Donald Trump Press Conference: Making the President Great Again

From Michael Goodwin, at the New York Post, "Sorry media — this press conference played very different with Trump's supporters" (via Memeorandum):

Sorry media — Trump's press conference was a smash hit with his supporters https://t.co/2kVIVYxCfH via @nypost

— Michael Goodwin (@mgoodwin_nypost) February 17, 2017

Maybe it’s not a coincidence that Barnum & Bailey is folding its tents this year. After all, how could the circus possibly compete with Donald Trump?

The president proved once again that he is the greatest show on Earth. Lions and tigers and elephants are kid stuff next to his high wire act.

Next time, the White House ought to sell popcorn.

Amid feverish reports of chaos on his team and with Democrats fantasizing that Russia-gate is another Watergate, Trump took center stage to declare that reports of his demise are just more fake news.

Far from dead, he was positively exuberant. His performance at a marathon press conference Thursday was a must-see-TV spectacle as he mixed serious policy talk with standup comedy and took repeated pleasure in whacking his favorite piñata, the “dishonest media.”

“Russia is a ruse,” he insisted, before finally saying under questioning that he was not aware of anyone on his campaign having contact with Russian officials.

Trump’s detractors immediately panned the show as madness, but they missed the method behind it and proved they still don’t understand his appeal. Facing his first crisis in the Oval Office, he was unbowed in demonstrating his bare-knuckle intention to fight back.

He did it his way. Certainly no other president, and few politicians at any level in any time, would dare put on a show like that.

In front of cameras, and using the assembled press corps as props, he conducted a televised revival meeting to remind his supporters that he is still the man they elected. Ticking off a lengthy list of executive orders and other actions he has taken, he displayed serious fealty to his campaign promises...

Still more.

Anonymous Spies Ousted Flynn. That's Deeply Worrying

Following-up from yesterday, "Trump Administration in Crisis."

From Damon Linker, at the Week:

The United States is much better off without Michael Flynn serving as national security adviser. But no one should be cheering the way he was brought down.

The whole episode is evidence of the precipitous and ongoing collapse of America's democratic institutions — not a sign of their resiliency. Flynn's ouster was a soft coup (or political assassination) engineered by anonymous intelligence community bureaucrats. The results might be salutary, but this isn't the way a liberal democracy is supposed to function.

Unelected intelligence analysts work for the president, not the other way around. Far too many Trump critics appear not to care that these intelligence agents leaked highly sensitive information to the press — mostly because Trump critics are pleased with the result. "Finally," they say, "someone took a stand to expose collusion between the Russians and a senior aide to the president!" It is indeed important that someone took such a stand. But it matters greatly who that someone is and how they take their stand. Members of the unelected, unaccountable intelligence community are not the right someone, especially when they target a senior aide to the president by leaking anonymously to newspapers the content of classified phone intercepts, where the unverified, unsubstantiated information can inflict politically fatal damage almost instantaneously...

Keep reading.

Bumps in the Road: Trump vs. Obama

At Truth Revolt, "Michelle Malkin: Bumps in the Road: Trump vs. Obama - Some perspective is in order."

Trump Administration in Crisis

I normally wouldn't describe things as a "crisis," but one of the pieces I read yesterday noted that it wasn't just Michael Flynn. Democrats are out for blood. The leftist media is agitating and organizing to destroy the administration. It's a coup. Next on the chopping block is Kellyanne Conway. Then Reince Priebus. After that it's President Trump himself. Impeachment talk will escalate.

Of course, there's literally no evidence that U.S. security has been comprised. Leftists are just picking up where they left off during the transition. They're bringing back the "Russian card" to annihilate the newly sworn-in administration. They couldn't defeat the insurgent populist Trump in the election, so they'll use extra-electoral means. They're going to use extra-constitutional means, in fact, because the opposition to Trump is looking like an armed revolt. It's a rebellion. Street protests and anarchist violence are cheered by the progs in D.C. Campuses are the training grounds of the revolution. Far-left members of Congress demonize and delegitimize the elected government at every turn. Nancy Pelosi's Robespierre in a skirt.

Yesterday's Memeorandum thread was perhaps the longest series of articles on a single topic I've ever seen at the site. All alarmist too. Today's top headline is from the sensational yellow-journal rag, the New York Times, "Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence."

See Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, for more, "NYT: FBI probing Russian intel contacts with several Trump campaign officials."

And at Free Beacon, via Stephen Green at Instapundit, "SHADOW ADMINISTRATION: Former Obama Officials, Loyalists Waged Secret Campaign to Oust Flynn."

Also, from Glenn Reynolds, "YEAH, THE FLYNN RESIGNATION’S AN EMBARRASSMENT, but Obama had his failed appointments, often tinged with scandal..."

More at CBS This Morning, "Report: Trump associates repeatedly contacted Russia before election," and "Trump had known "for weeks" Gen. Flynn had misled White House."

Obama Commutes Bradley Manning's Sentence

Well, supposedly it's "Chelsea Manning," but he's a she now, if you're all into the transgender identity thing (and I'm not).

Perhaps because Bradley came out as as woman and attempted suicide while in prison explains the commutation. O's always an advocate for the "oppressed."

This news is breaking.

I saw it first on Mark Knoller's feed:

Pres Obama commutes sentence of Chelsea Manning, serving 35 years for stealing and disclosing government records. Commuted to May 17, 2017.

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 17, 2017

And Althouse's shock at the president's decision, as well as all the comments there, "Obama frees Chelsea Manning!"

And at the New York Times, via Memeorandum "Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning's Sentence."

Expect updates.

Iraqi Forces Engage in Largest Battle Yet Against Islamic State (VIDEO)

Following-up from yesterday, "Iraqi Special Forces Launch Ground Assault on Fallujah (VIDEO)."

Here's the update, from last night's CBS Evening News:

Iraqi Special Forces Launch Ground Assault on Fallujah (VIDEO)

At WSJ, "Iraqi Forces Begin Ground Assault on Fallujah":

BAGHDAD—Iraqi special forces advanced to the edge of Fallujah on Monday but struggled to enter the city, where Iraqi and U.S. officials said Islamic State extremists were amassing civilians to serve as human shields.

The offensive against Fallujah, Islamic State’s second-biggest urban stronghold in Iraq after Mosul, aims to dislodge the Sunni extremists from the Iraqi city they have occupied the longest.

If successful, it could significantly weaken them ahead of an advance on much-larger Mosul, long planned by the government and the U.S.-led coalition supporting its fight against Islamic State.

The Fallujah operation, led so far by Shiite militias and army and police forces, has almost completely cleared the city’s perimeter of Islamic State fighters since it was launched a week ago. But the next, crucial stage of that operation, led by Iraq’s U.S.-trained counterterrorism forces, got off to a fitful start Monday...

Continue reading.

Plus, an update, "Iraqi Forces in Fallujah Face Islamic State Counterattacks":

BAGHDAD—Iraqi special forces battling their way into Fallujah faced fierce counterattacks by Islamic State, with commanders of the operation warning that heavily booby-trapped streets in and around the city were hindering the advance.

A day after applauding the beginning of a risky ground assault into the militant-held city, commanders struck a more cautious public tone Tuesday.

The joint-operations center coordinating the government offensive warned about the mines and other explosive devices planted around the city—a tactic commonly used by Islamic State.

The counterattacks took place on Fallujah’s southern edge, Nuaimiya, where counterterrorism forces advanced Monday following a weeklong offensive to surround the city. The U.S.-trained units repelled the two attacks, which included suicide bombers and snipers, said Lt. Gen. Abdelwahab al-Saadi, commander of the operation.

Gen. Saadi said Islamic State was using every possible method it could to slow the government offensive, including flooding farmland.

Fallujah, where aid agencies and Iraqi officials estimate at least 50,000 civilians are trapped, is expected to be a tough and unpredictable urban battleground, even for the elite fighters leading the government push.

While counterterrorism units have battled Islamic State militants inside cities before, including in Ramadi last year, Fallujah is more complicated because of the large numbers of civilians who have been unable or unwilling to flee.

The Sunni city also has long been a stronghold for Sunni extremists, including al Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL...

Keep reading.

Iran Pledges Huge Cash Bonuses to Palestinian Terrorists Who Kill Israeli Jews

This is extremely troubling, from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Iran Pledges Cash for Killing Jews."

Iranian-Backed Militia Suspected in Kidnapping of 3 Americans in Iraq (VIDEO)

I tweeted that the hostages were probably already in Tehran when this story first broke. The mullahs can act with impunity in the face of the craven Obama administration.

Watch, here's Bill Hemmer, on America's Newsroom.

PREVIOUSLY: "U.S. Pays Steep Ranson for Four Innocent Hostages Held Captive by Iran."

Family of Robert Levinson 'Betrayed and Devastated' by Obama Administration (VIDEO)

This is why people just hate Barack Hussein. They hate him with an unbridled passion.

At the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, "Family of Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in 2007, upset he wasn't among freed prisoners, say reports."

And watch, at CBS This Morning, "Levinson family feels "betrayed and devastated" after U.S.-Iran prisoner swap." Levinson’s wife, Christine, didn't even get a phone call notifying them of what was happening.

More at CNN, "The family of Robert Levinson speaks." They're really bitter, understandably. This reminds me of the administration's treatment of the Benghazi families, which has been marked by lies and abandonment.

PREVIOUSLY: "U.S. Pays Steep Ranson for Four Innocent Hostages Held Captive by Iran."

U.S. Pays Steep Ranson for Four Innocent Hostages Held Captive by Iran

I get sick thinking about this.

America is being held hostage, by the Kenyan interloper in the White House most of all.

At WSJ, "Iran’s Hostage Triumph":

Now we know that Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and three other Americans were hostages held by Iran in return for U.S. concessions, in case there was any doubt. And on Saturday we learned the ransom price: $100 billion as part of the completed nuclear deal and a prisoner swap of Iranians who violated U.S. laws. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps should call this Operation Clean Sweep.

The timing of Iran’s Saturday release of the Americans is no accident. This was also implementation day for the nuclear deal, when United Nations sanctions on Tehran were lifted, which means that more than $100 billion in frozen assets will soon flow to Iran and the regime will get a lift from new investment and oil sales. The mullahs were taking no chances and held the hostages until President Obama’s diplomatic checks cleared.

We’re as relieved as anyone to see the four Americans coming home, though there was no legal basis for their arrests. Mr. Rezaian had been held since July 2014 and was convicted last year of espionage without evidence. The other freed Iranian-Americans include former Marine Amir Hekmati, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, a dual citizen whose detention wasn’t previously reported.

But the Iranians negotiated a steep price for their freedom. The White House agreed to pardon or drop charges against seven Iranian nationals charged with or convicted of crimes in the U.S., mostly for violating sanctions designed to retard Iran’s military or nuclear programs. Iran gets back men who were assisting its military ambitions while we get innocents. This is similar to the lopsided prisoner swaps that Mr. Obama previously made with Cuba for Alan Gross and the Taliban for alleged deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

The U.S. didn’t resolve the case of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007. Iran claims it doesn’t know where he is. Iran also refused to release its newest hostage, oil-industry executive Siamak Namazi, who was detained in October and accused of espionage though no charges have been brought. Perhaps he’ll be held for some future ransom.

The Obama Administration also agreed to drop the names of 14 Iranian nationals from an Interpol watch list. Most notable is the CEO of Mahan Air, an Iranian carrier sanctioned for transporting members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that is suspected of transferring arms to Bashar Assad’s regime.

The prisoner swap helps to solve the mystery of the Obama Administration’s December flip-flop on new sanctions against Tehran’s ballistic-missile program...

Still more.

'13 Hours' — New Benghazi Movie Reignites Debate Over Democrats' 'Stand-Down' Order (TRAILER)

The film opens tonight in the O.C., and I guess in late-night showings nationwide. Then general release tomorrow.

It's gonna be great!

At Politico, "New Benghazi movie reignites ‘stand-down’ order debate":

The creators of a new Hollywood blockbuster about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack are renewing the politically explosive allegation that commandos called to defend the U.S. compound were told to “stand down” — a claim Democrats say has no basis in fact.

With Michael Bay’s “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” set to premiere Thursday, the five surviving members of the six-man Benghazi security team have blitzed the airwaves to promote the film and renew their assertion that a top CIA officer delayed them from immediately answering State Department distress calls. Three even testified to the same before the House Select Committee on Benghazi last spring, several sources have confirmed to POLITICO.

“There is no sensationalism in that: We were told to ‘stand down,’” said former Special Forces Officer Kris Paronto, one of the CIA contractors who fought that night, in an interview with Politico. “Those words were used verbatim — 100 percent. … If the truth of it affects someone’s political career? Well, I’m sorry. It happens.”

Top Democrats on the Benghazi panel, however, said that’s more movie fantasy than reality.

“If the film portrays them as having ordered a stand-down, it’s clearly at odds with the facts,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), whose district includes Hollywood and who sits on the committee. “If the film portrays those who went to rescue people at the diplomatic facility as doing so in disregard of orders, that’s also plainly at odds with the facts. … It may make for good entertainment; it doesn’t make for a well-informed public.”

Lawmakers have grappled with the question of a stand-down order before, and several bipartisan reports on the attacks have found no evidence of such a command being passed down the chain. Moreover, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the CIA and the Defense Department have long dismissed the idea that anyone would have held back help.

But the renewed allegations have forced lawmakers to wrestle with the issue again, and Republicans in particular may find themselves in an awkward spot. If GOP members of the Benghazi panel dispute Paronto’s assertion, they could look like they’re disparaging Americans who fought and died in service of the country. But if they side with Paronto, investigators would directly contradict some big-name intelligence officials, including former CIA Director David Petraeus, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who say no one was ordered to stand down...

Or course the Dems gave the stand-down order. Just like they lied about the random anti-Muslim video that started it all. They'll do anything to win elections, even sacrifice American lives.

More.

VIDEO: Two F-35C Lightning II Aircraft Flex Their Sea Legs Aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69)

Via the U.S. Navy:

Knife-Wielding Palestinian Girl: 'I Want to Stab a Jew'

Watch, at Truth Revolt, "This is what we're up against."

Eritrean Asylum Seeker 'Lynched' in Israel (VIDEO)

This is just a horrible, stomach-curdling story.

At the Los Angeles Times, "'One crime breeds another': Bus station shooting sparks a 'shocking lynching' in Israel."

And at the Times of Israel, "Soul-searching in Israel after mob beats Eritrean misidentified as terrorist":

The recent wave of terror attacks has led to fear and panic but the events in Beersheba Sunday night brought things to a whole new level.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The death of an Eritrean migrant who was shot and beaten by a mob that mistakenly believed he was a Palestinian attacker set off a round of soul-searching Monday amid the jittery atmosphere sweeping Israel in a wave of unrest.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the vigilantism. Some critics accused Israel’s leaders of fostering the charged climate, while others called for the swift prosecution of the crazed mob.

“It is a disgrace to Israeli society, and those that carried out this lynching need to be found and brought to justice,” said Yaakov Amidror, Netanyahu’s former national security adviser.

“Even if it was the terrorist himself, by the way, after he was shot, after he was neutralized and lying on the floor, you need to be an animal to torment him,” he told Israel Radio.

Eight Israelis have been killed in the past month in the attacks, mostly stabbings, on city streets. At least 42 Palestinians have been killed — including 20 identified as attackers; the rest died in clashes with Israeli forces.

Amid the seemingly random attacks, Israelis have stocked up on mace and pepper spray, and some public officials are openly carrying personal weapons and encouraging the public to do the same. Security has been increased, and especially in Jerusalem.

The violence has led to fear and sometimes outright panic...

Plus, more video at Reuters, "Eritrean mistaken for gunman killed in Israeli bus station attack."

Palestinian Leaders Have Created a Culture of Death That's Motivating the Latest Violent Terrorism

I think Jeffrey Goldberg's phrase, "the stabbing intifada," really captures it.

And here's more, from Tzipi Hotovely, at the Wall Street Journal, "Abbas: ‘We Welcome Every Drop of Blood Spilled in Jerusalem’":

The latest surge of Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis has come in the immediate wake of explicit calls by the Palestinian leadership to “spill blood.” This well-orchestrated campaign of violence follows many years in which Palestinian children have been taught to idolize the murder of Jews as a sacred value and to regard their own death in this “jihad” as the pinnacle of their aspirations.

Such violence has deep roots. It goes back to the rampages at the behest of Haj Amin al-Husseini, a Muslim activist and at one point grand mufti of Jerusalem, in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. It continued with the fedayeen Palestinian militants in the 1950s and ’60s, and evolved into the terrorism of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Fatah under Yasser Arafat and now Mahmoud Abbas. Anyone who claims that Palestinian terror against Jews dates only to 1967, or is a response to Israeli settlements, should become more informed of the conflict’s history.

Yet the apathy shown by the international community to the death-culture fostered by Palestinian elites, and the unbalanced manner in which subsequent violence is often treated by the international media—as if there is any kind of symmetry between terrorists and their victims—is doing long-term, and possibly irrevocable, harm to generations of Palestinians.

A few recent examples underscore the depth of the problem.

Keep reading.

Why Israel Will Never Be Able to Separate from the Palestinians

From Caroline Glick, at FrontPage Magazine, "KERRY, ISRAELI ARABS AND THE SEPARATION DELUSION."

And her latest book is most timely, at Amazon, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.

The Paranoid, Supremacist Roots of the Stabbing Intifada

From Jeffrey Goldberg, at the Atlantic:

Knife attacks on Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere are not based on Palestinian frustration over settlements, but on something deeper.

*****

The current “stabbing Intifada” now taking place in Israel—a quasi-uprising in which young Palestinians have been trying, and occasionally succeeding, to kill Jews with knives—is prompted in good part by the same set of manipulated emotions that sparked the anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s: a deeply felt desire on the part of Palestinians to “protect” the Temple Mount from Jews.

When Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem in June of 1967 in response to a Jordanian attack, the first impulse of some Israelis was to assert Jewish rights atop the Mount. Between 1948, the year Israel achieved independence, and 1967, Jordan, then the occupying power in Jerusalem, banned Jews not only from the 35-acre Mount—which is known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, the noble sanctuary—but also from the Western Wall below. When paratroopers took the Old City, they raised the Israeli flag atop the Dome of the Rock, but the Israeli defense minister, Moshe Dayan, ordered it taken down, and soon after promised leaders of the Muslim Waqf, the trust that controlled the mosque and the shrine, that Israel would not interfere in its activities. Since then, successive Israeli governments have maintained the status quo established by Dayan.

There is another status quo associated with the Temple Mount, however, that has been showing signs of weakening. This is a religious status quo. The mainstream rabbinical view for many years has been that Jews should not walk atop the Mount for fear of treading on the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple that, according to tradition, housed the Ark of the Covenant. The Holy of Holies is the room in which the Jewish high priest spoke the Tetragrammaton, the ineffable name of God, on Yom Kippur.

The exact location of the Holy of Holies is not known, and Muslim authorities have prevented archeologists from conducting any excavations on the Mount, in part out of fear that such explorations will uncover further evidence of a pre-Islamic Jewish presence. This mainstream rabbinical view concerning the Mount—that it should be the direction of Jewish prayer, rather than a place of Jewish prayer—has made the lives of Jerusalem’s temporal authorities easier, by keeping Muslim and Jewish worshippers separated.

In recent years, however, small groups of radical religious innovators who oppose the mainstream rabbinical view have sought to make the Mount, once again, a site of Jewish prayer. (Here is a New York Times Magazine story I wrote about these radical groups.) These activists have gained sympathizers among some far-right political figures in Israel, though the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not altered the separation-of-religions status quo.

Convincing Palestinians that the Israeli government is not trying to alter the status quo on the Mount has been difficult because many of  today’s Palestinian leaders, in the manner of the Palestinian leadership of the 1920s, actively market rumors that the Israeli government is seeking to establish atop the Mount a permanent Jewish presence.

The comments of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas—by general consensus the most moderate leader in the brief history of the Palestinian national movement—have been particularly harsh. Though Abbas has authorized Palestinian security services to work with their Israeli counterparts to combat extremist violence, his rhetoric has inflamed tensions. “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every martyr will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God,” he said last month, as rumors about the Temple Mount swirled. He went on to say that Jews “have no right to desecrate the mosque with their dirty feet.” Taleb Abu Arrar, an Israeli Arab member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, argued publicly that Jews “desecrate” the Temple Mount by their presence. (Fourteen years ago, Yasser Arafat, then the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told me that “Jewish authorities are forging history by saying the Temple stood on the Haram al-Sharif. Their temple was somewhere else.”)

Keep reading.

Israel Builds Temporary Security Walls Between Jewish and 'Palestinian' Neighbourhoods (VIDEO)

Postcards from the "Palestinian" peace process, via France 24:



Also, at Israel Matzav, "Breaking: Five Israelis wounded as two 'Palestinian' terrorists open fire in BeerSheva - UPDATED."

Radical Leftists Demand 'Justice for Palestinians' at Anti-Israel Protest in London (VIDEO)

Behold the complete moral bankruptcy of the contemporary "progressive" left. When you're protesting to defend Palestinians murdering innocent Jews with butcher knives and meat cleavers, there's something deeply wrong with your fundamental values.

Previously, "New Palestinian Intifada 'is drenched in the fever of martyrdom and faith-based hate...' (VIDEO)," and "Fanatical Palestinian Slams Car Into Bus Stop, Jumps Out and Hacks Israeli to Death (VIDEO)."

And at the video, hate-mongering ghoul George Galloway leads despicable, demonic leftists in London's anti-Israel demonstration, via Ruptly: