Posse Incitatus

Trump visits North Korea

The critics will say the meeting was only symbolic, but that's the point.

Symbols exist because they mean something.  The left is obsessed with symbolism and much of their time seems consumed with inventing honors to bestow on one another.  Actual positive results?

Not so much.

Where this goes, no one can say, but it's clear that Trump is driving a wedge between North Korea and China.  As in so many other areas, he's refused to play the game he was offered because doing so was a sucker's bet.  Instead he's flipped the table and is doing his own thing.

Just as with the debate over immigrant, tariffs and abortion, Trump refuses to accept the old rules where conservatives play the role of noble losers while the Democrats stack the deck at every turn.

I don't even need to look, but I'm sure Max  Boot, Bill Kristol and the rest of the neocon warmongers are besides themselves with rage.  Why Trump is giving away the farm!  Kim doesn't deserve this level of respect!

Of course if Trump was full of bluster and following the same failed policies they touted for decades, they'd be insisting he was a madman bent on starting World War III, so there's a reason why such people are properly ignored.

In terms of the event itself, there is an upper limit to "firsts" in terms of breakthrough diplomacy.  On the one hand, this may all play out and stall, leaving no real change.  This is the risk Trump is running.

But the potential gain is considerable.  North Korea is built on a cult of personality.  Without the reverential awe the Kim family holds, all the security forces in the world would be useless.  He can only shake hands and embrace so many times before his people violently try to take the peaceful payoff he's dangling before them.

This might have been part of the discussion he had with his Chinese masters: put simply, he can't hold on indefinitely.  Unless China's willing to put aside the fiction of independence and send thousands of troops into to reinforce Kim's rule, there will eventually be an uprising by people tired of starving and willing to risk death for the prosperity they've been assured is already on the way.

That's the thing.  Rebellions rarely happen when things are getting worse; it's usually because there is an immediate hope that things can get better.  Seeing their leader greet the American leader and promise peace is like dangling the carrot before the proverbial mule.  It buys time for a while, but eventually the animal will need to eat.

I expect things to continue to move incrementally, lest the North Koreans lose control.  That's why there is this start-stop dynamic.  No one wants to see a border rush ala Germany.

In any event, we are witnessing historic events, even if the media would rather focus on weirdos claiming a non-rape rape in a dressing room a quarter century ago.

Trump's Persian dance

The question of how the US should respond to Iran’s increasing provocations has two components: strategic and political.

From a strategic perspective, the US holds almost all the cards.  Iran’s economy is collapsing, its people seethe with rebellion and its military might is incapable of causing significant harm to the US homeland.  A series of terrorist strikes would – at – simply enrage the American people to the point of delivering even more devastation on Iran.

The only way Iran can prevail would be to provoke a US ground invasion ala Iraq in 2003.  This is the one option American planners are determined to avoid.

With this option off the table, the Iranians can only resort to constricting oil traffic through the Persian Gulf.  Here again, though, the damage will primarily land on everyone but the United States.

The US is far less dependent on Arab oil than it was only a few years ago.  At the same time, China is much more dependent, thus Iran’s closure of oil traffic would inflict the greatest harm on the strategic rival of Iran’s enemy. 

Even the Mad Mullahs would have to think twice about inflicting more pain on “the enemy of their enemy” than the do on their enemy.

This brings us to the political question.  The Democrats are totally at a loss on this.  Having started disastrous wars in Libya and Syria while achieving nothing but a bloody stalemate in Afghanistan, they’re in no position to play the “give peace a chance” card.

The Obama administration’s rapprochement was also a highly publicized failure.  Americans have an instinctive hatred of paying tribute and the Dems arguing that the US should bend the knee and beg for Iran’s forgiveness is a non-starter.

Yesterday Trump was poised to launch a retaliatory strike, but very publicly claimed to have an 11-th hour change of heart.

This is not – as the Quisling Never Trump Warmongers would have us believe – proof that the president is irresolute.

Far from it, the highly publicized nature of this decision makes it clear that it was a psy-op, designed to scare the Iranians, as well as other potential adversaries.

The Trump strategy team is highly capable and understands the interrelatedness of diplomatic moves.  When the US retreats against Iran, it looks weak everywhere else. 

This is in direct contrast with the neoliberal perspective, which divides each nation or region into a discrete and separate theater of operations.

We saw this early on, when Trump ordered a missile strike on Syria while having dessert with the Chinese Premier.  The president as simply making an object lesson.

That’s exactly what’s going on here.  As the US continues delicate trade negotiations with China, Trump is letting the world know that next time he might push the button all the way down – and blow up their economies in the process.

Thus the Dems are either damning Trump for almost launching a strike while curing the bad luck that he didn’t.

At the same time, they worry that he might undertake a short, successful punitive strike that will boost him in the polls.

This puzzle is particularly problematic for front-runner Slow Joe Biden, who voted for the Iraq War, claimed it was a success, and of course was involved in the Libya and ISIS fiascoes.

This is why Trump held his fire.  He can keep all of his enemies twisting in the wind while still putting the screws to Iran.

The Dems and Neocons screaming “Iran called his bluff!” can easily be shut down by asking how many dead Americans they want to see in this new shiny war they advocate.

Once again, Trump calls the tune and everyone dances.

The elites have only themselves to blame for the populist backlash

The weekend blackout on the European elections has lifted, and what a changed landscape now stands before us.

Everywhere the Establishment is in retreat as populist movements rise in the polls.  

The talking heads assure us that these are dangerous "far-right" movements on par with the Nazis.  In fact, they were the predictable consequence of the Ruling Class ignoring the people who elected them.

The UK should not have even been voting.  Outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May insisted more than 80 times that Brexit would happen in March - only to back down at the moment of truth.

The Ruling Class elites no doubt savored their triumph, but the electoral disaster they suffered over the weekend was the direct popular response.  Naturally they are too stupid to understand this and will try to step up their repression, but that will only lead to greater convulsions as the people demand their sacred right to self-rule.

This is why the "nationalists" are working across boundaries and languages to form a common front against the Ruling Class.  These people aren't xenophobes or chauvanists, they simply believe in self-determination and like their national culture as it is.

For more than 50 years, the blame for the wars of the 20th Century has been laid at the foot of "nationalism."  If only people didn't care about their country, no one would have died - or so the theory goes.

But the truth is that the world wars were the result of the Ruling Class, not popular rage.  Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany were monarchies, not participatory democracies.  

There was even less democracy on display in the years before World War II, with left-wing dictators ruling Russia, Germany, Italy and a host of lesser nations.  The EU is merely a transnational version of these movements - a corporatist entity determined to reduce its subject peoples into a faceless, culture-free proletariat ruled from on high.

When Brexit was thwarted, free people everywhere understood the real meaning:  the Ruling Class will no longer accept the results of popular elections.

Thus they are using their vote to send a message that they strongly disagree.  If the Ruling Class continues to ignore them, the next message will be louder - and more violent.

The most important aspect of a functioning democracy is for the loser to accept the result with grace.  Yet the Ruling Classes - for all their sophistication and alleged intelligence - is failing this basic test.  In the process they are destroying the institutions they rule and putting their own pathetic existance in peril.

Memorial Day 2019: A Tale of Two Soldiers

It is possible to both support an overall course of action while having strident objections to how it is carried out.

That's exactly how I feel about George W. Bush and the Iraq War.

As I noted at the time on this blog, his messaging was muddled and his defense of his efforts was half-hearted at best.  One can argue with whether dissolving the Iraqi Army and starting over from scratch was wise, but at this late date I don't think there can be any debate that his overall execution sucked.

Nowhere was this more pronounced than his muddled war aims.  One cannot sound the attack cautiously - at the moment of decision we must be all-in.  Yet that's exactly the line Dubya tried to walk, in one breath exhorting Americans to sacrifice while in the next demanding that we not hate our enemies.

And it comes to this:  American Taliban "soldier" John Walker Lindh is released from prison less than 20 years after being captured while fighting (and killing) the armed forces of the United States.

A century ago he would have been court-martialed on the spot and shot.  A half-century ago he would have been court-martialed and executed in prison.

Now, however, he walks free and - if reports are true - is unrepentant.

This exemplifies the half-assed approach of not just Dubya but also his father, who similarly wimped out on the brink of victory in 1991.  They did not understand - and still don't, I suspect - that democracies don't go to war to preserve the status quo, they fight for a better world than the one they lost.  It's the only thing that can justify the sacrifices needed for victory.

And so it comes to pass that due to the misguided mercy of the president, a violent terrorist lives and walks free among us, and brave men like Capt. Sean Grimes are gone.

Memorial Day is important because the fallen are nothing but memories.  The living go on, have children and we need no reminders because they walk among us.  But slowly, incrementally, the memories of the fallen - and those who remember them - will fade away.

Sean was engaged when he was killed.  By now, he might be the father of a teenager and his parents might look with pride on their grandchildren.  The same is true for thousands of others.

We cannot allow the memory of their sacrifices - and the foolishness responsible for it - to fade.  Today is a grim reminder that the right thing can be done the wrong way. 

Irresolution is not mercy, half-measures are not prudence, and leaders must be held responsible - if not while in office than in the verdict of history.

May finally out - UK's worst prime minister ever?

Theresa May has finally announced her resignation, ending one of the most sordid and disgraceful governments in British history.

I say this as a student of UK government.  When people think of awful prime ministers, Neville Chamberlain frequently comes to mind, but while Chamberlain's foreign policy was disastrous, he didn't undermine the core values and rights of the British people.

May has done exactly that.  Her nominally "conservative" government has turned a blind eye to rape gangs, stood helplessly as violent crime has surged and instead wastes police resources on censoring people's social media accounts.

Her political prosecution of Tommy Robinson is a national disgrace to the Sceptered Isle.

Electorally, he's wrecked her party and undermined public faith in the government itself.  She lied about holding a snap-election and then lost it.  She lied about implementing Brexit and then lied about its timetable.  

The Tories have lost their way and Nigel Farage's Brexit Party may be the only hope to rebuild British liberty.  

Set against these follies, Chamberlain looks pretty good by comparison.  When he reluctantly stepped aside, his successor faced a dire strategic situation, but at least could look with hope and confidence at the core institutions and society of the United Kingdom.  May's successor won't have that luxury.  Virtually every institution stands discredited.

Good riddens.

BONUS ANGLE:  Her ouster will likely free Donald Trump of any reluctance to expose British involvement in Spygate, particularly collusion between CIA and CGHQ.  I can't help but wonder if Trump's declassification order might have been a factor.

Trump's trade war isn't hurting growth, it's causing it

As if record-low unemployment isn’t enough, President Trump’s economic team is now moving to hit even more Chinese good with hefty tariffs.

According the Chamber of Commerce types, this is a disaster for the common man.  They continue to pitch the Free Trade Lie that tariffs are always and everywhere an unmitigated evil and that allowing countries with distorted economies access to our markets is an unalloyed good.

In truth, tariffs are morally neutral and their utility varies upon the circumstance.  A protective tariff is not only appropriate but necessary when another nation undertakes predatory trading practices. 

Yet the Quisling Never Trumpers and their globalist allies continue to spread the falsehood that boosting the cost of cut-rate consumer goods assembled by slave labor in unsafe and heavily polluting factories is somehow a crime against the free market.

They give the game away when they announce that “American consumers” will pay the heaviest costs.

Nope.  China will.

Consider a tariff that raises the price of toasters by a couple of dollars.  Will that crush the wallets of American workers?  Hardly.  But that incremental increase changes the production curve so that American workers and factories now become more profitable than overseas locations.  This in turn boosts American prosperity and cuts the trade deficit.

Now consider the counter-example, which we lived through for decades:  Toasters get a little cheaper, but the plant employing hundreds of workers has now closed.  So does the steel mill, and the ore mine.

All the businesses that served those workers go next, and soon we are in a downward spiral of collapsing tax revenue, rising welfare costs and increased crime and drug abuse.

This is the world that paid shills like Jonah Goldberg have tried to convince us we want to live in.  It is a world that benefits the elite and crushes everyone else.

Protection for American industry from foreign competition and higher wages for American wages are bedrock principles of the Republican Party dating back to Abraham Lincoln.  It’s strange that so many True Conservatives have turned their backs on them.

Venezuela proves yet again that civilian disarmament empowers tyrants

The bloody uprising in Venezuela provides yet another example of how civilian disarmament does nothing to reduce violence and in fact renders a population helpless to resist tyranny.

There is no disputing either contention here.  Venezuela is one of the most violent places on earth.  Restricting firearms ownership in fact increased crime by allowing criminal elements aligned with the government the ability to act with impunity.

Democrat Congressman and wannabe presidential candidate Rep. Eric Swalwell may have thought he was being clever when he observed that small arms are no match for nuclear weapons, but all his did was showcase his ignorance and bloody-minded willingness to devastate the nation he supposedly serves in order to crush political opposition.

In fact, small arms are far more useful than nuclear weapons to preserve liberty.  Have we learned nothing over the last half-century about insurgent movements?  Small arms an improvised explosives have allowed Afghanistan to defy both superpowers.

It is interesting to note that even during the height of the ISIS insurgency, Iraq’s government refused to ban small arms, instead allowing each family to retain an actual assault rifle (that is to say, fully automatic) for the defense of hearth and home.

I have written this many times, but we do not have a gun problem, we have a mental health problem.  Our schools and mental health professionals are not only failing to help, but actively harming young people.  Social media adds further fuel to the fire, offering would-be killers easy access to attention-seeking media and the promise of posthumus glory.  The New Zealand shooter took this to its logical conclusion by live-streaming his crime.

The subsequent tightening of gun laws will do nothing to stop the next shooter.  No level of gun prohibition will achieve perfect, but each incremental ratchet leave more of society vulnerable to the next attack – or tyranny.

I will also note that such tyranny need not be one based on a minority.  It may (and usually does) take the form of a majority determined to put down a despised minority, be it Jews, Armenians, Christians, or political enemies.

Venezuela was once a prosperous nation and a robust democracy.  Its socialism is entirely democratic of the kind that so many Democrats say they want.

Yet socialism must turn to despotism, and so it has.

And because the people have allowed themselves to become disarmed, they must now pay a far higher cost in blood to redeem their liberty.

About that Trump recession...

It must be tough being Paul Krugman.

Sure, he's probably got a good income, and there are a bunch of beta-boys who seem to hang on his every word.

But he's also wrong almost all the time.  After a while, it doesn't matter how many titles you've accumulated, when push comes to shove you're still a Former Enron Advisor who blows almost every prediction.

Strangely, Donald Trump's economic team seems to be on a hot streak.  It's interesting to contrast the steadiness and competence of this group compared to other parts of the administration.  Still, one can't find fault with the results.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating:  The recession of 2009 didn't end until Trump took office.

Oh, the statisticians cranked out numbers and claimed the economy was growing, but that growth was dwarfed by the increase in the federal debt.  

What Trump's team has done is unleash all that aggregate demand and it is continuing to surge forward.  The US has almost an entire decade of growth to make up, which is why things are going to boom for a while.

Not only that, Trump is changing the rules of the game, bringing manufacturing jobs home.  Those jobs in turn create even more jobs and small towns across the country are seeing the kind of economic revivals we were assured by the likes of Kevin Williamson could never happen.

This is Trump's strongest argument for re-election and one he will hit home again and again.  Whoever he is up against is going to face the question of how many jobs they want to export to Mexico or China.  No amount of smoke-blowing will obscure that fact.

Trump is the worst anti-Semite ever

The left has pretty much given up on argument or debate.  All they have left is smears, and nowhere is the more apparent than in their constant howling that Donald Trump is a racist/sexist/RUSSIAN/anti-Semite.

This high-decibel howling can work for a while, but there comes a point where reality intervenes and then the press looks really, really stupid.

Like now.

It was always stupid for the Democrats to try to play the anti-Semite card on Trump - after all, his daughter converted to to the Jewish faith and his grandchildren are observant Jews.

Hitler this guy is not.

He's also been the best friend Israel has had since Harry Truman.  He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, has steadfastly supported the Jewish state (reversing Obama's passive-aggressive stance) and recently recognized Israel's legal right to hold the strategic Golan Heights.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged this by calling for a town in the Golan to be named after Trump.

You know, because Trump is such a Jew-hater.

This rote howling and throwing of insults reminds me of the old Soviet Union, where ritual denunciations were commonplace.  I remember being able to do a nice riff (in a Russian accent, of course) where I'd denounce the "imperialist, fascist government of the United States and its running dog lackey European allies."

Maybe you had to be there, but the point was that the insults were pathetic because they were so hollow.

So it is with Trump hatred and the pathetic lie that he isn't the most pro-Jewish president of my lifetime.

Of course, the Dems are desperate to maintain their grip on the Jewish vote, just like they need to convince black people that Trump is a latter-day Klansman.

At some point, however, you'd think these people would come up with something that was so self-evidently stupid.

You'd think that, but you'd be wrong.

Benedict speaks and Notre Dame burns

Over the weekend, word came out that Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI had prepared a 6,000 word essay examining the moral basis for the Catholic Church's sex scandals.

Benedict resigned from the papacy in 2013 and hitherto had remained silent, but the recent revelations - and Pope Francis' bumbling efforts to respond - clearly touched his conscience.

Yesterday we all watched in horror as Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire and burned with incredible ferocity.  While damage assessments are still in progress, it appears that the overall structure remains sound and that most - if not all - of its priceless relics and artifacts survived.

That both of these events would coincide with Holy Week would seem to be no accident.  The crisis within the Church is in many ways analogous to a fire started through carelessness that eventually consumes the structure under repair.

Fire can destroy, but it can also warm and inspire.  Benedict clearly believes that the Church will go on, and this this will be yet another example of how the Church has gone from prosperity to complacency, to decadence and crisis - and then into a period of renewal.

Similarly, it's possible that the danger presented to Notre Dame will help spur the French people and Christians across Europe to reconsider the danger to their illustrious heritage.  Are people really willing to see all that they have known, all that was given to them, wiped out in a consuming fire?  

Much of the talk in France centers on the cathedral's historical and artistic merit, but perhaps people will also consider the faith that went into building it - and can be renewed within it once more.