Saudis Expelled
 
Attorney General William Barr is expected to confirm this afternoon that as many as 20 Saudi military students are being deported from the United States.  Their expulsion comes in the wake of increased vetting following the December shooting at Pensacola Naval Air Station.
 
Just over 10 years ago, 14 people were killed at Fort Hood.  That attack wasn't perpetrated by a foreign student.  Virtually everyone knew that Nidal Hasan was more loyal to Islam than he was to America. 
 
But military bureaucrats passed the buck because Hasan was playing the race card and the Islamophobia card.  Sadly, too many military leaders were more afraid of jeopardizing their own careers than protecting our soldiers. 
 
Ten years have passed since the atrocity at Fort Hood, and the problems of political correctness have only compounded during most of that time.  Don't forget the Bergdahl trade, in which Barack Obama traded five Taliban leaders for a deserter.
 
Fast forward to December 6, 2019.  While the FBI was using its vast intelligence capabilities to monitor the Trump campaign and wiretap various aides, several Saudi military students were visiting jihadist websites and sharing extremist materials, and apparently no one was monitoring them! 
 
When Donald Trump suggested that we didn't know enough about what was going on within radical Islam and should pause immigration from nations known to be hotbeds of jihadism, the roof caved in on him.  Politicians from both parties condemned him. 
 
I wish I saw that kind of outrage after three American personnel were murdered, not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq, but in their own country because a jihadist managed to get a gun where they were not permitted to have one. 
 
It is impossible to come up with a better example of how political correctness has put us in jeopardy!  Thank God we are beginning to rein it in.
 
 
 
Iran's Unbelievably Bad, Terrible Week
 
It all began at approximately 5:00 PM EST on Thursday, January 2nd when a drone took out Gen. Qassem Soleimani.  In retaliation, Iran fired 15 missiles at Iraqi bases on January 8th trying to kill U.S. soldiers.  They missed. 
 
Iran does have good missiles because a few hours later we discovered that they are very capable of shooting down civilian airlines with 176 passengers on board.  Iran's leaders spent the next 48 hours lying about the incident, but they eventually had to admit that they did shoot down the plane.  
 
Then Iran's only Olympic medalist defected, saying she could no longer tolerate the regime's oppression and that she was tired of wearing the hijab.  I'm still waiting for press releases from American feminist organizations praising this brave woman, but I'm not holding my breath. 
 
Thousands of Iranian students soon took to the streets.  Were they chanting, "Death to Israel"?  No.  "Death to America"?  No.  They were chanting "Death to the dictator," and "Death to liars" in protest of the ayatollah's regime.
 
Then the regime was hit by a tweet from President Trump in Farsi expressing America's solidarity with the Iranian people who seek freedom.  It quickly became the most liked Persian tweet in history. 
 
 
 
The Left's Spin Machine
 
Once the left decides what its talking points will be, within 24 hours virtually every progressive leader begins using the same arguments.  It is extraordinary to watch, and we saw it last week with the left's response to events in Iran.  But what concerns me is that the left appears to be echoing the mullahs of Iran. 
 
After Soleimani was killed, Iran said he was a national hero, that his death was an act of war and that the Iranian nation was united against America. 
 
Within hours, various politicians and left-wing commentators were saying, "Soleimani was a beloved hero."  They called his death "an act of war," and they suggested that President Trump had only succeeded in uniting Iranians against us.
 
Then the Ukrainian airliner was shot down.  Iran is caught in a lie when the regime eventually admits that it was responsible.  But the mullahs insist that America is ultimately responsible because they wouldn't have shot down the airliner without the strike on Soleimani. 
 
Incredibly, some progressives were quick to parrot Tehran by blaming America for the downing of the airliner.
 
It's not just the coordinated spin.  It's also what the left isn't saying that is so revealing.  I've not heard one liberal commentator or politician express support for the Iranian Olympic defector. 
 
And the same media that gave such glowing coverage to Soleimani's funeral barely covers the growing discontent among Iranian youth when they chant, "Death to the dictator!" 
 
It's odd that so many progressives, who are eager to attack faith in America, are unwilling to take a stand against the ayatollah and his theocratic regime. 
 
 
 
Meanwhile, Back In The Swamp. . .
 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to send the articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate in the next day or so, kicking off a trial that could last several weeks.  Needless to say, that dynamic is creating some strange optics.
 
There are many pressing issues confronting the country right now, like the ongoing situation in Iran or getting a major new trade deal through Congress. 
 
Overseas, protestors in Hong Kong are marching with U.S. flags.  In Taiwan, there are celebrations as the nation's anti-communist China president was just reelected by a landslide.  In Britain, Brexit is back on the agenda following a resurgence of populist conservatism.
 
But Washington is about to be consumed with Act II of Pelosi's Impeachapolooza, even though polling shows it ranks near the bottom of voters' concerns and priorities.