Today President Trump has traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to deliver remarks at the 9th annual Shale Insight conference. Anticipated start time 3:40pm EDT.
Earlier today President Trump delivered remarks departing the White House. [Video and Transcript below]
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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. We’re going to Pennsylvania, on an energy meeting and speech, and look forward to it.
I hope you saw what I had to say about the safe zone in Syria, and — are dealing with Turkey. It’s been very successful. We’ll see what happens. It’s a very volatile part of the world, but, so far, it’s been pretty amazing what’s gone on. We’ve lost no soldiers. We didn’t have a soldier hurt. We didn’t have a finger broken. It’s pretty unusual.
And we have thousands of soldiers that have moved out or are moving out of various areas. We have it under very good control. Turkey has done what we’ve asked them to do.
We have tremendous economic might — far more than we had, relatively speaking, when I took office. When I took office, everybody said that China would be the largest economy in the world within the first two years. And we picked up trillions and trillions of dollars of worth, and China has lost trillions of dollars of worth.
So we are far and away the most powerful economy in the world. And if you have a smart President, you’ll stay there.
Other than that, our military is looking good. It’s been rebuilt and we’re respected again.
But I’m going right now — I’ll be going over to Pennsylvania. And many of you, I hope, will be following me.
Earlier today President Trump delivered remarks about the ongoing issues with Turkey and Northern Syria from the White House. [Video and Transcript]
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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. My fellow Americans, I greet you this morning from the White House to announce a major breakthrough toward achieving a better future for Syria and for the Middle East. It’s been a long time.
Over the last five days, you have seen that a ceasefire that we established along Syria’s border has held, and it’s held very well, beyond most expectations. Early this morning, the government of Turkey informed my administration that they would be stopping combat and their offensive in Syria, and making the ceasefire permanent. And it will indeed be permanent. However you would also define the word “permanent” in that part of the world as somewhat questionable, we all understand that. But I do believe it will be permanent.
I have therefore instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to lift all sanctions imposed on October 14th in response to Turkey’s original offensive moves against the Kurds in Syria’s northeast border region. So the sanctions will be lifted unless something happens that we’re not happy with.
This was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else, no other nation. Very simple. And we’re willing to take blame, and we’re also willing to take credit. This is something they’ve been trying to do for many, many decades. Since then, others have come out to help, and we welcome them to do so. Other countries have stepped forward, they want to help, and we think that’s great. The nations in the region must ultimately take on the responsibility of helping Turkey and Syria police their border. We want other nations to get involved.
We’ve secured the oil, and, therefore, a small number of U.S. troops will remain in the area where they have the oil. And we’re going to be protecting it, and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.
In any event, by the moves that we’ve made, we are achieving a much more peaceful and stable area between Turkey and Syria, including a 20-mile-wide safe zone. An interesting term, “safe zone.” That’s the term we’re using it. Hopefully, that zone will become safe. Thousands and thousands of people have been killed in that zone over the years. But it’s been sought for many, many decades, and I think we have something that’s going to be strong and hold up.
Turkey, Syria, and all forms of the Kurds, have been fighting for centuries. We have done them a great service, and we’ve done a great job for all of them. And now we’re getting out. A long time. We were supposed to be there for 30 days; that was almost 10 years ago. So we’re there for 30 days, and now we’re leaving. It was supposed to be a very quick hit and let’s get out. And it was a quick hit, except they stayed for almost 10 years. Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.
I want to thank Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo for leading the American delegation so successfully to Turkey several days ago, along with National Security Advisor O’Brien. I want to thank them very much. The American delegation negotiated the original five-day ceasefire that [DEL: ended :DEL] [enabled] Kurdish fighters to safely leave. It just got them to a point where, frankly, they were able. It enabled them to get out, to go and move, really, just a few miles in a slightly different direction. So this enabled them to do so.
Countless lives are now being saved as a result of our negotiation with Turkey — an outcome reached without spilling one drop of American blood. No injuries. Nobody shot, nobody killed.
I have just spoken to General Mazloum, a wonderful man, the Commander-in-Chief of the SDF Kurds. And he was extremely thankful for what the United States has done. Could not have been more thankful. General Mazloum has assured me that ISIS is under very, very strict lock and key, and the detention facilities are being strongly maintained. There were a few that got out — a small number, relatively speaking — and they’ve been largely recaptured.
I’m also sure that he will be issuing his own statement very shortly. We had a great talk. But we’ve saved the lives of many, many Kurds. He understands that. The war was going to be vicious and probably not very long. And I’m very happy to have been involved in it, as are our Vice President, our Secretary of State, and all of the other people on our team. By getting that ceasefire to stick, we’ve done something that’s very, very special. But by getting the ceasefire after a tremendous amount of really tough war for a very short period of days, that is something very special.
Our troops are safe, and the pain and suffering of the three-day fight that occurred was directly responsible for our ability to make an agreement with Turkey and the Kurds that could never have been made without this short-term outburst.
Should Turkey fail to honor its obligations, including the protection of religious and ethnic minorities — which I truly believe they will do — we reserve the right to re-impose crippling sanctions, including substantially increased tariffs on steel and all other products coming out of Turkey.
We are now an economic powerhouse like never before, and, very importantly, like no other. Our economic might is stronger than it’s ever been, and our competitors are not doing very well.
We also expect Turkey to abide by its commitment regarding ISIS. As a backup to the Kurds watching over them, should something happen, Turkey is there to grab them.
Further, we implore European countries to come and take those fighters that the U.S. captured and bring them back to their countries for incarceration and for trial. Until just recently, Europe has been very unresponsive in doing what they should have been doing for a long time. Now is their chance to finally act.
American forces defeated 100 percent of the ISIS caliphate during the last two years. We thank the Syrian Democratic Forces for their sacrifices in this effort. They’ve been terrific. Now Turkey, Syria, and others in the region must work to ensure that ISIS does not regain any territory. It’s their neighborhood; they have to maintain it. They have to take care of it.
There were some political pundits who responded to Turkey’s offensive in Syria by calling for yet another American military intervention. I don’t think so. But halting the incursion by military force would have required deploying tens of thousands of American troops against Turkey — a NATO Ally and a country the United States has developed a very good relationship with, including President Erdoğan.
The same people that I watched and read — giving me and the United States advice — were the people that I have been watching and reading for many years. They are the ones that got us into the Middle East mess but never had the vision or the courage to get us out. They just talk.
How many Americans must die in the Middle East in the midst of these ancient sectarian and tribal conflicts? After all of the precious blood and treasure America has poured into the deserts of the Middle East, I am committed to pursuing a different course — one that leads to victory for America.
Through much work, we have done things that everybody said couldn’t be done. Today’s announcement validates our course of action with Turkey that only a couple of weeks ago were scorned, and now people are saying, “Wow. What a great outcome. Congratulations.” It’s too early to me to be congratulated, but we’ve done a good job. We’ve saved a lot of lives.
Most importantly, we have avoided another costly military intervention that could’ve led to disastrous, far-reaching consequences. Many thousands of people could’ve been killed.
The last administration said, “Assad must go.” They could’ve easily produced that outcome, but they didn’t. In fact, they drew a very powerful red line in the sand — you all remember, the red line in the sand — when children were gassed and killed, but then did not honor their commitment as other children died in the same horrible manner. But I did honor my commitments with 58 Tomahawks.
Eight long years after President Obama’s ill-fated push at regime change, U.S. troops are still on the ground in Syria. More than half a million people are dead, hundreds of thousands are terribly injured, and millions more Syrians are displaced. It really is a nightmare of misery.
Across the Middle East, we have seen anguish on a colossal scale. We have spent $8 trillion on wars in the Middle East, never really wanting to win those wars. But after all that money was spent and all of those lives lost, the young men and women gravely wounded — so many — the Middle East is less safe, less stable, and less secure than before these conflicts began.
The same people pushing for these wars are often the ones demanding America open its doors to unlimited migration from war-torn regions, importing the terrorism and the threat of terrorism right to our own shores. But not anymore. My administration understands that immigration security is national security.
As a candidate for President, I made clear that we needed a new approach to American foreign policy, one guided not by ideology, but by experience, history, and a realistic understanding of the world.
We are building up America’s military might like never before, investing $2.5 trillion since my election. But we will not be depleted. We will not happen again. It will not be allowed to happen again, where our military is depleted, fighting in areas of the world where we shouldn’t be.
When we commit American troops to battle, we must do so only when a vital national interest is at stake, and when we have a clear objective, a plan for victory, and a path out of conflict. That’s what we have to have. We need a plan of victory. We will only win. Our whole basis has to be the right plan, and then we will only win. Nobody can beat us. Nobody can beat us.
I want to again thank everyone on the American team who helped achieve the ceasefire in Syria, saved so many lives, along with President Erdoğan of Turkey — a man I’ve gotten to know very well and a man who loves his country. And, in his mind, he’s doing the right thing for his country, and we may be meeting in the very near future.
I also want to thank General Mazloum for his understanding and for his great strength and for his incredible words today to me — but me just as a representative of the United States — because he knows that we saved tens of thousands of Kurds. And we’re not talking in the long term, we’re talking in the short term. We’re talking something that was going on immediately and something, frankly, that was planned for a long time.
The job of our military is not to police the world. Other nations must step up and do their fair share. That hasn’t taken place. Today’s breakthrough is a critical step in that direction.
Thank you all very much, and God bless America. Thank you. Thank you.
Recently you wrote: “Recently, this has manifested in laws that have attacked foreign investment in real estate, which is not the “hot” money that blew up the world in 1997. ”
I live in Vancouver where real estate prices are completely divorced from local wages. If it is not hot overseas money that is driving our real estate market then what is? Your analysis is appreciated as always.
Nick
ANSWER: It is foreign money pouring into Vancouver seeking to park in a world that is in economic and political chaos. This has been accelerated by the decline in the C$, which has made the prices appear cheap in other currencies. When you look at our Canadian Real Estate Index in terms of different currencies, you can see that it has been attracting capital. The problem is rather clear. Foreign capital buys the trophies. Others may raise the price of houses because they see the high-end rising, but it is not foreign capital that is bidding for the average home in general. The problem comes when they put in punitive laws that become permanent because of a trend based entirely upon currency.
According to the Guardian, the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia are looking to pressure Facebook to create a backdoor into its encrypted messaging apps. The governments, as always, want to access everything everyone says under the pretense of terrorism. However, once that is achieved, then it will be used for hunting taxes which they also declare is a criminal activity. Since Facebook bought WhatsApp, which is encrypted, they are looking to undermine the $16 billion they paid for WhatsApp as a secure messaging service.
For this very reason, our development of the Institutional Platform will allow clients to place their portfolios into the system and Socrates will run the analysis on all contents. However, your portfolio contents will remain on your internal system and we will have no access to see its contents to maintain privacy and security.
Boy howdy, this DOJ announcement is alarming on many levels. Imaad Zuberi, a 49-year-old resident of Arcadia, California, has agreed to plead guilty to a variety of illegal activities surrounding campaign contributions, political influence, and unregistered lobbying on behalf of foreign clients. Mr. Zuberi was under DOJ, FBI and IRS investigation since 2015(<= important aspect on the alarming part).
(Via DOJ) Federal prosecutors today filed a criminal case charging Imaad Shah Zuberi, a Southern California campaign fundraiser, with falsifying records to conceal his work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. government officials. The criminal charges allege that Zuberi engaged in lobbying efforts that earned him millions of dollars, most of which was pilfered from his clients, and Zuberi has agreed to plead guilty to those charges at a later date, pursuant to a plea agreement.
[…] In addition to violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), Zuberi is charged in a criminal information with tax evasion and making almost $1 million in illegal campaign contributions that included funneling money from foreign entities and individuals to influence U.S. elections.
[…] Zuberi, who operated a venture capital firm called Avenue Ventures, solicited foreign nationals and representatives of foreign governments with claims he could use his influence in Washington, D.C. to change United States foreign policy and create business opportunities for his clients and himself.
According to court documents, clients gave Zuberi money for consulting fees, to make investments, or to fund campaign contributions. As part of his efforts to influence public policy, Zuberi hired lobbyists, retained public relations professionals and made campaign contributions – which gave him access to high-level U.S. officials, some of whom took action in support of his clients. As evidence of his access and influence, Zuberi distributed to his clients photographs of himself discussing policy with elected officials.
While some U.S. officials were willing to take action on issues Zuberi put forward, most of Zuberi’s business efforts were unsuccessful and his clients suffered significant losses. Many of the lobbyists, public relations consultants, and other subcontractors also suffered losses when Zuberi refused to pay them, according to the information. Zuberi, on the other hand, became wealthy, primarily as the result of fraudulent representations about his background, influence, and the use of client funds, much of which constituted an “outright conversion of client money for defendant Zuberi’s own personal benefit,” the information states.
The information details dozens of illegal campaign contributions – including those paid by Zuberi using the names of other people, “conduit contributions” made by others that Zuberi reimbursed, and contributions to U.S. political campaigns that were financed by foreign entities and individuals.
The information further states that Zuberi accepted money from two foreign companies with promises that the funds would be used to contribute to political campaigns, but Zuberi took the vast majority of the money – more than $1.1 million – for his own personal use. (read more)
Here’s an additional alarming part. The DOJ and FBI were investigating Mr. Zuberi since 2014 and 2015, but for some reason the Obama administration never brought charges. One could argue Zuberi was just participating in a financial process that was business as usual for politicians in the swamp.
However, while the lack of charges against Zuberi, perhaps related to the contributions the Obama and Clinton teams were gaining, allowed Zuberi to continue his malicious effort; after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, Mr. Zuberi turned his influence efforts toward the incoming Trump administration:
What are the odds the lack of DOJ/FBI prosecution was part of an intentional design to let sketchy characters interact with incoming administration officials?
Zuberi delivered $615,000 to Hillary Clinton’s joint fundraising committee, Hillary Victory Fund and reportedly contributed between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. He gave $102,135 to the Obama Victory Fund in 2008 & bundled $500,000 for Obama in 2012.
QUESTION: You commented that the central banks had a difficult position when they were on the gold standard compared to post-1971. Could you explain that difference?
Thank you for the education. Its better than any classroom.
EJ
ANSWER: The United States created the Federal Reserve in 1913. Prior to World War I, central banks were long-established in Europe like the Bank of England in 1694. What you have to understand is that BEFORE World War I, the central banks of Europe were faced with two duties because there was the gold standard.
1.) The first was to defend their currency’s parity with gold and thereby the entire edifice of the international gold standard. This required raising interest rates and keeping the total volume of money and credit under control, often with contractionary effects.
2.) The second responsibility was to act as a lender of last resort for their banking system by supplying emergency liquidity. This necessitated an expansion of credit and a lowering of interest rates.
Post-1971, the central banks were no longer required to intervene to maintain the exchange rate relative to the gold standard, which is more or less similar to Hong Kong managing the peg to the dollar today.
Paul Volcker raised interest rates insanely into 1981 to stop inflation, but he ignored the consequences that would have on the value of the dollar on world markets. This was the stone that hit the standing pool of water which then at the 1985 Plaza Accord suggested that Europe create a single currency. One mistake is never corrected and never acknowledged. They constantly create a new scheme to solve the last one they created.
The migrants trying to get into Europe for free welfare rioted on Monday in Malta setting cars on fire and attacking staff. Malta had agreed to house them temporarily in a detention center waiting for other EU countries to accept them for settlement. This illustrates the fears of many in Europe about all of these migrants who have been allowed to enter without skills in language or fields that would be suitable for employment. Despite the violence, European politicians simply cannot admit that this has been a huge mistake.
Justin Trudeau celebrated an overwhelming victory following the results of the Canadian election – SEE RESULTS HERE – The Liberal party lost 21 seats but remained the majority parliamentary winner albeit without a majority. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a “solid mandate from the election results.” The Conservative party gained 27 seats and the most national votes, but remain the losing party. The New Democrat Party lost 15 seats and declared the 2019 election a major success for their agenda.
It’s all weird.
During their post election speeches the Liberals (Trudeau), Conservatives (Sheer), New Democrat Party (Singh) and the Green Party (May), all declared victory. It seemed like a hot mess of political messaging; but hey, that’s Canada.
Congratulations, I guess.
Liberals (RED), Conservatives (BLUE), New Democrats (Orange)
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Congratulations to @JustinTrudeau on a wonderful and hard fought victory. Canada is well served. I look forward to working with you toward the betterment of both of our countries!
Tonight the results of the Canadian election will start to be announced. Canada is a parliamentary system and therefore voters do not vote for a national candidate, instead they vote for a local representative, MP’s, who belong to a national party.
There are 338 separate district races called ‘federal ridings’ from coast to coast. In order for a party to win outright they need to win 170 district seats.
If a party doesn’t win 170 seats they need to form a government in combination with one, or more, of the other parties. Whichever party wins the majority of the seats elects a leader to become Prime Minister.
Currently there are 177 Liberal seats; 95 Conservative seats; 39 New Democratic Party seats; 10 Bloc Quebecois seats; 2 Green seats; 1 People’s Party of Canada seats; and 8 Independent seats. Early results should start coming in around 7:00pm Eastern.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America