Eastern Europeans were right to want NATO membership after escaping Soviet rule. But a point of clarification: The America-led NATO won the Cold War. It didn't just "end."
Potemkin Fleet. Tip to Instapundit.
Democrats are arguing that Marxists sacking our cities with arson, violence, and looting, which Democratic mayors and governors are tolerating while Democrats nationally urge them on or explain them away, is really Trump's fault. Translation of Democrats' message: Why do you make me hurt you? Honestly, my head is spinning at how fast the media and their Democratic allies went from claiming urban violence is a Republican myth to claiming the violence is Trump's fault:
This is 1984-levels of memory-holing. Is anybody really shocked that four years of the Democratic-media alliance claiming to be the Resistance has resulted in actual violent resistance in Democratic-run cities?
The Belarusian opposition leader was scheduled to speak to the UN Security Council by the time this is posted.
Of course the Russians intercepted an American B-52 bomber flying over the Black Sea in international air space in an unsafe and unprofessional manner. They need to throw elbows to deter the Black Sea Turkey Shoot.
Yeah. Perhaps Patriot Prayer really is a "right-wing" group as the media states. I'm not familiar with them. But the media never calls Black Lives Matter or Antifa "left-wing" groups, when actually calling them "Marxist" would be accurate.
Pro-democracy demonstrations return to Thailand.
Huh: "According to The New York Times, potentially 90 percent of those who have tested positive for COVID-19 have such insignificant amounts of the virus present in their bodies that such individuals do not need to isolate nor are they candidates for contact tracing. Leading public health experts are now concerned that overtesting is responsible for misdiagnosing a huge number of people with harmless amounts of the virus in their systems." Is massive testing only useful for making Trump look bad with inflated case counts?
I keep hearing that Trump voter enthusiasm will make a difference this election. They may have a point. In 2016, I despised both Trump and Clinton. I could not bring myself to vote for Trump when it seemed like Clinton had it in the bag, although I was ecstatic that she lost. This year, after reality confirmed my 2016 belief that the Resistance was nuts to predict political, social, and economic disaster under Trump and after seeing how crazy the Democratic Resistance has been the last four years in their fantasy dystopia we purportedly live in, I am eager to vote for Trump. How many people who lean toward Biden won't be able to bring themselves to vote for Biden? And how many more people will be determined to vote for Trump this year who didn't last time? Those aren't the only factors, of course. We'll see.
The Saudis announced that they stopped a Houthi attempt to carry out terrorism in the Red Sea and knocked down a drone-missile over Saudi Arabia.
I have no problem with California deciding to be a laboratory of democracy. If they want this they should try it. Keep in mind that the lab mice often don't have a good survival rate in the experiment. But hey, if it immunizes the rest of the country, it will be worth it.
THAT'S how few people die from the Xi Jinping Flu coronavirus alone? I knew the fraction of deaths without other factors was low, but I didn't know it was that low. Of course, I'd want to know how many of those comorbidities were unknown until catching the virus revealed them. Still, this is pretty damning of the total lockdown approach, isn't it? This still isn't in my usual lanes, so I'm just asking.
Hong Kong democracy advocates are still trying to resist Chinese control.
I saw a CNN clip where an "expert" compared Trump's politics to fascism. It was as stupid as you might imagine a Brian Stelter piece could be. The basic flaw is that while Fascists certainly wanted a greater country and wanted to oppose communists, one can do those things within a democratic and rule of law system. Unless you are Antifa, opposing communists doesn't make you fascist. But the "expert" had a book to sell and CNN has a president to defeat. This is why the media and experts are ruining their brands. Trump is not trying to crush the individual into the machine of an all powerful state that seeks national glory in conquest abroad. But other than that glaring difference, I'm sure the "expert" had plenty of surface comparisons. Perhaps Trump supporters and Fascists both like milk. The horror. Meanwhile a real fascist horror unfolds without their attention. The media and academic class are subordinating their roles to their partisan political objectives, and I hope most of their institutions wither away as people justifiably lose trust in them.
The media is worked up that Trump didn't convict the young man in the media? Have the members of the media actually not seen the young man attempting to retreat--a requirement of self defense, if you can--and seen the attempts to attack him, including hearing gun shots before he open fired? He shouldn't have been there in the first place but if the barbarians sacking our city hadn't been egged on by Democrats even as Democrats limited police responses, he wouldn't have been there in the first place. Let the process work and see what if anything he is guilty of doing.
Driving while orange.
I'm honestly undecided about whether Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is stupid or evil.
The NFL is dead to me. Unless the Lions make it to the playoffs. So the NFL is dead to me.
Is it just me or is yelling "Black Lives Matter" while looting a store the American version of jihadis yelling "Allahu Akbar!" while killing infidels?
Apparently women have been demoted in the Pantheon of victims. Well, Democrats need Hollywood to carry Biden to victory this fall so that inconvenient #MeToo stuff that hurt liberals more than anything has to be set aside.
At some level isn't the Democratic strategy of sacking their own cities using Marxist cannon fodder until Trump is defeated a little like this ploy?
I think the American people will see through the Democratic ploy. And if you don't know, the language in that video is for the purpose of mocking racists. If you can't handle that, don't play it.
Lord knows what is going on inside China and North Korea regarding the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic.
Nice little country you've got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.
I think the biggest police reform we could do is to end the role that fines, penalties, court costs, and forfeiture of property even in the absence of a crime conviction have in funding local governments and courts. Get the police out of the "tax farming" business and unnecessary confrontational encounters with people will go down a great deal. I wrote this in February: "I know I've mentioned this issue before, but relying on fines and penalties is a disgraceful way to raise money and this 'taxation by citation' smacks of tax farming granted by the states to local governments on the backs of poor and working people. Government should be financed by direct taxes. The federal court system should be used to break this as arguably a civil rights violation." I mentioned this issue years before, too. Toss in the end of no-knock raids for good measure. And maybe, just maybe, teach young men especially those from "honor cultures"--to cooperate with police when they do have interactions.
Just because I can't think of another explanation doesn't mean this is correct, but ...
Clearly, John McClane needs to be prosecuted. Hard.
Iran has a prolific new weapons propaganda program.
It is not a shock that North Korea is still pursuing its ballistic missile program.
The UN Security Council is so far rejecting America's push to get "snapback" sanctions imposed on Iran. You know my view of that process.
I hope there will be a lot of cases like this the next two months to brush back the vote riggers and deter vote fraud as much as possible.
Pope Francis isn't the cause of me not being a practicing Catholic (not from rejecting the religion, mind you). But this pope certainly lifted any guilt from my shoulders for not being a practicing Catholic.
I'm sure it is just a lot of talk (I hope) but if California, Oregon, and Washington react to a Trump reelection victory by trying to secede, they might consider that the federal government won't be going anywhere even if they secede. Will the local Democrats then pull a Fort Sumter-style siege of the federal territory?
What is wrong with these people?
I won't go along with slanderously portraying American drone operators as killers of civilians just to take a humorous shot at Obama. That "humor" is just wrong both for our troops and Obama! Save your contempt and anger for the liberals who never realized how cool wars could be until Obama waged them:
The U.S. hopes China's Confucius Institutes will be shut down here by the end of the year. Good. We should not allow espionage and propaganda centers here.
Apparently a number of Nobel Prize winners came out in support of Biden because Orange Man Bad. Those letter signers greatly devalued the prestige of the Nobel Prize.
The Department of Defense's 2020 report on Chinese military power is finally out.
Huh. I heard that U.S. Marshals are cross-deputizing state police in Oregon to go after the barbarians sacking Portland. This will allow the enforcement of federal law so state and local refusal to prosecute will have less of an effect. And this is a step shy of federalizing National Guard troops and sending them in. Pretty smart. And it is obviously a voluntary program that has the cooperation of those deputized.
Interesting. But I don't know what is possible to conclude from that. Again, outside of my lane. Tip to Instapundit.
When stealth was defeated in 1999. My question from then was why B-52s didn't carpet bomb the F-117 wreckage to minimize the intelligence value of possessing it.
I'll say again that it is a crime against language to think "liberal minded" is the same as "open minded." Ah, tolerance! Via Instapundit.
Lockdown fanatics sigh with envy.
The Military Equipment Index effort to construct a foundation for measuring military power. I'm always interested in stuff like this, having flirted with going into quantitative analysis for this stuff in political science.
So Chelsea Clinton spoke about her child's white privilege. She is mistaking her Clinton privilege for white privilege. I don't worry that Chelsea is a threat to extend the Clinton corruption racket another generation in public office. Sadly she got her mother's political and personal appeal but got her father's looks. So close ...
This is closer to news than satire. It would be hilarious if the teacher union insistence that schools only operate remotely leads to a mass culling of the teaching profession as school districts realize that a single teacher could lecture students across the country in a specific class via a recorded class session. Far fewer teachers could handle office hours and question times for many students, I imagine.
The United States has cut $100 million in aid to Ethiopia in support for Egypt and Sudan who want assurances that filling the Nile River GERD dam won't harm Egyptian and Sudanese water supplies.
The U.S. says Turkey's policy of fighting in Libya via Syrian mercenaries is causing a local backlash. Odd that Libyans might react to the former colonial power seeking to regain influence by intervening in the civil there.
Israel continued its campaign against Iran's military position in Syria by hitting the T-4 airbase.
I assume CENTCOM is working on a retaliation for this: " In eastern Syria (Hasaka province) a Russian armored vehicle convoy overtook some American MRAPs (armored trucks) and deliberately bumped into them. In one case two Russian armored vehicles boxed in an American MRAP and rammed the MRAP several times. Four American troops in the vehicle suffered mild concussions." I mentioned this incident in a prior data dump when it appeared it might be an accident. I assume there will be dead Russian mercenaries before this is over.
Wolf wasn't "pressing" Barr on mail-in voting, making the interview tense. Wolf was refusing to accept an answer that didn't support what Wolf assumed. The point is obviously that mass mail-in voting is obviously risky. FFS, people at risk of the Xi Jinping Flu virus can request absentee ballots! We should not rush a risky process into nationwide practice when we have existing procedures to protect the vulnerable.
Exploiting the algorithm. Would any AI anticipate that?
This article is pretty worthless and one major bit of misinformation is that calling pre-war anti-Iraq War protesters unpatriotic was completely wrong. The fact is that a lot of that protest activity was orchestrated or exploited by Marxist groups for their own purposes unrelated to the war itself. Yes, the vast majority of people who participated or agreed were not unpatriotic for opposing the war. I never argued that. We should remember that BLM and Antifa are doing similar things now, exploiting people who don't see or don't care about the anti-America objectives of organizers unrelated to civil rights.
The United States is waiting for Russia's response to extending New START. America wants adjustments to account for Russia's large numbers of non-strategic nukes and wants China part of the arms limitations agreement. Russia rejects pulling China in and says Britain and France should be included. My guess is that we really just want China part of an agreement and would leave Russia's shorter-range nukes alone in exchange for leaving Britain and France out.
We can't wait weeks let alone years for justice to be done on Obamagate the way wiretapping was finally ruled illegal. Tip to Instapundit.
Are the French still "Charlie?" I'll be surprised if they are. It will be more like Je Suis Sorry.
Terrorists use the hawala informal banking system to avoid American counter-financing efforts in the formal banking world.
I find it fascinating that liberals are minimizing violence in certain cities by saying that you can walk around many places and not see the violence. They do have a point. Some perspective is in order. Entire cities are not in flames. If it was that bad, Trump should immediately order security forces in to protect the people in the face of Democratic refusal to provide law and order. But sections are in flames and there are leftists endangering other people, and that is really bad. One might say it is a "grim reality." Remember, one could say the same thing about localized violence in Baghdad at the height of jihadi terrorism in the Iraq War. Indeed, I did make that point when noting that violence was generally highly concentrated in some areas in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But I never made that point to deny that a war was going on. The point was to provide perspective on chances of defeating the jihadis. Which is what Democrats who haven't fully transitioned to bizarrely blaming the violence on Trump seem to be doing.
Fortifying Mali.
Oh wonderful, locusts are now hammering southern Africa. Thanks 2020.
Greece and Turkey are apparently in military-to-military talks to reduce the chance of military incidents. Although this does not address the underlying issues in dispute, avoiding shooting would be good.
The European Union seems like it wants Britain to behave like it is still merely an imperial province rather than an independent state that has broken free of the proto-imperial project.
Land-based long-range air power, which exercised with Australian forces and Marines which have a battalion-sized presence in Australia, would be useful to scrape clean those artificial islands that China built in the South China Sea.
Will AI make a fighter pilot more of a platoon commander for the plane under AI control and any drones flying with the plane?
The emperor has no
Do we really know if illegal voting is rare if it takes this long to prosecute? How long before Democrats call it "undocumented voting?" And if Democrats "only" manage to shift 5% of the votes to achieve a Biden victory, will Democrats call the election "mostly legitimate?"
I'm already on the bubble with Netflix over their big deals with liberals. If this big deal with two publicity whores is followed by Netflix raising their prices, I'll be out.
So what's your minimum wage if you don't have a job? I'll note it is based on a small shipping container. Make them wheeled and self-driving so they can get out of Dodge when the latest looting surge comes along, and they'll be good to go. Tip to Instapundit.
Commies got to act like commies.
Sounds about right:
The Great Awokening? Today's leftists sacking our cities are essentially religious in nature.
Is it just me or is the Biden campaign's call for national police standards on use of force an admission that Democrat-run cities have to be forced to end police abuse?
Last week I mentioned future "retail deserts." Like I said.
It's science, eh? But what about codpieces?
Regarding recent news, the Germans weren't driving on Paris in 1918. Oddly they had no real objective other than a vague sense of taking advantage of their temporary advantage in troops from shifting troops from Russia before American troops arrived in strength.
That's potentially good news regarding the Xi Jinping Flu virus, and that's true even if Russia gets the credit.
Holy cow! Now the Murder Hornets have allies?
The media is oddly compliant with this media manipulation by the Marxists. Tip to Instapundit.
To be fair, Biden may have no memory of how he has acted before.
I don't find the charge that while in Europe a couple years ago Trump disrespecte dead World War I American soldiers to be credible at all. The only actual evidence--FOIA-released email--backs Trump and is from back then when his helicopter was not flown because of weather concerns. Also, I find it hard to take the outrage from Democrats when their default position is to ridicule, condescend to, and accuse of war crimes the average American soldier. This is just a partisan hit piece from unnamed sources, and the so-called "corroboration" of the story consisted of confirming that unnamed sources did in fact make that charge. To Hell with our media. They have forfeited all trust.
Did China test their version of the X-37B?
I'm not sure what this is about. But my first impression is that I'm against it. Tip to Instapundit.
I've been saying that we don't really know what is going on inside China regarding the pandemic despite CCP claims that all is well. But honestly I'm starting to think they did get it under control because I find it hard to believe that China could have clamped down on bad information after all this time.
Well I should hope this was already forbidden: "A federal judge has ruled that the Detroit Police Department cannot use batons, tear gas, rubber bullets and other tactics against protesters for the next two weeks." But what about for rioters? Isnt that what those methodsare used to control?
Four years ago I ridiculed the notion that Russia was actually trying to get Trump elected. One purpose of their online campaign during our election was to sow divisions here. We have been getting reminders recently that the Russians are capable of running disinformation campaigns with more secrecy than they displayed in 2016 and that they clearly wanted their small effort to be discovered. And boy did the Democrats run with that ball. Useful idiots, indeed. Remember too that Obama knew about the effort and did nothing to stop it--because even he could see how small and amateurish the Russian effort was, which had no noticeable effect on the election results. Well, it had no results until the 2018 mid-term elections when the House went to Democratic control because--in my opinion--of what the Russians sowed in 2016 and what the Democrats and their media allies harvested between those elections.
I just don't know if we've reached the point when Trump should send in federalized National Guard into certain cities to stop the Marxist riots. Can it be done without the cooperation of the cities? And if local mayors and governors won't cooperate, should Trump move in anyway to protect people? Where does the responsibility lie? My sense is that Trump should defer to the locals who refuse to do anything. Let them enjoy their decision. But there is a point when the body count escalates that federal action must be taken even if local government opposes it. It is a difficult question.
The notion that Greece and Turkey are near clashing because of America's "retreat from past commitments" is nonsense. As is the idea that Erdogan and Putin "get a free pass" because Trump likes strongmen. America is present or active in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Georgia, Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Egypt--all around Turkey. Greek-Turk hostility is really old--much older than Turkey's 1974 invasion of Cyprus that split that pro-Greek island by carving out the Turkish areas under Turkish control. Also in regard to Turkey, America halted the sale of F-35s, has tightened relations with Greece, still backs the Kurds; and continues to reinforce America's military capabilities in Europe, bolsters Ukraine, and pushes NATO to rearm, to deter Russia. Honestly, I'm not sure what world the author lives in where an American carrier sailing nearby would compel a halt to a war. Orange Man Bad is not the answer to every foreign policy problem. Sometimes it is okay to speak softly and carry a big stick.
Ninety Hong Kongers were arrested for protesting the delay of local legislative elections for a year. Apparently China needs more time to properly rig them.
A lot of people in Belarus marched to demand Lukashenko leave office after his fraudulent reelection.
Could Putin's poisoning of dissident Navalny get Germany to stop the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project from Russia that Trump has vainly tried to get Germany to stop? The project provides money to Russia; makes Europe dependent on Russian heating fuel in the winter; and allows Russia to bypass Ukraine to supply Europe, allowing Russia to freeze Ukrainians in the winter without harming Europeans.
