Free Republic

The impeachment proceedings against President Trump have fueled all manner of conjecture regarding the proper discharge of foreign policy, hidden motives behind both Trump’s phone call and the ensuing investigation, and everything from the dead-cat bounce of the Mueller Report to the Kurdish policy shift. But there are a number of questions that, while they should be asked, haven’t been. (Obligatory disclaimer: None of these questions are intended to either excuse or indict the actions of Trump, the impeachment-hearing participants, or anyone else.) 1. Why is the U.S. giving $400 million to Ukraine, anyway? It makes little sense. Europe is...

In early 2008, the company for which I was working won a small contract to manage the airport in Monrovia, Liberia. Before the Liberian civil war, Roberts Field had a storied history. Along with being Pan American Airlines’ main African station for many decades, aircraft from the U.S. Army Air Corps harassed and attacked the southern flank of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps. The PanAm station chief ran the remote 5,000-acre airport and a Motel 6-like facility on the Farmington River, adjacent to the Firestone Plantation. For their transient aircrew, Pan Am had a two-story hotel on the beach...

No Excerpt due to USA Today. Link: https://news.yahoo.com/trump-administration-reduce-nato-aid-215515120.html

To be accurate, meme should say “connections to” Ukrainian companies as there is not enough direct evidence to say “working for” with all of them. Point is, they are all corrupt scumbags. Hunter Biden was paid more than $83,000 per month by a Ukrainian gas company because of his ‘powerful name,’ according to those familiar with the arrangement “The appointment of the vice president’s son to a Ukrainian oil board looks nepotistic at best, nefarious at worst.” Pelosi’s son: Nancy Pelosi’s son Paul Pelosi Jr. (who went to Ukraine in 2017) was a board member of Viscoil and executive at...

<p>The president sets foreign policy according to the Constitution. Appointments and treaties must be approved by the senate, of course, but the president sets the overall policy. The giving of foreign aid, military aid, etc, is part of foreign policy and is controlled by the president, with congressional approval for the funds.</p>

This is a great video about Foreign Aid and how to manage it. Nikki hits it out of the parkClick the pic link. Whose administration do you want handling foreign policy? This is what taking names is all about... pic.twitter.com/qhmiBNvdW7— Tom Maloney (@t2gunner) November 21, 2019

"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace noted during a discussion with the president that William McRaven has said Trump's attacks on the media are the "greatest threat to democracy in his lifetime." Trump in response called McRaven a "Hillary Clinton fan" and "Obama-backer." "Wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn’t it have been nice?" Trump asked. "You know, living — think of this — living in Pakistan, beautifully in Pakistan in what I guess they considered a nice mansion, I don’t know, I’ve seen nicer. But living in Pakistan right...

Statement from the Press Secretary  FOREIGN POLICY    Issued on: October 12, 2019   Today, President Donald J. Trump released $50 million in stabilization assistance for Syria to protect persecuted ethnic and religious minorities, and advance human rights.  This funding will provide emergency financial assistance to Syrian human rights defenders, civil society organizations, and reconciliation efforts directly supporting ethnic and religious minority victims of the conflict.  It will also go toward increased accountability, removal of explosive remnants of war, community security for stabilization assistance, documenting human rights abuses and international humanitarian law violations, and support for survivors of gender-based violence...

President Trump said Tuesday that a decision on whether to try to suspend certain foreign aid funds would likely be coming within a week. "We’re looking at it, and we’re looking at it in different ways," Trump told reporters during a meeting with the Romanian president in the Oval Office. "We’re talking to Republicans and Democrats about it, and certain things we could save." "We have some things on the table very much and we’ll let you know over the next, probably sooner than a week," he added. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has been working...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. federal court documents show Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and some of his closest advisers were among the targets of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation.</p> <p>A document filed by prosecutors on Tuesday in the Southern District of New York mentions Hernández as part of a group of individuals investigated by the DEA since about 2013 for participating “in large-scale drug-trafficking and money laundering activities relating to the importation of cocaine into the United States”.</p>

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believes the US should consider cutting military and economic aid to Israel — and Jewish Democrats are blasting her for it. “I think it’s something that can be discussed,” she said Sunday on Yahoo’s “Skullduggery” podcast, adding that the idea should “certainly” be on the table. “I think these are part of conversations we are having in our caucus,” the congresswoman added. “I hope to play a facilitating role in this conversation and a supportive role in this conversation. But I also know that there have been people leading on this for a long time, like Congresswoman...

Trump has claimed that the countries had "set up" caravans of migrants in order to export them into the United States The United States is cutting off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, known collectively as the "Northern Triangle," the State Department said on Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump blasted the Central American countries for sending migrants to the United States. "We are carrying out the President's direction and ending FY (fiscal year) 2017 and FY 2018 foreign assistance programs for the Northern Triangle," a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. The department declined to provide...

Washington D.C., Feb 8, 2019 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Two Democrats in the U.S. Congress this week reintroduced a bill that would permanently repeal the Mexico City Policy, a regulation that is seen as a barometer of U.S. presidents’ abortion politics. The Mexico City Policy, referred to as the “Global Gag Rule” by some critics, was originally instituted by president Ronald Reagan in 1984. It mandates that foreign non-governmental organizations may not receive federal funding if they perform or promote abortions as a method of family planning....(snip) ...This week, the Global HER (Health, Empowerment, and Rights) Act, which seeks...

Court Orders Discovery to Begin on Clinton Email / Benghazi Scandals Documents Detail Nancy Pelosi’s CODEL Travel in 2015 U.S. Doles Out Millions to Costa Rica & Mozambique During Shutdown The Murder Epidemic in Indian Country Now We’re Providing Sex-Change Surgery to Convicted Child Sex Abusers Court Orders Discovery to Begin on Clinton Email / Benghazi Scandals Last week, I reported to you that we had submitted a court-ordered discovery plan for the depositions of several top former government officials involved in the Clinton email scandal, including Obama administration senior officials Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, Jacob Sullivan, and FBI...

Ambassador John Bolton, the President's national security adviser, unveiled the strategy in remarks delivered at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. "Under our new Africa strategy, we will target U.S. funding toward key countries and particular strategic objectives," Bolton said. "We will make certain that all aid to the region—whether for security, humanitarian, or development needs—advances U.S. interests," Bolton said. Currently, the U.S. sends more than $8 billion annually to African countries, though Bolton, citing a "longstanding pattern of aid without effect," indicated that amount may soon be slashed. "Unfortunately, billions upon billions of U.S. taxpayer...

Republican Sen. Rand Paul blocking codification of Obama-era military deal with Israel. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is blocking U.S. military aid to Israel. Paul, who has previously called to cut defense assistance to Israel, recently put a hold on the U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018, which codifies into law the $38 billion defense aid package for Israel over 10 years that was negotiated in the final days of the Obama administration. A hold is a parliamentary procedure that allows senators to prevent a motion from reaching a floor vote. The Senate passed the act in early...

President Trump vowed to reduce foreign aid to Central American countries whose citizens are marching toward the U.S. border, saying Sunday that the money "is probably just stolen" by corrupt leaders. "We pay these countries by the way -- Honduras, El Salvador -- we pay these counties hundreds of millions of dollars, which by the way we will be stopping very soon," Trump said at a campaign rally in Georgia. "They don't do a damned thing, they don't do a damned thing for us," Trump said. After a crowd of thousands of asylum seekers entered Mexico, Trump announced in an...

President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S. would begin “cutting off, or substantially reducing” aid to three Central American nations over a migrant caravan heading to the U.S. southern border. Trump tweeted: “Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S.” The three countries received a combined more than $500 million in funding from the U.S. in fiscal year 2017, though it was not immediately clear how much Trump is seeking to cut. The Monday morning tweets marked the latest escalation by the president,...

It looks like the “Meskin” government actually listens to President Trump’s words, and does what he says, unlike most branches of the US “feral gummint”. You think I am kidding, I know. Yet, judging from what happened today, the POTUS has more control over the governments of Latin America, with an emphasis on immigration policies, than he does over the US government. At least, he’s controlling the Mexico border, or so it appears. Here’s from USA Today: The government of Mexico dispatched two 727 Boeing planes filled with federal police officers to its southern border with Guatemala on Wednesday to...

Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) criticized President Trump’s threats on Wednesday to cut off aid to Honduras over an immigrant caravan. Espaillat said that taking such an action “is not going to work” because it signifies a much larger, global issue. President Trump warned if Honduras' government didn’t stop a caravan of migrants headed to the U.S., the Trump administration would withhold funding to the country, “effective immediately.” “That’s not going to work,” Espaillat told Hill.TV co-hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton. “Guatemalans migrate to Mexico, Mexicans migrate to the United States, Africans migrate to Spain and Italy, Libyans migrate to...