrying out purchases of external government loan bonds totaling $7.4 billion."
This is ZeroHedge, and I don't trust them 100 percent by any means, but then there's a news story on Interfax-Ukraine that covers the press conference in which members of the Ukrainian Parliament demanded an investigation.
Now things start to stack up. We've seen that Vindman has close ties to the previous Ukrainian government, dating back to Yanukovych and his successor Petro Poroshenko, while this alleged money-laundering scheme was taking place. The connection to the Franklin Templeton Fund is interesting because John Templeton, Jr. was a major Obama campaign donor, and Thomas Donilon, who was Obama's National Security Advisor before Susan Rice and is now the chairman of BlackRock Investment Institute, a major owner of Franklin Templeton stock.
...Now, a little graft in the amount of a few million dollars is one thing, but $7.5 billion is real money, and a friend in the NSC could be really helpful. Especially with a couple friends in CIA and another one in an executive office in the West Wing.
This is still only based on supposition, and I'd like to see more support for this story. But, well, what did Vindman know, and when did he know it? And what was his cut? And who else knew it?
#2
I see where Dr. Fiona Hill worked for a Soros funded organization. She also read the Steele dossier the night before it was released to Buzzfeed. It was shown to her by Clintonista Strobe Talbott. I'm thinking Hill is not so non-partisan as she says in the Schitt goat fvck.
Kurt Schlichter
[Townhall] To the extent the pardons irritate the elite, good. This preemptively makes them something we should support, though that presumption is rebuttable. Real war crimes must be punished.
To the extent that these pardons send a message that it is okay to violate military rules and the laws of war, it is less clear. Here’s the thing: we have a hyper-partisan political culture and the military brass is not immune, as we have seen in Congress lately. Its conduct in some of these cases has been utterly shameful.
For example, in the case of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, the JAGs literally used malware to spy on the defense team. Think about that. The JAGs literally used malware to spy on the defense team. Judge Schlichter ‐ me in a hypothetical, not my mom in reality, since she was a judge ‐ would have dismissed the entire case and referred the lawyers for prosecution themselves. It’s craziness. And it’s corrupt. A corrupt prosecution cannot stand ‐ let’s put Adam Schiff aside for a moment ‐ even if the accused is guilty of offing some ISIS punk. Seen it in Itifada I: for these people in IDF - Arabs are the victims to be protected from evil Zionist oppressors like yours truly.
But, of course, the Navy JAGs’ prime witness got on the stand testified that he, not Gallagher, offed the ISIS punk. As a lawyer, this would have been kind of embarrassing. It was the ultimate Perry Mason moment, if Perry Mason was an idiot.
So, Gallagher had to be entirely exonerated because of prosecutorial misconduct, and since the military justice system did not have the integrity to enforce the standards ‐ for shame ‐ then it was right for the president to do so.
...Military discipline matters. But so does backing your guys’ play when they make tough, ugly calls.
Major Matt Golsteyn, an ex-Green Beret, was accused of killing an Afghan bomb maker. It was not in a firefight. He apparently sought the guy out and shot him. If they guy was a bomb maker, Golsteyn probably saved the limbs and lives of many Americans (and Afghans). But you are not allowed to freelance hits on the enemy, which itself seems odd since it is a war.
... I led soldiers. I know the importance of discipline. I also know history and human nature. We can’t put our troops out into a hostile fire zone where the enemy has no rules but can hide in plain sight behind ours, killing at will but being immunized from being killed by regulations, and not expect that status quo to grow untenable.
Similarly, Army First Lieutenant Clint Lorance was pardoned after doing six years of a 19-year stretch for having his troops shoot an alleged Taliban dirtbag outside the rules of engagement. Members of his own platoon testified against him, while the testimony of local Afghans was, shall we say, controversial. Even if he did it, was two decades in stir right? Or was six appropriate? Or maybe just a discharge? Or should he have got a medal? IMO, these pardons are messages:
(a) True, they've violated the rules - but these were stupid (as well as immoral) rules.
(b) A message to military brass - loyalty is a two way street. Don't cover your ass by sending soldiers out with orders that cannot be obeyed.
(c) A message to JAG-holes - remember who the enemy are. It is NOT our own soldiers (seen it in Intifada I).
(d) And the main message is to the ragheads. The rules have changed. Learn to behave or perish.
#1
I'd like to see a good number of JAG advisors who wrote up RoE that were in direct contravention of Art 99 of the UCMJ be put before a board -
10 U.S. Code § 899. Art. 99. Misbehavior before the enemy
Any member of the armed forces who before or in the presence of the enemy—
(1) runs away;
(2) shamefully abandons, surrenders, or delivers up any command, unit, place, or military property which it is his duty to defend;
(3) through disobedience, neglect, or intentional misconduct endangers the safety of any such command, unit, place, or military property;
(4) casts away his arms or ammunition;
(5) is guilty of cowardly conduct;
(6) quits his place of duty to plunder or pillage;
(7) causes false alarms in any command, unit, or place under control of the armed forces; (8) willfully fails to do his utmost to encounter, engage, capture, or destroy any enemy troops, combatants, vessels, aircraft, or any other thing, which it is his duty so to encounter, engage, capture, or destroy; or
(9) does not afford all practicable relief and assistance to any troops, combatants, vessels, or aircraft of the armed forces belonging to the United States or their allies when engaged in battle;
shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.
Throw in the additional charge of conspiracy to obstruct this article of the UCMJ.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/21/2019 11:21 Comments ||
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#6
Frank, I don't think they can take his Trident away. But they can certainly not let him back into the Seal detachments as they are a selection type unit. Then it would be the Navy's problem to find him a home or retire him.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
11/21/2019 12:14 Comments ||
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#7
seems like it would be difficult for Gallagher too be on classified missions now with the media tailing him.
Posted by: chris ||
11/21/2019 12:23 Comments ||
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#10
The military babus never forgive. They go after minuscule infractions like flies on shit. While traitors like Vindman enjoy protection by the ⭔.
I remember we caught such hell for some boys writing "Allah Allah !" in Paki blood next to a charcoal drawing of a skull in the POK once.
It's just a lark, an little stunt after the heat and noise. If anything the pansy purveyors of postulations like PTSD should wave it off as a 'temporary loss of propriety' there.
[The Federalist] The government watchdog of the Department of Justice released a report Tuesday that found "numerous issues" with the FBI’s handling of confidential sources.
The 63-page report covers 2012 to 2019, which includes the time-frame of the 2016 presidential election and former FBI Director James Comey’s entire tenure at the law enforcement agency. It indicted the FBI’s management of secret sources as noncompliant with attorney general guidelines. Nothing illegal mind you.
"Ineffective management and oversight of confidential sources can result in jeopardizing FBI operations and placing FBI agents, sources, subjects of investigation, and the public in harms way," said DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz in a two-minute video announcing the findings of the report.
The inspector general’s report said that FBI headquarters lacked adequate staff and oversight and provided unclear guidance to conduct its operations involving confidential human sources. Source-Lead operations be hard.
The confidential human source program is important to the FBI’s efforts to carry out its mission, the report says, and such sources are hired for a wide range of objectives in addition to counterintelligence.
The FBI used confidential human sources in its 2016 investigation of the Trump campaign to determine whether campaign staff were colluding with the Russian government. Yet the allegations of Russian collusion turned up to be a hoax following a two-year investigation with unlimited resources by a congressionally appointed special counsel.
The inspector general’s report determined that the FBI lacked the proper processes to maintain the necessary levels of oversight among such long-term sources, allowing some to continue operating when they should not have. "Continued operating"....for whom ?
"We found that the FBI lacked an automated process to analyze the threat areas in which is has CHS coverage and relied on an ineffective process that could result in outdated information," the report said. "Without clear guidance, we believe there is increased operational security risk that could result in agents and (sources) being put in harm’s way."
The report also found faults in the FBI vetting of confidential sources that did not comply with Justice Department rules, and noted that the FBI has problems aligning the right sources with the appropriate threat priorities. Yes, we've had a problem with source operations since our founding in 1908. More time needed.
The Justice Department’s office of inspector general has offered the FBI 16 recommendations to fix the program and until then, has ordered the agency to place tighter restrictions on information related to the program to personnel with a need to know.
"Recommendations"....? Not to be confused with employment terminations, indictments, or Grand Jury actions. If you somehow believe nothing will ever come of this entire matter, you're very likely on to something.
#1
The FBI used confidential human sources in its 2016 investigation of the Trump campaign to determine whether campaign staff were colluding with the Russian government.
Struggled for at least 7 years. If they just had additional funding and personnel they could surely get it right.
#3
... which is why we need to strangle this movement now, before it re-groups and inducts conspirators who actually know how to pull off a coup. Strangle it in the crib.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[The Federalist] The government watchdog of the Department of Justice released a report Tuesday that found "numerous issues" with the FBI’s handling of confidential sources.
