As Democrats ridicule the notion that the voting systems are vulnerable to manipulation, remember that Democrats last year were Very Concerned about their integrity. I haven't seen proof yet, but we have some time yet as the election and legal processes continue.
Developments in Algeria. Don't get your hopes up for rule of law democracy.
Pollsters did as bad in 2020 as they did in 2016 despite their pledge after 2016 to do better by understanding the voters they missed in 2016. So they didn't have ignorance as an excuse, so arguably they did worse. Of course, the question of whether pollsters failed to do better or simply joined their writing and speaking brethren in openly advocating for Democrats is the main question. But if the pollsters are sincerely interested in doing better in reaching conservatives, maybe telling Democrats to stop talking about purging and reeducating Trump supporters would be helpful.
Smells like woke spirit? I wrote the lyrics to that!
"Since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power in 2012 he has systematically replaced all the old-school generals with younger men selected for loyalty to Kim Jong Un and his new strategy of dependence on nuclear weapons rather than the threadbare million-man North Korean military." The North Koreans adopted what I termed a policy of kooks, spooks, and nukes. The regular army is more like a mass labor force and holding pen for young men in prime trouble-causing ages.
Trump continued the tradition of pardoning the White House Thanksgiving turkeys.
An American warship transited the Taiwan Strait and an American rear admiral in charge of INDOPACOM intelligence visited Taiwan. China promised a "response to the officer's visit." The Chinese have been promising a response regarding Taiwan a lot lately, haven't they? I get the strong impression that we are working hard to deter a Chinese attack on Taiwanese territory during this transition period. As the article notes, this is the 12th transit this year, which matched the previous high set in 2016.
You have to admit that a lot of strange things didn't happen on the way to Biden's apparent victory. That may be the case. But doesn't it inspire just a little curiosity among the journalists supposedly in that field of inquiry? Or does democracy die in darkness? Tip to Instapundit.
The Americans exercised flying in precision rocket launchers to Romania to hit targets in the Black Sea. Another welcoming gesture to the Russians in the Black Sea. Speaking of annoying the Russians, an American destroyer entered the Black Sea recently.
I have never really bought the Heritage Foundation's criteria for measuring American military strength. Sure, in regard to formal objectives we fall short. Call us "marginally" capable if you want. There is some use in that measure. But I guarantee that every other country on the planet has a military far less capable of meeting their own objectives than the American military's capabilities. And on the issue of fighting two major foes at once, we never really met that standard. And given the rise of China while having to watch Russia, too, we won't. Not alone anyway.
Apparently the Democrats had to destroy their cities in order to "save" them from Trump. I wonder what will happen when criminals across America discover that Seattle will not punish criminals. Good luck with that. What are the odds that institutionalized leftist stupidity could turn out badly?
Is Secretary of State Pompeo's Middle East trip an effort to get Arab states to recognize Israel and lock in that peace outreach from Biden? And thus lock in opposition to Iran by strengthening an anti-Iran multilateral alliance? Pompeo expresses confidence that more states will establish peace with Israel in the coming weeks and months. Fingers crossed. Sadly, the Saudis don't seem willing to follow--yet. If enough do, the Biden administration will be forced to "lead from behind," eh?
Perhaps Trump needs to admit he lost the election battle but pursue victory in the war of ideas. I've said in the last data dump that proof of massive conspiracy--or something like it--needs to come out soon because seeking a Constitutional but rare state Congressional delegation vote without that proof will not be tolerated. And it should not be as much as I lament the apparent victory of Biden. Better to endure a poor emperor than take an extraordinary measure outside of the law that defeats that emperor in favor of a good emperor and guarantee endless battles for the purple for generations to come. I can't remember who said that in regard to the Roman empire. Better to investigate the election after Biden's inauguration and use, if necessary and justified, the provisions in the Constitution on impeachment. Democrats might well rue the day they lowered the bar for the impeachment avenue for a BS charge against Trump. But there is some time in the process before that shift has to be made.
China is changing how it invests money abroad in Central Asia. That's interesting enough, although financial strains within China are only hinted at as a cause for the changes. But I find the notion of continued Chinese investments in Central Asia--which Russia very much would like to keep in their orbit--the most interesting part of this story. How long will Russia pretend China is Russia's friend while China pries away portions of the former Soviet empire? I won't complain about China's strategy.
Well, who should be first, then? What the Hell happened to Mattis? Liberals used to be outraged at his forthrightness about killing our enemies. Now he's a liberal poster boy for approved military men. It seems like Mattis is just one more person who was broken by Trump Derangement Syndrome. Tip to Instapundit.
Reaper finally has a working SIGINT pod.
Early in the week Trump authorized transition activities in case he loses his legal cases. I assume liberals will never lose their fear of the Trumptatorship even after Biden is sworn in. Perhaps there will be a curative Rose Garden 2-minute hate every day to ward off his possible return.
It really annoys me that liberals say Republicans need to accept that Trump lost. Results haven't even been certified yet. Democrats didn't accept that Hillary lost--ever--and tried strenuously to get rid of Trump to reverse that outcome.
When the pandemic lockdowns pass I'm going to make more efforts to get out and do things.
If Biden re-enters the Iran nuclear deal, it will strengthen Iran in a lot of areas, including Iraq and Afghanistan. It's like tying rather than cutting the Gordian Knot. That will be a major defeat for America even aside from letting Iran get nukes.
I've worried that China might try to hit Taiwan's Pratas Island in the presidential transition period. I ran across this older post about Taiwan's airborne response force.
Good, the Army is working on reducing the "missile magnet" characteristics of American ground units.
Getting what they wanted--good and hard--in Minneapolis. Tip to Instapundit.
How convenient BS is transformed into news.
I can see why Russia thinks Libya is valuable to them. I still don't see the point of their Mediterranean gambit in practice which includes Russia establishing themselves in Libya. Although I accept the author's point about Russia wanting the ability to punish Europe by unleashing migrants from the south. That's not new.
Singing is forbidden at California Thanksgiving celebrations:
I find it amusing that the morons predicting Trump militias gunning down Democrats in the streets are now pretending that their Tweets prevented the slaughter and stealing of the election. We know that Twitter doesn't work against actual tyrants. If the Trumptatorship could be stopped by Tweets, it really wasn't that big of a threat. How sad is that for the self esteem of the Resistance?
I consider it a success that Biden won't appoint John Kerry to be secretary of state. I'd like to point out this facepalm of diplomacy, in particular.
Given Kerry's track record--say, how'd that Iran reset go?--America will surrender to climate change under Kerry's deft hand on the climate portfolio tiller. But at least we know he'll jet around the world as often as he has to in order to get a deal, complete with a lovely document decked out with ribbons and wax seals. The signing ceremony--and menu--in a Swiss castle will be awesome.
It would be funny if California municipalities declared themselves to be Thanksgiving and Christmas Sanctuary Cities in the face of the governor's abusive Xi Jinping Flu pandemic restrictions. Restrictions he doesn't care to follow. Actually I wouldn't be shocked if more rural areas around the country do this.
The biggest NATO laggard in defense spending based on capacity had a scuffle at sea with NATO's most aggressive nominal member. It's like the Iran-Iraq War of NATO politics. I kid. The Germans are okay--they're just annoying. The Turks are increasingly dangerous under Erdogan. I hope that passes before something really bad happens.
It is pretty disgusting to hear the media fluffers praise the serious, humble, non-political professionals that Biden has named to his future cabinet. Pompeo isn't impressed with the foreign policy picks.
That's good news if true, right? "In other words, it appears that the only time people can infect others is when they have the virus for the first time, and only when they are symptomatic." [emphasis in original] The study was published in Nature magazine. Although I don't believe masks are unimportant given that people with symptoms will go in public despite knowing they have it, or thinking they just have a cold. But masks shouldn't be fetishized as a silver bullet solution, certainly.
The late-to-the-scene Obama people who would be the puppet masters. Wait. What? I thought that was Harris's job. Or Biden's wife's job. The struggle for the Oval Throne could get ugly. You either win that game or you go to cable news, right? Although the action of the Obama people who didn't campaign for Biden shows they are more grown up than the Republicans who refused to staff the Trump White house, eh?
Public schools in Massachusetts are losing students. Private and home schooling account for a good chunk, but what about the rest? Are they in other states or did they just fall through the cracks out of education altogether? I wonder how many are lost across the country? And I wonder what the impact of that lost cohort who fall through the cracks during the anti-science school shutdowns will be on society and crime rates over the next generation?
That's how you refuse to accept election results.
At this point I'm doubting that Trump can prove sufficient fraud to
change the formal election outcome. I figure there was fraud and it
might have been enough to flip key states. But this is because the
vote-by-mail system added during the pandemic panic is too vulnerable to
fraud yet impossible to detect if those who count it want to ignore
fraud and error. And there would be plenty of both as people were
motivated to vote via mail against Trump by the relentless media
propaganda over the last four years portraying Trump as orange Hitler
and falsely claiming his supporters are evil, too. Violence isn't the
answer to the injustice. The damage to America would be too great on
that route. Better to contain Biden's administration with all legal
levers of power left and work to clean up the voting system for next
time, including prosecuting anybody who can be caught. Containment will
be made easier by the factional nature of the Biden administration which
includes Biden's people, Obama's people, Harris's people, and even more
radical Red Guards competing for power. Heck, Biden's wife might have
her own faction before long. There will be opportunity in that division,
even if the Senate line does not hold. Later: And let me add that only Trump may have united all the Democratic factions. Which supports my speculation. Still, the process has time before election decisions are final.
The United States withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty which America claims Russia has been violating. I assume we have better options--and our satellites are better than the old planes used--than the Russians for for compensating for the lack of overflight rights. I wonder if our allies support the treaty because they don't have those options and don't think we'll share information from our options as freely?
Yeah, good luck with that. He probably wants a pony, too.
The media seems to be swooning over Biden's claim he is considering Republicans for his administration. This isn't a sign of bipartisanship. It is a sign that Biden wants a Republican fall guy (or fall gal) to blame for some ugly policy choice that "Biden" will push through.
If there was justice, there would be an amazing revelation that torpedoes Biden's apparent victory. But at best, I think, Trump will flip a state called for Biden and have to settle for a moral victory that justifies further investigation into voter fraud after Biden takes office. If that pans out, then it all hinges on Republicans controlling Congress after 2022. Whether that means impeachment or holding the line until 2024 will depend on how active Biden's people are in pen and phone antics.
This behavior should not be tolerated in a workplace. What exactly is their major malfunction? Tell those crybulllies to clear out their desks because the employer isn't there to endure their tantrums until they grow up. I'm sure plenty of people can replace them. Heck, employers should revive the Roman decimation practice and have the woke crybully employees publicly draw lots for who goes. Maybe the remainder will settle the ef down and do their jobs. The fired can enjoy the lockdown job market. Or learn to code, as blue collar workers have been advised in the past. Smells like woke spirit, eh?
Never let a pandemic crisis go to waste: China is crushing Hong Kong.
Prince Charles makes me regret that America didn't counter-invade Britain in 1816 and frog march the royal family out of their palaces. We're sorry Britain.
Biden's intent to open the immigration spigot is a big FU to American blue collar workers and the unemployed, of every race and ethnicity. Isn't it kind of racist for Democrats to insist on locking down Americans yet invite brown-skinned people in to provide low-wage services to them?
A tanker struck a mine in the Red Sea off of Saudi Arabia. Have no doubt Iran had a hand in this.
Trump pardoned Flynn. Good. I'm agnostic on whether he should have been in the Trump administration. But he had honorable military service. And he should never have been prosecuted. I know, Democrats say Pence fired him for lying to him. But while lying to Pence was a firing offense it is not a criminal offense. And for political reasons the FBI entrapped Flynn on a lie to them. Yes, Flynn pled guilty but it was just to end the legal ordeal that was grinding up his family in the process. Remember, the process is the punishment when the government puts unlimited resources into a witch hunt against a mere individual who is impoverished making a legal defense. Now how does Flynn get four years of his life back?
For all the times I've thought, "Are these people nuts?" I guess I have to apologize and wish them the best for getting better. Tell me you are shocked. Although it is self-reporting. So bias can creep in if conservatives are less likely to report mental illness diagnoses and if liberals are eager to grasp a mantle of perceived victimhood. Tip to Instapundit.
It is a feature of police states to have children rat out parents. Will Vermont reward the kids with Young Hero of the State medals, or something too? The parents should be asked the question--NOT the children. Via Instapundit.
Whether in the Obama administration or not, saying that "enhanced interrogation" is "torture" does not make it so. If something is torture, as a rule that should be followed 99.999% of the time I do not think we should torture. But there are unpleasant methods that don't reach the level of torture. I'm fine with those against our worst terrorist enemies to protect us. We need definitions we agree on before we have a debate on torture. Heck, we can even decide that options below the threshold of actual torture should be forbidden. Why do we even need to have a pointless debate on whether enhanced interrogation is torture? Is the purpose of the debate to damn Americans for doing that to protect us or to stop what is claimed to be a practice America should not do? Don't forget there are trade-offs with that decision, however. As an aside, torture does work, contrary to assertions to the contrary. It works in specific situations against people you are sure are guilty and when you have other information to corroborate answers and guide questioning. What doesn't work is mass torture of randomly grabbed suspects when you really know nothing about what you are looking for. In that case people really will tell you anything at all to get the torture to stop. And in that case torture doesn't work and is counter-productive.
Remember that BLM and Antifa are just the latest iteration of violent leftists that have centuries-long pedigree. That author echoes my own belief that of course Black lives matter. But the organization Black Lives Matter is horrible. They'd be Pastafarians if they needed another public face to promote communism. Don't buy the hate and violence these radicals are peddling under the soothing guise of justice. Via Instapundit.
China launched their Moon mission to return lunar samples to China. And just in time, Biden purportedly plans to shift the focus of NASA to climate change, as I noted in this data dump two weeks ago. This will work out just swell. Via Instapundit.
Even the left-wing Guardian newspaper admits that the charge of Trump racist dog whistles was BS. Trump appealed to Americanism, which has no limits on race or ethnicity.
Did China use microwave weapons to drive Indian forces out of contested border positions?
The Philippines is trying to match China's subliminal warfare in the South China Sea: "In light of the American pledge of support the Philippines is organizing CAAS (Cafgu Active Auxiliary Service), a naval militia meant confront the existing Chinese one. CAAS will not be as large as the Chinese militia but it will be large enough to confront and block some Chinese militia efforts. China could escalate and use force but that would be very risky with American naval and air forces in the vicinity."
Let's remember that according to Democrats Trump did a better job of preventing Russian election interference than Obama did.
Unrest is bubbling in North Korea. North Korea has seemingly been on the cusp of unrest for a long time and I've stopped trying to see the early warning signs of actual regime or state collapse.
Details on the F-35 sale to the UAE. In my view, the UAE doesn't need these planes to deal with Iran, their only likely foreign enemy. This is just a status symbol purchase. Which won't help dealing with a threat coming from the 80% of the population that isn't part of the citizenry of the UAE if Iran incites some portion into revolt. Although as I've noted, selling the F-35 to the UAE makes it easier for America to deploy our F-35s there and to use them with plausible deniability.
As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
The formal Somali government can't hold the line against jihadis without America's troop presence and regional allies fear a possible American withdrawal. I think we should support regional states emerging from the wreckage of the faux Somali nation that collapsed three decades ago. Maybe then we can grow the entities that can prevent Somalia from being a sanctuary to entrench and export Islamist terror. Ethiopia is way too distracted to send forces to stabilize Somalia if we leave.
Tigray separatists disabled a runway that Ethiopian forces captured. Whatever the strength of the Tigray regional forces, they don't seem to have prevented Ethiopian forces from advancing sufficiently to plan an attack on the regional capital. As it turns out, it doesn't seem like there was any resistance to Ethiopians who entered the regional capital. Will there be resistance?
Johns Hopkins researchers concluded there have been no excess deaths in 2020 despite the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic? Well that would undermine the idea that America has effed up the covid-19 response, eh? And doesn't it say that perhaps pandemic-caused deaths were exaggerated in our statistics, as I've long suspected? I'm willing to ponder the chance that our responses made this less deadly than it would have been otherwise rather than concluding that we have overreacted. But right now I do think the broad lockdowns after April were an overreaction. Whether or not past actions were an overreaction, shouldn't this help reduce overreactions going forward? I'm not willing to say this has been from evil people trying to control us, using the pandemic as an excuse. I think it is more akin to mass hysteria from well-intentioned public health people; fear of government officials that they will be blamed if they don't do what everyone else is doing, regardless of whether it is right or wrong (safety in numbers); and the natural tendency of statists in government and the media to think more state control is the solution to every problem. But I freely admit that this excess death issue is out of my lane. It might be a BS claim and I'll wait before I accept it as real. Via Instapundit.
The Air Force is using technology to address their pilot shortage. No measure is out of bounds except the one that would probably work--allowing enlisted pilots. I've long worried about the Air Force's resistance to that step, but worry that reluctance is a sign of problems in the Air Force system to ensure air superiority and the ability to influence operations on the surface of the planet.
Are the Turks gearing up for a military operation against Syrian Kurds along the Turkish border?
Well, a stopped clock--and Biden is clearly, and sadly, one of those--is right twice per day. It's fair to say it is 12 hours after the last time Biden was right about Bosnian divisions. But the way Biden has stoked divisions with his rhetoric about Trump supporters and Trump, he's not the one to lecture Bosnians now.
So Mattis is throwing away his reputation for China's coin? Sad. And damning.
South Korea is concerned about an uptick in Xi Jinping Flu cases.
The Electoral College contains presidential election fraud. Can you imagine what the process would look like if Trump had to prove fraud in all the states and DC because we had national vote elections instead? Let the process work and be grateful we have our system. And who knows, maybe the evidence I've long insisted is needed to prove fraud and error--and this is odd, isn't it?--will be revealed in time to affect the election outcome. It is 2020, after all.
Minneapolis welcomes their new insect criminal overlords!
The Army's new rifle/squad automatic rifle competition. I worry that plastic-case ammunition will deform in high heat environments. Surely, this has already been tested, right? Recall that the German rifle's barrel holder would apparently deform and throw off aim at as low a temperature as 74 degrees F (23 C). That's a fun thing to discover in combat.
Sanity is raising its welcome head in the Philippines in regard to American military ties. Duterte will never make China happy for long no matter how many concessions he offers.
If the CDC model is accurate, the pandemic is not very deadly although very contagious. And we're getting close to Xi Jinping Flu herd immunity, aren't we? Via Instapundit.
From nuance to nonsense--from the very source of sophistication that American liberals dream of. Via Instapundit.
America counts any death with Covid-19 as a Xi Jinping Flu death: "If someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death." And it gets worse. If you have symptoms consistent with the coronavirus, it is counted as covid-19 even without a positive test. I've been saying this for a long time. Always check the Definitions section, I say.As the article notes, there is financial incentive to report COVID-19 deaths. One day we'll find that America did not screw up the response to this pandemic any worse than anyone else. And who knows how good our 2020 response will look with consistent definitions? When does the Biden CDC change the definition to show dramatic improvement? Tip to Instapundit.
I still fear that the EU will snatch Brexit from Britain before a final deal can be made. Why more British aren't determined to escape when they have seen how vengeful Brussels has been to punish Britain for leaving is beyond me. Honestly, Scotland would have an easier time leaving the United Kingdom if it votes to do so. Or should the rest of Britain then be a bunch of a-holes and punish the Scottish until they relent and remain?
Artillery guns evolve to mobility, automation, precision, and fewer.
Could another Republican leader appeal to minorities on the promise of shared Americanism rather than trying to compete with Democrats by pandering and bribing, which only increases divisions? Trump did succeed in that. Although admittedly part of that success followed from the Democrats abandoning blue collar roots (of all races and ethnicities despite the surface appeals) for their woke coalition of leftist college graduates and the non-working poor. I fear a new Republican candidate will fail to build on Trump's success and will instead assume this is a new normal that doesn't need cultivating in the same way.
The Usual Suspects have condemned Israel's assassination of a top Iranians nuclear scientist. The usual suspects fear it will get in the way of restoring the Iran Reset. It's funny how nothing Iran has done could possibly get in the way of the glories of Reset (tip to Instapundit). It takes a lot of lying to cover up Iran's record of violence and deceit. So the usual suspects in and around the Biden administration will ramp up Lying 2.0 to drag the carcass of the Iran Nuclear deal back over that finish line. Maybe Trump should submit the original Iran nuclear deal to the Senate for traditional approval (2/3 required to pass) now while he is in office and the Republicans set the agenda for sure. That would establish it as an actual treaty unlike the Obama approach that flipped the process on its head, wouldn't it?
I've been getting repeated hits from Britain in recent weeks on this post about Army reorganization, which re-posts--with some of my corrections to editing problems during publication--an old article of mine in Military Review. Odd, that is.
I don't do sports commentary. I've blogged on experiencing sports. But that's different. I won't pretend to know enough to call plays or choose players. But let me address motivation and recongnition with the Michigan football team. I was in favor of giving Harbaugh's two predecessors five full years to get things going. My view did not prevail. Yet I was pleased to have Harbaugh and hoped he might stay a long time. Yet here we are in year six of the Harbaugh era and while year five saw me on the bubble, I was fine with him staying. But this year has pushed me to regime change. Harbaugh should go. We gave the win-less Penn State their first win this year! It would defy all probability to get a non-losing season this year, now. Harbaugh must go. And I say that reluctantly. The transfer of our pre-season assumed starting quarterback should have been the canary in the coal mine moment that the team is wilting, as my son--who does know enough to call plays and choose players--noted after this weekend's game. With a new coach I suggest two things to promote the team, the team, the team. One, Michigan stadium has the Big Ten flying flags around the rim. I suggest that the flags of each university be at half-staff if we lost the last game we played against them. It would be a big deal see a flag raised and a celebration to see every flag around the stadium flying full-staff, an event celebrated before each game that achievement honor held. And at each pre-game coach's press conference, the coach would need to explain what the team was doing to prepare for the team that Michigan is playing next that beat us the last time we played. Further, no more helmet stickers for individual plays of merit. That does not support the team, the team, the team. Instead, after each victory, every member of the team that played on the field that game--no matter how long--gets a helmet sticker with the other school's logo on it. Think of them as fighter plane kill flags. For the team that won and not for individual recognition. Michigan needs an actual team again and not just a bunch of players in the same uniform.
