Why Trump is right on Syria

The Washington chattering class is once again stunned that President Trump is keeping a campaign promise. Like moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and building the wall, the president is following through, and Washington elites don’t quite know what to make of it. Remember, it was Nancy Pelosi who told Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office that the border wall was just a campaign promise. Unfortunately, this is the attitude of most elected officials. You say what you have to say to get elected, then you do only what’s popular with your Washington colleagues.

Syria is a real head-scratcher. Not that President Trump is pulling troops out, but that so many want to keep the troops there. We are uninvited guests in a hostile country. Not that we didn’t have a right—even an obligation—to rout ISIS. That mission has largely been accomplished. That’s not to say that ISIS won’t rise again. If they do we should reserve the right to rout them again, but a prolonged presence in a sovereign nation that doesn’t want us there should not even be an option.

The usual Russia conspiracy freaks wasted no time in claiming more collusion with Russia since Syria’s strongman is a Russian ally. It’s not as if Trump hasn’t been tough on Bashar al-Assad. The United States has attacked Assad’s military ten different times since Trump took office. Syria is basically in the midst of a civil war. Our only interest is ISIS and its accumulation of land and power stretching across the Iraqi border. Outside of that we have no business in Syria.

It was President Obama who drew a red line in August of 2013 saying if Assad used chemical weapons against his own people we would retaliate with military action. He did and we didn’t. It wasn’t until Donald Trump became president that we actually punished Assad for chemical weapons attacks. But punishing Assad was never the primary mission. The American-led coalition in Syria, which included the UK, France, Jordan, Turkey, Canada, and Australia, was specifically forged to defeat ISIS, or ISIL, as Obama so puzzlingly called them. That mission has been largely accomplished. 

According to The Guardian, ISIS has lost over 95 percent of the territory it held before the coalition was launched against it. The coalition has started to unravel. The Kurds have been the principal fighters on the ground against ISIS. Turkey attacked Kurdish militants in northwestern Syria. We did nothing to intervene. It’s becoming clear that, like most disputes in the Middle East, Syria is far more complicated than simply backing the good guys against the bad guys.

The Kurds have been staunch allies of the United States, but only because they want their own country carved out of sections of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. The U.S. failing to come to their aid against the Turks indicates that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Many of the Democrats who supported military action in Syria only did so because it was a Democrat president who wanted it. Many Republicans were opposed for the same reason. Now it’s as if everyone wanted to fight Assad all along, even though that was never the mission. President Trump seems to be the only one who remembers the mission, and now everyone in Washington is against him because his name is Donald Trump.

Thank God for people like Sen. Rand Paul. He was against military intervention in 2013 and he’s against it now. Not that he’s necessarily right. He’s just consistent, something sorely missing in Washington these days.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Greedy public employees are bleeding us dry

In San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) workers went on strike after negotiations between the unions and state mediators broke down.  Commuters were left scrambling for alternative modes of transportation but the unions didn’t care.  Was the dispute over pay?  Not really.  BART had offered an average 2 percent wage increase per year for four years.  The fight was over what most union fights have been about the last few years: pensions and health insurance.

The average train operator and station agent make a base salary of $71,000 and average another $11,000 in overtime.  That’s an average of $82,000 per year.  Before the strike BART employees were contributing a measly $92 per month for their health insurance, a ridiculously low amount given the skyrocketing cost of health insurance.  As for their pensions, they were contributing absolutely nothing, not one dime.  The taxpayers were picking up the entire tab for the pension contributions.

These are the types of deals that are bankrupting cities and states and our federal government.  We simply cannot afford to pay for what should be the responsibilities of individual workers.  Whether or not some BART employee retires with a pension should be the responsibility of that particular BART employee.  It’s certainly been my responsibility.  I have a 401(k).  Some years my employer matches part of it some years they don’t.  I certainly don’t expect them to and when they do I appreciate it.

But that’s the problem with a lot of people in this country, isn’t it?  They’ve come to expect someone else to take care of them.  I try to watch my 401(k) like a hawk.  I contribute as much as I possibly can and I plan for the future.  I’m hoping Social Security will supplement my retirement years but I have my doubts.  If it’s even there when I retire Social Security will, in all likelihood, be subjected to means testing.  Even people like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky have supported means testing.

Means testing, simply put, means if I do the right thing and have ample money put away for my retirement I won’t be able to draw Social Security even though the government forced me to contribute to it my whole working life.  They told me it was a forced retirement fund and I would be able to draw from it when I retired.  With means testing only those who don’t prepare for retirement will be able to draw from Social Security.  It will only be for those whose retirement funds fall below a certain level.  It turns the entire program into another welfare entitlement.

So much of what the government is doing is discouraging personal responsibility.  The harder you work and the more you earn the bigger chunk of your paycheck they take.  If you haven’t been responsible and provided health insurance for you and your family then the government will step in and take care of your health insurance.  If you don’t plan for your retirement the government will take away part of the retirement from those of us who have and give it to you.

Why on earth should anyone behave responsibly anymore?

The BART strike has been just another reminder of what happens when government officials volunteer the generosity of the taxpayers.  Those on the receiving end of that generosity spit in the face of their benefactors.  They should’ve fired everyone who went on strike and given those jobs to people who might actually appreciate them.  Unions in the private sector are vanishing quickly.  Public sector unions should do the same, while we still have some money left.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Republicans just don't seem to learn

It’s amazing just how little the Republican hierarchy has learned from the last presidential election.  RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and a group of project co-chairs completed what they called the “most comprehensive post-election review” ever.  The “election autopsy” made it crystal clear exactly why the Republicans lost and it had very little to do with their findings.

The group determined that they needed to reach out to minorities, gays and women.  That’s code for pandering.  They determined that the party would back “comprehensive immigration reform.”  That’s code for amnesty.  In other words, Reince Priebus and the people he’s surrounded himself with are convinced that in order to win presidential elections you have to become Democrat Light.

Priebus and the other RINOs who now seem to be controlling the party are utterly clueless as to what happened to them in the last two presidential cycles.  First of all, it cannot be ignored that 2008 was an anomaly as far as elections go.  The Democrats nominated a charismatic man who was in position to become the first black president of the United States.  This catharsis was long overdue in many people’s minds and substance was the least of their worries.  They wanted to purge the country of the sins of racism and Obama’s message of hope and change seemed the logical way to do that.

The Republicans fielded an honorable but weak candidate who had no chance of stopping history.  Not to mention that the economy was disintegrating before our eyes and the incumbent party almost always gets blamed whether it’s justified or not.

The defeat in 2008 was understandable and predictable but 2012 was another matter altogether.  Despite what the polls were showing, many people – me included – thought there was no way we would re-elect a disaster of a president.  We underestimated the vacuousness of the American electorate but the Republicans are to blame for not giving the people a clear choice.  The proper rebuttal to the policies of the prior four years should have been someone who understood and could articulate basic conservative principles.

The lesson learned should have been that you don’t try to beat the Democrats at their own game.  But that’s exactly what Reince Priebus and his minions at the RNC intend to do.  They plan to “assume the room” at every campaign stop, tailoring their message to whomever they happen to be addressing.  This is exactly what the Democrats do.  It leads to victory, you may argue.  Indeed it does but it also lends itself to lousy leadership.  When you’ve promised everything to everybody you spend your entire time – and the taxpayers’ money – trying to fulfill those promises.

The blueprint for another Republican presidential victory was laid out recently during the Rand Paul senate filibuster.  Senator Paul articulated for 13 hours what was wrong with America and, more importantly, what was right.  He redirected our attention to the founding fathers and their vision of what makes a great nation.  At the core is liberty.  One cannot enjoy liberty and a smothering nanny state simultaneously.  To paraphrase Ben Franklin, those who trade liberty for security deserve neither.  This country was built on rugged individualism, not collectivism.  What made this country great were the entrepreneurs and risk-takers and dreamers.  We still celebrate the greatness of achievement and America still offers achievement’s best hope.

That’s the message the Republicans should be advancing and if gays, minorities and anyone else answers that call then they should be welcomed but you don’t change the message to pander to the masses.

The Republicans’ instructions for elections seem to be lose, Reince, repeat.

Rand Paul too good to be true?

I knew it.  Just when I was starting to get excited about Rand Paul as a possible presidential contender he blows it.  As he starts to lay out positions on important issue he voiced his support for a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens.  No matter how you try to slice it, that's amnesty and it's a non-starter with many conservatives.

Why is this issue so difficult?  We have people who broke into the country.  The only logical solution is to make them go back home and start the process over the legal way.  That's not cruel.  It's not mean-spirited.  It's a common sense approach to a gigantic problem.

George W. Bush was fond of saying we can't deport 20 million illegal aliens.  We didn't import them, we won't have to pay to deport them.  Simply demagnetize America and they choose the path of least resistance which is to go home.

We demagnetize America by cutting off the lures that brought them here in the first place: jobs and government benefits.  You crack down on employers who hire them and you make it a crime to knowingly provide government services, outside of emergency care, to someone who's in the country illegally.  It's pretty simple, really.  These folks would be packing tonight if they couldn't get a job or government benefits.  Crime would plummet.  Schools would have more money to educate citizens.  Prisons would cease to be overcrowded.

Two-thirds of the people who come up from Mexico into this country come legally.  That's right, most of the people who come to this country from Mexico come legally.  So, apparently it can be done.  The one-third that broke in needs to get the hell out and get in line.

These folks don't need a pathway to citizenship.  They need to beat a path back home.