What passes for "news" these days.
"Systemic" excuses that deny human agency.
Seeing Democratic commercials celebrating the late Senator McCain as a natural supporter of Biden infuriates me given that in 2008 when McCain ran for president against Obama, the pro-Democratic media portrayed McCain as a senile, anger-prone racist who could be psychologically damaged because of POW torture and possibly ineligible for the presidency because of his place of birth.
Just because the statues are the targets doesn't mean they hate the statues:
They hit the statues but they aim at America.
We're told that Pence used his white male privilege to run over poor Harris in the VP debate. Mansplaining. Manterruption. The horror. The cumulative weight of that privilege dating back to 1619 gave Pence the advantage of 3 seconds of speaking time. That's right, Pence spoke three seconds more than Harris, according to CNN. By all means, let's burn everything down to "fix" that.
The WHO on general lockdowns: "The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it." Sadly, "two weeks to bend the curve" has become "we'll let you know when we feel it is safe." I suspect the election of Harris Biden will be the trigger for that day. And on that day Democrats will cite the wise WHO advice to lift lockdowns. Via Instapundit.
This is funny:
But making that a reality might be the only way to save Taiwan's freedoms. Perhaps Taiwan should start working on that.
Mercifully, Africa was not hit as hard by the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic as was feared: "We argue that Africa’s much younger population explains a very large part of the apparent difference. Some of the remaining gap is probably due to under reporting of events but there are a number of other plausible explanations. These range from climatic differences, pre-existing immunity, genetic factors and behavioural differences."
Should America stop pretending that Turkey under Erdogan is our ally? Well, I'd speak softly and carry a big stick on this issue, given that Turkey is a formal NATO ally and Erdogan's effect should not be considered the last word on the alliance. I'd cauterize rather than amputate, and wait for Turkey to pass Erdogan through its system.
I don't think we know anything at all about the "ICBM" that North Korea displayed in their big parade other than that Kim Jong Un wants observers to believe he has ICBMs. We have no evidence that the North Koreans have miniaturized and ruggedized a warhead to survive on an ICBM. And that reload thing we "know" is BS because launching the missile damages those converted civilian trucks being used as carrier-launchers.
I find it frightening that Democrats are so easily embracing word games by changing the definition of "court packing" from the accurate "adding seats to get results you want" to the dishonest new one of "filling seats as provided by the law in accordance with your philosophy on the role of the court." Shameful. And Orwellian. I'd say calling Republicans "Nazis" is Orwellian, too. But that's just leftism as usual.
I've long said that while one can perhaps excuse the initial investigation of Russia-Trump collusion, the lack of evidence should have ended the inquiry after a month. Perhaps I've been too generous with the Obama administration.
Democrats keep saying that Trump has wrecked our alliances. Funny that two formerly neutral countries--Finland and Switzerland--are considering buying American F-35A or F-18E/F fighter aircraft.
Two invasion scenarios that deem China basically can't defeat Taiwan (via Instapundit) I respectfully disagree and in particular see no reason to think that Taiwan's paper reserves could be effectively used. And even if China can't conquer Taiwan, it is a major problem if a ceasefire is declared while the PLA still has a foothold on Taiwan, as I wrote in Military Review.
Okay, three exceptions to the science of avoiding crowds to prevent the spread of the Xi Jinping Flu coronavirus: Black Lives Matter protests, funerals of liberal icons, and the Lakers winning the NBA championship.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Biden mentions his time as a teen attending a Black church. But church members don't remember that:
Pakistan blew their long relationship with America by insisting on being jihadi-friendly; let's see how their new Chinese "friends" work out. A lot about Russian and Chinese tank designs.
If Trump really was a Nazi, the Left would love Trump.
The Chinese look like they are preparing to be able to surge production of nuclear-powered submarines. The Chinese nuclear-powered subs haven't been very good up to now. The Chinese learning curve has been a troubled arc so far, as far as we can tell. I assume the Chinese foresee that failure to be a solvable problem. In related news, Japan introduced a new submarine class to expand their submarine force.
The U.S. notified Congress of a plan to sell Taiwan several new weapons systems.
It is a crime against rule of law that the Durham probe into the color-of-law coup against Trump won't be resolved before the election. Those who plotted could get away with their actions if the effect of three years of false Trump-Russia collusion is to defeat Trump--even if the investigation leads to indictments and prosecutions that the Biden administration would actually finish rather than cancel and cover up.
The Army will not get its wish list of modernization projects.
Japan is a major power in Asia with America at its side.
An old-style fisking. Tip to Instapundit.
But of course that happened. Ah, the sainted international community in action. The body should be disbanded. Let those awful countries peddle their propaganda on their own dime.
After 3-1/2 years a BS charge against Trump by the Democrats is finally tossed. But that doesn't mean it wasn't effective in harming Trump's support. Pursuing politics through the courts is shameful.
This really is fake but accurate.
I know I'm not the best practicing Catholic. But the current Pope has erased any lingering guilt over that. He is a repulsive man of the left. I was hostile to this surrender to the CCP four years ago. Here's a direct link to the article I linked in that data dump post. Francis should be under fire for it.
The jihadi al Shabaab group in Somalia has evolved into a criminal enterprise. Which is an improvement in that part of the world.
Hopefully Army SFABs free up regular combat brigades and special forces from training allied forces in order to focus on high-end combat scenarios.
If so, I've got some issues with whoever is playing my character. Tip to Instapundit.
Corruption. Hookers, and favors, and crack. Oh my! Well son of a gun. I'd boycott Facebook and Twitter for their efforts to support Democrats by suppressing that story, but I quit Facebook some time ago and never joined Twitter. So what did Joe Biden know and when did he know it? And does/can he remember it? How this doesn't demonstrate Biden's clear unfitness for office is beyond me. And how this doesn't demonstrate the media's unfitness for their role of informing us is beyond me. The media wants this information on lockdown until they find a cure. One more thing that Americans don't "deserve" to know about before the election. At least we have Australian media. Trump needs four more years in the White House just to reveal the crimes suppressed for the last four years by Democratic-friendly media and bureaucrats in the too-vast federal bureaucracy. Question: if the FBI has this, why did they sit on it this long?
The Navy is looking at a replacement for the Burke-class destroyers with more VLS cells and more room for adding technology. I assume that means more electric generation capacity. If the Navy can't get this ship in under budget with the already-paid-for Zumwalt technology, God help the Navy. With the Navy's planned new frigate already seeming to cost 40% more than the Navy estimates, I'm worried.
Restoring electronic warfare to the portfolio of Army capabilities. In the post Cold War world that wasn't much of a worry. That era is over.
What's up with Kim Jong-Un's tearful apology to his people? Is this a body double preparing the people for a new leader because Kim is either dead, too ill to govern, or simply the victim of a Chinese coup? I am not saying this is so. It would be bizarre, I freely admit. I'm just grasping at reasons for this odd display.
For the last 6 months "unmasking" has been a verboten "anti-science" act according to Democrats. Now it is if fine, I guess. Mind you, I've been pro-mask even when the Public Health experts were telling us early on that they weren't of use to us, and so save them for health workers. But the story on figurative unmasking seems unjust.
The Newspeak Merriam-Webster dictionary is dead to me. This exceeds even the Democratic-media complex's sudden redefining of "court packing" to protect Democrats.
Nuance, Science!, and state-provided health care stagger: "With new cases hitting about 100,000 a day, Europe has by a wide margin overtaken the United States, where more than 51,000 COVID-19 infections are reported on average every day." I'm wishing for the best for our European friends, of course (and even Russia--I'm not a ghoul). I'm just annoyed at the fanboys (and girls) here who claimed Europe is oh so much wiser than America in their Xi Jinping Flu pandemic response.
So ... health reasons for making a second presidential debate virtual were BS?
The inability of Democrats to understand that judges have the duty to examine a statute for legality and Constitutionality and not to demonstrate their compassion is frightening if you value rule of law, isn't it? It is the job of legislators to craft their statutes in a manner that can withstand such judicial scrutiny.
That's interesting. But is it still biased toward Biden by looking where the light is better for AI by weighing social media sentiment? Via Instapundit.
A tiny spark of what passes for hope in Gaza. Which means he will be killed by the worst fanatics in the end.
China's infrastructure of Xinjiang concentration camps is expanded to Tibet. To be fair, China's communist rulers plan to expand it everywhere when they can. The Chinese Communist Party is evil. To be fair, all communists are evil.
I would never trust web-based home security systems. And I want nothing to do with the Internet of Things, while I'm on the subject.
Army troops will receive new 6.8mm carbines and squad automatic weapons in 2022.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan war is more serious and more like a war than my impression from the news justified. Note the ability of Azerbaijan's drones to pummel Armenian ground forces. I addressed that issue in Army magazine.
Rather than "everything changing" in the aftermath of the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic, I suspect things will go back to closer to a pre-pandemic normal than to social distancing norms that abandon cities. People will forget a lot as the pandemic fades and by 2022 the "three-second rule" will be back in force. Unless people can show me that the last 100 years were markedly different than pre-Spanish Flu practices, I'll stick with that prediction.
You wouldn't trust Hunter Biden on the midnight shift at a 7/11, but China, too, valued his father skill set. Well, maybe. It depends on whether there were earlier links while Biden was VP. Or maybe it was a bit of Chinese insurance much the way contributions to the Clinton Foundation didn't dry up completely after Trump won--you never know how things will turn out, eh? Tip to Instapundit--I assume nobody will see it through Facebook or Twitter.
It is likely--but not assured--that the plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer was big talk by crackpots. But these sting operations, whether against these guys or Islamists, have a deterrent value by making people willing to move beyond talk worry about getting caught.
I'd hate to be the poor dumb SOB sent on those calls for help. When seconds matter, the cop social worker is minutes away. What could possibly go wrong?
Voter integrity doubts in Kyrgyzstan. The integrity of elections should be beyond question. Anybody listening here?
"A hospital president and the director of the health commission in the northern Chinese city of Qingdao have been fired after China’s latest coronavirus outbreak, authorities said Thursday." Were the people fired because of the Xi Jinping Flu outbreak or because news of the outbreak reached the outside world?
If China can dominate 5G they will be able to do to information China doesn't like what Facebook and Twitter did to information that the left doesn't like.
Gosh, now social media has standards for accusations? I wonder what changed? We may never know.
The amazing contrast between "moderators" for Trump and Biden "town halls."
I think that measuring China's economy as pulling more weight in the world than America's is BS because it relies on inflating China's economy with PPP. That is useful for correcting for measuring real defense spending when many expenditures are on a cheaper local economy. But when you are talking about global economic power, straight GDP is best.
When you absolutely, positively, have to get out of the plane right now.
No! Way! But the nuance!
A lot of Americans--sadly--will be sad that they've lost a club to bash America. "Here's the reality: Countries with little experience with a pandemic
continue to struggle with it. America's leaders, from the federal
government on down, have made bad calls and good calls, as have those in
Europe. But that idea is totally alien to people who believe, to their
core, that America can do no right, while Europe can do no wrong."
Iran is being hammered by the Xi Jinping Flu--even according to their own statistics which may or may not be accurate. Long gone are the days when faithful Iranians licked mosque doors to prove that Allah would not allow them to get sick.
It is good to see that 2012/2016 swing voters aren't persuaded by the intensive Democratic-media complex hoax that Trump is responsible for the Xi Jinping Flu. Tip to Instapundit.
Yeah, the blatant politics of this issue pushed into shows led me to drop Supergirl and Orange is the New Black. Tip to Instapundit.
Do I wish that Trump didn't toy with Q Anon or Seal Team 6 conspiracy theories? Sigh. Of course I do. But I also wish that Democrats didn't toy with Antifa and the notion that America was founded on slavery. Egad. Of course they do. You go to the election with the candidate you have--and the opposition candidate you have--and not the candidates you wish you had. Trump is superior.
Why aren't people afraid of this? And angry?
Satellite bandwidth limits are a weak point in persistent aerial surveillance.
Of course Secretary of Defense Esper didn't lie when he said a generation of counter-insurgency made the military less prepared for conventional warfare. This was routinely discussed during the Iraq War in the context of the war "breaking" the Army--when what they really meant was that the Army was becoming "unbalanced." Here's a post from 2008 and another looking back in 2018.
More on Battle Force 2045 which finally picked a number for the ships the Navy needs and seems ready to make the difficult decision to demote the large carrier in order to reach that number with smaller and more expendable warships.
Well this is stupid. But the funny part is that "white women" are now being thrown under the Woke Bus. Tip to Instapundit.
It could only be a more Canadian news story if it took place at a Tim Horton's:
I don't understand why liberals who hate Christopher Columbus for overwhelming the indigenous population also favor unrestricted immigration to America today. Oh, right. Liberals hate today's indigenous American population. Never mind.
Ah, "news." Not only is the media not "Charlie" any more, they don't even admit to knowing Charlie.
Honestly, I thought "Liberal Fascism" has long been the right term for the concentration camp guard candidates on Twitter "canceling" people, twisting our history, and in our streets breaking windows and burning things. Tip to Instapundit. But labeling the movement is less important than understanding that it is dangerous. And rejecting it, of course.
Remember when the New York Times let Putin use their print space to reach Americans? Good times. Good times.
Mexico's defense chief was corrupt and hip deep in protecting the drug cartels. So what did I say about this last decade? "My fear is that the use by Mexico of the relatively uncorrupted military in the struggle (to bypass corrupted--by bribery, blackmail, and death threats--local police and judges) will result in the military becoming a corrupted institution. If the Mexican drug lords can buy time, they'll be able to buy troops, too." Yeah. They bought the top general.
Really, I don't buy the idea of the Deep State in America. There is a strong base of basic bureaucracy independence. Which isn't great, but it is normal. And it can be good by smoothing out bumps. But it can get out of hand. Which we saw with foreign policy staff outraged that Trump would not defer to them on foreign policy--as if that is how a democracy works. Then pile on top of that foundation the growth of the Partisan State where the culture of the bureaucracy has abandoned non-partisanship in favor of only doing their jobs fully when they agree with the policy. And the very existence of President Trump pushed the Partisan State to be open in opposing policies they don't want and punishing the president who dares to resist them. If Trump wins, this is one more thing that needs to be fixed. And if Biden wins it is one more bad thing that will continue uninterrupted.
Slavery was (is) bad. But is it true that so many young Americans don't know that slavery was a "normal" part of life around the world and not just something that America practiced? And do people not know that moral objection to slavery--abolitionists--arose in the West? And that America in particular suffered hundreds of thousands of dead Union soldiers to end slavery by force?
The international arms embargo on Iran is over. Thankfully American sanctions and low oil prices will make it difficult for Iran to buy much.
The massive Soviet tank force is long gone and only a fraction are available to a much smaller Russian army, which has effective ground forces within their military of "about a hundred thousand men, organized into special army, navy, air force and interior ministry units composed of commandos, paratroopers, marines and those that guard the capital." That's why Russia talks loudly about their nuclear weapons.
"I have no response." Well I'm glad that's settled. Move along. Tip to Instapundit.
The teacher was warned not to dress so slutty, so I guess he deserved what he got.
Seriously, why has the FBI sat on that Hunter Biden laptop since last December? Was it irrelevant when Congress was impeaching and trying Trump on an issue related to that Joe Biden-Ukraine colluding and corruption that is alleged? If it is junk as Joe Biden's defenders say, why wasn't that revealed long ago?
It wasn't that long ago that Biden's "strange business history" was far less sensitive. To be fair to the media, how were they to know that Biden would be their standard bearer this year? Tip to Instapundit.
