Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Exclusive: India Readying $2.6 Billion U.S. Naval Helicopter Deal Ahead Of Trump Trip
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| FILE PHOTO: A man holds the flags of India and the U.S. while people take part in the 35th India Day Parade in New York August 16, 2015. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo |
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India is set to give final approval to a $2.6 billion deal for military helicopters from U.S. defense firm Lockheed Martin ahead of a visit by U.S. President Donald Trump this month, defense and industry sources said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is trying to pull out all the stops for Trump’s trip in a bid to reaffirm strategic ties between the two countries, which have been buffeted by sharp differences over trade, to counter China.
India’s defense purchases from the United States have reached $17 billion since 2007 as it has pivoted away from traditional supplier Russia, looking to modernize its military and narrow the gap with China.
Modi’s cabinet committee on security is expected to clear the purchase of 24 MH-60R Seahawk helicopters for the Indian navy in the next two weeks, a defense official and an industry source briefed on the matter separately told Reuters.
“It’s a government-to-government deal, it is close,” said the industry source.
To cut short lengthy negotiations between Lockheed and the Indian government, the helicopters that will be deployed on India’s warships will be bought through the U.S. foreign military sales route, under which the two governments will agree details of the deal.
Trump will visit India Feb. 24-25, the White House said on Monday, his first official trip to the country.
Both countries are separately working on a limited trade agreement ahead of the trip, after earlier imposing tit-for-tat tariffs on each other’s imports.
Trump has called India the “tariff king of the world” but the Modi government has been trying to address some of his concerns.
Trade officials have pointed to large-scale U.S. arms purchases, from surveillance planes to Apache and Chinook helicopters, as proof of India’s willingness to tighten strategic ties.
On Monday, the U.S. State Department said it had approved an Indian request for an Integrated Air Defense Weapon System for an estimated cost of $1.87 billion, which would further...
Trump’s Deep State Purge Continues as 70 NSC Employees Follow Alexander Vindman Out the Door
Now that the impeachment hysteria is over, President Trump is cleaning house.
President Donald Trump is getting rid of the dead weight within the Washington D.C. swamp now that his impeachment trial has come to an end.
In addition to the firing of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman last week, Trump has dismissed 70 employees from the National Security Council (NSC), many of whom have ties to former President Barack Obama.
This could be the first of many cuts coming within the NSC. National security adviser Robert O’Brien has said that the intention is to get the NSC down to roughly 100 employees, far less than the 700 bureaucrats that Obama employed while he was vastly expanding power in Washington D.C.
“This month, we will complete the right-sizing goal Ambassador O’Brien outlined in October, and in fact, may exceed that target by drawing down even more positions,” John Ullyot, the NSC’s senior director for strategic communications, said to the Washington Examiner.
President Trump blasted Vindman on his Twitter account after the man was fired from his role as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union last week:
Fake News @CNN & MSDNC keep talking about “Lt. Col.” Vindman as though I should think only how wonderful he was. Actually, I don’t know him, never spoke to him, or met him (I don’t believe!) but, he was very insubordinate, reported contents of my “perfect” calls incorrectly, &...
....was given a horrendous report by his superior, the man he reported to, who publicly stated that Vindman had problems with judgement, adhering to the chain of command and leaking information. In other words, “OUT”.
35K people are talking about this
“Those who suggested President Trump’s behavior would improve following his impeachment have been proven wrong. I sincerely hope that all members of Congress condemn this latest reprehensible, yet sadly predictable conduct by...
Democrats Panic as Trump Popularity Increases Among Black Voters
On CBS’s Face the Nation, Democrat political analyst Jamal Simmons, expressed his concern with support for the president from black Americans.
“I’m gonna send this flag up to the Democratic Party — people need to understand this. We talked to Terrance Woodbury, who’s a young African American pollster. He has been saying for months that he thinks President Trump has been going very hard at African American men, particularly young African American men.”
Simmons cited Kim Kardashian and Kanye West as well as funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) as possible reasons for increasing support for the president from the black community.
“I think they’re not gonna let up,” he continued. “He doesn’t have to win, he just has to tick it up a couple points in some key places to have it count. And Democrats need to have a candidate who really has a strategy about how to deal with that.”
On Saturday, CNN’s Van Jones joined S.E. Cupp’s show, Unfiltered, where he claimed Democrats have taken the black vote “for granted.”
“Our party is ‘We’ll spend a billion dollars on an election and 97% of the campaign dollars go to white male-owned firms.’ So you know, again, what is it that we’re getting out of this relationship? I think that it can strengthen the African-American community overall having the competition between the two parties. For a long time, the black vote was taken for granted by Democrats and written off by Republicans. That’s not happening this year.”
“I would accuse my party at this point of having engaged in three years of fantasy football politics where we said, ‘OK, don’t worry. Trump is never going to be seated because the Electoral College won’t seat him.’ Remember that?” Jones continued.
"Democrats have as our core vote the African American vote. That's the cornerstone of our party and in some ways there's a feeling that maybe we've taken that vote for granted for too long." @VanJones68 tells @secupp why Dems can't dismiss Trump's attempt to court black voters. pic.twitter.com/QaBXCtEl0i— SE Cupp Unfiltered (@UnfilteredSE) February 9, 2020
“The thing about it is, and we’ve got to wake up, folks, there’s a whole bubble thing that goes on, he said s-hole nations, therefore all black people are going to hate him forever. That ain’t necessarily so. I think what you’re going to see him do, you may not like my rhetoric, but look at my results and my record to black people, if he narrow casts that, it’s going to...
Swedish Communist Party: The Left Has Abandoned the Working Class For Migrants & LGBT
Identity politics has supplanted income inequality and the cost of living.
Former members of the Swedish Communist Party have accused the new left of abandoning working class people in favor of becoming obsessed with mass migration, Greta Thunberg and LGBT issues.
“Nils Littorin, an ex-member of the Malmö branch of the Communist Party, told Lokatidningen that the Left of today has become part of the elite who has lost contact with the working class it was supposed to represent,” reports Voice of Europe.
Littorin is planning to help launch a new socialist party that will eschew the fixation with climate change alarmism and identity politics that has come to define leftist political movements.
“The Left doesn’t understand why so many workers don’t think that multiculturalism, the LGBT movement, and Greta Thunberg are something fantastic, but instead believe we are in the 1930’s Germany and that workers who vote for the Sweden Democrats have been infected by some Nazi sickness,” he explained.
According to Littorin, real issues such as income inequality and the cost of living are being dominated by fringe middle class concerns that do not resonate with working class people.
“Pride, for instance, has been reduced to dealing with sexual orientation,” he said. “We believe that human dignity is primarily about having a job and...
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #196
Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.
If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.
Please Leave Silently Into The Night......
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #894
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Monday, February 10, 2020
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