Posse Incitatus

9/11 Comes of Age

The artificial outrage over the Trump Administration seeking a negotiated settlement to the Afghan War tells us all we need to know about the Bipartisan Establishment and the Democrat-funded "peace movement."

They are both incompetent and fake.

War is not a condition to be managed, it is an existential struggle for those involved.  It is true that a coldly rational policy might require sacrifice for a greater strategic aim, but no such vision is now being articulated regarding Afghanistan.  It's a quagmire so we must stay because that's what we have to do.

It's significant that our current Ruling Class is entirely insulated from the war's costs but richly rewarded by its benefits.

This is why Trump's effort to wind down the now-aimless struggle are being attacked from the left of all places.  So much for Cindy Sheehan.  The widows and orphans of the current war are drawn from the Deplorable class, so no attention need be paid them.

The desire to smear Trump as anti-military or defeatist will fail, just as all the other smears have failed because the truth is unmistakable.  Actual combatants and their families are tired of a war without end.  The ardent volunteers of 18 years ago are now watching their children come of military age to take up the torch from failing hands, but to what end? 

A punitive expedition to Afghanistan was always a good idea, and the installation of a friendly client government was a not unreasonable solution.  But one cannot "reconstruct" a society that never was.  George W. Bush ran for president in part by ridiculing "nation-building," and yet he was the worst nation-builder of them all.

Just as the attacks 18 years ago this morning tore away the illusions that our Ruling Class knew what it was doing, so the bumbling effort since has further destroyed their credibility.  In a sense, this is the 9/11 about 9/11.

Walmart's death wish

There is a strange virus infecting corporate America.  This pathogen seems to be transmitted by social media and incubates chiefly among insular business executives seeking social status from one another.

How else to explain yet another corporation deciding to alienate its core customer base and court financial ruin?

Walmart's announcement regarding firearms is completely incoherent.  It is one thing to ban open carry, which may or may not alienate customers.  In police states like California and New York, it's already illegal.

In more enlightened jurisdictions, concealed carry is generally preferred by the gun rights community anyway.

Yet Walmart is going even further, announcing that it will ban the sale of certain calibers which it deems "bad" as well as donating to gun control organizations.

Both are insane.

As long-time readers of this blog know, there are no "safe" calibers to be shot with.  All of them can kill you.

Walmart singling out pistol calibers is however particularly daft since these are among the least lethal.  A .32 Auto or .380 packs far less punch than a 30.06 and is also less likely to over-penetrate and kill people behind the original target.

Indeed, if there's been a shooting spree conducted with a .380 or .357 Magnum, I'd like to hear about it.  I don't think it's happened.

Deciding not to sell these calibers on the basis of "safety" is stupid on the face of it, and the only goal is to leverage corporate power in support of an otherwise unobtainable political goal.

I'm sure the David French's of the world approve.

But in the real world, this is a slap in the face to Walmart's long-time customers, and I don't think it will end well for them.  Just as Gillette found, pissing on your customer base because you dream that a more "woke," and upscale one will appear out of thin air to replace it is not a recipe for success.

I'm surprised more shareholder lawsuits haven't materialized as the result of these shenanigans, but such things also take time.

Meanwhile, gun control has never been less popular, and the legal terrain has shifted sharply against the Democrats.  It's therefore no surprise they've decided to try to use Big Business to impose their will.

This is a dangerous path for them, though.  It reeks of the Gilded Age when workers were paid in scrip and forced to use the Company Store.  That provoked a severe populist backlash and a similar one is brewing now.

Smug, un-elected plutocrats living in gated communities flying jets around the world telling people what they can and cannot buy is not how one builds an electoral coalition.

The truth is the Democrats are now the funhouse mirror version of their own caricature of cigar-chomping Republicans.  Thomas Nast's cartoons of the trusts ruling over the Senate applies to the Dems, not the GOP.

Whoever the Dem nominee ends up being, it's going to be tough for them to keep screaming that they're for "the little guy" when they are on the size of Google, Apple, Amazon and now Walmart.

They are forcing Trump to become the second coming of Teddy Roosevelt and fundamentally shifting the political allegiance of millions of Americans.

Heckuva job, guys.

Confirmed: James Comey is a lying, sanctimonious prick

Thursday’s release of the IG report on James Comey’s misbehavior was both significant but also oversold.

Comey likely violated criminal statutes but did so in ways that can be credibly defended in court.  It makes sense that he wasn’t charged at this time.

Of far greater long-term significance was the information revealed throughout the document, specifically how Comey deliberately set a trap for President Trump and that it was Andrew McCabe of all people who reported him to the Inspector General.

This proves two crucial things.

1. There was a conspiracy.  It can no longer be denied that Trump was being set up and Comey was documenting the process for his masters in the Deep State.  

2. There is no love lost between the conspirators.  They will not hesitate to turn on each other to save themselves and already have.

I know a number of people are upset that charges haven’t been filed and see this as a sign that nothing will change and no punishment will be meted out.

That may well be the case, but nothing that has happened supports that view.  All of the offenses to this point have been minor ones and the decision not to prosecute now – while the investigation is still ongoing – says nothing about a decision to prosecute later, when the scope of the criminal enterprise is known.

And no, I don’t buy into the “Huber will come” mentality, rather I look at the facts as I see them and extrapolate based on normal procedures.

As Scott Adams likes to say, two movies are playing right now.

On Screen One, we have the “black pill” version where the Swamp gets away scot free because the FBI and DoJ is completely corrupt.

On Screen Two, which is the one I’m watching, the movie is about the meticulous and painstaking gathering of irrefutable evidence so that when the moment comes, the guilty will have no option other than trying to plea bargain.

The thing is, the two movies look a lot like each other, and only real difference is that the second movie has a long (and satisfying) second act.

So far, nothing has happened to rule it out, which is why I remain unconvinced that it isn’t going to happen.

Molotov-Ribbentrop at 80: The concentrated essence of unprincipled leftism

Today marks the 80^th anniversary of the infamous Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, which sealed the fate of Poland and set the stage for World War II.

The alliance was purely tactical for both parties.  Joseph Stalin wanted to push his frontier further west and gain hegemony over western Poland, parts of Finland and the Baltic States.  Adolf Hitler wanted to avoid a second front during his ongoing showdown with the western Allies.

After years of heated vitriol, both totalitarian states turned on a dime, going from hating one another to proclaiming the wisdom of rapprochement so they could fight the true common enemy, western liberal democracy and capitalism.

The alliance was the basis for George Orwell’s famous formulation that “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia,” reflecting the ease with which the propagandists did a complete reversal on the Nazi-Soviet relationship and then reversed themselves again when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941.

The crucial lesson of this anniversary is that the left is utterly without principle.  It has but one goal: total, unbridled power.

This is how people who claim to worry about carbon emissions fly around on private jets and live lavish lifestyles while hectoring poor people to give up hamburgers.

It is how we must “believe all women” - unless they are accusing Bill Clinton.

Barack Obama and Eric Holder are free to call for more gun control even though it was their policy not to prosecute gun law violations.

The means are irrelevant to these people and even their goals are negotiable because all that matters is power for its own sake.  Arguably, they don’t have a clear vision of what they will do with it, other than enjoy its free and easy exercise.

Oh, and crush their enemies utterly.  That part at least is known.

This is why the best analogy to the contemporary US is not its previous civil war, but rather then one in Spain from 1936 to 1939.  Then as now, a major part of the divide was between the right – who respected institutions and culture – and the left, which respecting nothing but its quest for power.

The Spanish “Republic” was nothing of the sort, and it leaders were quite willing to rule by decree and use political assassinations and militias to achieve their goals.

Far from being a true Popular Front, the government was bitterly divided between Socialists, Communists and Anarchists, with only the common enemy of traditional Spanish culture and the Catholic Church holding them together.

What made the war inevitable, with the Popular Front’s abuse of power and its seeming pleasure in flaunting it.  Here we see a clear parallel with the left’s treatment of Antifa.  Just as in Spain, law enforcement has zero interest in breaking up the terrorist organization and instead blames their atrocities on their victims.

All of this has the effect of radicalizing the middle class, which is the crucial precondition for civil war.

The left seems convinced that this won’t happen, or that if it does, they will win easily.  The Popular Front felt the same way and it didn’t work out well for them.

Spain was the first time fascists and communists clashed militarily, with the Soviet Union backing the Republic while Germany and Italy sided with the insurgent Nationalists.

It was billed by both sides as an existential struggle and yet no sooner had the Spanish war drawn to a close than Hitler and Stalin were able to forge their infamous pact.

Because the pursuit of power demanded it and both Stalin and Hitler were leftists in every sense.

Today should be a reminder that the left is implacable, knowing no decent limits and eager to make a deal with anyone and everything to achieve power.

Is "Arkancide" still a thing?

I'm sure I wasn't the only person who saw the next that Jeffrey Epstein had apparently committed suicide in jail and thought:  I bet he had help!

The corruption of American politics and particularly federal law enforcement can no longer be denied.   While the left and their fellow-traveling Quisling Never Trumpers are acting like this is super-serious and must be treated with great care, everyone who isn't on a billionaire leftist's payroll knows the score.

The only question at this point is how severe the reforms will need to be.  The Dept. of Justice is shot through with incompetent crooks and the FBI is apparently staffed with operatives who are too busy reading and posting on Stormfront to care about "known wolf" shooters who they've been monitoring for years.

That the words "white nationalism" are even being spoken of by law enforcement shows just how far down the rabbit hole these people are.

In a sense, Epstein's death may have been an "Arkancide too far," the kind of stunt that blows up the whole operation. 

Which reminds me: I thought the investigation into the Clinton Foundation was wrapping up.  I wonder what they found?

 

Ban all the things

Once again, I see the usual suspects are demanding gun control measures that would have had zero impact on the latest criminal act.

The advocates bolster their arguments with outright lies about current laws, the mechanics of firearms and the experiences of other countries.

If gun control worked as advertised, the United Kingdom would be a place of total peace and serenity.

Predictably, the locals moved on to acid and knifes for casual violence, though they can still get mass shootings when they want them.

Magical thinking seems to be the rule these days.  That and enacting laws specifically to punish political enemies.

I don't think things will work out the way the elites anticipate.

Trump ratchets up the trade war with China

This week President Trump announced yet more tariffs in his ongoing trade dispute with China.

The result will be further economic difficulty for the ChiComs and greater prosperity in the United States.

We've written about this many times, but one of the interesting aspects in Trump's approach is how he's created the mirror image of the "free trade ratchet" that seemed to only go one way.

Once NAFTA was passed and then when China became a member of the World Trade Organization, the decline of American manufacturing was taken as a given.  Powerful market forces, we were told, were the culprit, not government policies.  One may as well rage against the tide.

Ironically, many of the same people who insisted globalism was like a force of nature also claim that massive state control can change the global climate, but I digress.

Donald Trump has proven all of that false, and the stunning rebound of manufacturing jobs and the resulting prosperity are going to make it very hard for his successors to reverse his policies. 

This is clearly what the ChiComs hope for, and why the media howls incessantly about RUSSIA while ignoring massive Chinese political influence.  RUSSIA is economically weak, militarily overstretched and remains a world power solely on the basis of its nuclear weapons. 

Ask yourself a simple question: If RUSSIA is such a serious threat, why can't it fix it's only aircraft carrier?

China, on the other hand, continues to expand its blue-water fleet.  In terms of force projection, there is no comparison.

I suspect Trump knows this, which is why he's pushed harder on the economy than anything else.  The media refuses to give him much credit for the booming economy, but its effects are undeniable.  Like Ronald Reagan, he is rightfully asking the key question:  Are you better off now than four years ago?

Unless you're a fake journalist, the answer is unquestionably "yes."

None shall know the hour

For years the "Q" community and their less zany allies over at The Conservative Treehouse have been predicting a grand counterattack by Trump against the criminal conspiracy to overthrow the 2016 election results.

I've seen elaborate time flow charts, numerous "significant dates" and yet nothing seems to be moving in the order predicted.  I've noticed that a lot of these predictions are actually couched in evasive terms suitable for the Oracle of Delphi or a first-rate carnival fortune-teller.

But some things are clear.

The Mueller gambit failed and the GOP's questioning was unusually precise.  Instead of going for "gotcha" style questions and killer soundbites, the House members consistently focused on the question of who ran the investigation and therefore why certain decisions were made.  For example, Russian Agent Mifsud lied to the FBI three times without consequence, while Gen. Flynn allegedly did so only once, yet who is being dragged through judicial hell?

The Epstein investigation is also a front few people expected to emerge, and the (depending on who you ask) fake suicide attempt or botched murder highlights the seriousness of the case to a lot of very important people.

In fact, if it was a failed murder attempt, that may show that Clinton, Inc. is losing its mojo.  The guy was an easy target in a municipal jail kept in the violent criminal wing.  Apparently he wasn't under 24-hour watch, either (though he is now).

Inspector General Horowitz's report has become a moving target, sliding from a May deadline to September.  Contrary to popular myth, his 2018 report wasn't a dud, it simply was exploited.  The IG can't issue indictments or inflict punishment, so the disappointment of the previous release centers not on what was in it, but the fact that little was done.

Will that be the case now?

As my esteemed co-blogger pointed out, the outline of the conspiracy is now pretty well known.  The only remaining question is whether anything will be done.  I confess, I don't know the answer.

The "Cold Civil War" gets warmer

I've noted before that societies do not descend into civil war all at once.  Rather it is a gradual, uneven process the moves by fits and starts, sometimes reversing, but never long enough to stop its downward spiral.

The past few weeks have given us a number of examples that future generations might call "milestones to war."

• The savage beating of journalist Andy Ngo in broad daylight in full view of the police.  Liberal apologists for the Antifa Stosstruppen are trying to claim that he's a conservative provocateur, but in fact his politics are firmly on the left - he just likes following a good story.
• Facebook's revised policy on death threats, which forbade them - except in cases where they were issued against people the management didn't like.  This illegal policy was almost immediately rescinded, but one has to wonder what kind of idiots signed off on it in the first place.
• The spectacle of CNN/Playboy "Journalist" Brian Karem taunting attendees at a White House event and then challenging Sebastian Gorka to a fight in full view of the press - and then lying about it afterwards.  It wasn't exactly an attack on the Senate floor, but it was close.  Also indicative - mainstream press lied about what happened, choosing an edited version of the tape with Karem's taunting and challenge omitted.
• The growing public knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's predations, which happened in plain sight of the Ruling Class for years - and the fact that despite his conviction, they continued to party and socialize with him.
• The Democrat Party's full embrace of erasing US borders and it's open preference for non-citizens. 
• The US "National" Women's Soccer Team openly insulting the National Anthem and trampling the flag during one of their tasteless celebrations.

I could go on, but the sum total of each of these events is to destroy the social contract that holds the nation together.  If citizenship is meaningless and the "national team" feels it can insult the nation's symbols with impunity, what's left?

It's clear that the Democrats have no grand design or carefully crafted plan once they gain control, just a series of anti-American impulses to destroy our institutions.  When 50 million Central Americans enter the country, they have no idea how they will govern it and this doesn't seem to bother them.

It's interesting to see how much this insanity is radicalizing the center.  I've watched with great interest as otherwise moderate or non-political entities and publications have changed their tone. 

Sohrab Amadi's famous essay has struck a nerve and I'm noticing a change in both attitude and behavior among Kurt Schlichter's "normals."  No longer is there an easy-going sense that this will all blow over, or that cooler heads on the left will rein in the crazies.  Instead there is a defiance, a stridency on the part of the center that wasn't there a year ago.

It comes from a simple realization:  They really do hate us.

I don't think the left is capable of understanding where this will go, but it won't be pleasant for anyone.

Perot and Epstein

I've been taking a sabbatical from blogging over the holiday, and what strange news is waiting for me when I return!

The sudden resurrection of the Curious Case of Jeffrey Epstein has the Ruling Class shaking with fear.  Reporters who diligently looked the other way for years are suddenly shouting "Oh yeah, we knew all that and more!"

As if that's something to be proud of.

In the midst of this fluid situation, H. Ross Perot, billionaire, failed presidential contender and sage had passed away.  I'll leave others to do him the full honors, but it's now clear that Perot was correct in many ways about NAFTA and the problems facing the country, he simply lacked the charisma and political savvy to outwit The Swamp.

Perot was doing reasonably well, but then torpedoed his campaign by dropping out and getting back in - citing evil doings of the Bush family as his reason.  At the time he was widely mocked, and rightfully so.

Perot's flip-flop was not a sign that he would be a stable leader in a crisis.  His subsequent campaign seemed more of an exercise in vanity than anything else.

But with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the Bush family was - in its own way - just as corrupt as the Clintons.  The Bush campaign used espionage against its opponents and George H.W. Bush carried on a sordid affair under the very nose of his wife, who was driven to the bring of suicide by his callousness towards her.

In a different time and place, I'd marvel that George W. Bush's administration would go easy on a Clinton crony, but it's clear that the Great Families of Bush and Clinton were able to reach a concordat on this and several other issues.

If Perot was the meteor preceding Trump, Epstein could well be the cleansing fire that follows his arrival.