HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019 !!! With a Final Look at Democrat Cynicism about the Wall, the North Korean Initiative, and Some of President Trump's Accomplishments

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!! IN OUR LAST BLOG FOR 2018, LET'S BE CLEAR -- CORRUPTION BREEDS CORRUPTION. It even seeps down into the public pronouncements of Swamp Creatures eager to keep the southern US border open, in the form of lies that are clearly deliberate -- or that flow from lips ruled by brains that do not care or cannot read what the real facts are. This particular corruption shakes Americans' faith in their constitutional system, and eventually the system will fall apart and junta backshish will rule -- unless we step up and call out every lie, every contortion, every deliberate baseless attack on the Republic and its laws and President. • • • WALLS DO WORK. Yes, walls do work. But, ProgDem leaders -- Pelosi, Schumer and Co. -- and their propagandist media continue to tell us that walls don't work. • Saying walls don't work may seem like petty corruption. But consider its ramifications. Jack Hellner of American Thinker did just that on Sunday. Hellner began with this : "Frequently when President Trump says something, the media follow his statements with three words : 'with no evidence.' For example : He says there are criminals and terrorists in the caravan and they say that he has no evidence, even though there is plenty of evidence from government agencies. Yet when Democrats frequently say walls don't work, I never see the words 'with no evidence' following the statement. It appears to me that journalists never seek examples and when they know that barriers do work." • Hellner gives example of walls that work -- prison walls; fences around swimming pools required by law; gated community walls; the White House walls; Israel's wall; the Vatican's wall; and the most obvious of all modern walls, the Berlin Wall. Hellner asks : "If walls don't work, why did the Berlin Wall have to come down to give people access and freedom?" • All evidence aside, Nancy Pelosi continues to prattle cynically about walls not working. Pelosi says it's immoral to have the wall as if she is an expert on morality. Hellner says "Jerusalem had a wall during Jesus time," laying waste to Pelosi's "immoral' argument against walls. • AND, the ramification of saying walls don't work or are immoral is that, says Hellner, "many politicians, mostly Democrats, have given people from other countries the idea that they were entitled to come across our border illegally and so have endangered their children. That is immoral." We could add to Hellner's list the experience of Hungary, which built a fence around its border, and two days after its completion illegal immigrant arrests dropped 99%. • It is also a CYNICAL LIE. Pelosi and her ProgDem Swamp Creatures care more about allowing illegal aliens to enter the US than about the safety and welfare of US citizens. THAT is IMMORAL. It is immoral because Pelosi and every other politician ever elected in the United States takes an oath of office to enforce the laws of the United States. To harken back to our blog last Saturday, the reality is that Democrats don't give a damn about protecting Americans because they do not understand -- or they cynically reject for political purposes -- the morality of taking an oath and then deliberately breaking it. To take Nancy Pelosi as a leading example of this "morality is what I say it is" attitude, Pelosi is from California and Hellner reminds us that "the California Constitution requires state politicians (Pelosi is a federal office holder, but still….) to protect the safety of its people, so where do the Democrats get the idea they should allow illegal aliens to roam freely when many are obviously criminals?" The answer is that they "get the idea" of letting all illegal immigrants enter the US because they have rejected any notion that the 2,000-year-old virtue of telling the truth under oath and then supporting that truth still applies to them -- that is relativist morality in its purest form. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and most of the media are pretending that, somehow, she has all the power here even though she only has the House. While Trump has been attempting to negotiate, Pelosi and other Democrats have been resting. Pelosi has been playing at a luxury resort in Hawaii. How would the media react if Trump was playing in Florida while Democrats were trying to negotiate? • What will happen in January? Nancy Pelosi will appear in the halls of Congress, all suntanned from her luxury holiday in Hawaii and as the new Speaker will tell her Democrat slaves to pass a bill with no money for a border barrier. The bill will go to the Senate where I hope hope that it will die. AND, when -- or if -- the complaining federal workers, journalists and long-suffering Americans who support the Democrats come to their senses, they should lobby Pelosi and the Democrats to vote for a a wall -- a fence -- barrier (call it by whatever relativistic notion suits Pelosi). Democrats have have done just that before. Presto ! Government will reopen. All Pelosi has to do to defend her funding of the wall is use Senator Obama's words from 2006 : "The American people are a welcoming and generous people. But those who enter our country illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law. And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security and better enforcement of the immigration laws." Got that , Nancy??? • • • A FEW FACTS ABOUT THE VALUE OF WALLS. Former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan, armed with statistics on “Fox and Friends” last Wednesday that Pelosi is wrong, that the wall is effective, and that it is more necessary than ever before, as droves of migrants storm the southern border. • Homan quoted Pelosi : “First of all, the fact … that he [Trump] says, ‘We’re going to build a wall with cement, and Mexico’s going to pay for it’ while he’s already backed off of the cement -- now he’s down to, I think, a beaded curtain or something, I’m not sure where he is.' " Pelosi said Trump’s concern that criminals, terrorists, and diseased immigrants cross illegally into the United States amounts to him “being a fearmonger” : “He talked about terrorists coming in over that particular border, which wasn’t so. He talked about people bringing in diseases and all the rest of that, which wasn’t so. He’s using scare tactics that are not evidence-based, and it’s wrong,” Pelosi said, without supporting evidence. • Homan called these statements : “100 percent wrong. Allow me to educate Mrs. Pelosi. As far as crime coming across the border, ICE arrested 138,000 criminals last year. These are people who entered the country illegally and committed crimes against the people of this country.” • Then Homan corrected Pelosi about the value of walls : “Every place a wall or barrier has been built, it has resulted in decreased illegal immigration, decreased drug smuggling. One hundred percent of the time, it has proven effective.” • Homan also outlined the security threats that cross the American border : “Look at the rest of the data on the border, where arrests of MS-13 [gang] this year are up 118%, the seizures of guns -- for God’s sake -- are up almost 200%. There’s your data. Look at it. You can see why we need a wall,” he said. "ICE arrested more than 10,000 gang members in 2018, more than 2,000 of whom belonged to MS-13. Under former President Barack Obama in 2014, ICE arrested less than 1,600 gang members. Every day, ICE arrests convicted and suspected murderers, child rapists, and drug dealers who come illegally to the United States. ICE made 2,000 arrests for homicide, 11,000 for weapons violations, and 12,000 for sexual assault in 2017." • Homan also said migrants bring contagious diseases such as “tuberculosis, measles and chickenpox.” In one case he worked with, a single migrant infected with a rare form of tuberculosis cost taxpayers and put public health in danger : “We had to work with CDC and Texas Department of Health to find a way to treat this gentleman, so we kept him locked up for months at great taxpayer expense. Imagine if that strain of TB were to get released into the American society.” • HERE is the most important FACT about the wall -- President Trump has not backed down on his demand for $5 billion in border-wall funding : “I can’t tell you when the government is going to be open,” he said, according to The Hill. “I can tell you, it’s not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they’d like to call it. I’ll call it whatever they want.” • • • ARE DEMOCRATS REALLY FOR CRIME, DRUGS, AND DISEASE?? Deroy Murdock, a New York-based Fox News contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research, has one answer : “ 'The Democrats don’t want to let us have strong borders -- only for one reason. You know why? Because I want it,' said President Donald J. Trump Wednesday, to the laughter of US troops at Iraq’s Al Asad Air Base....Democrats seem determined to stop the president’s plans for a southern-border wall as revenge for beating Hillary Clinton. They hate Trump’s guts more than they love America. In Fiscal Year 2018 alone, federal officers apprehended 396,579 illegal-aliens on the southwest border. The Left loves the fact that those who were caught and released, and others who break into America undetected, likely will become future Democrats. So why give President Trump this win?" • Murdock then says : "So, as Democrats just say, 'No!' to President Trump’s wall, they are colluding in several serious, deadly ills. Until they support a wall : Democrats just say, 'Yes!( to fentanyl. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that it seized 1,377 pounds of fentanyl in Fiscal year 2017, much of it on the southwestern border. This equals some 208.2 million lethal doses of this staggeringly potent opioid, which is at least 50 times stronger than morphine. Surely plenty of it was smuggled past CBP and onto America’s streets. Democrats just say, 'Yes!' to heroin. CBP captured 4,579 pounds of heroin in FY 2017, enough to kill 69.2 million men. Democrats just say, 'Yes!' to human trafficking. The National Human Trafficking Hotline received 7,572 reports of such exploitation in 2016, much of it along the southern frontier. That’s 37% above 2015’s 5,544 complaints. UNICEF and World Without Exploitation said that traffickers 'take advantage of children and their families by extorting them with threats and false promises.' Democrats just say, 'Yes!' to rape. 'Young women and girls face extraordinary risk of sexual violence on the journey to the United States, the Department of Homeland Security reports. 'Sixty to 80 percent of the women and girls who cross Mexico to get to the US border are raped along the way.' Democrats just say, 'Yes!' to MS-13.On Dec. 20, Border Patrol agents near Nogales, Arizona, arrested a 24-year-old Salvadoran member of the bloodthirsty Mara Salvatrucha street gang, AKA MS-13. This previously deported felon broke afresh into America. Two days earlier, Border Patrol officers caught a previously deported Honduran MS-13 gangster as he forded the Rio Grande, into Eagle Pass, Texas. MS-13’s motto is 'Kill, rape, control.' Its members also treasure decapitation. A wall would have slowed or stopped these two thugs, as well as MS-13’s 228 violent animals captured by the Border Patrol in FY 2017." • The answer seems evident that Democrats want these evils to continue. They should remain on their current course because they prefer to let these horrors continue instead of supporting the hated President Trump. • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS OTHER ISSUES PERKING ALONG. These issues are progressing because Democrats have few ways to stop the President in foreign affairs. Reuters reported on New Year's Eve that : "North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has sent a 'conciliatory message' to US President Donald Trump amid stalled nuclear negotiations, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported on Monday. Kim’s 'letter-like' message to Trump was delivered on Friday through an unspecified channel, the newspaper reported, citing an unnamed diplomatic source. The report did not include details about the substance of the message but said they related to US-North Korea talks. On Sunday, the office of South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said Kim had sent a letter to his counterpart in Seoul saying he wants to hold more inter-Korean summits next year to achieve denuclearization of the peninsula....Pyongyang’s state media has credited Trump for his “willingness” to continue dialogue but has also slammed the State Department for tightening sanctions. The stalled negotiations had an impact on inter-Korean ties, including Kim’s unrealized plan to visit Seoul this year as agreed their summit in Pyongyang in September. The Chosun Ilbo report also said Kim wrote in the letter to Moon that he would come to the South 'in the near future' after giving a New Year address on Tuesday. Kim’s New Year address provides a rare public appearance for the young leader and is closely watched by neighboring countries as it is seen setting the tone for his domestic and foreign policies. According to Moon’s spokesman, Kim said in the letter to the South Korean president that he was sorry his previously planned trip to Seoul this year did not take place, expressing his 'strong resolve' to make it happen while monitoring the situation. • In a Christmas message to President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the President that Moscow is open for dialogue. That will certainly bring out the dimwits in Congress who pass for Russia experts and we can be sure they will all sing the same prepared song -- this is "proof" that President Trump "colluded" with Russia in order to be elected. Drivel. Pure Progressive drivel. • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS. As the year ends, let's take a look at President Trump's accomplishments in his first two years as President -- selected Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court; ended the fraudulent and disastrous climate agreement; killed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal; actually cleaning up the VA instead of just talking about it, with 850 incompetents fired already; decreased illegal immigration by 54%; restricted the immigration of people who hate us from predominantly anti-American countries; canceled 876 Obama era regulations; froze all federal hiring except for the military; approved the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone Pipeline; ordered federal agencies to cut two regulations for every new one they propose; issued an Executive Order asking the DOJ and Homeland Security to withhold “Federal Funds, Except As Mandated By Law” from sanctuary cities; canceled Obama and Clinton's promise to bring hundreds of thousands of Syrian Moslems to the US; started on the wall; reinstated the Mexico City Policy; gave little girls their restrooms back; stopped the trans-sexual madness and allowed the military to put its actual job above political correctness; DESTROYED Obama's JV ISIS TEAM; put the left's/Fake New's anti-America, anti-Constitution bias so clearly on display so that even the blind can see it; enabled America to become energy self sufficient by unleashing our own energy industry; created a soaring stock market and record employment -- now if we can only get the Federal Reserve to halt its own particularly dimwitted policy of raising interest rates to crush the recovery; actually began the dismantling of Obamacare; shut down Obama's “Operation Choke Point” that was designed to infringe on Americans' Second Amendment rights; pardoned Sheriff Arpaio who was prosecuted for ENFORCING our border laws; reduced federal jobs by 11,000 in six months; halted visas for government officials of countries who will not accept their criminal illegals back. AND, announced the pullout of 2,000 US troops in Syria. • Not bad for a President who has ZERO help from the Swamp and its ProgDem leadership. Just imagine what President Trump could do with even a little help from the Washington establishment elites. • • • DEAR READERS, I wish you a very Happy New Year. If you are out on New Year's Eve, be careful and above all, don't drive after drinking -- I want to see all of you back here healthy and happy on Wednesday evening, January 2, 2019, when we return and take a look at how Casey's 2018 predictions fared, and make some new ones for 2019. • And, as the last bit of news from Caseypops in 2108, how about this piece of fantasy -- Massachusetts Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren said Monday she is filing paperwork to launch an exploratory committee for President, taking her first major step toward a 2020 run for the White House. Here we go -- Pocahontas for President !!??? • HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE and thank you all for being with me in 2018.

Don't Be Fooled : Democrats Know America Needs Border Security, But Their Cynical Politics Needs the Illegals Who Enter through Open Borders

DEMOCRATS REFUSE BORDER SECURITY, SHELTER COP KILLERS, AND TAKE VACATIONS WHILE REFUSING TO RE-OPEN THE GOVERNMENT. It is so simple. President Trump understands. Americans understand. Only Democrats and their base are too dumb to get it -- build the wall, secure the border, protect American families, neighborhoods, cities, states, and country. Just what do the Democrats not 'get' about these simple truths?? • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP STAYS IN WHITE HOUSE, CANCELS FLORIDA VACATION AND NEW YEAR'S PARTY. The Washington Post reported on Friday that White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters President Trump was "absolutely" willing to shut down the southern border, despite the enormous cost to the country. Mulvaney said : "All options are on the table. Listen, it's the only way we can get the Democrats' attention. We put the last offer on the table. Discussions have broken down. We do expect this to go on for awhile." The WP also said that its White House reporter Josh Dawsey tweeted a $2.5 billion figure offered by the White House in response to a post from NBC News’ Josh Lederman about Mulvaney saying the Trump administration had softened "its hard line" of $5 billion for the wall, without disclosing an amount. The Senate and House held brief sessions Thursday, but neither chamber took any votes on any measure to fund the nine government departments that closed after money ran out December 21. • BizPac Review picked up the gritty details of the shutdown story, writing : "While libs railed against Ivanka & Jared get-a-way, Pelosi took off to swanky Hawaiian resort during shutdown....Fortunately for Pelosi, she is held to a whole different standard than a member of the Trump family. While President Donald Trump canceled his planned 16-day Christmas vacation at his Mar-a-Lago resort in response to the government shutdown, PELOSI JETTED OFF to a luxury resort in Hawaii, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Pelosi, who has put blame squarely on President Donald Trump for the current government shutdown, was spotted Thursday vacationing in Hawaii at the Fairmont Orchid resort, where room accommodations range from $899-a-night for a standard room to $4,899-a-night for the presidential suite. The resort, on Hawaii’s Big Island, features a golf course, six restaurants, and a 10,000-square-foot oceanfront pool. It also features a 'Spa Without Walls,' where the 110-minute Ali’i Royal Experience is available for $369 and a 50-minute couples massage runs $549, according to the spa menu. While at the spa, guests can snack on a gluten-free grilled prawn summer roll for $19....Meanwhile, in a display of how warped politics are in American today, White House senior advisors Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner took heat from the Left for leaving Washington for Mar-a-Lago during the shutdown....Social media torched Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump on Wednesday after the President’s daughter and her husband were photographed on vacation while the government was partially shut down." • Never mind that Pelosi and other ProgDems are on holiday without the slightest negative comment by the lapdog mainstream media or their favorite social media platforms for not staying in Wshington to try to resolve the shutdown issue. • WHO STAYED IN WASHINGTON??? President Trump. The President said on Christmas Eve he was “waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal.” He cancelled his trip to Mar-a-Lago for New Years and also cancelled his traditional New Year's Eve party at his Florida home. BUT, the President and First Lady also made a surprise visit to the troops serving in Iraq on Christmas. Did you notice any ProgDems on the road to thank American troops during the Christmas holiday? I sure didn't. • • • THE DEMOCRAT ABANDONMENT OF US CITIZENS AND POLICE. While Pelosi vacations in swank Hawaiian luxury, she found time to fret over federal employees working without paychecks due to the shutdown -- a shutdown CAUSED by her own DEMOCRAT Party's refusal to provide $5 billion for border security. Sunning safely at the luxurious Hawaiian resort, Nancy Pelosi also had the audacity to call Trump a “fear monger” over the President’s get-tough stance on border security. Pelosi told USA TODAY : “He talked about terrorists coming in over that particular border, which wasn’t so. He’s using scare tactics that are not evidence-based, and it’s wrong.” • BUT, Pelosi did find the "compassion" to comment online on the Christmas death of an 8-year-old illegal alien child in Border Patrol custody. An autopsy showed the child had the flu, but the hypocritical Pelosi's tweet said nothing about a police officer in her state being shot and killed by an ILLEGAL immigrant. • Newman, California, Police Officer Ronil Singh's murder is the latest incident of Americans being victimized by people who have no business being in the US -- people who have a solid ally in the Democrat Party that runs interference on any attempt to address illegal immigration. • That solid Democrat Party support for illegals instead of supporting police includes Senator Dianne Feinstein, the creator of the Kavanaugh character assassination. Feinstein is another ProgDem worried about illegal immigrant children but silent on policemen shot by illegals. Feinstein tweeted : “Read my letter calling for a hearing on the deaths of two young children in Border Patrol custody this month. We must know more about the care and treatment of these children.” Feinstein addressed her letter to Senator Lindsey Graham, the next Senate Judiciary Committee chairman -- but Senator Graham is not likely to grant Feinstein and her fellow Democrats another opportunity to grandstand. • Some analysts like to call Democrats like Pelosi and Feinstein 'tone-deaf.' That is far too kind a description. Democrats like Pelosi and Feinstein -- who refuse to admit that their pro-illegal immigration stance is a magnet for more poor Central Americans to make the dangerous trek to the US border -- know that those illegals are sure to be Democrats, voting legally or illegally to keep cynical Swamp Creatures like Feinstein and Pelosi in power in Washington. They don't show the first sign of care for the most vulnerable among the immigrants -- the children forced to go along, often being used as a "ticket" to automatic US entry for their parents. • Online commenters were swift to condemn Feinstein -- "Yeah, their parents forced them on a 2000 mile trip without adequate supplies, hoping to enter the US illegally. The best care they received was when they got detained. Horribly, it was already too late and their health was lost. Build the wall, force people to immigrate legally! /// "Feinstein IS the problem. Until she and her corrupt cronies are ousted from Congress, we will continue to have the problems we have. They waste their time and OUR money on frivolous investigations and hearings instead of providing solutions. VOTE THEM OUT!" /// "The only way to solve our border problems is for you [Feinstein] to retire, you are part of the problem. if immigrants want to come into the US let them apply to come in legally. Just like my parents did when we came into the US from communist Cuba." /// "One consistency here is that Democrats feigning outrage today were oddly silent during the Obama years : 7 migrants that died in US Custody under Obama (2012-15) due to subpar care : Manuel Cota-Domingo, Raul Ernesto Morales, Santiago Sierra Sanchez, Peter George Carlysle Rockwell, Lelis Rodriguez, Marjorie Annmarie Bell, Tiombe Kimana Carlos. Where are their names?" /// "This is now her 2nd tweet about the Border Patrol and while she's also had time to tweet about Kwanzaa, this CALIFORNIA senator hasn't been able to find the time to tweet about CALIFORNIA police officer Ronil Singh, a legal immigrant killed by an illegal immigrant." /// "No hearing on illegals murdering cops? You and your Party have blood on your hands." /// "Resign!!! You don’t care about America!!!!" • • • POLICE OFFICER RONIL SINGH KILLED BY ILLEGAL. One responder to Feinstein’s tweet asked the Democrat : "Where’s the letter regarding a police officer, one of your constituents, who was killed in cold blood by an illegal alien?" • Breitbart reported details about the murder : "Ronil Singh, the Newman, California, police officer who was killed on December 26 by an alleged illegal alien, was himself an immigrant -- a legal immigrant. That fact was noted by Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson in his news conference Thursday : 'Unlike Ron, who immigrated to this country lawfully and legally to pursue his lifelong goal of a career of public safety, public service in being a police officer, this suspect is in our country illegally.' Newman Police Chief Randy Richardson, fighting tears, also noted that 'Singh immigrated to the United States from Fiji, determined to be a police officer. He commuted more than two and a half hours from his home to the police academy in Yuba City, which he put himself through,' as quoted by the local Modesto Bee. In a moving tribute, the Los Angeles Times reported : 'Singh, who was Indo-Fijian, came to the US from Fiji about 20 years ago, his family said. He volunteered with the Modesto Police Department and was a Turlock Police Department cadet. He spent part of his career with the Merced County Sheriff’s Office as a reserve deputy sheriff.' " • President Trump noted that Singh had likely been killed because of lax border security -- the core of his ongoing fight with Democrats over funding for a border wall. The President tweeted on Thursday : "There is right now a full scale manhunt going on in California for an illegal immigrant accused of shooting and killing a police officer during a traffic stop. Time to get tough on Border Security. Build the Wall! " • The county sheriff of the California community where 33-year-old police officer Ronil Singh was murdered this week by an illegal immigrant believes that the officer "would still be alive" had the county not been forced by the state government to cater to illegal immigrants. “This is a criminal illegal alien with prior criminal activity that should have been reported to ICE,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said during a press briefing Friday morning following the arrest of suspect Gustavo Perez Arriaga for the murder of Newman Police Department Corporel Ronil Singh, “We were prohibited, law enforcement was prohibited because of sanctuary laws and that led to the encounter with Singh. I’m suggesting that the outcome could have been different if law enforcement wasn’t restricted, prohibited or had their hands tied because of political interference.” • Arriaga murdered Singh during a traffic stop early Wednesday morning, the day after Christmas. Though he already had two DUI arrests on his record before Singh pulled him over, local authorities had been prohibited by California’s “sanctuary city” laws from reporting him to ICE. California boasts about its laws that prevent authorities from cooperating with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they detain or arrest illegal immigrants suspected of committing crimes. Sheriff Christianson told Fox News' Jason Chaffetz : “I’m not against lawful, legal immigration to this community....but by doing this, you’ve now created a sanctuary for criminals, people who are here legally victimizing and exploiting others. There’s a category of crimes below a certain threshold that we’re prohibited statutorily from communicating with ICE,” noting that Arriaga’s DUIs were clearly under this threshold. The sheriff added that the state’s laws are so strict that his department can’t even report Arriaga’s accomplices to ICE : “They’re primarily family members and associates, all of whom were actively engaged in aiding and abetting this criminal fugitive. They did their best to throw us off the trail, but we’re smarter than that, and they went to jail.” When Chaffetz asked, “Are they here illegally as well,” Christianson replied "Yes," adding : “It’s a bad public safety policy, and it’s dangerous and irresponsible, plain and simple. ICE is looking for fugitives and criminals. That’s all they’re doing. It used to be that they could come into my jail and take a collection of people who were fugitives and wanted. SB54, in essence, restricted the ability of ICE to even have access to our facilities. We need to have a dialogue. And I hope the death of Officer Singh, who was needlessly and tragically gunned down, that his death is not in vain.” • SB54, known as the California Values Act, became law on January 1, 2018. The law limits what state and local officials can share with federal authorities about the immigration status of California residents. SB54 controversially prevents jail officials from honoring ICE detention requests and, in some cases, notifying immigration officials when criminal aliens are going to be released from custody. Christianson is among a growing number of California sheriffs who’ve been critical of the law : “You can’t provide sanctuary for criminals. That -- all that does is silence the voices of our victims, and I certainly didn’t sign up to do that....Why are we providing sanctuary for people who victimize and exploit the weak and the defenseless? We should not be doing that.” the sheriff noted during an earlier Fox News discussion last week. • President Trump and a large number of Americans agree with Sheriff Christianson. The President tweeted : "California’s sanctuary policies are illegal and unconstitutional and put the safety and security of our entire nation at risk. Thousands of dangerous & violent criminal aliens are released as a result of sanctuary policies, set free to prey on innocent Americans. THIS MUST STOP!" • Texas Governor Greg Abbott also agrees and Texas has stopped sanctuary cities in its state : "Horrific crimes like this is why Texas passed a ban on sanctuary city policies. We don’t want Texas to become a sanctuary for illegal immigrants like California. We insist on working with ICE to enforce the law & keep Texans safe." • Many comments support ICE and police safety -- " If I was a law enforcement officer in California I would arrest Jerry Brown and the federal judge who approved this sanctuary city bill. Even if it cost me my career. At least I would be able to to look myself in the mirror as someone who honored their oath of office." /// "Liberal Democrat politicians killed a police officer - their sanctuary city nonsense was responsible for the officer's murder. Liberal Democrat's partners, the media, are burying the story and deliberately not reporting it." /// "Officer Singh and all first responders need to be protected by the laws of our country. The thug who killed Officer Singh was protected by Sanctuary City statutes. This is wrong. California politicians need to hear from all of us across the country." /// "Replying to @realDonaldTrump @foxandfriends You need to arrest Jerry brown and force immigration reform rounding up all illegals, please Build the wall, please secure our southern border." • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP THREATENS TO CLOSE THE SOUTHERN BORDER. President Trump's threat to close the Southern border came on Friday in a string of tweets : "We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with. Hard to believe there was a Congress & President who would approve!” President Trump added that he was willing to freeze economic activity between the Southern border and even end trade with Mexico : “Go back to pre-NAFTA, before so many of our companies and jobs were so foolishly sent to Mexico. Either we build (finish) the Wall or we close the Border.....The United States loses soooo much money on Trade with Mexico under NAFTA, over 75 Billion Dollars a year (not including Drug Money which would be many times that amount), that I would consider closing the Southern Border a 'profit making operation.' We build a Wall or....close the Southern Border. Bring our car industry back into the United States where it belongs. Go back to pre-NAFTA, before so many of our companies and jobs were so foolishly sent to Mexico. Either we build (finish) the Wall or we close the Border...Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are doing nothing for the United States but taking our money. Word is that a new Caravan is forming in Honduras and they are doing nothing about it. We will be cutting off all aid to these 3 countries -- taking advantage of US for years!" • The President's exasperation comes while he stays in the White House waiting for Democrats taking their Christmas vacations and stonewalling on agreeing to provide $5 billion to continue building the wall. The shutdown will undoubtedly continue into January -- until congressional Democrats return to Washington from their holidays. His exasperation must be added to by the knowledge that more of the same "taking advantage of the US for years" is set to happen -- earlier in December, the US pledged a total of $10.6 billion in aid and investment for Central America and southern Mexico -- as part of a push to promote better security and job opportunities so that Central Americans and Mexicans do not have to emigrate to the US. • UNLESS the US sends large staffs to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador -- wearing bulletproof vests and accompanied by Special Ops -- there is NO, absolutely NO, chance that this money will be used either to create jobs and improve security or to prevent continued illegal immigration by caravans -- the money will go to the drug cartels and crimInal syndicates. • Representative Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican and close ally of President Trump, told CNN : “At this point, it looks like we could be in for a very long-term shutdown.” Meadows' warning comes as Democrats are preparing to take control of the House of Representatives and have shown no sign of caving on the President's demands for $5 billion for a border wall. Democrats are considering three different ways to reopen the government, none of which include money for President Trump’s proposed wall, his signature campaign promise. • An indication of the President's determination was shown when new White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told “Fox & Friends” on Friday that President Trump would remain in Washington through New Year’s Eve. When asked about the President's threat to close the border entirely, Mr. Mulvaney said that “what the President is trying to do, and rightly so, is shed some light on what’s happening here.” Mulvaney also indicated that there may be a division among Democrats about refusing to end the shutdown, telling Fox that while he believes Senator Schumer might be willing to come to a compromise on wall funding, “the more we’re hearing this week is that it’s Nancy Pelosi who is preventing that from happening.” • Breitbart reported on Friday that Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas said on “Fox & Friends” that if President Trump does not get his border wall funding, he should keep the government shutdown going “until hell freezes over....because we keep seeing people losing their lives without [a wall], you do it to hell freezes over. Until hell freezes over because we owe it to our country. And the best thing we could do compassionately for Mexico and Central America is not give them money that ends up in the hands of the drug cartels. It’s to secure the border, so the drugs quit coming, and we don’t lose 70,000 more lives a year and Mexico becomes a top 10 economy because we dropped corruption. That’s compassion.” • • • LATINO VOTERS FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP. BizPac Review reported on Friday that : "An Associated Press report published this week about President Donald Trump’s continued support among Latinos inspired a lot of shock, angst and even blatant racism from the far-left. Shared by NBC News on Thursday, the report noted that 32% of Latinos voted for Republican congressional candidates during the midterm elections last month. 'Though Latino voters are a key part of the Democratic coalition, there is a larger bloc of reliable Republican Latinos than many think,' the AP reported. 'And the GOP’s position among Latinos has not weakened during the Trump administration, despite the President’s rhetoric against immigrants and the party’s shift to the right on immigration.' The President’s rhetoric has been against those who flagrantly violate, disrespect and/or spin on America’s immigration laws and sovereignty. That the AP reported otherwise isn’t shocking. What was shocking and disturbing was how members of the radical left reacted on social media when NBC’s sister network MSNBC shared the AP story to its Twitter feed." • Here is the Twitter feed published by BizPAc Review -- "@MSNBC Data from November's elections show the GOP's position among Latinos has not weakened during the Trump administration, despite the President's rhetoric and policy. https://on.msnbc.com/2CBH2u1 /// "Replying to @MSNBC The ones here in TEXAS, thought Meester Trump gonna feex our yobs." /// "Replying to @MSNBC Self hate and the rejection of decency and objective truth are likely to blame. Nationwide Trump got 3 outta 10 latinos during the general election. Lets not overstate the impact of these confused people, yet." /// "Replying to @MSNBC Really a shocking statistic. It’s a lot like the Cubans, they got in and to hell with the rest of them. Let them rot in Cuba. A very sad commentary on human nature." /// "Replying to @MSNBC Thus confirming the only voting block who continues to like Trump are the grifters and their marks." /// "Replying to @MSNBC It’s abortion. I live on the border & THAT is their issue. They are religious & do what the “church” says. AND it’s the women. Hispanic men do what the women say." /// "Replying to @MSNBC Now tell us if those that support him also support their religion equally. Seems today’s religious people will follow anyone that tells them things they want to hear real or not." /// "Replying to @MSNBC The polling that shows Latinos in support of Trump is probably being conducted by Republicans escorted by IMMIGRATION & CRIMINAL ENFORCEMENT agents in blazing uniforms." /// "Replying to @MSNBC I’m sorry but I don’t believe that statistic or poll. Hispanics know that Trump could care less about them or anyone that’s not white and or privileged." /// "Replying to @MSNBC It makes zero sense." • • • DEAR READERS, I included that string of disgustingly racist and stereotyped tweets to remind us that the Democrats who accuse Republicans and President Trump of racism are themselves the racists. These tweets are insulting stereotypes meant to belittle Latinos and Hispanics who disagree with their identity politics agenda to keep all minority groups firmly in place on the ProgDem plantation. Why do Americans of any ethnic, religious or cultural group put up with being treated as subservient voters whose only role is to keep radically anti-American Progressive Democrats in power? Why??? • To go back to our opening point -- It is so simple. President Trump understands. Americans understand. Only Democrats and their base are too dumb to get it -- build the wall, secure the border, protect American families, neighborhoods, cities, states, and the country. Just what do Democrats not 'get' about these simple American truths ???

Deep State ProgDems, #NeverTrumpers and RINOs Are Trying to Destroy President Trump But America Stands with Him

AS 2018 COMES TO A CLOSE, THE PROGDEMS ARE STILL SABOTAGING AMERICA. And, sometimes the #NeverTrump brigade of RINOs lends a hand to the sabotage. • • • GIULIANI TELLS MUELLER TO "STUFF IT." TheHill reported on Thursday that Rudy Giuliani "has an unmistakable New Year’s message for special counsel Robert Mueller : It is time for the chief investigator in the Russia case to be investigated in 2019." Giuliani gave a long interview to Hill.TV on Wednesday and Thursday, and President Trump’s personal defense lawyer pointedly accused Mueller’s office of destroying evidence by allowing text messages from now-fired FBI official Peter Strzok and his FBI lover, Lisa Page, to be erased in the Russia probe. Giuliani said : “Mueller should be investigated for destruction of evidence for allowing those text messages from Strzok to be erased, messages that would show the state of mind and tactics of his lead anti-Trump FBI agent at the start of his probe.” • Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz reported earlier in December that there are large gaps in the preservation of official government text messages between Strzok and Page, the two top FBI agents who helped to start the Russia probe in 2016, who were having an affair at the time, and who expressed disdain for Trump. The IG report said a "technical glitch" was to blame for the FBI’s failure to save those text messages but the IG was able to recover more than 19,000 from the early part of the Russia probe before Mueller was named special prosecutor. What is particularly suspect is that the IG said it was unable to recover messages from the time Strzok and Page worked for Mueller’s office in spring and summer 2017 because the memories of both FBI officials’ government phones were wiped clean by technicians. That ERASURE occurred AFTER Strzok and Page left Mueller’s team over revelations they exchanged anti-Trump text messages, including one string in which they talked about stopping Trump from becoming President. Giuliani told Hill.TV : “That should be investigated, damn it, that should be investigated fully. You want a special counsel, get one for that....It’s actually worse than Rose Mary Woods. She erased less than 19 minutes of conversation, but the FBI got rid of more than 19,000 messages." MESSAGES, we point out, that are from the time Strzok and Page worked for Mueller and are now lost forever. • Rudy Giuliani also said the Russia probe investigators should be investigated for using the Christopher Steele Dossier, which he called a “piece of garbage,” to justify a search warrant on a Trump advisor without telling the court it was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democrat Party : “Do I think that is improper? Yeah, that borders on, that sounds to me a lot more like a false statement than some of the ones they charged.” • Former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate Giuliani sharply criticized Mueller’s team for allowing what he said were false statements by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen at Cohen’s sentencing a few weeks ago : “He just lied the other day. He told the judge, ‘I was fiercely loyal to Donald Trump.’ No, he wasn’t. He taped him surreptitiously while he was 'fiercely' loyal. He hid it. And he disclosed it.” Giuliani called the Mueller prosecutors’ failure to stand up during the sentencing and correct Cohen’s statement “unethical in and of itself. Making a false statement to a court, even a lawyer, you’ve to correct it." Giuliani said he is disturbed that the one Cohen tape that has surfaced -- in which Cohen and Trump discussed making payments to two women accusers during the 2016 campaign -- was inexplicably cut off midway through the conversation. Giuliani believes the missing sections of the conversation include “exculpatory” statements that would prove the President was innocent. • Giuliani expressed hope that the Mueller investigation would end soon, now that Trump has submitted written answers to prosecutors’ questions. He remains confident there was no evidence the President colluded with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election. • As for another round of written answers by President Trump for Mueller, Giuliani : “They have everything they need unless they just want to set a perjury trap.” • Noting that Mueller’s current focus is on whether Trump friends such as Roger Stone were communicating with WikiLeaks outside the campaign about hacked Hillary Clinton emails shows just how far astray the probe had gone, Giuliani said : “We’re now four degrees of separation from the original mandate of the investigation, which was collusion which did not occur.” • Giuliani also pointed to the FBI, saying it still needs to rehabilitate itself from the damage done by missteps in the Russia probe. Giuliani said he believed that “99 percent of the FBI agents” were doing a great job but that a small group of “FBI politicians” had improperly hijacked the Russia probe during fired director James Comey’s tenure. • Giuliani made it clear that he intends to fight back on every remaining move special counsel Mueller makes. The Trump defense team already has drafted a robust document to counter any information Mueller sends to the Justice Department in his final report. For example, Giuliani said it is ironic that, after investigating Trump for possible obstruction because Trump once suggested the FBI consider going easy on former national security advisor Mike Flynn, Mueller himself asked a federal judge to go easy on Flynn by awarding no prison time. So far, Mueller's team has indicted or reached plea deals with three companies and 33 people, but those with any connection to President Trump are onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security advisor Michael Flynn and Trump's former longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. None of the three have been indicted or entered pleas on any matter related to President Trump or the Trump campaign or "Russian collusion." • • • NEW LIGHT ON THE ALABAMA SENATE ELECTION. BizPac Review reported on December 20 that according to a new report in the New York Times, the head of the cyber security firm which wrote a report for the Senate on Russian disinformation in the 2016 election also engaged in similar strategies to affect the hotly contested Alabama race between Republican Roy Moore and the eventual winner, Democrat Senator Doug Jones. The Alabama project “experimented with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections,” according to an internal report obtained by the New York Times. • Here is how the Fake news worked -- According to the new New York Times report, the head of the cyber security firm that wrote a report was Jonathon Morgan, chief executive of the research firm New Knowledge, which participated in the effort that included setting up a Facebook page made up of supposedly conservative voters in Alabama who did not support Moore. The group attempted to divide Republican voters, working along with an effort on Twitter which attempted to link Moore to more than a thousand Russian-language Twitter accounts that popped up and followed the GOP candidate’s account. Democrat operatives told the NYT : “We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet.” • So, Moore was right all along! A billionaire Democrat donor did fund a ‘Russian bot’ scheme in the Alabama Senate race, and media bought the Fake information and ran with it. The project was funded by liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman who gave the operatives $100,000 to undertake the experiment in a race that Federal Election Commission records revealed cost approximately $51 million, the NYT reported. • So, Moore was right! A billionaire Democrat donor did fund a ‘Russian bot’ scheme in the Alabama Senate race, and media bought the Fake information and ran with it. CAN YOU BELIEVE that Morgan claimed the tactics used were not intended to affect the outcome of the race which eventually saw Democrat Doug Jones beat out Moore in the deep-red state. Morgan said : “The research project was intended to help us understand how these kind of campaigns operated. We thought it was useful to work in the context of a real election but design it to have almost no impact.” GET SERIOUS !! Of course it was meant to affect the election outcome -- and it did !! News outlets around the nation fell for the ruse during the race, helping spread the narrative in multiple reports as Moore blamed Democratic operatives for the stunt, for which he was widely criticized and mocked. • “Some will do whatever it takes to win,” GOP consultant Dan Bayens told the New York Times, “You’ve got Russia, which showed folks how to do it, you’ve got consultants willing to engage in this type of behavior and political leaders who apparently find it futile to stop it." • The big danger is that ProgDem or #NeverTrump operatives use the dark arts of bots and social networks in the 2020 presidential election campaign, AND it works.” • • • REPUBLICANS IN NAME ONLY SIDE WITH DEMOCRATS ON OPEN BORDERS. BizPac Review and the Daily Caller reported the week before Christmas that : "A coalition of former Republican politicians and executive branch officials filed an amicus -- or a 'friend-of-the-court' -- brief at the Supreme Court, arguing that President Donald Trump’s asylum rules are unlawful. 'The Attorney General’s regulation is inconsistent with the plain text and meaning of [federal law],' the brief reads. 'That should be the end of the matter.' " • The Trump administration issued new rules governing asylum claims in November as a migrant caravan coalesced in Tijuana, Mexico, near the border with the United States. The rules operate in two parts : the DOJ and Homeland Security issued a regulation on November 9 denying asylum eligibility to any alien subject to a presidential proclamation regulating immigration at the southern border. That same day, Trump issued an order suspending the entry of all aliens along the Mexican border, except those who arrive through designated points of entry. The former GOP officials’ brief says the government is essentially arguing that the attorney general has a “a free hand to suspend asylum categorically for any reason for any duration....Even if the attorney general only acted wisely, and only in response to a crisis, in issuing a suspension, that would be no substitute for a statutory limit, which is what separation of powers requires.” • The brief twice cites Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinions on immigration issues -- Gorsuch is probably the most likely of the conservatives to join with the liberal bloc on this matter. For example, the brief cites Gorsuch’s separate opinion from an April case called Sessions v. Dimaya, in which Gorsuch and the four liberal justices voted to strike down a deportation statute as unconstitutionally vague. A federal judge issued an injunction barring enforcement of the new rules on November 20. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision on December 8, prompting the federal government’s appeal to the Supreme Court. At this stage, the Justice Department is only asking the Supreme Court to lift the injunction and allow the rules to take effect while legal challenges work their way through the courts. The case is Trump v. East Bay Sanctuary Covenant. • Signatories to the brief include William Webster, a Republican appointee to the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals named CIA Director by President Ronald Reagan; Peter Keisler, a senior Justice Department lawyer former President George W. Bush nominated for the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; Stuart Gerson, a former acting attorney general; and John Bellinger III who held several top legal posts in the Bush administration, among others. • Just before Christmas, President Trump issued an order revising the November order that permits asylum seekers to enter the US and file petitions for asylum, but who must then return to Mexico or their home country to await the review and asylum hearing. This later order has not yet been challenged. • • • DID JOHN MCCAIN'S ASSOCIATE LEAK THE RUSSIA DOSSIER TO BUZZFEED? BizPac Review's Vivek Saxena wrote on December 20 that : "Roughly a month and a half after the 2016 presidential election, a close associate of the late Senator John McCain funneled a fraudulent and thoroughly debunked Dossier on then-President-elect Donald Trump to various members of the media, including Ken Bensinger of BuzzFeed News. This and other revelations were unveiled at a court hearing this week involving a suit filed last year against BuzzFeed by Cyprus resident Aleksej Gubarev and his company XBT Holding alleging that the BuzzFeed’s decision to publish the Dossier in January 2017 defamed them. • BizPAc says that although US District Judge Ursula Ungaro ultimately ruled against Gubarev, arguing that BuzzFeed is protected by the fair reporting privilege, the proceedings did allow for the uncovering of new information regarding how the publisher got a hold of the Dossier in the first place. Variety reported that : "BuzzFeed’s Ken Bensinger obtained the Dossier from David Kramer, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova," citing court documents from the hearing, “They met at the McCain Institute on December 29, 2016.” Their meeting at the McCain Institute was not incidental. It was McCain who had dispatched Kramer, a member of the institute, to obtain copies of the Dossier roughly a month before the meeting. Previous reports revealed that sometime in late 2016, former British diplomat Andrew Wood -- a friend of British spy Christopher Steele, the man who compiled the Dossier for the firm Fusion GPS -- met with the Arizona Senator to inform him of the contents of the since-discredited document. Following the meeting, McCain reportedly dispatched Kramer to obtain the Dossier directly from Fusion GPS. It’s what happened afterward that remains a bit murky." • The Daily Caller noted that : “Kramer met November 30, 2016, with McCain and McCain’s chief of staff, Christopher Brose, to review Steele’s reports. Kramer advised McCain to share the reports with the FBI and the CIA.” The Senator did exactly that, acknowledging early in 2017 that he gave the Trump Dossier to the FBI late in 2016 : “Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI.” BUT, Kramer reportedly took action as well, choosing to arrange a meeting with BuzzFeed. During that meeting, the Dossier wound up in the hands of Bensinger. Judge Ungaro wrote in her ruling : "Kramer testified that Bensinger took photos of the Dossier when Kramer was out of the room, even though he asked Bensinger not to," adding that “in a later declaration, Kramer stated that he had no objection to Bensinger taking a hard copy and had provided hard copies to other journalists.” • Thus we now know that not only did John McCain meet a former British diplomat to discuss the Steele Dossier and then send his associate to London to retrieve a copy of the Dossier -- McCain's associate later met with journalists at the McCain Institute and gave them copies of the Dossier. Whether Kramer carried out these actions voluntarily or under the direction of the Arizona Senator remains unclear. We also do not know why Senator McCain had been so focused on the Dossier in any case. BizPac Review says that an anonymous former national security official who spoke with the New Yorker earlier this year claimed the plan had been for McCain to confront Trump with the Dossier and demand his resignation. All of this once more shows just how viciously #NeverTrump John McCain was, willing to do anything to harm the President. • • • STEELE NOW ADMITS HE WAS HIRED BY HILLARY'S LAW FIRM TO PREPARE A DOSSIER. It was to be used to challenge the 2016 election of Donald Trump. The Washington Times reported in mid-December that : "British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who wrote the Democrat-financed anti-Trump Dossier, said in a court case that he was hired by a Democratic law firm in preparation for Hillary Clinton challenging the results of the 2016 presidential election. He said the law firm Perkins Coie wanted to be in a position to contest the results based on evidence he unearthed on the Trump campaign conspiring with Moscow on election interference. His scenario is contained in a sealed August 2 declaration in a defamation law suit brought by three Russian bankers in London. The trio’s American attorneys filed his answers Tuesday in a libel lawsuit in Washington against the investigative firm Fusion GPS, which handled the former British intelligence officer. In an answer to interrogatories, Mr. Steele wrote : 'Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie. It engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie LLP to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election. Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and HFACC Inc. (also known as ‘Hillary for America’) could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election.' The Democrats never filed a challenge, but Mr. Steele’s answer suggested that was one option inside the Clinton camp, which funded Mr. Steele’s research along with the Democratic National Committee." • The Obama-era US intelligence community concluded that Moscow interfered in the election by hacking Democratic Party computers and stealing emails that it released via WikiLeaks. BUT, NO Trump associate has been charged with collusion. • In a previous court filing in a second case in April-May 2017, Steele said his job was to find links between Trump associates and Moscow. Hired by Fusion in June 2016, he wrote a 17-memo Dossier alleging a “extensive conspiracy” between the two, which two years later hasn’t been proven publicly by special counsel Robert Mueller or Congress. In his most recent London court filing, BizPac says : "Steele is defending against a libel lawsuit by citing a discredited story about a computer server, Trump Tower and a Russian bank. The suit was brought by three Russian oligarchs who control Moscow’s Alfa Bank. Mr. Steele, under the Dossier heading of election interference, accused them of paying cash bribes to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The bankers -- Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan -- also sued Fusion GPS. The case was dismissed by a DC Superior Court judge. Lawyers filed an appeal in US District Court and attached Mr. Steele’s August declarations given in the London court. 'Internet traffic data suggested that a computer server of an entity in which the Claimants have an interest, Alfa Bank, had been communicating with a computer server linked to the Trump Organization,' Mr. Steele stated. His goal was to show that his unverified Dossier was correct when he wrote of an 'extensive conspiracy." BUT, the server story has fallen into the “fake news” category according to BizPac Review, which states : "When it began appearing on social media in 2016, some online sleuths looked at the server’s IP address and other data. They traced the server to a location outside Philadelphia that spewed marketing spam. A Trump Organization official told The Washington Times last year that some of the spam went to Alfa Bank employees who perhaps stayed in Trump hotels. That’s how Alfa turned up in some emails. The New York Times investigated and said the FBI basically came to the same conclusion." • When former FBI Director James Comey was questioned by Representative Trey Gowdy in an early December joint House Judiciary and Oversight Committee hearing, he claimed “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” in response to dozens of questions concerning key details in the Russia probe. Comey was also fuzzy on the eventual Democratic funding of the research that went into the controversial and unverified anti-Trump Dossier. Asked by Gowdy when he learned that the firm behind the Dossier, Fusion GPS, was hired by law firm Perkins Coie -- and when he learned that law firm was hired by the Democratic National Committee -- Comey said “I never learned that” while Director. Comey also claimed not to know key details surrounding the involvement of Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the Dossier. Asked when Steele was “terminated” as an FBI source, Comey said he didn’t know. Asked about Steele’s subsequent contact with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, Comey said, “I don’t know anything about that.” • • • CLINTON WHISTLEBLOWERS REFUSE TO GIVE DOCUMENTS TO CONGRESS. TeaParty.org reported in mid-December that Mark Meadows, the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Government Operations, led a hearing on the Clinton Foundation whistleblowers : "Special prosecutor John Huber was a NO-SHOW. Congressman Meadows became angry with the two Clinton Foundation witnesses, Mr. Doyle and Mr. Moynihan, after they refused to hand over to the Committee the over 6,000 pages of evidence they gathered on the corrupt foundation. Lawrence Doyle of DM Income Advisors and John Moynihan of JFM Associates told Meadows that they handed over the thousands of pages of evidence to the IRS and FBI but refused to give the Oversight Subcommittee the documents. Moynihan and Doyle argued that according to their research, the Clinton Foundation was acting as a foreign agent, not a 501c3 non-profit organization yet never registered under FARA. The witnesses also told the committee today they had to send their evidence to the Huber investigation THREE TIMES because they kept losing it. Meadows lost his patience and became furious after Mr. Doyle and Mr. Moynihan refused to give him their documents : 'If you’re not going to share your information with this Committee, my patience is running out.' " After consulting with their lawyers, they still refused, with Moynihan saying : "We will not be providing those materials.” Meadows answered : “We will compel you to bring all those documents to this Committee then…let me just tell you, this is a hearing to get to the truth and what you’re saying is that you’re all about the truth, Mr. Moynihan..if you’re all about the truth then why aren’t you willing to give us the documents?” • Why did these two witnesses testify today if they weren’t going to give Meadows the 6,000 documents supporting their testimony? The Tea Party thinks that they amy be holding out for a hefty financial reward. And, they know that the IRS and FBI can be trusted to take no action and that Huber has already proven to be ineffective. BUT, are they perhaps turning around and now supporting the Deep State and the Clintons? Have they been scared off? We just do not know. • Clinton Foundation filings show that the Clinton Foundation received $26.6 million in 2017 -- down a staggering 58% from the $62.9 million it took in the previous year. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, notes that Clinton Foundation had received “staggering sums” of money from Saudi benefactors, estimated between $18 million and $50 million, when she was Secretary of State : “While Mrs. Clinton was Secretary of State, Bill Clinton gave two speeches in Saudi Arabia earning a total of $600,000. There is enough evidence to warrant serious investigations of the Clinton Foundation.” Investigative journalist Sara Carter told Fox News host Sean Hannity that whistle-blowers John Moynihan and Lawrence W. Doyle said the FBI is investigating the Clinton Foundation. "They basically admitted that the FBI is actually investigating the Clinton Foundation, and it’s been ongoing. It’s huge.” Attorney Gregg Jarrett noted that there’s enough evidence to nail Hillary and her crooked Foundation : The evidence is there. There’s an internal auditor about her Foundation how there were quid-pro-quo benefits, the Doug Band e-mails which demonstrate that Bill Clinton didn’t just cross the line of impropriety -- he demolished it. [Bill Clinton used] the Foundation as his own personal piggy bank as his wife put a ‘for sale’ sign on the door of her office as Secretary of State. It’s good that there is an FBI investigation. There should also be a grand jury to look at it.” BUT, Mueller ignored the unethical relationship between former SOS Hilary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and the Russian company Rosatum that bought Uranium One. • In addition, TheHill reported that a whistleblower submission filed with the FBI and IRS in August 2017 included internal legal reviews that the Clinton Foundation conducted between 2008 and 2011. Those reviews raised concerns about legal compliance and improper mingling of personal and charity business. According to TheHill report, MDA investigators met with Clinton Foundation CFO Andrew Kessel in late November 2016. During the meeting, Kessel said that “one of the biggest problems was [former President Bill] Clinton’s commingling and use of business and donated funds and his personal expenses.” A separate interview memo stated that Bill Clinton “mixes and matches his personal business with that of the Foundation. Many people within the Foundation have tried to caution him about this but he does not listen, and there really is no talking to him.” • American Thinker's Thomas Lifson wrote on December 7 : "Having the chief financial officer of the Clinton Foundation turn informant is a nightmare for the Clintons. The CFO has to process all the cash, and because that person usually is on the hook for any criminal violations, there is ample incentive to turn state's evidence. That evidence was assembled by a private firm called MDA Analytics LLC, run by accomplished ex-federal criminal investigators, who alleged the Clinton Foundation engaged in illegal activities and may be liable for millions of dollars in delinquent taxes and penalties. In addition to the IRS, the firm's partners have had contact with prosecutors in the main Justice Department in Washington and FBI agents in Little Rock, Ark. MDA Analytics claims to be motivated by the prospect of reaping a substantial bounty from the IRS, as the agency pays informants a portion of the taxes it is able to recover. The fact that they are not politically motivated is a huge plus, because they have invested their own resources in the investigation in the expectation of a financial return. These experienced pros believe they have a strong enough case to yield many millions to the IRS and a portion of those millions for themselves." • BUT, we now know the these whistleblowers are not going to share their 6,000 pages with the House Oversight Subcommittee. • Lifson says : " The hysteria ginned up by the Mueller investigation can be harnessed to focus on the Clintons, using the same techniques that the Left has embraced when used against Trump." • • • DEAR READERS, the Deep State, Democrats and Republicans alike, are in lock step trying to remove Trump from office. If only they were in similar agreement on securing the border, cutting regulations, or growing the economy than they are against Trump. Represnetative Maxine Waters says : “President Donald Trump is a ‘criminal’ who should be impeached.” It never ends. President Trump, a billionaire businessman with a successful reality television show, had it all -- money, influence, and popularity. He gave that up try to make a difference for America and the world. For his efforts, he is ridiculed and maligned not only by his political opponents but by many in his own GOP. The #NeverTrumpers in Congress and the media who would be ecstatic if a President Bush, Kasich, or Rubio were implementing everything Trump is doing, yet Trump’s conservative accomplishments mean nothing because he is not one of them, not a member of their elite establishment club. So, rather than support the outsider Trump, #NeverTrumpers and RINOs have chosen to embrace radically Leftist Democrat policies. Who cares about fair trade deals, lower taxes and regulations, border enforcement, economic growth, and conservative judges. Not the GOP Establishment !! No sir. Kill the GOP. Kill the recovery. Kill the Republic, if that is what it takes to get rid of Donald Trump. • As Brian Joondeph wrote in American Thinker : "The more Trump does, the more the opposition grows. To the point that he has few friends in Washington, DC. Especially in his own party. Special Counsel Robert Mueller will undoubtedly cook up something for House Democrats to use for impeachment. For every line that Trump may have crossed, Obama, Clinton, and their minions crossed a parking lot full of lines, all without consequence. It’s not simply two standards of justice, it’s no justice at all. It’s Stalinesque justice where the deep state makes up the rules as they go along, favoring themselves with kangaroo courts for their opponents. Conventional wisdom is that Senate Republicans would never vote to remove an impeached President Trump from office. Oh really? How many will see obstruction of justice in Trump firing James Comey, after his deputy attorney general recommended, and his attorney general agreed, that he should do just that? Or his perfectly legitimate nondisclosure agreements with payment....The fact that Trump is still upbeat and optimistic, accomplishing more in a day than his predecessors did in a week, is beyond amazing. But at some point, the human spirit breaks. How many slings and arrows will Trump take before he’s had enough? How long do political and media hacks pursue trivial matters while danger lurks in all corners of the globe? What kind of example is America, as the world’s lone superpower, setting for the rest of the world with American politicians re-enacting 'Mean Girls' against the duly elected President? When does Donald Trump say, “Enough is enough!”? • Apparently, not just yet. Because even Fake News CNN can't seem to get its polls to agree that President Trump should be impeached. The American public has become increasingly less interested in a potential Trump impeachment, and that’s according to CNN’s own polls. Setting aside CNN's compulsion to constantly ask this question, the network can’t be thrilled with the way the nation is swaying in regards to a Trump impeachment. CNN was forced to admit, “support for impeachment has dipped.” According to the December CNN poll, 50% of respondents don’t feel that Trump should be impeached, compared to 43% who still feel he should be impeached. In September, 47% of those polled felt that Trump should be impeached, so the recent polls represents a 4% dip in support for impeachment. And, it is not just Republicans who move the poll roward non-impeachment. In September, political independents were split almost evenly in the polls, with 48% for impeachment and 47% against. In December, that split has skewed heavily against impeachment, with the recent polls showing 36% favor impeachment and a whopping 55% are against it. CNN also cites impeachment calls dying down among young adults as well as racial and ethnic minorities. Young adults, classified by CNN as younger than 45, went from 53% pro-impeachment to 45%. And in a stunning rebuke of the leftist’s favorite narrative that Trump is racist, racial and ethnic minorities went from 66% favoring impeachment to 50%. The poll shows that calls for impeachment have all but fizzled down to a vocal subset of far leftists. Everyday Americans are growing more and more disinterested in the prospect. • The message is loud and clear as we leave 2018 -- it resonates from all corners of America and even reaches as far as the US military base in Baghdad -- America loves President Trump and his lovely First Lady and we want them to stay with us. We need the President's courage, skills, and determination in the face of the ProgDems, #NeverTrumpers, and RINOS. Make America Great Again. That is President Trump's goal, and it is our goal.

President and Mrs. Trump's Baghdad Visit and the Start of a New US Role in the Middle East

PRESIDENT TRUMP AND THE FIRST LADY VISIT US TROOP IN IRAQ. And, the President's worries about the trip tell us just how much hs is a real person -- not an elitist Swamp Creature. • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP DESCRIBED SECURITY AROUND THE TRIP. The Daily Caller report, published by BizPac Review on Thursday, shows that President Trump is a real person with real concerns for those around him. When asked if he had concerns about the trip, he told reporters on Wednesday, while still in Iraq at the Al Asad Air Force Base just west of Baghdad, that he was concerned for the safety of First Lady Melania Trump during his unannounced trip to Iraq late Christmas evening to visit with US troops for the holidays. The President told reporters at a press conference that he “absolutely” had concerns traveling to the combat zone, specifically for the people with whom he was traveling : “I had concerns about the institution of the presidency -- not for myself personally. I had concerns for the First Lady, I will tell you. But if you would have seen what we had to go through -- with the darkened plane, with all windows closed, with no lights on whatsoever, anywhere -- pitch black. I’ve been on many airplanes -- all types and shapes and sizes. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’re coming in and I know all of the things that are surrounding us for safety. So did I have a concern? Yes, I had a concern.” You can see the video of the President's comments at < https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1078073596180946944 >. • President Trump’s surprise trip to Iraq marks his first voyage into a war zone since becoming Commander-in-Chief, and of course the ProgDem lapdog media had been chastising him for not visiting troops overseas at Christmas. But, the trip was planned well in advance -- as all presidential trips to war zones are -- but the media has yet to apologize to the President, or to thank Melania Trump for being the first First Lady to accompany her husband to a war zone. • The President and Melania spent hours after touching down greeting servicemen and taking photographs. Western Journal Conservative Tribune's Ben Marquis reported on Wednesday that : "In the eyes of his supporters, President Donald Trump’s unabashed admiration, love and respect for the men and women who serve our nation in uniform is clearly evident. Naturally, Trump’s critics see things quite differently, and assert that the President really doesn’t care that much about military service members or the great sacrifices they make. A key anti-Trump talking point in that regard that critics have hyped incessantly was the fact that the President had yet to visit any of our nation’s troops stationed in a war zone, ostensibly because he was too fearful to travel to a dangerous area and just didn’t care about the risks his soldiers faced in a combat zone while under his command." But, CNBC and then NBC finally reported that the President and first lady had made a surprise trip to Iraq to visit with US airmen, soldiers and Marines deployed in the war-torn nation." On their return trip from Iraq, the President and First Lady made a stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where they also visited with US troops who are stationed there. • White House press secretary Sarah Sanders revealed one of the truly touching moments for the President in Iraq when she tweeted : “President Trump and the First Lady traveled to Iraq late on Christmas night to visit with our troops and Senior Military leadership to thank them for their service, their success, and their sacrifice and to wish them a Merry Christmas.” The White House press secretary was moved by the story of one US soldier in Iraq on Wednesday who told the President that he was inspired to rejoin the military because of Trump’s election. Sanders tweeted : "Powerful moment -- Member of United States Army told the President he came back into the military because of him. And President Trump responded, 'And I am here because of you.' I met him after and he gave me the patch from his arm. Incredible." After Trump and First Lady Melania left following the surprise Christmas trip to Iraq to visit with US service members, Sanders shared the story and how she met up with the young man. The “Brave Rifles” patch Sarah Sanders received was patch of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment of the US Army stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. • While the ProgDem lapdog mainstream media are eager to spread Fake news negative reports about Trump and the military, the President proved again how popular he is with the troops. Many were prepared with their Make America Great Again caps, which the President happily signed. He generously took one selfie after another with the troops, who were obviously happy to have him there for the holiday visit. And, as we would expect from the disgusting anti-Trump media, their networks, like CNN, fired off despicable criticisms of service members breaking Department of Defense guidelines for political activities because of the MAGA caps, Americans celebrated their sacrifice and the President who genuinely cares about them. Twitter was full of praise for Sarah Sanders’ story -- "Great job @PressSec! Thanks for going and sharing this w us!" // "It's great to have a real patriot at the helm. #MAGA" // "I sure wish these moments were shared with the masses on all media outlets. Thank you @PressSec and @realDonaldTrump" // "My son joined the Army in July because he wanted to serve our great country under a President who puts his country first!" // "Awesome!! I love & support our military. President Trump’s visit was wonderful and hope our brave military felt our President’s admiration & appreciation as they deserve. Thanks for sharing Sarah!" // "It's wow..great.." // "3rd Armored Cavalry - makes me extremely proud to have served in the Brave Rifles. Sgt. Jay '83-'85 U.S.A." • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP MAKES IT CLEAR -- THE US IS NOT PULLING OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST. The surprise presidential visit to Iraq came just days after President Trump announced that he was withdrawing the roughly 2,000 US troops deployed to neighboring Syria to combat the Islamic State group, a heavily criticized decision that seemed to precipitate the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis. The Syria announcement was instantly followed by media reports of rumored troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, and speculation ran wild among analysts and “experts” in the media who suggested that Trump was pulling the entirety of the US military presence out of the Middle East...which isn’t really the case at all. • However, CNBC reported that the President made it clear to those he spoke with in Iraq that he had “no plans at all” to draw down and remove the more than 5,000 troops currently deployed there. No news outlet is talking about the obvious fact that if there is in the future a need for the US to engage enemies or protect allies in Syria, the thousands of troops literally next door in Iraq could move in at a moment’s notice. • President Trump also reportedly addressed the departure of Mattis while he was in Iraq, and offered high praise for Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who will soon become the acting Defense Secretary, a post President Trump suggests Shanahan could fill “for a long time.” • • • ANOTHER TRUMP CAMPAIGN PROMISE BEING KEPT. Newsmax reported that the President said he has 'no plans at all' to remove US troops from Iraq, and he defended his decision to withdraw US forces from Syria where they have been helping battle ISIS militants." President Trump told American servicemen and women at Al Asad base inin Iraq : "We're no longer the suckers, folks. We're respected again as a nation." The President said it's because of US military gains that he can withdraw 2,000 forces from Syria, telling the troops : "I made it clear from the beginning that our mission in Syria was to strip ISIS of its military strongholds. Eight years ago, we went there for three months and we never left. Now, we're doing it right and we're going to finish it off." He said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to take out "any remnants" of ISIS left in Syria. The US presence in Syria was not meant to be "open-ended," he said, adding that other wealthy nations should pay for rebuilding Syria. "The nations of the region must step up and take more responsibility for their future," President Trump said, adding that there would be a "strong, deliberate and orderly withdrawal" of US forces from Syria. Fifteen years after the 2003 invasion, the US still has more than 5,000 troops in Iraq supporting the government as it continues to fight against remaining pockets of resistance by ISIS, which has lost a reported 98% of its territory in Iraq and Syria, but is still seen as a threat. • Newsmax also reported that : "The Iraqi government now has control of all the country's cities, towns and villages after fighting its last urban battles against ISIS in December 2017. But its political, military and economic situation remains uncertain, and the country continues to experience sporadic bombings, kidnappings and assassinations, which most people attribute to ISIS. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi recently said Iraqi troops could deploy into Syria to protect Iraq from threats across its borders." Iraq keeps reinforcements along its frontier to guard against infiltration by ISIS militants, who hold a pocket of territory along the Euphrates River in an area where Russia has been operating. • Fix This Nation wrote on December 23, just after the President announced the Syria troop withdrawal, that : "On Saturday, President Trump wrote what very well could be the truest tweet of his presidency. 'If anybody but your favorite President, Donald J. Trump, announced that, after decimating ISIS in Syria, we were going to bring our troops back home (happy & healthy), that person would be the most popular hero in America,' he wrote. 'With me, hit hard instead by the Fake News Media. Crazy!' Does anyone doubt for a second that he’s 100% right? We’re used to watching Democrats and liberals change their tune at the drop of a hat, but their reaction to the Syria pullout has been nothing less than disgraceful. These idiots have been screaming about American imperialism for the better part of a quarter-century! These morons have gone as far as to call for international war tribunals for Cheney and Bush! They have been decrying our Middle Eastern presence since the day after 9/11. And now, when a President finally begins to make inroads towards bringing those conflicts to an end, they say he’s a child throwing a tantrum? They say there are no more 'adults in the room?' We saw Michael Moore the other day saying he’s only now truly 'frightened' with James Mattis out of the government. Who ARE these people? And where were they when the very same James Mattis was fired by Obama for being too focused on the threat from Iran -- a focus that was getting in the way of Obama’s increasingly-cozy relationship with the Islamic regime over there? NOW these people are concerned that Iran will have the run of the place in Syria? None of this makes any sense at all, and one cannot possibly take it seriously." • The same could be said of the mountain being made by the media out of the molehill resignation of Brett McGurk -- an Obama appointee who was already past his expiration date. President Trump tweeted : “Brett McGurk, who I do not know, was appointed by President Obama in 2015. Was supposed to leave in February but he just resigned prior to leaving. Grandstander? The Fake News is making such a big deal about this nothing event!” • Everything is a big deal in the Trump era -- everything except the booming economy; everything except the historic criminal justice bill that just got passed; everything except the Republican tax cuts. Only the things that the media can try to turn in order to put President Trump in a bad light are reported. The non-event of Brett McGurk's resignation, for example. • • • WHAT WILL BECOME OF SYRIA? American Thinker's Gary Gindler asks, "Are there any 'good guys' left in Syria?" Gindler reminds us that : "After President Trump announced the withdrawal of American troops from Syria, in his usual manner (via Twitter), a flurry of indignation struck him. The squall is no less than after the unilateral withdrawal of America from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in October of this year. As we know, this flurry of indignation concerning nuclear missiles soon subsided. However, it sank only after Trump's critics finally bothered to read the text of the treaty and were able to ascertain that it concerns only land-based missiles and does not affect sea, air, and space-based nuclear weapons at all. At the same time, the USA has at least a tenfold advantage over Russia in sea-based and air-based nuclear systems. The hysteria about this in America and Europe has remained calm for a long time, but in Russia, this move of Trump still causes undisguised irritation." • Gindler says that the unfair accusations of "betraying the Allies" and "New Year's gift to Iran and Russia" will soon also subside, citing Russia : "She has already learned her lessons in dealing with Trump, and there is no euphoria in the Kremlin about the 'withdrawal of American troops' from Syria. Why? Firstly, only about two thousand ground-based troops will return home from Syria. Syria remains clamped on all sides by the American 6th Fleet (operations in the Mediterranean) and 5th Fleet (operations in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea). We are talking about not only naval forces, but also powerful carrier-based aircraft. Also, the American Air Force, which is based on numerous airfields in the Middle East, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, participated and will continue to participate in Syrian operations. In addition, in agreement with NATO, France will expand its involvement in military operations in the north of Syria and fill the 'gap' due to the departure of American infantry. At the same time, the withdrawal will take place in such a way that the French military will immediately replace every unit of the American military. In other words, the power vacuum that Obama left in 2011 when withdrawing troops from Iraq will not be repeated in Syria. Secondly...Trump's plan for a comprehensive settlement of conflicts in the Middle East is beginning to materialize....the use of 'peaceful' oil and gas as the weapons in a protracted conflict to achieve his goals. At the end of 2008, it was used by the Russian oil industry, stopping the supply of energy to a freezing Europe, and at the end of 2018, it was used by the American oil industry, flooding the world market with cheap and abundant energy. Thanks to the American oil industry workers, the US came out on top in the world in oil production (in September of this year) and natural gas (two years ago). The export of American energy is increasing every year, and energy's price is falling. The fall in the price of oil only since September of this year has already reached about 40%, and from the point of maximum in 2008, the price of oil has fallen by about 70%. The fall in natural gas prices since 2006 has continued uninterrupted and has already reached about 75%. These economic results lead not only to well marked price reductions at gas stations across America, but also to a strategic change in the situation in the Middle East....The innovations of American engineers (such as shale oil) lead to the fact that a hundred-year temporary delay, given to the Moslems of the Middle East, is coming to an end. After the discovery of oil in the Middle East, the war between the Sunnis and Shiites, which continues from the end of the 7th century, broke out with a new force. But at present, the lack of oil super-profits is forcing Moslems to seek alliances previously considered in the realm of fantasy. Sunni Moslems joined forces with Israel and the United States against the Shiite Moslems of Iran, the ruling elite of Syria, and Russia. The protracted conflict in Syria has led to the fact that, as often happens, there are almost no 'good guys' among the opposing sides. Everyone knows a case when, during the time of President Obama, a group of militants in Syria, supported by the Pentagon, fought with a group of militants in the same Syria, sponsored by the CIA." • But, Gindler says that Trump has made the only right choice : to take the American guys out of harm's way and extinguish the conflict with the help of oil and gas weapons. : "The withdrawal of the American infantry from Syria was prepared long ago and came as a surprise only to the uninformed. Trump ordered the development of a plan for leaving Syria as early as February of this year, and in April, this plan was partially declassified and made public. An unexpected 'victim' of the withdrawal of US infantry from Syria was the US Secretary of Defense, James Mattis. General Mattis is one of the most talented combat generals of our time. He, like General Patton before him, perfectly knows methods of military tactics and military strategy, and he does not accept civilian methods in solving military problems. Mattis was unable to come to terms with the fact that the victory over Islamic terrorism would be won by the innovations of American engineers, rather than a professional and well trained army, and decided to retire. Well, we wish our guys to return home safely, and we wish General Mattis inspiration for his memoirs in the New Year. Russia and its friends in Iran, Syria, and Venezuela in the new year should not hope for pleasant surprises." • Old-hand Patrick Buchanan spoke out about the Syria withdrawal for Newsmax last Friday, December 21 : " 'We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there,' wrote President Donald Trump, as he ordered the withdrawal of all US forces from Syria, stunning the US foreign policy establishment. Trump overruled his secretaries of state and defense, and jolted this city and capitals across NATO Europe and the Mideast. Yet, Trump is doing exactly what he promised to do in his campaign. And what his decision seems to say is this : We are extricating America from the forever war of the Mideast so foolishly begun by previous Presidents. We are coming home. The rulers and peoples of this region are going to have to find their own way and fight their own wars." But, Pat Buchanan warned that : "Despite the heavy casualties and lost battles ISIS has suffered, the collapse of the caliphate, expulsion from its Syrian capital Raqqa and Iraqi capital Mosul, and from almost all territories it controlled in both countries, ISIS is not dead. It lives on in thousands of true believers hidden in those countries. And, like al-Qaida, it has followers across the Mideast and inspires haters of the West living in the West. The US pullout from Syria is being called a victory for Vladimir Putin. 'Russia, Iran, Assad...are ecstatic!' wails Senator Lindsey Graham....But ISIS is a Sunni terrorist organization. And, as such, it detests the Alawite regime of Bashar Assad, and Hezbollah and Iran, both of which are hated by ISIS as Shiite heretics. 'Russia, Iran, Syria...are not happy about the US leaving,' Trump tweeted, 'despite what the Fake News says, because now they will have to fight ISIS and others, who they hate, without us.' If Putin, victorious in the Syrian civil war, wishes to fight al-Qaida and ISIS, the last major enemies of Assad in Syria, why not let him?" The real losers? Certainly the Kurds, who lose their American ally. Any dream they had of greater autonomy inside Syria, or an independent state, is not going to be realized. But then, that was never really in the cards. Forced to choose between Turkey, with 80 million people and the second-largest army in NATO, which sits astride the Dardanelles and Bosphorus entrance to the Black Sea, and the stateless Kurds with their Syrian Democratic Forces, or YPG, Trump chose Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And Erdogan regards the YPG as kinfolk and comrades of the Kurdish terrorist PKK in Turkey. A week ago, he threatened to attack the Kurds in northern Syria, though US troops are embedded alongside them. What kind of deal did Trump strike with Erdogan? Turkey will purchase the US Patriot anti-aircraft and missile defense system for $3.5 billion, and probably forego the Russian S-400....National security advisor John Bolton, who said US troops would remain in Syria until all Iranian forces and Iranian-backed militias have been expelled, appears not to have been speaking for his President. And if the Israelis were relying on US forces in Syria to intercept any Iranian weapons shipments headed to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Damascus, then the Israelis are going to have to make other arrangements." Buchanan says : "The war party project, to bring about regime change in Teheran through either severe sanctions leading to insurrection or a US-Iranian clash in the Gulf, will suffer a severe setback with the US pullout from Syria. However, given the strength of the opposition to a US withdrawal -- Israel, Saudi Arabia, the GOP foreign policy establishment in Congress and the think tanks, liberal interventionists in the Beltway press, Trump's own national security team of advisors -- the battle to overturn Trump's decision has probably only just begun." Pat Buchanan believes that the Syria pullout "at least has assured us of a national debate on what it will mean to America to extricate our country from these Mideast wars, the kind of debate we have not had in the 15 years since we were first deceived into invading Iraq." We should add that experience tells us that this debate will probably not occur in any objective sense, but it will give America the opportunity to redefine its Middle East role and seek new and more even-handed relationships with the Middle East countries America is trying to help -- Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- and to re-evaluate the real intentions of such 'allies' as the UAE, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. • • • DEAR READERS, Iraq is the real issue going forward. There is no question that the US will support Israel and protect it from any assault. That is almost surely also true when it comes to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. BUT, Iraq ??? It is a 'nation' created by the French and British as part of the World War I clean-up, and it has never been a united country because its tribes are both Sunni and Shiite and have long disliked and distrusted each other. Iran has gobbled pu a large part of the Iraqi governmental power points and sides with the Shiites. The Sunnis looked to al-Qaida and ISIS as props against the Iranian takeover of their traditional lands and their elimination form positions of power in Iraqi politics. • When President and Mrs. Trump touched down in Baghdad to visit US troops at Christmas, Sabah al Saadi, the leader of the Islah parliamentary bloc, called for an emergency session of parliament “to discuss this blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and to stop these aggressive actions by Trump who should know his limits : The US occupation of Iraq is over.” The Islah bloc is headed by populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has opposed the US presence in Iraq since the US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. He led two uprisings against US forces in Iraq, BUT is one of the few Shiite leaders to also distance himself from Iran.The Bina bloc, Islah’s rival in parliament and led by Iran-backed militia leader Hadi al-Amiri, also objected to Trump’s trip to Iraq. “Trump’s visit is a flagrant and clear violation of diplomatic norms and shows his disdain and hostility in his dealings with the Iraqi government,” said a statement from Bina. The office of Abdul Mahdi -- Iraq's Shiite politician who iwas agreed ot by the Iraqi parliament in October as prime minister -- said in a statement that US authorities had informed Iraq’s leadership of the president’s visit ahead of time. The statement said the Iraqi prime minister and US President Trump talked by telephone due to a “disagreement over how to conduct the meeting.” Iraqi lawmakers told Reuters that the pair had disagreed over where their planned meeting should take place : President Trump had asked to meet at the Ain al-Asad military base, an offer which Abdul Mahdi declined. Falih Khazali, a former militia leader turned politician allied with the Iran-backed Bina bloc, accused the United States of wanting to increase its presence in Iraq : “The American leadership was defeated in Iraq and wants to return again under any pretext, and this is what we will never allow.” • Iraq’s Shiite militias, also known as the PMF, many of which are supported by Iran, oppose the presence of US troops in the region. The PMF was made formally part of the security forces this year after helping the military defeat ISIS in Iraq in 2017. Qais al-Khazali, the leader of the powerful Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia said on Twitter : “Iraqis will respond with a parliamentary decision to oust your (US) military forces. And if they do not leave, we have the experience and the ability to remove them by other means that your forces are familiar with.” • A Baghdad resident told Reuters that : “We won’t get anything from America. They’ve been in Iraq 16 years, and they haven’t given anything to the country except destruction and devastation.” • It is a sorry mess that began with the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 2003. The US cannot leave -- as President Obama did in 2011 -- without providing some measure of protection for the Iraqi Sunnis who are being subdued by Iran-backed Shiites, both politically and economically. The real question that should be debated in America is how to do that without causing another internal war in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites now aided by Iran and its militias who are holding a lot of the key cards. Iraq can be seen as a microcosm of a large portion of the Middle East. America has no role to play in the Sunni-Shiite centuries-old religious and ethnic war, but it can and should protect, or find those regional countries strong enough to protect, those groups whose existence is threatened by Iran, its Iraqi militias and its proxy Hezbollah. It is a long dusty minefield of a road to walk, but walk it America must. And President Trump is making a good start with the arrangements he is negotiating for Syria after US troops leave.