Posse Incitatus

Another RUSSIA distraction fails

Yesterday my prediction once again came true that whenever Trump gained traction in the shutdown, the RUSSIA investigation would immediate pop with yet another "bombshell."

Of course, it wasn't bombshell, but a damp squib.  In fact, the claim was so blatantly false, even Robert Mueller had to bestir himself from going through Trump's sock drawer to knock it down.

It's a tiresome pattern, and part of why my blogging drops off from time to time - there simply isn't anything new going on.  RUSSIA has been a lie from the get-go, and anyone who has been paying attention knows this.

The tired "walls closing in" cliche is now celebrating its second birthday with nothing to show for it but empty indictment and pleas for various process crimes.  Oh, and Paul Manafort - who was a peripheral figure on the campaign for a couple of weeks - got busted for taxes years before Trump ran for office.

This cycle will continue until Mueller is finally put out to pasture because it's all the Dems have.  Their stance on open borders is deeply unpopular, even with their base.  Furloughed federal workers have to be wondering why Pelosi wanted to take a junket and let them keep suffering delayed pay.

In short, its a disaster and the same old isn't going to change things.

As I noted yesterday, the House Dems are out of ammunition.  They have nothing left to throw at Trump.

The president, on the other hand, controls the executive branch, and has almost limitless options for his next move.  I see Theresa May's zombie ministry managed to survive, which likely means full declassification remains on hold, but a new attorney general means that much of the skullduggery within the Dept. of Justice will finally come to light.

Perhaps this is why Mueller suddenly decided to perform rumor control.  His action was "unprecedented" only because he's spent the last few years doing the exact opposite, leaking salacious details whenever possible.

So maybe he knows the reckoning is near.

Theresa May's Brexit debacle

It is fascinating to see how many of the allegedly competent establishment politicians are in fact staggeringly incompetent.

Emmanuel Macron has managed to create persistent unrest in France.  Despite his earlier policy surrender, the popular anger shows no signs of abating.

Angela Merkel is Germany's first lame-duck Chancellor.  She's still clinging to office, but her abysmal electoral performance resulted in her resignation as the head of her party.  It's a pretty damning indictment that most of her final term in office will be as a "caretaker."

Then there's the UK.  The British are often the forerunner of popular movements, both good and bad.   Just as Thatcher's rise heralded the Reagan revolution, so Brexit anticipated the Trumpening.

But Theresa May has proven herself one of the most inept politicians in British history.  She inherited a solid majority which she pissed away and a botched snap-election.  She then negotiated a Brexit deal that was voted down by the largest margin in modern British electoral history.

The next step is likely a vote of confidence on her creaky minority government.  The Ulster Unionists who've been propping her up have been getting treated like crap and are likely to tell her to piss off.

This would lead to a bit by Labour to form a government, which will likely fail, bringing on a general election that would certain favor the Reds.

I've long since come to realize that sometimes people can't be saved from themselves.  A Corbin-led government would give the UK as much socialism as it could handle and wreak ruin on the nation, but maybe that's what the Brits need. 

Meanwhile, the fall of May's government would also free President Trump to declassify documents relating to the bogus RUSSIA investigation - a step he backed away from after the British and Aussies begged him to.  With May's government a smoking ruin, there's little reason for him to offer deference at this late date.

Each one of these three leaders - May, Macron, Merkel - were held up as the anti-Trump, the globalist alternative that would save the world from the horror of the deplorables taking control.

And yet, all of them have failed by any objective measure.  The nations now powering ahead are the ones who have heeded the call of their people to stand up for their nation rather than interests of their own elite class.

The political establishment has proven they are unworthy of any deference.  The sooner they are swept away entirely, the better.

How many times will gun control fail before its supporters admit it doesn't work?

Actually the title is a trick question.  Gun control supporters stopped caring about whether it worked a long time ago.  They new push it as a way to signal their virtue and punish people they don't like.

They don't give a damn whether it saves a single life or costs hundreds of additional ones.

But for those who live in an evidence-based world, here's the latest news from gun control paradise (via the hated Instapundit):

Chief constable Andy Cooke, the national police lead for serious and organised crime, said law enforcement had seen an increased supply of guns over the past year, and feared that it would continue in 2019.

I am of course referring to the UK, which for the last two decades at least has been the gold standard for gun control zealots.

Of course, things aren't working out the way they are supposed to in ol' Blighty.  Violent crime is soaring.  It's hard to say how bad it really is, since official figures have been doctored for a while.  This passage is particularly revealing, though:

Cooke said that the dynamics of the streets of British cities had changed and that criminals were more willing to use guns: “If they bring them in people will buy them. It’s a kudos thing for organised criminals.” [Emphasis added]

Ya think?  Michigan just abandoned the war on marijuana for essentially the same reason.  Marijuana is something people can grow themselves and they are willing to break the law to get it.  After spending countless millions of dollars trying in vain to fight it, people have finally decided to give up.

The next paragraph is also pretty telling:

He said said one factor was a reduction in police proactive work because of government budget cuts leading to big falls in officer numbers: “The ability of law enforcement to respond to this rise in the criminal use of firearms has been hampered by the large reduction in police officers and the resultant diminishing of proactive capability to keep these criminals on the back foot.” [Emphasis added]

I emphasized that section because we also know that the UK police are spending a massive amount of time on Twitter and Facebook telling people to stop using naughty words.  So maybe it isn't budget cuts but the fact that too many bobbies are handing out tickets for being impolite rather than working on more serious crimes?

In any event, the failure of gun control in the UK clearly demonstrates why it would never were here.  The UK is an island, which should make gun smuggling devilishly difficult.  The gun supply there was never that large thanks to it being a stratified, urban society.

And yet, despite both of those advantages and having close-captioned tv cameras on every corner, still the supply of illegal guns is going up.

It's a puzzler, ain't it?

The globalist gods that failed

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

After Donald Trump's election, the leftwing media was positively falling over itself in admiration for Angela Merkel, Theresa May and their ultimate hero, Emmanuel Macron.

Yet one by one these towering figures have stumbled over the fruit of the seeds they sowed in hubris.

Merkel's migrant policy has crippled her party, forcing her resignation.  She continues on as a zombie chancellor, free to deliver empty broadsides but lacking any real power over the international scene.

Theresa May's government also has become a shambling, undead husk, waiting only for the final convulsion before it collapses in a heap.  Given that her minority government depends on Ulster loyalists to remain in power, it staggers the mind to understand why should would try to push a Brexit agreement that slices off Northern Ireland and binds it in the EU in perpetuity.

Finally, there is the great Macron, Savior of the West and Hero of Globalism.  His bizarre obsession with global warming - and resultant effort to impose crippling energy taxes on the French people - has led to a prolonged popular revolt that refuses to dissipate.  The latest development is that the police union has declared themselves to be in solidarity with the "yellow jacket" protesters and plans to go on strike in support of them.

We must note that like everything French, there are detailed regulations about how one gets permission and who actually can strike, but still, this is significant.  For now, the French riot police are playing by the rules, but a public statement of this sort is often the precursor to not playing by the rules, which is common in French history.

The Sixth Republic may only be a few weeks away.

These are the globalist gods that failed, each in their own way embodying the transnational elite pushing ever less accountability and ever more fluid movement of people.  They won over their electorates and then set out remake them. 

They tried to use the rules to stymie their people, creating "all party-alliances" to lock out the will of the majority, but the outraged populace is determined to have its revenge.

The funny thing is that we've seen this play before, during the initial spread of Marxism.   Attempts to create "class solidarity" across borders collapsed when it became clear that "foreigners" would gain from lost jobs and wages at home.

The left responded by imagining "national socialism," and we all know how that worked out.

The Global Warming racket falls into the same category.  Everyone wants to feel good about the environment, but it's telling how little even the elites are willing to do to stop it.

Instead of taxing automobile fuel, why didn't Macron but a surtax on private jets?  Perhaps a landing fee on all aircraft with fewer than 20 passengers. 

Ah, but that would harm the elites, and our current crop can't tolerate the slightest inconvenience, which is why Hollywood celebrities preach environmentalism while consuming more carbon than an entire midwestern suburb.

This transparent greed and hypocrisy would be bad enough, but it is the gross incompetence that renders it a lethal combination.  The globalists are losing not just because they are wrong, but because they are stupid.

 

 

Hillary's latest idea: Maybe open borders doesn't work

 

In a functional democratic political system, ideology necessarily yields to the will of the majority.

This is how parties change their platform over time as new issues rise and old issues fade.  Unlimited silver coinage doesn't have much of a following these days, but little over a century ago it was a hot topic.

One of the signs that the US political system was breaking down was the fact that neither political party seemed willing to address the issues that actually mattered to the electorate - specifically outsourcing and immigration.

Donald Trump won the GOP primary and then the general election because he was the only one of 18 candidates to take on these issues.  His personal popularity was always secondary to the popularity of his issues.  It was a mark of how thoroughly dominated both parties are by business interests and ideologues that so few politicians were willing to co-opt his positions.

Yet that may finally be changing.  Via the Belmont Club we learn that Hillary is suddenly reconsidering her loyalty to open borders dogma:

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of imitation. Clinton's realization that mass immigration must be adapted to suit the actual conditions is a sign that the populist revolution, though it may be checked or superseded, has left an indelible mark. Trump may be impeached, though probably not convicted, in the coming months; certainly he will, like all mortal flesh, eventually fade away. But there's no denying time has moved the needle and there is no way back to the global world paradigm of 2016.

One would be tempted to cite this as proof that Hillary has no moral core, but that was never in doubt.  The fact that a major Democrat figure is now considering reversing what was a core tenet of the faith shows that America's political system may yet have hope.

The situation is Europe is not nearly so rosy.  In the UK, the establishment seems determined to fight to the death rather than implement Brexit.  Similarly, Angela Merkel has decided that she can finally sound off on the evils of nationalism since she's no longer accountable to voters. 

While the New York Times may run with these salacious Trump-bashing quotes, they are in fact the last whines of political has-beens.  Merkel was forced to resign as party head.  France's Macron may have gotten in "sick burns" over the Armistice Day observance, but his nation is consumed with riots against his policies.  Again and again, we see establishment figures cited as sources of wisdom at exactly the moment when their political careers are headed down the toilet.

Is it any wonder that the Clinton Machine might finally recognize the obvious?

To be sure, Hillary may yet be planning the classic double-cross of running on one issue and then doing the opposite.  This is, after all, a major part of the Democrats' strategy for many years.

The problem is that this will now open up a new fissure in the Democrat coalition and shift the political debate closer to Trump.  It's hard to see how this hurts him.  Indeed, the Clinton Machine endorsing less restrictive immigration might actually get that wall funded.

In any event, it will be amusing to watch the paid shills of the leftist press and their Quisling Never Trumper allies have to reverse themselves yet again. 

Veterans Day and America's role in the world

Normally I offer a Veterans Day greetings to our readers, but I was unable to get do so yesterday.  I offer my apologies to our veteran readers and also thanks for their service.

The 20th Century has often been called "the American century," but that isn't strictly true.  In 1901 (note: centuries begin on the "1" not the "0"), the United States was a growing power, but by no means preponderant.  If I had to rank the Great Powers of the day, the US would have been behind Great Britain, Russia, Germany and France.  The US Army was tiny and still largely based on volunteer militias.  The Navy was starting to stir, but it would take not only wartime construction but large-scale international disarmament (in some cases voluntary, in other cases not) to put it within striking distance of Great Britain. 

Thus the "American Century" really began on Nov. 11, 1918.  Not only was the German Armistice in response to an American peace overture, many of the clauses in the subsequent Treaty of Versailles were effectively dictated by Woodrow Wilson.

I mention this because liberal talking heads like Max Boot seem obsessed with keeping the United States locked into the strategic position of 1947 rather than understanding the many unique factors that led our formerly isolationist republic to reluctantly take the lead in world affairs.

RUSSIA poses a strategic threat only to those nations on its immediate borders.  This may come as a shock to those who don't follow military capabilities, but RUSSIA is in fact spectacularly weak.  Those who grew up during the 80s or before may think that RUSSIA still has the ability to mobilize millions of men and tens of thousands of tanks.

In fact, the United States can now match RUSSIA in terms of land power and given our superior training, technology, equipment and logistics, we could probably defeat RUSSIA in a land war if we had a mind to do it.

The closes strategic and military rival the United States faces is in fact China, which is building up its power by leaps and bounds and openly challenging free navigation of the western Pacific.  China has also made major efforts to burrow into US intelligence systems, managed to compromise millions of background investigations and also rolled up almost the entire CIA network within the mainland.

Boot and his ilk remain strangely silent about all of this.  It's odd that a man who fancies himself a deep thinker hasn't called on former intel chiefs to be subjected to probing and hard questions about how exactly this debacles happened on their watch.

It's also curious how the Obama administration downplayed these disasters and took zero retaliatory action.

I've seen a number of commentators insist that this was due to incompetence and ass-covering, but could it not also have been a "thank you" payment for the many millions the Chi-Coms have paid to the Democrats over the years?  Before RUSSIA became a thing, the Clinton White House was busy taking in millions of illegal Chinese contributions.

Diane Feinstein had a ChiCom spy on her staff for two decades and was remarkably untroubled about it.  You'd think her general election challenger might have hammered that point how, but you'd be wrong because he's also a Democrat.  Democrats only bring up "national security" as a club to beat Republicans and as an excuse to hide their abuses of power.

It's also worth noting that RUSSIA appears strong only because our Western allies insist on being pathetically weak.  Germany's economy dwarfs that of RUSSIA and could easily field a military force stronger than anything RUSSIA could feasibly send into the Baltics or Eastern Europe.

Instead Germany wants to get cheap fuel and posture against Trump.

France likewise talks about building a European defense force as a counterweight, but who will man it?  Who will pay or it?  How many divisions will it field?

The once-proud British Army is so crippled by political correctness and the elites' hatred of the traditional recruiting pool that they are reduced to hiring mercenaries from around the Commonwealth to fill out the ranks.  Apparently defending Blighty is a now considered a job ethnic Britons won't do.

None of this was foreordained.  None of this was inevitable.  Those that argue that World War I somehow culled the best and bravest of the West need to look eastward and see how nations that suffered far more serious losses have still retained their cultural identity and a willingness to fight for their nations.

Decline was a choice, and one repeatedly offered to the United States.  It remains to be seen whether the Trump revival is a true change of course or the last gasp before the fall.

Russia's navy is screwed

Multiple sources are confirming that Russia's largest floating dry dock had a catastrophic accident and sank.  In so doing, it inflicted considerable damage on Russia's only aircraft carrier.

This represents a huge loss of repair and refit capability.  The dry dock was used by surface combatants and ballistic missile submarines.  Without it, some ships literally can't be repaired.  This includes the carrier.  It will likely take months before the dock can be salvaged and repaired - assuming that's even feasible.

This is yet another reminder that the RUSSIA of the neocon imagination is but a shadow monster projected on a tattered bedsheet.  Max Boot and other warmongers can rant about RUSSIA until they are blue in the face, the force projection capabilities they claim to fear just aren't there.

There are, of course, emerging threats to American security.  These come overwhelmingly from China, which the neocons seem reluctant to mention.  Certainly the Dems - who've been bought and paid for by the ChiComs since the Clinton Administration - don't care.

This unforeseen event is a needed reminder that media-hyped fears often mask the real ones.

 

 

The global center collapses

Does anyone remember how - after Trump's victory - Angela Merkel was hailed a the true leader of the free world?

Mutti Merkel had welcomed a million migrants into her unsuspecting and unprepared nation state, and every since has been enjoying a bountiful harvest of surging violent crime and domestic unrest.

Today Merkel confirmed the obvious - that her day is done.  She remains chancellor, but is resigning leadership of her party and will not run again in 2021.

She may not last even that long.

Germany has been radicalized from both the right and the left.  The nationalists of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) have cut deeply into the old Christian Democrat voting bloc.  At the same time, the Greens are carving out a huge chunk of the Social Democrats' voting base.

The result is a collapse of the German center.  The Greens are poised to become the dominant party of left while the right ponders its own divisions.  Merkel might have formed a coalition of right, but doing so was anathema to her.  So now the withering moderate center clings together, united only by a desire to keep everyone else out.

The same story is playing out all over Europe.  In the UK, Theresa May's government is in a zombie-like state, devoid of energy or direction, surviving only because the Labour government looks even more radical.

Brazil's election confirms this trend.  The self-styled elites have failed, and their insistent denial of that failure will only make the reckoning that much worse when it happens.

And let there be no doubt: it will happen.

The thing is, it didn't have to be this way.  Parties are in theory supposed to look to their own survival.  When a burning issue arises, they are supposed to seize upon it and thereby gain electoral advantage.

Strangely, in nation after nation, establishment parties are refusing to do that, instead declaring that the only solutions on tap are what the existing parties have decided they want to discuss.  Self-determination, control of one's own borders, defense of one's existing ancestral culture - these are now off-limits, beyond even discussion.

Except they're not.  Because "respectable" people won't talk about them, less savory types are taking up the banner.

There's a joke going around that liberals won't secure borders, but fascists will, so why are liberals upset that people are turning to fascists to the the job that they won't do?

Of course "fascist" is a completely subjective term these days.  It currently means whoever the establishment doesn't like.

The fact is that no one has voted for the globalist project.  It was imposed by elites who lied their way into power, and then lied about what they were doing.  When their schemes were exposed, the establishment locked ranks to avoid any real choice.

As the levers of government power slip from their grasp, they turn to billionaire plutocrats to "de-platform" those who disagree with them.  No need for the rule of law, raw corporate power will do in a pinch.

Because creating a corporatist state that transcends laws and national boundaries can't possibly be anything like fascism.

The Grand Strategy of Donald J. Trump

Long-time readers know that I was always skeptical of The Donald.  Unlike a lot of conservatives, I wasn't hostile to him, but I reserved judgement. 

That being said, the more I saw of him, the more I enjoyed his performance.  He made politics fun.  I didn't have much in the way of expectations for his presidency and - like many - I've been very pleasantly surprised with both his policies and his governance.  I can only imagine how much better he would have done without half of the federal government bureaucracy being in open (and illicit) rebellion.

One of his most striking successes has been in the realm of grand strategy.  His international diplomacy excites massive amounts of unhinged criticism from Conservatism, Inc. and the usual progressive suspects, but this is largely because those people are stupid and jealous of his competence.

When the same dolts who masterminded defeat in Iraq, stalemate in Afghanistan, chaos and national humiliation in Libya, disaster in Egypt, etc. lecture us on Trump's shortcomings, you know you're dealing with weapons-grade envy.

It's instructive to take a look at what Trump is doing and why it's working.

The first thing to understand about Trump's foreign policy is that it is unabashedly about strengthening American interests.  Allies are nice, but the US will not unilaterally weaken itself just to curry favor.  There needs to be something gained in return.

This is demonstrated in his behavior towards NATO and particularly Germany.  NATO is supposed to be a mutual defense pact, not an open-ended American guarantee.  Trump's criticisms are nothing new.  What is new is his willingness to act on them.

While the Obama administration talked about "whole of government" operations and solutions, they never went beyond limp-wristed diplomatic gestures and half-hearted military movements.  Trump does the opposite.

His dealings with China are a wonder to behold.

Trump understands that the status quo in trade could not be maintained.  He also knows that China will try to retaliate.  His solution is to outfox the Chinese by anticipating their moves and leveraging his strategic advantage.

This is exactly what we are seeing.  His tariffs on Chinese goods are biting deep into their export trade.  China's retaliation on our agricultural sector is already failing because without our production, China cannot feed itself. 

What is more, China is desperately thirsty for oil.  We are now a leading producer of it.  As part of its retaliation, China has tried to shift from our oil that that of Saudi Arabia.

Strangely, Saudi Arabia is having a minor dispute with China about prices right now.  I'm sure the establishment economists are writing this up as a mere trifle, a coincidence - but the result is that China is now forced to swallow its pride and buy American crude.

Oh, did anyone notice how the US is pointedly not using its formidable leverage against the Saudis in their dispute with Canada? 

Hmmm.  Saudi Arabia is pissed at Canada.  Canada calls on the US for help.   They US declines Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia gets grumpy with China, forcing the Chicoms to go back to buying US oil.

Yeah, nothing to see there.

The Trump administration is using all levers in concert to achieve its desired effects.  The ongoing negotiations with Mexico illustrate this as well.  Both sides have something to gain.  While NAFTA's negative effects on the US have gotten most of the attention, Mexico has also been harmed.  Its upper classes got rich but the agrarian lower classes have been reduced to serfdom.  The cartels are flourishing because American agri-business destroyed small farmers and left them destitute.

The US wants a strong, stable Mexico.  We also want to see Mexican wages rise so that there is less incentive for companies to relocate.  Mexicans themselves will benefit from better wages.  This doesn't benefit the global elites, and that's the point.

The term for this approach is realism - putting national interest first and favoring friendly nations who work with us over those that don't.

In recent years, the term has been twisted out of all recognition, but Donald Trump is the first true American practitioner in decades.

The Trump economy picks up speed

Recently I drove through the rural hinterland of Michigan, including the peerless Upper Peninsula.  The UP (as the locals call it) has long been in an economic slump as a result of the decline in mining and heavy industry, which once showered the region with prosperity.

It had been a number of years since my last visit, and while some areas had hardly changed, others seemed abuzz with new activity. 

Signs of construction were everywhere.  I don't just mean road construction, (which is one of the two seasons in Michigan, the other being called "winter") but also home repairs, commercial renovation and new builds. 

The UP was once a Democrat stronghold, a citadel of blue-collar, pro-gun, right-to-life voters.  As the Democrats shifted away from their old issues, the UP still held firm.

Until 2016.

Hillary Clinton lost the election because these voters turned against her.  She offered them nothing but continuing economic decline in return for their votes.   She also openly insulted their traditional cultural views.  Her imperious demand was that they should vote for her lest she think even less of them than she does now.

Yoopers are famously independent-minded, and they demonstrated it in this case, voting (as usual) for Democrat state legislators of their peculiar (and now increasingly rare) political persuasion but casting their ballots for Donald Trump to be their president.

They seem well content with this decision.

I've pointed this out before, but it bears repeating: heavy industry and mining were once the backbone of American prosperity.  Tech jobs were never going to replace these skilled trades as the gateway to a good income for the vast majority of Americans.

The Democrats used to understand this, but starting in the mid-1990s, they decided that sucking up to tech billionaires was more profitable than defending the interests of the working class.   Certainly it was more lucrative.

Progressives talk the good game about protecting the environment and demanding fair wages, but in fact they don't care about either of these things.  They are happy to outsource mineral and ore extraction to China where there are zero environmental protections and workers are subjected to slave-like conditions.

This is why "Free Trade" is such a lie.  American miners enjoy extensive safety precautions and strict environmental controls.  Indeed, the biggest environmental disasters in the last few years have government fingerprints all over them. 

By equalizing the terms of trade, the Trump Administration is allowing once-dormant industries to come back to life, providing quality jobs for communities that had all but given up hope.

One of the most encouraging things about all of this is just how eager these people are to get back to work.  After eight years of contraction, the labor force is expanding again.  People are getting back in the game and happy to do it.

Democrats once understood that work provides more than just a meal on the table and a place to live; it provides meaning and purpose in one's life.  Take that away and you get idleness, despair, drug use and crime.

It's telling that people who love to spout off about "root causes" are so blind to the source of the opioid epidemic.

As my co-blogger observed, one of the great things about this virtuous circle is that it is still just getting started.  Right now most of the activity we are seeing is the opening stages - the tear-downs, the plans being laid, concrete being orders and poured.

Some plants are ordering extra shifts but are constrained because they have not yet expanded to meet demand.  As these facilities come on line, even more workers will be hired to meet the revived needs of resurgent American industrial might.

I fully expect the 4.1 percent GDP growth to be revised upwards in the months to come.

In addition, I'm not surprised by the positive turns in negotiations between both the European Union and Mexico.  Canada risks being left out in the cold, but I suppose that's what the Canucks get for electing a Ken doll prime minister.