Say, let's remember that Max Baucus is standing up for China in a most vile way. Via Instapundit.
I'm thinking that Israel needs to dramatically and decisively reverse this lingering recruiting tool for Hezbollah.
Russia is pulling their most expensive commitments out of Libya as costs for their foreign policy mount even as sanctions and the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic harm Russia's ability to pay. Last week I did wonder that Russia is thinking, "Russia's foreign adventures puzzle me. Russia can ill afford their foreign adventures all over the globe as if Russia is a superpower. What on Earth does Putin think Russia will gain by interfering in Libya on the LNA's side? (But the author's idea that we should thwart Putin by supporting the jihadi-friendly recognized GNA government is nonsense.) And Lord, given Russia's finances that barely allow them to interfere in Libya, can Russia really afford to win in Libya? Putin would be like the dog that caught the car. What now?"
Turkey has 10,000 Syrian mercenaries in Libya acting as spearhead forces for the more numerous allied GNA militias.
Yes, corruption is a threat to the PLA Navy, as it is to all elements of China's security forces. Military corruption is a traditional problem in China. The question is whether it affects the combat capability of the navy enough to help enemies beat their navy. Are ships substandard? Are weapon and system capabilities known to enemies? Are operational plans known to enemies? Are officers poor but in command because of corruption? Are sailors trained? That's the problem. We can count ships and look at the numbers of weapon characteristics. We can weigh such quantitative factors. But we have trouble evaluating the invisible factors that can be swayed by fear or wishful thinking.
Unleash the cyber-privateers!
Even if China doesn't have military reasons to take Taiwanese islands in the South China Sea because China has built islands in the region, it is not accurate to say China has no "strategic" reasons to take them. Just signaling that China is willing to start the process of taking Taiwanese territory no matter how small is a big signal of intent to pressure Taiwan.
Britain has a moral duty to help Hong Kong. The 1997 deal was never a good one. The only hope was that by the time Hong Kong was fully incorporated into China in 2047, China wouldn't be a communist dictatorship. But Britain could not wage war to keep Hong Kong. But China should pay a price for their moves to crush Hong Kong's freedoms early. Upgrading British passports to allow people there to flee to Britain is certainly one small step that could be taken. I wonder if America will organize a rescue effort in the South China Sea when the Hong Kong boat people flee to the sea.
Iranian tankers arrived in Venezuela and you'd think the Maduro regime had just won World War II: "'Images of the arrival of the first ship 'Fortune' at our refinery in El Palito. We keep going and WINNING!' wrote Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami on Twitter." But this sums up their "victory:"
I suspect that pandemic deaths in America are inflated due to financial incentives and victimhood status; while other countries deflate their death toll out of national pride or fear of domestic backlash. So hold off on your early judgments of who has failed in enduring and recovering from the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic.
I'm not sure why Democrats are pushing so hard for male-only voting, but if that's what they want, I'm willing to try.
Iran is experiencing financial and battlefield setbacks in Syria. Also, Iraq joins Saudi Arabia as the top two OPEC oil exporters. So our lower oil prices in part are thanks to the Iraq War which finally ended the oil drought from Iraq after Saddam invaded Iran, subsequent Saddam mismanagement and international sanctions, and insurgent sabotage after Saddam was defeated. Finally oil production is increasing. Ideally Iraq would diversify for their self-destructive reliance on oil income.
The French carrier is in the Persian Gulf launching strikes against ISIL. That's great. But I guess the French don't worry about being in a shooting gallery.
I think the horrible behavior of our White House press corps acting like Democratic operatives has earned them McEnany. I wish we didn't need McEnany. But I can't get on board slamming Jonah Goldberg for criticizing her behavior. Aspirationally, I can't disagree with him. If the White House press corps starts acting like journalists rather than self-absorbed scribes for the Democrats, then I'll complain about McEnany acting more like a campaign spokeswoman rather than a press secretary. It takes a village to wreck a press conference. Journalists should stop acting like victims--they're not. Disagree with Jonah. But give him a break--he isn't suddenly a liberal. I have sympathy for his position. Personally I don't like Trump's style. But I remain grateful that he and not Hillary! is president. I don't have to like all his policies (and I resent his views on the war in Iraq, which he should want to defend rather than repeat Obama's mistake), but they are better than the alternative. So I remain loyal to the administration and not the man. And I'll be grateful if the Republican Party can remove Trump's style imprint on the party after Trump is gone--in January 2025. Until then, you conduct policy with the president you have and not the president you wish you had. Does that make me a RINO? Not as far as I'm concerned. And where I live I'm still pretty much considered a Nazi for being right of Bernie Sanders, I suppose. Which says something about the politics in Ann Arbor and nothing about me, of course. And you deal with a partisan press corps you have and not the one you wish you had. I swear, when a journalism school studies the press corps in this era, they'll measure their slavish devotion during the Obama era and their mindless Resistance of the Trump era, and conclude that on average they were perfectly neutral.
These days there is far more worry about feeding the global poor than in getting oil. So a corn-powered cruise missile is stupid.
Glonass, the Russian equivalent of GPS, is living on borrowed time as their satellites age without access to Western electronics and components for replacements.
To be fair, lockdowns are for the little people. Allegedly.
... and my air conditioner died the second day of summer-level weather. I managed to get a service call for the day the high was to drop from the 80s to 71. Oh well. It will be a long summer.
That is a horrifying attitude. Although to be fair, if it simply reflects analysis of reality and does not reflect a desire to prevent economic growth, that's fine. Tip to Instapundit.
Almost four years ago there were Democrats in California making noises about secession from Trump's America. They settled for "sanctuary" policies on immigration control. And now Democrats in California want tons of money from Trump's America. Life is funny.
And through it all, the media averted its eyes from His blinding glory and chiseled his every utterance in stone.
Upon reflection, I can totally see Governor Whitmer's husband doing the "I'm the governor's husband" as a joke. That issue obscures the fact that he was trying to put a boat in the water when he should perhaps be setting an example that the governor wants all of us to follow. A kerfuffle, at best. But this is "gotcha" season and sadly it is played against Republicans with more vigor. Note that suddenly presidential golf is again unacceptable after 8 years of treating complaints about presidential golf as racism.
Nigeria is again killing jihadis with some vigor. Which will have to do until the Islamic world resolves their civil war to suppress the number of eager recruits who want to kill for their faith. The Xi Jinping Flu has reached Nigeria, but like in much of Africa it seems to be barely noticed among the other causes of death, unlike in the rest of the world. But perhaps they are just early in their infection curve.
It sounds like the liberal white woman and the Black man in the Central Park dog park encounter were both less than sterling examples of our citizenry.
So the F-35B will guarantee American naval dominance over China? Maybe. If they have places to take off and land from. I don't assume our carriers or few air bases close to China will be capable of doing that at the volume needed. Nor will we have the numbers of those planes even if we could spread them out (and supply them) at austere little landing strips all over the western Pacific. The A and C models will be the bulk of the force on land and at sea. And the comparison to Chinese carriers ignores that they will likely fight under an umbrella of land-based missiles and aircraft rather than far out to sea. The B model is a useful plane, but let's not throw panties at it.
Thanks 2020! "Unusual or aggressive rodent behavior."
Chinese and Russian propaganda to shift blame from China for the Xi Jinping Flu to America has precedent in the vile Soviet propaganda campaign to blame AIDS on America. Democrats simply discovered in 2016 what Russia does. It naturally came as a shock to Democrats that the Russians worked against Democrats.
Is China really going to risk war with India? Even as China pushes in the South China Sea region against Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other regional states with conflicting claims? Perhaps instead of calling Xi Jinping an emperor we should call him a kaiser.
The media is viewed as making the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic worse by its exaggerations rather than helping by informing us. But the media will still pass out awards to each other at their next gathering, I have no doubt.
Gordon Chang did not say China deliberately spread the Xi Jinping epidemic to the world, despite what the headline says. He noted that if China intended to do that, what would they have done differently? Given that China requires export markets to recover and that the pandemic has shaken those markets and reduced the desire of people to trade with China, I'd say I want harder evidence than that to agree. Even though I've noted much the same possibility in theory myself.
All too true for comfort: "China Issues Stay-At-Home Order To Hong Kong To Prevent Spread Of Democracy".
Why I don't trust the media: part X. A more accurate description of the data would say that Republican districts didn't have the same extreme spike in Xi Jinping Flu cases. That dramatic Democratic district drop in cases still has a way to go to get as good as the Republican districts.
If our media wants to see a national leader abusing the press corps they'll have to look to Canada. With a bonus shutdown of the legislative branch. But if Trudeau is spotted wearing some approved victim group socks, our journalists will squeal like besotted school girls over him. Tip to Instapundit.
As long as I'm on the media, while it is left-wing choir, I think that is groupthink at work rather than a conspiracy. While things like JournoList did do some orchestration and orientation policing, that was (and probably still is in other forms) a minor part of the bias problem.
I don't like this glimpse of our future. If this is a once-in-a-century pandemic, will we really go through with it? And if we do, will it be about preventing that low-probability event?
Hah! Although oddly enough, by 1903 the erroneous verdict was in, so why did I learn about the brontosaurus in the first place? Science is always settled--until it isn't.
China's economic problems--"corruption, bad loans, foreign firms leaving, labor unrest, unreliable economic statistics"--began in 2018 well before the late 2019 outbreak of the Xi Jinping Flu which became a pandemic inflicted even more damage. The corruption fueled by the massive three decades of growth is still present. As is the covid virus despite CCP denials. China under the CCP may very well be just another corrupt dynasty in the long history of China that will eventually fall. But "eventually" could mean decades or centuries, eh? Bonus question: would China risk war with India to distract their own people from the many problems China has? Bonus observation: Russia is running out of the military technology developed during the Cold War and finds it can't design and build better stuff. My question is whether China would instead risk achieving a signal victory over Russia. India could expect help from America. Russia could not.
A celebrity explicitly calls for the assassination of Trump and our media-Democratic complex is unbothered. I'm so old I remember when they got the vapors over a bullshit causal chain of events from bullseye indicators on a campaign map to the shooting of a Congresswoman.
Reading things in light of the last three years' ridiculous charges of Trump-Russia collusion is fascinating. Reading Donald Kagan's 1995 book On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace provided a "Huh" moment on page 487. Andrei Sakharov noted Khrushchev's reply to a note from Sakharov before the Cuban Missile Crisis regarding nuclear testing. Khrushchev thought Kennedy was a pushover and wondered why they needed him, prefacing his dismissal of our president with "Look, we helped elect Kennedy last year." What does that mean? Just what did the Russians do--or think they did--to help Kennedy win the 1960 election? I'd never heard anything of the sort on this, although I can think of one book I have that I need to check out.
Perhaps the simulation is reaching its platform limits as it gets bigger and more complicated. A good hardware upgrade might fix it.
Before heavy-lift helicopters, the Army used a land train to help build the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line.
I noted the contrast in media coverage of peaceful--if armed--lockdown protesters in Michigan that likened them to Nazi threats that required harsher responses to the constant reporting of Antifa violence as "largely peaceful" protests: "Oh, and despite some armed protesters, there was no violence and no gunfire. Again, not my kind of protest if I got to design it. But I can only wish the media held Antifa to the same standards of decorum. You remember the 'largely peaceful' descriptions, right?" And then Minneapolis (and later St. Paul) was wracked by riots that the media has called "protests." The media bias is very clear. This is totally separate from the unjustifiable death of a clearly subdued George Floyd at the hands of that city's police. Even if he was guilty of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill, being found guilty after a trial is not a death penalty offense. So police should not in effect impose the death penalty for a relatively trifle offense (see also selling "loosies" on the street). To return to the media coverage, seriously, WTF? To beat a dead horse here, if a lockdown protest had included even a trash can fire, reporters would have made it clear that they believed the National Guard should be called out with live ammunition to suppress the "insurrection."
SOUTHCOM gets another asset: "A company-sized advisory team from the Army’s 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade will deploy to Colombia on June 1 to support counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean, U.S. Southern Command announced Thursday."
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The violence in Minnesota is reprehensible. The Minneapolis mayor's decision to abandon a police station to the mob is ridiculous. He said he didn't want to kill over a building. He's right enough on that point, as a general rule. That's certainly what my National Guard riot control training taught me. We were told that our job was to make our fellow citizens leave the area or go home. Very few locations were worth killing to defend. A Target store, no. A nuclear power plant, you bet. Riot control doesn't involve killing ideally, and there are equipment and tactics to stop and move people. And most of the people not actively looting and pillaging will go home under those circumstances, leaving the hard core to be arrested. I'll add that I wonder if such a riot would have taken place if there hadn't been a lockdown for so long, making people just a little eager to get outside--even to riot or just watch one. After all, the police officers involved were quickly fired, one has been arrested already, and there is even federal interest in prosecution if a federal crime by the officers is determined to have taken place. Seriously, just who is defending the police conduct in this incident that would justify rioting in the face of government refusal to act? Lileks has more. I heard him say that the masked Antifa scum were involved in fanning the flames. This is not the work of the mythical white nationalist stormtrooper legion of doom, which remains the boogeyman of our left-wing media. Not that there aren't white nationalists, but they remain few and marginalized unlike the Antifa scum who are romanticized by the media and Democrats. Remember, too, that Minneapolis--and I assume every other city with riots--is run by Democrats. I only say this because if Republicans ran the city it would be in every headline and every first sentence on TV news stories about the killing of Floyd and the subsequent disturbances. And blaming Trump is really pretty stupid, all things considered.
The Navy carried out what it called a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) in the South China Sea: "Mustin‘s transit near the Paracel Islands 'upheld the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging the restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam and also by challenging China’s claim to straight baselines enclosing the Paracel Islands,' Lt. j.g. Rachel Maul told USNI News in an email." That's interesting. It isn't a traditional FONOP that challenges claimed control. It is an operation to defend "innocent passage" which normally doesn't challenge claims of control. What limitations does China put on that established right of innocent passage? Also, it isn't just sovereignty claims by China that the US opposes. Our position is clear, the body of water is an international waterway that nobody can claim. And the question of who owns what islands should be done peacefully and not settled by force.
Washtenaw County had its own budding police and protest situation. I don't know if the charges against the woman and her husband and their resisting arrest justified a law enforcement officer punching the woman in the face. But I do know that lockdown protesters are treated far less sympathetically for their lack of social distancing. And I am sure that the couple's link to "Moorish citizenship" would have gotten more critical attention, with little media sympathy for the adherents "[Taylor city police chief] Blair said Wednesday that since the (the two) claim Moorish citizenship outside the United States, his department has had trouble enforcing local and state laws against the couple. 'They claim they can only answer to federal authorities,' Blair said. Sha’Teina Grady El was the plaintiff in two federal lawsuits filed in the last year against five Taylor police officers for harassment on these grounds, according to court records. The lawsuits were dismissed." (Moorish citizenship is an offshoot of the largely white "sovereign citizen" movement from the 1990s that denied federal government authority--which dominated my work "X-Files" questions). There is some confusion either on the part of Blair or the couple, because the Moorish group denies the authority of all government in America. Filing lawsuits is a tactic to harass the government, as the link on the Moorish citizens explains. I mean, if even the SPLC has this view of the group, perhaps this couple isn't the hill you want to die on for civil rights. Mind you, perhaps the woman should not have been punched for resisting arrest--the video at the first link doesn't exactly scream lack of resistance, eh? Even nutballs have civil rights. But let the investigation handle this and stop with the marching in the streets to block traffic. Also, the original Moorish group was called the "Washitaw Nation." Is the surface similarity of that name to Washtenaw County part of the reason the couple is here? Or were drawn to the ideology?
"Russia Derangement Syndrome" is only an unhealthy obsession in the BS Russia-Trump collusion angle. Otherwise the Russians deserve every bit of it for their hostile behavior toward the West and their slavish obedience to China. I think Russia could have joined the West after the Cold War. But Putin has led Russia into pointless confrontation with NATO, all in order to hide his appeasement of China. Seriously, what is Russia's major malfunction? #WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings
I wouldn't say that hoping that economic progress will turn China on the path to representative and rule of law democracy was foolishly wrong. What we can say is that China's economic growth hasn't yet reached that end point. We can also say that of course the thug Chinese Communist Party will resist such a transition. Obviously we have to be on our guard as China's military and economic power still under the control of the CCP has outraced any theoretical impetus toward democracy. And of course, we have to appreciate that even a democratic China could be hostile and nationalistic. Personally, I've long been in the camp of preferring a poorer hostile China over the risk of getting a much more powerful China that may or may not be democratic and may or may not be less hostile to America.
Lebanon has agreed to extend the UNIFIL "peacekeeping" force in southern Lebanon on the border of Israel for another year, without any changes that Israel wants to make the force actually useful. Truth in advertising would require that UN force be renamed UNIFAIL, or possibly UNIFUTILE. The only thing that UNIFIL does is shield Hezbollah from Israeli military action.
Apparently upset that Trump said of Minneapolis riots that when the looting starts, the shooting starts, Warren tweeted "the President of the United States should not be fanning the flames of racism & inciting violence against Black Americans." So Warren is saying that only African Americans loot?
From the "Be careful what you wish for" file, I guess: the nationwide lockdown is over. Who in the media will condemn going outside in groups now?
I don't like how Twitter puts its thumb on the scales for liberals. I don't think the cure of government punishment or regulation is the answer in the long run. But you have to admit that Twitter is asking for this by selectively restricting and editing content rather than being a platform with neutral rules.
If Iran can get the element of surprise they can surely do some damage with their naval arsenal. But after that we'll sink everything they have.
Yeah, I worry about November. But I always worry. My sense of optimism is restricted to my own life. Tip to Instapundit.
Liberals keep saying that Trump has botched the national response to the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic. It doesn't seem that way to me, least of all because state and local governments have a major role in our system of government. Nor does our result seem out of line with the experience in Western Europe with its left-of-center governments and national health care systems. And this is out of my lane, so I admit I could be wrong. But I'd be more willing to say my judgment about our national government is wrong and liberals are right if liberals didn't throw their panties at Governor Cuomo for his terrible record in New York. Tip to Instapundit.
America paid a price in lives and economic activity to win the first campaign in the war on the Xi Jinping Flu coronavirus pandemic, but the price in lives we paid has been much less than it could have been. And the economic price would have been paid eventually without a lockdown as people simply stopped going to work in that kind of pandemic environment. Now we must continue the mission and try to restore our lives.
"The CNN Center in Atlanta was vandalized on Friday during ongoing protests over the deaths of George Floyd and numerous other black men and women at the hands of police." I'm sure CNN will report that the "protests" outside their headquarters were "largely peaceful." If there is a mix of overwhelmingly peaceful protesters with a cadre of violent scum, just focus on describing the mostly violent scum separately from the peaceful protesters. Protesting is fine. Vandalizing CNN Center is not. You should not lump them together to spread the blame across the lawful and unlawful.
If those Antifa scum provoked the looting and rioting in Minneapolis, the FBI should start a nationwide campaign to round them up and prosecute them. If these cul-de-sac communists want to stage an uprising behind the shield of people who want to protest, put them down hard. RICO? And I guess crossing state borders to participate in violence makes it a federal issue. And from the "Ask and you shall receive" file, Trump declares Antifa a terrorist organization [UPDATE: This doesn't have a legal effect but is a statement of intent to use existing federal laws to get the scumbags]. Get 'em. Bonus for Antifa being a mostly white organization, so Democrats can't go all "That's a racist dog whistle!" on this. To be clear, it is possible to be against police killing people under arrest, for protesters peacefully marching against that, and against the rioting and looting scum like Antifa.
Yes!
Washington, District of
The U.S. may send elements of a Security Force Assistance Brigade to Tunisia to train and advise their military for dealing with jihadis, especially with Libya next door. In related news, the last SFAB has been activated, with a Pacific orientation.
It is rather interesting that Russia seriously worries about a Western-instigated revolution. Regardless of my anger at Russian interference in our elections, I spend zero time worrying that Russia might instigate a revolution here.
Nationwide protests and riots over George Floyd's apparently unjustifiable death in Minneapolis have broken out. As I understand it, we have confrontations between largely peaceful protesters (with the usual communist suspects triggering violence) on one side and largely responsible law enforcement officers (who have some small percentage of bad actors) on the other side. In the middle of the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic. That makes total sense. Thanks 2020.
In better news, America is a spacefaring nation again with the successful launch of the SpaceX ship taking astronauts to the International Space Station, where they successfully docked the next day.This is a private company contracted by NASA for the launch. May private companies finally lead to an expansion of our space reach and presence.
I think I raised this possibility before, but Britain may allow up to 3 million Hongkongers to get British visa rights and a path to citizenship. Good for them. One can hardly expect Britain to wage war on China over Hong Kong's fate. But economic and intelligence reprisals are justified as is efforts to help the victims of China cope. American and regional navies should probably be ready to pick up fleeing refugees at sea, if China goes full communist on Hong Kong and another wave of boat people flee the oppressors.
Damned Russians. I'm frankly shocked that Poland hasn't sought nuclear weapons to keep Russia at bay. #WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings
Do our colleges value Chinese cash or academic integrity more? Tip to Instapundit.
