Hey, you effed up. You trusted NPR. Obvious language warning below.
It seems to me that rather than destroying other people's property the children of the wealthy elite could just walk outside of their own parents' homes and vandalize and loot them and make more of a point about privilege, no?
Lithuania is worried that Lukashenko will trade the independence of Belarus for Russian help to remain in power. Lithuania right now has Belarus as a buffer to the east. Lithuania would rather not give Russia a direct shot at Lithuania. Uh oh: "Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who is facing the largest protests of his rule, will discuss plans to further integrate their countries on Monday, the Kremlin said."
"President Maduro remains in control because he still has the support of military commanders, armed militias and foreign allies like Russia, China, Iran and Cuba." Funny, I was just thinking I hadn't heard much from Venezuela lately. Sadly, while Venezuela had problems before Chavez took control, his socialist "solution" and his inept successor Maduro simply made much more poverty and more concentration of what wealth is left. So about what you would expect.
The good news is that Greece meets its commitment of spending 2% of GDP on defense by 2024 already. The better news is that it plans to spend more. The bad news is that Greek defenses are geared toward facing fellow NATO member Turkey. Thanks 2020. Or maybe 1821.
Taxes? Wha...? Verdun? Huh?
The idea that Trump will become an autocrat if he wins this election is insane. Packing the court? You mean choosing judges within the traditional limit that match the president's views like every president has done? Gerrymandering legislative districts to bolster Trump? Um, the US House is controlled by Democrats. How did that work? Also, the current districts were drawn after the 2010 census during the Obama administration. WTF is wrong with these Resistance people? They said Trump would be a dictator after he won in 2016. He did not become a dictator. Instead he was allegedly satisfied with "dog whistle" autocracy. Bizarrely, Trump opponents in and out of the media weren't rounded up and put in camps over the last four years. But this time for sure he'll be a dictator? These people are nuts. Why they are allowed to write with sharp objects is beyond me. Of course, this insanity is done online with keyboards. Which might explain a lot, actually.
I've noted the AI pilots we recently tested against human pilots. The robots don't need to be superior to be better--just good enough to make attrition between quickly manufactured robot pilots and human pilots who take years to be good a losing proposition for the humans. Strategypage has more.
"Were the lockdowns a mistake? To that nagging question, the answer increasingly seems to be yes." I was on board the two-week lockdown to bend the infection curve to prevent our medical system from being overwhelmed. I thought it might be three weeks. And I didn't complain about four. But since then, even as we successfully bent the curve and found our worst-case computer projections were way too pessimistic, I started to have doubts. It seems clear that after four weeks this approach has been a mistake. I can forgive such an error early when we knew little and feared much. What's the excuse for persisting in that erroneous judgment?
As long as there is some talk about Eisenhower's warning about the "military-industrial complex," let's remember the rest of that warning.
We have spent the last two decades fighting radicalized jihadists who hate America in order to protect our cities from terrorists. While we weren't looking, Marxists who hate America have radicalized too many Americans and now our cities are being sacked by radicalized fanatics. This is effed up.
The goal is 100%, doncha know? Once you accept a certain percentage of violence you open the gates to calling anything at all "mostly peaceful," including "War is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror." And face it, if there were 570 riots without the large denominator of actual peaceful demonstrations to dilute the percentage, the absolute number would be horrifying if anybody but media-approved causes were behind them. Remember, as I often preface my remarks, of course Black lives matter. Our Constitution and laws require that. But Black Lives Matter is a Marxist group that should be rejected, and its rioting scum membership should be arrested and prosecuted. Maybe then we can do something useful on race relations. Tip to Instapundit.
Their names won't be on any professional sports players' jerseys.
I really don't get how America is systemically racist because some white people owned slaves over 150 years ago; but you cannot call all of Islam systemically jihadists because some Islamic people attacked America on September 11th, just 19 years ago. Face it, both generalizations of group guilt are BS.
Isn't it kind of funny that the most persistent Marxist insurrection violence is taking place in Portland, Oregon, which has a government and people so left wing that it has been (gently and lovingly) mocked in a series called Portlandia?
I
have opposed some Trump policies. I cannot be accused of being a Trump
loyalist. I still don't like him, although he can sometimes be funny and
the Democratic overreaction to him can leave me shaking my head over
their stupidity. I hope that Trump's style will fade in the
Republican party when he leaves office in 2025. And I expect it will. What
won't change is the Twitter-style political world. We can't go back from that
anymore than we could retreat from YouTube (Obama), television
(Kennedy), or radio (FDR). So if a lot of the clearly untrustworthy
traditional media goes broke? Well, those reporters can learn to code. I
won't cry because they embarked on a murder-suicide pact with Trump
that ended up with them missing Trump while inflicting a fatal wound on
themselves.
What also won't change is that I will offer my honest views on the national security issues of the day on The Dignified Rant, regardless of what Trump supports or opposes. Anyway,
I'll vote for Trump. And I won't feel soiled doing so. I really do want
to thank Democrats for giving that gift to me. And if there are more
liberals screaming at the sky in anguish after this election? Well, that
would be great.
Having abandoned cable TV, I've been on YouTube more. The Critical Drinker provides entertaining reviews of movies and series. I find it amusing that the author has developed a far drunker and far more Scottish accent (was that redundant?) than he started with.
A reminder that if Trump really was responsible for the riots in our cities as Democrats now like to claim, they wouldn't have spent months calling them "mostly peaceful." Via Instapundit.
I'm not sure what BS excuse will be used, but there is no way Biden will debate Trump. Via Instapundit.
I'm loath to disregard polls because they show Biden winning. I want to believe that Trump support is under-polled but worry about counting on that. But the polls are done by people who loathe Trump and there are ways to undermine the integrity of polls. Via Instapundit.
If political decisions made the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic worse in America, explain to me again why you'd choose Trump as the fall guy?
After the Cold War, the Army's artillery atrophied and shrunk as it relied on the Air Force for fire support. It worked. But with the rise of peer competitors, Air supremacy is no longer something American troops can assume. So the Army is working on artillery, including the ability to shoot at targets from 500 to 2000 kilometers away. Progress is coming soon.
Explain to me again how CNN isn't an arm of the Democratic Party. Tip to Instapundit.
The Republic of Palau is offering the United States military base options. I've long been an advocate of getting more baskets in the western Pacific to oppose China. But China is also active in this arena.
If freedom of speech relied on pen and typewriter, the ability to Newspeak your words online wouldn't worry me. But reality being what it is, this is a major disaster for freedom of speech. I mean, my God this is bad.
Here be monsters. Via Instapundit. Oh what to do?
More on the Kosovo-Serbia deal. Like I said in this post, it isn't a peace treaty--but it is a step toward peace.
Aren't all those videos and Tweets asserting that cities are just fine around the authors in their upper class areas--contrary to the "myth" of urban violence--just the modern version of saying "Let them eat cake"?
Britain is looking at legislation on Northern Ireland that Britain says is to provide a safety net in case the EU tries to screw Britain. What are the odds of that? The pro-EU propaganda against Britain as a "rogue state" seems in full charge mode. Maybe it is just me but it seems like Britain is just trying to counter the EU's continuing resistance--along with British collaborators who reject the 2016 vote of the people to leave the EU--to accepting Brexit in a hope of keeping Britain inside the EU by hook or crook even at this late date.
There is more anti-Trump junk about the pandemic in the media that ignores context of the time and pretends like his view was anything out of the ordinary for the time even for the media--or even not known back then! Remember, public health officials in and out of the government were downplaying mask use back then not because masks don't work but because public health officials wanted scarce mask supplies to be available for medical staff. That is, the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic threat was downplayed to avoid panic. Remember, too, that at some point in the media there was a lot of media coverage of alarmist models that predicted massive death tolls. The models were completely wrong and we needed some calming words. The timelines are blending for me, but there was no consensus for drastic actions then; and pretending Trump stood athwart the "science" to kill Americans is insane. Honestly, despite the effort to avoid panic what different policies could have been followed than we did follow that don't rely on magically creating knowledge, capabilities, and supplies that simply did not exist then? To believe that Trump prevented better actions means you must arrest Bob Woodward for keeping that vital information to himself until now, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands who might have lived. Or is this all simply leftist propaganda now? There will be a lot of this propaganda between now and the election--and beyond it, of course.
Perhaps you thought my description of the some of the "revolutionaries" in the streets as "cul-de-sac communists." Well. Put them in prison with the "people" they profess to side with. Although I'm open to using Guantanamo Bay, which we can't use to hold jihadis these days for some reason.
Honestly, when a "bombshell" that will finally get Trump is released I yawn. Long ago the Democrats went from "the boy who cried wolf" to "the boy who cried squirrel." To Hell with them.
Politics and that damned reality that can't be wished away.
Combat smart phones. My Signal Corps experience included the cell phone network in the field but not the CSPs.
Britain has a post-Brexit trade deal with Japan. Which is a big deal. America should negotiate one with Britain. I'd hoped we'd be first but maybe politics requires Trump to let someone else go first. Or maybe it is a second term thing to do.
Stars and Stripes won't be shut down after all.
Senate Democrats blocked a Xi Jinping Flu pandemic relief spending bill. Can't have people less miserable before election, now can they?
Why don't the Democrats just put whoever writes Biden's teleprompter stream that Biden relies on for answers to questions at the top of the presidential ticket and save a step? A ham sandwich with a (D) after its name. Tip to Instapundit.
And you trust our media for information on the Xi Jinping Flu why, exactly?
China and India agreed to disengage troops at the point of contact in the recent crisis. We'll see if they manage that without an incident and get to talking about the dispute. Not much can be expected.
Collaboration that pays. The money obscures the concentration camps and surveillance state oppression.
A couple weeks ago I noted that the Saudis could no longer count on Pakistan to provide nuclear warheads for Saudi ballistic missiles. This article discusses the partial breakdown in formerly close Saudi-Pakistan relations.
If I understand the grievance industry correctly, America needs to arrest and imprison a lot more women until they are about 50% of the prison population to demonstrate that men aren't being disproportionately punished because of discrimination.
Is China working toward a "launch on warning" nuclear weapons policy? That worries me more than China adding nuclear missiles to its arsenal. And that's why I fear a policy of deterrence for a nuclear-armed North Korea is extremely dangerous.
Just remember that calling Antifa an "anti-fascist" group ignores that everybody--including socialists and even communists less extreme than them--are "fascists" as far as Antifa is concerned. Do not become confused. As I often advise, always check the "definitions" section.
The Xi Jinping Flu virus was in California in late December if a 50% spike in cough-related hospital visits is an indication. Huh. I've read that air travel links to China for the auto industry are one reason Michigan was hit so hard. Could the virus have hit Michigan that early or earlier? I ask because I had a strange hacking cough for most of December. I'd never experienced anything like that before. And that thought came to me many times at the time and not after the pandemic became known. I know a lot of people think they might have gotten the coronavirus but didn't. So I probably didn't get it. But I still wonder. Of course, "cough" might not be a good proxy for the virus. Tip to Instapundit.
No! Way! It's almost like they were trying to hide their criminal behavior. I mean, not all of them could have been planning Chelsea Clinton's wedding or scheduling yoga lessons, right? A lot of high-ranking people in our government had better serve hefty prison sentences to deter this sort of lawlessness.
Yeah, the NFL is dead to me this season. Let's hope their woke fan base can sustain their business model. Because the non-woke fans understand that the organization BLM is a Marxist outfit that doesn't really think Black lives matter (and of course they do--our Constitution requires that to be true), except as cannon fodder for their own objectives. One year of a player strike turned be from being a baseball fan to not caring. We'll see if pro football can win me back.
To be fair, Democrats will discover a lot of things are much better after the election. Via Instapundit.
It seems likely that Russia's Xi Jinping Flu vaccine is a Potemkin Vaccine.
I'm sure this setback in fighting the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic in France is somehow Trump's fault. Damn him for corrupting nuance and science!
Could the massive wild fires in California convince enough Californians to decline to vote for Biden in order to punish several decades of left-wing government decisions that contributed to this disaster? And would that give Trump more votes than Biden in the election? Remember that California provided all of the votes that gave Hillary more votes than Trump. Or will voters accept the convenient excuse of left-wing government officials that global warming forces beyond their control are at fault? And because Orange Man Bad for environment, of course.
While I expect Antifa/Black Lives Matter violence after the election if Trump wins (and even if he loses, I suppose, because that violence has existed long before 2016), I don't think the Democrats will initiate civil war. Their Fear, Uncertainty, and Dread campaign with the Orwellian name "Transition Integrity Project" is purely designed to scare voters into voting for Biden in a strange "nice little country you got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it" campaign. If the TIP FUD campaign fails--as it should--the Democrats will shift to another impeachment effort. Assuming they still control the House. Which means the American people have to keep swatting the Democrats on the nose until they stop pooping on our democracy and learn how to be a loyal opposition again.
A friend sent this. Hahaha!
Bravery recognized. Salute that man.
When Trump said that the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic could fade when warm weather arrived it was not some "magical" wish as Democrats allege now. It was a prediction that was wrong. Remember that the seasonal flu does dissipate in warmer weather and there was a hope based on that routine experience that Covid19 would do the same thing. So just stop rewriting history.
Bahrain has agreed to normalize relations with Israel. Bahrain is a Sunni Arab-minority government backed by Saudi Arabia with a Shia Arab majority that Iran attempts to radicalize. So there is no way Bahrain would recognize Israel without Saudi approval. And another Arab state recognizing Israel helps pave the way for Saudi Arabia to follow without provoking internal opposition from jihadi-friendly Saudis. Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is trying to move forward in a dangerous domestic environment.
Thoughts on the Greek-Turkish tensions.
Sure, nobody wants a war in space. But everybody wants to lose a war in space even less.
X marks the spot for the F-15.
It seems as if Russian-supplied contractors are running bombing missions in Libya.
So Biden is saying that Republicans had to recruit "deplorables" from Democratic ranks?
Three American B-1 bombers flew over the East Siberian Sea near Russia, seemingly a response to Russia's recent naval exercise near Alaska.
Interestingly enough, the Military Review edition that my most recent article appeared in was delayed because a number of DOD intelligence and public affairs entities wanted to review it before letting it be published. If mine was any part of the expanded review trigger it certainly wasn't for intelligence purposes!
The United States and the Maldives signed a defense agreement. This language explains why it is bad for China: "Both sides reiterated their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific that promotes the security and prosperity of all nations in the region." That language rejects Chinese attempts to control countries and territory, with a special nod to the South China Sea. This is good for America and India. And for the Maldives, too. China had been making inroads--via a debt trap--until elections put a pro-Western government in charge, as I mentioned in 2018 in a couple data dumps. I wonder what this will lead to practically speaking?
Is it just me or does the European Union seem more genuinely angry at Britain for leaving the EU than it is angry at Russia for invading Ukraine and generally upsetting the peace and tranquility of Europe?
If leftist nutballs can take the "okay" symbol and turn into a secret sign of white supremacy (explain to me again how a secret sign designed to show other supremacists that you are a fellow supremacist is even remotely useful if everyone uses it for something completely different?), why can't conservatives take over the Antifa #ACAB as standing for "all Communists are bastards?"
Is it just me? Or is the sight of California politicians blaming their massive wildfires on global warming rather than on decades of bad decisions by California politicians that predictably led to massive wildfires indistinguishable from primitive people blaming natural disasters on angry gods? Wait. What?
Teacher unions tell us that it is unsafe for teachers and staff to restart schools despite the fact that for most students in-person learning is vital. Wait. What? "Central Coast Congressional Candidate Andy Caldwell reported to the Globe that the Santa Barbara Unified School District allowed the children of teachers and district employees to return to in-class learning, in a secret carve-out exemption at Franklin, McKinley, and other elementary schools in the district." To Hell with the teacher unions.
Homegrown Marxists are waging war on America. Unleash law enforcement on these violent scum to round them up and prosecute them. And I'd have no problem housing them in Guantanamo Bay until federal charges can be moved forward.
I suppose this film could have a serious purpose, but you could not include a disclaimer that "no children were harmed in the making of this film" the way producers have to verify for animals used in a film.
It's just sad. Just don't give the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch to Biden. At what point does early voting rule out replacing Biden with someone else because votes are already cast? Or will Democrats reverse themselves and declare in-person voting safe so those people can override votes in person? Is overriding your vote legal? How long would that tie up counting to avoid double-counting? Would the voters bother or believe it is safe just because it is convenient for the Democratic Party?
Marxists--not civil rights advocates.
If Hiftar remains firm with the military, this chaos in the eastern Libyan government will not matter much in the long run. But Lord, the political chaos demonstrates the mistake of giving your enemy time.
Okay, I'll admit it. My son told me about the Yahoo! Sports app, so I watched the NFL on Sunday. The Lions reignited the traditional pain that being their fan inflicts. I didn't actually see any of the woke crap. We'll see. Hey, I'm only a man.
