For the last week Donald Trump has been trading jabs with the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, but today he struck a more conciliatory tone with the Middle Eastern nations, saying when Iran was ready he would gladly meet with them with no preconditions.
Here is more:
President Donald Trump said Monday that he would meet with Iran’s leaders without preconditions to discuss a new deal related to the country’s nuclear program whenever they are ready, marking the latest potentially controversial invitation from the U.S. leader.
“I’m ready to meet any time they want to,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. “If they want to meet, I’ll meet.”
On a side note, don’t you love the way the article calls talking to another nation in an attempt to iron out differences “the latest potentially controversial invitation”, but moving forward here is more:
“They are having a hard time right now. But I ended the Iran deal. It was a ridiculous deal,” Trump said. “If we could work something out that’s meaningful, not the waste of paper that the other deal was, I would certainly be willing to meet.”
Despite the fear mongering of the left, which once again is trying to persuade the people of the United States that the President has us on the verge of WWIII, this is pretty much the same strategy he used with North Korea. Talk tough and in this case revoking the Iran deal rather than implementing strict sanctions hoping to get the country to the table.
We still do not know how it will end up working out with North Korea but as of right now it appears to be working but can we expect the same results with Iran? Rather than being like the reactionary left I am willing to wait and see how it develops.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump took to Twitter today and threatened to shut down the government if he does not get funding for the border wall, an end to the VISA lottery, and more border security. Here is the tweet:
It will be interesting to see if he makes good on this threat because he has made the same threat before and backed down from it. Donald Trump’s problem is that there are not enough any establishment Republicans on his side who want to see any of these things, they favor the status quo, so the question is, who blinks first?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, July 29th open thread: ‘Bombtrack’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, July 29th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Last week we discussed 6 stories, did you miss any of them? If so there is an easy way to make sure it does not happen again. You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates. You can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right. The Twitter widget in the sidebar is fully interactive and updates my tweets in real time, and it allows you to respond or retweet my tweets right from the blog.
Here is Rage Against the Machine raging against the machine with Bombtrack live from 1999:
frui diem
Matt Gaetz believes the Department of Justice is covering up payments made to surveil Donald Trump
The House has been waiting for the Justice Department to turn over documents related to its Russia investigation but to date the agency has been unwilling to do so and now Matt Gaetz has a theory as to why. Here is more:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is hiding the fact that “money was paid to people to collect intelligence on the Trump campaign,” said House Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Friday.
“I believe money was paid to people to collect intelligence on the Trump campaign,” said Gaetz during an interview with host Bill Hemmer on FNC’s America’s Newsroom.
“That crosses a line in this country,” he said. “When you’ve got folks that are collecting intelligence not as a consequence of a true investigative basis, but based on instead this dirty dossier, this DNC information, and then going and spying on a rival political campaign.”
Gaetz continued, “I think that the records we’re asking [for] will evidence that, and I would love to be proven wrong, I would love to know that that didn’t happen in this country. But I’ve got suspicion that it did.”
Matt Gaetz says that he does not know what is in these documents but that he has a suspicion and I have to believe he has heard, or knows, more than he is letting on because that is a pretty serious allegation to make on a whim.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Well that did not take long: after a couple of months of threatening Rod Rosenstein with impeachment if he did not turn over documents related to the Hillary Clinton email scandal we woke up this morning with the news that the Republicans had introduced articles of impeachment yesterday. However today the Republicans are backing down and will seek Contempt of Congress charges if Rod Rosenstein does not comply with the request to turn over documents.
Here is more:
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) says he is tabling his efforts to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after having several meetings with Republican leadership, stating that he would instead pursue contempt if the Justice Department (DOJ) does not turn over documents Congress is seeking.
While the impeachment option remains on the table, Meadows told reporters Thursday he now hopes it will be a contempt process rather than impeachment.
When asked what will happen if he does not receive the documents two House committees are seeking by the time the House returns from August recess, Meadows said, “I think the very first order of business would be moving the House to a contempt vote.”
Rod Rosenstein must be shaking in his boots at the prospect of being held in Contempt of Congress after what happened to Eric Holder after he was held in Contempt of Congress. Oh wait, that’s right, nothing happened to him.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Back in April Devin Nunes threatened to impeach Rod Rosenstein if he did not turn over documents related to the Hillary Clinton email scandal and just a couple of weeks ago we heard articles of impeachment were imminent but nothing had come from it.
But yesterday Mark Meadows and Jim Jordon introduced five articles of impeachment against Rod Rosenstein, here is more:
A group of conservative House lawmakers on Wednesday introduced articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the top Department of Justice (DOJ) official overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Conservative members led by Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), along with nine co-sponsors, introduced the five articles shortly after a meeting with DOJ officials concerning document production.
And some more:
“For 9 months we’ve warned them consequences were coming, and for 9 months we’ve heard the same excuses backed up by the same unacceptable conduct,” Meadows, the head of the House Freedom Caucus and ally of President Trump, said in a statement. “Time is up and the consequences are here. It’s time to find a new Deputy Attorney General who is serious about accountability and transparency.”
“The DOJ is keeping information from Congress. Enough is enough. It’s time to hold Mr. Rosenstein accountable for blocking Congress’s constitutional oversight role,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), another GOP lawmaker who has been fiercely critical of the DOJ, said in a statement.
Let’s face it, this is nothing but show for the Republican base and it is going nowhere. Even if the House does manage to impeach him there is no way the Senate is going to vote with a 2/3 majority to remove him from office.
This is really not all that different from when House Republicans voted time and time again to repeal Obamacare when they knew the votes in the Senate were not there, or when they held Eric Holder in Contempt of the Congress knowing nothing was going to happen to him.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Maxine Waters does not want to abolish ICE
Ever since Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won an unlikely primary bid in New York based partly on an abolish ICE platform some big name Democrats have also come out in favor of this extreme idea.
Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio are a couple and just yesterday Kirsten Gillibrand said abolishing ICE would be the Democrats’ first priority if they win the House in November.
This is a radical idea being pushed by the extremist alt-left and even Maxine Waters thinks it is foolish for these people to glom onto this idea. Here is more:
Unlike many other big-name Democrats, California Rep. Maxine Waters is not on board with calls to abolish ICE. And she believes those who are calling for an end to the agency, which enforces immigration laws within the US, have not thought the position through.
“Those people who decided and took the position that it had to be abolished did not think it through in ways that said it has to be reformed,” she said, citing the need for border patrol and an agency responsible for immigration enforcement. “They didn’t really think it through and talk about it in a way that made good sense to people,” she added.
I cannot believe I am about to write this but this is one time Maxine Waters is 100% right. These people did not think at all about the position they were about to take, they simply reacted to a local election on an emotional level and put too much stock in an election most people were not even paying attention to, thinking this is what all of America wanted. Personally I hope they keep it up because the Democratic party is swiftly become too radical for mainstream America.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
How about a little good news for a change? And making the news doubly sweet is that this comes from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of all places. This court has reversed a decision by a Hawaii court and upheld the right to carry a gun in public for self defense and not just in a person’s home.
Here is more:
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment protects the right to openly carry a gun in public for self-defense, rejecting a claim by Hawaii officials that the right only applies to guns kept at home.
The ruling by a three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, makes the San Francisco-based court the sixth U.S. circuit court to interpret the Second Amendment this way and could set the issue on a path toward the U.S. Supreme Court, which has not taken up a major gun rights case since 2010.
In a split two-to-three decision on Tuesday, the panel found Hawaii infringed on the rights of plaintiff George Young when it twice denied him a permit to carry a gun outside.
Even while ruling in favor of George Young the court could not help but show its bias:
“We do not take lightly the problem of gun violence,” Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote in Tuesday’s ruling. “But, for better or for worse, the Second Amendment does protect a right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.”
“For better or worse” was an unneeded addition to the ruling which shows just how the court really feels about the second amendment, but at least this one time it did not let personal policy preference get in the way of the decision.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump is looking into revoking the security clearances of top Obama-era officials
It is being reported here that Donald Trump is exploring the option of revoking the security clearances of several top level Obama-era officials, including James Comey, Susan Rice, and others. Here is more:
President Trump is looking into revoking the security clearances of several top Obama-era intelligence and law enforcement officials, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday, accusing them of having “politicized” or “monetized” their public service.
She made the announcement at Monday’s press briefing, after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., called on the president to specifically revoke Trump critic and former CIA Director John Brennan’s clearance.
Sanders said Trump is considering it — and also looking into the clearances for other former officials and Trump critics: former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice and former CIA Director Michael Hayden
And here is more:
Sanders said Trump is “exploring mechanisms” to remove the security clearances “because [the former officials] politicized and in some cases actually monetized their public service and their security clearances in making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia.”
Sanders added that their clearances effectively give “inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence.”
“When you have the highest level of security clearance … when you have the nation’s secrets at hand, and go out and make false [statements], the president feels that’s something to be very concerned with,” Sanders said.
Andrew McCabe and James Comey are claiming they do not have a security clearance to revoke anymore and that would make sense because they were fired but as for the others–if they still have a security clearance my only question would be, what took so long?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, July 22nd open thread: ‘The Stand’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, July 22nd. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Last week we discussed 6 stories, did you miss any of them? If so there is an easy way to make sure it does not happen again. You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates. You can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right. The Twitter widget in the sidebar is fully interactive and updates my tweets in real time, and it allows you to respond or retweet my tweets right from the blog.
Here is The Alarm performing a song based on a Stephen King novel of the same name. It is called “The Stand” and this version is from 1983.
frui diem
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