The House Democrats’ impeachment investigation circus moved into its televised public hearing phase, presided over by ringmaster House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. The public hearings began on Wednesday. The way things are going, the Democrats will need all the comfort they can get from the therapy dogs who were brought to the Hill by Pet Partners, a therapy-animal registration organization, and the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council. The Ukraine case narrative the House Democrats have been trying to build against President Trump, centering on his July 25, 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump’s alleged use of “irregular” channels to Ukrainian officials to push his personal political agenda, is turning into a quagmire. As Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington University who testified as a constitutional expert in the Clinton impeachment hearings, wrote, “Democrats want to move forward on a barely developed evidentiary record and cursory public hearings on this single Ukraine allegation.” He added, “If Democrats seek to remove a sitting president, they are laying a foundation that would barely support a bungalow, let alone a constitutional tower. Such a slender impeachment would collapse in a two mile headwind in the Senate.”

The Democrats are trying to establish what some of their more outspoken members have charged variously as President Trump’s “abuse of power,” “extortion,” “bribery” and a “shakedown.” They base their accusations of presidential “crimes” on the shaky allegation that President Trump used the leverage of withheld security assistance and the dangling of a White House meeting to improperly advance the president’s personal political interests over the national security interests of the United States. What has emerged so far, and will likely continue, is a desperate attempt by the Democrats and their friends in the mainstream media to make a mountain out of a molehill, using mainly hearsay and circumstantial evidence from witnesses in the foreign policy and national security establishment who don’t like the direction of President Trump’s policy towards Ukraine.

The Democrats have some fundamental problems that undermine their case. Much of their case relies on secondhand, thirdhand and even fourth-hand hearsay evidence. The bizarro world they inhabit is illustrated by this nugget from Democrat Rep. Mike Quigley, describing his understanding of what constitutes credible evidence: “Hearsay can be much better evidence than direct … and it’s certainly valid in this instance.”

More substantively, the facts we know of so far run contrary to the Democrats’ narrative. President Zelensky was not aware that any security assistance had been withheld at the time of his July 25^th call with President Trump. President Zelensky and Ukraine’s foreign minister have backed up President Trump’s denial of any improper linkage of the release of the security assistance to opening investigations in Ukraine of the president’s political opponents. President Zelensky said publicly that he did not feel “pushed” by President Trump. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said, as reported by Reuters, “I have never seen a direct relationship between investigations and security assistance. Yes, the investigations were mentioned, you know, in the conversation of the presidents. But there was no clear connection between these events.” In any case, the security assistance was released less than two months after the July 25^th call with no investigation strings attached. President Zelensky did not make any public announcement committing to open the investigations that President Trump had requested during the call involving reported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the role of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter with the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his father was serving as the Obama administration’s point man in Ukraine.

The House Democrats’ first two witnesses testifying before the television cameras on Wednesday were William B. Taylor Jr., the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and George P. Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state. They each recounted their understandings of what they characterized as efforts by the president himself and by back channel intermediaries on his behalf to improperly pressure the Ukrainians to open investigations for President Trump’s personal benefit. If their testimony is any indication of things to come, the House Democrats are hurtling towards a totally partisan impeachment that will get nowhere in the Senate. Yet, in a vain effort to make something out of nothing, the House Democrats’ rising socialist star, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, turned the truth on its head as she usually does when she tweeted, “Today’s hearings put Trump’s own fingerprints all over the scene of the crime.”

House Democrats banked on their star witnesses’ credibility, based on their years of public service during Republican and Democrat administrations. However, whatever we may think of the two experienced diplomats’ credentials and professed patriotic desire to serve their country, their testimony revealed no firsthand evidence regarding President Trump’s actions or intentions. They both admitted during cross examination that they never spoke directly with President Trump. They did not listen themselves to the July 25^th call. They had no firsthand knowledge of the president’s motives in temporarily withholding security assistance from Ukraine, which in any case was not mentioned at all during the July 25^th call according to the call memo.

Ambassador Taylor conceded, in response to Rep. Jim Jordan’s questioning, that there was no mention of any linkage of security assistance dollars to investigating Burisma or the Bidens during three meetings with President Zelensky in which Ambassador Taylor testified that he did participate. Ambassador Taylor has previously admitted during his closed-door deposition that the Trump administration’s decision to provide the Ukrainians with lethal military weapons was a “substantial improvement” over what had been provided previously and “was a demonstration that we support Ukraine.” (p. 155) If President Trump resolved to condition military assistance to Ukraine on first receiving help from the Ukrainians for his personal political benefit, it makes no sense that he would have significantly expanded the military assistance program before receiving what he was after from the Ukrainians. Yet that is precisely what happened, undercutting a key element of the Democrats’ narrative.

As to the corruption problem in Ukraine, Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent stated during his public testimony that the “pervasive and longstanding problem of corruption in Ukraine included exposure to a situation involving the energy company Burisma.” Mr. Kent admitted that he had been concerned about Hunter Biden’s role on the board of Burisma and had raised the issue of a perceived conflict of interest with a member of then-Vice President Biden’s staff. Nothing happened. Hunter Biden remained on Burisma’s board. Mr. Kent further testified that Ukraine should still investigate Burisma’s corruption, which is precisely what President Trump has been asking for. Whether Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy might be affected by such an investigation, because it could involve Hunter Biden’s connection to Burisma while his father was vice president, should not be a reason to scuttle a thorough investigation. Yet the fallacious premise of the Democrats’ case seems to be that it was somehow inherently wrong for President Trump to ask for the reopening of the Burisma corruption investigation because he might be running against Joe Biden next year. In other words, following this premise to its absurd conclusion, Joe Biden deserves immunity as long as he is a presidential candidate. Talk about corruption!

When both witnesses were asked during their public testimony whether they believed that President Trump had committed an impeachable offense, they ducked.

Since much of what we heard from Ambassador Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent was a secondhand rehash of what has already been reported, the mainstream media and Democrats had to pretend that there was a new “bombshell” during the testimony that they must relentlessly track down. This is likely to be the pattern, as Democrats desperately hope that repetition of unsubstantiated charges and the addition of a few hyped pieces of peripheral evidence will finally turn their molehill into a mountain.

The so-called “bombshell” was Ambassador Taylor’s revelation that a member of his staff told him last week he overheard President Trump on a phone call with U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland last July. The staffer was at lunch with Ambassador Sondland at the time. “The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking Ambassador Sondland about ‘the investigations,’” Ambassador Taylor testified. The staff member then reportedly asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. “Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for,” Ambassador Taylor said. The staffer has been identified as David Homes, a counselor for political affairs at the embassy in Ukraine, who will testify in a closed session on Friday.

Even if what Ambassador Taylor’s staff member first reported to him, more than three months after the overheard conversation, happened exactly as he said, so what? It adds nothing of substance to the Democrats’ case. The memo of President Trump’s July 25^th call with President Zelensky already revealed President Trump’s interest in having the Ukrainians open “investigations” into the Bidens’ activities in Ukraine as well as into reported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election. At the end of the day, whatever his frustrations with Ukraine were that President Trump shared privately with Ambassador Sondland, he lifted the security assistance suspension at issue without any strings linked to the investigations. Considering Ambassador Sondland’s direct communications with President Trump and his role as an “irregular” channel on the president’s behalf to Ukraine’s leaders, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Prystaiko’s statement on Thursday about his interactions with Ambassador Sondland is highly instructive: “Ambassador Sondland did not tell us, and certainly did not tell me, about a connection between the assistance and the investigations.”

There is no real bombshell here. There has not been any bombshell since the House Democrats began their travesty. Instead, the House Democrats’ political theater is turning into a bomb that Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, described as a “low-rent Ukrainian sequel” to the Russian collusion hoax. Yet the Democrats are persisting with more scheduled public hearings, including an appearance on Friday by Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S.’s former ambassador to Ukraine. Several other witnesses are expected to testify next week. The Democrats and their media pals can spin all they want. Their manufactured narrative of alleged wrong-doing by President Trump is collapsing under its own weight.

19. 

‘Too Many to Count’: The Global Persecution of Christians

International Day of Prayer for the persecuted Church reminds us of some hard truths.

Fri Nov 15, 2019

This article was originally published by the Gatestone Institute.  Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Last November 10 was one of the International Day[s] of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (known by the acronym IDOP). Initiated over 20 years ago by the World Evangelical Alliance, 100,000 congregations around the world and millions of Christians participate on this day.

“This November let us unite in prayer for our persecuted brothers and sisters,” IDOP said in a brief video that highlights a few examples of recent persecution, including the Easter Sunday church bombings in Sri Lanka and the ongoing slaughter of Christians by Islamic groups in Nigeria and increasingly Burkina Faso.

Discussing this day’s significance, Vernon Brewer, the CEO and founder of World Help, a Christian humanitarian organization, wrote:

It’s easy to go about our lives and forget that in places like Nigeria, Iran and North Korea being a Christian can often lead to death. After all, for the most part, persecution for our faith isn’t something most of us face… But I can’t forget the believers I’ve met in Iraq, China or at the North Korean border. I can’t forget their scars or their haunted eyes and horrific stories…  The more I travel, the more I see that in many countries Christian persecution is worse than ever before.

Statistics bear out this grim assertion: “4,136 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons,” noted Open Doors USA in its World Watch List 2019.  “On average, that’s 11 Christians killed every day for their faith.” Additionally, “2,625 Christians were detained without trial, arrested, sentenced and imprisoned” and “1,266 churches or Christian buildings were attacked.”

The report further asserts that a whopping 245 million Christians around the world are currently suffering from persecution.  In other words, “1 in 9 Christians experience high levels of persecution worldwide.”

Typically women fare worse: “In many places, they experience a ‘double persecution’— one for being a Christian and one for being a woman.”   As for specific numbers: “At least six women every day are raped, sexually harassed or forced into marriage to a Muslim man under the threat of death for their Christian faith…”

A separate study led by Rev. Philip Mounstephen, the Bishop of Truro, and published earlier this year, states that “Evidence shows not only the geographic spread of anti-Christian persecution, but also its increasing severity. In some regions, the level and nature of persecution is arguably coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to that adopted by the UN.”

After studying the bishop’s detailed report, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt concluded that the persecution of Christians is “near genocide levels.”

Both studies make clear that the majority of persecution occurs in the Muslim world.  In seven of the top ten worst nations, “the primary cause of persecution is Islamic oppression,” notes Open Doors. Additionally, 38 of the 50 nations that persecute Christians the most are Muslim majority.

The Bishop of Truro’s report gives specifics:

• “The persecution of Christians is perhaps at its most virulent in the region of the birthplace of Christianity—the Middle East & North Africa.”
• “Christianity now faces the possibility of being wiped-out in parts of the Middle East where its roots go back furthest. In Palestine, Christian numbers are below 1.5 percent; in Syria the Christian population has declined from 1.7 million in 2011 to below 450,000 and in Iraq, Christian numbers have slumped from 1.5 million before 2003 to below 120,000 today.”
• “In countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia the situation of Christians and other minorities has reached an alarming stage.”
• “[T]here is mass violence which regularly expresses itself through the bombing of churches, as has been the case in countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia.”
• “The single-greatest threat to Christians [in Nigeria] … came from Islamist militant group Boko Haram, with US intelligence reports in 2015 suggesting that 200,000 Christians were at risk of being killed… Those worst affected included Christian women and girls ‘abducted, and forced to convert, enter forced marriages, sexual abuse and torture.’”
• “An intent to erase all evidence of the Christian presence [in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, north-east Nigeria and the Philippines] was made plain by the removal of crosses, the destruction of Church buildings and other Church symbols. The killing and abduction of clergy represented a direct attack on the Church’s structure and leadership.”

Outside the Muslim world the persecution of Christians is getting significantly worse, particularly in North Korea, where “never-ending pressure and violence” is directed against Christians; in India, for the first time in modern history Christians are experiencing “extreme persecution.”

In the end, numbers and statistics will never suffice to capture the magnitude of the problem.  “Too many to count, too many unknown,” states the video by International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church: “All because they bear the name of Jesus.”

20. ΜΠΡΑΒΟ ΠΡΟΕΔΡΕ!!..

Trump Grants Clemency to Three U.S. Service Members

Justice is finally served for Clint Lorance, Matt Golsteyn and Eddie Gallegher.

Mon Nov 18, 2019

Ari Lieberman

President Donald Trump granted clemency to three members of the United States military – two army officers and a Navy SEAL. The three – Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, former Green Beret, Maj. Matt Golsteyn, and Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher – received full pardons over the weekend.

Maj. Golsteyn had been accused of murdering an unarmed Taliban bomb-maker. He believed that the terrorist would kill again if released; not an unreasonable assumption given the recidivist rate among released terrorists. An initial Army probe found insufficient evidence to bring charges but a second probe, opened six years later, found sufficient evidence to move forward with a murder charge. Golsteyn was charged in December 2018 and was due to begin trial.

Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher was acquitted in 2019 of killing an ISIS terrorist in Iraq in 2017. He was however, found guilty of posing with a dead ISIS terrorist and received a reduction in rank, which cost him about $200,000 in retirement funds. His rank will now be restored.

Lt. Clint Lorance was convicted in 2013 for the murder of two Afghan motorcyclists. He was serving his sixth year of 19-year sentence when Trump issued the full pardon. Like Golsteyn and Gallagher, Lorance’s case could have been scripted right out of a chapter from Orwell’s 1984.

In July 2012 Lorance led his platoon on a patrol in Kandahar in an area known to be a hotbed of insurgent activity. He was informed by pilots who reconnoitered the area that motorcycle-mounted Taliban terrorists were active in the vicinity. The Taliban routinely employ motorcycles to track U.S. patrols. Moments later, Lorance spotted Afghans riding motorcycles near his patrol. With the information that he already had at his disposal and with the safety of his platoon being paramount, Lorance immediately made a command decision during the fog of war and ordered one of his snipers to neutralize what he considered to be a threat to the well-being of his men. Two motorcyclists were killed and a third escaped. The Afghans were unarmed and this was the basis for the Army’s decision to charge Lorance with murder and violating the Army’s Rules of Engagement.

Biometric evidence, which was withheld from Lorance’s legal defense team, linked one of the dead to an improvised explosive device. The man’s DNA was found on a detonated roadside bomb. In addition, there was evidence suggesting that some of those who testified against Lorance were coerced by Army prosecutors to do so with threats of criminal prosecution.

Lorance, Gallagher and Golsteyn were heroes who volunteered to put their lives on the line in service of their country. All three were exemplary servicemen whose records reflected a history bravery and courage. But instead of being treated like heroes, they were treated like common criminals by the very government they swore to protect.

But unlike his predecessor Barack Obama, Trump has demonstrated an innate ability to seek out justice and sense injustice. The instant pardons (as well as past Trump pardons) are a reflection of this.

By contrast, while Obama rejected pardon pleas for Lorance, he granted clemency for Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley Manning), the transgender intelligence officer who leaked sensitive top secret information and compromised America’s national security. Thanks to Obama, the treasonous Manning served barely seven years of a 35-year sentence.  Obama also commuted the sentence of Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was part of a Puerto Rican terrorist organization that carried out multiple, indiscriminate bombings in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Finally, in 2014 Obama released five hardened Taliban terrorists for Bowe Bergdahl, a deserter whose desertion jeopardized American servicemen serving in Afghanistan. Bergdahl was later court martialed and pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Prior to his conviction, Obama’s oleaginous national security advisor, Susan Rice, told echo chamber media outlets that Bergdahl served his nation with “honor and distinction.” The absurdity of this characterization cannot be overstated.

At least three of the five terrorists released for Bergdahl either resumed their terrorist activities or attempted to reconnect with their former Taliban employers. Moreover, the release of the detainees without giving Congress adequate notice violated the law. Under the National Defense Authorization Act, a law passed by Congress and signed by Obama, the administration was required to provide notice to four Senate and four House committees at least 30-days prior to the release of detainees from Guantánamo. But notice was only given by phone on the actual day of the exchange, which occurred on May 31, 2014. Consequently, the chief counsel for the Government Accountability Office determined that the Pentagon had illegally spent the money used to facilitate the prisoner exchange.

The contrast between the two presidents and their use their pardoning power could not be starker. Trump used the power to grant clemency for those who truly served their country with honor and distinction. Obama by contrast used and abused his power by granting clemency to those who hate America and compromised its national security.

21. 

‘Türkiye’de saldırı olabilir’ uyarısı! Kentlerin isimlerini açıkladı

Almanya Türkiye’ye yönelik seyahat tavsiyelerini güncelleyerek vatandaşlarına “VPN ağları denetleniyor” uyarısında bulundu. Alman hükümeti seyahat uyarısında ayrıca Barış Pınarı Harekatı’nın başlamasının ardından özellikle metropollerin terör örgütleri tarafından düzenlenebilecek saldırıların hedefi olabileceğini yazdı. Devamında, Türkiye’nin Suriye ve Irak sınırındaki kentlerine seyahat etmemeleri konusunda uyarıldı

 19.11.2019 

Almanya Dışişleri Bakanlığı, her ülke hakkında seyahat ve güvenlik bilgilerinin bulunduğu internet sayfasının Türkiye bölümünü güncelledi. Son güncellemede Türkiye’ye seyahat edecek olan Alman vatandaşlarına Sanal Özel Ağ (VPN) uyarısı yapıldı.

“Ceza Hukuku” alt başlığı altındaki bölümde, Türkiye’de VPN ağlarının kullanımının denetlendiğine dikkat çekildi, “doğrulanmamış VPN ağı kullanımı cezalandırılabilir” uyarısında bulunuldu.

Almanya Dışişleri Bakanlığı ayrıca daha önce yaptığı uyarıları da güncelleyerek yineledi. Türkiye’de “cumhurbaşkanına hakaret” ya da “bir terör örgütüne üyelik veya terör örgütü propagandasını yapma” suçlarından yargılananların, birçok yıl hapis cezasına çarptırılma riskiyle karşı karşıya bulunduğu hatırlatıldı.

“Türkiye’ye giriş ve çıkışlarda, son dönemde herhangi bir kişinin gözaltına alınmaması, benzer gerekçelerle bir cezai kovuşturma tehdidi bulunmadığı anlamına gelmemektedir” ifadelerine yer verildi.

BARIŞ PINARI IŞIĞINDA GÜNCELLEME

Öte yandan Almanya, Türkiye’nin 9 Ekim tarihinde Suriye‘nin kuzeydoğusuna başlattığı Barış Pınarı Harekatı üzerine seyahat tavsiyelerini güncellemiş, vatandaşlarından Türkiye’nin Suriye ile sınır bölgesine seyahat etmekten kaçınmalarını istemişti. Alman hükümeti ayrıca, “Türkiye genelinde saldırı tehlikesi arttı” ifadesiyle de vatandaşlarına dikkatli olunması yönünde uyarıda bulunmuştu.

Alman Dışişleri Bakanlığı yaptığı son güncellemelerle bu uyarılarını daha keskin ifadelerle yineledi ve ayrıntılandırdı. Vatandaşlarını Türkiye’nin Suriye ve Irak ile sınır bölgesine seyahat etmemeleri konusunda uyaran Almanya, “Diyarbakır, Cizre, Silopi, İdil, Yüksekova, Nusaybin, Batman, Siirt, Mardin, Şırnak ve Hakkari’ye gitmekten kaçınılması elzem” ifadelerine yer verdi.

BÜYÜK METROPOLLER HEDEF ALINABİLİR

Ayrıca “Türkiye genelinde saldırı tehlikesinin arttığı göz önünde bulundurulmalı” denilen son güncellemede, “Terör” alt başlığı altında şu uyarı yapıldı: “Türkiye’nin Suriye’deki askeri operasyonları da dikkate alındığında, terör gruplarının, özellikle büyük metropollerde, saldırı düzenleme çabalarını sürdürecek olmaları hiçbir şekilde dışlanamaz. Bu saldırılarda doğrudan yabancılar hedef alınabilir.”

Bakanlık, Türkiye genelinde güvenlik önlemlerinin arttırıldığına, özellikle büyük kentlerde polis ve güvenlik güçlerinin gözle görülür şekilde mevcudiyet gösterdiğine dikkat çekmekle birlikte, “Terör gruplarının askeri olmayan hedeflere de saldırı düzenlemiş olması nedeniyle tüm Türkiye genelinde terör tehlikesi olduğundan yola çıkılmalı” ifadelerine yer verdi.

“TAHAMMÜLSÜZLÜĞE DİKKAT EDİN”

Bu arada Almanya Dışişleri Bakanlığı’nın Türkiye’ye yönelik seyahat tavsiyeleri arasında vatandaşlarının dikkate almalarını önerdiği çarpıcı bölümler de yer alıyor.

“Özel davranış kalıpları önerileri” alt başlığı altında Türkiye’nin çoğunluğu Müslüman bir ülke olduğuna işaret edilerek, “Turistik plajlar dışında, davranış ve hareket tarzı ile kılık kıyafetin yerel örf ve adetlere uygun olması önerilir” denildi.

Alman hükümeti ayrıca Alman vatandaşlarına, “Ramazan’da, turistik bölgeler dışında yemekten, içmekten ve sigara içmekten kaçının” tavsiyesinde bulundu. Ramazan sırasında, turistik bölgeler haricinde “kısıtlamalar” olduğu ifade edilirken, “yemek yemenin, içecek tüketmenin, sigara içmenin tahammül edilmemesi söz konusu olabiliyor” görüşüne yer verildi.

FOTOĞRAF UYARISI

Türkiye seyahat tavsiyelerinde bir de fotoğraf uyarısı yer alıyor. “Fotoğraf çekmekten kaçının, ihtiyatlı olun, icabında izin isteyin” ifadelerine yer verilen bu bölümde, Türkiye’de askeri ve diğer güvenlik kurumlarının, sınır bölgelerinin ve güvenlik kurumu çalışanlarının fotoğraflarının çekilmesine izin verilmediğine dikkat çekildi. Metinde, “Mezarlıklar, dini yerler ve özel mülklerde fotoğraf çekilmesi halkın ve güvenlik güçlerinin olumsuz tepkisine yol açabilir” uyarısı yapıldı.

KAYNAK: DEUTSCHE WELLE

22.