Tuesday, February 28, 2017

CONVICTED FELON JESSE JACKSON JR PAID $138,000 PER YEAR BY TAXPAYERS FOR NOTHING

Mr Americana, Overpasses News Desk
February 25th, 2017
Overpasses For America
VIA FREE BEACON


Add caption
Former Rep. Jesse Jackson is pocketing six figures in workers compensation and disability from the federal government after being convicted in 2013 for illegally spending cash from his campaign committee.






Jackson Jr. is now pocketing $138,400 a year in workers compensation benefits and temporary disability, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The records, which were contained within documents for his divorce case, show that the former congressman receives $100,000 in tax-free workers compensation benefits. The rest of the money is coming from Social Security Disability insurance payments. Jackson is said to be receiving the funds because of his bipolar disorder and depression.
The amount that Jackson is collecting is the top rate given to persons for temporary disability. The records also show that Jackson received $977 in health insurance payments over a 28-day period that ended Dec. 10, 2016. These payments are separate from his disability and workers’ compensation payments.
Ari Wilkenfeld, a D.C.-based employment lawyer, told the Chicago Tribune that it is highly unusual for an individual to collect federal workers’ compensation for a condition such as bipolar disorder.
“What’s remarkable here is by his getting workers’ comp, it appears that Congressman Jackson’s attorneys have convinced the government that his bipolar disorder was created by the rigors of being a member of Congress,” Wilkenfeld said.
In 2013, Jackson Jr. was sentenced to 30 months in prison for spending $750,000 from his campaign on personal items such as luxury vacations and fur coats. His wife, Sandra, pled guilty to filing false tax returns and was sentenced to 12 months in prison.
Jackson ultimately spent 22 months in correctional facilities, a halfway house, and home detention. He currently is on supervised release.

WikiLeaks Ties Hillary’s Campaign To Russia, Not Trump’s


  






Hillary and her liberal puppet media have been slamming Trump for months about his alleged ties to Vladimir Putin, but what was just revealed by WikiLeaks proves that Hillary’s campaign is in fact the ones with ties to Putin.
Hillary’s campaign chair, John Podesta, has been the subject of daily email leaks by Julian Assange and one leak ties Podesta directly to an energy company called Joule Unlimited, which has received millions from a Putin-connected Russian government fund. Specifically, 75,000 shares of Joule Unlimited stock has been transferred to John Podesta’s daughter, Megan Rouse.
From Breitbart:
“Full transfer request, with Megan’s signature attached,” Podesta’s assistant Eryn Sepp wrote to him.
January 3, 2014 letter revealed that Podesta designated his daughter’s Dublin, California residence as the address for Leonidio Holdings LLC, the Delaware-based holding company that Podesta used to transfer his shares in Russian-related Joule Global Holdings.
Rouse is listed as “managing member” of Leonidio Holdings LLC, according to financial documents.
Podesta’s membership on the board of directors of Joule Unlimited was first revealed in research from Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer.
The GAI report, tilted, “From Russia with Money: Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset, and Cronyism,” reported that Podesta joined the Joule Unlimited board in June 2011.
“Two months after Podesta joined the board, Vladimir Putin’s Rusnano announced that it would invest up to one billion rubles into Joule Unlimited, which amounts to $35 million. That represents one-fifth of the entire amount of investment dollars Joule collected from 2007 to 2013,” the GAI report concludes.
As Breitbart News previously reported, Sepp forwarded a message concerning the Joule shares to Podesta from Mark C. Solakian, who was Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Joule Unlimited Technologies, Inc.
“It is my understanding that John transferred the resulting 75,000 common shares from the option exercise to the Leonidio LLC.,” Slovakian wrote in a January 2014 email. “As such, we would need to edit the Transfer of Share Agreement to reflect the transfer of 75,000 common shares to the LLC.”
Podesta also failed to disclose fully his position on Joule Unlimited’s board of directors and to include it in his federal financial disclosures, as required by law, before he became President Barack Obama’s senior adviser in January 2014.

For White House Counterterror Adviser, Media Attacks Are Latest Theater of Battle

 

Sebastian Gorka advocates waging ideological war on Islamic terror


Sebastian GorkaWorld War II bomber pilots liked to say if you're not taking flak, you're not over the target. By any measure, Sebastian Gorka, a counterterrorism adviser to President Donald Trump, is in the eye of an unprecedented flak storm from liberal press outlets. The enemy fire proves he must be doing something right.BY: 


"Look, these attacks are just too predictable," Gorka said in an interview. "As they say in the military, ‘you're only taking 
lak if you're over the target.'"

For Gorka, the most revealing aspect of the many column inches devoted to the criticism is that "it's never truly about our policies or the issues that matter most."
"It's always personal, always ad hominem," he said in an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "That tells you all you need to know about the other side's true weakness. They can't win on the merits of their case, so they ‘play the man, not the ball.'"
For the new president, Gorka is an antidote to the politically correct counterterrorism policies of the past eight years under Barack Obama.
The shift has set off controversy. Several news articles about Gorka in recent weeks were laced with personnel attacks, innuendo, and caustic comments from critics. The media assault came from the upper levels of the mainstream press including the New York TimesWashington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Other lesser publications such as Politico piled on. Vanity Fair labeled him Trump's "jihad whisperer."
All promoted a common—and to many observers false—narrative asserting that Gorka, deputy assistant to the president and member of the new Strategic Initiatives Group, is unqualified, anti-Islam, racist, fascist, or worse.
"I would be very concerned if the likes of Politico, the New York Times, and Washington Post were not attacking me. And Trump voters would be too," Gorka said.
Gorka said the goals for the new Trump administration's counterterrorism program and policies are simple. "As the president said [Friday] we will ‘obliterate' groups like ISIS and wipe the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth," he said.
The media attacks prompted friends and supporters of Gorka on Capitol Hill and in the military and special operations community to voice their support.
"The bottom line is Sebastian Gorka's work is a necessary tool for all special operations forces in developing critical thinking," said an Army special operations officer familiar with Gorka's counterterrorism lectures in Tampa, Florida, and Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
The officer said Gorka has been most valuable in helping hundreds of commandos properly identify and understand the nature of the threat posed by Islamist terrorists.
"Our biggest threat we face is tied to radical Islam," the officer said. "We teach our Special Forces how to think, not what to think. [Gorka's] speeches have been 100 percent factual and the reason he has spoken so often is that he has been able to connect with warrant officer candidates."
"We've lived the last decade and a half of war and this is our lives. Having someone like Mr. Gorka who connects with our groups, gives us a solid foundation."
Retired Army Lt. Gen. John M. Mulholland, a career Special Forces officer, said he has known Gorka from his counterterrorism lectures.
"Seb has always been first and foremost a patriot, dedicated to this country," Mulholland said in an interview. "He has been very supportive to us in helping us understand the threat so we can apply our capabilities to support the nation against the unconventional warfare threat, in this case, the terrorism threat."
Mulholland, former deputy commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said Gorka has helped special operations commandos to better understand the terrorism threat environment.
"Seb is one of those guys we always turn to to help us understand the threat, and he's a great friend and supporter of our community and our mission and in helping us in our own endeavor to master the environment," he added.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Charles T. Cleveland, former commander of the Army Special Operations Command, also praised Gorka.
"What distinguished [Gorka] was the time he took to understand how the special operations soldiers, many who had multiple tours in the fight, saw the challenges and were dealing with them," Cleveland said. "As a result, his instruction was crisp, relevant, and a useful part of their education on how to think about today’s threats, especially terrorism.”
Gorka also took part on some occasions in the commander's advisory group sessions that included former senior civilian and military officials and academic experts.
"These events provided outside opinion on command doctrine and organizational proposals, and I greatly appreciated Dr. Gorka’s participation," Cleveland said.
Retired Marine Corps. Col. Raymond C. Damm, a professor at Marine Corps University, said recent news stories attacking Gorka harkened back to a period "yellow journalism.”
"They were a hatchet job based on innuendo and painting a story a way you want it to be received," Damm said.
Damm said Gorka taught at the Marine Corps University and "he made us better because he made us think.”
"Dr. Gorka can be polarizing because he does not follow the party line," Damm said. However, Gorka helped Marines to better understand what motivates the terrorist threat. "And I am sorry, but being nice to them is not the answer," Damm said. "They are scary and hate us because they have been taught to hate us their entire lives.  Iron sharpens iron. Dr. Gorka made us better while he was here."
Stephen Sloan, professor emeritus at the University of Oklahoma, said he has known Gorka since the 1990s.
"Over the years, I have served as an informal adviser on his dissertation and was one of his mentors as he pursued his career," Sloan said. "Sebastian has always impressed me as a man of integrity who has strong feelings and is willing to state them. I believe his concerns about the threat of terrorism as to what he regards to be the new totalitarianism, in part, reflects his family history. His father was imprisoned and almost killed as a result of his opposition to Soviet occupation in Hungary."
Sloan said Gorka has strong loyalties to America, is proud of his work with the U.S. military, and "is concerned about meeting threats to U.S. national security. I appreciate and respect his dedication."
Sloan said he does not agree with some of Trump's policies and is concerned about Gorka's views on how to respond to terrorism. "However, even though we may disagree during this time of intense political debate, I support his right to state his opinions without being condemned," he said.
The unusual political attacks were not confined to newspapers. On Twitter, a little-known counterterrorism expert, Michael S. Smith, has launched verbal broadsides against Gorka. Smith also tape recorded a call from the White House adviser questioning why Smith was criticizing Gorka so loudly when he had never met him.
The criticism prompted Rep. Robert Pittenger (R., N.C.), chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism, an advisory group Smith said he worked for, to issue a statement of support.
"Dr. Sebastian Gorka is a friend and trusted adviser on efforts to combat radical Islamic terrorism and increase the safety and security of American families," Pittenger said in a statement.
Pittenger said Gorka has spoken to more than 600 parliamentarians from 60 nations on how to combat terrorism financing, money laundering, and other national security topics.
"Dr. Gorka has provided expert testimony at these forums and I applaud President Trump for bringing him to the White House," he said.
Clark Fonda, an aide to Pittenger, said he knew Smith from the caucus. "We used to reject his input regularly," he said. "I always found him to be unprofessional and a burden to work with, but I was absolutely stunned to see he would record a phone call and distribute it to Newsweek."
Fonda said Smith also falsely billed himself as a current adviser to the Congressional Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare headed by Pittenger.
"He never ever contributes to what we do," he said. "I haven’t even spoken to him in the two years I’ve been here."
Rep. Trent Franks (R., Ariz.) also backed Gorka. "I have followed the recent press and social media attacks against Dr. Sebastian Gorka and am compelled to respond with disgust at the attempt to libel this American patriot," Franks said in a statement.
Franks criticized media attacks falsely labeling Gorka as anti-Semitic. "Having called upon his expertise on counterterrorism repeatedly in Congress and used his analysis to inform our work, I can attest that Dr. Gorka is the staunchest friend of Israel and the Jewish people," he said.
"Sebastian Gorka's service to the nation, his reputation, and his national security credentials are all unimpeachable and I am thrilled he is now serving in the White House as deputy assistant to President Donald J. Trump."
Gorka has emerged in recent years as one of America's most outspoken counterterrorism experts. He has been a professor of military theory at the Marine Corps University as well as a vice president of the Institute of World Politics.
His military consulting work has included frequent lectures at the U.S. Army Special Operations Command in North Carolina and at the U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida.
He also was a national security editor at Breitbart.com and is a frequent Fox News Channel contributor.
Today, Gorka sits at the apex of power in the White House as an aide to White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. As deputy assistant to the president, Gorka is the key national security figure on the Strategic Initiatives Group, currently led by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, Bannon and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and made up of mainly business experts.
The mission of the SIG, as it is called, is to provide the White House with greater long-term strategic options in coordination with the National Security Council that normally is focused on dealing with day-to-day issues and crises. It also brings in outside experts.
Gorka came to the attention of Donald Trump in 2015 and worked with the campaign. It was Gorka who is said to have helped Trump criticize the politically correct counterterrorism formulations of the Obama administration.
Obama demanded that government abandon the use of the term radical Islam. Instead, politically correct terms were ordered in describing terrorism, including "workplace violence" for domestic attacks, and "violent extremism"—all in an effort to avoid using the word, Islam.
Trump loudly proclaimed during the presidential campaign that the threat and enemy to be countered under his counterterrorism policies and programs would be radical Islamic terrorism.
Along with his wife, Katherine Gorka, who is an adviser at the Department of Homeland Security, the Gorkas are now one of the most important power couples in Washington.
Gorka is said to have been a key advocate for the Trump executive order banning travelers from seven states linked to terrorism.
For Gorka, the current state of international terrorism, including both al Qaeda and the Islamic State, are all part of what he has termed the "global jihadist movement" a totalitarian movement not unlike the Cold War ideological foe of Soviet communism.
The 2012 book, Fighting the Ideological War, co-edited by Katherine Gorka, includes a chapter by Gorka that seeks to identify radical Islamic terror's threat doctrine and how to attack it.
"Although we have proven our capacity in the last 10 years kinetically to engage our enemy at the operational and tactical level with unsurpassed effectiveness, we have not even begun to take the war to al Qaeda at the strategic level of counter-ideology—to attack it at its heart—the ideology of global jihad," he wrote.
Defeating global jihadism requires clearly understanding the enemy and then attacking its ideology, he argues, something that has been lacking in U.S. government efforts.
Gorka's bestselling book, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, concludes that despite differences among the Islamic terror groups they all share a vision of an Islamic supremacist worldview that poses a danger to western civilization.
At a recent Heritage Foundation event, "iWar: Waging Warfare in the Information Age," Gorka said U.S. operations against terrorism for the past 16 years have been "whack-a-mole"—finding and killing terrorist leaders that are replaced by others.
Gorka said critics who call his style of aggressive counterterrorism programs and their advocates "Islamophobes" are absolutely wrong.
"Half of my students were Muslim and are on the front line and paying a heavy price, more than we are in America," he said. "This is a war inside Islam, a war for the heart of Islam—which version will be preeminent."
The United States needs to help western-oriented Muslim states, like Jordan and Egypt, to help defeat the radical jihadists, Gorka says.
Gorka, 46, grew up in England and was part of an intelligence unit of the British Army Reserve. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Corvinus University in Budapest. He spent four years as a member of the faculty at the Program on Terrorism and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall Center in Germany.
At the White House, Gorka is working to establish new strategies and policies he hopes will shift the focus to both military and intelligence to the counter-ideological realm.
One of the first steps said to be under consideration is declaring the Muslim Brotherhood, a key element of the global jihadist movement, to be a terrorist organization.
Under Obama, the U.S. government formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood as the U.S. government's key alternative to be supported in the war against al Qaeda and later the Islamic State. A secret directive outlining the pro-Muslim Brotherhood policy, known as Presidential Study Directive-11, could be declassified in the future as a first step in the designation of the group as a terrorist organization.
Gorka's outspoken views on terrorism and Islam and his high profile media appearances have made him a lightning rod for liberal left news outlets.
The New York Times falsely suggested Gorka, the British-born immigrant of Hungarian émigré parents, had Nazi sympathies—despite the fact that Gorka's father fought against both the Nazis and the Communists in Hungary.
The Post sought to portray Gorka as a minor counterterrorism specialist on the "fringes" of Washington and sought out obscure critics to denounce him. One former CIA analyst told the newspaper he was "nuts" while knowing little about Gorka.
Politico‘s profile of Gorka quoted "puzzled" security experts who criticized him for his outspoken views on Islam, jihad, and the counterterrorism views that closely align with the new president.
The Wall Street Journal quoted numerous think tank terrorism experts who said they did not believe Gorka was part of the "mainstream" of experts.
Gorka said in the interview that victory needs to be defined in the war on terrorism.
"Personally, I want the black flag of jihad to become as despised around the globe as the black, red and white swastika flag of the Nazis is today," he said. "Then we will have won."

Trump Just PISSED OFF Every Liberal In America- LOOK What He Just Did To Bowe Berghdahl

FEBRUARY 24, 2017BY 

It looks like the Muslim convert and total scumbag Bowe Bergdahl is sh*t out of luck after a military judge ruled that the charges against him will NOT be thrown out despite  scathing comments that President Donald Trump made on the campaign trail.

 

It looks like the Muslim convert and total scumbag Bowe Bergdahl is sh*t out of luck after a military judge ruled that the charges against him will NOT be thrown out despite  scathing comments that President Donald Trump made on the campaign trail.
Yeah, you remember this scumbag. Obama worshiped him and his family and released GITMO terrorists that went on to murder thousand of innocent people in the name of ALLAH.
  

Those days are over. One word-TRUMP!
Bergdahl’s lawyers had argued that Trump’s comments violated their client’s due-process rights and that the judge should dismiss charges accusing him of endangering comrades by walking off his post in Afghanistan in 2009, FOX reports.

The Judge, Army Col. Jeffery Nance, wrote in his ruling Friday that he found Trump’s comments disturbing but that they didn’t constitute unlawful command influence.
He said that he would allow defense attorneys wide leeway to question potential jurors about Trump and that they could again ask for charges to be dropped after jury selection begins.
Bergdahl has been charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy and is scheduled for trial in April.
Obama, the Muslim is gone and Bergdahl will pay the freaking price for his actions.
Great men died looking for this scumbag.
Others had their lives ruined by being wounded and paralyzed and this shitbag deserves to be convicted as the traitor that he is and should be put in front of a firing squad.
The days of Obama making love to him, his filthy father and mother are long gone.
You are a jihadist and you will pay the price you pile of trash.
Rot in hell you filthy jihad loving, America hating satanic son of a bitch.
God Bless.

Reversal: 9th Court Rules, Illegal Aliens Entering U.S. Now Have Zero Right To Legal Representation

Posted by  | Feb 13, 2017 


For one of the only times in U.S. history, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in a way that helps America.  

There is a saying that even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time. Another popular way of saying close to the same thing is that even a broken wall clock is right twice a day. There will surely be even more such sayings being created now that the blind squirrels that make up the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have chosen now as the time to finally come out with a ruling that helps the American people. This court has ruled that those who have been apprehended entering the country illegally have no legal right to representation. It seems as if the word “illegal” means something, after all.
The Democrats are going to have an absolute conniption fit as if the court had just ruled that it is now permissible to harm, torture, or otherwise abuse these “undocumented” people, but when it happens just remember that it is not true. This ruling is not saying that they have no human rights, a common and purposeful confusion often employed by the left, simply that they have no legal right to an attorney.
This means that the American taxpayer is no longer going to have to foot the bill for the legal costs that pile up higher than the coming “Trump Wall.” The Constitution promises all American citizens the right to legal counsel, but we are not talking about citizens. This has long been the stance of those who understand the Constitution. It is so true that even those who do NOT have a firm grip of the Constitution (like the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, for instance), can see it.
   Border Patrol agent places a Mexican National under arrest for transporting drugs into the U.S. 
The ruling centered around the case of a “dreamer” who was caught in 2012 of breaking into the United States. He was safely returned to his home country the very next day. The whole affair came about while the court was addressing the bigger issue of Donald Trump’s travel ban from terrorist-sponsoring nations, as well as his dealings with the refugee crisis. The issue of the Fifth Amendment in regards to those who are not legal citizens came up in terms of those caught illegally entering the country.
Furthermore, Red State reports that “Under a 1996 federal law, Customs and Border Protection officers can use a process called “expedited removal” to swiftly deport immigrants who are caught within 100 miles of the border without valid entry documents and who have been in the U.S. fewer than 14 days.” The amount of money, legal wrangling, and outright clogging of the legal process is coming to a blissful end by none other than the most liberal and misguided court in the whole nation.
vgfff 
It used to be that America took in those that were refugees, but now the term is used too often and there are so many that is is impossible to always be the nation to do that any longer. Also, people forget that those that came even from NAZI Germany had to wait up to six years to get into the nation. Even those at Ellis Island were detained for quite some time.
The only reason that the practice ended was that as we learned more about the pathology of illnesses it became very unwise to hole up people from all over the world in one place, something that we did not know at the time. This means that the practice of extreme vetting is not what needed to end, only the way in which they were detained while vetted. The detainment stopped due to a medical discovery, not due to a sudden reason to no longer make people wait.
ghgfgf 
All that has just been said is why the courts have been full of traffic at the expense of the average American. It was somehow misconstrued that not denying a person’s human rights was akin to extending the rights of American citizens to those who did not even show us the kindness to “check in”, as it were. Doors have locks on them for a reason, and that reason is not so that someone in the house can put everyone at risk by purposefully leaving the door open with a neon light saying that the fridge is full. America is built on migration, but America can also be destroyed by it.
NAFTA has made the jobs less available than in the days of Ellis Islands prime, not to mention that even then…sorry left, but if they were at Ellis Island then they did not sneak in. They came in via the big beautiful door that was the way that things were done before modern medicine managed to steer us from such practices. Now that the Ninth Circuit Court has taken this free legal ride away from those who enter illegally in order to tie up the system will have even LESS incentive to try and break in.
America is getting greater every day!

 

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Looking Back; Who Won the Tet Offensive?


 Heather Fishel

 

In the late evening hours of January 30, 1968, the Vietnamese New Year began. This annual celebratory event, known as Tet, signaled the coming of more than just a new year and a new beginning for the people of Vietnam. As soldiers descended on U.S. encampments, bombs and gunfire rained down upon the American Embassy, and countless members of the military were taken prisoner or gunned down, the Tet Offensive signaled a changing tide in the Vietnam War upon that very evening.
Today, the Tet Offensive of early 1968 is known as one of the largest military efforts of the Vietnam War, a successful surprise attack conducted by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese People’s Army of Vietnam. The Vietnam War was an incredibly contentious time in both American and Vietnamese histories, and the Tet Offensive adds only further complications to the stories and moments of the war. 

Viet Cong troops pose with new AK-47 assault rifles and American field radios  
Viet Cong troops pose with new AK-47 assault rifles and American field radios.

Still today, there is debate as to which army truly won the attack, and which side took control once the surprise wore off. So, who is to take the title of the victor in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive? Did the North Vietnamese exact the damage and destruction they hoped? Or do the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces lay claim to the victory?
Although the Tet Offensive began with the start of the Vietnamese New Year, the military effort lasted well beyond a single evening. That first blow, that first series of sudden and unexpected attacks, launched attacks that kicked off a massive military operation planned by the North Vietnamese forces.

A number of North Vietnamese targets during the Tet Offensive.  
A number of North Vietnamese targets during the Tet Offensive.


The detrimental effects were immediate: as the operation kicked into its full scale on the morning on January 31, the U.S. and South Vietnamese were unable to establish a widespread defense, and the People’s Army of (North) Vietnam (ARVN) launched 80,000 troops into over 100 towns. Stunned by the unexpected attacks, the non-communist forces immediately lost control of several important locales and cities.
The element of surprise was truly used to great advantage in the Tet Offensive. The North Vietnamese attacked with zero expectations, and zero warning, awarding them the freedom to inflict great damage and significant terror before their enemies could respond. Within just a few hours, the Vietcong forces laid siege to countless Southern strongholds – all of which were weakly defended at the time.

U.S. Marines advance past an M48 Patton tank during the battle for Huế.  
U.S. Marines advance past an M48 Patton tank during the battle for Huế.

However, this New Year’s strike was not as effective as it appeared; though the initial attack lasted six hours, it ultimately proved inconsequential in terms of military advantage in the larger scope of the Vietnam War.
Instead, ARVN and the leaders of North Vietnam discovered that their sneaky and strong surprise attack spelled something of a disaster in the later months.

Quảng Trị residents fleeing the Battle of Quang Tri (1968).  
Quảng Trị residents fleeing the Battle of Quang Tri (1968).

Though the U.S. and South Vietnamese armies were temporarily stunned into immobility and inaction, their defeat was not as imminent as many believe. In fact, the losses were brief – within days, the two allies had regrouped and responded to the surprise attack. Soon thereafter, the Americans and the South Vietnamese retook control of the cities lost. The forces developed a defensive strategy quickly, fighting back against ARVN and inflicting many casualties upon their opponent.
Over the course of the two months that followed, which are considered part of the Tet Offensive operation, the North Vietnamese were stripped of all that they gained in the first hours of January 30. By the Offensive’s end, the North Vietnamese were expelled from the strongholds in the South, left holding none of the landmarks and locales they initially invaded.

U.S. Marines move through the ruins of the hamlet of Dai Do after several days of intense fighting.  
U.S. Marines move through the ruins of the hamlet of Dai Do after several days of intense fighting.

Not all accounts of the Tet Offensive were positive, however. Although the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces retook control of all that was attacked by the North, those listening and watching reports from oceans away did not know that these forces saw success – they did not hear how, though losses occurred, the militaries were quick to regain it all.
Instead, media outlets in America reported success only of the North Vietnamese forces, relaying scenes of burned encampments, destruction in cities, and an embassy in ruins. As a result, public opinion in the U.S. believed that all was lost in Vietnam.
It was that perception, that harmful presentation of the Tet Offensive, that ultimately led the American leadership to withdraw its forces and leave South Vietnam to fall on its own.

  
As American historian James J. Wirtz remarks of the Tet Offensive, this moment in the Vietnam War was “an earth-shattering, mind-shattering event that changed the course of the war.”

Though the North Vietnamese forces had high hopes for their surprise New Year’s attack, they did not manage to achieve the incredible victory they initially sought – the battlefield remained unchanged, and the Communist forces were quickly halted in their efforts. However, they did make gains in one particular area: the will of the U.S. and its people.
When the North Vietnamese began planning their attack, their goal was to force the American military to change its strategy, to de-escalate their war efforts and give up hope. And, because the Tet Offensive did make those at home in America believe that there truly was no end to the losses in Vietnam, the strategy proved effective.

ARVN Rangers defending Saigon in 1968 Battle of Saigon  
ARVN Rangers defending Saigon in 1968 Battle of Saigon.

By the war’s end, the Tet Offensive secured a lasting place in international history: it was the biggest military operation throughout the entirety of the Vietnam War, responsible for attacking hundreds of cities, many of which were crucial capitals.
Yet still today, four long decades after the last troops pulled out of Vietnam and left the southern half of the nation to its own devices, the world is still divided: who truly can be considered the victor of the Tet Offensive?

Civilians sort through the ruins of their homes in Cholon, the heavily damaged Chinese section of Saigon.  
Civilians sort through the ruins of their homes in Cholon, the heavily damaged Chinese section of Saigon.

According to history, this sudden surprise attack did not make a difference in battle – the North Vietnamese ultimately paid a high price in both casualties and gained territories by the end of the Tet Offensive. Yet because public opinion proved to be the final nail in the coffin for American forces, causing the U.S. leadership to begin its efforts to remove troops from South Vietnam, it can be said that the North Vietnamese won.
Had the Tet Offensive not proved so emotionally polarizing in the U.S., the war itself may have continued to drag on for innumerous days and months. The Tet Offensive was more than a battlefield tactic; it was a psychological one that paid off greatly.

Friday, February 24, 2017

 By  

wassermanschultz 

The Democrats are in another pickle that has to do with technology after shady congressional aides have been caught taking $100,000 from an Iraqi politician; all while they still had administrator level access to the House computer network, according to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group which analyzed court documents.
The Daily Caller reported:
The money was a loan from Dr. Ali al-Attar, an Iraqi political figure, and was funneled through a company with “impossible”-to-decipher financial transactions that the congressional information technology (IT) staffers controlled.
Imran Awan, ringleader of the group that includes his brothers Abid and Jamal, has provided IT services since 2005 for Florida Democrat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairwoman. The brothers are from Pakistan.
The trio also worked for dozens of other House Democrats, including members of the intelligence, foreign affairs and homeland security committees. Those positions likely gave them access to congressional emails and other sensitive documents.
The brothers, whose access to House IT networks has been terminated, are under criminal investigation by the U.S. Capitol Police.
Investigators found that congressional information was being copied to an off-site server and they suspect the brothers of improperly accessing information and stealing congressional property. Chiefs of staff for the employing Democrats were notified Feb. 2.
Soon after Imran began working for members of Congress, Imran’s and Abid’s wives — Hina Alvi and Natalia Sova — also began receiving congressional paychecks, TheDCNF found. Imran’s employers included two members of the intelligence committee, Indiana Democrat Rep. Andre Carson and California Democrat Rep. Jackie Speier.
This newest scandal comes on the heels of the Democrat National Committee hack in 2016 that resulted in then Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Scultz resigning from her post.
While Schultz’ team didn’t respond to TheDCNF’s questions about Imran’s employment status, as of Feb. 6, Schultz, who serves as a U.S. Representative from Florida, declined to fire Imran.
TheDCNF further dug into the sordid financial situation that involved a family car dealership, bankruptcy, the Iraqi loan and questionable six-figure congressional salaries paid to family members of the aforementioned IT group in question.
These Democrats employed Imran “Four out of the six Democrats he worked for also employed Imran. His employers included a member of the intelligence committee, Patrick Murphy of Florida; a member of the foreign affairs committee, Theodore Deutch of Florida; and Brad Ashford of Nebraska, who is on the armed services committee.”
According to TheDCNF, Abbas’ access to congressional email was shut down in early February which occurred about the same time as the reveal from the Capitol Police about the scandal/scheme regarding a network of IT aides. In addition, the Awans’ access was taken away.
This seems to be a pretty significant scandal yet the liberal mainstream media is not too interested, which serves as yet another example of why President Trump was right to call them out as “fake news.”