Retired General ‘Shocked and Overwhelmed’ After Trump Names Him Medal of Freedom Winner
Alex Wong / Getty ImagesChairman of the Board of the Institute for the Study of War Army Gen. Jack Keane testifies during a joint hearing before the Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee and the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on July 15, 2014, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)
President Donald Trump will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to retired four-star general and Fox News contributor Jack Keane.
Keane, who is a senior strategic analyst for the network, was informed of the honor in a phone call with Trump “a number of months ago,” he told “The Guy Benson Show” on Fox News Radio.
Gen. Keane told Benson the phone call was unexpected.
“I was, to be frank about it, shocked and overwhelmed by it. No one expects an honor like this, and I frankly I told him ‘I don’t think I deserve it, to be honest with you,’” he said.
According to Keane, Trump responded, “You know, someone told me that you were going to say that.”
“I’m no different than anybody else out there,” Keane added, according to Fox News.
“You know, I have a lot of love in my life and a lot of purpose and meaning associated with trying to protect this country as a soldier and then trying to also advocate for the security of the country as a retired general officer and foreign policy and national security analyst,” he said.
“So, it’s overwhelming, to be honest with you,” Keane concluded.
Do you support President Trump’s approach to foreign policy?
“This prestigious award is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, which may be awarded by the President to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” the release stated.
“General Jack Keane is a retired four-star general, former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and a well-respected foreign policy and national security expert. General Keane has devoted his life to keeping America safe and strong, and he has earned many awards, including two Defense Distinguished Service Medals, five Legions of Merit, two Army Distinguished Service Medals, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and the Ronald Reagan Peace through Strength Award.”
General Keane served as an infantry paratrooper during the Vietnam War and was decorated for valor. He later commanded the 101st Airborne Division and the 18th Airborne Corps.
During his 37-year career in public service, Keane was ultimately appointed as Army vice chief of staff and was in the Pentagon during the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to congressional documents.
Keane later wrote, “I was in the Pentagon on 9/11 and lost 85 teammates from the Army Headquarters (among the 125 people killed in the Pentagon and the 59 passengers who died on Flight 77).”
The decorated veteran officially retired in 2003, but has continued to advise senior government officials on strategies in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Keane, who is an expert on military and foreign policy matters, praised Trump’s decision to use a drone strike to eliminate Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January.
“This death of Soleimani has shook this regime the way nothing has in 41 years. Khamenei himself, I believe, is personally shook by it, stunned and surprised that it actually happened,” Keane told Fox News.
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In just the last few days Biden botched an attempt to recite the Declaration of Independence and confused his wife with his daughter. MRC analysts looked at the Big Three evening and morning shows (March 2 evening – March 5 morning) and found only CBS This Morning (59 total seconds) reported on the latest Biden bloopers. Even then, they just relegated them to in their “Eye-Opener” montage
An individual appearing to be a student at Evergreen State College snatched a sign from a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) activist and then defaced it, before appearing to hit the TPUSA activist with the sign. A second individual then approached the TPUSA activist and doused him with water.
“While tabling on behalf of Turning Point USA, a person identified as a The Evergreen State College student stole one of the foam signs from my tabling, defacing it — which is vandalism,” read the complaint form obtained by Breitbart News, which was filed with the school by TPUSA regional manager Richard Mills.
“When I approached the student, he hit me with the sign he stole. This was documented on film,” added Mills in the complaint form. “A second person, that looked like a student, doused me with water. In both instances, a group of shielded the identity of the attackers.”
The incident was also caught on video and later posted to Twitter by Mills.
Watch below:
I knew @EvergreenStCol had a reputation for not being very welcoming to conservative/libertarian viewpoints, but I didn’t realize it was this bad. While representing @TPUSA, a student vandalized a sign I had and hit me with it, while another person doused me with water. Insanity! pic.twitter.com/xFpHU3dni9
“So, this student just grabbed my sign and vandalized it, and he is not letting me film him at all,” said Mills as he followed the student who could be seen walking away, carrying his sign.
The student then appeared to hit the TPUSA activist with the sign.
“You just touched me,” reacted Mills. “What is your problem, dude?”
“You can’t film me, motherfucker,” responded the assailant.
“I absolutely can,” said Mills. “We are in public right now, and you just defaced my property, and you literally just physically touched me — I am calling the police.”
In another clip, Mills can be seen with what appears to be water doused all over his face.
“If you can see, I am literally covered with water,” said Mills. “So now these people are… wow, oh my God, this school.”
In a third clip, another student — appearing to be a bystander who had witnessed the altercation — can be heard saying, “I am so sorry,”
Mills told Breitbart News that the bystander had actually been a liberal student who had witnessed the entire incident, and had gotten upset over what he had seen. Mills added that the student went with him to speak to campus police and said that he would meet with school officials “to ensure the safety of people on campus exercising their First Amendment rights are protected — even if he disagrees with their messaging.”
“That was really cool to see,” said Mills. “It’s comforting to know that common sense Democrats are actually out there.”
“I understand that situations like this come with the territory of representing conservative ideas on college campuses known for leftist bias, but that doesn’t make them okay,” added Mills. “I hope that it’s not too late for society to get back to a point where discourse and respectful dialogue come before unwarranted hatred and extremism.”
“I also hope the faculty and campus police at The Evergreen State College take my formal complaint seriously, seeking to hold my attackers accountable for what they did,” said Mills. “It’s the least they could do after fostering an environment that has enabled students to feel justified in physically attacking random visitors on campus.”
Breitbart News has reported extensively on the leftist bias at Evergreen State College.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated terrorist organization, on Wednesday claimed scientists under its control are close to developing a vaccine for the Wuhan coronavirus, which is spreading like wildfire through Iran.
The commander of the IRGC, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, said on Thursday that the virus could be an American bio-weapon that spread to Iran after the United States used it to attack China.
According to an Al-Monitor report on Wednesday, the IRGC’s claims fit neatly into regime propaganda about “astonishing the world” by beating everyone else to a cure. Iranian health officials appear not to know what the IRGC is talking about, but they also have not called its leaders out as liars:
A medical research center affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it is testing a vaccine that promises to eradicate the killer coronavirus. According to Brig. Gen. Alireza Jalali, the president of Baqiatollah Medical Sciences University, the vaccine is awaiting permits from Iran’s Food and Drug Organization to enter the clinical phase.
No further details have been released on the vaccine. But in a statement March 4, the Food and Drug Organization “strongly denied” all recent “reports and rumors” on social media that had claimed a breakthrough in the fight against the virus. Still, the organization, which has the final authority on the production and distribution of medicines in Iran, did not make specific reference to the IRGC announcement.
The IRGC is also working to develop its own testing kits within 12 months. The scarcity of testing kits has been one of the impediments to proper handling of the outbreak in Iran.
Last week, Health Minister Saeed Namaki confidently declared in a letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Iran will soon “astonish the world by bringing the virus to its knees.” Only two days later, he was lamenting domestic hoarding of medical supplies and how it is depriving ordinary Iranians and his colleagues at hospitals of face masks and other badly needed protective equipment.
Al-Monitor added a darkly humorous postscript about the regime’s propaganda efforts: one of its brainstorms was to launch a “dance challenge” social media campaign to help the public “stay cheerful and spread optimism,” but since dancing is banned in Iran as offensive to Islam, the dancers must conceal their identities beneath masks and gowns or risk arrest by the morality police.
Iran’s official death toll from the coronavirus is 92, with 2,922 reported infections. 586 new cases were reported on Wednesday, including 15 fatalities.
As with authoritarian China, there are widespread suspicions the regime is dramatically under-counting both infections and deaths. Some of those allegations come from local Iranian government officials and hospital staffers.
Sources inside the Iranian healthcare system told the BBC last week that the actual death toll is at least six times higher than the regime is willing to admit. The Iranian opposition believes the actual death toll is over 1,300 and accuses the regime of making the epidemic worse by concealing its true extent for so long.
Radio Farda on Wednesday cited researchers who said Iran’s surge of new cases represents the regime becoming more honest about the scale of the epidemic after weeks of obvious false reporting, but Tehran is still nowhere near full transparency. Among other obvious deficiencies, the regime has stopped reporting new cases and deaths from the epicenter of the outbreak, the city of Qom:
Observers outside Iran including researchers in the United States and Europe agree that after several days of denial and playing down the number of those inflicted with the virus, Iran has started to announce more realistic figures since Tuesday that give a clearer picture of the outbreak’s dimension. However, there is likely to be a gap between real figures and what is being announced.
For at least two weeks Iran did not give away any figures and when it did it started with announcing with unusually small numbers while the public knew about deaths and widespread contagion at least in the three cities of Qom, Tehran and Rasht.
Three weeks into the outbreak, still the latest overall figures released by the Iranian government Tuesday morning, did not include information about Qom, Tehran and Gilan Province.
Radio Farda noted Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has stopped talking about the coronavirus. He does not really have to say anything since a growing number of top officials infected by the virus are conspicuously missing from his cabinet meetings.
The New York Times on Tuesday quoted sources in Iran who said their rulers “seem as worried about controlling information as they are about controlling the virus”:
Several said security agents stationed in each hospital had forbidden staff members from disclosing any information about shortages, patients or fatalities related to the coronavirus.
A nurse in a northwest Iranian city sent a private message to her family — later shared with The New York Times — describing a letter from the security service warning that sharing information about infected patients constitutes a “threat to national security” and “public fear mongering.” Such offenses “will be swiftly dealt with by a disciplinary committee,” the nurse said the letter had warned.
The secrecy and paranoia, doctors and other experts say, reflects what they call a counterproductive focus on Iran’s public image and prestige that appears to be damaging public trust and hindering more practical steps at containment.
On Thursday, IRGC commander Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami was delivering a homily to the former commander of the Quds Force foreign espionage unit, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, killed by a U.S. airstrike in January while organizing terrorist activity in Iraq. During these remarks, Salami said the coronavirus epidemic could be the result of an “American biological invasion” launched against China. Salami speculated the American bio-weapon spread out of control and jumped from China to Iran.
The Chinese Communist Party has also trafficked in theories that the coronavirus had foreign origins, and recently began insinuating that the virus might have originated in the United States.
The World Health Organization (WHO), which has been criticized for obsequious behavior towards China while the coronavirus epidemic was spreading from Wuhan, chose this moment to bizarrely praise Iran for doing a great job of containing the disease – and, as with China, the Iranian regime used state media to capitalize on the propaganda opportunity provided by WHO. From a Thursday report by Iran’s Fars News Agency:
“This is my second trip to Iran and according to my experiences, Iran is strong in managing crisis,” Bernan said on Wednesday in a video conference with managers of Tehran Municipality.
He referred to the check posts established at Iranian international airports, and said, “Iranian managers are paying a specific attention to curbing the virus.”
The WHO official added that Iran can exchange its acquired knowledge of the virus to the world, since it is getting experienced in dealing with it.
On the same day, as reported, Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) Esmaeil Baqayee Hamaneh met and held talks with Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Geneva.
During the meeting, the two sides discussed further cooperation on Iran’s strategic plan for the control of the coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, emphasizing the need for international cooperation to control the disease.
The World Health Organization on Monday sent its first planeload of assistance to Iran to help fight coronavirus, dispatching six medics with tons of medical equipment and test kits aboard a UAE military aircraft.
WHO apologists will doubtless offer the same defense given for its behavior toward China: the organization must flatter the paranoid and brutal regime in Tehran to gain its cooperation and maintain international medical access to infected people in Iran.
Whatever the merits of this political strategy, it resulted in the delirious spectacle of WHO saluting Iran’s performance as “successful and exemplary” while the virus runs amok in the totalitarian Islamist country, prisoners are released by the thousands to slow the coronavirus rampage through Iran’s disgusting jails, and the disease spreads relentlessly from Iran to Shiite Muslim populations across the Middle East.
A Gwinnett County Police Department supervisor was conducting a random audit of police bodycam videos when he found a touching moment worth sharing.
WXIA reported that on January 10, Sgt. Nick Boney witnessed a woman holding a bunch of balloons while walking down the street on a cold night.
Boney asked her where she was going, and the woman responded that she was heading home to her family because it was her daughter’s first birthday.
Boney asked if he could give her a ride, and she agreed, giving him a hug thanking him for the gesture. At some point during their conversation, the mother said she wanted to get her daughter a cake.
It was at that moment when Boney gave his credit card to Ofc. Jimmy Wilson, telling him to buy a cake and a “1” candle.
Both officers asked if they could meet the baby and deliver the surprise in person.
The family was so excited to meet the police officers they ran up to hug them.
Both the family and the officers gathered around a table to sing “Happy Birthday” to the one-year-old.
According to a tweet from the Gwinnett County Police Department, the touching moment was found during an audit of police bodycam videos.
Fox 5 Atlanta reported that the officers were not looking for credit for going above and beyond what they do and did not tell their superiors about the act of kindness.
President Donald Trump criticized Fox News on Wednesday night on one of its primetime shows just ahead of a town hall event with the network on Thursday.
The president spoke about Fox News during an interview with host Sean Hannity.
“So many people we have as supporters outside of just our Fox News, which, you know, I have my own little difficulties with, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told Hannity, after praising other pro-Trump media.
Trump criticized Fox News for interviewing Democrats and allowing their statements to go unchallenged.
“They put people on I think are inappropriate and say very, very false things and people don’t challenge them,” he said. “I think they’re trying to be very politically correct or ‘fair and balanced,’ right … is the term.”
“Yeah,” replied Hannity.
“But I think they hurt themselves if you want to know the truth,” Trump continued.
Trump is scheduled for a Fox News town hall event in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday night with the network, which will be moderated by anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.
Trump also criticized Fox News on Monday.
“Fox News is working hard pushing the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats,” he wrote on Twitter. “They want to be, unlike their competitors, CNN and MSDNC (Comcast), Fair and Balanced.”
Although the “Fair and Balanced” slogan was a signature for Fox News, the company stopped using the slogan in 2017.
“When will they ever learn. The Radical Left never even gave Fox News permission to partake in their low rated debates!” Trump concluded.
.@FoxNews is working hard pushing the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats. They want to be, unlike their competitors, @CNN & MSDNC (Comcast), Fair & Balanced. When will they ever learn. The Radical Left never even gave @FoxNews permission to partake in their low rated debates!
A public high school in Kentucky covered up a Bible verse in its locker room after a “concerned area resident” filed a complaint.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) sent a letter back in November to Letcher County Public Schools in Whitesburg, Kentucky, claiming that the message above the lockers goes against “the Constitution” by displaying “religious symbols or messages.”
Bold letters on the Letcher County Central High School’s locker room wall showed the words, “But the Lord is with me like a Mighty Warrior,” with attribution to the Bible verse Jeremiah 20:11. But in February, school officials painted over the words.
Also taken away was a bulletin board message displayed in Fleming Neon Middle School which said, “Jesus is my savior you cannot save me,” and a prayer for children posted on the Martha Jane Potter Elementary School Facebook page.
“The bulletin board has been replaced, the Facebook post has been removed, and the locker room has been repainted,” Superintendent Denise Yonts wrote in a February letter to the FFRF.
The FFRF praised Yonts’ decision to remove all faith-based imagery in public schools.
“We applaud the district for taking action to remedy this violation,” Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president, said in a statement. “Students in our public schools are free to practice any religion they choose— or none at all.”
But some religious freedom scholars say the district’s actions were in the wrong.
First Liberty Institute, a religious freedom law firm, said the district took action too soon to know whether a First Amendment violation had been committed.
“It is unfortunate that the school took such a drastic step before fully vetting the complaint and doing a proper investigation of the background facts,” Hiram Sasser, general counsel for First Liberty, told Fox News.
“It may be the case that the school committed a First Amendment violation by erasing the messages, but until a full investigation is done, it’s impossible to know the correct legal course,” Sasser continued.
This is not the first time the FFRF has tried to ban religious imagery or events in public schools.
In December, the group forced a public elementary school in Oklahoma to remove its live Nativity scene from the annual Christmas production after one of the group’s attorneys sent a letter stating that the school district was committing a “constitutional violation.”
A Wendy’s restaurant worker is getting some much-needed help from college students in Columbia, South Carolina.
When Malcolm Coleman’s home was damaged by a fire in January of 2019, he and his mother had nowhere to go, according to WBAL.
Not long after, Coleman’s father passed away, and because they could not afford home repairs due to a lapse in insurance, the two have been sleeping on family and friend’s couches ever since.
However, when University of South Carolina (USC) student Robert Caldaroni heard what happened to the young man who works at the campus restaurant and makes friends with everyone, he immediately took action.
He and fellow student Alexis Braz started a GoFundMe page to raise enough money for the home repairs and have so far raised $21,790 of its $75,000 goal.
The page read:
If you ever met him in person, you’d have no idea this tragedy had even happened. He’s still smiling and laughing. He still remembers your name and makes every student at USC feel special. But Malcolm needs our help! Malcolm certainly doesn’t feel entitled to charity. We as students of USC came to him to ask if he would be okay with us setting up this fundraiser for him and his mother.
“It can be easy to take the smile on your server’s face for granted, especially when you don’t know just how hard they’re working to put it on,” the fundraising page said.
In a Facebook post February 14, Coleman thanked everyone for their kindness and generosity during such a difficult time.
“These past few days has [sic] been humbling and affirming that when you lead with your heart, goodness comes back to you. So please know that I do not take any of these beautiful acts of kindness lightly or for granted,” he wrote.
“I love you all very much and God bless you all abundantly so!!!!” Coleman concluded.
One Of The Most Powerful Labor Leaders In The US Has Been Charged With Conspiring To Steal Union Money
Former UAW President Gary Jones, a labor leader who until recently held the same job that made Jimmy Hoffa a national icon (before his untimely murder/disappearance) has been charged by federal prosecutors with conspiring to embezzle union funds, WSJ reports.
Prosecutors claimed Jones used union funds to finance "trips, liquor and other luxuries" despite presenting himself as a labor leader and man of the people who eschewed the lifestyles of the fat-cat auto execs sitting across from him at the bargaining table.
Jones is now the highest-ranking former UAW official to be charged in the years-long federal investigation of the union.
Back in November, we reported Jones’s resignation, which came just weeks after the union struck a deal with General Motors to end one of the longest labor strikes in history. Jones had already been on ‘leave’ for a few weeks when he left. 10 others – mostly former union officials – have pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges as part of the investigation. Jones was initially believed to not be facing charges, though he was allegedly identified as "UAW official A" in the indictment of another union official.
Over the summer, the FBI raided Jones’s home, which we reported at the time.
If he hadn’t resigned, Jones would have been facing a ‘union trial’ over the alleged misuse of funds, though it’s believed he won’t be facing the proceeding now that he has resigned.
Around the same time, GM sued Fiat Chrysler alleging the auto manufacturer bribed top UAW officials to secure better terms during a labor negotiation. The investigation is believed to have initiated over the bribes, which encouraged the union leadership to screw over the workers to whom they were responsible to brazenly enrich themselves.
It’s just another reminder to always be skeptical of those who portray themselves as ‘champions of the working man’.
Alex Wong / Getty ImagesChairman of the Board of the Institute for the Study of War Army Gen. Jack Keane testifies during a joint hearing before the Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee and the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on July 15, 2014, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)
