Republicans call memo about FISA abuses “shocking”

The release to the entire House of a memo from the House Intelligence Committee outlining surveillance abuses by the FBI under the FISA law has resulted in numerous expressions of horror and alarm from many House members after reading the memo.

“It is so alarming the American people have to see this,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said.

“It’s troubling. It is shocking,” North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said. “Part of me wishes that I didn’t read it because I don’t want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.”

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz said he believed people could lose their jobs after the memo is released. “I believe the consequence of its release will be major changes in people currently working at the FBI and the Department of Justice,” he said, referencing DOJ officials Rod Rosenstein and Bruce Ohr. “You think about, ‘is this happening in America or is this the KGB?’ That’s how alarming it is,” Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry said.

All these comments came today, and all refer to abuses by the Department of Justice and the FBI and Obama administration of the FISA.

It is interesting that despite these howls of outrage and horror, the same article above also noted that the Senate today approved a renewal of that same FISA law, with essentially no changes.

On Thursday, the Senate voted 65-34 to reauthorize a FISA provision that allows U.S. spy agencies to conduct surveillance on foreign targets abroad for six years. The bill, which already has been passed by the House, now heads to the White House,where President Donald Trump has said he will sign it into law.

The law had already been approved by the House, which in case anyone might have forgotten, is controlled by the same Republicans screaming outrage above.

These elected officials might mouth platitudes about respecting the Constitution and freedom, but what they do is what counts, and what they do illustrates that they don’t believe a word of what they say.

17 comments

Republican introduces bill to end California space tax

A state Republican legislator has introduced a bill that would end the special taxes that California’s Franchise Tax Board imposed on space companies last year.

The bill would repeal the space tax formula and exempt space flight income from state taxes, which Lackey contends would give companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and United Launch Alliance an incentive to stay in the state. For example, Moon Express, a startup working to mine the moon for natural resources, moved from Mountain View to Florida in 2016, Lackey said.

In an email, Moon Express CEO and founder Bob Richard reiterated a statement he made last year that the decision to move was “in part due to the state of Florida’s progressive economic development incentives designed to attract commercial space companies.”

Since California has rigged its elections in a way that makes it impossible for Republicans to win, Republicans have little power in the state legislature. I therefore don’t expect this bill to pass.

5 comments

NASA’ safety panel illustrates the impossibility of exploration by NASA

Last week NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) issued its 2017 report [pdf], detailing the areas it has concerns for human safety in all of NASA’s programs. Not surprisingly, the report raised big issues about SpaceX, suggesting its manned launch schedule was questionable and that there were great risks using the Falcon 9 rocket as presently designed.

ASAP was especially concerned with the issues with the Falcon 9 COPV helium tanks and how they were connected with the September 2016 launchpad explosion, as well as SpaceX’s approach to fueling the rocket. Below is a screen capture of the report’s pertinent section on this.

ASAP SpaceX concerns

The report complements NASA and SpaceX for looking at a new design for the COPV helium tanks, but also appears quite willing to force endless delays in order to make sure the issue here is completely understood, even though this is likely impossible for years more.

ASAP also raises once again its reservations about SpaceX’s method of fueling the Falcon 9, which would have them fill the tanks after the astronauts are on board so that the fuel can be kept cold and dense to maximize performance. This issue I find very silly. The present accepted approach is to fill the tanks, then board the astronauts. SpaceX wants to board the astronauts, then fill the tanks. Either way, the astronauts will be in a rocket with tons of volatile fuel and oxidizer. I really do not see why it makes that much of a difference, especially with SpaceX building a successful track record using its approach with each successful commercial launch. They did 18 last year alone.

Below the fold is a screen capture of the report’s entire summary, with some sections highlighted by me.
» Read more

32 comments

Awan and cohorts made many “unauthorized” accesses to Congressional accounts

A House report has found that Pakistani IT specialist Imran Awan and cohorts made many “unauthorized” accesses to Congressional accounts, and worked to hide those accesses.

The presentation, written by the House’s Office of the Inspector General, reported under the bold heading “UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS” that “5 shared employee system administrators have collectively logged into 15 member offices and the Democratic Caucus although they were not employed by the offices they accessed.” It found indications that a House “server is being used for nefarious purposes and elevated the risk that individuals could be reading and/or removing information” and “could be used to store documents taken from other offices.” The server was that of the House Democratic Caucus, a sister group of the DNC that was run at the time by then-Rep. Xavier Becerra.

The aides named are Imran Awan, his wife Hina Alvi, his brothers Abid and Jamal, and his friend Rao Abbas, Pakistani-born aides whose lives are filled with reason for concern. Abid’s Ukranian wife Natalia Sova and Haseeb Rana were also involved in the Awans’ activities but departed the House payroll prior to the investigation.

One systems administrator “logged into a member’s office two months after he was terminated from that office,” the investigative summary says.

The report also found that the Democrat leadership, which would have then been Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida), poo-pooed the issue to its members, which then led 44 Democrats to not take actions to protect their systems, even after their accounts had been accessed improperly.

This scandal not only suggests a breach of American security by Pakistan agents, working for the Democrats in the House, but suggests that those Democrats either were fools, were being blackmailed to cooperate, or were traitors working in partnership with those foreign agents.

5 comments

1 in 10 graduates of DC schools rarely if ever attended school

The coming dark age: An investigation into the Washington DC school system has found a great deal of corruption in grading, including the fact that 1 in 10 graduates receive diplomas even though they rarely if ever attend school.

The report, commissioned by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, portrays a school system riddled by student absenteeism and teachers who feel pressured to push chronically absent high school seniors across the graduation stage regardless of whether they earned their diplomas.

The review saved some of its sharpest criticism for Ballou High School, which has been engulfed in controversy amid a graduation scandal. The report found that the school’s administrators told teachers that a high percentage of their students were expected to pass and encouraged them to provide makeup work and extra credit to students, no matter how much school they missed. Teachers received little training in a new grading system, and their annual performance reviews hinged in small part on their success in graduating students.

At the same time the report was released, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Antwan Wilson announced that Ballou Principal Yetunde Reeves, who had been reassigned pending the investigation, will not return to the Southeast Washington school.

While this kind of corruption in public schools is somewhat rampant throughout the country, it has tended to happen far more in cities and states that have been controlled for years by a one-party political machine, which in the U.S. has almost routinely been a Democratic Party machine. The problem isn’t specifically Democrats (though that party’s policies almost routinely make things worse). The problem is the one-party political machine and a reliance on a big government school system.

It would be far better to eliminate the whole public school system, including the taxes it confiscates, and leave it to the families in a local neighborhood to simply band together, hire a teacher, and start a one-room school house for their elementary school kids. These small schools could then band together to form a larger high school, all paid for directly by the parents.

Sounds absurd? It was how the colonies and the U.S. did it for their first few hundred years, until the late 1800s.

I admit that going back to the old way might not work, however. There has also been a dumbing-down of standards nationwide, by everyone. We also no longer have the moral and religious framework that dominated American culture before the mid-20th century that required all parents to get their kids educated.

5 comments

Criminal charges filed by Navy against commanders of collision ships

The Navy today announced that it is filing criminal charges against the commanding officers of the two ships that were involved in collisions earlier this year.

The commanders of the two guided-missile destroyers that were involved in fatal collisions with merchant ships in 2017 will face military criminal charges that include charges of dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide, after the two incidents that resulted in the death of 17 sailors total, USNI News has learned.

Cmdr. Bryce Benson, former commander of USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62), along with three Fitzgerald junior officers, face a mix charges that include dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide related to the June 18 collision between the ship and ACX Crystal that resulted in the death of seven sailors, according to a statement from the U.S. Navy provided to USNI News.

Cmdr. Alfredo J. Sanchez, former commander of USS John S. McCain (DDG-56), faces similar dereliction of duty, hazarding a vessel and negligent homicide charges for the Aug. 21 collision between the guided-missile destroyer and a chemical tanker off the coast of Singapore that resulted in the death of 10 sailors.

I don’t know whether the military trials will be public (they should be), but if so they will reveal some very interesting details about what was happening on these Navy ships that allowed these collisions to occur.

3 comments

Trump administration withholds $65 million from UN PLO agency

The Trump administration today withheld $65 million of a $125 million payment from the UN agency that is supposed to provide aid to Palestinian refugees but has instead been repeatedly found to use it to help the PLO and Hamas in terrorist acts.

In a letter, the State Department notified the U.N. Relief and Works Agency that the U.S. is withholding $65 million of a planned $125 million funding installment. The letter also makes clear that additional U.S. donations will be contingent on major changes by UNRWA, which has been heavily criticized by Israel. “We would like to see some reforms be made,” said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, adding that changes are needed to the way the agency operates and is funded. “This is not aimed at punishing anyone.”

The State Department said it was releasing the rest of the installment — $60 million — to prevent the agency from running out of cash by the end of the month and closing down. The U.S. is UNWRA’s largest donor, supplying nearly 30 percent of its budget. The agency focuses on providing health care, education and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Not surprisingly, the PLO is reacting like a five year old, throwing a tantrum, as if it deserves this money no matter what it does.

2 comments

On the way home

Diane and I are about to board the airplane here in the Bahamas to return to the U.S. Twas an interesting and pleasant weekend.

Not surprisingly, the TSA were pigs as we left. It turns out that it is forbidden to carry from foreign countries a ham sandwich on the plane to eat. Either that, or they like to steal sandwiches from passengers for their own lunch.

As I said to the TSA agent, “Pigs. This is not the country I was born into.” She then tried to debate politics with me and I said, “No, please, let’s not.”

The real evil here is that the agent was upset that I was honest about having the sandwich. If I had lied and said we had no food with us, they wouldn’t have checked and all would have been fine. The whole setup was designed to make everyone dishonest and liars. If you were honest, you were punished.

27 comments

Strzok/Page FBI texts suggest they were investigating private lives of journalists

The law is such an inconvenient thing: Texts between FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page suggest they were trying to dig up dirt about the private life of at least one journalist, to use against him.

The two agents also spent extensive time shortly before the 2016 election trying to track down information — including an address and a spouse’s job — about The New York Times reporter Matt Apuzzo, who has reported on numerous developments in the Russia case.

“We got a list of kids with their parents’ names. How many Matt Apuzzo’s (sic) could there be in DC,” Page texted. “Showed J a picture, he said he thinks he has seen a guy who kinda looks like that, but always really schlubby. I said that sounds like every reporter I have ever seen.”

A minute later, Page added another text: “Found what I think might be their address, too.”

Strzok writes back, “He’s TOTALLY schlubby. Don’t you remember?”

Page responded later by saying she found information on the reporter’s wife too. “Found address looking for her. Lawyer.”

Strzok cautions Page against using the work phone to track down information on the reporter. “I wouldn’t search on your work phone, ,,, no idea what that might trigger,” he texted.

“Oops. Too late,” she responded back.

The article above is focused mostly on the texts that suggest these two Democratic Party operatives (who were also having an adulterous love affair at the time) were the source of many illegal news leaks, but I consider the quote above more significant. It clearly shows that they had no respect for the law or the First Amendment and were quite willing to abuse their power at the FBI. If anything proves they were willing to overthrown a legally elected president, this does.

30 comments

ULA settles lawsuit that said it defrauded government of $90 million

ULA has settled a lawsuit with a whistleblower who claimed the company had defrauded the federal government of at least $90 million by overbilling employee work hours.

Unlike the commercial marketplace where prices of goods and services are determined by market forces including competition, sellers in the aerospace industry face little or no competition and contract pricing is based largely on a contractor’s estimated costs, the lawsuit says.

ULA charged the government tens of millions of dollars for work that was never performed and inflated the estimated labor hours including the time required to buy parts and materials from vendors, the lawsuit says.

ULA retaliated against Scott [the whistleblower] by forcing him out of the company after he revealed the alleged illegal activities. ULA officials placed a camera above his desk, monitored and questioned his cell phone and computer use, and suggested he violated the law or engaged in improper bidding practices himself, the lawsuit says.

ULA used a system called the Keith Crohn model that creates a grid using the cost of equipment to reach an employee cost. A labor value was placed on the grid for every item ordered through the company’s purchasing department. For example, any item that cost between $1 and $1,000 would be assigned a labor value of 8 hours. It didn’t matter what part it was, the lawsuit said. The U.S. bans arbitrary cost estimates when actual data is available that establishes the cost.

The first paragraph of the quote above actually describes the bad deal that the Air Force made with ULA back in the early 2000s, giving the company a monopoly on launches while subsidizing it to the tune of $1 billion per year. That deal is now dead, and ULA is instead forced to compete with SpaceX (and soon others I hope) for launch contracts. Not surprisingly, their prices have dropped considerably.

1 comment

All charges dismissed in Bundy case

The law is such an inconvenient thing: The federal judge in the Cliven Bundy case has dismissed all charges against Bundy and three others, citing “flagrant prosecutorial misconduct.”

I think the article provides a fair and good summary of the history behind these events, which are complex, with no one entirely innocent. Overall my sympathies tend to favor Bundy, as the problem began with the take-over of his family’s traditional grazing lands a long time ago by the federal government.

4 comments

The corrupt and power-hungry Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Link here. The CFPB was established under the Dodd-Frank law signed by Obama under a framework that one court has already ruled is unconstitutional.

[A]s is common in Washington, the vague language used to craft that law gave regulators wide latitude and the bureau emerged in the Obama administration as a powerful force in the regulatory state.

“There’s strong evidence that the CFPB was pursuing Obama administration tactics and priorities, even if it was not directly coordinating with other Obama-run agencies,” said John Berlau, a scholar with the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute. As an example of such connections, Berlau pointed to Operation Choke Point, a 2013 Justice Department initiative during which the CFPB pursued payday lenders while prosecutors focused on banks dealing with those businesses or gun retailers. “Like other Obama regulators, the CFPB attempted to make law through administrative maneuvers,” Berlau told RCI. “Yet the CFPB’s abuses of process exceeded even those of other Obama administration bureaucracies due to the bureau’s unique lack of accountability.”

That lack of accountability was one of the reasons a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the CFPB an unconstitutional entity in October 2016 – a decision that awaits an en banc ruling from the Appeals Court.

The article outlines how the CFPB has used its vague regulatory powers during the Obama administration to begin open investigations into numerous businesses, not based on any suspected crimes but as a weapon of the Obama administration against businesses it did not like.

The bad part of this story is that there appears no effort by the Trump administration to shut down this out-of-control agency. Instead, it is trying to “rein” it in. Meanwhile, this agency, which according to the law that created it, can spend money without Congressional approval, and is doing so at rates that would make billionaires like Trump blush: A New CFPB Scandal – Cost Overruns for Its New Lux Headquarters

Original cost estimates for the CFPB’s renovation were estimated at $55 million, but the bureau ran up the proposed cost to $216 million. The Federal Reserve Inspector General rejected the proposal in 2014, saying there was no “sound basis” for the figure.

9 comments

The utter childishness of modern intellectual discourse

The world is faced with threats of nuclear and chemical attacks from North Korea. Iran is hit by protests that might escalate into all out civil war. Islamic terrorist attacks have now become almost routine. And in the U.S. there appears to be corruption at the highest levels of the FBI and the Department of Justice, while at the same time the federal government has produced a national debt exceeding $20 trillion, with more debt on the way.

Have any of these significant stories been the primary focus of our American media, from either side of the political spectrum?

An objective look at the culture of today’s press says no. Even as the leftist American mainstream media continues to focus its energies on petty and ineffective attacks of Donald Trump, too many journalists on the right unfortunately appear to be diving right in to join them with their own petty counter-attacks. The result is a press that spends the bulk of its time on irrelevant stories of partisan bickering that have little substance or importance.

In the last week of 2017 we had one particularly acute example of this. First a mainstream liberal news source pushed an absurdly trivial story in a shallow effort to discredit Donald Trump. This was then followed by a frenzied and as-shallow response from the conservative press. I want to showcase both, not merely to illustrate how weak the original story was (which is obvious on its face), but to also point out the childishness of the response.

I must add that everything written in every one of the news sources that I will cite below appears to be 100% accurate. My point here isn’t to highlight examples of error-filled news reporting — which these days mostly comes from left leaning sources overwhelmed by their blind hatred of Trump — but to illustrate reporting from both sides that hardly rises above the level of a five year old, and is thus completely inconsequential.

From CNN: Truck blocks cameras from filming Trump on golf course.

Apparently the day before CNN had managed, by peering through some bushes on the edge of the Trump International Golf Club in Florida, to videotape President Trump playing some golf. When they came back the next day a white truck now blocked their view. This then became a big scandal for CNN, with the cable network then spending gobs of time every hour for the next few days investigating the truck and following up on this terrible act of corruption, obviously part of the evil Trump administration’s effort to cancel the First Amendment and to silence the press! Much of the leftwing media piled on as well. Below are some of CNN’s coverage, as well as a bit of that liberal news pile on.
» Read more

25 comments

Republican leadership works to renew FISA rules that violate 4th amendment

The Constitution is such an inconvenient thing! The House Republican leadership has attached new FISA rules into a bill that will allow the National Security Agency to once again seize the phone records of Americans, without a warrant, in direct violation of the 4th amendment.

The rules would allow the National Security Agency to restart collecting messages Americans send to foreign intelligence targets barely a year after ending the practice. The bill is promising lip-service to the Fourth Amendment by saying “The Attorney General, in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, shall adopt querying procedures consistent with the requirements of the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States for information collected pursuant to an authorization…” but CATO Institute policy analyst Patrick G. Eddington called the language complete make-believe.

“It’s meaningless because the AG and DNI are allowed to make up the rules and decide what the phrase “consistent with” means vis a vis the 4th Amendment,” the former CIA analyst told me. “If it isn’t one person/one warrant/probable cause only standard, it’s a sham.”

Americans must continually remind themselves that almost no one in Washington, from either party, is working for the interest of the nation. No, what they are working for to increase their own power, at everyone else’s expense. This is only another example.

7 comments

Is Iran on the edge of collapse?

Link here. This short essay outlines a range of financial, economic, and fundamental problems facing Iran’s government that might lead to that country’s entire collapse.

Before we wax too eloquent about the democratic aspirations of the great Iranian people, we should keep in the mind that the most probable scenario for Iran under any likely regime is a sickening spiral into poverty and depopulation. Iran has the fastest-aging population of any country in the world, indeed, the fast-aging population of any country in history. It has the highest rate of venereal disease infection and the highest rate of infertility of any country in the world. It has a youth unemployment rate of 35% (adjusted for warehousing young people in state-run diploma mills). And worst of all, it has run out of water.

We might be observing the birth of Iranian democracy in the protests of the past few weeks, but it is more likely that we are watching the slow-motion train wreck of a once-great nation in all its gory detail. As I noted in an Asia Times analysis this morning, the most violent protests, e.g. the burning of a police station near Isfahan captured on this video, happened in the boondocks where water has run out. The river that runs through Isfahan, a legendary city of gardens in the desert, literally has run dry. Some Iranian officials warn that tens of millions of Iranians will have to leave their homes for lack of water. The country has used up 70% of its groundwater and its literally drying up major rivers to maintain consumption. It’s the worst ecological disaster in modern history.

If this analysis is even close to correct, things are going to get deadly interesting in the coming years. And it might not be just Iranians who face death. Iran will be like a cornered animal. The world, the Middle East, and especially Israel, will be in great danger because this particular cornered animal will have nothing to lose by doing very evil and violent things.

29 comments

Trump administration suspends at least $900 million aid for Pakistan

The Trump administration, unsatisfied with Pakistan’s actions against Islamic terrorists, has suspended at least $900 million in military and security aid.

The U.S. State Department announced the decision, saying it reflected the Trump administration’s frustration that Pakistan has not done more against the two groups that Washington says use sanctuaries in Pakistan to launch attacks in neighboring Afghanistan that have killed U.S., Afghan and other forces. The department declined to say exactly how much aid would be suspended, saying the numbers were still being calculated and included funding from both the State and Defense departments.

It is unclear from the article whether this suspension includes or is in addition to the $255 million suspended last week.

These actions against Pakistan are essentially the Trump administrations version of a shot across the bow to every nation in the world. What the administration is telling everyone is that they meant it when they said they were “taking names” and would punish those who took actions that were in opposition to the United States interests.

7 comments

Justice Dept to provide House Russian probe documents

This could get very interesting: The Department of Justice has reached an agreement with the House to provide a variety of long requested documents connected with the department’s investigation on whether the Russians interfered with the 2016 election.

The deal was reached after FBI Director Chris Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made a surprise visit to House Speaker Paul Ryan It was announced by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, who had sought the information and threatened more drastic action if his panel continued to be denied access to the information. “After speaking to Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein this evening, I believe the House Intelligence Committee has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice that will provide the committee with access to all the documents and witnesses we have requested,” Nunes said in a statement. “The committee looks forward to receiving access to the documents over the coming days.”

Nunes has in recent months lashed out against the DOJ over its failure to respond to requests for the documents, suggesting the department was doing so deliberately. “At this point it seems the DOJ and FBI need to be investigating themselves,” Nunes wrote in a letter to Rosenstein last week.

What puzzles me is how long the Trump administration allowed the Trump Justice department to stonewall House investigators. Trump is legally in charge. The people at Justice work for him. Either Trump was involved with the Russians somehow and was stonewalling to protect himself, or he allowed Obama appointees to run things there for way too long. This agreement suggests the latter, assuming it is what the article says it is.

Either way, should House investigators get the documents they want, it could very well blow apart the Mueller investigation, based on everything I have read recently. There really does not appear to be anything of substance in the “Russian” scandal, except what appears to be a conspiracy in Justice by those who opposed Trump, a legally elected president, to harm him enough to get him overthrown.

And that could be the biggest scandal we have seen in Washington ever, even worse than Watergate.

9 comments

Protests in Iran escalate

The protests in Iran this week that began over food prices and unemployment have now escalated into protests calling for the overthrow of the Islamic regime.

We shall see if these protests result in anything, or will be successfully squelched by the regime, as it did to similar protests in 2009. One difference between then and now is the American president. Obama spent most of his administration making nice to the Iranians, hoping that would make them less radical. He thus did nothing to support the protests, and if anything indicated his support for the regime at that time. Trump appears to think such an approach to be a waste of time, and has already indicated that he is sympathetic to the protesters, not the Iranian leadership.

12 comments

Trump administration cancels $255 million of military aid to Pakistan

Related to Awan IT scandal? The Trump administration has canceled the last payment of $255 million of military aid to Pakistan, out of a total $1.1 billion package.

“The United States does not plan to spend the $255 million in FY 2016 in Foreign Military Financing for Pakistan at this time,” said a spokesperson of the President’s National Security Council in a statement to Hindustan Times. “The President has made clear that the United States expects Pakistan to take decisive action against terrorists and militants on its soil, and that Pakistan’s actions in support of the South Asia Strategy will ultimately determine the trajectory of our relationship, including future security assistance. The Administration continues to review Pakistan’s level of cooperation.”

The statement reflected and sealed the administration’s complete disillusionment with Pakistan, which had sought to brazenly disregard the explicit warnings issued by President Donald Trump personally and leading members of his cabinet, such as secretaries James Mattis and Rex Tillerson. “This could be the severest blow dealt to Islamabad by this administration if it indeed decided to withhold it,” said a leading US expert on Pakistan, who did not want to be identified. “There is more coming,” the expert added.

I am wondering if this action now might have some connection with the unfolding Imran Awan IT Congressional scandal. There is evidence there that Awan and his brothers were working with both Hezbollah and Pakistan to obtain classified information from the computers of congressional Democrats.

7 comments

How the Purge in Saudi Arabia might link to the Democratic computers in Congress

This essay is going to outline some interesting associations that appear to exist between a number of very unconnected news stories in the past few months, links that might help explain how recent events in Saudi Arabia might have something to do with the U.S. Congress and car dealerships in the U.S. and Africa.

First of all I want to emphasize that I really have no idea if the associations I am going to note even exist. I am no expert on foreign policy, other than being a very well-read follower of the news. However, my skills as a historian have often allowed me to spot connections between disparate events that further research very frequently confirms as true. In this regard I think it very worthwhile to reveal what I have noticed, and let the chips fall where they may.

This trail must first begin with President Trump’s first foreign policy trip in May as President, going first to Saudi Arabia followed by visits to Israel and Europe.
» Read more

23 comments
1 164 165 166 167 168 388