The indispensable Kevin Williamson has a piece at NRO entitled "The Question Candidates Won't Answer." He sets the table by pointing out the high-wince-factor juvenile nature of Jake Tapper's questions at last Wednesday's debate, leading him to his ultimate dream question for Pub prez candidates:
Here’s my question, which nobody ever really asks: “Given that a small number of federal expenditures — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national security, and interest on the debt — typically constitute about 80 percent of all federal spending, and given that we not going to cut non-defense discretionary spending to zero, there is no mathematically plausible way to balance the budget without: 1) cutting spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and/or national security; and/or 2) raising taxes. So, what’s it going to be: spending cuts in popular programs, higher taxes, or deficits forever? And before you give your answer, I’d like you all to know that standing behind each of you is a man with a Taser and instructions to use it on the first person whose answer relies on the Growth Fairy — lookin’ at you, Jeb — or the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Fairy. Go.”
Read the whole thing to see how close he thinks each candidate is actually getting to a willingness to address the hard reality of our fiscal situation.
The maker of Doritos is showing solidarity with the 2.6 percent of the population with unconventional sex lives by introducing a line of rainbow-striped chips. Consumers will have to go to some bother and expense to show their solidarity:
You won’t be able to find these chips on your store shelf — they will only available for special order with a $10 donation to It Gets Better. Doritos will ship out your rainbow chips in 1 to 2 weeks.
The scale of radicalisation was revealed by MI5 director-general Andrew Parker during the first live interview with an MI5 chief in the agency’s 106-year history. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today program, he informed listeners that although half of those on the watch-list live in London, there are also hotspots in the South East, Manchester and the West Midlands.
In the last year, six terrorist plots have been foiled which, had they gone ahead, would have resulted in loss of life. “That is the highest number I can recall in my 32-year career, certainly the highest number since 9/11,” Mr Parker said. “It represents a threat which is continuing to grow, largely because of the situation in Syria and how that affects our security.”
He continued: “Most of the people who try to become involved in terrorism in this country are people who were born and brought up here, have come through our education system, and have nonetheless concluded that the country — their home country and the country of their birth — is their enemy.”
Mr Parker warned that terrorists are on the brink of gaining a technological advantage over security services, as the rate of development of encryption services could soon lead to spy chiefs “going dark”, unable to intercept messages between terror cells.
The story immediately became ubiquitous not because of what actually happened — boneheaded as that was — but because it can be used to further a story that the media already want to tell: that the United States is morally corrupt and irredeemably racist; that Muslims are under siege; that “white privilege” blinds the majority of Americans to the corruption at the heart of everything red, white, and blue. Muslim kid meets paranoia in Texas is A-1 copy; NRA-wearing kid meets paranoia in West Virginia, not so much.
President Barack Obama, never one to miss an opportunity for cheap moral preening, invited Mohamed to the White House. That’s an interesting gesture: Anybody want to hazard a guess as to what would happen if a young man showed up at the White House visitors’ center with a backpack in which was a homemade device full of circuit boards joined to a timing device? I do not frequent the White House, but I often am in the House and Senate office buildings in Washington, and my best guess is that if I’d tried to bring Mohamed’s clock into one of those places, there would have been guns drawn.
Here is the money paragraph:
Ahmed Mohamed was mistreated by imbeciles, and he’ll be famous for it, for 15 Warholian minutes, and then again for a 30-second spot when he graduates in a few years and goes off to MIT or wherever. The fact is that he is not worse off because his name is Mohamed, but better off: Nobody would be paying attention otherwise, and he might very well be in jail. Being mistreated by imbeciles is the sine qua non of American public education today, but that fact is of political use only periodically, as in this case.
Europe tells the teeming multitudes of Arab / Muslim migrants that the worm has turned.
USA TODAY has confirmed that sponsors from 2014 that have backed out for this year include electronics company Samsung, oil giant ExxonMobil, global financial firms Deutsche Bankand HSBC, and accounting firm PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers). Hewlett-Packard, which just announced major layoffs, will be an in-kind donor instead of a cash contributor, and the agri-chem firm Monsanto has cut back its donation. Dow's name is missing from the donor list as well, but the chemical company's exit is not confirmed.
High-profile corporations might not be the only key supporters backing away from association with the Clinton family's charitable arm. In 2014, eight national leaders, kings, presidents and prime ministers, appeared on the program for CGI's annual meeting, including the president of the United States and the prime minister of Japan. This year, only leaders from Colombia and Liberia are currently on the program.
Check out the Most Equal Comrade's lame excuse for the non-viability and near-non-existence of post-America-trained moderate (both anti-Assad and anti-ISIS) Syrian rebels.
Writing a post on the coining of strident terms and the danger of purity tests is going to be a bit tricky for this blogger. Late in the Day is clearly no outpost of moderation. You will find specialized lingo here aplenty, coined in the service of points I want to make with absolute clarity.
When I use the term Freedom-Hater for public figures known to be registered Democrats, it's because the factor unifying the disparate interests comprising one of the two major political parties in post-America is a fundamental hatred for basic human freedom. It manifests itself in everything from the zeal for taxing wealth, the minimum wage, EPA regulations, sensitivity training for Christian bakers, appeasement of Iran and transgendered restrooms in public schools to the requirement that citizens buy health insurance.
When I use the term Most Equal Comrade, it's to provide a constant reminder of Barack Obama's constellation of mentors and collaborators over the years: Frank Marshall Davis, Reverend Wright, Heather Booth, Greg Galluzzo, Harry Boyte, Robert Creamer, Bill Ayers, Andy Stern.
When I use the term Hillionaire, it's to point out Hillary Clinton's laughable attempts to obscure her wealth and her keen interest in maximizing it.
When I use the term post-America, it's because there is no hyperbole in the assertion that the society and culture of the United States have become utterly unrecognizable to anyone old enough to remember life as recently as 20 years ago, and certainly 50 years ago (although trends leading us to our current juncture were well underway a half-century ago).
When I use the term Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome, it's to convey the mindset of Beltway Republicans (and those found in statehouses and city halls throughout post-America) who routinely find some excuse to cave on core conservative principles. Think John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Linsey Graham, John Kasich, Susan Collins, Bob Dole. Think operatives like Karl Rove. Think pundits like Peter Wehner. Those afflicted with RGS are commonly called RINOs or squishes, both perfectly serviceable characterizations.
I've introduced these terms on this site with a great deal of forethought and self-examination. I put each of them through a fair amount of critical examination. Are there holes in my arguments for any of them? Is there another term that could convey the same point without being so jarring?
And Ive concluded that they all pass the test, thank you very much.
Would that those who have coined this term "GOPe" currently cropping up in comment threads across the pundit-sphere put it through such a rigorous viability test.
At present, there seems to be some elasticity to its meaning. In some applications, it seems to be confined to party operatives and big donors. Others include some opinion outlets - think National Review, the Weekly Standard and Hot Air - in the definition. Some are quick to classify presidential candidates thusly, based on particular past pronouncements or affiliations they deem questionable - no, make that unacceptable.
Which brings us to an obvious point to be made about this term. Its employment is a handy way of identifying a Trumpbot. You can be certain that, at least implicitly (but usually quite explicitly), any cluster of paragraphs in which it's found assumes the superiority of the real-estate mogul to any other candidate.
It's telling that non-Trumpbots are generally still looking over the entire field, deciding which candidates display an acceptable embrace of conservative principles, considering which signs of deviation therefrom constitute deal-breakers, sizing them up on personality traits, the way they carry themselves, how articulate they are.
Not so Trumpbots. Rubio, who was impressive Wednesday night by any set of standards not besotted with Kool-Aid, is out as far as they're concerned because of the Gang of Eight episode. It's true that, when I saw him live in 2013 at the Defending the American Dream Summit in Orlando, reception was tepid and he had trouble winning the benefit of the doubt from the crowd. At this year's Summit in Columbus, Ohio, he was better received. Why? Because he has spent the last two years articulating strong stands on a variety of issues that burnish his credentials as a true three-pillared conservative, the dismissals by the immigration one-note-johnnies notwithstanding. (And, no, he doesn't get a free pass from me on that score. He's rising in my array of favorites, but I want to hear more from him on that issue - and by more, I mean a vision that puts national sovereignty and the rule of law at the fore.)
Then there are the long knives that have come out for Carly in the last 36 hours. Her tenures at HP and Lucent were fraught with upheaval. She worked on McCain's campaign. She has Bush family ties.
She's rising real fast within my circle of viable candidates, and I'm aware of all the above facts about her life and career. I also consider myself a very good judge of character, and I've looked at her closely in numerous situations in which she's spoken (including live, in a small hotel conference room in October 2013) and I'm utterly convinced that this is a solid conservative woman with integrity and resolve in surplus.
But you won't find here - or in any conservative opinion outlet not infected with Trumpbot-ism - any all-caps "Go [insert name of candidate one is all in for]!" exhortations. It's way too early. Ted Cruz is still my overall favorite, but I haven't ordered any yard signs.
How completely consumed are Trumpbots? A while ago, I read some coverage of that recent economic-policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It particularly dealt with Heritage Foundation head Jim DeMint's address to that gathering. (Wish I could remember the venue and the writer, so I could link to it, although my point can be made all the same.) It was a thoughtful piece, and dealt with DeMint's remarks in detail. The first comment in the thread underneath? "DeMint and Heritage had better get with the Trump movement, because that is what this country needs!"
This is scary stuff. Reflexive adulation is about as shoddy a basis for deciding on a course forward for a gravely imperiled and sharply declining former guarantor of world order and spreading freedom as I can think of.
The plain fact, and I have yet to hear it made on talk radio, is that, at Wednesday's debate, Trump's shallowness, meanness, lack of understanding of America's true greatness, lack of actual, consistent policy positions, and plain goofiness were on full display. He was far and away the least prepared person on that stage.
Pet terms for people or phenomena that provide condensed references to large points, and strict scrutiny of the consistency of conservatism in public figures are important. But shorthand gets out of hand when we fail to take the full measure of anyone who may wind up being entrusted with the most important job in the world.
Everybody - except one, and more about him in a moment - had moments that could make any Republican viewer feel proud that this was his or her party, that it embodies great principles.
Carson's best moment was the "you're a pretty good doctor" line. His shakiest moment was on the minimum wage question. Very disappointed that he didn't provide a solid denunciation of the very concept, which is kind of a litmus test of mine.
Rubio was the second most rocking person up there after Carly.
Cruz was third.
Jeb handled himself admirably on the matter of his wife when that came up between himself and Trump, and a few other moments where he was able to put forth something a little more solid than a RINO persona, but he certainly didn't look consistently like a fighter.
For my money, Trump came off - pretty consistently like an ill-prepared goofball. Sweeping generalizations about policy, irrelevant attacks on other candidates, the ultra-lame "you're-very-pretty" attempt to back away from "look at that face." He truly came off like the least serious person on that stage.
Now it will be interesting to poke around and avail myself of others' assessments and see if my thoughts are shared.
Yes, his proposal to insist that Iran recognizing Israel and the freeing of four post-american prisoners be prerequisites for any moving forward on the Iran deal is an exhibition of the kind of principles that ought to prevail.
Think again. Forcing Democrats to take tough votes is a laudable strategy and is something Republicans should have been doing since January. The problem is when it really mattered, McConnell actually blocked conservatives from offering these same amendments.
In April, when the Senate was originally abdicating its treaty power, McConnell agreed to block Sen. Marco Rubio’s amendment, which would have made the recognition of Israel a precondition to lifting sanctions, at the behest of Democrats. This amendment was merely reinstating a condition that was actually in the original Corker-Cardin bill. Yet, McConnell blocked the vote precisely because he didn’t want it to anger Democrats and prompt them to oppose their own loin-cloth bill – the ultimate Corker-Cardin legislation that has allowed Obama to ratify a treaty with support of just one-third of the Senate.
Then, in late July, seeing that the Corker-Cardin bill would lead to disaster, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) attempted to force a vote on this amendment and attach it to the highway bill. So fervent was McConnell’s desire not to actually derail the Iran deal and the Corker-Cardin sellout that he took the unprecedented step of telling all members to deny Cruz a “sufficient second” to even call up his amendment through a procedure.
“It saddens me as a Republican to see Republican leadership lead the effort to kill an amendment that would have prevented lifting sanctions on Iran unless and until Iran recognizes Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and unless and until Iran releases American hostages. Make no mistake – granting a sufficient second for a roll call vote is done customarily in the United States Senate. Denying it is extraordinary, and it is done as a consequence of the majority leader Mitch McConnell being afraid for his members to be on record on this issue.”
Applying the Rubio amendment on Israel to the Corker-Cardin bill or the highway bill would have actually stopped this travesty. And that’s exactly why McConnell blocked it. Fast-forward to this week when, thanks to the Corker-Cardin bill’s survival, Democrats already have the legitimacy to secure Obama’s treaty with just 34 senators. Now that Democrats have already won, McConnell is willing to finally conduct a vote on forcing Iran to recognize Israel.
Moreover, the reason McConnell is suddenly alacritous to make Democrats take tough votes is because this strategy distracts from what McConnell really should be doing. He should immediately bring up the House resolution of approval (H.R. 3461), which forces members to affirmatively vote for the treaty as is.
I detest Donald Trump, but the fact that he and two prez candidates I (at least at this point) adore - Carly and Dr. Carson - are blowing the doors off the rest of the Pub field is perfectly explained by this kind of Beltway inertia.
Along with the Iran deal, some other fronts on which a little courage and banding together could have produced results are -
- Freedom-Hater-care: Several opportunities to defund it have been missed.
- Amnesty for illegal aliens: Why was not every argument for the unconstitutionality of this maneuver brought to bear?
EPA regs, culminating in the Clean Power Act: Why was there not vigorous coordination with attorneys general of the states that are courageously fighting this?
SCOTUS decision on homosexual "marriage": Would not a rally - a prayer vigil - on the steps of the Capitol, attended by RINOs sorely in need of redemption of how they're perceived by the conservative base, have sent a message with thundering reverberations that, even if it couldn't stop Justice Kennedy from deciding as he did, there was going to be an unprecedentedly massive cultural correction in this society?
This is why the entire post-American landscape is flying apart booby-trap style.
Post-America is hungry for a fierce conservative warrior.
Because the only reasonable facsimile who is currently viable is a vulgar, narcissistic charlatan with a big mouth, the fed-up masses have gone with him.
Dear Lord, may tonight's debate alter the current scenario.
Speaking of east Asia, a Chinese admiral offers this pronouncement - while seated onstage alongside US Navy Rear Admiral Jeff Harley and Japanese Vice Adm. Umio Otsuka at a London security conference - for our consideration:
“The South China Sea, as the name indicated, is a sea area. It belongs to China,” said Vice Adm. Yuan Yubai, commander of the North Sea Fleet for the People’s Liberation Army Navy, Defense One reports.
Okay, that was a nice little respite. Now back to the splashes of cold water. the Freedom-Hater party's agenda of planned decline is yielding palpable results:
. . . a consortium of think tanks from nearly 90 countries has released its annual Economic Freedom of the World Report. The report has some good news for much of mankind — economic liberty increased slightly around the globe — but not such good news for the United States, which continues to tumble in the rankings. As recently as 2000, the United States had the second-freest economy in the world, trailing only Hong Kong. But throughout the Bush and Obama years, we have slipped further and further behind. Last year, we fell out of the top 10, ranking just 12th overall. And this year, we have fallen all the way to 16th. We now squeeze in between 15th-ranked Taiwan and number 17, Romania. Isn’t that wonderful? We are freer than Romania!
There's a tenth Center for Medical Progress video. It contains the characteristically grisly elements ("everything we provide is fresh") and also puts the lie to the idea that Planned Parenthood has nothing to be ashamed of and can be forthright and proud of what it does for "women's health":
A lot of the conversation centers around PP’s reluctance to let its baby parts business become public knowledge. “Big headlines would be a disaster” is one especially direct quote. They also talk about the fact that some affiliates have gotten quite a bit of income from the baby body parts business.
Since a sizable number of Syrians were inspired by neighboring developments in the Arab Spring of 2011 to mount resistance to Assad's Baathist regime, post-American policy toward that country has been an incoherent mess of bravado, backtracking and general fecklessness. Among the results have been the rise of ISIS, the current mass migration into Europe (and the attendant backlash in Poland and Slovakia and reversal of open-door policy in Germany), and the current stymieing by Turkey of post-American efforts, such as they are, to address ISIS.
But surely one of the most significant results has been the clear demonstration of which world power is shaping events there (Russia) and which one is not (post-America).
Russia is using an air corridor over Iraq and Iranto fly military equipment and personnel to a new air hub in Syria, openly defying American efforts to block the shipments and significantly increasing tensions with Washington. American officials disclosed Sunday that at least seven giant Russian Condor transport planes had taken off from a base in southern Russia during the past week to ferry equipment to Syria, all passing through Iranian and Iraqi airspace. Their destination was an airfield south of Latakia, Syria, which could become the most significant new Russian military foothold in the Middle East in decades, American officials said.Continue reading the main story
The Obama administration initially hoped it had hampered the Russian effort to move military equipment and personnel into Syria when Bulgaria, a NATO member, announced it would close its airspace to the flights. But Russia quickly began channeling its flights over Iraq and Iran, which Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said on Sunday would continue despite American objections. “There were military supplies, they are ongoing, and they will continue,” Mr. Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. “They are inevitably accompanied by Russian specialists, who help to adjust the equipment, to train Syrian personnel how to use this weaponry.”P
Russia's military build-up in Syria has grown to include the shipment of a half-dozen highly sophisticated battle tanks -- and more troops -- a defense official told Fox News, in what the source called the "first clear sign of offensive weapons arriving in Syria."
The Pentagon has now tracked a total of 15 Russian Antonov-124 Condor flights into Syria, reflecting a steady stream of military cargo into Syria. According to the latest intelligence, this also includes the arrival of two more Russian cargo ships, containing the tanks.
Up to this point, the official said, the Russian cargo and weapons that have been delivered to Syria could be viewed as defensive in nature. The arrival of tanks cannot be viewed this way.
The official said that Russian offensive operations could launch from Bassel Al-Assad International Airport "very soon."
The massive Condor flights carrying all kinds of supplies now arrive twice a day through Iran and Iraq into Bassel Al-Assad International Airport outside the port city of Latakia. The cargo is for Russian soldiers, not Syrian government forces, but is seen as a build-up to aid Bashar Assad's embattled regime.
The defense official, briefed on the latest satellite photos of the Syrian coastline, said: "This is the largest deployment of Russian forces outside the former Soviet Union since the collapse of the USSR."
You think about the Most Equal Comrade's snide remark about the 1980s calling and wanting their foreign policy back during one of the 2012 debates, when Mitt Romney said that Russia posed the greatest overall strategic threat to the US. You think about the MEC's hot-mic remark to Medvedev that he'd have "greater flexibility" after the election. You think about Secretary of State Hillionaire handing the above-quoted Mr. Lavrov a "reset" button that didn't even actually say "reset."
Then you think about all that in the larger context of the 2009 Cairo speech, the MEC accepting the Noam Chomsky book from Chavez while cameras from around the world were clicking. The entire MEC regime sitting on its hands as a groundswell of resistance formed inside Iran in response to the 2009 rigged election there. The botching of Libya policy, from supporting the toppling of Ghaddafi to the Benghazi debacle to the spread of ISIS there. To the disastrous Iran deal.
Planned decline may strike our overlords as cute, but there's no way they can claim the worldwide danger level is anything but off the charts.
Keep this in mind as the Most Equal Comrade burns massive amounts of jet fuel paid for with your tax dollars to head to Paris in November for the big confab on the big lie:
It's generally accepted that the planet is warming up, but in fact it isn't. Global warming in the sense of surface temperatures actually stopped well over a decade ago. A new report just out says that it may stay stopped for some time yet.
The Met Office climatologists say that the long-awaited El Nino is finally brewing in the Pacific, which ought to heat the world up noticeably. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation, another mechanism active in the Pacific, also looks set to warm things up.
Unfortunately for people desperate to see a return to a warming world (for instance at the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Science and Services, dependent on global warming for its raison d'être) there's a third powerful mechanism in play: the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, or AMO, which varies up and down on long timescales.
The AMO has actually been heating the world up since the mid-1990s, but now it looks set to swing into a negative phase and cool the planet off, probably for a long time, as AMO phases typically last several decades. The Met Office's new report (pdf), just out today, has this to say about the AMO:
The current warm phase is now 20 years long and historical precedent suggests a return to relatively cool conditions could occur within a few years ... Observational and model estimates further suggest AMO shifts have an effect on global mean near-surface temperatures of about 0.1°C. A rapid AMO decline could therefore maintain the current slowdown in global warming ...
The Met Office doesn't care for phrases such as "hiatus" or even "pause" to describe the absence of global warming for the last fifteen years or so: it describes the flat temperatures as a "slowdown".
But it's all the same thing. One should note that the Met Office report is strongly hedged – its title even ends in a question mark, in the style of headlines-to-which-the-answer-is-no.
But it isn't just the Met Office that believes the AMO may be headed into a cold spell. Scientists studying Atlantic hurricanes have noted that these massive storms have been mostly less common and less powerful in recent years, and the suggestion is that this trend may be set to continue, with the underlying mechanism being a switch in the AMO to a negative phase.
On the basis of such uncertainty - a lack of that hallowed consensus - we are going to eschew the cheap, dense fossil fuels that have made possible the exponential leap in human advancement over the last two centuries, and deliberately orchestrate the decline of our civilization.
The Most Equal Comrade's edict welcoming 10,000 Syrian refugees into post-America poses obvious logistic problems - where do you put that many people? - but more specifically, a national-security problem as well:
John Kerry is in on the conversation of course, and is already tossing out numbers which include bumping the maximum of 75K refugees up to 100K “or more” in the coming months.
If you can’t already see the potential problems arising from this decision, perhaps James Clapper can clear it up for you.
The U.S. relies on U.N. lists of refugees who are deemed safe candidates for resettlement, but the screening process can take between 18 and 24 months and strains the resources of the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Immigration Services.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Wednesday that the current migration is a “disaster of biblical proportions” that poses an opportunity for terrorist groups such as ISIS to “infiltrate operatives among these refugees.”
“What we’re trying to do is weed out people who are liars, who are criminals or would-be terrorists,” a senior State Department official said.
As we mark the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, can you think of one place on the entire planet which currently presents more of a threat of exporting terrorist moles to our shores than Syria? (Okay… there’s probably an argument to be made for Yemen or Sudan, but Syria is right up near the top of the list.) It takes us up to two years to vet anyone coming from these areas as we hope that they aren’t one of the liars, criminals and would-be terroristsas Clapper put it. Processing a few hundred of them is bogging down our immigration resources like trying to download the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy over a dial-up line. And now we’re going to bring in more than then thousand?
Between this move by post-America and Angela Merkel's open arms over in Germany, Western civilization is setting itself up for catastrophic possibilities. (Not unlike the way it is doing so by signing a deal with Iran.)
You already know about the remark quoted in Rolling Stone about Carly Fiorina's face. It's not a huge deal. Fiorina comes out of a very rough and tumble world: high-tech business. Sure, it's characteristically vulgar, but saying so isn't going to dampen enthusiasm among those driving his poll numbers.
I think it's more important to focus on Bobby Jindal's remarks about him, and the subsequent way takes on that fall.
“I like the idea of somebody willing to say the things you’re not supposed to say. I like the idea of somebody going after the D.C. political class. The reality is they are full of foolishness and nonsense. Donald Trump’s diagnosis is exactly right – the political class is the problem – the problem is Donald Trump’s prescription is exactly wrong,” Jindal said at the National Press Club in Washington today.
“His prescription is that he is the solution. Donald Trump is not the solution. The problem is that Donald Trump himself is full of foolishness and nonsense as well,” he added.
Jindal said Trump is afraid of being exposed.
“Donald Trump is a narcissist and an egomaniac – that may sound like a serious charge to make but it is something that everybody knows to be true, and he knows it too. He celebrates it,” he said. “He says Kanye West is great, why is Kanye West great? Because Kanye West loves Trump so therefore Kanye West is great. He is an entertaining narcissist, but he is still a narcissist.”
Thank you, Mr. Ballasy, for emphasizing Governor Jindal's spot-on take.
Paul Mirengoff at Power Line examines the current dust-up between Trump and Ben Carson over the matter of faith:
Donald Trump has tried to explain away this comment he made about Carly Fiorina: “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president.”Trump claimshe wasn’t talking about Fiorina’s face, but rather her persona.
When Trump denied that his comment about blood pouring from Megyn Kelly was a reference to menstruation, there was an outside chance he was telling the truth. This time there is no chance. Face, the word Trump used twice, can’t mean persona. Trump’s explanation doesn’t pass the straight persona test. Meanwhile, Ben Carson tried to explain away his comment that what differentiates him from Trump is that “I realize where my successes comes from, and I don’t in any way deny my faith in God.” Carson said he feels bad that Trump thought he was attacking him, and that the episode is a misunderstanding. Dr. Carson added: I would like to say to him that the intention was not to talk to him but about what motivates me. If he took that as a personal attack on him, I apologize, it was certainly not the intent. It’s difficult to view Carson’s statements — he also opined that he doesn’t sense that humility and fear of the Lord is part of what Trump is — as other than a personal attack. I suspect that Carson is playing Trump (though I don’t have a good enough feel for Carson to say this with great confidence). He probably wants to plant the seed that Trump isn’t a good Christian without jeopardizing his own image as a good guy. Trump is less subtle. His only mode is attack. Accordingly, he launched his typical scatter-gun attack on Carson. Trump called him “perhaps an okay doctor.” That’s better than being a third-rate radio announcer, but nonetheless sells short the first doctor successfully to separate twins attached at the head.
MIrengoff goes on to also refer to the Jindal remarks.
Compare these takes, motivated as they are by a fealty to three-pillared conservatism, to a yearning to see character, maturity, wisdom and seasoned policy experience exhibit themselves as this election cycle gets underway, with the what Laura Ingraham chose to emphasize on her radio show today. She posed the question to Jindal of whether he thinks his remarks helped Trump or Jeb Bush more.
My God, what a calculating, Beltway view of the juncture at which we find ourselves. She basically said, face it, Governor, since you're not going to be the nominee, and given the latest poll numbers for Trump, do you really think that, after this winter's winnowing-out has occurred, you will have wound up helping the cause of strapped and behind-the-eight-ball hardworking American families, or the handful of weathly families that comprise the Republican donor class?
How about just taking Governor Jindal at face value and respecting what he's actually saying?
Quite frankly, the current moment is horrifying. Post-America is surrendering to the most fearsome enemy it has ever encountered, the pro-tyranny-and-decline regime gripping post-america's throat is lying to the populace about the magnitude of the second most severe threat, hat regime is engaged in imposing madness on the populace in forms ranging from the environment to human sexuality, economic freedom is being demonized everywhere, and we have ostensible conservatives getting giddy about an utter charlatan.
And then there's the actual opposition: a criminal former Secretary of State who quite casually endangered our nation, and a socialist (who is beating her in the polls) who seriously wants to raise the national minimum wage to $15 per hour and make the nation rely on solar power.
Thomas Edsall is at it again. The New York Times columnist has a piece today, adorned with all the requisite wonkery, pointing out the pattern of urban centers emptying out as poor minorities get to the point where they can't take them any more than any other demographic, and first-ring suburbs therefore becoming more racially / ethnically homogenous (with high concentrations of said minorities) as middle-class-and-above whites flee to the outer ring of burbs.
Lots of stats and quotes from think-tank types, and then he starts dancing toward the point he really wants to make: He thinks government should impose mixed-housing policies on pretty much everyplace where ostensibly free human individuals and families choose to live.
He does acknowledge that hman nature trumps ideology, even in the Bay Area:
Even residents of Marin County in California, a bastion of Democratic liberalism, have protested proposals to build affordable housing. In May 2014, the California Assembly passed legislationreducing the obligation of Marin County to build low- and moderate-income housing. If Marin County – as one writer put it a couple of years ago, “the most beautiful, bucolic, privileged, liberal, hippie-dippie place on the earth” — is having a hard time accepting affordable housing, the path out of impoverished neighborhoods for substantial numbers of black children will be arduous.
You won't be surprised to learn that Edsall likes this summer's SCOTUS decision in the Texas Housing Authority decision.
Hey, Tom, here's an idea: instead of going the tyranny route, replete with a view of human beings as cattle to be corralled into pens meeting regime specifications, how about if we try a national turning back to God and the morality and personal responsibility that is the obvious cure for that which made the inner cities such hell-holes that everybody wanted to leave?
It's a rhetorical question, I know. Freedom-Haters such as Edsall have a vested interest in seeing that social ills are perpetuated rather than cured, so there is an excuse to herd the cattle-masses and maintain their own power.
I've posted before about what's coming to light about senior administration people cooking intelligence reports provided by agents on the ground assessing the strength of ISIS and al-Qaeda.
More than 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military's Central Command have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior officials, The Daily Beast has learned.
The complaints spurred the Pentagon’s inspector general to open an investigation into the alleged manipulation of intelligence. The fact that so many people complained suggests there are deep-rooted, systemic problems in how the U.S. military command charged with the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State assesses intelligence.
“The cancer was within the senior level of the intelligence command,” one defense official said.
Two senior analysts at CENTCOM signed a written complaint sent to the Defense Department inspector general in July alleging that the reports, some of which were briefed to President Obama, portrayed the terror groups as weaker than the analysts believe they are. The reports were changed by CENTCOM higher-ups to adhere to the administration’s public line that the U.S. is winning the battle against ISIS and al Nusra, al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the analysts claim.
That complaint was supported by 50 other analysts, some of whom have complained about politicizing of intelligence reports for months. That’s according to 11 individuals who are knowledgeable about the details of the report and who spoke to The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity.
Those filing the complaint mince no words about the culture in which they had to operate:
The large number of analysts who complained to the Pentagon inspector general hasn’t been previously reported. Some of them are assigned to work at CENTCOM, the U.S. military’s command for the Middle East and Central Asia, but are officially employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The complaints allege that in some cases key elements of intelligence reports were removed, resulting in a document that didn’t accurately capture the analysts’ conclusions, sources familiar with the protest said. But the complaint also goes beyond alleged altering of reports and accuses some senior leaders at CENTCOM of creating an unprofessional work environment. One person who knows the contents of the written complaint sent to the inspector general said it used the word “Stalinist” to describe the tone set by officials overseeing CENTCOM’s analysis. Many described a climate in which analysts felt they could not give a candid assessment of the situation in Iraq and Syria. Some felt it was a product of commanders protecting their career advancement by putting the best spin on the war. Some reports crafted by the analysts that were too negative in their assessment of the war were sent back the chain of the command or not shared up the chain, several analysts said. Still others, feeling the climate around them, self-censored so their reports affirmed already-held beliefs.
This is about people who want to murder us in our beds, and some element in our own government doesn't want us to know how far along they are in their ability to do so.
The criminal statute that prohibits “providing material support to terrorists” (section 2339A of the federal penal code, Title 18) provides a jail sentence of up to 15 years — or up to life imprisonment if death results from the offense — for anyone who:
… provides material support or resources … knowing … that they are to be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, [an act of terrorism] … or in preparation for, or in carrying out, the concealment of an escape from the commission of any such violation, or attempts or conspires to do such an act[.]
The statute provides a sweeping definition of “material support or resources”:
The term “material support or resources” means any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials[.]
With that background, let’s turn to Kerry’s letter to members of Congress. It explicitly admits to:
Iran’s continued support for terrorist and proxy groups throughout the region, its propping up of the Assad regime in Syria, its efforts to undermine the stability of its regional neighbors, and the threat it poses to Israel.
But this admitted “support for terrorist and proxy groups” is going to stop now thanks to Obama’s deal, right? Wrong. Kerry flatly confesses (my emphasis):
We have no illusion that this behavior will change following implementation of the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action-- i.e., Obama’s Iran deal.]
Obama’s Iran deal will provide Iran with over $100 billion, and opens the door to its acquisition of sophisticated weaponry (wholly apart from Iran’s nuclear development activities).
Global-Test's argument is that the point of the deal is to keep Iran from being that much more of a menace by denying them a nuclear arsenal. But any regime that menacing can be counted on to pursue whatever means are needed to maximize its menace, including cheat on a deal with the Great Satan.
So not only does Global-Test admit seditious ways, he also admits he's a dumbs.
“After negotiations, in Zionist regime they said they had no more concern about Iran for next 25 years; I’d say: Firstly, you will not see next 25 years; God willing, there will be nothing as Zionist regime by next 25 years. Secondly, until then, struggling, heroic and jihadi morale will leave no moment of serenity for Zionists,” the quote from Iran’s top leader reads in broken English.
The quote was apparently taken from a speech given earlier in the day.
And you can forget any notion that the deal ushers in an era of unicorns and rainbows:
Khamenei’s statements also reaffirmed his view that the US is a “Great Satan” and that there would be no detente with Washington beyond the nuclear talks.
“We approved talks with the United States about [the] nuclear issue specifically. We have not allowed talks with the US in other fields and we [do] not negotiate with them,” Khamenei said in statements published on his website.
History will not judge the Democrats of post-America kindly.
Presidential candidates, both announced and prospective, used Labor Day to fire off some pretty harsh criticisms of President Obama's economy. That's not news. What is news is who was doing the firing.
Just listen to some of the heated rhetoric about the results that seven long years of Obamanomics have produced:
"I am hot. I am mad, I am angry."
"There is something profoundly wrong when ... the average American is working longer hours for lower wages and we have shamefully the highest rate of child poverty of any major country on earth."
"It used to be when productivity went up in America, everybody got to share."
"Every month government comes out with a statistic on unemployment. Last statistic said that official unemployment was 5.3%. But what they forgot to tell you is that statistic doesn't include those people who have given up looking for work, those people who are working part time. Add it all together and real unemployment is over 10%."
"How many people in your own neighborhoods are in trouble, can look their kids in the eyes and say with heart, 'Honey, it's going to be OK?' Not enough! Not enough!"
"I've got the vision, the policies, the skills, the tenacity and the determination to get us back on the right track."
This is all just typical Obama-hating rhetoric from hard-right Republicans, right? And besides, isn't the economy doing just fine? That's what we keep reading in the mainstream press, anyway.
Well, not exactly.
Every single one of those scathing attacks came from Labor Day remarks by Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Vice President Joe Biden.
In a sense, though, each of them boxes himself or herself into a corner by getting so incensed about it. Don't they have to take the next step and name a cause? Being lefties, they'd no doubt point to fat-cat greed, or residual problems from the W era. But without specifics, that would look like grandstanding.
No, the only credible way to come to a logical conclusion is to state the plain truth: we're living the results of Cloward-Piven'style planned decline, a regulatory nightmare imposed by the regime these people have all supported, in some cases even worked for.
Right diagnosis. Now prescribe the only effective cure.
Despite weeks of denials, a second review by the originating agencies confirms that Hillary Clinton improperly received Top Secret/compartmented information on her unsecured and unauthorized e-mail server. The New York Times’ Michael Schmidt reported late last nightthat both the CIA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) agree on that point, backing up the referral from two Inspectors General a month ago to the Department of Justice:
A special intelligence review of two emails that Hillary Rodham Clintonreceived as secretary of state on her personal account — including one about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program — has endorsed a finding by the inspector general for the intelligence agencies that the emails contained highly classified information when Mrs. Clinton received them, senior intelligence officials said.
Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign and the State Department disputed the inspector general’s finding last month and questioned whether the emails, which are being released to the public, had been overclassified by an arbitrary process. But the special review — by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency — concluded that the emails were “Top Secret,” the highest classification of government intelligence, when they were sent to Mrs. Clinton in 2009 and 2011.
This relates to the original intel-community review of 40 sample e-mails from Hillary’s data, reviewed only after its existence came to light in the Benghazi select committee probe. Hillary received these two e-mails from an unspecified source, but as a cleared member of leadership as well as the originator of the secret system on which it got transmitted and stored, Hillary would have had responsibility to correct this “spillage” when it occurred. If the data came from NGA, which uses satellites to derive intelligence data, then the need to protect the data should have been obvious, especially to a Secretary of State.
Team Hillary and State both responded with further obfuscations. Nick Merrill released a statement on behalf of the campaign citing “bureaucratic infighting among the intelligence community,” but that’s precisely the opposite of this finding.
Team Hillionaire is going to have to come clean sooner rather than later.
The anonymous officials say Russia has set up an air traffic control tower and transported prefabricated housing units for up to 1,000 personnel to an airfield serving the Syrian port city of Latakia.
Russia has also requested the rights to fly over neighbouring countries with military cargo aircraft during September, according to the reports.
The claims, which will raise fears that Russia is planning to expand its role in the country’s civil war, will ratchet up tensions between Moscow and Washington over the future of Syria and its brutal ruler.
Mr Obama on Friday met King Salman of Saudi Arabia to repeat their demand that any lasting settlement in Syria would require an end to the Assad regime.
It leaves the US and Russia implacably opposed in their visions for Syria.
But worry not. Global-Test had strong words about the matter:
John Kerry, Secretary of State, telephoned his Russian counterpart to express US concerns on Saturday.
"The secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-Isil coalition operating in Syria," the department said.
Gosh, you guys, you might escalate the conflict and that would be real unhelpful.
Post-America sits on the sidelines as the world's least savory characters take control of events.
