India will build more nuclear weapons. One of the scariest things about the India-Pakistan nuclear balance of terror is that India looks at China as their point of comparison for adequate nuclear deterrence while Pakistan looks at India. And if China looks to America or even Russia for their point of comparison, the chain reaction of keeping up with the Joneses is really disturbing. Have a super sparkly day.
My view is that accepting the results of the Goddamned 2016 election would be far more helpful for unity.
Car bombers hit American and European bases in Somalia used to target jihadis there.
You must admit, this was oddly convenient.
Interesting solar system speculation. Tip to Instapundit.
#WhyPakistanCan'tHaveNiceThings
Last week in the Weekend Data Dump I wondered if Trump could be impeached and removed from office, but still run in the 2020 election for president. Yes, it is possible.
I've long thought that we'd find a way around that iron limit.
I'm just not moved by your latest cries of doom. Your mental health issues just aren't my problem.
Is this really the way the Democrats want to go for determining who runs the federal government? We've made the federal government too powerful. A more constrained federal government wouldn't inspire this kind of fanatical determination to control it. We'd be healthier if we had a more limited federal government.
San Francisco backed down from their deplorable declaration that the NRA is a terrorist organization.
And yeah, while Congress is the weapon (its power to impeach and try the president), the permanent bureaucracy is the force pushing this drama. Democrats eager to be used should be aware that the same permanent bureaucracy could decide Democrats are unfit to rule despite being elected by our rules. Perhaps mid-level management should be added to the people at the top who are appointed by a new administration with only the line employees still civil service.
Yeah, detection of a stealth plane isn't necessarily a big deal if it doesn't lead to tracking and targeting all the way to the kill.
Am I tired of the constant drama over the Trump presidency? Does he say something to embarrass me every week? You bet. But I don't blame Trump. Democrats turn the dial to 11 for every Goddamn thing he does and I'm tired of that. Democrats should be embarrassed every day over that fantasy despotism they say is descending on us. Really, three years into his presidency and Trump is content with racist dog whistles and hints of authoritarian tendencies? He lets Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives and Jim Acosta still lives? Some tyrant. I could at least laugh at the birthers who thought Obama was a secret Moslem literally born in Kenya. Democrats have no problem thinking Trump is a secret Nazi figuratively born in Russia. Really? No chuckle over that even after the Mueller report failed to find any American conspiring with Russia to elect Trump? I won't reward this behavior. Which is why I will absolutely vote for Trump in 2020 despite my long history of really disliking the man. So yeah, Republicans, suck it up. This isn't just about Trump now. It's about our republic--if we can keep it, as Ben Franklin warned us. Every Republican before Trump was really a Nazi, too, recall, according to the Left. If Trump can't withstand this kind of pressure, will the next Republican be able to? Tip to Instapundit.
Are Nigerian Christians getting tired of getting killed my jihadis and ready to fight back and make it a two-way religious war?
Democrats say the current good economy is something we should really thank Obama for. But before Trump was sworn in, Democrats said Trump would destroy the economy. It sure would have been nice to have known way back then that Obama's economy was so good that even Trump couldn't wreck it, eh? Might have prevented a lot of needless worry.
Murder and violent crime in America continues their downward trend. The news makes it easy to believe we are experiencing an epidemic of murder.
I'm on record as thinking it is insane to give tiny minorities the ability to define common things overriding the views of the vast majority--like the "okay" sign or the Betsy Ross flag. But as long as our woke are doing this, couldn't a prominent racist or two adopt the man bun and get that canceled as hate hair? Something has to be done. I'm honestly shocked that it wasn't banned already as a form of cultural appropriation (which is also stupid).
Again, the media is dishonest when discussing the Ukrainegate call and Barr's investigation into how the false charges of collusion in the 2016 election that have hamstrung our government and threatened to reverse a lawful election.
I've noted that the Afghan security forces really need American air power. This discusses bombs dropped, but it isn't just that (and the article mentions cargo, too). And the Afghan air force, the article says, isn't ready to replace the American bombers.
Huh. Tip to Instapundit.
I'd say that my Downfall parody was badly timed and wrong. But I have no idea what Pelosi's odd strategy aims for. Except that there was no actual vote to start an impeachment-like inquiry. Is it impeachment? Buying time for her crazy wing to get distracted? Just setting precedent for Republicans to go after the next Democratic president? This would sure explain (tip to Instapundit) why Pelosi dropped the pseudo-hammer of not-really-impeachment hearings over such a trivial thing as the Ukraine phone call. Although just because the explanation is plausible doesn't mean it is true. (Mind you, Trump personally shouldn't have been asking about Biden under the circumstances, but you really think this hasn't gone on long before Trump? Nor should Tump have asked thug-ruled China to investigate Biden, although that public request seems intended to highlight actual questionable family business there.) Pelosi's sham impeachment (San Francisco alone doesn't have the power to impeach) is really just a made-for-MSNBC mini-series for the fall season. And notice that the "urgency" of impeachment didn't prevent Congress from going on recess for two weeks.
In related news, if it was justified to worry that Trump might be a puppet of Russia--which the Mueller Report dismissed--why isn't it justified to wonder if Biden could be a puppet of China?
Trump shouldn't toss around the charge of "treason" even though his foes have been freely accusing him of exactly that for three years. I'm reasonably sure he doesn't mean it literally. But still. And both sides don't understand that without formally being at war, there is no treason possible.
Context for slavery that the 1619 Project won't provide. And here. Slavery was evil (and still is in Mauritania, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Sudan, as well as parts of Ghana, Benin, Togo Gabon, Angola, South Africa, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Libya, and Nigeria). America is not evil. We tore our country apart in blood to end it. Actual history would show that slavery predates America, but that America ended it here and helped end it in the Atlantic. There is plenty of guilt to go around the world contrary to the leftists who think American exceptionalism is only related to slavery in our history. As I said in a previous Data Dump about the New York Times project, now do Islam. I dare you. And slavery harmed the economic development of the slave states in the U.S. You'd think that reality would be better to emphasize than the false notion that slavery was key to American development. Isn't the 1619 Project an argument that slavery works economically? To Hell with those people. Tip to Instapundit.
The democracy skunk at the thug regime's 70th anniversary garden party.
Well that's inconvenient. No worries. I'm sure it is because of racist coders.
The CRS issued a report on US-China competition in the South China and East China Seas. Once upon a time my life plan called for me to be working there now. Not that I'm complaining.
To be fair, those without money don't have teams of lawyers to make the audit process more difficult. Tip to Instapundit.
No. Way! Surely that background is sheer coincidence. Tip to Instapundit.
Are climate change extremists simply neo-pagans? I did allude to the similarities in my last Weekend Data Dump paragraph about the Oracle of Delphi scene in 300.
You've got to be effing kidding me.
Could the Arab Spring 2.0 be revealing itself in Egypt? Arabs stuck in dysfunctional states and mired in poverty seem to want an alternative to the traditional choices of corrupt autocrats or fanatical mullahs to rule them. Remember that democracy needs rule of law in addition to the more obvious voting.
Hillary is just sad now, but her dead-ender supporters surpass that sadness. No matter what, I will always be grateful to the flawed Trump for keeping her and her corruption and incompetence out of the White House. Sure, back in December 2016 Democrats could (barely) be excused for thinking even she would be better than Trump who would be controlled by Putin, start a nuclear war with North Korea, kill NATO (their sudden concern for NATO amuses me), destroy our economy, put gay people in concentration camps, expel all Mexicans and Moslems from America, and otherwise create a white supremacist dictatorship (did I miss anything?). But we're fine--except for the insane turn-it-to-11 Resistance on Twitter and in the media. What is possibly the excuse now? Mean tweets? Hillary and her supporters are co-dependents who can't confront the fact that Hillary was the only Democrat who could have lost to Trump--and the We're with Her crowd are responsible for Hillary. Neither can come to terms with their responsibility for the era we are in that they continue to view as a disaster--any day now. Tip to Instapundit.
The Chinese won't calm down the Hong Kong protesters with emergency powers and a mask ban. The question is whether China will use lethal force and mass deportations to create the calm of a cemetery at midnight.
The San Francisco government thinks that if it just visibly cares enough it can solve the chaotic homeless camp problem. Good luck with that.
Fox News news programs--distinct from their opinion shows--are better than the "news" of other networks that seem to be opinion shows across the board. But Jonah Goldberg in one of his podcasts noted a disturbing new thing--even Fox news is showing signs of being infected with the opinion disease in some aspects. This is discouraging. I've already reduced my consumption of political news opinion television. Which has been great to avoid the mindless arguments it lives on. Will I need to just cut television to near zero in 2020, which is likely to be one long Peak Stupid era?
The military weight problem. Although I wonder if the metric is flawed.
U.S.-North Korean nuclear talks resumed. As long as the "talk, talk" part leads to "die, die" I'm cool with this. But I have little confidence an actual real deal--as opposed to a pretend deal (they pretend to disarm and we pretend to believe them) like the 2013 Syria chemical weapons deal or the 2015 Iran nuclear deal--can result from the talks.
Netanyahu has raised an alarm about Iran, calling for additional defense spending to meet the threat (translation here). Could this mean Israel will strike Hezbollah to really tear it a new one?
Turkey is threatening military operations in northeast Syria to combat the Kurds.
I find it amusing that Hong Kong protesters have adopted Pepe the frog as a mascot. I assume leftists here will call the protesters white supremacists now. I never heard of Pepe until the left said it was the mascot of racists. It's nice to see somebody reclaiming a symbol.
Remainers are outraged that Prime Minister Johnson wants to do what the Brexit referendum was--prior to that election--pledged to decide and what Parliament then set in motion after the referendum. Rule of law means nothing in Britain if Brexit is stopped. Tip to Instapundit.
It is amusing to hear Democrats and the media all outraged that Trump has attacked Romney. I'm so old that I remember those overlapping groups calling Romney a plutocratic Nazi hater who was bizarrely obsessed with Russia. And yeah, Democrats demonized polite Tea Party opposition and polite Romney as Nazi-like scum. That is why we got the flawed Trump--who at least fights back against the demonization. Tips to Instapundit.
I screwed this up when the B-52 arrived earlier for the Michigan Stadium flyover than I thought, and mistakenly believed I wasn't recording:
I kept the plane in my camera field as it went over me, but alas I'd turned off recording in the belief I'd started it. So it is a 2-second video. Sigh.
Wow. That is a shocking development, eh? Tip to Instapundit.
The Navy is expanding the Tomahawk (and future missile) capacity of the Virginia-class submarine. The Navy wants to replace the 600+ cruise missiles in our four SSGNs that will be retired in the next decade. But only 9 of the next block of subs will have the capacity which adds 28 missiles to each boat (which currently hold 12). That is well shy of replacing the volume of the SSGNs, although the capacity will be spread out
