EXCERPTED: Donald Trump Minnesota Rally Speech Transcript: Minneapolis, MN Rally October 10, 2019 – Rev [Edited for length — GV]
From now on, we want to fight where it is to the benefit of the United States of America, not to the benefit of other countries. And we will only fight to win. …
I sign letters, “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith from Arkansas. “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jones from Alabama. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Somebody from some great state, I’m sorry to inform you, your son has been killed in combat.”
And every letter is individually done because sometimes the parents, they’re grieving, and they get together with other parents, and I don’t want to see that it’s like the same letter…
And I sign those letters, and it just, it breaks your heart.
….And sometimes I send letters out… it’s called blue on green… where the people we’re training how to fight and turn the gun on our soldiers and shoot them in the back. And that’s the hardest thing for a parent because they learn how their child has died. We’ve had a lot of that, a lot of it in Afghanistan, more than we’ve ever had proportionately before. It’s a horrible, horrible thing.
But I have to sign those letters.
Sometimes I go out to a place, Dover Air Force Base, it’s a very tough experience. Mike Pence goes, I go, other people go, Tom Cotton goes. We go out there, and we meet the parents and the families, the wives, the children, the sisters, the brothers. We meet them, and we talked to them, and their son or daughter is being flown in from some far-away place in a coffin…. I don’t know how parents can do it.
We have a particular Colonel, that’s all he does. So good. So professional. That’s what he does. He said, “I greet the dead, sir. I greet the dead.”
What happens is this big incredible machine flies in, this tremendous cargo plane, and it flies in so powerful, so big. I’ll be talking to some of the parents, and they’ll act like they’re fine. I said, “How are you doing?” “We’re fine, sir. We’re fine. We’re really good.” I say, “That’s great.” And I’ll tell the Colonel, I’ll say, “Colonel, I think they’re doing great.”
“No sir, they’re not going to do great. You’ll see.” And I didn’t know what he was talking about, this was the first time.
Then we went outside to the runway. The plane lands and it pulls up, and we have military guards and musicians play. That’s what they do. The Colonel told me, “Sir, when that door opens up, those same people that you think are okay, do things that you’ll never see. You will hear sounds like you’ve never heard.”
I saw that door open up with a coffin with a flag over it. The door was opened, and these beautiful soldiers, five or six on each side, lifting the coffin and walking down onto the runway, off this cargo plane.
And I see parents, that just 20 minutes ago were absolutely fine, make sounds, scream and cry like you’ve never seen before. A mother who was fine 20 minutes ago breaking the military line and then jumping onto a coffin of her son or her daughter, jumping on, lying on top of the flowers, on top of the American flag.”
I’ve seen this.
Then I have all these people that want to stay. They want to stay. And I don’t want to stay.
We were supposed to be in Syria for 30 days. We’ve now been there for 10 years. We were supposed to be in Afghanistan for a short period of time. We’re now going to be there for close to 19 years. It’s time to bring them home. It’s time to bring them home. It’s true. Time to bring them home. We’ve done our job, we’ve defeated everyone that we’re supposed to defeat.
(Bloomberg) — Californians have embraced rooftop solar panels more than anyone in the U.S., but many are learning the hard way the systems won’t keep the lights on during blackouts.
That’s because most panels are designed to supply power to the grid — not directly to houses. During the heat of the day, solar systems can crank out more juice than a home can handle. Conversely, they don’t produce power at all at night. So systems are tied into the grid, and the vast majority aren’t working this week as PG&E Corp. cuts power to much of Northern California to prevent wildfires.
Hilarious! The long explanation is that Solar Panels produce low voltage DC, that is passed through an Inverter changing it to AC current. Which is connected to the power wires coming from (and going back to the outside pole) the power utility.
To keep the power that is coming from the roof panels for use at home you would need to store the power inside your own house. The most common and easiest way is with batteries. Batteries are not cheap, and enough battery storage to get you through even one day of no power from the utility is going to take up a bit of space. That space will need to be in the garage (if you have one) or in the basement; because batteries are also very heavy (and expensive, did I mention expensive?). BTW, I’d think twice before I’d invest in Lithium cycle batteries for this purpose! At least inside the house, a Lithium battery that overheats can catch fire and is exceedingly hard to extinguish.
So then you need another (expensive) device to regulate the DC power being sent to the battery; charging the batteries to their capacity and then sending the excess power to the grid through the Inverter (still need that!).
During a power outage, you are going to want to draw on the power stored in the batteries, right? Unless you invest in 12volt DC appliances and lightning, you are going to need another DC to AC inverter. My, my! The cost of all this stuff is really starting to add up.
Might as well start saving up for when the time comes to replace all that expensive equipment, including the Solar Panels on the roof (15-20 years). The inverters (20-25 years). The batteries (5-10 years). However the system won’t last that long unless you budget in regular maintenance by a certified electrician ($150/ hour).
Of course you could just get a gasoline/LP/Natural Gas/diesel emergency generator, sitting outside ready to kick in automatically as soon as the power goes out; that’s what I’d do. Be a lot cheaper and much more reliable and long lasting. But then that’s all EVIL fossil fuels, so you couldn’t do that!
If Impeachment was supposed to stop or even delay President Trump’s crusade to overturn Barry Soetoro’s legacy… it ain’t working.
President Trump on Wednesday is scheduled to sign two new executive orders that reverse the Obama administration’s practice of using “shadow” rules to spring new, but not officially approved, mandates on industries.
An administration official said that the goal is to end “deep state bullying” with politically-motivated “guidance.”…
In one case cited today by the White House, a farmer who dug a watering hole for his horses on his own land was slapped by Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency with a $20 million fine, eventually overturned by federal courts. The EPA charged that the pond violated the Clean Water Act and slapped a $37,500 fine for each day the pond remained in place.
“Deep state bureaucrats who utilized these documents to bring enforcement actions were essentially criminalizing anyone who cannot afford a sophisticated network of lawyers. It was the epitome of government overreach and bullying of American citizens. We applaud the administration’s efforts to end this practice and look forward to the next steps in slashing the regulatory red tape that binds our nation,” said Dan Savickas, FreedomWorks regulatory policy manager.
The attacks on our President continue, but the work goes on. Don’t back down!
(I unabashedly stole this from InstaPundit)
THE WRATH OF THE AWAKENED SAXON
by Rudyard Kipling
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy — willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the Saxon began to hate.
Their voices were even and low.
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd.
It was not taught by the state.
No man spoke it aloud
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the Saxon began to hate.
The Democrats, failing as an American political party have become more a party that defends the (non-existent) rights of illegal border jumpers. Encouraging a full blown invasion of aliens while attacking any American citizen that objects.
Long held traditional beliefs are ridiculed or blamed for non-existent crimes; the ravings of the mentally ill and deviant are newly enshrined as the new “Standards”. The Democrat intone, “You Must!”.
It isn’t “Impeachment”, it is an attempt at a coup d’état and a disenfranchisement of the right to peacefully chose a chief executive …of over half the nation. With the full backing of the Media, who spread every lie not matter how brazen …with a will.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. John Adams
The Democrats recent and rabid attacks on the right of Americans to possess Arms for their personal safety and to defend the rights of all is because they know that the time is coming near when they must make their attempt to overthrow the freedom and rights of all natural born Americans, who are their enemy, in favor of the insensate horde of brutes, both native and foreign… who will submit to their will.
It was not suddenly bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the American began to hate.
Here is an article from Tom Kratman, posted in FB yesterday:
Our Gallant Allies, the Kurds (and other fairy tales)
Ah, the Kurds. How can mere words render a proper appreciation? They’re trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous…um…no; no, they’re not. Oh, sure, as individuals they can be fairly boon companions, but in the main and in the mass? Not so much.
My first experience of the Kurds – rather, of how the rest of the area thinks of and feels about them – was before I’d ever met my first one. This was at a majlis, in the town of Judah (or Goodah), Saudi Arabia, sometime in December or so, 1990. Citizenship is kind of an iffy and flexible concept in that part of the world, so there were folk from Saudi, from Oman, from the Emirates. There was even one Arab who insisted he was a citizen of the Gulf Cooperation Council, since he was a fully documented citizen of so many places in the GCC. I had my doubts right up until he pulled out a bilingual ID card which, indeed, did seem to list him as a citizen of the GCC. One of the attendees had brought with him a book detailing the results of the chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja by the army and air force of Saddam Hussein.
It was really heartbreaking, all those picture of gassed, dead, discolored, and decomposing Kurdish kids, who are, in fact, every bit as cute as the papers and television made them out to be. At least when they’re not dead they are. My team sergeant, Sig, and I were duly appalled and sickened.
The Arabs, though, didn’t seem to understand. To paraphrase, “What’s the problem? Don’t you understand that these were _Kurds_ who got gassed?”
At the time, I found that attitude completely inexplicable.
Fast forward a few months; we’ve incited the Kurds and Shia to rise up and overthrow Saddam. They didn’t, of course, while such an uprising would have looked difficult and might have done us some good. Oh, no; instead the Shia – whose rebellion was spontaneous, anyway – waited until it looked like the Iraqi Army was crushed and such an uprising would be easy. The Kurds – who were organized – waited even longer.
Sorry, boys, but when we offer you a quid pro quo, that doesn’t translate into “free lunch.” Moreover, when we’ve already offered someone a ceasefire it’s a bit late to try to get us to start hostilities again. In short, we owed them nothing.
Fast forward, again, to late May, 1991. I’d come home from the Middle East, hung around a while, and been sent back, this time to Operation Provide Comfort, the Kurdish Rescue, there to quasi govern a few towns, run refugee camps, coordinate humanitarian relief, and such like. While we’re waiting in the camp on the Turkish side of the border, not too far from Silopi, overwatched by a Turkish police fort on a hill, some Kurds got in position to fire at the fort such that, should the fort return fire, the Turks will be shooting at us. So much for gratitude from people you’re trying to save, eh?
Fortunately, Turkish discipline held firm and enlightened Kurdish dreams of advancing the cause of having a homeland of their own by getting their rescuers killed came to naught. After a couple of days at the camp, the crew I’m with and I are ordered forward to link up with the British Marines and their Dutch counterparts, already inside Kurdestan. We’re riding in on the back of a British Bedford Lorry, one which, based on the comfort of the ride, probably crossed the Rhine with Monty in 1945…after enduring the entire war in North Africa. If it had a suspension it was tolerably hard to see, and impossible to feel.
Sitting next to me is a Staff Sergeant Farnsworth. Farnsworth and I are both grunts, so we’re doing what grunts do when there’s nothing better to do and neither sleep nor playing cards nor reading are possible; we’re analyzing the terrain. It is fiercely rugged, with winding roads going through narrow passes between hills and mountains difficult enough to climb on foot and impossible for vehicles. Reverse slopes were of such an angle as would make defenders largely invulnerable to artillery and would make even high angle mortar fire of much reduced effect. In any case, at a certain point, looking over a particularly defensible pass, Farnsworth and I looked at each other. I no longer remember who spoke first but the conversation went like this: “If the Kurds“ “couldn’t defend themselves“ “in this kind of terrain“ “they don’t deserve“ “their own country.” And that was before we even knew how much they used mines.
*****
A little digression is in order here. As mentioned previously, Kurdish kids are adorable. (The women are also quite fetching, right up until they’re worn out, usually by age twenty-four or so, from being used like mules, which is to say, beasts of burden, but who, unlike mules, can still bear young…and must.) Most people shy away from or are at least ignorant of the reason so many of those adorable kids died. It’s simple; the Kurds starved them to death themselves. It’s a cultural imperative among them, when times get hard, to let the little girls die of starvation (first, of course), and then the little boys. Good guess, dear reader; why, no, I didn’t like that for beans. As a matter of fact, now that you ask, I’m not much for multiculturalism, in general, either.
*****
Interestingly, before we even arrived in our area, there had been an incident – a firefight resulting in several Iraqi dead – between the British Marines and some Iraqi troops guarding one of Hussein’s palaces in that part of Iraq. I asked a British officer about it and his answer was to the effect that, “As near as we can figure, as one of our patrols was passing, two Kurds, from different positions but surely with coordination, took a shot each, close to simultaneously. One shot was at our patrol, the other at the Iraqi on the gate to the palace. Both shots missed, but the Iraqis and our men, thinking they were under attack, reacted as one would expect. We were just a lot better shots, better led, than they were. Poor bastards. One of the reasons we’re quite sure that the Iraqis didn’t shoot first was that, as our men passed, they waved at each other, as soldiers will who have no particular reasons for enmity.”
*****
The main town I ran was Assyrian and Christian, Catholic, actually, having their own rite but being in full communion with Rome. It was an experience to attend mass held in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, a memory I rather cherish despite not understanding a word of it. They are nice people, the Assyrians, seriously nice people. I’ve dealt with a lot of different kinds of foreigners, over the years, even married one, for that matter, and liked almost all of them. But the Assyrians have a special place. They’re also amazingly hardworking. They can’t defend themselves or, at least, they don’t think they can, which amounts to the same thing.
Everyone knows about the Armenian genocide. The genocide of the Assyrians, around the same time period, was about as bad and may have been worse, as a percentage of the premassacre population. And among the chief agents of that genocide? Of both of them, really? You guessed it, the Kurds.
I asked my Assyrian translator there, once, what he and the other Assyrians really wanted. He answered, “We’d like the British to come back and run the place, permanently. Failing that, we’d be very happy to be subjects of the American Empire, if you would just declare one. If that’s not possible, then letting the Iraqis back would be minimally acceptable. Under no circumstance, however, do we want to be under the Kurds.”
That main town was the only one in which no Kurdish babies died, of the smallish number that the Kurds didn’t let starve anyway, and the only one in which there were no political or ethnic murders in that time period. Part of that was probably my own rather forthright approach to domestic harmony – “One incident, just one, and I’ll cut off your food, medical care, and other goodies, causing all your followers to desert you for other groups and leaders I haven’t proscribed!” – but part of it, too, at least for the long term maintenance of the thing, was probably the perception among themselves that the various Kurdish groups needed one safe area in which to engage in local diplomacy, and, since this one area was peaceful, well, why not? That meant a lot of luncheons, meaning, yes, I had the chance to meet most of the bright lights of Kurdish domestic politics and self-determination of the day. I’ve long since forgotten their names, but am pretty sure I could identify most of them in a police lineup and wouldn’t, of course, mind doing so. One in particular stands out in my mind, a rather distinguished looking middle aged barbarian who had once, over what amounts to a domestic dispute, murdered some thirty-seven Christian men, women, and children. And then there was the day the Kurds demanded to be paid. Paid? Why, yes, we were providing free food, free medical care, free shelter, and free security, but they saw no reason not to be paid for unloading the free food and other goodies. I sent the trucks back with the food until they knuckled under.
*****
Thus, it might be better for the United States, before pinning too much hope and faith on the Kurds, to understand that they’re military imbeciles with an unearned and undeserved reputation, that their culture is barbaric, they their one talent seems to be propagandizing and manipulating liberal Western opinion, which is eager to be manipulated, anyway, that any kids who die usually do so because of their own neglect of those kids, that they have no sense of gratitude for any help you give them, that they treat women like donkeys, and that they place zero value on the lives of those who try to help them.
Why we, or anyone, would place our faith and trust in them…well, it eludes me. To help that lesson stick in your mind I offer a Kurdish National Anthem, written by my team sergeant, Sig, in a moment of complete disgust with them. Every line tells a story: (Tune: O Tannenbaum)
A voice without a hint of shame
Cries, “It’s all your fault; you’re all to blame.
We must be clothed, we must be fed
And when that’s done build our homesteads”
Chorus:
A Kurd can have no greater love
Than his brand new Kalashnikov;
O Kurdestan, my Kurdestan,
Do what you want; grab what you can.
You gave us shelter overhead
Doctors and blankets for our beds.
You’ve saved us from Iraqi raids,
Now tell us when do we get paid?
Chorus
We fought the Turks, we fought Iran
We fought Iraq for Kurdestan.
And now you’ve made us free and strong,
We’ll kill the Christians when you’re gone.
Chorus
This column is dedicated to the memory of Father Hanna Marko, of Mangesh,
The Franks and The Muslims under the Umayyad Caliphate would meet in northeastern France in October of 732. Charles Martel, commander of the Franks, who were largely infantry based, and likely equal in number to the Muslim army, would fight General Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, who commanded the Umayyad army that had a large amount of cavalry.
…
The Muslims had a tried and true method of wearing down the enemy with light cavalry peppering and repeated heavy cavalry charges. With no real reason to try something different, ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân’s cavalry crashed into the Frankish formations who stood firm like “A Bulwark of Ice” according to later Muslim accounts. Frankish troops withstood the attacks and lashed out hard whenever the experienced troops saw an opportunity.
Deep into the fighting (perhaps into a second day according to some sources) The cavalry broke into a Frankish formation and towards Charles. His guard, and perhaps Charles himself, entered the fray. Several Frankish scouts were sent at the same time to raid the enemy camp, causing havoc and freeing prisoners.
The Muslims feared for the safety of their booty, obtained during the campaign and many rushed back to the camp. This was seen as a full retreat by many other members of the Muslim army and an actual full retreat soon followed. ‘Abd-al-Raḥmân valiantly attempted to rally his troops but was killed in the fighting as the victorious Franks swarmed upon their retreating foes.
America’s president stands firm for America’s national interest.
But as the President tweeted on Monday morning, he was elected to end our “ridiculous endless wars,” which are costing us huge amounts in blood and treasure. Continued U.S. entanglement, according to Trump, can only make Russia and China happy.
So which is it: is the President endangering the United States and our allies by pulling out of Syria? Betraying our allies, the Kurds? Or is he defending America’s national interest?
Out of Syria, getting out of Afghanistan; refusing to start unnecessary new conflicts in the Mid-East against Iran or Turkey, this is what Donald Trump promised while running for the office. And no one believed it, because everyone knew that all American Presidents are so easy to get sucked into committing American Armed Forces to combat around the world. For the most part, so they don’t appear ‘weak’ to Congressional Hawks and the mercurial National Press.
The two-faced ‘Professionals’ at the US State Dept. ‘advise’ and ‘consent’ one way until the USA is involved then can quickly turn around and lie their heads off at Congressional hearings months or years later when things don’t go so well. The article notes that President Trump has been taking a long look at how President George W. Bush got played by the State Dept. and the CIA analysts. It’s probably safe to say that DJT isn’t going to wholly trust anything out of those ‘ dens of iniquity’.
The Kurds.
Yup! The Kurds have been our allies in a sense, some of them. All in all the United States has treated the Kurds very well and done a lot for them. Especially in Iraq. In Syria many of the Kurdish tribes are Communist in political affiliation. Not so much our friends or sharing our agenda. But all the groups of Kurdish fighters have been fighting for themselves and their goals, and against their tribal enemies; in short, they didn’t do it for us. When we pull out they should stand on the shore waving goodbye saying, “Thanks for the weapons, ammunition and air cover!”.
The Turks.
A NATO ally, for whats that worth. Not very friendly to the USA these days. Removing ourselves from the theater of conflict and getting out of their way will reduce the friction between us and the antagonistic political and diplomatic attitude from Ankara.
Plus Turkey will be causing a lot less trouble for us in the area if it turns out they are sticking their manhood into a meat grinder. (Time someone else took a turn at that.)
The Iranian Regime.
They have tried to start a military conflict with us several times in the last few months, clearly that Regime thinks it would be to their advantage to engage the USA or to be seen as engaging us by the Muslim world and their own people. How close Iran is to a counter-revolution only the Mullahs know; or maybe they don’t know but do know that President Trump’s sanctions are successfully destroying their economy. A limited war with the USA that creates US military causalities might result in President Trump losing his re-election bid next year. A leadership that threw away a million of it’s own young men fighting Saddam Hussein might think the price was worth it to rid itself of the first American President to successfully foil their plans. They remember Barrack Obama very fondly. Especially his soft and compliant buttocks.
Europe’s own illegal immigration problem.
Does anyone remember how the vast problems with the hordes of Muslim immigrants into the EU started? The Syrian Civil War.
That war, for all intents and purposes is ending. With Turkey to the North and Israel to the South providing security, (even with a Turkish/ Kurdish guerilla war going on in a small part of the country), Syria is going to become more stable than it has been in more than a decade. That should slow and even stop the continued flood of immigration. A few million of the Muslims already in the EU might decide to return home.
Something else that Western Europe will never thank us for.
Trump Peace Prize.
Screw the “Nobel Prize”, it’s debased and meaningless.
Lets start a “Go-Fund_Me” page for the Donald J. Trump Peace Prize! I do believe that by this time next year, DJT will have ended more wars, refused to be drawn into more military conflicts and improved American, European and World economic prosperity more than any other human being in history. But unlike the other one, we won’t automatically award the “Trump” to some loser every year, but will wait for a candidate worthy of it.
It might be a long time before there’s more than one person holding it.
John The River
Marine Beaches in Massachusetts
