Browse Month

October 2018

The Caravan(s) — What to do?

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (October 27,2018)
Elmer and I were talking about the Caravan from Honduras. Elmer knows a lot about Honduras. His family migrated from Honduras to the United States when he was fifteen, and went through all the steps to citizenship, which was granted a few years later. Elmer now has his own business, employing three/four licensed plumbers, his wife (who runs the office), and a couple of apprentices. All are from Latin America, either citizens or on the way. Elmer voted for President Trump and intends to do so next time as well. But he doesn’t know what to do about the Caravan.
His parents still have a house in both countries and travel back and forth regularly. Elmer doesn’t go to Honduras any more. It is just too dangerous and too depressing. As he describes it, the gangs run the neighborhoods, and the government is run by gangsters. There is no law enforcement or protection for ordinary citizens from the extortion, kidnapping, sexual abuse of women, and simple cruelty of the gangs.

The Khashoggi Matter

Was he really one of the “bad guys”?
By Dr. Larry Fedewa (October 21, 2018)
British Journalist Melanie Phillips provides a different narrative of the final hours of Jamal Khashoggi in her Jewish News Service column (October 18, 2018).
Far from being the liberal Washington Post opponent of revisionist Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (called MBS for short) because MBS’ reforms are too little too late, Phillips asserts that he was in reality a double agent with ties to both the radical Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi intelligence service. Of late, he had been straying off the beaten path by connecting with the Turkey/Qatar faction which opposes the Saudi/US/ Israel triad for leadership of Sunni Islam.

A/O Global Intelligence Weekly: The State of American Foreign Policy (Part 6)

Gov. James S. Gilmore
The National Security Strategy as a Blueprint for the New Direction for America
By James S. Gilmore III, President and CEO, American Opportunity Foundation.
As we have stated in previous essays, America today is in a world-wide conflict to determine how mankind will live in the years ahead.  This conflict engages all aspects of national power: military, economic, diplomatic, and the competition of values. Parts 1-5 of this series of essays can be accessed on online at American Opportunity.
Often we think of economics, defense, and diplomacy in separate categories or stovepipes. The truth is that all elements of national power work together to further the goal and mission of any national policy. The Trump administration is seeking to align all parts of government activity toward one unified mission: the security and prosperity of the American people.

The Kavanaugh Case: Food for Thought

Justice is blind
By Dr. Larry Fedewa (October 7, 2018)
A couple of things from the Kavanaugh case stand out: 1) Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a supremely well qualified candidate for the Supreme Court – Irish temper notwithstanding, and 2) the Democrats have not changed tactics in challenging Supreme Court nominations in thirty years.
“Borked” in 1987
On July 1, 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated highly regarded Circuit Judge Robert Bork of the U.S. District of Columbia Court of Appeals for the vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. forty-five minutes later, Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy took to the floor of the U.S. Senate and delivered a scathing condemnation of the nominee. The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for the Democrat majority was Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) who presided over a grueling and lengthy questioning of the nominee against a backdrop of  a highly personal and insulting news and advertising campaign. The nomination eventually lost both the committee and the full Senate votes. It was the first time in modern history that a nomination to the Supreme Court was treated in such a partisan and heated manner.