Thursday, July 19, 2018
The Ukraine Was a Test Case of American Foreign Policy Moralism Vs. American Foreign Policy Realism, and Realism Won in a Rout
It's not moral or ethical to encourage people to go to war, that you have their back, and then sit by while they get killed. Long, but worth reading the whole thing.
America has a limited appetite for war. Americans will go to war, but they do reach a point of exhaustion with war after some number of years.It is silly to pretend this fact away in order to count oneself as "idealistic." People who ignore reality are not "idealistic;" they're just cowards afraid to face reality.The fact is that Americans are tired of war and it is dangerous to write checks on America's war-fighting account that it might not be willing to cover.The fact is that one of America's two main political parties is always willing to be part of a war at the Fun Part of the war -- the declaration of war part, the first-easy-victories part -- but which abandons every war it votes for when it sees any small political advantage in doing so.Joe Biden, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and many other Democrat Senators voted for the War in Iraq. Within three years, they were screaming that Bush "lied us into war" and that we must withdraw immediately.It is insane to pretend this away. If you know Democrats will give you initial support for a war they'll happily vote you into, when doing so grants them political advantage, and then savagely turn on that war the moment they get political advantage from that, it is lunacy to even count them as allies in war.By the way: The NeverTrumpers who sometimes claim "At least Hillary Clinton would have been better on foreign policy?" Yes, of course. The same Hillary Clinton who voted for the War in Iraq to show how tough she would be as a president, and then agitated to abandon troops in the field when she realized that opposing the war would boost her chances of becoming president.Yeah, we need that kind of patriot as President, rather than the unamerican, immoral Trump.
In 2008, Obama campaigned on the idea that he would somehow both withdraw from Iraq and yet also "win" Iraq by withdrawing.I was incensed by this; it was so obviously, transparently a lie and a dodge. He wasn't planning to "win" anything; he just wanted to bug out. I was angry at the media for never challenging his "Win by Withdrawing" claims and pissed off at Americans for believing this bullshit.But they voted him into office anyway, and by decent margins. I realized that Americans weren't really tricked by Obama; rather, Obama told them a lie that they knew was a lie but they wanted some "out" to pretend they were honoring the sacrifice of the already-dead while also bugging out of Iraq.So Obama pretended he would "win" the war in Iraq, and the American public pretended to believe him.
Labels: Ace of Spades, foreign policy, Obama Fail, OBAMA LIES
Another Lefty documents his fall from Grace.
I may have commented on this before, but if not it's worth a link.
But here's a good point:
Here's the money quote from this guy, its is an excellent observation:Social justice is a surveillance culture, a snitch culture. The constant vigilance on the part of my colleagues and friends did me in. That's why I'm delivering sushi and pizza.He means its the Stazi. And it totally is. Ask yourself, when the Stazi came knocking, would a grovelling apology have saved the one they came for? Nope. By then its too late.When the Stazi comes, all there is left to choose is the manner of your death. You can die well, on your feet like a Man, or like a dog in a ditch. Metaphorically speaking of course. They can't -really- come for you.Yet.
Labels: liberal fascism, Social Justice Warrior, spying, Stazi
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Relative On Librarians’ Dismissal Of Her Work: ‘Trying To Rewrite’ History
Airbrushing history is what Communists do. One day you're in Stalin's inner circle, the next you're and enemy of the people, you're dead and your image disappears from official photographs.
When the American Library Association renamed an award formerly bearing Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name, calling her works “dated” and racially offensive, the reaction was swift and passionate. Wilder is more than just another author for many people. She’s been a long-standing, much beloved American icon for generations of children.
Those librarians may have underestimated how large and deep the outcry would be, but stripping Wilder’s name and legacy seems to be a rallying point for many people right now. It’s more than just an award being renamed, this is a symbol of the rewriting of American history into a cleaner, more palatable and PC version....
I am sad to see them politicizing Laura’s words. She was an inspiration for us and was a kind, caring person. You could see it in her eyes. Since I was only six years old when she passed, I do not remember much other than the kindness in her eyes and her smile. A Native American elder who helped me through the loss of my children once told me, “Some of the Creator’s best people come from the hardest tempering.”
Truer words could not be spoken of Laura. Her life was hard, and she expressed herself the best way that she could based on the time period. Why people have to change her words to suit modern times is beyond me. History and life does not work that way. Those who have the ability to see the soul that resides within Laura’s eyes will understand. The rest belongs to history.
Labels: airbrushing history, America Hating Liberals, American Library Association, Communism, Little House
Brennan the Communist gets paid by CNN
"John Brennan started out his adulthood by voting for the communist party presidential candidate. He is now ending his career by showing himself to be the most biased, bigoted, over the top, hyperbolic, and unhinged Director of the CIA we have ever had." -@RandPaul.
"John Brennan started out his adulthood by voting for the communist party presidential candidate. He is now ending his career by showing himself to be the most biased, bigoted, over the top, hyperbolic, and unhinged Director of the CIA we have ever had." -@RandPaul. pic.twitter.com/OUt6xn2uOj— Nick Short 🇺🇸 (@PoliticalShort) July 18, 2018
Have you ever noticed that Brennan looks like he could be a Soviet official? He has that sort of face.
Labels: Brennan, CIA, Communism
Coulter: remember when the media and the Democrats criticized the intelligence agencies. That ws SOP until Trump did it.
They [the media and Democrats] also spent decades defending Russian dictators.
Abandoning every position they've ever held to attack Trump is standard operating procedure these days.
In addition to Trump's not challenging Putin to a fistfight in Helsinki, the media have gone bananas over the fact that he cited the findings of our intelligence agencies -- but then added that Putin denied the charges.
HE'S BELIEVING PUTIN OVER OUR OWN INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES? Moral equivalence! Treason! High crimes and misdemeanors! Kristallnacht! Trump might as well have trampled on a portrait of George Washington. (Or, since we're talking about liberals, Stalin.)
But the way I remember it, elected Democrats -- even Democratic candidates for president -- have criticized our intelligence agencies pretty ferociously, particularly regarding the Iraq War.
The media turned that clown Joe Wilson into a national hero for ridiculing the findings of our intelligence agencies.
At the inception of the war, U.S. intelligence, British intelligence and the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Saddam Hussein had been seeking massive quantities of uranium from Niger.
But Joe Wilson was sent by his wife, a non-covert, paper-pushing CIA agent, on a trip to Niger, where he looked government officials directly in the eye and asked them: Did Saddam send envoys to this godforsaken country that has nothing to sell but uranium in order to buy uranium? Be honest! I have absolutely no way of knowing if you are lying, and powerful, nuclear-armed nations will be really mad at you if you say "yes."
It was on the basis of this conversation that Wilson concluded, as he wrote in The New York Times: "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
Far from condemning this unpatriotic lout for crapping on our intelligence agencies, the media made him a star! Only a fool like George W. Bush would believe our inept intelligence agencies over the word of a government official from Niger.
So doing an about-face on a previous, long-held position is no problem for liberals, provided it serves the larger purpose of getting Trump.
This is a good time to remind us of the Ace of Spades comment on the Ruling Class:
This kind of blatant double-standard on the part of the left is a feature, I think, not a bug.The inconsistency may reveal that the left inflicts "rules" on its enemies that it feels free to ignore itself. But that itself is a demonstration of the left's power-- I think they get off on openly announcing that they are free to make up rules to impose on others and completely violate those same rules with impunity.It's a demonstration of how much power they have, and maybe more importantly, how much power you don't have.They want you to know who's in charge, and who you must bow to, and this sort of blatant, not-even-hiding-it demonstration of their power to unilaterally print up entire tomes of new rules and also unilaterally suspend operation of those rules when they choose is nothing if not a reminder of who is the ruler, and who is the ruled.
Labels: CIA, Coulter, Intelligence, Iraq, media hypocrisy
Ann Coulter reminds us of Democrat Presidents who were cozy with the Russians
With Russia, liberals get an extra bonus of bludgeoning Trump over his nonexistent collusion with Russia -- our greatest enemy since very, very recently.At least no Democratic president ever publicly embraced a Russian dictator, while handing him all of Eastern Europe at Yalta, so the left's conscience is clear!Actually, no. Until all the Roosevelt statues come down, liberals need to settle down about Russia. At least Trump isn't calling Putin "Uncle Vlad" and giving him one-third of Europe, as he is being advised by two Russian spies.
Labels: Democrats collude with Russia, Europe, Roosevelt, Russia
Ace on the Media's double standard. "Gay jokes were officially made a Crime Against the State sometime around 2009. But not if you're part of the State Media."
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Ace as talking about this kind of gay-baiting. Gay jokes were officially made a Crime Against the State sometime around 2009. But not if you're part of the State Media.
This kind of blatant double-standard on the part of the left is a feature, I think, not a bug.The inconsistency may reveal that the left inflicts "rules" on its enemies that it feels free to ignore itself. But that itself is a demonstration of the left's power-- I think they get off on openly announcing that they are free to make up rules to impose on others and completely violate those same rules with impunity.It's a demonstration of how much power they have, and maybe more importantly, how much power you don't have.They want you to know who's in charge, and who you must bow to, and this sort of blatant, not-even-hiding-it demonstration of their power to unilaterally print up entire tomes of new rules and also unilaterally suspend operation of those rules when they choose is nothing if not a reminder of who is the ruler, and who is the ruled.
It's a feature designed to demonstrate the power of the Ruling Class.
It's one of the main reasons they hate Trump: he's not afraid to push back ... twice as hard. They're not used to that and they hate it.
The amusing thing is that the dim bulbs that run the Virginian Pilot lost the plot a long time ago.
Labels: Ace of Spades, homosexuality, media hypocrisy, TimesLies, Virginian Pilot
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Trump the negotiator
What has the media done while Trump is MAGA?
He is a tough and smart negotiator. He sizes up his opponent, and he knows that the approach that works best for one is not the same as for another. It does not matter what he says publicly about his negotiating opponent. What matters is what results months later. In his first eighteen months in Washington, this man has turned around the American economy, brought us near full employment, reduced the welfare and food stamp lines, wiped out ISIS in Raqqa, moved America’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem, successfully has launched massive deregulation of the economy, has opened oil exploration in ANWR, is rebuilding the military massively, has walked out of the useless Paris Climate Accords that were negotiated by America’s amateurs who always get snookered, canned the disastrous Iran Deal, exited the bogus United Nations Human Rights Council. He has Canada and Mexico convinced he will walk out of NAFTA if they do not pony up, and he has the Europeans convinced he will walk out of NATO if they don’t stop being the cheap and lazy parasitic penny-pinchers they are. He has slashed income taxes, expanded legal protections for college students falsely accused of crimes, has taken real steps to protect religious freedoms and liberties promised in the First Amendment, boldly has taken on the lyme-disease-quality of a legislative mess that he inherited from Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama on immigration, and has appointed a steady line of remarkably brilliant conservative federal judges to sit on the district courts, the circuit appellate courts, and the Supreme Court.What has Anderson Cooper achieved during that period? Jim Acosta or the editorial staffs of the New York Times and Washington Post? They have not even found the courage and strength to stand up to the coworkers and celebrities within their orbits who abuse sexually or psychologically or emotionally. They have no accomplishments to compare to his. Just their effete opinions, all echoing each other, all echoing, echoing, echoing. They gave us eight years of Nobel Peace Laureate Obama negotiating with the ISIS JV team, calming the rise of the oceans, and healing the planet.We will take Trump negotiating with Putin any day.
A short history of the last 50 years
The Bushes got us into all kinds of messes. The first one killed the economic miracle that Reagan had fashioned. The second one screwed up the Middle East, where Iraq and Iran beautifully were engaged in killing each other for years, and he got us mired into the middle of the muddle. Clinton was too busy with Monica Lewinsky to protect us from Osama bin Laden when we had him in our sights. Hillary gave us Benghazi and more. And Obama and Kerry gave us the Iran Deal, ISIS run amok, America in retreat. All to the daily praise of a media who now attack Trump every minute of every day.
Labels: Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump
Everyone Is Smart Except Trump
Yet it's Donald J. Trump who's President, has a beautiful model as his wife, and is a billioniare. Go figure.It really is quite simple. Everyone is smart except Donald J. Trump. That’s why they all are billionaires and all got elected President. Only Trump does not know what he is doing. Only Trump does not know how to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. Anderson Cooper knows how to stand up to Putin. The whole crowd at MSNBC does. All the journalists do.They could not stand up to Matt Lauer at NBC. They could not stand up to Charlie Rose at CBS. They could not stand up to Mark Halperin at NBC. Nor up to Leon Wieseltier at the New Republic, nor Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone, nor Michael Oreskes at NPR, at the New York Times, or at the Associated Press. But — oh, wow! — can they ever stand up to Putin! Only Trump is incapable of negotiating with the Russian tyrant.Remember the four years when Anderson Cooper was President of the United States? And before that — when the entire Washington Post editorial staff jointly were elected to be President? Remember? Neither do I.The Seedier Media never have negotiated life and death, not corporate life and death, and not human life and death. They think they know how to negotiate, but they do not know how. They go to a college, are told by peers that they are smart, get some good grades, proceed to a graduate degree in journalism, and get hired as analysts. Now they are experts, ready to take on Putin and the Iranian Ayatollahs at age 30.
Labels: anti-Trump media, Trump
Peter Strzok Grew Up In Iran, Worked As Obama and Brennan’s Envoy To Iranian Regime
Well, this is interesting. Who is Peter Strzok really?
A former co-worker of Peter Strzok tells Big League Politics about Strzok’s extensive background in the intelligence community, including the fact that he grew up in Iran. Many intelligence officers like Strzok are complete ghosts with questionable history and gaps in their life story. But now we have some insight. (RELATED: Strzok Worked For CIA And FBI At Same Time, According To Document).
Peter Strzok was born in the late 1960’s – he attended the American School in Iran up until 1978 when it closed down and then he attended the American School in Saudi Arabia. He supposedly attended a Catholic School, St. John’s Prep in Minneapolis (the school refused to confirm or deny attendance) and then completed a Bachelors at Georgetown and some form of graduate degree after that.
The truth is that after Peter Strzok III turned 18 his life is arcane, which is the usual story of many like him. Did you know that Peter Strzok II (Strzok’s father) and Hillary Clinton have a lot in common? It turns out after advocating for Khomeni in Iran and then working in Saudi Arabia to calm the waters of an Iranian government (appeasing them with anti-Semitic rhetoric), Strzok’s father Strzok II also dabbled in “charity work.” Strzok’s father was involved in so-called charity work in Haiti but also helped dismantle and reassemble Upper Volta..now known as Burkina Faso.
A lot of it's conjecture, but the image of Peter Strzok, simple FBI agent who hated Trump, may be a distration from the truth. Like the quesions about the DNC server we should ask: who and what is Peter Strzok.
And there's more:
Peter Strzok Was CIA And FBI At The Same Time, Say Experts
Strzok was the main operative in “Operation Crossfire Hurricane,” a Deep State plot to run legal attacks on President Trump’s team.Now we know that Strzok was really a CIA agent. He only held a ceremonial title in the Bureau, but was really operating under the leadership of the CIA, including Obama’s vindictive CIA director John Brennan.intellihub reports: “A sheep-dipped Peter Strzok has been covertly operating as the Section Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Counterespionage Group during his secret 24 year tenure with the agency while masquerading as Deputy Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Counterintelligence Division where he was in charge of investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server along with the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
Both John Brennan and James Comey used Peter Strzok to damage President Donald Trump. Strzok is the disgraced FBI agent and fired Robert Mueller team member whose text messages with mistress Lisa Page form the biggest scandal in FBI history. The lovers conspired to illegally bring down Trump, all while the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign....When it was time for the conspirators to focus on Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, Strzok was there to run information about the adviser to the Australians. When it was time to take out Trump’s national security adviser General Michael Flynn, Strzok was there to stage an “ambush” interrogation of Flynn without Flynn’s lawyer present.
Labels: Deep State, FBI, Strzok
Trump’s Helsinki Comments Were a Defense of U.S. Voters, Not of Russia
D. C. MCALLISTER
The most obvious motivation was Trump’s standard business modus operandi of taking the psychological high ground by complimenting the man on the other side of the table. Through praise and pacification, Trump hopes his adversary will let down his guard to allow for more communication and negotiation, or hopes he will be distracted while Trump plans harsher methods in the future.This isn’t 3-D chess. It’s a simple tactic....Second, context matters. Trump didn’t just plop down in Helsinki and criticize America’s intelligence community and give Putin leeway when it comes to the Russian government meddling in the U.S. election on a whim. This meeting came after two years of unprecedented investigation of a presidential candidate and a president who has been accused of colluding with a foreign government based only on opposition research by the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign.The media leaks, counterintelligence investigation, improper FISA warrants, use of spies before a full investigation has even begun, a special counsel probe into collusion without evidence of a crime, biased investigators, more media leaks, and hounding of the president at every step by the intelligence community have disrupted our political system far more than any Russian meddling could -- meddling that wasn’t new to 2016, by the way.The fact is, despite the many indictments in the investigation, there have been no charges of collusion and no evidence of collusion, but the narrative of collusion continues. Trump’s election by the American people has been repeatedly questioned and his presidency targeted for delegitimization by individuals wielding a great deal of power in secret. Even now, calls for impeachment based on thin air are ringing across the media and in the halls of government.This false narrative has been driven by members of the FBI and the intel community who had a hand in propping up false evidence in an investigation, and who worked with foreign governments to gather information in a case against Trump with no basis in fact. In the words of FBI special agent Peter Strzok: “We will stop him!”This effort to malign, sabotage, and then seek to remove a duly elected president based on no evidence of collusion or wrongdoing is an attack on the American voter. It’s not about Trump, it’s about them, because they put him there.
This is an excellent point. It's fundamentally an attack on the American people who voted for Trump and an attack on the American election system. The truth is that the Russians and other foreign powers who have been trying to influence our elections have been minor league compared to the Democrat/Leftists/Media attacks on our elections. It's not an exaggeration to say that at this point, CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times and the Washington Post are bigger threats to democracy than Putin. Deposing a sitting president who is innocent of a crime on trumped up charges threatens the future of this country as a representaive Republic. This is what treason looks like.
Labels: collusion, Democrats collude with Russia, election, Shithole press, treason, Trump
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
Maybe Trump is actually trying to drive his opponents batshit crazy.
Some thoughts from Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds
Perhaps the domestic political class was Trump’s intended audience, and he intended them to go batshit crazy. In that case, A+.Meanwhile, Roger Kimball writes: What Critics Missed About the Trump-Putin Summit.As becomes more and more clear as the first Trump Administration evolves, this president is someone who is willing, nay eager, to challenge the bureaucratic status quo, on domestic issues as well as in foreign policy.Trump inherited a world order on the international front that was constructed in the immediate aftermath of World War II and has subsequently amassed a thick, barnacle-like carapace of bureaucratic procedures. Perhaps those procedures and the institutions that deploy them continue to serve American interests. But what if they don’t?As I’ve said, the best way to understand the Trump presidency is as the renegotiation of the post-World War II institutional structure. Naturally, the barnacles don’t like that. Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re wrong, but the intensity of their screaming indicates their emotional (and livelihood) investment, not who’s right.Meanwhile, if the argument is that Trump is a Putin stooge, the arguers have to deal with the fact that Trump is clearly harder on Russia than Obama was, or than Hillary, by all appearances, would have been. Even NeverTrumper Eric Erickson writes: Remember, Trump’s Policies Against Russia Have Been Tougher Than Obama’s.We’ve been killing Russian mercenaries in Syria. We have expanded and enhanced NATO’s footprint in Eastern Europe over Russian objections. We have sold military weaponry to Ukraine. We have been indicting Russians for interfering in our elections. We have imposed sanctions on Russian oligarchs. We have imposed sanctions on Russia itself. We have actively been aiding Britain and other governments that have seen a Russian presence with targeted assassinations. “We” being the United States under Donald Trump. (See also this thread by James Kirchick)The media and left would have you believe Donald Trump is captive to Russia. Lately, they’ve been pushing the idea that he may be some sort of sleeper cell Manchurian candidate who Putin owns and controls.A fellow law prof (of the lefty variety) was even speculating the other day on social media that Melania was Trump’s KGB control agent.As Walter Russell Mead wrote last year:If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:Limiting fracking as much as he possibly couldBlocking oil and gas pipelinesOpening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductionsCutting U.S. military spendingTrying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally IranThat Trump is planning to do precisely the opposite of these things may or may not be good policy for the United States, but anybody who thinks this is a Russia appeasement policy has been drinking way too much joy juice.Obama actually did all of these things, and none of the liberal media now up in arms about Trump ever called Obama a Russian puppet; instead, they preferred to see a brave, farsighted and courageous statesman.So I don’t know if Trump knows what he’s doing. (As proof that his remarks were dumb, he’s already walked them back) American presidents have historically done badly in their first meetings with Russian leaders, from Kennedy at Vienna to George W. staring into Putin’s soul. And as a general rule, Presidents don’t criticize their own intelligence agencies while at meetings with foreign adversaries. But then, as a general rule, U.S. intelligence agencies aren’t supposed to be involved in domestic politics up to their elbows, as has clearly been the case here. And don’t get me started on John Brennan’s disgraceful comments, which Rand Paul correctly calls “completely unhinged.” Brennan, like his colleagues Comey and Clapper, has made clear the rot at the top of important intelligence agencies, and people like Peter Strzok suggest that the rot extends some ways down from the head. So maybe the general rules don’t apply any more, and Trump is more a symptom than a cause of that.
Labels: Instapundit, Trump, Trump Haters
Diplomacy 101 Versus Politics Writ Small
Angelo Codevilla
And this:
The high professional quality of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s performance at their Monday press conference in Helsinki contrasts sharply with the obloquy by which the bipartisan U.S. ruling class showcases its willful incompetence.
Though I voted for Trump, I’ve never been a fan of his and I am not one now. But, having taught diplomacy for many years, I would choose the Trump-Putin press conference as an exemplar of how these things should be done. Both spoke with the frankness and specificity of serious business. This performance rates an A+.
Both presidents started with the basic truth.
Putin: The Cold War is ancient history. Nobody in Russia (putting himself in this category) wants that kind of enmity again. It is best for Russia, for America, and for everybody else if the two find areas of agreement or forbearance.
Trump: Relations between the globe’s major nuclear powers have never been this bad—especially since some Americans are exacerbating existing international differences for domestic partisan gain. For the sake of peace and adjustment of differences where those exist and adjustment is possible, Trump is willing to pay a political cost to improve those relations (if, indeed further enraging his enemies is a cost rather than a benefit).
In short, this was a classic statement of diplomatic positions and a drawing of spheres of influence.
And this:
This led to the final flourish. The Associated Press reporter demanded that Trump state whether he believes the opinions of U.S. intelligence leaders or those of Putin. It would be healthy for America were it to digest Trump’s answer: The truth about the charge that Russia stole the contents of the Democratic National Committee’s computer server is not to be found in the opinions of any persons whatever. The truth can be discovered only by examining the server in question—assuming it has not been tampered with since the alleged event. But, said Trump emphatically, those making the accusations against Russia have refused to let the server be examined by U.S. intelligence or by any independent experts. What is the point of accusations coupled with refusal of access to the facts of the matter?
The classic texts of diplomatic practice teach that diplomacy advances the cause of peace and order only to the extent that its practitioners avoid contentious opinions and stick to demonstrable facts.
The AP reporter, who should be ashamed, is beyond shame. Then again, so are the ruling class representatives who have redoubled their animus against Trump. Cheap partisanship is not all that harmful. It is the transfer of domestic partisan animus to international affairs, however, that has the potential to start wars.
Not so long ago, American school kids had to read George Washington’s farewell address, which warned in the most emphatic terms at his command to avoid that sort of thing for the sake of peace with other nations as well as among ourselves.
What that ignorant “journalist” was demanding of Trump—precisely what the credentialed experts should know better than to have demanded—was that the president of the United States scream at the president of Russia for all his evils. Competitive “virtue signaling” has become the way of political life in America. To the extent that it bleeds into America’s foreign policy, we are all in big trouble.
Labels: Helsinki, press conference, Putin, Trump
SLEEPING GIANTS’ ANONYMOUS FOUNDER UNMASKED; TOP AD WRITER BEHIND BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN TARGETING BREITBART, INGRAHAM
The founder of Sleeping Giants, a left-wing activist group that has targeted right-wing voices with boycott campaigns, has managed to keep his identity a secret, even as his own group has become a major political player among liberals. Until now.
Sleeping Giants was founded by Matt Rivitz.
Labels: liberal fascism
Monday, July 16, 2018
Steve Bannon on Nationalism
Once Again, President Trump Is Magnificently Right—This Time About Russia
Something you will not see anywhere in the MSM for a while.
President Trump offended the entire political spectrum with a tweet this morning blaming the U.S. for poor relations with Russia. “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity,” the president said, and he is entirely correct. By this I do not mean to say that Russia is a beneficent actor in world affairs or that President Putin is an admirable world leader. Nonetheless, the president displayed both perspicacity and political courage when he pointed the finger at the United States for mismanaging the relationship with Russia....The United States supported the 2014 Maidan uprising in Ukraine and the overthrow of the Yanukovych government in the hope of repeating the exercise in Moscow sometime later. Then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland pulled whatever strings America had to replace the feckless and corrupt Victor Yanukovych with a government hostile to the Kremlin. She didn’t say it in so many words, but she hoped the Ukraine coup would lead to the overthrow of Vladimir Putin. Evidently Nuland and her boss, Hillary Clinton, thought that the Ukraine coup would deprive Russia of its Black Sea naval base in Crimea, and did not anticipate that Russia simply would annex an old Russian province that belonged to Ukraine by historical accident.At the time, liberal opinion evanesced with the notion that Moscow would follow Maidan. The Christian Science Monitor reported in February 2014:Some in Russia's liberal community see in the Maidan a hope that the Kremlin, no matter how solid it looks, could one day crack under similar popular pressure. "What we are seeing in Ukraine is the realization of the Ukrainian people's aspiration for democracy, of the right to revolt," says Sergei Davidis, a board member of Solidarnost, a liberal opposition coalition. "It doesn't mean we're ready to follow that example. Russian conditions are different. But in the long run, as the contradictions pile up, we may well come to the same pass and find ourselves with no alternatives but the Ukrainian one."Of course, no such thing occurred.The Maidan coup was the second American attempt to install a Ukrainian government hostile to Moscow; the first occurred in 2004, when Condoleezza Rice was secretary of State rather than Hillary Clinton. As I wrote in Asia Times a decade ago, “On the night of November 22, 2004, then-Russian president - now premier - Vladimir Putin watched the television news in his dacha near Moscow. People who were with Putin that night report his anger and disbelief at the unfolding 'Orange' revolution in Ukraine. ‘They lied to me,’ Putin said bitterly of the United States. ‘I'll never trust them again.’ The Russians still can't fathom why the West threw over a potential strategic alliance for Ukraine. They underestimate the stupidity of the West."
Glenn America has a nobility problem, and it means our leaders don't pay for their failures
Politicians and bureaucrats are America's ruling class and they should start paying a price for failure. Accountability isn't just for little guys.......in practice, America absolutely does have a ruling class, and a permanent political class, and they seem to be increasingly one and the same. (As Angelo Codevilla writes: “Never has there been so little diversity within America’s upper crust.”) And like any ruling class, they claim, and possess, privileges and immunities not available to ordinary citizens.The continued use of titles that in fact were briefly loaned by the people — “Governor,” “Madame Secretary” — is the least of this. The single biggest characteristic of today’s nobility is impunity, and — just as with the privileges associated with titles of nobility in the England our Framers rejected — this privilege extends not only to the titled, but to their retainers, in this case police and other government bureaucrats.In America, if you misunderstand the law, or simply are ignorant of it, you will nonetheless be liable to go to jail or be sued — if you are an ordinary citizen. If you are a government official, you can generally avoid liability in a lawsuit by pleading “qualified immunity,” meaning, in essence, that you misunderstood the law or were ignorant of it, but acted in good faith, a defense that is not available to ordinary citizens. As a judge or prosecutor it’s even better: you enjoy “absolute immunity,” meaning that in almost every circumstance you can’t be sued at all.These governmental immunities aren’t in the Constitution, and they’re not the product of statutes passed by Congress. They were invented by judges (themselves government employees) who thought immunity for government employees was a good idea. And government officials almost never face criminal prosecution for their official acts, and on the rare occasions that they do, they are almost never convicted.When the EPA poisoned the Animas River in Colorado, it rejected claims for damages, and nobody from the EPA went to jail. A private company under similar circumstances would have faced ruinous losses, and the executives would have risked criminal prosecution. Then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy skated....Freedom from consequences: It’s the defining consequence of our modern titles of nobility. And as ordinary citizens get cut less and less slack, it becomes more and more noticeable that the people at the top pay little or no price for failure or worse. Either that will change, or we will see more populist anger in our politics.
Labels: Instapundit, ruling class
"An assault revolver with high-capacity magazines and a revolver were recovered at the scene."
SF Mayor: 'There's More Feces ... Than I've Ever Seen'
It's what you get when Left-Wing Democrats are in control,
San Francisco Mayor London Breed, in her first one-on-one interview since taking office, said homeless advocacy groups that receive funding from the city need to better educate the homeless to "clean up after themselves.""I work hard to make sure your programs are funded for the purposes of trying to get these individuals help, and what I am asking you to do is work with your clients and ask them to at least have respect for the community — at least, clean up after themselves and show respect to one another and people in the neighborhood," Breed told the Investigative Unit, referencing her conversations with nonprofit groups aimed at serving the homeless.
You have to be an idiot if you thing this is going to work.
Picture of an idiot.
Labels: Democrat Run Hell Holes, San Francisco
In rebuke of Dianne Feinstein, Kevin de León wins endorsement of California Democrats in Senate race
Californians have he option of voting for the Left wing Democrat or a Left Wing Democrat for Senate.
Labels: California, Feinstein, Politics, Senate
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Peter Strzok’s arrogance is the product of a corrupt FBI
I could not agree more.
Watching FBI agent Peter Strzok battle with Congress, my initial reaction was pure anger. His repeated, arrogant insistence that he had done nothing wrong despite tons of evidence to the contrary convinced me he deserved immediate firing — if not the firing squad.Gradually, though, anger gave way to amazement as Strzok grew increasingly combative and condescending. Given his predicament, the sneering and smirking were stupid, and yet he persisted.Who is this jerk, I wondered, and how in the hell did he get to be a big shot at the FBI? And why are taxpayers still paying for the privilege of his malignant presence on the FBI payroll?My answers can be summarized in four names: James Comey, Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray. They are chief culprits in the death of public trust in the Department of Justice.The cause of death was murder, and it was an inside job.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Comey, FBI, Jeff Sessions, Rosenstein, Strzok, Wray
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Strzok and the Otter Defense
Reciprocity Is the Method to Trump’s Madness - victor Davis Hanson
what had become abnormal was branded the new normal of the post-war world.
Again, a rich and powerful U.S. was supposed to subsidize world trade, take in more immigrants than all the nations of the world combined, protect the West, and ensure safe global communications, travel, and commerce.
After 70 years, the effort had hollowed out the interior of America, creating two separate nations of coastal winners and heartland losers.
Trump’s entire foreign policy can be summed up as a demand for symmetry from all partners and allies, and tit-for-tat replies to would-be enemies.
Labels: free trade, reciprocity, Trump, Victor Davis Hanson
Rod Rosenstein Found It Necessary to Interrupt Trump’s Foreign Trip with Info That WAS ALL RELEASED in Previous April House Intel Report
And, oh, by the way, I want to see the evidence after all the crap the FBI and DOJ has been feeding us.
Labels: Anti-Trump Conspiracy, indictment, Rosenstein
The Truth Factory - Russian and why Hillary Lost the Election
Labels: Russia, Why Hillary Lost, Why Trump Won
Media’s Obsession With ‘Collusion’ Continues To Destroy Its Credibility
200 indictments from the Mueller team tasked with proving that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election. Indectiments that prove this: 0
One of the things we learned from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is that we still have no evidence of “collusion” between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. Special counsel Robert Mueller has brought in almost 200 indictments — and that’s great — but not one of them has shown a Russian-Trump conspiracy. Like you, I have no clue what future prosecutions will look like, but on this day Rosenstein explicitly noted that nothing in the Justice Department’s indictment featured an allegation that any American citizen had committed a crime.
Labels: collusion, Shithole press
Fusion GPS Targets Jim Jordan
Congress is slowly closing in on exposing the media’s shameful role in perpetuating the Trump-Russia collusion myth on the American people. Prominent news organizations are the accomplices—if not coconspirators—in the biggest political scandal in U.S. history. Now, two years later, there is no sign of surrender: A ludicrous article in New York magazine on July 8 suggested Donald Trump has been a Russian intelligence asset for 30 years.Fully invested in pushing the phony Trump-Russia plotline in a malicious attempt to destroy Trump’s presidency, the media are intensifying this narrative and creating new villains in the process.Enter Rep. James Jordan (R-Ohio).
Labels: Fusion GPS, Jim Jordan, Shithole press
Stacy McCain: New MuellerGate Developments Prove ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Against Trump
Read more »OK, as of today, the “Russia collusion” story is MuellerGate.For months, I’ve been saying the Mueller “investigation” is not an investigation, it’s a cover-up, the objective of which is to conceal the Obama administration’s illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign, while also manufacturing an appearance of wrongdoing by Trump.Muller has not yet produced any evidence of the “collusion” that he was expected to find, and why? Because this was a phony conspiracy theory created by Clinton operatives, using Fusion GPS in an attempt to fabricate an illusion of “collusion” that did not actually exist.
Labels: Anti-Trump Conspiracy, Deep State, MuellerGate
Friday, July 13, 2018
The Border Crisis
Richard Fernandez on the global border crisis
The Liberals leaders read their own press releases too long.
Read the whole thing.
On both sides of the Atlantic, borders have become a big issue in the guise of the equivalent question of whether a country can restrict the entry of migrants to numbers the electorate regards as sustainable....
The rapidity with which the status quo of "open borders" has been overtaken by the "populist crisis" suggests that, like the financial crisis of 2008, a bubble has burst. It went broke gradually then all of a sudden. The globalization and multiculturalism that were supposed to have delivered prosperity and security have not paid off. This failure has started a run on political capital of elites which has yet to stop.
Trump and the European populists are picking up political assets at a bargain. Glenn Reynolds observed:
[T]he press has three main kinds of power. One is to motivate the left. Another is to swing the middle. And the third is to demoralize the right. It’s pretty much lost the last of these, and I suspect the second one is fading too.
The Liberals leaders read their own press releases too long.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: border crisis, Germany, government failure, illegal immigration
