The United States has made recent progress in the Middle East against ISIS that has been heralded by the Trump administration and his supporters. The Islamic caliphate, once on the rise and seemingly unstoppable, now has barely any fighters left fighting for it in Iraq and Syria. Despite this progress, the U.S. has made it
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The House Freedom Caucus, an organization consisting of staunchly conservative representatives, has thrown its support behind a bill that would end the diversity visa lottery program. This program has come under fire after it was revealed that the primary suspect of a recent terror attack in New York City came to America using this program
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The narrative has been fairly consistent since businessman Donald Trump was elected to the White House. At best, he was boosted by a foreign government and his inner associates may have sought the help of the Russians. At worst, the President himself could be compromised. These are very real concerns Democrats have had for months.
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The topics of the draft and selective service enrollment, as well as military service in general, have become hot button issues. As military intervention abroad has escalated in recent decades and shows no sign of slowing down, there has been a debate about who should be able to serve. Should women be given more military
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Absolute silence fell over the White House Press Briefing room as White House chief of staff Gen. John Kelly addressed the media on Thursday afternoon. His appearance comes after the controversy between Trump and Congresswomen Frederica Wilson, who made claims that President Trump’s phone call remarks to the Gold Star widow of Sgt. La David
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President Donald Trump has had a mixed record in many ways pertaining to foreign policy. He has taken measures to reduce hostilities in Syria while doubling down on his predecessor’s troop surge in Afghanistan and offering a belligerent approach toward relations with North Korea. In Sudan, Trump is once again embracing his ‘America First’ mandate
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Tensions between the United States and North Korea are without question at an all-time high. After years of diplomatic concessions to the North Koreans, the Trump Administration has altered course on foreign policy and adopted a much more aggressive approach. “Rocket Man,” as President Donald Trump has dubbed North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, has
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Donald Trump has been voicing his opinions on professional football rather loudly these days, but he has not lost focus on the Presidency. To help fulfill his mandate of protecting Americans from foreign threats, Trump announced a new travel ban impacting foreign nationals in Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen this
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It was a big day for Germany as election day rolled around. Many expected that German Chancellor Angela Merkel would secure a fourth election, but the bigger question was how the other results would come in. Would the populist uprising that is taking place throughout the world gain more momentum with the results? Chancellor Merkel
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In Raqqa, Syria, the US military and allied forces are advancing rapidly against ISIS. They estimate that the ISIS forces remaining in the city are between 500 and 900, down sharply from the totals in June. With Donald Trump replacing Barack Obama as US President, terrorists no longer have a safe haven in Syria and
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Amidst seemingly unprecedented global crises, President Donald Trump is having his legendary deal-making ability put to the test. Perhaps his most difficult balancing act will come with South Korea, as Trump must work in tandem to quell the possibility of North Korean aggression while simultaneously being on the opposing end of negotiations pertaining to trade.
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President Donald Trump criticized unnecessary foreign military intervention frequently as a candidate and even while serving in the oval office, but the reality of his policies is not much different than what occurred under his predecessors. The Trump administration is severely underestimating civilian causalities from the warfare being conducted against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
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For well over a decade and a half, the United States military has occupied the Middle Eastern country of Afghanistan. It began in the aftermath of the unprecedented terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001. With terrorists bringing down the Twin Towers and striking the Pentagon, then-President George W. Bush sought to strike back. But what
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The U.S. government, aided by Saudi Arabia, has been staging phony diplomatic flights in order to smuggle weapons to terror groups. A Bulgarian reporter uncovered that at least 350 flights were used for these purposes, resulting in $1 billion worth of illicit weapons being funneled into the hands of terrorists. Azerbaijan’s state-run Silk Way Airlines
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been arrogantly thumbing his nose in the faces of Americans for years, but he is changing his tune after getting hit with economic sanctions. As he struggles to maintain power amidst the collapse of his socialist regime, he suddenly wants to talk to President Trump. “If he (Trump) is so
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For the military-industrial complex, business is booming during the Trump administration. Trump’s deescalation of tensions in Syria is apparently an outlier, as Trump has continued or ramped up the militaristic policies of his predecessor on every other front–most notably, North Korea. These policies have defense giants such as Lockheed Martin swimming in profits. “The level
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As tensions with North Korea continue to be stoked by belligerent members of the Trump administration (as well as by Trump himself on occasion), one man has stood strong as the voice of reason: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. He is still advocating diplomacy, even after US Ambassador Nikki Haley declared “the time for talk
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When President Donald Trump pledged to drain the swamp on the campaign trail last year, his supporters certainly figured that this meant no swamp rats would be included in his administration. Of course, they would inevitably be disappointed. Many members of the reviled political establishment found their way into the Trump administration, none of them
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Congress is dead set against making America great again, and they prove it time after time. Most recently, they overwhelmingly passed a bill to place sanctions on Russia and hamstring the President into complying with them against his better judgment. Although Trump signed the bill into law, he expressed his dismay through a signing statement.
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President Donald Trump’s foreign policy may not always be coherent, but it is proving to be less belligerent than that of his predecessors. After previously indicating that troop totals would likely be expanding in Afghanistan, the Trump administration is considering reversing that policy after the Pentagon failed to rally much support behind their initial proposal.
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Despite all of the wackiness going on in Washington D.C. right now, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has not lost sight of what is important. Indefinite detention of any American citizen deemed a terrorist by the federal government was codified into law in the 2012 NDAA signed by former President Obama, and remains in effect today.
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Once upon a time, a Republican president formulated a doctrine that had little to do with regime change, and demanded that countries previously protected by the US military look to their own defense. Quickly into his first term, then-President Richard Nixon in 1969 announced “the Nixon Doctrine” which asserted that the nation’s Cold War allies
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When President Donald Trump complained recently about how few prominent Republicans had his back, he was not kidding. A recent House vote to tie up the President, undermine his foreign policy, and partially remove his discretion pertaining to Russia passed with only three GOP legislators objecting. Reps. Jimmy Duncan (R-TN), Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Justin
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The Defense Ministers of Iraq and Iran have united to sign a pact to fight in a joint effort against “terrorism and extremism,” and the Trump administration–a hostile critic of the Iranian regime–is silent thus far. Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan and Iraqi Defense Minister Erfan al-Hiyali came together on Sunday to sign a memorandum
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Said the president: “For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and, at times, a policy-making arm of the Government. … [T]his quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being
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It is no secret that Syrian terrorists were, more or less, on the federal payroll during the Obama administration. Former President Obama, with support from partisan Democrats and neoconservatives, followed the policy of encouraging terrorists to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This would have created a situation analogous to what occurred in Libya or Iraq
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The liberal media is once again crying foul after President Donald Trump terminated a CIA program to help Syrian President Bashir al-Assad’s opposition in Syria. The media cares more about the fact that Russian President Vladmir Putin supported this move than the fact that terrorists such as ISIS and the Al Nusra–jihadis literally at war
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While North Korea–led by the childish and deranged dictator Kim Jong-un–clearly wants to be taken seriously on the global stage as a world power, the United States military is not buying it. They see North Korea as little more than a paper tiger, and do not believe that the nation has the ability to accurately
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The Trump administration has announced a new regime of sanctions against Iran to push back against their ballistic missile program. Critics believe these new sanctions may jeopardize the Iranian nuclear deal that was one of former President Obama’s signature accomplishments. “Even as we continue to work to prevent Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon,
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I have been asked to write a weekly column on British politics. Since I am writing for a largely American readership, and since Americans mostly know little of what happens outside their own country, I think it would be best if I were to begin with a brief overview not only of what is happening
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Terrorism, by definition, has always used violence to achieve its goal of destabilizing America and the rest of the Western world. In attacks on institutions and values, they hope to spread seeds of discontent or panic with the intent of catalyzing political change, jihad or an uprising against a government. Lone bombers and shooters make
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True to form, North Korea yet again used July 4 to fire a missile, but this time it was more alarming and effective than merely sputtering and dropping into the ocean. This week, the missile test showed that the communist regime can, as threatened, hit the US mainland with a nuclear bomb. David Wright, a
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President Donald Trump’s bellicose approach to handling relations with North Korea does not appear to be paying off. China is unimpressed with Trump’s threats and saber-rattling, and is sticking with their diplomatic approach to handling the authoritarian regime. “There’s been a lot of wishful thinking on the U.S. side that China was coming around in
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It has been a disappointing week for Democratic opponents of President Trump. After following up his Twitter war against the mainstream media with a speech in Poland proclaiming the supremacy of the West, Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier today for a diplomatic visit in Germany that went swimmingly for all parties. “President
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The Trump administration has given a variety of mixed messages regarding foreign affairs, with different cabinet members and key advisors contradicting each other on an almost daily basis. However, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has remained constantly in favor of normalizing Russian relations and de-escalating tensions with Syria. He made remarks on Monday that should
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One of the few elected Democratic lawmakers with an extensive anti-war record, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), has combined forces with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) to push legislation that would ban federal agencies from using taxpayer-backed funds to provide weapons, training, intelligence, or any other type of support to terrorist cells such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, or
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Although President Trump claimed that his Syria policy was not going to change, the sharp rhetoric from key members of his administration indicate otherwise. Presenting without evidence the usual refrain that Assad was planning a chemical weapons attack this week, the saber-rattling immediately kicked into high gear. “Any further attacks done to the people of
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While President Donald Trump was elected in large part to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) thinks there is one area where former President Obama actually got it right: normalizing foreign relations with Cuba. “For over half a century, we have had an embargo with Cuba,” Paul wrote in a Reason
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is no happy camper when it comes to American foreign policy. Fresh off of a narrow defeat to partially stop President Trump’s Saudi weapons deal, Paul rallied against Syrian military intervention during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing this afternoon. “Are we going to limit the president’s power? Are we going
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Any person hoping that the Trump administration would depart from the long-standing foreign policy consensus of Washington D.C. should be sorely disappointed by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s congressional testimony this week. “I would tell you that we certainly recognize Iran’s continued destabilizing presence in the region, their payment of foreign fighters, their export of
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Amidst increasingly heinous accusations of Russian election interference, growing dissidence amongst the domestic United States, and the ever-enduring Rodman-Kim romance saga hailed as soft diplomacy, President Trump finds himself beset on all sides by both danger and opportunity. None are more apparent than the growing regional tensions in the Persian Gulf. To achieve an early-term
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tried his darnedest to partially halt Trump’s Saudi weapons deal. He was able to raise a great deal of bipartisan support, but his amendment failed by a closer-than-anticipated 47-53 vote on Tuesday. However, Paul did not go down without a fight. He gave quick but powerful remarks hearkening back to his
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has assembled an impressive bipartisan coalition in the Senate to block part of President Trump’s Saudi weapons deal. Paul is concerned that the deal may cause blowback due to an ongoing Saudi Arabian military conflict with Yemen, and prominent Democrats share his concerns. “We need to send the Saudis a message
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Trump’s America first policies are really paying off, at least if you are a multinational corporation in league with the military-industrial complex. Two of America’s most influential and well-connected defense contractors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, stand to make tens of billions a piece from Trump’s recent weapons deal with Saudi Arabia. At a conference in
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Recent news of President Trump’s $350 billion weapons deal with Saudi Arabia may have thrilled the Military-Industrial Complex and its Wall Street backers, but Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is not pleased. He thinks the deal may have unintended consequences in the Middle East and is reaching across the aisle in an attempt to partially block
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The big winners of the recent weapons deal that President Donald Trump brokered with Saudi Arabia appear to be the corporations serving the military-industrial complex. After the deal was announced, US defense contractors saw their stocks soar to record highs on Wall Street. Lockheed Martin was influential in setting up the deal with Trump’s son-in-law
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North Korea has issued an official response to President Donald Trump’s suggestion that he is open to talks “under certain circumstances.” The notoriously anti-American nation is open to meeting, but they have some preconditions of their own that the U.S. must follow to make it happen. “As everybody knows, the Americans have gestured [toward] dialogue,”
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Donald Trump has been criticized for a recent announcement that he has invited Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte to the White House. Duterte is known for a dismal human rights record, essentially legalizing the murder of suspected drug dealers. Trump is apparently not content to stop there, and is even extending an olive branch to North
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Saudi Arabia has been a key strategic ally for the United States for many years, and President Donald Trump has been careful not to jeopardize that relationship. He approved a massive weapons deal with the Saudis and is carefully considering making a diplomatic visit to the country in the near future. However, Trump recently made
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In an incredible display of tone-deaf arrogance, corporate media stalwart Andrea Mitchell complained about dishonesty and a lack of access from the Trump White House. Mitchell’s boisterousness even drew the ire of a Russian bureaucrat during a State Department press conference today. “I have never seen anything like this where people just flat-out lie,” NBC
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