The VSG is getting really scary

He really sent this to Turkish president Erdogan.

It reads like it was written by an eighth grader riddled with insecurities and delusions about what the world is going to find impressive.

So many signature Trumpisms. The exclamation mark. The "deal" perspective. The not-so-veiled threat. The posturing of himself as someone who nobly does others' heavy lifting.

And then there's this unworkable comparison between the PKK and ISIS:

There are respectable arguments in favor of the pullback of U.S. troops in northeastern Syria. I don’t find them persuasive, but they are serious.

Unfortunately, President Trump persists in making ludicrous arguments. One of them, the fact that the Kurds didn’t help us with the Normandy invasion, I discussed here.

I hoped that this argument was a throwaway — a one-off. No such luck.

Now, Trump is claiming that the PKK, which forms part of the fighting force the Turks are attacking, is more of a terrorist threat than ISIS in many ways. This is true if you are Turkish. But it’s preposterous if you are American, especially if your slogan is “America first.” 

The PKK poses no threat to the U.S. ISIS poses a serious one. It is responsible for attacks on America and its allies. That’s why we sent troops to attack ISIS, an effort in which we were aided substantially by local forces including those associated with the PKK.

ISIS remains a serious threat even though its caliphate in Iraq and Syria has been destroyed. ISIS fighters and adherents still have the ability to launch terrorist attacks against Americans and American interests. Moreover, it’s far from clear that ISIS will be unable to regain some of its lost territory, especially given the cessation of the fight against it in Syria caused by Trump’s pullback.

The pullback has resulted not only in that cessation, but also in the escape of ISIS fighters from captivity in the region. Trump claims that the Kurds are releasing these prisoners “for effect” — that is, to create pressure on him to intervene militarily. 

This claim appears to be unsupported by credible evidence. Given the speed with which our forces are pulling back, I’m not sure how the U.S. would know about the circumstances of ISIS prisoner escapes. Maybe Turkey is feeding Trump this line. 

Trump has already shrugged off concern about ISIS prisoners escaping, noting that the escaped terrorists will be coming to Europe, not the U.S. Thus, it’s clear to all that letting these prisoners escape would not influence Trump’s policy, the alleged motive here. He doesn’t care much if they escape. 

I know of one friend - Facebook and real-life - I've already lost over the issue of Donald Trump. I'm talking about a conservative friend. We regularly sent each other stuff to read and watch. He was a big fan of this blog and the Barney & Clyde podcast. Also shared such common interests as music and pets. He is now gone from my daily life, and it's because he's angry that I have not swallowed the Kool-Aid.

I'm a sane adult human being. There's no way I can swallow this Kool-Aid.

The Very Stable Genius is unravelling before our eyes.

It gives me no comfort to assert as much.

I pray for some kind of escape route from what appears to be the options we're going to face in thirteen months.

What I stand for is getting a tragically negligible airing.

Wednesday roundup

I haven't seen the documentary The Rise of Jordan Peterson, but my sense, from reading about it, is that it is balanced, nuanced and in-depth.  That's not stopping the jackboots from using threats to try to prevent anyone from seeing it.

A similar exercise in jackbootery is underway at Sarah Lawrence College, as the American Enterprise Institute's Samuel J. Abrams reports:

I am currently teaching a First-Year Study at Sarah Lawrence College called American Dreams. The class is a deep dive into our nation’s difficult history and addresses the question of what it means to be an American today and how that has changed over time.

In creating the class, I was deeply concerned with promoting intellectual and ideological balance, along with creating a space where students could freely question and discuss questions ranging from identity politics to social policy. As such, the reading list is as a mix of social science works, historical pieces, and memoirs, which range from Charles Murray’s Coming Apart to Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me and is intended to offer a wide range of perspectives on the American Dream and truly promote viewpoint diversity.

I even included specific provisions in the syllabus to promote balance, such as reminding students of the 1967 Chicago Kalven Committee Report about the import of higher education as an “institution which creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones. In brief, a good university, like Socrates, will be upsetting.”

Moreover, the class operates  under Chatham House rules along with the College’s Principles of Mutual Respect which not only asserts that those in the school’s community seek to “embrace our diversity in all its dimensions” but also that we work to “foster honest inquiry, free speech, and open discourse.”

This course was recently featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education because the class explicitly attempts to help students understand other points of view beyond the fairly narrow, progressive monoculture that afflicts so many campuses.

I share this background because my course’s content and ideological balance are hardly objectionable. However, many of my students are being bullied outside of the classroom – in their dorms, in the student center, in the dining halls – by other students for simply taking the course with me. The course content cannot possibly be the source of the bullying. Rather, the intimidation is presumably a result of a 2018 op-ed that I wrote in the New York Times which questioned the partisan and ideological nature of the programming coming out of some administrative offices on campus and resulting storm of protests and demands, which included the usual host of meritless slanderous and defamatory claims.

It now appears that by remaining in my course or by not explicitly and publicly condemning me in some capacity, the students risk reputational damage and the stress of being viewed as  pariahs or being labeled a complicit supporter of me or my “objectionable views.” I truly do not envy my students here and completely empathize with the position my students find themselves in.

I am grateful that my students come to class ready to engage, question, and debate topics and questions across the ideological spectrum, but it is completely unacceptable that they must censor themselves or feel the slightest bit of discomfort over attending my class.

Whenever I tangle with Trumpists, I always arrive at a juncture at which I have to concede the very significant good policy moves that have occurred on the VSG's watch - judicial appointments, deregulation, pulling out of the Paris Accord and there JCPOA, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. They don't outweigh that which is disastrous about the VSG, but they must be acknowledged. One such move was appointing William Barr as Attorney General. Barr's recent speech to the Notre Dame law school is the kind of thunderous analysis of post-America's spiritual sickness that could only come from a highly refined conservative mind:

Last week, US Attorney General William Barr gave an extraordinary speech about religious liberty at Notre Dame Law School. I have not been able to locate a transcript, and only found time to watch it this morning. Here’s a video of the entire thing. The speech itself begins at about the four-minute mark.

The AG begins by talking about the capacity for self-government, meaning not the form of administration of a liberal democracy, but the ability of individuals to master their own passions, and subject them to reason. Can we handle freedom? That, says Barr, is a question that preoccupied the Founders.

No society can exist without the capacity to restrain vice, he goes on to say. If you depend only on the government to do this, you get tyranny. (This, by the way, is what’s happening in China; many Chinese actually support the tyrannical Social Credit System, because communism destroyed civil society and social trust.) But, says Barr, licentiousness is another form of tyranny. People enslaved by their own appetites make community life impossible. (This, I would say, is what we are more endangered by in America today … and it will ultimately call forth tyranny, Chinese-style.)

Barr offers this quotation from Edmund Burke:

“Men are qualified for civil liberty, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.”

Why is religion a public good? Because, says Barr, it “trains people to want what is good.” It helps to frame a society’s moral culture, and instills moral discipline. No secular creed has emerged that can do what religion does, he says. And by casting religion out, we are dismantling the foundation of our public morality.

“What we call ‘values’ today are nothing more than mere sentimentality, drawing on the vapor trails of Christianity,” says the AG.

Barr took the gloves off, saying that religion is not jumping to its death; it’s being pushed.

“This is not decay,” he said. “This is organized destruction.” He named secularists in academia, media, and elsewhere as figures who are not neutral at all, but have rather inculcated a kind of religiosity in their own project of destroying religion. They conduct their own inquisitions and excommunications for heresy.

Then Barr said something, almost in passing, that in truth deserves a lot more attention by religious and philosophical observers: that we have created a popular culture in which we the people are “too distracted” to take these questions seriously. Just last night, readers, I received an e-mail from one of you who said that “the really striking thing of our age is the complete anesthesia of religious questions.” That’s true. This, I think, is where I would push back against AG Barr somewhat. It’s not only that the secularists want to suppress religion; it’s also that many of us aren’t interested in religion in the first place. To be clear, religious questions — that is, questions of transcendence and ultimate truth — can’t be suppressed forever. But we seem to be doing a great job of avoiding them.

Anyway, back to the Barr speech. He says that we are in a time like the days of the early Church, when the Roman authorities weren’t content to leave Christians alone to pray in peace, but actually tried to force them to violate their beliefs.

Barr says in his talk that one of the most important aspects of religious liberty is the freedom to pass the faith on to your children. This is where the battle is joined — and, because the Trump administration supports “religious accommodation,” the real battles are happening at the state level. Ground Zero for the warfare is at the schools. Barr identifies three specific areas of conflict:

1. Content of public school curriculum. Meaning the implementation of an anti-traditional values curriculum without any opt-out for families. E.g., New Jersey, Illinois, and California law mandating LGBT curriculum. He cites a diktat by the Orange County (Calif.) board of education saying that parents cannot opt their kids out of LGBT training.
2. State policies designed to starve religious schools of generally available funds, to force religious people to put their kids into public schools.
3. Use of state laws to force religious schools to accept secular morality.

The Attorney General concluded by telling his Catholic audience that only by conversion of ourselves can we hope to transform society. He adds that Christians must have more emphasis on moral content in education. “Education is not vocational training,” he said. If we don’t pass on our faith and moral conviction to our children “in full vigor,” all is lost.

Another AEI scholar, Danielle Pletka  says that, with regard to what the VSG's withdrawal of a US presence from Northern Syria is doing to the power dynamic on the world stage, the root cause doesn't lend itself to a tidy left-right analytical model. The involvement-in-hot-spots-is-icky-let's-just-come-home mentality can be found on both sides of the spectrum:

we must recognize that this is a failure of leadership. Yes… the leadership of people like me and those like me who believe that the world is a better place when America leads; who believe that “never again” once meant something; who think that we must build the foundations of democratic transformation and human freedom. We must persuade our leadership, our policymakers, and the public that it is always cheaper to try to solve problems overseas before they become wars, but we haven’t done so. Second, we must set aside the left-right anger that is only deepening between us. The true adversary on the American political scene is the isolationist, the do–nothing, the one who believes “nation building here at home” is somehow mutually exclusive from leadership abroad. The problem to confront is the one that suggests that anyone who wants a foreign policy and a strategy to confront dangers is a warmonger determined to sacrifice blood and treasure.

California is going to let illegal aliens serve on government boards.

Last night's debate made more plain than ever that Joe Biden's star is fading.

Kim Jong-un has been photographed riding a white horse across the snowfields on Mt. Paektu, which, according to North Korean media, means something grand is afoot.

A Rutgers University gender-studies professor says that Donald Trump is to blame for any obesity among black women.

The VSG makes the Turkey-Syria situation - and US standing in the world - worse with his every utterance

He let loose with some doozies this morning.

On Russia filling the influence vacuum left by US withdrawal:

“Syria may have some help with Russia and that’s fine,” Trump said. “It’s a lot of sand. They’ve got a lot of sand over there, so there’s a lot of sand they can play with.”

His nation-states-are-basically-businesses perspective was on full display with his telling choice of the term "downsizing":

“It used to be called the Soviet Union, now it’s called Russia for a reason - because they lost so much money in Afghanistan they had to downsize,” Trump said. “A very big downsizing. So if Russia wants to get involved with Syria that’s really up to them. They have a problem with Turkey, they have a problem with the border. It’s not our border, we shouldn’t be losing lives over it.”

And he chooses this particular moment to declare that the allies he's abandoned are less than perfect. But not to worry. They're "much safer now." The responses to that - from Kurds on the ground, certainly - are going to be interesting:

 Trump also said the Kurds, who fought alongside American troops against Islamic State and are now under attack from the Turkish military, are “no angels.” He added that the Kurds are well-protected and know how to fight. “Syria is friendly with the Kurds,” Trump said, adding that the Kurds “are much safer right now.”

At least one Pub who has been generally supportive of the VSG is speaking with bracing candor about this move:

Trump’s moves have brought bipartisan criticism from Congress. Republican Representative John Shimkus of Illinois, who graduated from West Point and has consistently backed the president, called the moves “despicable” and said the U.S. has “stabbed our allies in the back.”

The Very Stable Genius with the Very Good Brain sees it differently:

“I view the situation on the Turkish border with Syria for the United States -- strategically brilliant,” Trump said. “We can fight our own battles on our own territories.”

Strategically brilliant. LITD thinks the moment may arrive sooner than later when he finds it really challenging to live that down.

The delusion further entrenches itself into what's left of Western civilization

Changing its perfectly innocuous and apt greeting in order to indulge a tiny percentage of the population in its madness:

Employees aboard Air Canada flights will no longer greet guests by referring to them as "ladies and gentlemen" or "mesdames et messieurs," which has been typical protocol for years, in an effort to be conscious of gender fluidity. 

Flight attendants and other staff will not use the language in boarding announcements, and the company instead plans to replace the standard greetings with neutral words, such as "everybody" or "tout le monde." 

"We will be amending our onboard announcements to modernize them and remove specific references to gender," a media spokesperson for the company said, also noting that Air Canada was named one of Canada's Best Diversity Employers for 2019. "We work hard to make sure all employees feel like valued members of the Air Canada family, while ensuring our customers are comfortable and respected when they choose to travel with us." 

Canada has taken steps to recognize and protect its citizens who don't identify as either male or female or identify as "non-binary." In the country, gender identity and expression are protected under criminal code, and crimes motivated by such characteristics could constitute hate crimes. It is also illegal in Canada to discriminate against someone based on their gender identity.

Gender is not fluid. There are boys and girls, men and women. You may "feel" like you're a damn pomegranate, but it doesn't make you one.

As I've said before, we must not become inured to this. We must not just roll our eyes and move on. This is the perpetuation of pretense. It's making a virtue out of lying to oneself.

It's a middle finger raised to almighty God.

John Bolton knew it didn't smell good at all

It's no wonder he was given his walking papers by the Very Stable Genius. He understood fully what was happening and tried to counter it:

Former national security adviser John Bolton was so disturbed by the efforts to get the Ukrainians to investigate President Donald Trump’s political opponents that he called it a “drug deal,” former White House official Fiona Hill reportedly told Congress on Monday.

Hill, the former top Europe expert in Trump’s White House, testified that Bolton told her he wanted no part of the effort that involved acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, a person in the room for Hill’s testimony told NBC News. Bolton also was said to have referred to Rudy Giuliani as a "hand grenade."

Giuliani has acknowledged in recent interviews that he had asked a Ukrainian prosecutor for information about former Vice President Joe Biden.

The New York Times first reported details of Hill's testimony Monday night.

Trump fired Bolton in September.

Hill testified that Bolton told her to report the situation to the top lawyer at the National Security Council, John Eisenberg, according to the person in the room for Hill’s testimony during the closed-door hearing.

Hill told lawmakers she considered what was happening to be a clear counterintelligence risk to the United States, the person said.

Giuliani said that he was disappointed to learn about Bolton's reported comments.

"I always liked and respected John," the president's personal attorney said after hearing about the testimony. "I’m very disappointed that his bitterness drives him to attack a friend falsely and in a very personal way. It’s really ironic that John Bolton is calling anyone else a hand grenade. When John is described by many as an atomic bomb."

Rudy, before riding too far on your high horse, you might want to consider the value of some circumspection in this situation. Federal prosecutors are looking into your Ukraine dealings.  

The Business Roundtable has served up its testicles to Elizabeth Warren on a silver platter

Did those CEOs that deigned to expand the array of stakeholders to which a corporation is responsible beyond those who actually own it not see that the insatiable Left would demand an immediate translation of their declaration into action - action that must meet the Left's standards?

The Business Roundtable in August issued a statement that basically announced that the folks who had scrimped and saved and invested in American corporations for their retirement were just not that important anymore. I noted then:

“Business Roundtable Redefines the Purpose of a Corporation to Promote ‘An Economy That Serves All Americans,’” according to a press release from the organization. It adds: “Updated Statement Moves Away from Shareholder Primacy, Includes Commitment to All Stakeholders.”

Moving away from shareholder primacy? What about your retirement, right?

Other “stakeholders” were more important in the redefined corporation, however.

The Wall Street Journal presciently noted a “whiff of pre-emption” in the statement:

They see socialism on the rise, with Senator Elizabeth Warren proposing to redefine corporate governance in law with explicit direction to serve “stakeholders.” Her goal is to redirect corporate capital to serve political goals favored by unions, environmentalists and trial lawyers. The CEOs no doubt want to get out in front of this by showing what splendid corporate citizens they are.

Yet these CEOs are fooling themselves if they think this new rhetoric will buy off Ms. Warren and the socialist left. It may even embolden them by implying that corporate rules that require a focus on achieving value for shareholders are somehow morally insufficient. The Roundtable CEOs may be selling Ms. Warren the political rope to hang them.

The editors were right: rather than being mollified, Senator Warren was emboldened.

Warren is now demanding that the Roundtable CEOs prove that they are willing to redefine corporations, as an editorial in this morning’s Wall Street Journal observes:

“I write for information about the tangible actions you intend to take to implement the principles” in the Roundtable’s Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, Sen. Warren wrote to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and other CEOs late last week.

Her letter then denounces corporate profits, stock buybacks and dividends that she says leave workers behind. “I am pleased that the Business Roundtable has acknowledged the harm that this trend inflicts on the economy and that you, on behalf of JP Morgan Chase, have pledged to take steps to reverse it,” the letter adds.

“If you, and the other 181 corporate executives who signed the BRT’s new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, plan to live up to the promises you made, I expect that you will endorse and wholeheartedly support the reforms laid out in the Accountable Capitalism Act to meet the principles you endorse. I have attached a copy of the bill.”

You have to love that “I expect” line. She’s not President yet, but she’s already giving orders to CEOs about how to behave if they know what’s good for them. Very Trumpian. And entirely predictable.

If you are retired or nearing retirement age, this has to be especially frightening.

The editors go on to explain how Senator Warren’s Accountable Capitalism Act would “end capitalism as we know it.”

Companies with a billion or more in revenue would have to obtain a federal charter (they now have state charters). And they would go down the road the Roundtable redefiners started on—but much farther:

Instead of serving the interests of the shareholders who own the company, CEOs and directors would have to serve some combination of “the workforce,” “customers,” “the local and global environment” and “community and societal factors.” Forty percent of directors would also have to be employees, which would usually mean union representatives.

So pre-emptive concessions to appease the left might not be the best policy:

CEOs can’t buy off Mrs. Warren and the left with this or that rhetorical or policy concession. Her intention is to co-opt and redirect the capital that business and individuals now control. The only way to defeat this threat is to defend the morality of free markets and the moral and fiduciary duty of corporations to their shareholder owners.

 The really sad part is that there will be some Rountable signatories who will puke all over themselves to accommodate Warran's rapacious designs, who will see her agenda as "just" and "visionary" or some such dog vomit.

Who's surprised by this?

When your back's against the wall and the ally you'd depended on exits the scene, you find new allies where you can:

Kurdish forces long allied with the United States in Syria announced a new deal on Sunday with the government in Damascus, a sworn enemy of Washington that is backed by Russia, as Turkish troops moved deeper into their territory and President Trump ordered the withdrawal of the American military from northern Syria.

The sudden shift marked a major turning point in Syria’s long war.

For five years, United States policy relied on collaborating with the Kurdish-led forces both to fight the Islamic State and to limit the influence of Iran and Russia, which support the Syriangovernment, with a goal of maintaining some leverage over any future settlement of the conflict. 

On Sunday, after Mr. Trump abruptly abandoned that approach, American leverage appeared all but gone. That threatened to give President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian and Russian backers a free hand. It also jeopardized hard-won gains against the Islamic State — and potentially opened the door for its return.

The Kurds’ deal with Damascus paved the way for government forces to return to the country’s northeast for the first time in years to try to repel a Turkish invasion launched after the Trump administration pulled American troops out of the way. The pullout has already unleashed chaos and bloodletting.

And now we have State and Energy Department officials trying to find a good way to get US n nuclear weapons stored at Incirlik Air Base.

Real nice.

Oh, and we now know what the "big sanctions" are going to be: steel tariffs.  

The Very Stable Genius tweets dangerous speculation and premature exuberance

Re: the dangerous speculation:

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

....Kurds may be releasing some to get us involved. Easily recaptured by Turkey or European Nations from where many came, but they should move quickly. Big sanctions on Turkey coming! Do people really think we should go to war with NATO Member Turkey? Never ending wars will end!

Oh, really? Is there some kind of unclassified intelligence document that can provide some specifics on this possibility that Kurds (which Kurds? the ones we'd been allied with?) are releasing ISIS fighters? To get us involved? Are you prepared to back up your raising of such a cynicism-driven possibility?

And "easily captured?" Hordes of fiercely determined jihadists, who are immediately hooking back up to their network of support?

And the juxtaposition between the assurance of "big sanctions" (which he's previously assured us will "obliterate" Turkey's economy) with the question of whether we should go to war with Turkey is a classic example of the VSG's jumbled worldview. Who has raised the possibility of war with Turkey? The old "oh-you'd-probably-like-us-to-go-to-war-with-this-nation-state-we're-having-difficulties-with" smokescreen gets raised by lazy minds hoping a false dichotomy will shut down any examination of actual policy options. On the other hand, why would the possibility of obliterating Turkey's economy (a pretty hostile act against a country that the VSG is quick to remind us is a NATO member) even need to be raised if the whole matter of Turkey's intention to invade Syria had been handled deftly and firmly - in that phone call with Erdogan or before?

And then there is the VSG's crowing about how the preliminary sort-of trade deal with China is some kind of historic development:

@realDonaldTrump

My deal with China is that they will IMMEDIATELY start buying very large quantities of our Agricultural Product, not wait until the deal is signed over the next 3 or 4 weeks. THEY HAVE ALREADY STARTED! Likewise financial services and other deal aspects, start preparing....

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

....I agreed not to increase Tariffs from 25% to 30% on October 15th. They will remain at 25%. The relationship with China is very good. We will finish out the large Phase One part of the deal, then head directly into Phase Two. The Phase One Deal can be finalized & signed soon!

Not so fast, say those on the Chinese side of the negotiations:

China wants to hold more talks this month to hammer out the details of the “phase one” trade deal touted by Donald Trump before Xi Jinping agrees to sign it, according to people familiar with the matter.

Beijing may send a delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He, China’s top negotiator, to finalize a written deal that could be signed by the presidents at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit next month in Chile, one of the people said. Another person said China also wants Trump to scrap a planned tariff hike in December in addition to the hike scheduled for this week, something the administration hasn’t yet endorsed. The people asked not to be named discussing the private negotiations.

The S&P 500 Index was little changed, Europe’s Stoxx 600 fell and the yen rose as investors grew pessimistic on the handshake deal. The yuan pared much of its earlier gains offshore.

The U.S. and China have emerged from last week’s talks with different takes on what’s in the accord and how close they are to signing a document. Trump said “we’ve come to a deal, pretty much, subject to getting it written” and indicated it might take several more weeks of negotiation. China’s Ministry of Commerce merely said that “the two sides have made substantial progress” and “agreed to work together in the direction of a final agreement.” The state-run Xinhua news agency didn’t mention a deal either.

And:

Statements about the deal in Chinese media are much more reserved than the president’s comments. China Daily, an official state newspaper, said, “While the negotiations do appear to have produced a fundamental understanding on the key issues and the broader benefits of friendly relations, the Champagne should probably be kept on ice, at least until the two presidents put pen to paper.”

The paper hinted that President Trump may change his mind on the deal before a formal agreement is reached, saying, “As based on its past practice, there is always the possibility that Washington may decide to cancel the deal if it thinks that doing so will better serve its interests.” 

There is quite a chasm between the world according to the VSG and actual reality.

The grim results of our abandonment of our allies is already underway

It was one of those Twitter posts that one can't unsee. Independent Kurdish journalist Botin Kurdistani juxtaposed photos of Future Syria party secretary-general and university professor Hervin Khalaf in her business attire, smiling and exuding confidence, with a shot of her after she had been dragged from her car on the M4 highway, raped, tortured and stoned to death.

The Future Syria party stands for a pluralistic vision for that country.

Youssef Hammoud, spokesperson for the group of Syrian rebels backed by Turkey, says his group has not advanced far enough to be able to be responsible for her murder, but it's hard to ascribe plausibility to his claim, given that nine others have been killed along that road since the Turkish offensive began.

Oh, and this morning, hundreds of ISIS supporters fled a Kurdish-run prisoner camp:

Hundreds of relatives of Islamic State fighters fled a Kurdish-run detention camp on Sunday morning after Turkish airstrikes hit the surrounding area, deepening the crisis prompted by the Turkish-led invasion of northern Syria.

The escapes came hours before the United States military said it would withdraw its remaining troops from northern Syria in the coming weeks, despite a likely resurgence of the Islamic State amid chaotic efforts by Turkish-led troops to wrest the region from Kurdish control.

A Kurdish official also said that the flag of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, had been raised in the countryside between the camp in the Kurdish-held town of Ain Issa and the Turkish border, another indication of how the Kurdish authorities were losing control of a region they had freed from the extremists only months ago.

This is no time to muddy the waters with mention of other issues. There must be no introduction of whataboutism here. Save discussions about the media, the "deep state," Adam Schiff and the Biden family for when that's the matter at hand.

The rudderlessness with which Donald Trump conducts foreign policy is what has led to this. This isn't a minor oopsie, as easy to clean up as a kitchen-floor spill. A new round of jihadist machinations, as well as shifts in world-stage power dynamics, has been catalyzed.

This, along with the demonstrated futility of the summits with Kim, gives the lie to the idea that Trump has some kind of strategic prowess. He's completely out of his league when it comes to overseeing America's relations with the world stage's various players.

And the price gets paid in real time now.

The NBA seems to have become another garbage institution

Steve Kerr serves up a steaming pile of moral equivalency:

Golden State Warrior coach Steve Kerr was in China and he said that during his visit to that country, no one had asked him about Chinese human rights abuses . . . nor “our record of human rights abuses”, either, referring to the United States.

“As far as North Korea, I don’t know much about North Korea. As far as the Ukraine situation, I don’t know much about the Ukraine situation. We could just go around the world and maybe I can pinpoint a couple others I’m comfortable about, but this whole thing is so ridiculous. Again, we’re fortunate in this country to have free speech. I exercise that. But part of having free speech is also electing not to speak if you don’t feel comfortable about something.”

“It has not come up in terms of people asking about it, people discussing it,” Kerr said. “Nor has our record of human rights abuses come up, either. Things that our country needs to look at and resolve. That hasn’t come up either. None of us are perfect. We all have different issues we have to get to. Saying that is my right as an American. It doesn’t mean that I hate my country. It means I want to address the issue. But people in China didn’t ask me about, you know, people owning AR-15s and mowing each other down in a mall. I wasn’t asked that question."

Got that? Private citizens owning AR-15s (and, according to Kerr, "mowing each other down in [malls]") is the same thing as the government hauling citizens off to gulags for speaking out against a system that empowers the government to haul citizens off to gulags.

And another NBA team caves to Jew-haters even as it tiptoes around the Chinese totalitarian regime:

The Portland Trail Blazers announced that they have severed relations with a company that does business with Israel following a pressure campaign by activists tied to the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

As the NBA is facing outrage after the general manager of the Houston Rockets capitulated to censorship by the Chinese communist government, the Trail Blazers quietly severed ties with the manufacturer Leupold, which has a contract to produce accessories for the Israeli Defense Forces.

Trail Blazers president and CEO Chris McGowan recently announced the decision to bow to pressure from BDS activists, telling a reporter for the Bleacher Reportthat "Leupold is no longer a part of the organization."

The move was celebrated by anti-Israel activists and picked up by the pro-BDS blog Mondoweiss, which stated that the decision came "after a year-long campaign by local activists to pressure the Blazers to drop the sponsor."

The NBA has been facing fierce backlash following the fallout from the Rockets incident. The controversy erupted after the Rockets general manager tweeted—and subsequently deleted—a tweet expressing support for pro-democracy protesters who are being met with violence by the Chinese government.

The NBA, which has deep business interests in China, has sought to quell the controversy, sparking accusations it is capitulating to China’s censorship regulations.

A league of cowards.

Just another night in post-America

At a townhall hosted by CNN to explore how various Freedom-Hater presidential candidates weigh in on the panoply of concerns of the 3 percent of the post-American population that has some kind of unusual sex life, there was a lot of preening, but Beto O'Rourke's call for churches and faith-based charities and schools to lose their tax-exempt status if they don't  - well, renounce sound Christian doctrine was the real indicator of where the Overton window has shifted.

As is often the case nowadays when leftists gather with the purpose of indulging in identity-politics preening, there was an eat-their-own moment when protestors disrupted the proceedings to demand that justice or something be done for "trans women of color."

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, the Very Stable Genius further coarsened the national discourse and sullied the stature of his office by saying that Joe Biden was only a good Vice President because "he knew how to kiss Barack Obama's ass."

Outside the Target Center, where the VSG held his rally, Antifa-type goons stole the MAGA hats off Trump supporters heads and made a bonfire with them. They threw piss at rally attendees, too.

Not sure what the nation's conservatives were doing last night. They didn't hold any big gatherings or protests thereof. I suppose they were helping their kids with homework, or pursuing their hobbies, or attending Bible study. Making something wonderful for dinner. Walking the dog.

The rabid hordes wouldn't have been interested in anything they'd have to say, anyway.