Strategypage's annual review of world hot spots. It includes a tour of the imperial projects--like the European Union, about which "too many Europeans see the EU developing an unelected bureaucracy that can make all sorts of new rules and even foreign policy without any regard for what their constituents and, technically, employers, the European voters think." Where would European voters get that crazy idea?
The Nimitz carrier group will linger in the Middle East a bit longer before coming home. When I mentioned its order home, I assumed the strike group wouldn't head home at flank speed. Now it is official.
With vaccines for the Xi Jinping Flu rolling out, here's hoping that for 2021 the overly broad lockdowns and economic dislocation are quickly phased out in favor of narrow and localized quarantines mostly informed by your own needs and vulnerabilities. For example, I personally will keep my exposure limited even after my elderly mother gets the vaccine. Because the vaccine isn't perfect and no restaurant meal or iMax experience is worth taking that risk. So I will continue to take precautions until herd immunity is reached. My choice. And it doesn't cause someone to lose their business or home because everyone who doesn't need to make that choice can't work out in the world. I'm fully on board this prediction: "In time covid19 will become known more as the covid19 panic than as a major killer like the Asian or Spanish Flu. At the time an epidemic disease is active the risk is more about what you think it is than what it actually is."
Sadly, Peak Stupid is still climbing in 2021.
Just being in a combat zone is a risk for troops before you even consider getting shot at.
Fareed Zakaria on the Biden foreign policy: "I think in general, there isn’t going to be as much difference as people imagine. The Biden folks are pretty tough on Russia, Iran, North Korea. You know, the dirty little secret about the Trump administration was that while Donald Trump had clearly had a kind of soft spot for Putin, the Trump Administration was pretty tough on the Russians. They armed Ukraine, they armed the Poles. They extended NATO operations and exercises in ways that even the Obama Administration had not done. They maintained the sanctions. So I don’t think it will be that different.” That was information that the American people might have wanted to know in the years prior to the 2020 election, eh? But no, the media hid the fact that Trump was pretty tough on Russia. Fake news is an earned label. And it doesn't matter if the journalists peddling that are morons or partisans. So I imagine the media will hide the dirty little secrets of Reset 2.0: The Series that Biden will carry out by appeasing our enemies at the expense of allies, insisting Biden achieved peace for our time. I can hardly wait for the next Republican presidential front runner to see the media revelation of the dirty little secret that Trump really wasn't Hitler--not like the new Republican leader who is totally Hitler.
Ah, getting a foot in the door on Cyprus for a NATO Plan B in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Wait a GD minute here. We as a country endured 9 months of lockdown to "bend the curve" to prevent the medical system from being overwhelmed by Xi Jinping Flu patients. And yet health care workers don't want to take the vaccine to make sure their side of the equation is supported?
Lacking actual starvation and faced with the counter-proof of obesity even for poor Americans, the BS concept of "food insecurity" is raised. You know you need to check the definitions section when you see a headline that claims a third of college students face "food insecurity." I'm yawning. Try better to get me worked up for a proclaimed crisis, eh?
The Marines are lengthening their infantry course to challenge Marines in distributed operations away from support. Good. So far this is in addition to the existing training. As I wrote on the USNI Blog a couple years ago, I think that as precision comes to infantry personal weapons that American infantry dominance has to shift from marksmanship to tactical dominance.
Believe all women. Via Instapundit.
Sigh. The only "concerns" raised by the president's call to the Georgia Secretary of State is that I'm worried about the mental stability of the concerned media people. There is no coup being pulled together. Just last-minute long-shot efforts to legally question the validity of voting that you have to admit looks odd. Just stop with the Tyrant Porn genre already. Or at least start slowing the pace before they have to go cold turkey in a week. Or is it going to be four years of a two-minute hate against Trump warning against his constant plots to overthrow Bidenharris? It's insanity. Or is there a kind of sad competition among these leftists to get the last "bombshell" pseudo-revelation into play during the Trump presidency?
Iran gets a friend, just as many of the people and even the "guardians" of the mullah-run government continue to lose faith in the government. Plus more on the maneuvering within Iraq over Americans, Iranians, and Saudis; and on Afghanistan maneuvering.
Just when you think climate alarmists have run out of ways to suck taxpayer money from gullible governments. Because that's the only way that company makes money on those cow masks. I'm assuming they were developed as Xi Jinping Flu masks but the rapid development of vaccines forced a change of product direction.
Sure, this is humorous. But is self-identifying as more than one person really more ridiculous than what we're told we have to accept right now?
I keep speaking of how the war on Islamist terror must ultimately be won by Moslems who win the Islamic Civil War over who defines Islam. Nutball murderers or reasonable people who want modern life that lives and lets live? Here is a short video on some hope on that front.
You'd think Biden would be more grateful for the British help in concocting the Steele Dossier that put his semi-aware self into the White House. Biden will apparently punish Britain in favor of the awful European Union proto-empire. I was hoping Trump would conclude a trade deal with post-Brexit Britain before he left office.
Air Force drones are now based in Romania. I believe I mentioned the intention before. They will be nice to look for Russian ships so anti-ship missiles can target them, including their own. I mean, in case the Russians act on their oft-repeated claim that NATO is their enemy.
Mary Tyler Moore wouldn't make it, after all, now. I find it hard to feel sorry for the city residents. May they enjoy what they voted for.
Carl Bernstein is like the Tickle-Me Elmo of politics. Haul him out, point a camera at him, and he says whatever a Republican president did is "worse than Watergate."
Obviously, Pelosi want the credit if Congress is going to set Peak Stupid during her tenure. Why are so many people so interested in publicly self-identifying as morons?
The Chinese Communist Party won't even let the WHO--which was subservient enough to the CCP to allow the Xi Jinping Flu to escape and become a pandemic--come to Wuhan province to study the origins of the covid-19 virus. China really needs to pay a price for this catastrophe.
China has arrested 50 more pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. Democracy dies in the PRC.
So what is the BLP listening to? Via Instapundit.
Horrifyingly, Democrats won both special election races in Georgia, putting the Senate 50-50 and leaving Harris as vice president to break the tie and put the Democrats in charge. Given the general election result my confidence in the Republicans winning was low despite assurances that Republicans should win at least once. I imagine the media bias had a role, including the bizarre line of attack that Trump wanted Republicans to boycott the election to protest voting irregularities in Georgia. Trump did not want that. The media wanted that. Did the media effort affect enough Republicans to falsely believe that Trump wanted them to stay home? So this is bad and the level of badness depends on how much the Democrats want to erode the filibuster power that requires a super majority to act on certain things. Unless McConnell has a certain card up his sleeve to play and give Republicans a 51-49 edge, as I mentioned in this data dump. Fingers crossed. Losing the Senate would really tarnish the image of Republican election advances while "only" losing the White House.
Libya: where Turks and Russians send Syrian mercenaries to fight each other. I'm just surprised that Iran hasn't gotten into this game, too. Really, Libya should not be a single country based on tribal divisions. Two and maybe three if the north-south division gets recognized despite putting Libya's oil in that small population's hands. Although I doubt the coastal tribes would allow the south independence without drawing the lines to put the oil resources in coastal hands, whether east or west. So I imagine it would be two based on east-west divisions. Then the fighting is over where to draw that line. I wonder if there is some point that Egypt throws in the towel on avoiding a major commitment and sends in a reinforced heavy division to support the eastern LNA Libyans to drive on Tripoli and establish the conditions to expel the Turks and Russians plus their mercenaries? Oh, and bonus news that I missed: it is now legal for Algeria to send troops outside of the country, which basically means to Libya to secure the border from the unrest there.
Brazil has an arms industry that has some export success.
I think it is good that Iran's fanboys in Lebanon have erected a bronze bust of the top terror Iranian thug Soleimani, who we killed a year ago while he snuck into Iraq. Let everyone be reminded that all of Lebanon is cannon fodder for Iran's crusade against Israel.
Framing the issue of ending "disparate impact" as proof of discrimination because it will "undo some civil rights protections for minority groups."undermining minority civil rights is sheer bias in describing what was done. All it does is say that statistical differences by race or other protected category are not by themselves proof of unlawful discrimination. It does not pare back civil rights protections. It just says you can't claim discrimination if you can't prove it. Or do you want to say that statistical oddities prove Democratic fraud in the 2020 presidential election? And here's a defense of my view.
American airstrikes created more good jihadis in Somalia as America prepares to deploy troops to neighboring countries to battle jihadis from more secure areas. I disagree. But is is happening.
In theory I don't have a problem with this weeding out of offensive Air Force imagery or mottos. But I fear it will not be based on a "reasonable person" standard but on whether the most extreme nutjob can see offense in the symbol or motto.
Normally I'd assume India would be a bit touchy about such a U.S.-Maldives defense and security partnership. But I imagine the rising Chinese threat to India mutes that sort of resistance until India feels it can control the Indian Ocean unassisted.
I assume that the vigorous Chinese complaint about U.S.-Taiwan defense talks makes it very difficult for the Biden administration to stop them without looking like Biden is caving to China because of past family financial links.
President Trump committed to an orderly transition after Congress certified Biden's win. As I expected if his legal challenges failed and contrary to the constant Tyrant Porn churned out by the media and consumed by Democrats. Trump used every legal option in the process in the time he legally had to use them. That's it. Democrats kept trying to reverse Trump's win after the election and even after Trump was sworn in with very illegal and/or dubious means. There was never an Orange Hitler.
This month is the thirtieth anniversary of the Persian Gulf War (a.k.a. Desert Storm), the war I almost was sent to. This was my entry for a ten-year anniversary thoughts on the war that I submitted to a contest that fell apart during an editor transition.
Iran is screwing with shipping at both ends of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.
WTF? The Michigan Medicine portal is unclear on how one gets notified about when I might get the Xi Jinping Flu vaccine. I mean, I understand it will be months for me. which is good, all things considered. I'm glad I am not in a high-priority vulnerable group. But portal kind of implies that simply having a portal account means I will be notified whenever that future time arrives. And the lack of any indication of a sign-up process on the site reinforces that conclusion. But it is not clear. So I asked a simple question via the portal: "Regarding the covid-19 vaccine, information on the portal is unclear. Does having an active portal account mean I will be notified when I can receive the vaccine? Or do I have to take specific actions in the portal to let you know I am interested and to get notified?" That's pretty clear, right? All I got--the very next day, so kudos on that measure which I am sure is measured--was an unclear answer that I should monitor the portal, with a bonus link to an article that also did not answer my question. Ah, the Internet surely speeded up the ability to not answer a simple question with a direct answer. I did not bother to reply and seek clarification. [I was wise not to pursue this. Time provided clarity when I received an email notifying me that patients 65 and older can now get the vaccine. My day will come eventually.]
We had a polite and orderly movement that rejected business as usual in the federal government until it was demonized. How'd that work out for us? The build up to the Capitol Hill assault is clear: "The scale and symbolic significance of this attack are new and
profoundly troubling. But it is also the culmination of several
disturbing trends. For months now, we have witnessed a degradation of
public order — mobs roaming city streets, unpunished; an effort to take
over and firebomb a federal courthouse in Portland, unpunished;
delegates attacked on the streets of Washington after the Republican
convention, unpunished. And now this, far worse than anything that came
before." Let's get off this path and restore rule of law across our country.
That is a huge difference, isn't it? "The first thing I noticed while scanning the news was that virtually
every conservative commenting on the situation was condemning the
violence [at the Capitol Building]. Immediately. That stood in stark contrast to high-ranking
Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media spending all
last summer telling us that things were peaceful while we were staring
at burning buildings." That said, Trump needs to condemn the attackers without the praise that he provided the day of the attack [and he did], which I considered appropriate to diffuse the situation and get those supporters to calm down and go home. I struggle--successfully so far--to remember that most Democrats are fine people and not as extreme as the awful so-called national leaders and the Twitter class of fanatics who have little besides partisan politics to call their lives. Sadly, they are the visible face of the party and have an effect on tarnishing all.
On the bright side, the year 2020 was actually shorter than usual. Thank God for small favors. Tip to Instapundit.
I don't understand why some Democrats are condemning the Capitol Building incident an "insurrection." I'm so old I remember when leftists called the far more widespread and violent 1992 Los Angeles riots over many days an "uprising" with some pride.
I understand why French teachers don't want to be front line troops in the battle against the internal jihad: "Nearly half of French secondary school teachers are avoiding or downplaying subjects such as sexuality, the Holocaust and evolution to avoid angering Muslim pupils, a survey suggests." But the French fight to end Islamism needs them. The French government had best figure out how to support the teachers to stop the next generation of beheaders and bombers from plaguing France.
Why the Air Force can't retire the A-10. Oh, the Air Force wants to kill it, but the A-10 is the only dedicated close air support plane in the arsenal and its demise means the Air Force won't care about the mission. So the Army and the Air Force close air support people have some influence to keep it flying--until long-range artillery and other in-house fires capabilities can take up the slack when the plane ages out for good and the Air Force says its got nothing.
President Trump risked his legacy by failing to openly reject those who stormed the Capitol Building. But he did condemn them. He can be proud of many policies, of keeping the corrupt Clinton out of the White House, the pre-pandemic economy, the expansion of the Republican base by appealing to minority voters, and his endurance through the relentless 24/7 turn-it-to-11 Resistance that crossed into illegality. The last suppressed my disgust of his personal behavior. And I supported his recourse to the system to challenge the election results. I rejected his notion that Pence could essentially choose the new president yet I did not think Trump would refuse to leave as the Tyrant Porn aficionados claimed for four years. And he finally said there would be an orderly transfer of power--which he did not get when he entered office--when he failed to prove sufficient 2020 election fraud. The process has been completed and there are no more avenues of redress. Short of unleashing the government on Biden, as happened to Trump in 2017 of course, Trump lost. Sad but true. If Trump still goes out kicking and screaming verbally with this Capitol Hill assault the lasting image of his presidency, he will will damage his legacy more than the ridiculous Orange Hitler media coverage of him could--and will try to do regardless, I concede--do. Let's hope he steps up to this task in the last days of his presidency. And let's hope the media and their Democratic allies settle the ef down.
Yeah, America will talk to whoever we want without China's permission.
I hear Democrats claiming things would have looked way different if Black Lives matter had stormed the Capitol Building rather than Trump supporters. They're right. If Black Lives Matter had stormed the Capitol Building, Democrats and the media would have called it a peaceful sit in--and it would still be going on. Or was this an attempted coup, too? Heck, when Antifa/BLM rioted around the White House, setting fire to a church, and put the White House under siege for days, the media and their Democratic allies were outraged that security forces pushed those people out of the way. There was horror that tear gas might have been used. I absolutely condemn the storming of the Capitol Building. Where have the Democrats been the last seven months? Where is their consistency?
It's all on the judiciary's shoulders to stop unconstitutional power grabs. But the grim reality is that the courts can't stop actions that are merely stupid or harmful.
Wait. I saw this Star Trek episode!
Should Trump resign less than two weeks short of his departure on the accusation his call for protests encouraged the Capitol Building violence? Not unless Pelosi and a lot of other Democrats resign first on the theory that they encouraged Resistance and Antifa/BLM violence over the last 4 years and 7 months, respectively.
American B-52s warned Iran off again.
Long ago I advised those who would overthrow a tyrant that Twittering a king was not the total answer. Now I find that Twitter itself has taken for itself the role of striking a democratically elected leader that it doesn't like. This is scary.
Even more good jihadis in Somalia, courtesy of the United States and local allies. The jihadis should not think we are retreating rather than redeploying. I hope we can do as good a job killing from our new deployment positions.
I will admit that a number of conservative and Republican leaders said inflammatory things leading up to the Capitol Building riot. Although it surely did not rise to levels of "incitement to violence." Lacking TV these days I am slower to catch up on some things. They were wrong to do that but surely didn't expect violence rather than a riled up base. That rhetoric should be condemned. And I do condemn it. But why was there no condemnation of the months of inflammatory things said by Democratic and liberal leaders over the Antifa/BLM movement when we could see night after night the evidence of the deadly and damaging riots that those protests seemed to spawn in cities across the country? We all need to settle down. But the leadership on the left has been far more guilty of over-the-top rhetoric the last 50 months, at least. So I won't be lectured about decency--especially since I tried, as (almost?) always, to be a voice of reason, rule of law, and perspective--by those on the left far more guilty of inflaming passions than conservatives are. Maybe the left will finally see in the Capitol Building riot what the right has been seeing for four years and especially the last 7 months--political violence that should not be encouraged in any way. Perhaps we will all step back and calm the ef down and be grateful for our democracy and rule of law. Trump did not prove corruption stole the 2020 election. And constant accusations didn't make make Trump an Orange Hitler. Go forward and work the problems. Or we'll fuck it up, I suppose.
Experts wonder if Biden will continue U.S.-India military cooperation. Well, I wondered if Obama would continue Bush 43's push for better military ties. And Obama did. So I imagine Biden will continue that rather than end them to be an anti-Trump policy. But who knows, I suppose.
Even a defense site appears to be vulnerable to left-wing political bias, using a Pro Publica piece saying the protesters long planned their "invasion" of the Capitol Building. All their single quote indicates is that the protest organizers were prepared to stay for a while outside the Capitol Building. So the big scoop is that the protesters planned ... a protest. I wouldn't trust the source of their damning opinion quotes as being accurate. Now, the lack of police preparation for containing a large protest in case elements of the protest got unhinged is another issue altogether. But I didn't expect violence. So I imagine that the police didn't really expect it either. Pro Publica is a left wing story manufacturing site that prepares stories for others to publish. Some might call it propaganda masquerading as news stories. I certainly would.
A long time ago, probably decades ago but I can't remember when or where, I read that America experiences street unrest and protest at levels that we routinely endure that in other countries would represent an effort to overthrow the government. No doubt that referred to the late 1960s and early 1970s. It could apply to right now, I hope. Although--knock on wood--even today's unrest pales in comparison to our past era. But the next decade might change that. Which is why I'm not worried about our democracy holding out after the Capitol Building assault. Please. We're far more resilient than that. I worried that the extended violence from the Antifa/BLM riots could result in street battles as those on the right matched the people on the left. But I didn't worry that it would crush our democracy. I worried about pockets of political violence out of hand. And even that hasn't happened. I guess we'll see if the Democrats drunk on federal victory will be as vindictive toward their political opponents as they claim to be right now. May sanity prevail.
American-led Coalition air strikes on ISIL across Iraq and Syria continue at relatively low levels. Good. When we left Iraq in 2011 after defeating al Qaeda in Iraq, left alone the jihadis rebuilt and created the Islamic State by overrunning large portions of Iraq in 2014. Now we keep the pressure on the jihadis and support the Iraqis to make sure they don't go wobbly.
Let's be grateful for what we have built in America and not wrongly believe burning it down around us will let us build back better. Tip to Instapundit.
The South Korean navy unveiled a preliminary design for a 40,000 ton light carrier (that would have been a very large carrier in World War II tonnage). The drive for a blue water navy continues.
Greece and Israel continue to build ties based on common worries about Turkey at sea, with an Israeli aircraft sale and training deal to Greece demonstrating this.
Sedition. It's funny, but I haven't seen one "Democrats pounce" story about the Democrats taking advantage of the pro-Trump Capitol Building riot. The media has been all about the riot and casting blame on all Republicans for it.
To this day, despite all the attention given to him (?), I have never seen anything written by Q-Anon. All I see are dismissive and angry references to whoever that is. I have no interest in pretending that someone is able to predict the future. I don't pretend I can. And if your humble host here at TDR can't ... Or whatever Q-Anon does. I honestly don't even care enough to check Wikipedia.
At this point, I'm just encouraged that the increasingly woke ACLU that has downgraded defending civil rights issued a statement in favor of freedom of speech, regardless of their motive.
Russia sold 30 advanced T-72 tanks to Serbia at a deep discount. I'm sure it is more about Russia having enough influence there to prevent Serbia from joining NATO. The post has more about the T-72 in general and in other countries.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards carried out a naval parade in the Persian Gulf. It seems more like practice for a SINKEX. As a point of clarification to the article, the Revolutionary Guards aren't a "para-military" force. It is a "parallel" military force that duplicates the regular armed forces (and adds terrorism support).
No good deed goes unpunished, and Trump's effort to reassure North Korea failed: "North Korean leader Kim Jong-un
has said the United States is his nuclear-armed nation's "biggest
enemy", as he threw down the diplomatic gauntlet to the incoming
administration of Joe Biden, state media reported on Saturday." I'm hardly shocked. We're back to these options unless we want to pretend we can bribe North Korea into good non-nuclear behavior as past presidents have tried; or flatter Kim Jong Un enough to make him not want nukes, as Trump tried to do.
America is sanctioning Falih al-Fayadh, the Iraqi overall leader of the Iran-backed Iraqi militias. Good.
The UAE will sign a contract for F-35s. I still don't understand why the UAE needs this stealth fighter. Their likely opponent is Iran whose air force is pathetic. It honestly seems more like a symbolic tie to America. And to be fair, we would absolutely intervene on the side of the UAE just to keep an enemy from taking the UAE's F-35 planes!
The media used to love riots and storming government buildings. For the record, I'm still against riots.
This article about commoditizing services is directed at education, but the concept applies to privatized war on demand, no?
Prepare for radical course change!!! "Remember how after Bush was elected, the Left screamed that dissent was patriotic? And then when Obama was elected, dissent was suddenly racist? And when Trump won, resistance was not just patriotic, but compulsory? Well, dissent is racist again and resistance is now treason." I'd have whiplash but I'm always prepared for such rapid and dramatic course changes. Tip to Instapundit.
Anybody getting worked up that Trump will start a war in his short remaining time in office should get a grip. One, you seem to be forgetting the last four years when he did not do that. And two, you've obviously forgotten how the military can drag things out when given an order they aren't terribly happy with getting. Clinton just wanted the attack helicopters. But you need this if you want that. And that requires another thing in support. And another thing need additional stuff ...
While it doesn't excuse any of the pro-Trump protesters who decided to riot, if you are looking for that "incitement" you are eager to charge Republicans with, here's a potential case.
Wait. What? I thought the official line was that bad America was preventing Iran from getting Xi Jinping Flu vaccines?
I do believe that self-inflated television personality has no idea he is a moron. Sigh. Peak Stupid climbs ever higher. Tip to Instapundit.
I pay attention to news. But I don't even remember seeing this plotting by a pro-Bernie leftist to kill Biden that was apparently smothered by the media because it was no big deal. Or maybe I passed it over because I thought it was a story recalling a pro-Bernie leftist plot that actually shot up a Congressional baseball game Republican team at their practice, severely wounding Rep. Scalise and three others, including a police officer. Somehow only Republicans are responsible for supporters getting violent. And somehow the media only goes into 24/7 fury if a Republican or someone who can be portrayed as a Republican commits a crime. In related news, the woman shot by police at the Capitol Hill riot has not been elevated to sainthood by the media. But I'm sure the media is digging into the woman's past--a four-term Air Force veteran--to show why she is truly awful. And obviously, Democrats won't highlight the police officer killed by a rioter. Is it too much to ask to be upset with any political violence and report on it with the same level of intensity? Apparently.
A reminder that the 1619 Project is a steaming pile of divisive propaganda that has no business pretending it is history. As I've said before, if this country is systemically racist, you'd think that the system would have held the line closer to slavery than letting things slide to electing a two-term African-American president. Odd, no?
You know what Republicans won't say about the Capitol Building riot? That "some people did something."
The corruption that has crippled the construction of a new Russian cosmodrome. Let's hope it represents the entire system. I have little doubt it does.
Part of what really pisses me off about the media and Democrats going way overboard on condemning all Republicans for violence--including big tech and social media banishing dissenting voices on the right--is that it prompts Republicans to have to defend themselves by pointing out the hypocrisy of Democrats/media who have ignored worse from their side; when instead we should all be working on solving the problem of our partisan divide. America and the Soviets agreed to rules of the road so that our ships and planes weren't constantly playing "chicken" and risking a war. Why can't we do that at home?
The American secretary of state voided restrictions on how American diplomats can have contact with Taiwanese. Given Biden's "issues" with China-related corruption and ties it will be difficult for him to roll back this and other changes that target China. Oh who am I kidding? The media will cover for Biden no matter what he does.
Oh Hell. A small Indonesian 737 crashed.
The only question is how much time will it take before there are 6 dead or injured social workers in San Francisco? "BART plans to use nearly $2 million budgeted to fill six vacant police officer positions to hire social work-trained civilians to respond to homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction ... ." For some reason the link to the article is broken. The quote is from the search summary of the article link.
What I want to know is how the woke leftists in the Democratic Party will react when they are told by Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer to sit down, shut up, and row. Congress might want to tighten up their security a little bit more.
Biden is already failing to follow the FDA science on the vaccine. It is, dare I say it, a risky scheme if production doesn't match the added need for required second doses. Tip to Instapundit.
This seems wise for the sake of American and world energy needs: "In the closing months of the Trump administration, energy companies stockpiled enough drilling permits for western public lands to keep pumping oil for years and undercut President-elect Joe Biden's plans to curb new drilling because of climate change, according to public records and industry analysts." Good. Or do you want to benefit the Russians?
As of Sunday night, the Capitol Hill riot is a one-off outrage, in stark contrast to the ongoing Antifa riots that continue at a fast pace in 2021. So redirect your outrage by spreading it out a little, eh? Yes: "The right-wing political violence was met with universal rebuke from politicians of both parties and the media. But many of those who are loudest in condemning the Capitol Hill riot went radio-silent when rioters destroyed and looted in the name of Black Lives Matter." My per-riot outrage is highest for the Capitol Building mob; but my cumulative outrage is way larger for the months of widespread riots perpetrated by Antifa/BLM (and again, of course Black lives matter. Our Constitution demands that. But BLM is a leftist hate group). Tip to Instapundit.
Let's end this week with some pointed humor, at least. Maybe later I'll laugh.
