They smell weakness - today's edition

The contempt with which our partners in patty-cake treat us on the open seas:

The Navy has counted at least 31 interactions with Iranian naval forces deemed “unsafe,” “unprofessional,” or both, according to a defense official.

That's about as many such interactions that occurred all of last year, according to statistics provided to Fox News.  

And those are also only counting interactions that have met the criteria of “unsafe” or “unprofessional.” 

Overall, there were more than 300 interactions between U.S. and Iranian forces last year. 

That figure includes incidents in which Iranian vessels waited for and followed U.S. ships transiting in the Persian Gulf, or sailed by with their weapons uncovered, in addition to other incidents of muscle flexing considered routine. 

Military officials say there is no question that the behavior is getting worse. 

“We've seen an uptick in confrontations by Iranian vessels in the Arabian Gulf,” Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the top U.S. commander in the region, said on Aug. 30. U.S. military officials refer to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf.

Votel also issued a rare warning to Iranian forces: “Ultimately if they continue to test us we're going to respond and we're going to protect ourselves and our partners.”

The last confrontation occurred just last Sunday, when seven Iranian fast attack boats confronted a U.S. Navy coastal patrol boat in international waters in the Persian Gulf. 

When one of the Iranian vessels stopped directly in the path and within about 100 yards of the USS Firebolt, the U.S. vessel had to swerve to avoid a collision, defense officials said.

Madame BleachBit's reset buddies:

With jets zooming across the sky and dropping bombs that burst into balls of flame - this was a fireworks display with a deadly serious purpose.The display of military might took place in Crimea on Friday as Russia showcased its ground, marine and air forces in the biggest exercises held on the strategic peninsula since its 2014 annexation from Ukraine.The drills involved 12,500 troops, fighter jets and anti-aircraft missiles, and happened at the Opuk training range on the Black Sea coast.

The drills involved warships, aircraft and tanks, with Moscow firing its S-300 missile systems. The more advanced S-400 systems were used earlier in the Caucasus-2016 exercises that began on September 5.Inland, on a dusty steppe, paratroopers made a mass landing while ground forces ignited a wall of fire with napalm.'On such a scale and with the deployment of different force groupings, such drills are being held for the first time,' defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told journalists.Watching the drills were Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and the head of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov as well as Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov.'This training range is the biggest on the Crimean peninsula, which allows for such exercises to be held,' said Konashenkov, adding that it had been used by Russia before the peninsula's annexation.

You really have to see the photos at the Daily Mail link for the full effect. This is a huge drill.

 

"Flunked Economics 101 and Human Nature 101"

I was going to link directly to the Chicago Tribune editorial and post about it myself, but Hot Air sums up what I would have said:

The Chicago Tribune published a blistering editorial Friday which says Obamacare is not only failing but has already failed because it “flunked Economics 101 and Human Nature 101.”

Come November, the grim trudge across the increasingly barren Obamacare landscape begins anew. Illinois consumers likely face staggering price hikes for individual insurance policies. Some types of plans could cost an average of 43 percent to 55 percent more. Ditto across the country: A first tranche of states approved 2017 rates with similarly cardiac-arrest-inducing premium increases.

After highlighting the withdrawal of insurers in Illinois and elsewhere the editorial offers a list of problems each of which begins, “Obamacare failed because…” Here’s a sample:

Obamacare failed because it flunked Economics 101 and Human Nature 101. It straitjacketed insurers into providing overly expensive, soup-to-nuts policies. It wasn’t flexible enough so that people could buy as much coverage as they wanted and could afford — not what the government dictated. Many healthy people primarily want catastrophic coverage. Obamacare couldn’t lure them in, couldn’t persuade them to buy on the chance they’d get sick.

[…]

Obamacare failed because too many carriers simply can’t cover expenses, let alone turn a profit, in this rigidly controlled system. Take Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the state’s dominant Obamacare insurer. Last year, for every dollar the carrier collected, it spent $1.32 buying care and providing services for customers, according to BCBS President Maurice Smith. No wonder BCBS is proposing rate increases from 23 percent to 45 percent for its individual plans.

The editorial board balks at predicting this all adds up to a “death spiral” but quickly adds, “neither do we see a mathematical alternative.” The piece concludes, “The next president and Congress either reckon with Obamacare’s failures or … wait for the thud.”

The entire leftist vision in microcosm.

The smugness with which Jonathan Gruber spoke of putting one over on the post-American cattle-masses looks pretty pathetic now.

Unless the endgame is a complete Cloward-Piven-style collapse, in which case this is all part of the plan.

Power, exercised as justly as the West can can exercise it, is the only hope for stability in a barely civilized world

Walter Read has an important piece at The American Interest today entitled "It's Kim Jong-un's World; We're Just Living in It."

His overall point is that, while the unicorns-and-rainbows vision of an unprecedented era of international harmony is, in and of itself, laudable, the only hope for even remotely approximating it is for the nation-states that are the most relatively righteous in this fallen world to wield power justly.

His launching point for discussing the spread of wild, outlaw behavior on the world stage is the recent uptick in tests of missiles and nuclear weapons by  North Korea:

This tells us many things. It tells us that the security situation is going to continue to deteriorate in East Asia. It tells us that China has resigned itself to an era of confrontation with Japan. It tells us that both South Korea and Japan are losing confidence in America’s will and ability to do anything serious about the scariest security problem they face.

Beyond that, it’s a harsh reminder that, despite the illusions and the optimism of the liberal internationalists among us, the world still runs much the same way it did one hundred years ago. When hard power fails, all the UN Declarations of Human Rights, all the Security Council resolutions, all the noble speeches about the “international community” are just so much hot air.

Kim Jong-un is getting away with a nuclear build-up and a murderous dictatorship because he can. In theory, the world’s great powers have the ability to stop him. In practice, they are too divided, too busy knifing each other in the back, to cooperate against even a very small and poor country. China won’t cooperate with the United States to stop North Korea because the government in Beijing doesn’t think it is in its national interest to do so. The United States can’t compel China to change its mind about its Korea policy because we lack the strength.

Mead hesitates to draw quick conclusions. He does say that too much has changed about the way human beings live for the model that worked (in the sense that, for all the carnage, the human species kept materially and intellectually advancing) to be viable now:

 Given 21st century technology and the vulnerability of our large urban populations to anything that disrupts the intricate networks on which we all depend, old-fashioned great-power politics with its precarious balance of power shored up by recurring wars is a recipe for utter disaster and, maybe, the annihilation of the human race.

But then he goes on to acknowledge that there is one constant through these changes:

Liberal internationalist methods won’t achieve liberal internationalist goals. Power, not communiqués, is what makes the world go round.

He then goes on to illustrate how the fact that ours is a spiritually fallen species plays itself out on the world stage, and concludes by saying that it is that glaring fact that means that history calls on imperfect  figures leading relatively righteous nations must be resolute when encountering clearly bad actors:

No country, and especially no democracy, is ever going to be guided by an unbroken succession of great leaders. This is one of the reasons we’ll never reach the liberal internationalist goal; neither we nor anybody else is going to throw up a string of leaders with enough genius, wisdom, and will to get us there. There are more Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas than Washingtons, Lincolns, and Roosevelts in the gene pool, and most U.S. presidents, like most leaders in other countries, have been mediocre at best.

However we assign the blame, and there is plenty to go around, it’s been increasingly clear since 2001 that the world’s progress toward a stable and liberal world order began to slow under Bush and has reversed under Obama. The world is less peaceful, less stable and less liberal today than it was when Barack Obama took the oath of office in January, 2009; Kim Jong-un’s latest nuclear test, and the lack of an effective response by the United States, is merely a sign of the times.

Specifically applied to the North Korean situation, this means that, instead of the Agreed Framework of the 1990s and the Six-Way Talks of the following decade, the grownups on the world stage should have united and gone to the Kim dynasty and said, "At present, your nuclear program is still in its nascent stages. Our combined destructive-force potential is too great for you to continue what you are doing. Stop it now."

Freedom and peaceful advancement are only possible in this imperfect world when forces of virtue communicate the implicit capacity for ugliness. Until our Lord returns, that's just how it is.

The Most Equal Comrade added 18 more items of proof that he disdains the country he presides over on his Asia trip

Here they are:

1. There are still too many poor children in the United States
2. Too many children in America are not getting enough to eat
3. Despite America's wealth, we’re not providing sufficient educational resources in poor communities
4. America lacks the “political will” to help poor inner cities that have suffered discrimination.
5. Americans are “lazy” in thinking we don’t need to learn about foreign nations.
6. Colin Kapernack is justified protesting the National Anthem, as the NFL star is raising “real, legitimate issues” about things America needs to be talked about. 
7. America suffers from racism, conflicts between ethnic groups, and discrimination against immigrants.
8. Criticisms of America being imperfect and having problems with racism discrimination are accurate.
9. America still has “situations where women are not treated equally.”
10. America “didn't think through” our policy in Vietnam War, as dropping cluster bombs proved counterproductive to "winning hearts and minds."
11. America’s treatment of Native Americans was “tragic.”
12. America “struggled to stay true” to our founding ideal that all men are created equal.
13. When the environment is destroyed in America, it’s because the private sector is being “lazy."
14. The United States is still to this day learning how to develop industry without destroying the environment.
15. Due to industrialization, America “used to have terrible pollution … everywhere.”
16. America’s role in the Vietnam war led to mass displacement of people from their homes.
17. America dropped more bombs on Laos than on Germany and Japan during World War II … more than 2 million bombs … “the bombs fell like rain.” More bombs, he said on several occasions, were dropped on Laos per capita than anywhere else in the world.
18. We bombed the “simple homes” of civilians in Laos. “Villages and entire allies were obliterated.” The ancient Plain of Jars “was devastated.” Countless civilians were killed. 

The architect of the Great Leveling Project.

Because for decades the world did nothing

Think of Madeleine Albright clinking champagne glasses with Kim Jong-il as you take this development in:

North Korea defiantly celebrated its fifth nuclear test Friday, claiming that it can now make warheads small enough to fit onto a missile and warning its "enemies" — specifically, the United States — that it has the ability to counter any attack.

The test appeared to be much bigger than North Korea's previous detonations. And although the North's claim that it mastered the technology to miniaturize nuclear weapons could not be verified — and Pyongyang has a track record of exaggeration — Friday's test underscored the fact that Kim Jong Un's regime was continuing to make progress on its nuclear and missile programs despite waves of international sanctions and condemnation.

"This is our response to hostile powers, including the United States. We are sending out a message that if the enemies attack us, we can counterattack," Ri Chun Hee, the veteran North Korean newsreader, said on state television. "We will continue taking measures to protect our dignity and our right to exist from the American threat."

The U.S. Geological Survey detected an artificial 5.3-magnitude earthquakenear North Korea's nuclear test site at exactly 9 a.m. local time on Friday, the 68th anniversary of the formation of the communist regime by Kim Il Sung, the current leader’s grandfather, and a national holiday.

“This is clearly a nuclear test,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. He estimated the size at between 10 and 20 kilotons. If confirmed, that would make this the biggest of North Korea’s five tests. January’s test was about six kilotons.

This occurred as the Most Equal Comrade was in Japan, his jet refueling on the way home from Laos, where he trashed the country over which he is tyrant and signaled the world once again that it cannot depend on post-America to guarantee its basic safety from nuclear annihilation.

UPDATE: Gordon Chang at the Daily Beast says that relations between China and post-America have everything to do with the timing of this test:

At the moment, Beijing is far more upset with Seoul than Pyongyang.

In July, South Korea and the United States announced they would deploy the American-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system on South Korean soil. Beijing is worried that THAAD’s high-powered radars will reach into China and could help the U.S. shoot down Chinese missiles. Washington denies that is the case and has been willing to share technical information, but Beijing has not been mollified.

Since the announcement, Beijing has taken a number of steps to snub the South diplomatically and undermine its economy.

With Beijing upset at Seoul, the North Koreans evidently think they can do what they want. On Monday, the North launched three medium-range, nuclear-capable Nodong missiles. The tests, on the second day of the China-hosted G20 summit, were conducted right after Chinese ruler Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the event with South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye. Clearly, Kim Jong Un was not worried that China would react unfavorably to the launches.

It’s clear the North Koreans know that as a general matter they have Chinese support. Trade across the Sino-Korea border is booming at the moment, an indication that Beijing is not enforcing Security Council Resolution 2270, the fifth set of U.N. sanctions on the North’s weapons programs.
Moreover, some of the traded items are clearly destined for Kim’s military. China, according to David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, did not interrupt the flow of materials and components for Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, such as cylinders of uranium hexafluoride. Also allowed in, worryingly, were vacuum pumps, valves, and computers.
The North Koreans know that Xi sees the U.S. as China’s main adversary, blocking Beijing’s ambitions in almost every direction.  That’s probably why President Obama and National Security Adviser Susan Rice got a rough reception on Saturday in Hanghzou as they arrived for the G20. Kim, seeing how Xi treated Obama, thought he could get away with delivering his own radioactive-laced snub.
Kim knows that Xi is not about to further goals, like the denuclearization of North Korea, that Washington promotes, and so Pyongyang thinks it has a big green light in its quest to possess the world’s most destructive weapons. 

Pyongyang will make fast progress in developing nukes—until the U.S. and the rest of the international community realize they have a China problem as much as a North Korean one. 

Everybody smells weakness.

The looney bin that is the post-American university - today's edition

The nature-distortion jackboots impose their alternate reality on the men's rooms - or some kind of rooms - at an institution of lower learning:

Brown University's student body president will be hand-delivering menstrual products to all nonresidential bathrooms on campus, including men’s rooms, with the help of 20 other students.

Viet Nguyen, President of the Undergraduate Council of Students, announced the initiative in a campus-wide email Tuesday, saying he wants to communicate the message that not all people who menstruate are women, according to Newsweek.

“There’s been a lot of conversation about why pads and tampons are a necessity, not a luxury, but not a lot of action. We wanted to take it into our own hands,” Nguyen explains in the email, observing that “low-income students struggle with having the necessary funding for food, let alone tampons.”

By putting menstrual products in women’s, men’s, and gender-inclusive bathrooms, Nguyen aims to “set a tone of trans-inclusivity, and not forget that they’re an important part of the population,” but is under no illusions that the effort will be universally popular.
“I’d be naïve to say there won’t be push back,” he preemptively concedes. “I’ve had questions about why we’re implementing this in male bathrooms as well. It’s an initial confusion, but people generally understand when we explain it.”
Nguyen told Newsweek that menstrual products will be available in approximately 30 to 40 bathrooms across campus for the 2016–2017 school year, financed exclusively by the undergraduate finance board, rather than general university funds.

Brown University today, your neighborhood junior high tomorrow.

 

The latest substantiation for that "way off base" assessment in the post below

This buzzing of post-American planes and ships is becoming quite routine:

 U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane had a close encounter with a Russian fighter that came within 10 feet of the aircraft as it flew in international airspace over the Black Sea. It is the latest encounter between the two militaries that American officials have labeled "unsafe and unprofessional".

According to defense officials, the incident occurred this morning as a U.S. Navy P-8A maritime reconnaissance aircraft flew over the Black Sea conducing "routine operations."

It was approached by a Russian SU-27 "Flanker" fighter jet that made "an unsafe close-range intercept" of the Navy plane.

During the 19-minute encounter, the Russian fighter jet initially maintained a 30-foot distance from the American aircraft.

But it then closed to within 10 feet of the P-8A aircraft, which one official said "is considered unsafe and unprofessional."

Another official said that the U.S. crew attempted to contact the Russian pilot but received no response in return.

"U.S. Navy aircraft and ships routinely interact with Russian units in the area and most interactions are safe and professional," said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. "However, we have deep concerns when there is an unsafe maneuver. These actions have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries, and could result in a miscalculation or accident, which results in serious injury or death."

In recent months there have been several other close calls involving Russian aircraft and American planes and warships.

In April, a pair of Russian fighters buzzed the destroyer USS Donald Cook as it was operating in the Baltic Sea. A video of the encounter released by the U.S. Navy showed the aircraft repeatedly buzzing the ship, including one pass where a Russian fighter flew as close as 30 feet to the American ship.

Memo to Squirrel-Hair: This is not ally behavior.

Squirrel-Hair: way off base on a foreign-policy basic

Rick Moran at The American Thinker on S-H shooting off his mouth last night about Putin being a better leader than the Most Equal Comrade:

The issue isn't whether Putin is a stronger leader than Obama.  A marmoset is a stronger leader than Obama.  But why single out this thug for any praise whatsoever?  Trump has no clue about Putin's strategic aims, which do not include destroying the Islamic State.  The notion of an alliance is laughable – something Putin, no doubt, is doing every time Trump hints some kind of joint action against the terrorists.  Putin wants ISIS to continue to bleed the U.S., making us expend precious resources in Iraq and Syria while making little headway in dislodging them from their strongholds.  He also has little interest in a negotiated settlement in Syria until Russian intervention has solidified the regime of Bashar Assad and the rebels have been weakened considerably.

If Trump was going to hold up a leader of another country who is stronger than Obama, why not an ally?  Why choose someone on the opposite side in Syria and Ukraine, where Putin's long-term goal is annexation of most of that country?  Putin is threatening our allies in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states and looks to destroy NATO.  What is there to admire in this man, who threatens the peace of the world so brazenly?

Trump's flirtation with Putin needs to end, and he needs to see him for what he is: a threat to the U.S. and our interests.

And the line "If he says great things about me I'm going to say great things about him" is classic Squirrel-Hair.

One of many, many, many reasons I am not yet prepared to do a Mark Levin.

Post-American federal-level law enforcement in shambles

Roger L. Simon at PJ Media lays out the case for why James Comey should resign as FBI director:

The revelations from the FBI interview with Clinton that were shamelessly slipped under the door like a throwaway paper in a cheap motel over Labor Day weekend made me think this:

If were I an FBI agent, I would despise James Comey. He has humiliated the FBI and all its employees. The institution will never be the same, at least not for decades to come. The FBI is no longer an instrument of justice. It is the reverse. It is an obfuscater of justice and an enabler of the rich and powerful. How depressing and disgusting.God help our republic.

More importantly, did the FBI even ask her the most obvious of questions: why in the world did she put ALL her government emails on a private home-brew server (and then have them deleted with the most advanced data eradication software available -- five stars on CNET -- two days after these emails came under subpoena)? Was that because the equally obvious answer -- to avoid any possible public scrutiny of her actions (for a variety of suspicious reasons) -- is itself felonious?

Of course, Comey knew this. He is the one who did not want these obvious questions and many others asked. He is the one who allowed Clinton to testify without being under oath. He is the one who de facto allowed her to assert she did not "recall" the most well known and common things like the circle "c"  insignia for classified email without being questioned, further allowing her to do this a staggering 37 times. Clinton didn't even have to take the Fifth.  (And this woman is running for president of the United States.)
What a coward Comey is. When Julian Assange starts to release his next round of emails, the director may have to commit hara-kiri. It will be the only honorable way to go, failing his resignation.
If he doesn't resign, I predict he will soon have a full-scale mutiny on his hands from within the ranks of the FBI. Rumors have already surfaced. That humiliation, institutionally and personally, is too great for honorable men and women to take. And there are many honorable men and women in the ranks of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Whether they will mutiny before of after Hillary is elected president, if she is, is hard to say. But if it is after, there is no foreseeing what will happen.

I don't doubt that when the Clinton machine leans on you, it can rattle your nerves a bit. But Comey heads an agency with a legacy of standing up to some very ruthless mobs.

He must face the fact that he has fundamentally failed on a moral level.

 

 

The sewer of infantile identity politics that is post-American higher education - today's edition

Katherine Timpf at NRO on the utter humorlessness of the jackboots at Amherst:

How would jokes about Harambe fighting Cecil the Lion in heaven offend black students? According to the resident advisers at UMass–Amherst, because Harambe the gorilla shares a name with the Harambee African Heritage Student Community, all jokes regarding Harambe the gorilla must be banned — which is somewhat like saying that all jokes about Anthony Weiner must be banned at the University of Maryland in order to avoid offending the students at the Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Application. Here are the RAs: “Any negative remarks regarding ‘Harambe’ will be seen as a direct attack to our campus’s African American community.”

Which is absurd. Everyone loves Harambe. 

How, then, would Harambe jokes offend female students? The more immature Harambe memesters have utilized the phrase “d***s out for Harambe,” a bizarrely silly bit of blue hilarity that calls on Americans to signal their support for Harambe by exposing their genitals. Here are the RAs again: “using . . . . phrases/hashtags which encourage the exposition of body parts runs the risk of being reported as a Title IX incident.” First off, nobody should worry too deeply about the “exposition” of body parts — presumably “exposure” would be more problematic. But more than that, anyone who thinks that “d***s out for Harambe” creates a rape culture in violation of federal law needs his or her head examined. 

Real fun place.

Brandon Morse at RedState on the overt racism against white people at Pomona College:

“Remember, just because POC [person of color] #1 isn’t offended by something, does not mean that POC #2 will not be offended by it either,” it says.

The poster goes on to states that “social justice is about BOTH elevating oppressed groups and simultaneously unpacking the privilege of dominant groups. These aspects are equally as important!”

Additionally, the sign claims that all white people are racist.

“Understand that you are white, so it is inevitable that you have unconsciously learned racism,” it asserts. “Your unearned advantage must be acknowledged and your racism unlearned.”

Further, the poster claims that white people should “just listen!” rather than explaining their own perspective.

So in essence, new white students are being told they are now second class because non-white students say they are second class. What kind of message does this teach students? That white people are inherently bad because they're white, and non-white students are inherently victims because they're not? Is that the mentality we want them sent out into the world with? What good does it do them?

I wonder if Bookworm is having any buyer's remorse over sending her young 'un to an OELAC (Obscenely Expensive Liberal Arts College). It hasn't taken a week for the tabula rasa to absorb the poison being dispensed there:

My Little Bookworm has had only four classroom days since her freshman year began at an Obscenely Expensive Liberal Arts College (“OELAC”) in the midwest. Today, on Facebook, she posted her first video supporting Black Lives Matter. I’m actually impressed at the speed with which OELAC’s indoctrination works.

The video, from a Lefty site called Upworthy that routinely substitutes emotion and irrational thinking for data and rational thought purports to explain that only black lives matter because only blacks get the short end of the stick. Nobody else’s life is of any consequence because allowing them to think that means that they are incapable of understanding that blacks are entitled to equal treatment under the law and in the public square

She's trying to counter the effects by sending her daughter videos by the likes of Bill Whittle and Prager University. Thanksgiving at the Bookworm household will likely either be a scene of tearful embraces for the student who has come to her senses, or a war zone.

Cheryl Mills acted as madame BleachBit's lawyer during the FBI interview

Stinky much?

The FBI's Labor Day weekend document dump regarding its investigation of Hillary Clinton gives those who thought the result was predetermined much to complain about. The FBI's notes confirm that her former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, was among the several lawyers representing Clinton in her FBI interview. Mills was hip-deep in the events at the heart of the FBI's criminal investigation and was herself a material witness who had previously sat for her own interview. Yet not only was she allowed by the Department of Justice to participate as counsel in Clinton's interview, her communications with Clinton and other material witnesses also were actively protected by the Department of Justice throughout the criminal and civil investigations.

Typically, the DOJ would look askance where a material witness sought to act as a lawyer for the subject of a federal criminal investigation. In Mills's case, Justice lawyers went out of their way to accommodate this highly unusual dual-hat role. For those who wonder whether Clinton's FBI interview was all for show, Mills's participation as a lawyer should be Exhibit A.

Mills, who was a regular correspondent with Clinton on Clinton's home-brewed email, testified as a fact witness about her personal knowledge of Clinton's email setup in both the FBI investigation and related civil depositions. At the same time, Mills purported to represent Clinton as her lawyer. Mills was not, however, a lawyer for Clinton during her tenure at the State Department. Her title was "Chief of Staff and Counselor." But the "counselor" position was, according to Mills's testimony in one of the many Clinton email FOIA cases, "not a lawyer role"; it was a "policy role." Mills contends that, after leaving the State Department in 2013, she was hired by Clinton as her personal lawyer to coordinate the response to State's demand for return of her emails.

Mills's dual role as fact witness and lawyer posed considerable obstacles to uncovering the truth about Clinton's email scheme. In a civil deposition ordered by a federal judge, Mills frequently invoked the attorney-client privilege to avoid answering questions about Clinton's email setup. When asked about the email setup and in particular conversations that she might have had with Clinton's IT specialist, Bryan Pagliano—who invoked the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to avoid testifying—Mills refused to answer, claiming those conversations were privileged attorney-client communication.
Mills's knowledge of facts learned while serving in a non-legal capacity at the State Department could not possibly be protected by an attorney-client privilege. To fix that problem, Mills conveniently claimed that she did not know anything about Clinton's email setup during her tenure at the State Department and only learned of relevant facts in her later capacity as Mrs. Clinton's personal lawyer. Mills's implausible claim she was unaware of the nature of Clinton's email setup during her tenure at State is undermined by documents showing that Mills was deeply involved as chief of staff in resolving questions regarding Clinton's email use. A March 2009 memo addressed to Mills from the assistant secretary for diplomatic security, for instance, advised against Clinton and her staff using BlackBerry devices in the executive suite, known as "Mahogany Row," because it was a secure area. Similarly, an August 2011 email chain addressed "communications issues" flagged by Mills, including a suggestion from State Department IT officials (later rejected by Huma Abedin) regarding the possibility of a State-issued BlackBerry for Clinton.

Even more specious is Mills's assertion that certain facts she became aware of as Clinton's chief of staff—such as why she knew that Clinton had transitioned her email to a clintonemail.com address very early in her tenure—were off-limits because she had "refreshed her recollection" as to those facts during her time representing Clinton in the private sector. Mills could only "refresh" her recollection because she had knowledge of those facts during her tenure as Clinton's chief of staff, putting those facts well beyond the protection of any privilege. 

And all of this was just fine with the post-American Justice Department.

The Most Equal Comrade, once again, while on foreign soil, takes the opportunity to diss the nation he "presides" over

Today in Laos:

Speaking at a town hall held Wednesday in Luang Prabang, Laos, President Barack Obamatwice suggested that Americans are “lazy”when it comes to the environment and learning other cultures.

“Usually, if you see the environment destroyed, it’s not because that’s necessary for development,” Obama told the Laotian audience. “It’s usually because we are being lazy, and we’re not being as creative as we could be about how to do it in the smarter, sustainable way.”

Later Obama used similar language when discussing American culture. “I believe that the United States is and can be a force for good in the world,” he said. “But because we’re such a big country, we haven’t always had to know about other parts of the world.”

“If you are in Laos, you need to know about Thailand and China and Cambodia, because you’re a small country and they’re right next-door and you need to know who they are. If you’re [in] the United States, sometimes you can feel lazy and think we’re so big we don’t have to really know anything about other people,” he concluded.

Yes, indeed, that's the way to present the citizens of the nation whose throat you have a death grip on you govern.

Mind you, he said this after post-America had been treated like an ugly stepsister at G-20:

When Obama flew into China on Saturday, he was not welcomed in traditional diplomatic fashion with a red carpet and mobile staircase allowing him to descend from Air Force One. Instead, the president disembarked the aircraft using a back exit after touching down in Hangzhou.

At the same time, Chinese officials corralled American reporters behind a rope, preventing them from witnessing Obama’s arrival and sparking skirmishes with White House officials. A Chinese official confronted Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, on the tarmac and tried to prevent her from bypassing the media rope line and walking to the president’s motorcade, prompting the Secret Service to intervene.

The same Chinese official was caught on video shouting at a White House press aide who was showing foreign journalists where to stand as Obama exited Air Force One, according to Reuters. “This is our plane. We’re standing under the wing,” the aide said. “This is our country. This is our airport. Okay?” a Chinese official shouted back at her.

The scuffles occurred just before Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared together to announce their countries’ formal adoption of the international climate change deal brokered in Paris last December.

The president’s reception in China was widely viewed as embarrassing, though Obama sought to downplay the incident. “I wouldn’t overcrank the significance,” the president told reporters of the airport confrontations on Sunday.

Meanwhile, China blamed the American media for the incident. China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Monday that it was a “small episode,” knocking the “highly unprofessional” U.S. media for “making an issue out of it.”

As world leaders gathered at the G-20 Summit, China also appeared to be bucking U.S. warnings in the South China Sea. According to accounts from Philippine officials, at least eight Chinese vessels including four Chinese coast guard ships, were witnessed in the area of the disputed Scarborough Shoal in recent days.

I really try not to engage in ad hominem vitriol, but this guy has proven over and over in the last eight years that he has dog vomit where most people have souls.

The relentless march of the nature-distortion jackboots - today's edition

Not even churches can operate according to the laws of nature's God in Massachusetts:

Under a Massachusetts civil rights agency’s interpretation of new anti-discrimination law, churches can be forced to let biological males who identify as transgender women use the women’s bathroom.

Recently passed legislation amending the state’s anti-discrimination law to include protections for “gender identity” will take effect Oct. 1.

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, which enforces the state’s anti-discrimination laws, recently published a “Gender identity guidance” that lays out what will be legally required of employers and “agents of places of public accommodation.”

The guidance was published Sept. 1 but has gone unreported by the media until now. The commission confirmed that the version of the guidance online is the “final edition.”

Beginning Oct. 1, the guidance notes, “All persons, regardless of gender identity, shall have the right to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation.”

The guidance notes that Massachusetts law defines “public accommodation” as “any place, whether licensed or unlicensed, which is open to and accepts or solicits the patronage of the general public.” (Restaurants and hotels, for example, are generally considered public accommodations.) Violators of the law face up to one year in jail.

The guidance notes that “any place of public accommodation that lawfully separates access to a place or portion thereof based on a person’s sex, shall grant admission to that place, and the full enjoyment of that place or portion thereof, consistent with the person’s gender identity.”

“This means that a movie theater that has restrooms designated as ‘Men’s Restroom’ and ‘Women’s Restroom’ must allow its patrons to use the restroom which is consistent with their gender identity. A health club with locker rooms designated as male and female must grant all persons full enjoyment of the locker room consistent with their gender identity. A public swimming pool with changing rooms designated male and female must allow the public to use the changing room consistent with their gender identity.”

The guidance suggests that Massachusetts may force churches to comply with the new legislation.

“Even a church could be seen as a place of public accommodation if it holds a secular event, such as a spaghetti supper, that is open to the general public,” the guidance notes.

The guidance does not specify what criteria the government would use to determine whether or not church events are considered “secular.”

As with measures aimed at protecting the "climate" from "change," this is tyranny imposed in the service of an utter fiction.

Post-America is one mad place.

Gotta love that post-American State Department

Ya got yer "appropriate vetting":

Gulmurod Khalimov, the new ISIS military commander whom the U.S. just days ago announced a $3 million bounty for, was trained by the State Department in an anti-terror program as recently as 2014 while serving in the security service of Tajikistan.

He replaces former ISIS commander Tarkhan Batirashvili, aka Umar al-Shishani, who was also trained by the United States as part of the Georgian army and who ISIS claimed was killed fighting in Iraq this past July.

The State Department confirmed Khalimov's U.S.-provided training to CNN in May 2015:

"From 2003-2014 Colonel Khalimov participated in five counterterrorism training courses in the United States and in Tajikistan, through the Department of State's Diplomatic Security/Anti-Terrorism Assistance program," said spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala.

The program is intended to train candidates from participating countries in the latest counterterrorism tactics, so they can fight the very kind of militants that Khalimov has now joined.

A State Department official said Khalimov was trained in crisis response, tactical management of special events, tactical leadership training and related issues.

Unironically, the State Department spokeswoman said that Khalimov had been appropriately vetted:
At that time, Khalimov appeared in a video threatening the United States:

"All appropriate Leahy vetting was undertaken in advance of this training," said spokeswoman Jhunjhunwala.

"Listen, you American pigs: I've been to America three times. I saw how you train soldiers to kill Muslims," he says.

Then, he threatens, "we will find your towns, we will come to your homes, and we will kill you." 

Your tax dollars at work.

I still haven't decided

Well, clearly I'm not going to vote for Madame BleachBit.

But some occurrences of the last few days, most notably Mark Levin very publicly changing his mind, have been like a whisper in my ear, saying, "Don't foreclose just yet."

I also feel that the argument of James Campbell at Real Clear Politics today deserves due consideration:

Thinking Republicans should NOT SUPPORT Donald Trump, but they should reluctantly VOTE for him. On what matters most, and that is public policy, Trump is not nearly as bad as Clinton. Shout that Donald Trump is an idiot from the roof tops and into any microphone thrown in front of you–but then declare a vote for him.

The distinction between supporting and voting for a candidate is not a gimmick. There is a real difference. Support implies a positive assessment. A vote is a choice. I suspect the overwhelming majority of Republicans disgusted by Trump are even more appalled by the prospect of a Clinton presidency. So declaring a distinction between their support and their votes is the right and honest thing for them to do.

But then, no sooner do I start considering the validity of his reasoning than I come across a case such as Jay Caruso is making at RedState:

One thing I have learned from being involved in politics for 25 years is every presidential election is the most important presidential election. How many times have you heard from either a Republican or a Democrat the words, "Our future hangs in the balance!"

The country wasn't supposed to survive one Obama term. It wasn't expected to survive his second term. Yet, he we are.

This country has survived a civil war and World War I. The country has also survived The Great Depression. It survived World War II and won the fight against the Nazis. And it survived The Vietnam War, Watergate and 9/11. The suggestion that I am supposed to cower in fear over the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency and should run to cast a vote for a fraud like Donald Trump, when the country has faced much worse, is absurd.

As for the the probable Hillary Clinton presidency, those of us who decided our conscience couldn't fathom voting for Trump are not to blame. 14 million people looked at a group of candidates that included accomplished conservative governors, such as Rick Perry and Scott Walker. It included dynamic, conservative Senators such as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. Even the lower echelon of candidates, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and even Chris Christie, were preferable to a reality show carnival barker. Yet, in classic adult temper tantrum form, those people chose the carnival barker. A man with zero principles, no moral backbone and a political philosophy that echoes the sounds of a whoopee cushion. They made the choice. It is their decision to live with.

People may find those of us who remain Never Trump to be distasteful. But for many of us, never means never.

The weakness in his argument, it seems to me, is that "here we are" implies that the damage done is reversible.  I'm not sure that's true. How do our great-grandchildren ever pay off the $19 trillion-plus debt the overlords have burdened us with? Even if the "A"CA completely collapses, it will be a Herculean task to steer the badly leaking health-care ship toward a free-market model. Ditto dismantling the EPA. The culture's rot is in a horrifyingly advanced state. This is no longer a Christian nation. And, as evidenced by the reception the Most Equal Comrade is getting at the G-20 summit, the routine harassment of our Navy's vessels by Iran in international waters, the ongoing ISIS threat, and the ever-more-successful North Korean missile tests, post-America's decline on the world stage likely can't be reversed without some sort of cataclysm.

And the comment thread under Caruso's piece is full of cogent views. (Some come down a little too hard on the deeply principled Dennis Prager, whose latest piece is the subject of several of Caruso's paragraphs.) I'd say the money line from the comment thread is this:

Trump has done one thing that is not forgivable: he's made policy trivial and insipid. 

This isn't some neat little package you can tidily wrap and move on. This is the most politically painful decision I've ever had to make, and that's saying something.

Here's where I stand as of September 7, 2016: I may - may - vote for Donald Trump in November. IF I do so, there is a great likelihood that within three minutes of doing so, I'll be finding someplace to vomit violently.

Our partner in patty-cake - today's edition

The Islamic Republic of Iran has without exception treated post-America with contempt since the P5+1 signed that meaningless "agreement" last summer.

The latest such gesture:

A U.S. Navy patrol coastal ship was harassed by seven Iranian vessels on Sunday and narrowly avoided colliding with one, in the latest in a string of incidents in the Persian Gulf.

Seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) fast in-shore attack craft (FIAC) approached USS Firebolt (PC-10) while it was operating in international waters in the central Persian Gulf on Sept. 4, a defense official told USNI News.

Three of the FIACs maneuvered close to Firebolt, mirroring the ship’s course and speed at a distance of about 500 yards for about eight minutes before leaving. Another FIAC then sped towards Firebolt and stopped directly in front of the ship, causing the Firebolt crew to maneuver to avoid a collision. The U.S. ship and Iranian FIAC came within 100 yards of one another, the defense official said.

During the incident, the Firebolt crew attempted radio communication three times to understand the Iranians’ intentions, but the FIAC crews never responded. The FIACs’ crew-served weapons were uncovered and manned but untrained during the encounter, the official said.

U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) called the interaction unsafe and unprofessional due to the lack of communication and harassment at close range, which increases the chance of collision, the defense official said.

“The Iranian’s unsafe maneuvers near a United States ship operating in accordance with international law while transiting in international waters created a dangerous, harassing situation that could have led to further escalation including additional defensive measures by Firebolt,” the official told USNI News.

“This type of incident would have led NAVCENT to recommend that the State Department deliver a diplomatic message of protest if this interaction had been with a country with which the United States had an official diplomatic relationship.”

The incident this weekend follows recent harassments of guided-missile destroyer USS Nitze (DDG-94) on Aug. 23, as well as patrol coastal ships USS Tempest (PC-2) and USS Squall (PC-7) and destroyer USS Stout (DDG-55) on Aug. 24. 

The United States of America was the most respected country in the world. Post-America? Not so much.