Donald Trump suffered a triple whammy whacking this week with his big Tulsa rally a horrible flop, a district judge ruling that the devastating Bolton book cannot be recalled, and Attorney General Barr’s apparent attempt to fire Southern New York District Attorney Berman as a political move to block any new criminal charges being brought against the Trump empire.

The dust has not quite settled on Trump’s summer election campaign rally, in what he thought would be a safe Red State from which to draw a large crowd for a show of strength. The goal was also an attempt to bury the US COVID failures as a campaign issue by using Trump supporters so duped that they would be thrilled to tell journalists that the virus was a hoax.

Always a man for big round numbers, Trump allowed his campaign to throw out a one million number for those wanting tickets, brash by even Trump’s standards. At the end of the day, the Tulsa fire department, the official counter, gave the magic number which included 2000 who arrived late and 400 staffers or workers, for a 6200 total.

Trump had bragged when leaving Tulsa that the crowds were huge (they were not) and that he had been looking at a full arena, plus an overflow crowd outside for 100,000 supporters. With this outlandish claim, he politically pulled the pin on a media hand grenade and put it in his pocket.

By midnight, a grandmother was taking credit for ‘punking’ the rally by organizing TikTok teens to reserve huge numbers of tickets and then be no shows. Trump’s campaign manager was on the firing line, since Trump is known for firing people to place blame on them.

He countered that he had ‘punked’ all the teens, expecting them to do this so the campaign could gather their profiles for the supercomputers to analyze data, since both sides in the 2016 election spent record amounts of campaign money doing voter analysis.

By late afternoon, VT was finding Twitter images of an empty street outside the rally venue, followed by video of the outdoor stage being taken down. Inside the rally, the photos gave us a feeling of a partially filled hall, where it appeared that organizers made the best of it by bunching people together for tight shot photographs, not showing the empty seats around the hall and in the rafters.

There were a lot of red MAGA hats, but none of the entertainment festivities you would normally see at a major rally. For instance, the band was missing. And the worst was yet to come…Trump’s speech, or an attempt to do one anyway. Maybe he was out of practice or in partial shock due to the low turnout.

It seemed to me that he tried to overcompensate with an almost endless tirade against his political and social enemies that droned on for almost two hours. The big shocker was his own caricature of last week’s ‘feeble’ performance at West Point, when he used two hands to take a sip of water and walked down the exit ramp like a 90 year old person. He never should have mentioned it at the rally.

We found lots of photos and video of bored attendees, yawning, and yes…even walking out, leaving during Trump’s speech. The takeaway at the end of the day was to see Trump exiting his helicopter on the White House lawn, an openly exhausted and downtrodden man looking like someone had just given him terrible news.

Meanwhile, his political problems are piling up. His attempt to bury the focus on COVID has backfired, with many states that opened too early or fought lockdowns beginning to report their highest numbers of COVID cases.

Trump, always overplaying his hand and forgetting that the office of president is not a make believe reality TV show, thought he could dismiss the COVID issue by saying that the case numbers had risen because we were testing more.

From a health policy perspective, his statement blew up in his face, while staffers tried to cover for him, stating that Trump had just been joking. Their attempts at humor backfired, with the public becoming indignant that Trump and his campaign workers would joke about a pandemic that has killed 120,000 people, one where the president is on record for calling it a hoax, and then saying another day that it would all just go away. Such statements you would expect to hear from a child, not the President of the United States.

While this fiasco was unfolding, two more bloopers had joined it to make a three ringed circus. A district court judge ruled that he could not stop the publication of John Bolton’s book, as 200,000 advance copies had been distributed, with no feasible way to pull them all back, plus an online version was circulating, which VeteransToday already has a copy, to our own surprise.

But the judge added a poison pill to his ruling in that, if the final security review ruled that there was classified material in the released version, then Bolton would forfeit the $2 million he was paid for the book and possibly lose the movie rights to it, which is usually a bigger paycheck.

Bolton appears to be in a rare situation of being simultaneously the most hated and most loved man in Washington, temporarily. Almost no one thinks he had done any of this for the benefit of his country, as he is viewed as being possibly the most egotistical person in Washington, which is really saying something for a city swarming with self-absorbed politicians, handlers and swindlers.

Some constituents are grateful for his eyewitness revelations about our reality TV president bluffing his way through policy after issue in affairs of state with the help of his Twitter toy. Congress might try to get Bolton to testify but there is a debate on this, as the congressmen and women are extremely busy now and a long drawn out hearing would add to their workload woes.

The Trump administration has another storm cloud gathering from the fiasco of Attorney General Barr, who is fast securing his record as the most politically in the bag Attorney General in US history. Last Friday night, he issued a statement that at the request of the President, he had fired the Southern New York district attorney Berman, the one whose office has been investigating Trump and family’s business operations, including his defunct fake charity.

This issue was the Trump regime wanting to stop any new indictments involving the Trump ‘pretend-a-empire’. VT feels his empire is a house of cards of overextended loans, which has been financially supported by those using him as their tool.

Trump undercut Barr’s statement before midnight by saying that he knew nothing about it. When the US attorney heard the news, he refused to resign, stating that had been appointed by the district court and would not leave until the Senate confirmed his replacement. Barr then came back and said that he was fired for insubordination. This continued until Barr saw he was being savaged in the press, primarily about lying that the President had ordered him to fire Berman.

By Saturday morning, Barr was backpedaling at full speed and looking for a way out of his jam. It appears he quickly arranged with DA Berman to appoint his assistant DA as his replacement, with a promise that the AG’s office would not attempt to interfere in any of their ongoing investigations. While Berman might have this promise from Barr, he does not have it from Trump, a man who increasingly looks like one terrified of facing his legal problems without presidential immunity.

And last, another huge crack is opening in Republican ranks. There is open discussion among Trump haters that, if Trump loses the November election, the Republican Senate must also be replaced with Democrats to effectively investigate Trump’s activities.

Those Republican Senators expect Trump to try to help them in their states, while hinting that such a visit might doom their reelection chances. Politico has been following the shifting political wins and had this revealing quote.

“It’s a terrible situation,” said one of these Republican strategists, who said one solution is for candidates to give speeches before the president arrives to avoid being photographed together. “If you’re onstage in a MAGA hat smiling wide, the Democrats will make it an ad in a second.”

America’s youth are also going to play a key role in the election. They have had a lot of free time on their hands, but even those too young to vote will be manning phone lines and doing field work, which history shows triggers a lifetime of higher interest in politics.

I predict that Donald Trump is going to leave his mark on America, but it is not going to be the mark of a Great Man that he wanted. That said, the electronic vote flipper IT people could make a lot of money in making sure Trump does not lose in November.

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

I do not want history to record me as someone who has bequeathed to his nation the institution of despotism. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first president of Turkey

Erdogan’s Idlib war has morphed into a new one with the EU, which he can’t win. Is there a method to his madness? I ask because as soon as things calm down in one place, he picks a fight somewhere else. While he advanced into Idlib with a traditional military invasion force minus the aircover to back up his proxy terrorist forces there, he sent a jihadi mercenary force into Libya.

The last story I saw was that these were people, an unbelievable number of 5000, tasked to guard Tripoli’s oil facilities. But then, within a week we were getting confirmed reports they were already getting killed in action with Haftar’s forces out of Benghazi.

This force is suspected of being part of Erdogan buying into a deal with Libya to share a Mediterranean economic zone that would block everyone else’s oil and undersea gas pipelines to Europe.

The Cyprus-Turkey standoff continues as President Nicos Anastasiades refuses to stop his own exploratory drilling despite Turkish threats. He wants to reunify Cyprus and share any petro resources, but Erdogan does not seem to be in a partnering, sharing mode right now. After all, this is the same man that wants Idlib to eventually be absorbed by Turkey, tagged onto its Hatay province courtesy of the French after WWI, which had been Syrian.

“Disputing sovereign rights or preconditions such as ‘I’m violating international law and in return, you must give up your sovereign rights so that we can talk’…that doesn’t demonstrate either good will or good faith,” said Anastasiades, who is the president of Cyprus’ internationally recognized government.

It appears Erdogan is a “chip off the old Trump block”, wanting Anastasiades to surrender Cyprus’ economic sovereignty like Trump wanted North Korea to completely denuclearize before he would begin discussing sanctions adjustment.

The first time I heard Trump mention his “total denuclearization” precondition, I went on the record editorially at Veterans Today that Trump never meant to do a deal with Kim Jong-un and that Kim would never give up his nuclear deterrent on a shaky promise from Trump. No one on the planet would be that stupid.

North Korea was a pretend negotiation, where Trump knew he could generate a ton of international media on his being the King of the Deals, but to borrow a term from him, it was a “fake negotiation” from day one with all the theatrics, including his “Rocket Man” name calling from the UN podium. Trump can certainly be said to be a talented showman, a double-edged knife for a President as it cuts both ways.

Erdogan tries to be a showman, but he is not. He loves being on the stage, but he’s just not likeable. He certainly was not a nice guy when, after his coup attempt, he decided to take down all the opposition press while rounding up the real coup network, where his legal case was that they were supporting terrorism. This allowed him to take over Parliament and pass new laws giving him new powers to keep his political opposition hammered down.

VT lost our three month Turkish correspondent who just disappeared one day. Several years later, our Syrian correspondent visited Turkey for a change of pace from Damascus and also committed the unpardonable sin of talking to the opposition. On her 2nd arrest “for questioning,” she was tagged with a terrorism charge on day two, and then transferred to the foreigners’ prison. We put an “all hands on deck” call out to our international network, and within 24 hours she was on a plane to back to Damascus, thanks to a reptile file that is kept for such events.

Erdogan wants S-400s and Patriot batteries

Turkey felt rejected by the US not quickly responding with the Patriot missiles, a silly request because such a transfer would take months of logistical planning, when Erdogan was posing that he was in an emergency situation.

No one believed that he thought that air attacks were a real possibility from the Syrian or Russian Airforce unless Turkish planes fired missiles from inside Turkish airspace at Syrian or Turkish planes.

NATO also passed on being one of Erdogan’s proxy forces. Trump belatedly offered some munitions as a token. That was when Erdogan weaponized his refugees to use against the EU and his old enemy Greece.

We heard his charge that the EU had promised $6 billion for refugee support and had not paid, an unbelievable statement which most interpreted as not having paid it all. Might that have had something to do with the EU learning that the refugee money it had sent was being stolen by Erdogan’s political cronies to steal a piece of every transaction they were involved in?

I have always been surprised to not see any video or written reports of EU people on the ground in the refugee camps along Turkey’s Syrian border. We can all sympathize that that was a big load to put on Turkey, but a lot of those refugees were families of the terrorist and militant proxy groups fighting in Syria. They were never starving.

This is the same Turkey that marketed all of Syria’s stolen oil by ISIS and helped fund ISIS via the oil tanker convoys so large across the Iraqi desert that they could have been seen by anyone on the moon with a hobbyist telescope. Erdogan’s party henchmen participated in the physical looting of Aleppo, stripping every piece of machinery out of every factory in the city and trucking it back to Turkey in convoys twenty kilometers long.

This past week was the turn of the refugees to be Erdogan’s geopolitical cannon fodder, the thousands he sent toward the Greek border after the Syrian ceasefire. The news reported large numbers of Afghanis and Africans, although I did not see any in the video footage.

In the first few days, I did view some women with children, but then no more. News got back to the camps that Greece was blocking the stampede and that most all the refugees were men were young or of military age, and way too many not even carrying a backpack for cold weather supplies. They were not even carrying bottled water or food supplies that I could see.

I was getting suspicious that I was looking at ROTC kids and young military recruits play acting as refugees to generate the kind of video that Erdogan’s people are so experienced in recording for propaganda purposes. When they could not get across, the refugees took on the Greek border guards defending their national border, which is their job and they did it well.

I saw video of the young men using Molotov cocktails against the border guards at night, the materials obviously supplied to them by the Turkish authority to add more drama. But the Greeks held the line, and that is when Erdogan made a mistake.

He deployed his own border guards and some Special Forces to support “refugee” efforts to break holes in the Greek fence. I watched video from the Turkish side of uniformed men firing teargas at the Greek border guards, and some firing modern infantry weapons that may have been rubber bullets, but the Greeks maintained their discipline. I am sure much of Europe watched all this, also.

The border clash theatrics got the EU to send a mission to meet with Erdogan, where the EU agreed to take 1500 unaccompanied children and no more.

While all this was going on, the COVID-19 virus was barreling down the highway and not slowing down for pedestrians. To say Erdogan’s ploy had poor timing is an understatement. Merkel, who usually holds her cards close to the vest, went mainstream yesterday that Germans needed to get ready for 70% of them getting the virus over the next one to two years.

If you think the EU nations are going to take in a flood of refugees while this pandemic is upon them with the economic devastation that will come with it, I would consider that an hallucination. COVID-19 just landed in Turkey, so Erodgan is going to have a new domestic battlefront to deal with on top of his others. I think he might have reached for a bridge too far.

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. ~ Carl Sagan

Update: Thursday morning brought bad news for Bibi. Avigdor Lieberman announced that he was adding his party’s votes to the Blue and White coalition to support a bill in the new Knesset to ban any MK who is under indictment from forming a government.

While the Likud coalition remains three votes short needed to get first shot at forming a government, Lieberman’s move could be his final revenge on Netanyahu by closing the door on his long running and controversial premiership. Benny Gantz will have the 63 votes in his pocket to pass the bill when the Knesset session opens on March 16th.

Expect to see lots of fireworks from Mr. Netanyahu, who will resist with every tool that he can. That has already had him firing off that the Gantz plan is an attack on Israeli democracy.

This was a strange move, as Bibi had already floated the idea in the last few weeks of the election that if he led the new Knesset, he would move to pass a bill to retroactively give him immunity on his three felony cases. I would consider that putting the fix in from the top down and completely nullifying the judicial system’s authority would be considered by many to be an attack on democracy.

Additionally, law enforcement sources were quoted saying an investigation would be opened soon on the Likud party hiring a private intel firm led by a former Shin Bet chief to track and dig up dirt on Gantz. The business daily, The Marker, reported that attorney Yossi Cohen, described as “extremely close to the Netanyahu family”, contacted the CGI group looking for compromising information on Gantz.

Netanyahu’s Likud won the Knesset elections, but with a twist

Welcome to Israeli politics. I must add that using intelligence operatives in political campaigns is something that needs a serious looking into for stiff regulations. VeteransToday finds them involved in elections all over the world as part of their normal information gathering, destabilization, and election rigging work.

Israel woke up to a surprise result Monday morning after the Likuds and Blue and White had been polling within a few percent of each other. Despite the legal baggage that Netanyahu has in his political wagon in the last two weeks he focused the voters on sticking with the man they knew, versus the new guy with no experience on the world stage.

With 99% of the vote counted, Likud was ahead with 36 Knesset seats to Blue and White’s 33 seats. With Bibi’s coalition parties, he had 58 of the needed 61 seats to form a government without enticing some of the moderate MPs to abandon ship to help Bibi cross over the finish line.

On round three, a fractured Israel political system gave the prize to a candidate who awaits a trial date on March 17th for three felonies. Where else in the world could this happen other than in Israel? You just can’t make this stuff up. None of Bibi’s backers care if he is guilty, as long as they get to stay in power.

Gantz stumbles under Bibi’s attacks during the final week

IDF General Gantz was up against a seasoned campaigner, whose detractors admit that he is a master politician on the podium. Bibi’s strategy was to parley his known statesmanship talents against the good general who had to admit that yes he stuttered, but that should not be a disqualification for public office.

That was a mistake that only a political rookie would make. No old timer in politics ever admits to a fault. Its not in their DNA. You talk about the other guy’s faults. Bibi had plenty, and they had one hell of an airing out in the first two elections. The best counter is to attack your opponent always, to put him or her on the defensive.

It was more than just stuttering that tripped up Gantz in the run up to the vote. He tried to imitate being the smooth master like Bibi, winging it at the podium where he appears to be talking extemporaneously, but every word in the last week or two of a campaign has to be carefully crafted for maximum impact on the voters.

Gantz got caught by seeming to get lost within his own message, ending a sentence without a point fully being made, like he forgot what he was going to say. Bibi jumped all over this, charging that Gantz was not ready for the office and voters would sell themselves and Israel short by voting for him.

Leaked audio tape via his own team a huge blow

The Lukids ambushed Gantz with a devastating leaked audio tape. As I wrote in last week’s NEO article, his campaign strategist allowed himself to be recorded in a private conversation with a Rabbi where the tape was magically leaked where Benny’s strategist, Israel Bachar, put a bullet into his campaign by saying that Benny would never have the courage to attack Iran and thus constituted a threat to the people of Israel.

The Israeli public seemed to not care that Rabbi Guy Habura was a close friend of Bibi’s lawyer, where the tape ending up at Channel 12 would be viewed as an incredible coincidence. Welcome to dog eat dog politics in Israel. It was a huge blow to Gantz, who now had blood in the water and the sharks were circling. Bibi was no longer defending his record. It was now Benny’s turn to defend his.

Likuds’ professional hi-tech get out the vote campaigning

The Likud team had quietly been deploying a secret weapon, using the voter database that all candidates have equal access to, but where the data cannot be passed to a third party. Netanyahy praised his campaign chief Yair Revivo, the mayor of Lod, for winning the extra seats to put Likud on top, despite the initial 36 seats at the 90% count having been trimmed to 35 at the 99% vote count.

Revivo had used the Elector App where the names of 6.5 million eligible voters was uploaded, including all previously registered Likud voters or good prospects were marked down by location to be followed up with 20,000 Likud “fishers of votes”. People were called, calls logged into the system and a follow up call would be made to assure they had transportation or whatever they needed to get them to the polling station. This good old-fashioned ABC precinct work was effective.

This is the magic of organizing the human touch in a campaign, to move heaven and earth to get your supporters to the polls. While living in Atlanta during Obama’s first run, I watched the Democratic black Americans in the churches make sure all elderly people that could not travel to a polling station had a campaigner make sure they got their absentee voting form mailed. This included even going to nursing homes to help people. This attention wins close elections, if the vote flipping of the electronic machines does not steal the vote away from you.

In the end, Likud is still short of the magic 61 number by three votes so the pre-election knives have been put away, and now the tools of enticement are being leveraged to find defectors from the other parties to cross over to Bibi.

Why would they do that, you ask? How about being offered a ministerial position, something that has worked in the past. Likud wheeler dealers were making contacts, widely reported in the media, but with news that they were being rejected, so far.

Bibi three seats short of grabbing the prize

The Times of Israel reported that:

“Without 61 seats, Netanyahu will likely seek to woo members of opposition parties to break off and join his coalition, possibly from the right-wing branch of Blue and White, which includes MKs Yoaz Hendel, Zvi Hauser and Omer Yankelevich.

Hendel and Hauser both denied they had been asked to jump ship, saying in identical tweets: “They haven’t approached us. They won’t approach us. And they know why.” Hendel is a former aide to Netanyahu, and Hauser is a former cabinet secretary who also served under the Likud leader. Yankelevich also denied “rumors” that she could defect. She tweeted: “Won’t happen!”

Haaretz reported that Likud had been threatening Yankelevitch with the release of embarrassing tapes about her if she does not join them.

Gantz delays conceding until final official vote count

General Gantz was not all doom and gloom on election night. He knew the polls were showing Bibi winning the most seats, but he had his plan B in the waiting, to cut Bibi off at the pass.

On Wednesday Netanyahu accused Gantz of trying to steal Monday’s election with his beginning efforts to pass a law that would prevent an indicted MK from forming a government.

Bibi charged during a press conference that such an effort would undermine democracy. “This is an effort to divide the nation when we are facing serious challenges like the corona crisis…There are also opportunities like US President Donald Trump’s plan [to steal the Palestinians’ land] that require us to be united and respect the will of the people.”

After the press left the room, Bibi let loose even more, upgrading his attack on Gantz, saying that he was worse than Iran’s Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei. “In Iran they disqualify candidates before elections, but here Gantz is doing it after an election despite the results.”

Bibi forgot to mention that it was he who posed that, if he won the election, he would submit a bill to be passed to give him retroactive immunity.

Another threat to Bibi is on center stage

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel has moved forward with its earlier plans to file a petition in the High Court of Justice that Netanyahu should not have the right to form the next government due to his facing criminal charges.

The same group had an earlier petition dismissed by Attorney General Mandelblit when he ruled that because Bibi had failed to form a government after the second election, the issue was moot until he was in a position to so do.

As generals have historically said when they could not foresee the result of a battle engagement, “The issue is still in doubt.”

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

“War has rules. Mud wrestling has rules. Politics has no rules.” ~ Ross Perot

The knives have been sharpened for weeks and the Prime Minister contenders have finally brought them out as we go into the March 12th election countdown. Benny Gantz of the Blue and White party used his knife to slash one of his own wrists by making a huge blunder about claiming he would be able to form a new government with a “Jewish majority”.

“We will form a government with a Jewish majority, or we will establish a unity government with the Likud without Netanyahu,” said Gantz. “We will be the biggest party and I believe we will not need the support of the [Arab] Joint List. You will see that we will be the biggest party with a significant gap, and parties will join us.” With polls showing Blue and White just two seats ahead of Bibi, that claim seemed wishful thinking.

The Likuds pounce on Gantz

Gantz’ boast set off a firestorm as Likuds pounced on him like jackals on a partridge. Gantz was referring to what came up in the last election, in that the Joint List had helped Blue and White get over the 61 needed votes to form a government, without joining the party. In that situation, the Joint List would automatically be the minority government with a number of privileges, like direct contact with foreign leaders, and even security briefings.

The thought of Arabs being in an Israeli government drives the rightwing Arab hating Jews crazy, as they don’t want Palestinians inside Israeli proper to have any real political power. They want them to continue to be “pretend citizens” with no rights.

The politically savvy Likuds, with much experience slicing and dicing political opponents, thought Santa had come early. They were quick to point out that Arabs in government would be OK (which was a lie of course) but “anti-Zionists” would not be, as they are all terrorists. If you don’t grasp the logic there, I didn’t either. The Likuds consider all Arabs to be anti-Zionists, which they are, simply due to the multi-generational discrimination against them.

The Joint List remains in play, polling 14 projected seats

Joint List leader Aymen Odeh jumped into the fray, tweeting, “There is one thing that needs to leave politics quicker than Netanyahu, and that is the racist phrase ‘Jewish majority’…If there won’t be a majority of citizens, there won’t be a majority.” This was of course a threat to not pool the Joint List votes so Gantz would have a shot at getting over the magic 61 number.

Some political pundits suggested that Gantz could have been referring to a “Jewish majority” as being a government with Likud, but without Bibi, but as Shakespeare would say, “Aye, there’s the rub.”

I cannot see Likud throwing Bibi over unless he barbecues a baby before election day. They see their fate cast with his.

Leiberman lives on

Avigdor Liberman, representing the large Russian Jewish community, focused on Bibi’s refusing to resign as holding the country hostage, saying, “He is working hard, and every day that he continues he only detracts from his legacy, and from his achievements. He’s not adding anything. He’s just diminishing. It looks like he is living in denial… I am relying on Netanyahu to do the right thing and resign. And when he does…we will all help him do so with honor…From what I see, everyone, especially in the [right-wing] block, is preparing for the post-Netanyahu era.”

The Likuds certainly don’t think so. They are already working to protect Bibi from the legal repercussions of his trial, in case Bibi wins the election and the legal issue must be resolved by the Supreme Court on whether an indicted PM in the process of his trial can legally serve as Prime Minister.

Yuli Edlestein runs interference for Bibi

The number two person in the Likud party, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edlestein, is certainly not among Lieberman’s “post Netanyahu block”. In his speech at the Conference of Presidents leadership mission he stated that there was no ethical problem with Bibi serving as Prime Minister while under indictment and on trial. Attorney General Mandelblit has passed on ruling on the issue, saying that because Bibi had not won the election and formed a government, he could not rule upon it now.

But Edlestein chose his words carefully. He did not say there was no “legal problem”, as the Supreme Court would have the final say on that. Edlestein’s true, but thin support for his position, is that all men are deemed innocent until proven guilty. And what he was also doing is seeding the idea of any repercussions to a “guilty” verdict being after all appeals are over.

This disclosed that the Likuds are building a case for Bibi remaining in office even through years of trials and appeals. Their position is that if he wins the most seats, then that political victory gives him the peoples’ stamp of approval and that should trump what any court position should be. I doubt the judges will agree to their authority being trumped by political vote.

Bibi bets the Prime Ministry will save him from jail

I don’t buy any of it. Bibi could resign and let the country move forward while he deals with his legal issue, and then be free to make a comeback by running again. But neither he nor the Likuds seem to want to take that risk. In the recent Likud party elections, his opponent, Gideo Saar did poorly, and also in the national polls.

Netanyahu has a tight grasp on his party and his national voters. They feel that only he can get everything that Israel is getting out of the Americans, as he has been the magician when it comes to that, except for the Obama bump in the road.

His ‘Prime Minister forever’ plan was always to market himself royally, with his wife playing the Queen, with her own delusions of grandeur issues. With Bibi’s close ties to Trump, they present a “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” pair, as in Hollywood bad boy gunfighters and bank robbers who can do what they want and get away with it. Trump actually used the term ‘King’ last week, in referring to his popularity. He left out that the polls had showed a majority of Americans wanting him impeached.

IDF Intel chiefs disagree on more Iranian attacks in Syria

Politics is not the only area of dispute in the land of Israel. Retired IDF senior intelligence officer Colonel Shmuel Even challenged his active duty colleague’s new strategy that Israel should be more aggressive in Syria against Iranian anti-terrorism forces after the Soleimani assassination.

He is challenging OC IDF Intel Major General Tamir Heyman, who feels with Soleimani gone that Syria’s Iranian allies are “on their heels” and now is time to push Iran out. The good General did not mention that Iranian advisors and militias initially came into Syria in its darkest hour.

The militias’ initial duties were protecting the Shia holy sites that were being targeted by the Sunni sponsored terrorist bombers. This helped free up the Syria Army from static defense duties when it needed mobile combat forces badly.

The Iranian advisers and Hezbollah were working hard to train local Syrian defense and security forces (similar to the US National Guard), that also took pressure off the army having to protect everyone, everywhere, all the time.

When I was in Syria as an election monitor in 2014, any road trip required going through endless checkpoints with local forces doing that work, which made perfect sense as they at least knew the local people and businesses. They were also completely exposed to car bombers, and I had a higher respect for checkpoint guards after that.

There are about 800 Iranian soldiers and 15,000 militia forces assigned to counter terrorism tasks in coordination with the Syrian government, unlike what we see with the US and Turkey who decide for themselves what operations they choose to do and where.

Sure, Israel can bomb Syria all it wants and that will have some impact, but it will change nothing on the ground. Gaza is living proof of that.

Colonel Even suggests that the best way to decrease Israel’s perceived threat from Iran in Syria is via diplomacy with the US and Russia. He left out Turkey, where the current situation in Idlib has its military fighting beside the terrorist factions. Erdogan wants an angry, aggressive Sunni majority in Idlib that he can use to destabilize Syria.

It is nice to see the Israelis have an open debate on a tender subject like this when, in America, land of the free, one challenges power at one’s own risk.

Soleimani killing is a boomerang still in the air

Iran’s retaliation after the Soleimani assassination shook the region more geopolitically than the Trump regime had thought possible. Iran was able to display just part of its precision retaliation capability to the world, and more importantly, to its regional tormentors.

The US command on the other hand was caught lying about the whole operation, starting with the fake “impending attack” story, which was followed by new fake stories. There is a major scandal brewing on US casualties. Defense Secretary Esper bungled with his use of the term “headaches” to describe the injuries, which Trump foolishly parroted.

The Trump media jugglers did manage to keep one huge failure from getting major exposure, that being the total incompetency of killing Soleimani in Iraq where none of the US air bases had any air defenses. The veteran orgs are shocked and embarrassed about it. They are staying mum about it, and our worthless media also passed it over.

The casualty numbers are continuing to leak out. The rough numbers mentioned are about 100 dead and 170+ wounded, with no breakdown between serious and lightly wounded. The news of the refrigerated flight back to Germany was a giveaway on the KIAs. Wounded are not flown in refrigerators. People familiar with these coverups know what to look for.

American families have been subjected to not being able to publicly bury their loved ones, due to the “national security” lockdown on US casualties. This will not be the first time this has happened. There is a long history of it, and the deception is not pretty.

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Jihadi forces backed by Turkish infantry and artillery have launched a general counter-attack on the west flank of Saraqib, both north and south of the M-4 highway. Erdogan has now cast his fate openly with the terrorists to prevent the liberation of Idlib.

I am wrapping up this current Idlib-Aleppo battlefront report on Sunday, February 9th. You will find two earlier sections below, picking up the Idlib battle after the major city Maraat al-Numaan was taken on the M-5 highway.

The last three days have seen major SAA coalition gains, despite two days of bad weather where air strikes were not flown but the ground forces continued their methodical advance in clearing the Saraqib flanks of jihadi forces.

Syria’s 25th Special Forces Division continued pushing north up the M-5 to eventually meet the SAA elite 4th Division, Republican Guard, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, pushing south to reconnect Damascus and Aleppo with their main logistics road critically needed for launching the final battle to clear Idlib.

Special Forces troops pushing up from Saraqib city have captured the key hilltop al-Ais position (365 meters high) that can observe M5 traffic both north and south and deep into its west flank. News photos showed the troops gaining the peak in darkness, freeing more Syrian territory from the grip of the US coalition terror proxies created to overthrow and carve up Syria.

At the end of the article, I have a 38 minute combat video link of the Saraqib fight, from the Abkhazia News crew where you will get a first hand look at some of the tactics used, including the full use of drones behind the battle lines to locate jihadi groups trying to hide with their equipment only to be followed and destroyed in their lairs, saving a lot of lives for the SAA.

Syrian coalition advancing with low casualties

The fighting morale of the jihadis in Idlib City will have to be affected by all those who never come home from the M-5 highway battle. Sunday, today, the planes were back in the air, striking targets of opportunity with the news that we saw no counter attacks against last week’s gains.

Aleppo forces have been pushing south on the M-5 and appear in position to be able to connect with their compatriots pushing north. Turkey’s observation posts, designed to protect its proxy terrorists, have backfired with all of them in the current liberated areas surrounded and unofficial prisoners of the SAA.

Mr. Erdogan continues to ship more special forces and armor into the area, apparently to increase his bargaining hand at the negotiations he claims he wants to have. Fortunately, there have been no Turkish or Russian combat deaths reported in the last two days.

Erdogan has a weak hand, as the world has seen that he exploited his partnership in the Astana agreement by doing nothing to separate the various al-Qaeda groups from the Syrian militant ones. His plan to Balkanize northeast Syria into a Turkish de facto colony is not working out as he had wanted.

He incredibly has demanded that the Syrian Army leave Idlib, its own territory, by the end of February. That was considered a bad joke. Although he has mention he has a plan B and C, so do the Syrians and Russians. Putin has no intention of fighting in Syria indefinitely.

Iran has been deathly quiet in the Putin-Erdogan showdown, despite Iran having militias on the Aleppo western front in combat. This will be a delicate political situation to prevent its escalation.

Erodgan has already broken his agreement, so he is now “Turkey’s Trump,” in terms of what is the point of making a new deal with the guy that broke the last one? Everyone understands that Erdogan does not want all those unhappy jihadis coming back to into Turkey. Will he threaten to unleash them on Europe, or shift them to another front, maybe the Kurdish north to make more trouble?

The SAA allies take Saraqib with few casualties

We woke up this morning, February 6th to see that the Syrian army had completely taken Saraqib and its three Turkish observation posts. When I went to bed, they had cut the M-5 highway to the north, but this morning the battlemaps showed that Tiger Force unit continued on to take Afis and Sarmin to the west, blocking the escape road to Idlib.

The video reports were all in Arabic but showed truckloads of jubilant Syrian soldiers who had cleared Saraqib’s center and were redeploying to new positions. There have been no estimates of casualties on this fast moving battle.

Erdogan’s response was an amazing statement that if the Syrian army did not desist in retaking its own territory, Turkey would have to intercede to push them out. He might go down in history to have made such an outlandish demand.

Most considered this a big bluff, but there’s reports claiming that Russia would love to take the Turks on, as it has not forgotten the Russian pilot who was shot down and murdered by Turkish militants after he was captured.

That would make for one huge geopolitical mess when Russia and Turkey have a lot of joint interests at stake. Moscow knows that Idlib must be cleared of jihadis before any election can be held in the country, which is why Erdogan wants to keep the jihadis there. He has been a subversive partner to the Astana process, never honoring his word to separate the terror jihadists from the militant forces there.

The jihadi leadership in Idlib deployed some of their forces during the afternoon to counter attack on the west flank of the M-5 road below Saraqib, obviously trying to tie down Syrian forces in defensive positions there and threaten the critical supply road.

Another counterattack was launched north of Saraqib on both flanks of the M-5 in an attempt to bottle up the Syrian attack there. Later news came that a Turkish column with dozens of armored fighting vehicle had arrived in Taftanaz airbase in central north Idlib.

This appears to have been chosen by the Turkish military as a staging base, as it is equidistant from Idlib, Saraqib, and Aleppo so it can shift replacement equipment where needed, especially to be able to threaten a Syrian advance on the M-5 road.

I would bet the Turks want to keep the battle for the highway as drawn out as possible. That said, we had a morning report that part of the Saraqib assault forces had been detached to Aleppo. Ideally the best strategy would be retaking the M-5 from both directions to divide the fire power of the Idlib jihadis.

They have a huge disadvantage in that they will have to maneuver to attack over open territory where they will be subject to attack on the move and in their advance positions. Due to the effective air cover they have had, the Syrian Army has avoided losing a lot of its experienced combat troops.

The battle for Saraqib – February 5

Saraqib city in Idlib province is being attacked by the Syrian Army 25th Special Forces Division. One of the specialties it was trained in was night attacks, as the attacking force sustains fewer casualties from an entrenched opponent not known to have night vision capability.

This action will be another combined operations affair involving Syrian artillery, the 25th, both the Syrian and Russian air forces and their drones for both surveillance and combat operations. If nothing good has come out of the Syrian war, at least it has honed both countries’ fighting forces into being the most experienced counter-terrorism forces on the planet.

I cover the Part 1 of the second Idlib advance below, which I had stopped after Maraat al-Numaan was taken and the advance got bogged down in bad weather for two weeks. We did not know if the 25th division might be split in half to give Aleppo an attacking force to push the jihadis in the west back out of grad rocket range.

If so, we expected it would next start taking the M-5 highway going south, while the rest of the division continued the attack north from Maraat al-Numaan up the M-5 which connects the western part of Syria from Damascus to Aleppo.

I could not foresee the Syrian coalition making a final push to clear the entrenched jihadis out of northern Idlib until they had the entire M-5 highway controlled, with all jihadis cleared out of its eastern side and a safe buffer on the west. One cannot launch the final battle without completely secure lines of supply.

The advance up M-5 highway from Maraat al-Numaan

The SAA’s attacking strategy was not to battle their way on the M-5 north through a gauntlet of IEDs and anti-armor missiles that would inflict losses which Syria cannot afford, especially among its best troops.

The attack was a right flank on a broad flank from around al-Numaan, as this compels the enemy to spread its forces out more sparsely. This gives the respective air forces more opportunity to target them while they are on the roads and to locate supply and command centers from traffic patterns and communications intercepts.

This advance moved west out of Syrian controlled territory east of the M-5, while simultaneously clearing all jihadi forces on this flank. When that was completed, the SAA cut the M-5 at Khan al-Sobol, midway between Maraat al-Numaan and Saraqib.

With the road cut, Syrian forces began moving north on the M-5 while clearing its western flank from enemy forces to have the road usable for logistic supplies to sustain the Syrian attack. Jihadi and Turkish backed militants made attempts to contest clearing this western flank, but the air forces played a key role in eliminating those units.

Further north, the Tiger forces had pushed up M-5, from Khan al-Sobol to the southern approaches to Saraqib and had to stop while the right flank was cleared. That is when Turkey decided to put its forces into a blocking position to stop the Syrian advance.

Turkish outposts in Syria fail to intimidate SAA

A ring of new Turkish observation posts had been quickly set up around the city as a “trip wire” for the Syrian army not to cross. The Syrian army stopped its M5 north advance and began retaking towns and villages east and west of the highway, starting to go around the Turkish outposts.

The next day a Turkish column with lots of armor and Turkish troops was attacked by air and seems to have disappeared since then. Erdogan claimed the Syrian air force had attacked and that Turkey retaliated with heavy shelling and F-1 bombing runs against the Syrian forces.

After Erdogan made the claim for which mysteriously there were no photos or video confirmations, he began back pedaling on his threats to invade Syria if it did not stop clearing Erdogan’s favorite terrorists out of Idlib.

While Erdogan talked and threatened, the Syrian 25th Special Ops division flanked Saraqib on its west flank first, cutting the M-4 highway, and then the following day cleared the eastern flank to within mortar range and swung north to cut the M-5 road behind the Turkish observation post, making a bag of three of them that are surrounded and isolated.

There is a secondary road open to the west to Idlib, what the infamous Sun Tzu called the golden bridge that should always be left open for an enemy to break and flee.

If the jihadis cleared out in time, some might have made it to Idlib. For those who engaged in a night fight with the 25th, if they find themselves retreating west in the morning I suspect the planes will be on them, and there would be no sense in letting them get back to Idlib to fight from the prepared defenses there.

The Maraat al-Numaan campaign up the M-5 highway

After the long delays since the successful south Idlib advance by the SAA, many Syria watchers were dismayed to see the attack fizzle when Damascus had the advantage over defeated and dispirited jihadis facing them in the north.

Traditional military doctrine would have expected Assad to have had fresh troops lined up to kick off a stage two advance to keep the momentum rolling northward before the jihadis dug themselves into newly prepared defensive lines that would be more costly to take. We were wrong.

While we waited with the winter weather conditions coming on, the Russian and Syrian air forces continued their systematic hunting down and precision bombing of terrorist and militant ammo and supply dumps, along with their command centers.

There had been talk of an Aleppo offensive, sorely needed as the battle lines there had left the jihadi formations west of the city within rocket range of the center of downtown Aleppo. As the SAA coalition bombing campaign rolled on in Idlib, it was just a matter of time before HTS forces in western Aleppo would start shelling the city to relieve pressure on Idlib, and they did.

The formerly named Tiger forces who have made major gains in defeating ISIS in the eastern and northeastern parts of the country had their command renamed 25th Special Forces Division. It is specially trained in launching night attacks, which have been effective in the past.

After a methodical westward advance into Idlib province along a broad front toward the M-5 highway to the next major city Maraat al-Numaan that dispersed the militant defensive forces, the SAA got close to being within shelling distance of the city.

Then the jihadi defenses seemed to have collapsed, either through attrition from the air attacks or the Idlib central command pulling troops northward to defend the Aleppo front. Some analysts have suggested that evacuation corridors that had allowed 350,000 Idlib residents get out of harm’s way allowed the Syrian coalition to be more aggressive with its firepower tactics.

The mad terrorists in Idlib city still had their civilian human shields as some protection from the worst bombing and wanted to save their fighting power for the major battle to come there.

What will Turkey do as the jihadis go down?

Mr. Erdogan has calmed down over the northeast Syria Kurdish front, after his endless claims of a hoard of Kurdish terrorists ready to attack Turkey from Syria, an hysterical show that no one believed. I never heard or read of a Kurdish terrorist attack anywhere along the Syrian northern border.

His attention had shifted to Libya, where he has invested Turkish proxy forces we think were pulled out of Syria and paid $3000 a month to fight for Tripoli when they were getting paid $400 inside Syria.

Erdogan also has big gas dreams in his eyes, with his sudden claim of having a joint economic zone with Libya extending between their two respective countries and through which the new Israeli operating gas platform had planned to build a pipeline. There will be a big political battle over that.

Here is the Abkhazian Network News Agency (ANNA) 38 minutes of combat video footage on the liberation of Saraqib city by the SAA and it allies. This is among the best footage I have seen during the war to show what has really gone on there. An appropriate age confirmation is required to watch it.

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half. ~ Otto von Bismarck

The US hustle on who has been destabilizing the Mideast via terrorism has gone unchallenged far too long. We listened to the mantra of the Pentagon and Pompeo blaming it all on Iran with no evidence forthcoming, and finally realized that no evidence would ever be forthcoming.

I come from the baby boomer generation when we had the Cuban missile crisis seared into our memory with America’s UN ambassador showing the U-2 photo of the Russian missiles launch, followed by more photos of missiles openly being transported on ships photographed at low altitude. Americans were proud of a military that not only was protecting us but told us the truth, at that time.

Today, many Americans are not so sure, and many others are sure that their government is lying to them to support a foreign policy they never would if they knew the truth. There is an important segment of our security apparatus that feel no qualms whatsoever about running a psyop on our own people, the kind of operation saved for use on actual enemies.

What did we do to be treated in such a cavalier manner, including a having a Secretary of Defense that has a temporary designation because that avoided a Senate confirmation process where they are carefully screened by both parties?

Soleimani worked with the US early on after 9-11 in Afghanistan chasing after Osama bin Laden, as al-Qaeda was considered a threat to Iran at the time. Not one in a thousand Americans know this, including a vast majority in the US military.

Iraq was a different story, even more so after General Wesley Clark, with his impeccable credentials, told us that a form staffer member briefed him on how chasing the terrorism bogeyman was a smokescreen for taking over seven Mideast countries in five years.

Fast forward to one of Pompeo’s early justifications for the drone attack at the Baghdad airport, claiming that Soleimani was planning imminent attacks, a story that fell apart after a few days. Pentagon second tier staff scrambled to put the terror stink on Soleimani and came up with the story of his being responsible for the death of American troops during the Iraqi war.

Left out of their story was the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel history of sponsoring MEK and terrorism inside Iran, including attacks on its judiciary and parliament. Because MEK had fought for Saddam in the Iran-Iraq War, he later provided them infrastructure inside Iraq to continue operations against Iran. When Saddam was taken out, the US, meaning our military, took over running the MEK operation against Iran, with the above confirmation from General Clark.

That put US military personnel inside Iraq on the target list for counter-terrorism attacks under Article 51 of the UN charter for self-defense, where anyone assisting in supporting such attacks is fair game for retaliation.

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.

It is no secret that the US, with NATO partner assistance, and its Gulf State coalition, supported a huge proxy terrorism operation against Syria and other targeted countries. Iraq took its turn at tremendous suffering and loss of life, and now Yemen.

The former Qatari FM admitted on American TV that $160 billion was spent by the US coalition trying to Balkanize Syria, and “that mistakes were made in some of the groups we supported”. The terrorism Soleimani was involved in was “counter-terrorism” against the US coalition supported terror groups, and hence why he was hated.

The Iranians are understandably angry about the Soleimani assassination, but their anger has clouded their media judgement. I have seen over and over their publicizing that Soleimani and PMU commander Mahid were killed “with others”. That is a big mistake because that is not what happened.

General Soleimani and his top staff were assassinated, as were General Madi and his top staff, and those were not “others”. The US attack was a joint command structure decapitation, a much more aggressive event than killing two commanders. The Iranian military spokesmen let this distinction slip their fingers in their media response, but they did do so in their military response.

Under Article 51 the Iran executed a retaliatory command structure attack of their own on the US Ayn al-Assad base, but even going so far as to give a two hour warning to prime minster Mahdi in Baghdad. Trump’s statement that “everything is okay, no casualties and damage” was believed by few. Even with the base command inside a hardened bunker, a direct hit with a ballistic missile is a life changing event.

Mr. Trump played Mr. Silly again at his press conference mention of some troops being treated for ‘headaches”. Sure, the Pentagon flies troops all the way to Germany to be give two aspirins “out of an abundance of caution” for headaches. This is one of the stupidest things ever said by an American President. That lie did not last a day, and at long last we see some American vets get off their behinds and raise hell to state that traumatic brain injuries are not “headaches”.

To lie to the American people like this, by Trump, Pompeo, and Esper… is to be expected. Its how those guys roll. But for the downstream staff to remain mute like a bunch of stuffed dummies is a bridge too far.

US veteran organizations do some great work. The Vietnam vets where horribly treated, having to fight tooth and nail for benefits they deserved served on a silver platter. They were followed by those with Gulf War syndrome, which the military denied even existed, just like it did with Agent Orange. My brother’s widow, a retired Army Ranger colonel when he died, still draws his Agent Orange pension.

However, there is one huge issue the Vet orgs have not done so well on, and that is protecting those who take the oath and wear the uniform from being sent on a “bad mission”, a Deep State concocted, made up war.

If there is any group that should be suspicious of the command structure and the military industrial complex motives, it is the veterans. Two thousand of them recently piled onto the Washington Post’s forum to disclose another bad mission in Afghanistan with their own personal witness stories.

Understanding the depravity of waging war for deep state gain requires an even more subtle understanding. With the US up to it eyeballs in using proxy terrorism for regime change wars, in what Pompeo loves to describe as “pursuing our interests”, the military people in direct support of this are hanging targets on our troops as legitimate counter-terrorism targets under international law.

Those wearing the uniform cannot buck the command structure. Only the veterans organizations could lead the way to protect the troops now exposed, and I don’t think they will. They have been provided an opportunity with the Soleimani incident, to review their position. They have a second chance.

We just killed Iran’s George Washington and JFK, claiming he was a terrorist, when he was fighting our own terror operations. Soleimani saved a lot of lives in Syria and Iraq, but only after way too many innocent people were killed purely for the regime change gangsters “pursuing their interests”.

When are we going to wake up to what we have done, for whom, and do what needs to be done to make amends before more lives are thrown away on cheap lies?

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

“As a just and healthy person is governed by knowledge and reason, a just society must be under the control of society’s most cultivated and best informed minds, its “lovers of wisdom.” ~ Plato

The Lion of the Likud party is now fighting for his political life and his freedom. The battle begins in the Knesset between Netanyahu supporters and everyone else. The Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein, as the number two man in the Likud Party, is in a delicate position politically with his dual role.

He received a letter from Bibi and his block parties on Tuesday, January 14, demanding he stop work on forming a House Committee which would have a majority for voting against immunity but would still need to win a full Knesset vote.

Benny Gantz responded to that challenge with, “Netanyahu has requested parliamentary immunity, well aware that part of the discussion would entail a review of the request itself. He cannot both have requested immunity and demand that his request not be discussed.”

Bibi’s strategy is to have it his way as always. He wants the immunity discussion delayed until after the next election which he hopes to win, where if he can form a government, he will have immunity for his full term.

His political enemies are tired of him holding the country hostage and want to vote no on the immunity now so his prosecution will begin, with many considering this would kill his chance of winning re-election, and the country could move on to realign itself politically.

When Netanyahu began the new year by requesting the Knesset give him immunity from prosecution, some pundits had posed that it was unknown whether he would do so, something that came as a big surprise to me. The man has a long history of using scorched earth tactics when fighting for his political existence, where delaying tactics are critical to buying time, in this case to derail the prosecution somehow.

Bibi is also not a man to bet on just one horse to save himself. We just found out he had another plan to play the indispensable war leader by making a major incursion into Syria. The Jerusalem Post reported on January 4th that Attorney General Mandelblit had intervened to stop his initiating a large-scale operation in late December to target Iranian facilities, and to expand it to Lebanon if Hezbollah resisted.

Mandelblit blocked the operation on the grounds there was no sitting cabinet to authorize such an action. This was the 2nd time that Bibi had tried to use the IDF offensive operations to advertise himself as a wartime leader, the first being just before the last election over two rockets fired in protest of Bibi’s political event near Gaza.

He had attempted to initiate retaliatory airstrikes without the involvement of either Shin Bet or the IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, another case of Bibi’s willingness to use anything and everything at his disposal to maintain power as prime minister to block his prosecutions. NEO carried my story on this event September 21st, 2019.

Can Bibi pull a political rabbit out of his hat?

Since the dust had settled after the second election debacle, leaving Israeli voters looking at their third election in a year, Mr. Netanyahu has had time with his team to carefully plan his next political and legal case moves.

This was apparent when he made his carefully constructed January 1 TV appearance on his request for immunity. Everyone was waiting to see how he would deal with his Channel 12 News question last March on whether if he would ask for it and he answered, “What? No way. The answer is no.”

One would think that was an insurmountable credibility leap to overcome, but the master politician that he is, that is what he attempted. Bibi has circus showman genes in his DNA and understands the power of staging and presentation to hold an audience.

Leviathan gas operations used for theater

He featured the turning on of the Leviathan gas rig operations, ten years in the making, that are going to bring tens of billions into Israel’s public coffers as if he were Moses presenting the ten commandments. He didn’t say that he had created the gas in the field, but left the impression that without him, it never would have happened…classic Bibi.

Bibi does have a God-complex, meaning that he feels he is beyond criticism on anything he has done. The prosecutors and police investigators are left wingers wanting to frame him, Attorney General Mandelblit framed him, and all of his detractors hate right wingers and will do anything to depose him as their leader. He has labeled all his legal charges as nothing more than a legal coup attempt to remove him.

Netanyahu made a mistake in that Israelis surely remember that Ehud Olmert of the Left was charged, convicted and went to jail. Olmert does not claim to this day that the charges were unjust. He got caught taking a bribe, something woven into politics all over the world. He served his time and went on with his life.

Bibi imports Trump team to revive his fortunes

Bibi’s advisory team had to choose between making a low key request and moving on to other issues, or making a big media splash of the request. He decided to take the latter route, with many feeling that was what the former Trump team advisors he hired steered him toward.

The tactics used were borrowed from the Trump campaign. He was relaxed and smiling during his TV announcement, like he did not have a worry in the world. He did rallies and town hall meetings non-stop, four of five on some days. He had a laser focus on holding his Likud base together, which so far has blocked all comers from unseating him as Prime Minister.

Immunity means whatever I say it means

“I intend to continue to lead Israel for many more years [in pursuit of] historical achievements…that once we could only dream of and now are actually within reach. Together we will strengthen our economy. We will stop Iran. We will determine our borders. We will enter into a defense pact with the United States. We will forge peace with additional Arab countries. And we will extend sovereignty over the land…we have turned Israel into the world’s eight most powerful country.”

The above was all warmup lather for what he was about to spring on them, a carefully framed new presentation of the immunity issue.

“Many of you think, because it’s what you’ve been told, that immunity for elected officials is permanent; that it enables [a suspect] never to stand trial. This is simply not true.

“According to the law, immunity is always temporary, ending with the term the Knesset that granted it. If the Knesset is incumbent for three months, for example, as is currently that case, the immunity is canceled after three months. According to the law, there is no possibility, for anyone, to avoid standing trial.”

He went on to cover his former “No way “[he would ask for immunity] in the Channel 12 interview. He said, “I meant those words then, and I am not retracting them now… I didn’t promote of change any law. I intend to appear in court to smash the unfounded libels against me.”

So he tells them he is requesting immunity, but standing by his statement of “No way”, courtesy of some fancy interpretation footwork. It reminds me of the famous line in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, “When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean, nothing less, and nothing more.”

Gantz has his say, not a good day

Benny Gantz was quick to respond, but seemed to not have gotten advance notice on what Bibi was going to say and was not prepared to rebut any of it, poor staff work from his team. Gantz had to stick to past statements.

“Netanyahu knows he’s guilty…A person who believes his is innocent is not afraid to stand trial. Either we will have a radical immunity government or a unified national one…Immunity is not the bedrock of democracy; it is a detriment to democracy. Blue and White will make every possible legal effort to establish the Knesset House Committee in order to prevent immunity from those indicted for crimes.”

The weakness in Bibi’s argument is that if he feels the charges against him could be defeated in court, he could have agreed to a coalition government with Gantz, letting him take the first two years while Bibi fought and defeated his charges, and then could have picked up the Prime Minister mantel after two years, or at worst four years.

What I suspect is that he is bluffing. The prosecution has a witness list of 330 people. No prosecutors in their right mind would even dream of railroading someone and having to coordinate 330 stories. They would all go crazy during the trial.

Judges and layers versus the voters

Netanyahu’s immunity lecture will have to be answered clearly and directly by current Israeli legal authorities. Fortunately, being a small country, higher court rulings do not take years to resolve like in the US. The political battle lines are now drawn and there are not many crossover votes to be had. Those who would sell their votes already have.

Bibi’s detractors view him as holding the country hostage to save his own skin, and frankly the Likud might even admit that privately, that their goal is to rule the country exactly the way they want, like occupiers many would say, in that they have utter disdain for views other than their own. What’s not to love about that?

The problem with the opposition is the Israeli ego, with so many wanting to be the boss and tell everyone else what to do. They end up as slaves to their own ideologies, when democracy has always been a compromise form of government.

Benny Gantz is polling ahead of Netanyahu, with his four seat lead expanding to six. But Israeli polls are small, in the 500 to 700 range, which makes them weak indicators. Even if he were to beat Bibi in the March election, they could see a repeat of no one being able to form a government again. Israel might run out of anti-depressants if this continues.

It has me thinking of the great political irony that maybe the Israelis have entrapped themselves in their own “political Gaza”, a kind of purgatory for the sufferings they have visited upon the Palestinians.

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The Soleimani funeral is going on as I type. I was lined up for some of the Iranian domestic coverage, but the funeral started earlier than planned which bumped me to tomorrow’s coverage. I had been reviewing the updated coverage, waiting for some of the smoke to clear. Gordon Duff covered for Veterans Today on the early morning coverage.

News updates have been pouring in all day, as a virtual army of journalists have been searching for every scrap to analyze why an American military, who have handled Trump so carefully to keep him from doing something crazy, blew their fairly good record by putting the Soleimani assassination on a list of reprisal options for Trump to choose.

After he choose Soleimani, no one had the cojones to stand up and admit that putting it on the list was a huge mistake. Why?

Well first, before getting into the legal issues, we hope that killing him the way they did is not going to set off a wave of American-killing like we have not seen during any of this dispute.

As news flowed in about Iran’s response, expected to be measured as it always is, word came from one of its top generals that Iran would only consider attacking US military targets, no civilians. Then came the report that the US had passed along through the Swiss asking that Iran’s retaliation be on a similar level to what the US had done. We know this was true, as Zarif mentioned during the day that he had gotten a “silly” message from the Americans.

Was Soleimani lured to his assassination location?

The biggest surprise came this evening. A VT source in Baghdad reported that the killing may have been a staged ambush. Soleimani was lured to Baghdad with news that Prime Minister Mahdi, who been acting as in emissary between Washington and Tehran, had received an important message for him.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi has made some shocking revelations that put the assassination of Soleimani in a completely different light. He told the Iraqi parliament on Sunday that he “was supposed to meet Soleimani on the morning of the day he was killed, he came to deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi to Iran.”

Here are some of the notes taken the Washington Post reporter on Mahdi’s address to the Iraqi Parliament, for full context:

“Abu Mahdi Al-Mohandus played a major role in controlling the PMU forces and put them under the control of the state” Iraqi PM said…

“The assassination of Soleimani and Muhandus was a political assassination that cannot be accepted”…

“The United States told us that some of the attacks against PMU headquarters in the recent months were conducted by Israel”…

“The government refused to give any cover for the protests around the US Embassy in Baghdad and I threatened to leave my position if they don’t retreat, which they did”…

“I received a phone call from Donald Trump when the embassy protests ended thanking the government efforts and asked Iraq to play the mediator’s role between US and Iran”…

“But at the same time American helicopters and drones were flying without the approval of Iraq, and we refused the request of bringing more soldiers to US embassy and bases”…

“I was supposed to meet Solemami in the morning the day he was killed, he came to deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi to Iran.”

“Legally, the ministerial council for national security can take the decision which they find on the benefits of Iraq without the approval of the parliament, we agreed in the national security meeting that the benefits of Iraq is the end of forces existence in Iraq” said PM

“But I want the decision to be agreed by all therefore I put to the parliament two options. 1.ending the existence of these forces immediately and start the immediate arrangements for this” 2. Set a timeline for the departure of these forces” said Iraqi PM

“I recommend the first option and keep the friendship between US and Iraq. It’s the interests of Iraq and US to Reorganize the relationship between both sides in a way keeps the sovereignty of Iraq” Iraqi PM said.

The Iraqi parliament voted on a “decision” not binding on the government to cancel the Iraqi request from the US in fighting ISIS and to end the existence of the whole foreign troops within a timeline.

If this account is true, Trump, perhaps deliberately, acted to scuttle an effort to reduce tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It also shows, as the United States was signaling it would not go to war with Iran as Trump did earlier this summer, this compelled Saudi Arabia and the UAE to begin quiet negotiations with Iran to resolve their tension.

As long as the Saudis and the Emiratis felt they could push the US to go to war with Iran, they had no interest in diplomacy with Iran. The US’ military protection of these countries removed their motivation to pursue peace.

In the past few months, under the impression that Trump had opted against war, they began careful diplomacy with Tehran. The US should have welcomed this development. But the killing of Soleimani may have killed that effort, and once again given Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Emiratis a license to continue reckless destabilization.

Soleimani had diplomatic standing as Iran’s military representative to Iraq. His route from the VIP section of Baghdad airport was readily known, as was his arrival time and the party would have had surveillance on the ground.

Gordon Duff has been through the airport many times and is familiar with the location. Soleimani may have underestimated that the US would attempt to kill his entourage in such a sensitive place as Baghdad, with the US relationship there already under strain.

The consensus around the world is that Trump and Pompeo efforts to tag Soleimani as the big American killer is only being bought in the hardline Iran hating countries like Britain, with Boris Johnson clapping his hands.

This has all happened when the alleged US contractor being killed in Iraq almost two weeks ago remains nameless, along with his nationality. If someone was killed, VT suspects that the US contactor may be a foreign national, hence the name is being withheld to allow the inference that he was a US citizen. What drew our attention to this was the lack of interest by corporate media to push the Pentagon for a name, which is usually released after next of kin are notified.

What happens now?

The Iranians have been cool and calm as usual, with no hint or plans for a quick response. But Iran does not control what Muslims worldwide might want to do, including those extremist groups who make it their business to kill civilians. Will they initiate killing sprees on Americans as a personal revenge of their own?

Remember the key admission in Prime Minister Mahdi’s note, where the US said the Israelis had done some of the PMU headquarters attacks. Will that trigger Mahdi looking into whether those attacks, assuming they are drone attacks, are being based out of and in coordination with the Iraqi Kurdish areas, or will he prefer to duck that issue with all that he has on his plate?

Does it make sense for him to go through all the gyrations to reign in the Americans, but leave the Israelis and their Kurdish friends to continue their drone attacks, destabilizing not only Iraq but the Syrian border and the oil looting in the Deir Ezzor region?

Will the chickens come home to roost on Americans?

As the US has shown in Syria with its NATO partners, importing extremist killers to do dirty work for you is a competitive business. Europe has seen its share of hapless lone killers, but not the organized slaughtering that some of the Western Intel and Israeli terrorist handlers have engaged in.

American servicemen are sitting ducks all over the world in quite safe places, where their guard is low where they can be visited like Mr. Soleimani. This could even be named getting the “Trump Treatment” that he has stupidly put his seal of approval on as a fair way of dealing with killers without due process. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

The dead civilians left in the wake of the US military incursions are carved in stone, with their purposeful undercounting even pouring salt in the wound. Single mass graves were uncovered in Raqqa that contained more women, children and elders dead than what the US military claims to have officially killed by accident during the whole Syrian war.

When I was in Syria during my first trip, I learned that over 400,000 Syrians had already been killed, 50,000 military (equal to the US’ official KIA in Vietnam), leaving 350,000 civilians dead. Many of these were directly due to US, NATO country and Rogue Royal Gulf State mass murderers who accepted no responsibility for their slaughter while shining the spotlight on Assad and the Syrian army, when the former were not fit to shine their shoes.

No Syrians perpetrated reprisal attacks against American military families or citizens in towns like Fort Bragg and countless other military base areas with endless soft targets because they are better than that. It bears noting what they have done to save their country and what they have not done, certain actions that the US has done with a sneering “Whadaya going to do about it?” And it continues.

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

“With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half.” ~ Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of the German Empire, 1871-1890

An exhausted Israeli public is getting a temporary respite from Israel’s two failed attempts to form a government by a hopelessly divided Knesset. The political party battle lines remain hardened, as no compromise was possible to put a majority coalition together. It seems the political egos must be served first, and the country’s interests come second.

March 2, 2020 is set for the next polling date. Early polls show Benny Gantz’ party, Blue and White, picking up 2 to 4 seats, and some shifting relations among the minor parties.

For example, the Labor party once ruled Israel for three decades until it was unseated by the former head of the Irgun terror organization, Menachem Begin. It now fears not making the minimum vote needed to be allotted seats and is looking for another party to join.

Smaller political parties looking to form new alliances

The Jewish Home-National Union’s Bezalel Smotrich told Channel 12 news he has called for the small rightwing parties to unite. “We need to learn from past mistakes. In the [April] election we ran with two lists and the New Right didn’t pass the electoral threshold. If it hadn’t been for that we’d already be nearing a year with a good right-wing government.” Smotrich called for a single slate representing the religious right.

Another unnamed top rightwing official reported to Channel 12 news that, “There will not be another blind following of Netanyahu… “A fourth election is not an option and would be unforgivable.”

Not everybody is on the join together train. New Right chief Naftali Bennett reiterated his party’s intention to run independently in March. As acting Prime Minister, Netanyahu appointed Bennett defense minister until a new government plays musical chairs with all the ministries once again in Israel. These are hard fought for positions for all the publicity they can generate for those wanting to run for the PM slot someday.

Bibi is using political turmoil as his prosecution shield

So far Bibi seems to be winning on the political-legal stage in terms of blocking any real movement on his formal indictment and prosecution. A multi-layered legal battle is now joined where he will use every tool at his disposal to avoid sitting in a court room.

Attorney General Mandelblit did not want to rule on whether Bibi could continue to be Prime Minister after his three corruption charges, passing that decision on to the Supreme Court. He considered the question a theoretical one, as Bibi has no government until the new Knesset is elected and he has coalition votes to form a government.

Bibi could have a two for one present on that issue. He has stated he plans to request parliamentary immunity but must wait until a new Knesset is in place to do that. The delay might buy him enough time to build political support to fight his criminal cases, as his strategy has been to attack anyone involved in his prosecution as members of a coup out to illegally oppose them.

He has always lived by this rule politically, relentlessly attack anyone who disagrees with you, so he has fallen back on what has worked well in the past. My bet is that the Supreme Court will rule on the case out of patriotism not wanting the state to drift endlessly month after month, when so many important issues are on the table.

Resigning prosecutor Shai Nitsan speaks publicly

State attorney Shai Nitsan who ran the Bibi investigation resigned last week, leaving the State prosecutor’s position open. There is disagreement between acting Justice Minister Amir Ohana and Attorney General Mandelblit as to how quickly an acting new State Prosecutor can be appointed. One is saying in a few days, and the other claims not until a new government is formed.

An angry Shai Nitsan was able to respond in the Jerusalem Post to Bibi’s ruthless attacks against not only him but the whole prosecution team as part of a coup attempt to dethrone him.

He stated that, while Bibi charged him with being on a personal jihad to remove him from office, “It is not my personal position [to indict]. A team of 25 people sat down – I have no idea what their political views are – and everyone thought an indictment needs to be filed.”

Can Bibi parlay a pardon

Netanyahu is an old hand at buying time to wiggle out of tough spots. Even before the last deadline for forming a government, President Rivlin publicly came out for a pardon on December 4 for Bibi if he would resign from politics and confess to the charges. He took a pass on that, even though Mandelblit also gave his approval.

Since then, kingmaker Benjamin Liberman, who represents the Russian emigres’ party, stated he would go along with a pardon to remove the stumbling block that Bibi has had in forming a new government.

He stated that he wanted Bibi to “retire with dignity”, that there was a “sense of fatigue” with Netanyahu in the Knesset, feeling he had become a burden. Regarding whether there would be legislative support for a pardon he said, “I’m sure there will be wall-to-wall support. I think everyone here feels the man had contributed quite a bit and should be let go with proper respect, but no one wants to see him [here] anymore.”

This is pie in the sky dreaming for Liberman. If such an allowance were made for Netanyahu to “retire with dignity”, he would go down in history for creating the Bibi Loophole for every corrupt politician following behind him, and there seem to be quite a few in line right now.

More big political corruption scandals go public

One such case involves the ex-head of the Israeli Bar Association, Efi Nave, who will be charged with bribery and breach of trust; along with Eti Craif, a judge on the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court, for charges of bribery and destroying evidence.

Nave was one of the nine members of the powerful Judicial Appointments Committee that rules on both placement and promotions for judges in Israel’s three-tiered judicial system. Prosecutors claim that Nave was promoting the attractive Judge Craif’s career in return for a romantic relationship.

The other case is much more serious, as it could become the biggest graft case in Israel’s history, and includes two of Netanyahu’s closest former aides. Bibi’s former chief of staff, David Sharan is accused of accepting bribes from David Shimron who has been Bibi’s personal lawyer, confidant, and second cousin.

Shimron is accused of helping Michael Ganor, the agent for the German ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, helping conceal the transition with money laundering assistance. Eliezer Maronm, a former head of the Israeli Navy has also been charged.

Those charged are a “who’s who” of the military and political elite of the country, further hurting the reputation of the special country that cannot be criticized publicly, and that screed being used to enrich top officials who feel it is their due to be able to make some extra money on the side behind the power of their reputations and past high positions.

Will Bibi be tarnished with another major corruption scandal?

Netanyahu has not been mentioned in the case at this stage, but anyone thinking that he would not have known about a major deal in the works like this would also believe in the tooth fairy. This case has all the seeds of a long soap opera. The Times of Israel reports,

“Ganor initially signed a deal to become the prosecution’s key witness in the case in which he reportedly admitted to bribing a string of senior officials in order to help secure contracts for the company with Israel’s Defense Ministry.

But in a shock move in March, he told police that he wished to alter key parts of the testimony he gave in the case. Ganor claimed that while he stood behind the facts he had given to police, the payments he gave were consulting fees and not bribes. He said police had pressured him to describe the circumstances so that they shored up the claim he had acted to bribe senior state employees.

That move reportedly came after Miki Ganor discovered that signing a state witness agreement had put his name on an international banking blacklist and blocked his access to tens of millions of shekels held in banks in Cyprus and Austria.”

Will this case intersect with Bibi’s corruption case? We will know in due time. The Mideast has a long reputation for corruption, and not undeserved. At Veterans Today, with each year that goes by, we learn more and more it is just about everywhere, hard-wired into the political system where money is its mother’s milk.

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

“Just societies cannot be run by big money or armed forces with their too narrow agendas. Limitless desire for wealth and blind ambition must be watched and contained as potential public dangers.” ~ Plato

It was a deal that many said could never be done. Why? Because of too much bad blood, as in $125 billion in counter claims between Russia and Ukraine, which made it the largest arbitration dispute in history. Agreement was announced on December 21st that both parties have agreed to settlement terms to for a new five-year gas transit contract where just about everybody comes out winners.

No one attempted to strong arm the other party into a bad agreement, as both needed a settlement that both sides could benefit and live with financially and politically. Long term budget planning had been floating in the air for both sides without predictable sales volumes for Russia’s Gazprom and transit revenues for Ukraine’s Naftogaz, money desperately needed for Zelensky’s budget and a needed big accomplishment for the new president.

The Stockholm arbitration agreement had given Ukraine a $2.9 billion award which Russia will be paying, and Ukraine agreed in return to drop $12 billion in pending claims.

While Ukraine had wanted a 10-year deal, Russia did not want to go that far now, but did agree to having a 10-year renewal option. We have not yet seen what the fine print in the option is, but I bet you it has a clause along the lines of “if both parties have faithfully abided by the terms of the agreement.”

The political ramifications are more complex, as they involve both real and fake issues. The main real issue was that the EU wanted to solidify needed gas imports, which are at record levels due to a decline in European production. Germany especially was in favor of multiple gas lines serving Europe from various directions as protection against war and geopolitical uncertainty, like the unpredictable trade sanctions from the US. Trump has already unleased a new barrage of year-end Russophobia in his build up to his State of the Union address in January.

Despite what Trump and the NeoCons think about excessive dependence by the EU on Russian gas, they conveniently leave out of their analysis that the deal makes them cross dependent on each other, a win-win for both.

The 40 billion cubic meters of gas flowing through Ukraine to the EU in years 2 through 5 of the contract, added to the double Nordstream pipe flow of 110bcm when the second line is completed will cover a major chunk of the EU’s 200 bcm market for natural gas. That leaves room for the Turkstream project to add additional supplies and a better future distribution network, particularly for the Balkans area.

The EU was master of ceremonies for assisting Russia and Ukraine work their way through a long list of disputes and did not let one of those torpedo the deal. Both sides accepted that transit pricing had to be done based on already established EU regulations, which removed endless debating for which there was no time left.

Politically, all are winners but the US. The EU has solved its declining gas production shortfall, along with Germany winding down the last of its nuclear power plants by 2022. The EU has chosen natural gas to run on for the foreseeable future for many reasons.

Because it is critical to home winter heating and industry, the EU has continued to facilitate a more diversified supply network. With its flat 1% growth prediction for next year, maintaining low gas prices is not a luxury but critical for protecting the EU from going into a recession if the trade wars continue to get worse or if someone starts a stupid war which would tank EU economies even more.

The market responded quickly to the news, with natural gas prices falling sharply. That is bad for Mr. Trump’s unrealistic plans to twist the EU’s arm into overpaying for US LNG as part of US sanctions relief. Trump got China’s president Xi to agree to buy $50 billion in US agriculture and pork products to work toward relieving the big trade imbalance.

Europe does not want to play a similar game, because frankly it does not want to buy a lot of US products that Europe does not want, with expensive US LNG at the top of the list. And Germany’s Merkel is up in arms over Trump’s sanctioning Nordstream2, when it is a month or two from being finished.

The Swiss-owned undersea pipelaying company Aleses agreed to stop operations after receiving a threat of “crushing sanctions” from Senator Ted Cruz. Merkel quickly said the pipeline would be finished, without details as to how.

That has been followed by Dimtry Peskov on December 12th stating that the Nordstream 2 will be finished, and that the sanctions were,

“a direct violation of international law” and “an ideal example of unfair competition and the spread of their artificial dominance in European markets, …and that, “imposing on European consumers more expensive and uncompetitive products – more expensive natural gas.”

Despite the US throwing more and more sanctions onto Iran, it keeps discovering new oil fields; and today announced it started pumping natural gas out of its new sea platform; 14.2 million cubic meters (mcm) a day out of its third drilling rig in phase 14 of the South Pars field, the largest in the world. The continuing new production of gas will keep prices down in a world that needs low cost energy and lots of pipelines to move it around.

Russia gained a diplomatic bonus, as the agreement shows that it was always fake news of a Russian threat to take over Eastern Europe. Russia wants to do business, as productive trade relations are what tie countries together with the bonds need to defend against “trade interference” which seems to have become in vogue with the Trump regime.

I have written numerous time over the last five years how, before the US-NATO violent coup in Ukraine, Russia enjoyed an $110-billion trade surplus with Europe, which it was turning around and spending most of it on importing a variety of EU products, both food and manufactured goods.

So why would Russia want to kill the golden goose of great business relations with Europe? Putin was focused on building a strong balanced economy to support Russia’s recovering from the horrible 1990s, when the US Deep State gangsters had looted the country blind.

As with all the chaos we see currently in the world, none of it happened accidently. With hindsight, we can see how it was staged to create the current conditions, which can be exploited by the unipolar gangsters, who consider that working on a level playing field is only for suckers. They preferred a poker game where they had a marked deck, plus the ability to change the rules on the fly so the home team always won.

We go into the new year with the Brexit torment hopefully over for all of us but the Brits, who may look back in it as a walking the plank exercise. Trump looks like he is holding off inking the China trade deal when the impeachment circus has hit a lull, and he can use that to kick off his 2020 reelection campaign.

However, Trump has a problem. Despite that the Republican Senate has guaranteed not to remove him from office, the polls now show the public would. That could be the wound that seals his fate next year. The Democrats have left open that if the House can get access to the Trump business and financial records that it wants, there may be new impeachment charges in that material, and this is why he has fought so hard to keep his financial records hidden.

I am afraid we will start out 2020 with continual turmoil that will serve only the few at the expense of the many. The unipolar versus multipolar battle will continue until a winner emerges.

Jim W. Dean, managing editor for Veterans Today, producer/host of Heritage TV Atlanta, specially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.