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| Mired in the Fog of Lucidity |
NATO chief, in speech to Congress, declares Trump's push for more defense spending is working NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in a historic address to Congress, declared Wednesday that President Trump’s push for NATO allies to increase their defense spending has “had an impact” and made the alliance stronger. “Allies must spend more on defense. This has been the clear message from President Trump,” he said. “And this message is having a real impact.” NATO does not have a defense budget, but members commit to spending a minimum of 2 percent of their Gross Domestic Products on defense. Trump, however, has repeatedly called out members that do not meet that commitment, even as this campaign has caused friction with longtime U.S. allies. The United States spends 3.5 percent of its GDP on defense, and Trump has long called for fellow NATO members to put up their share. As Trump himself has taken credit for nations agreeing to increase their spending pledges, Stoltenberg said that NATO is stronger as a result of the U.S. pressure. “After years of reducing defense budgets, all allies have stopped the cuts and all allies have increased their defense spending. Before they were cutting billions, now they are adding billions,” he said. Stoltenberg told lawmakers that European allies and Canada have spent an additional $41 billion in the last two years and that by the end of 2020, that figure will rise to $100 billion. “That money will allow us to invest in new capabilities our armed forces need, including advanced fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, missile defense and surveillance drones,” he said. “This is good for Europe and it is good for America.” In a wide-ranging speech in which he talked about NATO’s importance in winning the Cold War and fighting Russian aggression and terrorism, he also praised the U.S. and NATO’s effort to defeat ISIS in the Middle East -- saying the coalition made “remarkable progress.” “Thanks to American leadership and our collective efforts, we have stopped this brutality and millions of people have been liberated,” he said. The speech coincides with events marking the 70th anniversary of the alliance's founding charter. Stoltenberg, a two-time prime minister of Norway and the first NATO chief to address a joint meeting of Congress, spoke a day after having met with Trump, where both officials hailed the increase in alliance spending. ut Trump has in the past expressed reservations about NATO, primarily stemming from the spending issue, which in turn threatened to rock the alliance. The New York Times reported in January that Trump had suggested withdrawing the U.S. from NATO several times in 2018, and that officials feared he could return to the threat if allied military spending continued to lag. On Tuesday, Trump said along Stoltenberg that the relationship with NATO “has been very good” and he hailed “tremendous progress” on the question of defense spending. But he noted that Germany, in particular, was not, according to him, “paying what they should be paying.” "Germany is not paying their fair share," he said. https://www.foxnews.com/politi...-spending-is-working The above article is from FOX. Conversely, this is how CNN covered the same speech. NATO chief stresses unity in pushback against Trump's worldview Washington (CNN)NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg delivered a pointed and robust defense of the trans-Atlantic alliance to Congress on Wednesday, stressing the need for unity in the face of deep global shifts and "unforeseen" challenges ahead. Stoltenberg indirectly addressed President Donald Trump's criticism of NATO and his push for an "America First" unilateral approach to the world from the start of the speech and then broadened it to touch on trade and economic relations, another point of tension between the Trump administration and Europe. "When we stand together, we are stronger than any potential challenger -- economically, politically and militarily," said Stoltenberg, the first NATO chief to address a joint meeting of Congress. "We need this collective strength, because we will face new threats," Stoltenberg said. "We need a strategy to deal with uncertainty. We have one. That strategy is NATO." "Questions are being asked on both sides of the Atlantic about the strength of our partnership. And yes, there are differences," the NATO chief acknowledged, listing climate change, trade and the Iran nuclear deal. "Open discussion and different views is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength." 'Most difficult problem' Stoltenberg delivered his remarks to mark NATO's 70-year history as the trans-Atlantic alliance faces unprecedented challenges, chief among them, according to veteran US and foreign diplomats, Trump and "the absence of strong, principled American presidential leadership." "Trump is regarded widely in NATO capitals as the Alliance's most urgent, and often most difficult, problem," said the February report by Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and its Kennedy School based on interviews with current European and North American leaders, former senior officials, academics and journalists. The report notes "Trump's open ambivalence about NATO's value to the US, his public questioning of America's Article 5 commitment" which mandates that members come to the defense of any nation in the alliance that's been attacked, as well as his "persistent criticism of Europe's democratic leaders and embrace of its anti-democratic members and continued weakness in failing to confront NATO's primary adversary President Vladimir Putin of Russia." All these factors, wrote the Harvard study's authors, Nicholas Burns, a former Undersecretary of State appointed by President George W. Bush, and Douglas Lute, a former US ambassador to NATO from 2013 to 2017, "have hurtled the Alliance into its most worrisome crisis in memory." The NATO chief threaded his 39-minute address, which was repeatedly interrupted by applause, with references to shared sacrifices of blood and treasure. He noted that while there have been moments of deep disagreement within the alliance before -- Stoltenberg cited the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- "the strength of our alliance is that we've been able to unite around keeping our people safe." "We have overcome our disagreements in the past and we must overcome our differences now, because we will need our Alliance even more in the future," Stoltenberg said. The alliance faces challenges that include a shifting balance of global power, an assertive Russia, cyberthreats, the wild card of technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, the conflict in Afghanistan and terrorism, Stoltenberg said. He didn't list the challenge posed by alliance members such as Turkey and Italy, which are allying themselves more closely with Russia and China. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03...-congress/index.html | |||
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| wishing we were congress |
about time https://www.breitbart.com/poli...l-of-trump-nominees/ Senate Republicans on Wednesday invoked the “nuclear option” to reduce the amount of time required to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominees. The rules change limits debate on most nominees to two hours instead of 30 . White House selections for the Cabinet, Supreme Court and appeals courts would be exempted from the new rules. Every Democrat opposed the move, joined by Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Mike Lee (R-UT). | |||
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Tinker Sailor Soldier Pie |
^^^ Excellent! But seriously, what's up, Mike Lee? He has been pissing me off a lot the past few months. What is going on with him? Just for some backstory (besides some of the public stuff like siding with the Democrats on Trump's border wall emergency declaration), Lee has apparently picked up the mantle that POS McCain left off concerning the Jones Act. For obvious reasons, I take this stuff personally. So Mike Lee is currently on my mini-shit list right now. ~Alan Acta Non Verba NRA Life Member (Patron) God, Family, Guns, Country Men will fight and die to protect women... because women protect everything else. ~Andrew Klavan | |||
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| 10mm is The Boom of Doom  |
Because IAs don't have fake identification nor non-IA acquaintances to send it for them.  Just stop all remittances to Mexico. Period.  God Bless and Protect the Once and Future President, Donald John Trump. | |||
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Member |
Nope. Let them occur, but tax them at 75%, The Dem's have no issues whatsoever taxing the hell out of wealthy (supposedly) Americans, so what's good for the goose... And just because no one has mentioned it yet, I loathe Susan Collins even more than I loathe many of the Dem's across the aisle. Turncoat bitch! ----------------------------- Guns are awesome because they shoot solid lead freedom. Every man should have several guns. And several dogs, because a man with a cat is a woman. Kurt Schlichter | |||
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Telecom Ronin |
About time....I have been saying this gor years.....either block or tax the money sent home..... | |||
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goodheart |
Kris Kobach has always been Trump’s go-to guy on immigration, we heard him give a very good talk on the problem at the GOP convention prior to the nomination. _________________________ “Remember, remember the fifth of November!" | |||
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Bad dog! |
Karl Rove crawled out from whatever rock he lives under and has begun appearing on Drudge as well as Fox shows. GW Bush was not very bright to begin with, but Rove guided him in every wrong direction. Then Rove was stunningly wrong in his predictions regarding Obama v. Romney. Yet he keeps wiping the rock-slime off, straightening his tie and acting like he is this great political genius, "the architect." Architect my ass. He just reappears every election cycle to position his consulting company to begin raking in the dough. ______________________________________________________ "You get much farther with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone." | |||
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Legalize the Constitution |
I was directed to this opinion piece by Kimberley Strassel, one of the handful of remaining journalists with integrity. The writer, Michael Tracey is an unabashed liberal, but he possesses one trait that separates him from the rest—he has long preached that the entire Russia collusion story that has infected the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself), is unsupported nonsense and strengthens, rather than weakens President Trump’s position. You’ll see that he hates the President just like the rest, he just recognizes that the past 3 years have not helped the position of those who oppose him.
I love that the writer uses phrases like “profound humiliation,” and “witlessly gifted him” in describing the Russiagate hysteria. Russiagate Helps Trump _______________________________________________________ despite them | |||
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| Member |
That is a common misconception of W that the Left loved playing up and seems ingrained in the US psyche now. You may not agree with what he did as president, but stupid he was not. And we now have seen the same push by the Left to portray Trump the same way. Again, love Trump or hate Trump, the guy aint stupid. | |||
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| Member |
I was at an event this past November 1st the week before the midterms. Karl Rove and Mike King from CNN were the two speakers. King was the better presenter of the two by a mile. King was aware of his audience and came off professionally and made his points backed up by evidence and was well polished. Rove swore often in his presentation and came off like a total ass. | |||
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Member |
Did he have his dry-erase board in tow?? "If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24 | |||
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| Muzzle flash aficionado  |
How do you know about them? flashguy Texan by choice, not accident of birth | |||
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| Get my pies outta the oven!  |
Really good write-up by a Canadian by the name of Conrad Black here, drawing parallels to Nixon/McGovern in 1972:
About the Author: Conrad Black Conrad Black has been one of Canada’s most prominent financiers for 40 years, and was one of the leading newspaper publishers in the world as owner of the British telegraph newspapers, the Fairfax newspapers in Australia, the Jerusalem Post, Chicago Sun-Times and scores of smaller newspapers in the U.S., and most of the daily newspapers in Canada. He is the author of authoritative biographies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, one-volume histories of the United States and Canada, and most recently of Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other. He is a member of the British House of Lords as Lord Black of Crossharbour. Link | |||
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| Peace through superior firepower  |
There's a short list of people from whom I never again want to hear one single syllable come out of their mouth. Karl Rove is one. Sheppard Smith- for example- is another. Not one single syllable. Not interested. Karl Rove has made a career out of being wrong. | |||
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| 10mm is The Boom of Doom |
The left also tried portraying Reagan as stupid. They fundamentally can not conceive of anyone disagreeing with them who is not crazy, stupid, or evil. God Bless and Protect the Once and Future President, Donald John Trump. | |||
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Get Off My Lawn |
Dick Morris is another one. "I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965 | |||
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| Lawyers, Guns and Money  |
House Dem asks IRS for 6 years of Trump's tax returns, setting up showdown with White House President Trump responded with a dismissive taunt on Wednesday after a House committee chairman formally requested the IRS provide several years of his personal and business tax returns, in a move that prompted congressional Republicans to warn that Democrats had "weaponized" tax law. Told by a reporter at the White House that Democrats wanted six years of his tax returns, Trump replied: "Is that all? Usually it's 10. So I guess they're giving up. We're under audit, despite what people said, and we're working that out -- I'm always under audit, it seems, but I've been under audit for many years, because the numbers are big, and I guess when you have a name, you're audited. But until such time as I'm not under audit, I would not be inclined to do that." The request Wednesday by Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, who heads the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, is the first such demand for a sitting president's tax information in 45 years. The move sets up a virtually certain legal showdown with the White House. Neal made the request in a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, asking for Trump's personal and business returns for 2013 through 2018. Neal told Rettig that Democrats have a duty "to ensure that the Internal Revenue Service is enforcing the laws in a fair and impartial manner." “It is critical to ensure the accountability of our government and elected officials," Neal said in a statement. "To maintain trust in our democracy, the American people must be assured that their government is operating properly, as laws intend." The president's congressional allies registered immediate and fierce disapproval. The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady, R-Texas, wrote to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to decry what he called Democrats' "abuse" of their authority. “Weaponizing our nation’s tax code by targeting political foes sets a dangerous precedent and weakens Americans' privacy rights, As you know, by law all Americans have a fundamental right to the privacy of the personal information found in their tax returns," Brady said in the letter. “This particular request is an abuse of the tax-writing committees’ statutory authority, and violates the intent and safeguards of Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code as Congress intended.” That provision of tax law generally prohibits the disclosure of personal tax information. Brady added that while "transparency in our government is enormously important," the "privacy and freedom" of all taxpayers is paramount -- and that Congress should pass new disclosure laws if it sees a problem. Violating the privacy rights of one taxpayer, Brady asserted, "begins the process of eroding and threatening the privacy rights of all taxpayers." A spokesperson for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News that the "ability of the chairman to request such information is intended to inform the legislative process, which is how it’s been used in the past, not to engage in a politically-motivated fishing expedition." Congress "passed section 6103 of the tax code to prevent that kind of abuse of power and to protect every taxpayer’s privacy," the spokesperson continued. "Those seeking an individual’s personal tax returns to exact political damage would be opening the door to future abuses of power and would poison the public trust in the ability of the IRS to keep personal information private. That’s an outcome every taxpayer and their elected representatives should want to avoid." Neal specifically demanded the federal income tax returns from eight entities, including Trump National Golf Club-Bedminster, as well as statements specifying whether the returns were ever under audit. Neal also demanded all administrative files, including affidavits, related to each return. Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., followed up with a statement backing up his counterpart in the House. “The law is crystal clear—the Treasury Department must provide tax returns to the Ways & Means and Finance Committees when the chairman requests them. I expect the Treasury Department to comply in a timely manner,” Wyden said. “Chairman Grassley should make the same request so Senate Finance Committee members are also able to access them.” https://www.foxnews.com/politi...f-trumps-tax-returns "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown "The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor | |||
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| Too old to run, too mean to quit! |
Yup! same here! They appear on the TV and I either change the channel or leave the room. Elk There has never been an occasion where a people gave up their weapons in the interest of peace that didn't end in their massacre. (Louis L'Amour) "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. " -Thomas Jefferson "America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." Alexis de Tocqueville FBHO!!! The Idaho Elk Hunter | |||
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| Banned |
Not at all relevant, but on my honeymoon in 2013, at a quite spot in Tahiti, Karl Rove and his wife were staying where I was. We spent some time chatting in the pool. | |||
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