The difference between fascists and anarchists is that our left wing media would never give a big wet kiss to fascists the way the Washington Post celebrated a couple of anarchist scum. Nazis, fascists, ethnic nationalists, anarchists, and communists are all anti-freedom scum who should be shunned by polite society and resisted and prosecuted when they cross into violence. But no, the Post celebrates one of those scumbag groups. Perry Stein should be ashamed of herself for celebrating such violent scum. Tip to Instapundit.
In related issues, there is a reason lefties can find much to admire in the Nazis apart from genocide and conquest--Nazis were national socialists, recall. Again, tip to Instapundit.
The B-52 keeps flying. Amazing record.
Converting a container ship to a a super yacht. My suggestion for temporary military conversion is more practical (see page 50).
Liberal bastions of California are keeping young people away. Funny that a virtual wall of over-regulation that drives up housing prices is more effective than a physical wall in keeping people out.
A good reminder that the alt-right and other white supremacists aren't actually "conservative" actors. They are just one more version of aggressive ethnic identity group chauvinism that liberals have celebrated for decades now. How's that example working out for you--and for America?
When Britain voted to exit the European Union, I warned that they should not let their guard down until they leave. The process to cut the ties that bind is so tough that many who voted for Brexit are worried their vote just won't matter. Is that really a victory the EU wants? An exercise of raw power against a peaceful exit? If so, the next "exit" attempt will involve tarring and feathering EU apparatchiki and expelling them.
Are jihadis being released from our prisons rehabilitated; too scared to wage the jihad; or just tanned, rested, and ready to kill Infidels?
I've noted that corruption in Ukraine is a problem for Ukraine in mobilizing resources to fight Russia. Corruption in Ukraine is also a problem for America and our allies who worry about North Korean nuclear missiles: The Ukrainian Yuzhmash factory with ties to Russia supplied North Korea with missile engines. Ukraine wants our help. Controlling that factories products should be high on Kiev's list if they want our help. And were those ties to Russia a factor? Heck, is this whole thing Russian disinformation? The North Korean engine seems identical to the Ukrainian engine, according to the Ukrainians. But the source could easily be the Russians, eager to harm US-Ukrainian relations while sticking it to America, too. Or it could be corruption in Ukraine. You wonder why I drone on about rule of law?
So Obamacare isn't pushing the cost curve of health care costs down and isn't saving Americans $2,500 because of that magical ability? Huh.
The communists are basically Nazis with better propaganda and more loyalists, arguing over small differences.
There apparently was some altercation between India and China on the border near Pangong lake that doesn't seem to have gone beyond a brawl, and perhaps less than that.
Oh good, an anarchist terrorist group, Cells of Fire, has grown in Europe and Latin America. How long before the black-clad anarchist and "antifa" scumbag here in America escalate from clubs, fire, and rocks to actual bombs? They will be natural allies of jihadis who hate America and will provide the numbers and ability to infiltrate in America that the jihadis currently lack. This would be a bad development.
It deeply offends me that American flags are burned by some Americans to express anger with American policy. I am expected to accept that as the price of freedom of expression. Which on balance is correct, despite my feelings on the issue. I just want to know who decides whose feeling count?
Nigeria will never be the engine of prosperity in Africa as long as 95% of Nigerians are willing to demand or pay a bribe to get things done. Rule of law is the unspoken partner of voting when we speak of "democracy." But too often I think Westerners just assume voting means rule of law follows automatically. It does not. Indeed, while it is nice to get both at once, it is better to have rule of law first and then voting than the other way around, which all too often results in one man, one vote, one time to create a new autocrat.
China rejects our criticism of their lack of freedom of religion because we aren't perfect? How convenient for that brutal autocracy that their far-from-adequate religious freedom can't be criticized by America because we are not perfect--a status we'd never claim.
The pilot from the 107th out of Selfridge got his damaged A-10 on the ground and none the worse for wear. Whoa.
The 1940s called and want their foreign policy back. Seriously, Nazis--as repulsive as they are--are the least of the threats we face. They are few in number and isolated in our society and political system. It is hysteria to paint them as anything but less-than-marginal in America. Hell, the Nazi types love the portrayal that they are on the march! On the bright side, the Nazi hunt indicates that liberals are moving on from their search for Russians under every bed, right? I swear they aren't far from "The British are coming!"
The Russian Su-57 is not much of a stealth plane. I've long read that it is only a frontal stealth aircraft rather than the 360 degree stealth planes all four of ours have been. I don't know if the stealth flaws in the Russian plane harm the frontal stealth or are just reflective of the known flaws in the non-front directions.
To Hell with Liz Sly. I hope she never has to hope for rescue from her Hezbollah pals by our special forces.
Terror in Barcelona on Thursday. Multiple attackers elsewhere, too, claimed by ISIL. Will my morally superior brethren let me know who should have condemned the killers and what was the deadline for the correct form of the condemnation? Normally I'd extend my deepest sympathies to the Spanish people first. But the Left has taught me first things first on such matters. As an interesting foot note, keep in mind that when the Spanish prime minister rapidly blamed Basque separatists for the 2004 Madrid bombings by al Qaeda, he was punished by the voters and lost his job.
Of course she is: "One of the activists who toppled a Confederate statue in Durham, N.C., on Monday night is a member of an extreme leftist group that supports the totalitarian regime in North Korea and wants to abolish capitalism." The Left can never stand the scrutiny they give the Right--but for the interference the media runs for the Left. Tip to Instapundit.
Ah, social science!
We've reached the limit of superior Canadian migrant compassion already? "Canada sees 'unsustainable' spike in asylum seekers at U.S. border[.]"
Seriously, grow the ef up. Tip to Instapundit.
If global warmers hate fossil fuels so much, why don't they just stop using them rather than inflict their
When I saw that a former American labor secretary said Trump was trying to start a civil war, I knew it was Robert Reich, Clinton's former secretary. Keep in mind that Reich is an idiot with few limits on his self regard. And what's with the name? I suggest antifa activists picket Reich's home until he changes that obviously Nazi-like name that must be triggering hysteria every time it is read or spoken. Truly, it's the surname of hate.
While of course the neo-Nazi or whatever related form of lowlife he is should be condemned (and more importantly prosecuted) for killing a woman in Charlottesville, the radical left has been most active in violence and way outnumbered the Nazis at Charlottesville. Why Trump is getting grief for condemning the scumballs on both sides of that melee is beyond me. My obsession with rule of law doesn't just apply to overseas.
Related to the above comment. When I was a teenager, a Nazi book store opened in my neighborhood in Detroit. One day the Communists in their stylish red helmets and clothing came to protest the place. A friend and I went to watch. The best part of the whole thing was when a bunch of men at the local bar came out and began yelling at the protesters "You're just as bad as they (the Nazis) are!" The Communists were puzzled, replying "No, we're good! We're against the Nazis!" Those guys from the bar probably had zero college credits among them, but they had far more wisdom about the merits of the two revolting sides than all the college-educated punditry out there today have in their failure to understand that reality, what with their clutching of their pearls over the very idea that Trump would condemn both groups as different flavors of thuggery.
To be fair, people who violate all the laws are a natural constituency of the Democratic Party.
White nationalists whose DNA tests don't show racial purity are advised by their fellow racists that if they self-identify as pure white they are okay. Grant me that this is pretty funny on at least a couple scores. Also, I thought we lost a lot of young men stamping that thinking out in 1945. Then again, I thought 1989-1991 should have ended the appeal of socialism.
It remains interesting from a political science point of view that the Democrats and Republicans are divided parties with major factions that challenge the traditionalists of each. The upstart factions, those of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, respectively, aren't a majority of either party. Yes, Trump won the nomination in the Republican Party but it was against a divided field that collectively beat him. And if memory serves me, Sanders had a higher percentage of the vote in the Democratic primaries than Trump got in the Republican primaries. And equally interesting is that these upstart factions are led by people not in the parties they fight to control. Trump was a liberal Democrat, really, until he won the nomination (and as an aside, if the Left hadn't gone all "11" on Trump over every damn thing, the Democrats would have formed a working majority with him much as Reagan did with conservative Democrats in Congress); and Sanders wasn't--and isn't--a Democrat. He's a socialist behind that (I) after his name. The sad fact (for our country) is that our party traditionalists have failed to justify their continued status as a ruling elite and more of the people have noticed. Enough to throw our politics into turmoil.
"Punch a Nazi"--if said person is doing nothing illegal--should be unacceptable in our society (wanting to punch a Nazi is something else, of course). Seriously, this is "... they came to punch a Nazi and I said nothing because I was not a Nazi; then they came to punch me and there was nobody left to speak for me" territory.
It sometimes feels like I've been writing about the planned move of American Marines from Okinawa to Guam for as long as I've been blogging. A contract to build facilities on Guam just got awarded. Who knows? In a decade the first Marine might unpack their duffel bag there.
After Barcelona, I assume the usual cries for Car Control will resume. Or maybe just for Van Control--the Assault Gun of Vehicles.
Also, and I can ask this because I am as anti-Nazi as I am anti-jihadi, why aren't liberals asking after the Charlottesville murder by a neo-Nazi "why do they hate us?" the way liberals asked that question after the September 11, 2001 al Qaeda terrorist attacks, as if we did something to deserve the murders? I do a lot of wondering these days.
Apparently, "what happened" is that Hillary Clinton would rather risk war with nuclear-armed Russia than admit that she blew a campaign against Donald Trump (!) despite her money, organizational, and media dominance (and let's not forget the Electoral College "blue wall"!). I still don't like Trump. But I am still grateful Hillary is not our president. For that alone he will always have my thanks. And so much of the anti-Trump fanaticism seems driven by hatred of his non-racist supporters (all but a tiny handful no less deplorable than left-wing storm troopers) who rightly or wrongly (I hope rightly) view him as their last hope to get the federal government to listen to them. I was born in Deplorableville, as I've noted. I do not trivialize that motive. I do not see those Trump supporters as deplorable. But Lord, President Trump makes it difficult ...
To be clear, while opposing the removal of Confederate statues hardly makes you a racist, joining that obviously white supremacist/Nazi rally in Charlottesville pretty much makes you a racist. Not that being in the anti-rally camp automatically makes you one of the good guys, of course.
I believe in last week's data dump I asked if Lincoln is the only acceptable 19th century white man we can build statues for. For someone in Chicago, the answer is no. Perhaps the public school system there neglected to inform that idiot with matches that Lincoln's election inspired secession and that he abolished slavery and led a war at high cost in lives that ended slavery in America. Please God, tell me Peak Stupid has been reached.
Well ... that's ... problematic. I know. Slavery in the Islamic world was (is) different than the race-based slavery of pre-Civil War America (and other places). But I didn't know that this issue was getting the nuance treatment of defining what it means to be just a little bit pregnant or a crime not being "rape rape" as one famous liberal defended Roman Polanski. Please, by all means, explain to me the difference between acceptable and unacceptable slavery.
So Bannon is out at the White House. I'll not cry. I had never heard of him before Trump won. I have no idea if he is the awful person the Left says he is because they say everyone in the Republican Party is an awful hater (see Mitt Romney).
So she didn't say "As God as my witness, I'll never be Burgundian again!"? Someone tagged a Joan of Arc statue in New Orleans with "tear it down." Said the founder of the annual parade there in her honor, "Surely, people realize she's not related to American history." No, and don't call me Shirley. Sadly, Peak Stupid remains out of reach. Via Instapundit.
Maduro has replaced the entire Venezuelan legislature with his own loyalist body. That, my friends, is how a dictator reacts to a legislative body that doesn't pass his agenda. Not by dashing off early morning angry Tweets. Compare and contrast.
Yes, those who want the government to define and ban hate speech notwithstanding the First Amendment are aware that President Trump would be the government official to execute that plan, right? Did you think that through fully?
If I had to guess, I'd say this factory gets bombed.
The very strange cases of white liberal areas being unwelcoming to African Americans. So odd. Not a gun rack or monster truck rally in sight!
United States Cyber Command has been raised to a unified command, becoming the second--after our special operations command, I think--non-geography-based unified commands (like Central Command for the Middle East). Which means rather than being a command that supports a unified command, it can carry out operations and be supported by other assets. I think. If my memory serves me. Given that I've long said that you can knock out enemy cyber operations by bombing the office building where the hackers type as effectively as you can by counter-hacking them, does this mean Cyber Command can have trigger pullers assigned to support them?
I remember when President Obama had to go back many centuries rather than the same event to put evil killers "in context." I really just don't get nuance. Via Ace of Spades. Tip to Instapundit.
There was a terrorist stabbing spree in Finland that targeted women. Feminists will be largely unmoved by this display of jihadi misogyny.
New York Times hunts for Trump racism evidence; finds none; writes article as if the truth is out there, anyway.
And the Russians experience a jihadi attack in their Far East. If the jihadi claim of "credit" is to be believed. My sympathies go out to the Russians. I don't wish that on anybody.
