“READERS FORUM” MARCH 22,, 2019

1. Trump’s Latest Claims About ISIS Appear Dubious (Again) as SDF Denies Report Of Final ISIS Defeat

   QAMISHLI, Syria – The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces DENIED a report on Thursday that all of Islamic State’s final enclave has been captured and said combing operations were still underway

   Earlier the Syrian Kurdish news outlet Hawar reported that the SDF had seized the Baghouz enclave, where the SDF has been battling for weeks to wipe out the last vestige of Islamic State’s territorial rule

   Trump said on Wednesday that the last territory in Syria held by ISIS would be “gone by tonight” despite reports of continuing fighting between the extremist group and American-backed local forces in Syria, the second time over the last month that Trump was ready to declare the liberation of the extremists’ self-declared caliphate across Iraq and Syria

   In Syria, officials with the SDF said on Wednesday that a group of Islamic State fighters still controlled land along the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. As long as that area was still under the Islamic State’s control “it would be weird to expect an announcement in the next day” said a Syrian Democratic Forces official

   t wouldn’t be the first time someone used the word “weird” to describe Trump’s rhetoric. What’s especially notable about all of this is the familiarity of the circumstances. The Washington Post ran an informative piece yesterday, noting just how many times the Republican president has said the demise of the ISIS “caliphate” has either happened or is imminent

   In each instance, Trump’s rhetoric turned out to be WRONG

   While the defeat of ISIS will be encouraging, it will also be a piece of a larger puzzle. ISIS will STILL exist as a terrorist network whether it controls significant land masses or not. It still has THOUSANDS OF FIGHTERS, so the threat will remain real.

   That doesn’t make for great chest-thumping presidential rhetoric, and it’s not even clear if Trump understands these nuances. In the meantime, in this White House, it seems the end of ISIS’s caliphate will always be a day away

   https://reut.rs/2TTmiYW

2. McCain Leads Trump In Early 2020 Polling

   In a new poll just published, the late Senator John McCain (R-AZ) would handily defeat incumbent President Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup

   The poll conducted by leading survey firm We Poll You So Good and ABC News shows that if the election were held today (and the only two candidates on the ballot were McCain and Trump) the deceased former Arizona senator would wipe the hypothetical floor with Trump. By a margin of 75% to 23%, the corpse of Senator McCain would beat out Trump

   “These poll results are quite striking. Because they show beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a bipartisan consensus. Most Americans would prefer a rotting, decomposing, lifeless human being to a technically alive, but clearly brain-dead human. A dead body probably isn’t going to defend white supremacists as having some good people too” per We Poll You’s chief media contact Skip Malloy

   A lot of respondents said they trusted a corpse to act more presidential and use more common sense than Trump has so far. The rancor between the pair started during the 2016 election, where Trump insulted the wartime service of McCain, who unlike Trump actually served in Vietnam when his draft number was called

   “We didn’t even try to hide the fact that McCain is dead. In fact, when a lot of folks realized that McCain is dead, they switched their support from Trump to McCain. The bottom line is that a whole lot of people would rather put a dead man in the Oval Office than a conman next time around”

   “People would literally vote for any other human being than Trump, dead or alive, it seems. A lot of them said they’d rather fight the devil they know than the unhinged, drunken, angry toddler with a handgun in the Oval Office”

   The White House dismissed the results of this poll, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders yelling at reporters “First off, who the hell said Americans can just willy-nilly give their opinions on stuff. Second off, when we want the American people’s opinions, we’ll ask for them”

   http://bit.ly/2WeLAgU

   • RR, Dude get a life. This Trump mega-obsession is not healthy.

     • Now he’s cut and pasting from a satirical blog believing it’s real. The dude has serious issues, Bax.

     • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Second Most Talked-About Politician In America) Graces Time Cover

       Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez graced the cover of this week’s issue of Time magazine, further cementing the freshman congresswoman’s status as a national figure and leader

       The headline adorning the cover, paired next to a shot of Ocasio-Cortez, dubbed her “The Phenom”

       The 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected last year following an upset in the Democratic primary over longtime New York Congressman Joe Crowley, also described what she believes is causing the divide within her party

       “There’s always this talk about division within the Democratic Party, ideological differences. But I actually think they’re generational differences. Because the America we grew up in is nothing like America our parents or our grandparents grew up in”

       Not even halfway through her first year in office, Ocasio-Cortez has already established herself as one of the faces of the Democratic party, a hero to progressive voters and a nemesis to Republicans. She has become a ubiquitous figure in ominous Fox News segments and GOP attack ads

       This week’s cover of Time comes on the heels of this month’s issue of Rolling Stone, on which Ocasio-Cortez appeared alongside Reps. Jahana Hayes and Ilhan Omar, who are also freshman congresswomen, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

       https://cnn.it/2Wdee1Z

       • Lets all hope that RR is correct and the main stream liberal media adoration of AOC and Beto continues uninterupted:
         ………………………………………………
         Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) warned that Democrats moving to the “far left” will damage their political fortunes, offering his analysis in a Friday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

         “I got into the Democratic Party as a young man when John F. Kennedy was president, and oh, it was a very different Democratic Party,” reflected Lieberman. “It was a strongly anti-communist party, committed to human rights. It was a pro-growth party.”

         Lieberman assessed: “But the party now is drifting left, and [there is] an interesting distinction. There’s a difference between being a traditional liberal Democrat and being a far-left Democrat, and this is not a far-left country. Look at what’s being talked about, now. This Green New Deal, which is basically a socialist manifesto for the government to take over everything. I’m a big supporter of doing something about climate change, but this goes way beyond that, and the general talk about socialism — which to me means government ownership and control of more of our economy — it’s just not who we are. The American people will never vote for that, so either the party comes back toward center-left, or it’s going to be a losing party.”

         “The Democrats took back control of the House … in last November’s elections, but it wasn’t because of Congresswomen Ocasio-Cortez or Omar,” stated Lieberman. “It was because a lot of center-left Democrats won swing districts, even Republican districts. They certainly weren’t going to win those districts with a socialist platform.”

         “If the party doesn’t learn that lesson — and runs someone far to the left for president in 2020 — I don’t think it has a chance,” concluded Lieberman.

         https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/03/22/joe-lieberman-far-left-will-make-democrats-a-losing-party/

3. Sad news
   ……………

   An illegal alien charged with murdering four Americans over the course of a week in Nevada did so in order to steal money to buy methamphetamine, a police detective alleges.

   Wilbur Ernesto Martinez-Guzman, a 19-year-old illegal alien, was charged with murdering 56-year-old Connie Koontz, 74-year-old Sophia Renken, 81-year-old Gerald David, and his 80-year-old wife, Sharon David between January 10 and 15 months ago. The state of Nevada is seeking the death penalty.
   The illegal alien allegedly murdered all of the Americans in their homes during armed burglaries. In a confession to police, authorities said Martinez-Guzman admitted to murdering Gerald and Sharon David using a gun he stole from their house.

   https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/21/police-illegal-alien-killed-four-americans-to-steal-money-for-meth/

   • Trump Works Overtime To Keep His White Nationalist Base Close After New Zealand Slaughter

     Donald Trump was extremely careful Friday not to offend his “very fine” white nationalist base around the globe after one of them slaughtered 49 people in two New Zealand mosques

     The white nationalist responsible for the massacre had invoked Trump by name as “a symbol of white identity and common purpose” and left behind a manifesto riddled with racial slurs, like calling immigration “white genocide”

     Still, Trump found no harsh words for the murderous ideology behind the New Zealand tragedy. Given the chance to denounce white nationalism at a Friday press conference, Trump shrugged it off as a few bad apples

     That’s how badly Trump needs attention and praise: He can’t even bring himself to speak out against a hateful doctrine that leads someone to unleash an unthinkable spree that took the lives of 49 innocent people practicing their religion

     http://bit.ly/2WfecXC

     • RR, stop with the lies and left wing kook theories that play in to what the New Zealand murderer wanted to accomplish:
       ……………………………………………………………………….
       The New Zealand Mosque Shooter is No Conservative or Trump Supporter

       An evil man opened fire inside two mosques in New Zealand, killing 50 people (with 12 more in critical condition), and the left is blaming President Trump. Salon asked, “Does anyone doubt that Donald Trump inspired the New Zealand massacre?” The Daily Mail called the killer a “Trump-supporting white supremacist.” Other articles, like this one in The Washington Post, claimed that the manifesto praises Trump. Because the killer used guns, he’s assumed to be on the right.

       But the killer is no conservative. Nor is 28-year-old Australian citizen Brenton Harrison Tarrant a Trump fan. Nor did Trump incite him. How do we know? He told us.

       Tarrant wrote a 74-page manifesto called “The Great Replacement.” It clearly reveals his political views. His theme: saving the white race. He refers to Trump once. “Were/are you a supporter of Donald Trump? As a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose? Sure. As a policy maker and leader? Dear god no.” He does not say anything about Trump influencing him.

       An ‘Eco-fascist’

       In the manifesto, Tarrant said he was first “a communist, then an anarchist and finally a libertarian before coming to be an eco-fascist.” He says he is an “actual fascist” and an “eco-fascist by nature.” He supports 1930s British fascist Sir Oswald Mosley. Mosley “is the person from history closest to my own beliefs,” he says. Mosley was allied with Italy’s Benito Mussolini in the 1930s and headed the British Union of Fascists. The group disseminated anti-Semitic propaganda and wore Nazi-style uniforms and symbols.

       Weirdly, he praises China as the “nation with the closest political and social values to my own.” As well as being a fascist, he says he could be labeled a socialist, “depending on the definition.” …

       Tarrant claims to be influenced by Candace Owens, an outspoken black conservative. That makes little sense, as he claims to be a white supremacist. “[T]he person that has influenced me above all was Candace Owens. Each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence overmeekness. Though I will have to disavow some of her beliefs, the extreme actions she calls for are too much, even for my tastes,” the manifesto says. How can Owens be more extreme than a mass murderer?

       The manifesto is being deleted around the internet. It goes against the left-wing spin that the shooter is connected to the right. The reality is, Tarrant’s primary motive seems to be starting a cultural war in the U.S. This is not conservative.

       https://stream.org/the-new-zealand-mosque-shooter-is-no-conservative-or-trump-supporter/

       • Scathing WaPo Editorial Slams Trump’s Horrifying ‘Wrong’ Response To The New Zealand Massacre

         On Friday, The Washington Post editorial board issued a stark rebuke against Trump’s handling of the New Zealand massacre

         A mass shooting at two New Zealand mosques left 49 people dead, and several injured. The shooter released a manifesto that was filled with hateful ideologies towards immigrants and Muslim

         “The alleged gunman’s garden-variety racism, his rantings about the peril posed to whites faced with ‘replacement’ by Muslims, is of a piece with other hatreds espoused by other racist killers in other places and times” the editorial said

         The editorial explained called Trump out for his poor example of condemning hate

         “Trump should go further than he has. For starters, by condemning the alleged killer, whose nativist rhetoric (the shooter called immigrants “invaders” and attacked “mass immigration” and wrote that he hoped to “directly reduce immigration rates”) overlaps with the president’s own language” the editorial said

         The editorial listed multiple examples of when Trump failed to speak out against the rise of white nationalism, which he believes is not actually on the rise

         “Trump, who could not bring himself to criticize the white nationalists in Charlottesville who chanted that minorities (Jews, in that case) would “not replace us” on Friday said he doesn’t regard white nationalism as a problem. That’s the wrong message. Instead, he ought to state unambiguously that the New Zealand suspect’s “replacement” ideology is an unacceptable trope in civilized discourse”

         https://wapo.st/2HsqGHQ

       • How Could President Trump Have Inspired the NZ Shooter?

         (NOTE: Yeah, your Political Science and History major and “gun magazine editor” does not stack up next to research by Psychology Today and Dr. Sophia Moskalenko Ph.D. and a dozen peer-reviewed studies)

         When a New Zealand shooter’s “manifesto” turned out to include Trump as one of his inspirations, the White House rushed to distance itself from the attack. In an interview with Fox News, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway denied any meaningful connection between the president and the shooter. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said attempts to link President Trump’s rhetoric to the shooting in New Zealand are “absurd”

         Is it absurd to suggest that President Trump’s words contribute to radicalization? Psychology research does not agree

         Social psychology has accumulated a wealth of evidence of the power of social influence, including laboratory studies showing how the behavior of others can make us more amoral, more vengeful, and more violent. People in authority especially have the power to radicalize the opinion and action of those who look up to them

         For example, groupthink (a faulty decision-making process that has marked several historical U.S. foreign policy failures) is predicted by leader’s behavior: Leaders who express their opinions early in the discussion are more likely to lead their followers into groupthink. Research has found evidence of leader-dependent groupthink in the radicalization of the Weather Underground, a 1970’s U.S terrorist group. Another study combined interviews and archival research to demonstrate that leaders’ authority and their prestige with the larger community were instrumental in the radicalization of the 2002 Bali bombers

         In short, there is good evidence that leaders can move followers on a trajectory to radicalization. Not only in laboratory studies, but also in real-world terrorist groups, leaders play a significant role in radicalizing followers, both in opinion and in action

         While some want to disagree Trump inspired this shooter in New Zealand. Trump is inspired by the same things as the shooter in New Zealand. They’re products of the same white supremacy. Trump’s popularity among many with White Supremacy beliefs is indeed a symptom of radicalization in opinion. But a symptom can exacerbate an existing problem, as rhinitis can foster an ear infection.

         Trump contributes to radicalization every time he talks about “good people on both sides” or tweets about “the invasion” of immigrants

         http://bit.ly/2TTRmYO

         • RR, calling BS on your claim that Trump somehow is the leader of the KKK and Ayrian Brotherhood because Trump wants to enforce immigration laws and he also understands that radical Islam is at war with the Western civilization. This is coordinated left wing media attempt to color Trumps stand against radical Islam as somehow radicalizing white people. Remember 911? ISIS? Do you even know what the first I in ISIS stands for? Do us all a favor and stop posting this nonsense. Please. Pretty please.

4. As Russia collusion fades, Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges
   …………………………

   “After nearly three years and millions of tax dollars, the Trump-Russia collusion probe is about to be resolved. Emerging in its place is newly unearthed evidence suggesting another foreign effort to influence the 2016 election — this time, in favor of the Democrats.

   Ukraine’s top prosecutor divulged in an interview aired Wednesday on Hill.TV that he has opened an investigation into whether his country’s law enforcement apparatus intentionally leaked financial records during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign about then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in an effort to sway the election in favor of Hillary Clinton.

   The leak of the so-called black ledger files to U.S. media prompted Manafort’s resignation from the Trump campaign and gave rise to one of the key allegations in the Russia collusion probe that has dogged Trump for the last two and a half years.

   Ukraine Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko’s probe was prompted by a Ukrainian parliamentarian’s release of a tape recording purporting to quote a top law enforcement official as saying his agency leaked the Manafort financial records to help Clinton’s campaign.

   The parliamentarian also secured a court ruling that the leak amounted to “an illegal intrusion into the American election campaign,” Lutsenko told me. Lutsenko said the tape recording is a serious enough allegation to warrant opening a probe, and one of his concerns is that the Ukrainian law enforcement agency involved had frequent contact with the Obama administration’s U.S. Embassy in Kiev at the time.

   “Today we will launch a criminal investigation about this and we will give legal assessment of this information,” Lutsenko told me.

   Lutsenko, before becoming prosecutor general, was a major activist against Russia’s influence in his country during the tenure of Moscow-allied former President Viktor Yanukovych. He became chief prosecutor in 2016 as part of anti-corruption reforms instituted by current President Petro Poroshenko, an ally of the U.S. and Western countries.

   Unlike the breathless start to the Russia collusion allegations — in which politicians and news media alike declared a Watergate-sized crisis before the evidence was fully investigated — the Ukraine revelations deserve to be investigated before being accepted.

   After all, Ukraine is dogged by rampant corruption. It is a frequent target of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dirty tricks. And it is a country that, just last year, faked a journalist’s death for one day, reportedly to thwart an assassination plot.

   But the chief prosecutor, a member of parliament and a court seemingly have enough weight to warrant serious scrutiny of their allegations and an analysis of the audio tape.

   Furthermore, the mystery of how the Manafort black ledger files got leaked to American media has never been solved. They surfaced two years after the FBI investigated Manafort over his Ukraine business activities but declined to move forward in 2014 for lack of evidence.

   We now have strong evidence that retired British spy Christopher Steele began his quest in what ultimately became the infamous Russia collusion dossier with a series of conversations with top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr between December 2015 and February 2016 about securing evidence against Manafort.

   We know the FBI set up shop in the U.S. embassy in Kiev to assist its Ukraine–Manafort inquiry — a common practice on foreign-based probes — while using Steele as an informant at the start of its Russia probe. And we know Clinton’s campaign was using a law firm to pay an opposition research firm for Steele’s work in an effort to stop Trump from winning the presidency, at the same time Steele was aiding the FBI.

   Those intersections, coupled with the new allegations by Ukraine’s top prosecutor, are reason enough to warrant a serious, thorough investigation.

   If Ukraine law enforcement figures who worked frequently with the U.S. Embassy did leak the Manafort documents in an effort to influence the American election for Clinton, the public deserves to know who knew what, and when.

   Lutsenko’s interview with Hill.TV raises another troubling dynamic: The U.S. Embassy and the chief Ukrainian prosecutor, who America entrusts with fighting corruption inside an allied country, currently have a dysfunctional relationship.

   In our interview, Lutsenko accused the Obama-era U.S. Embassy in 2016 of interfering in his ability to prosecute corruption cases, saying the U.S. ambassador gave him a list of defendants that he would not be allowed to pursue and then refused to cooperate in an early investigation into the alleged misappropriation of U.S. aid in Ukraine.

   Lutsenko provided me with a letter from the embassy, supporting part of his story by showing that a U.S. official did in fact ask him to stand down on the misappropriation-of-funds case. “We are gravely concerned about this investigation for which we see no basis,” an embassy official named George Kent wrote to the prosecutor’s office.

   The State Department on Wednesday issued a statement declaring that it no longer financially supports Lutsenko’s office in its anti-corruption mission and considers his allegation about the do-not-prosecute list “an outright fabrication.”

   My reporting, however, indicates Lutsenko isn’t the only person complaining about the U.S. Embassy in Kiev.

   Last year, when he served as House Rules Committee chairman, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) wrote a private letter asking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to recall the current U.S. ambassador, alleging that she made disparaging statements about President Trump.

   The ambassador “has spoken privately and repeatedly about her disdain for the current administration in a way that might call for the expulsion” of America’s top diplomat in Ukraine, Sessions wrote.

   Such dysfunction does not benefit either country, especially when Russia is lurking around the corner, hoping to regain its influence in the former Soviet republic.

   Investigating what’s going on in the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, and whether elements in Ukraine tried to influence the 2016 U.S. election to help Clinton, are essential steps to rebooting a key relationship.

   John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill.

   https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/435029-as-russia-collusion-fades-ukrainian-plot-to-help-clinton-emerges

   • Ukrainian Prosecutor General Claims Current U.S. Ambassador Gave him “Do Not Prosecute” List

     On March 20, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko claimed, among other things, that when he first met U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch she gave him a list of people who should not be prosecuted by his office

     “Unfortunately, from the first meeting with the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, Yovanovitch gave me a list of people whom we should not prosecute”

     “The allegations by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General are not true and are intended to tarnish the reputation of Ambassador Yovanovitch. Such allegations only serve the corrupt” said the State Department

     Lutsenko’s statement provoked a strong reaction from some of Ukraine’s anti-corruption activist community. Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center accused Lutsenko of sparking a “war with the diplomatic system of a key ally” in Ukraine’s war with Russia

     Solomon also wrote that Lutsenko had provided him “with a letter from the embassy, supporting part of his story by showing that a U.S. official did, in fact, ask him to stand down on the misappropriation-of-funds case”

     On Thursday Ukrainian Pravda reported that parliamentarian Mustafa Nayyem announced that he would like to know whether Lutsenko or the government has taken any action in response to the “list of untouchables” and why (if the list does exist) Lutsenko withheld his knowledge of it until now

     http://bit.ly/2TQs0uK

     (No surprise that the right-wing Trumpsuckers online that Joey reads are spreading this BS to every website, ignoring this idiot Solomon only write opinion blogs, not reporting)

5. “Trump Is A Symbol Of Renewed White Identity And Common Purpose” – Quote From Manifesto

   The Trump-supporting white supremacist who launched the massacre at a New Zealand mosque revealed that he hoped to spark a “civil war in the US” and “save” the white race in his sick manifesto where he reveals he supports Trump

   The manifesto itself was called “the Great Replacement” in an apparent reference to the far-right, white nationalist theory that immigration will eventually cause the white race to disappear

   The shooter posted the 74-page manifesto explaining the reasons behind the shooting, New Zealand’s worst ever terrorist attack that left 50 dead and 48 injured. In the document, he said that he supported Trump as a “symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose” but not as a “policymaker”

   The 28-year-old terrorist claimed he chose to use a gun over other weapons because it would spark debate around the second amendment

   He added “With enough pressure, the left wing within the United States will seek to abolish the second amendment, and the right wing within the United States will see this as an attack on their very freedom and liberty”

   “This attempted abolishment of rights by the left will result in a dramatic polarization of the people in the United States and eventually a fracturing of the US along cultural and racial lines”

   He made repeated reference to being European throughout and said that his plan, which he said was two years in the making, was partially inspired by the Stockholm truck attack in April 2017

   His other heroes include the right-wing commentator Candace Owens in saying “Each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over meekness”

   His hope was that this, in turn, would spark a civil war and that “eventually” it would lead to “the balkanization of the US”

   https://dailym.ai/2TQlZya

6. isis is gone…..economy is roaringgggggg……….time to celebrate the greatest President in the last 60 yrs…………..MAGA………schools out for the demoncrats……………..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOzgfyNI_Wo

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