Posse Incitatus

Happy (belated) Birthday, America!

As all normal people should, I took a break from the flickering screen yesterday and enjoyed Family, Faith and Freedom.

After a refreshing session of recreational firepower, it was time to fire up the grill and then set off some fireworks as the evening closed in.  The neighbors complimented us on our display, which was nice.

Seasoned readers have no doubt noticed that I'm not posting as often as I used to, and part of this is that things are getting too stupid for words.

Even the trolls are transparent idiots, on the one hand maintaining Antifa doesn't exist, and on the other claiming that no black businesses have been harmed in widespread rioting.

Given the prevalence of damage (and black-owned enterprises in city cores), this is not only patently false, but insultingly so.

It's on part with a Monty Python sketch in its absurd denial of observable truth.  With such people, discussion is pointless.

This blog has lasted far longer than I thought it would, and it provides a written record of the left's utter degeneration from credible political philosphy to a nakedly illogical movement bent purely on the seizure of absolute political power.

Gun control is a great example of this.  Back in 2004, there was still a serious discussion over whether it was necessary or effective.  This was based on actual evidence, and a particularly telling piece of it was that more and more states allowed concealed pistol licenses and yet the crime rate continued to fall.  Clearly the more guns = more crime theory had been disproven.

Tellingly, this is was the signal to move away from any association with logic and to pure insult and social punishment.  Gun control - like so much of the leftist agenda - became couched in moral terms and those who opposed it were evil.

So it is with Black Lives Matter, whose policies have destroyed lives and livelihoods.  Crime is soaring across the country and it is the black community in particular that is suffering.

The "autonomous zone" in Seattle claimed the lives of two young black men, but no one knows or cares about them, because their deaths don't advance 'the cause.'

Another example:  Remember when George W. Bush was a warmonger?  Remember the peace movement?

Where did it go?  Donald Trump is trying to pull out US forces from pointless and unwinnable wars and yet the Democrats are now demanding that they continue!  It's fascinating to watch the same people who denounced General Petraeus as "General Betray-Us" now quoting him as a wise sage who wants unending death and destruction.

Also disappeared - wrenching stories of civilians killed by US bombs, or the struggles of wounded veterans.  BTW, do those black lives matter - the ones in uniform being wasted in sandpits across Asia?

This is why I've cycled down, because arguing with idiots gets old.  I have not yet closed the comments, but I have blocked trolls and recently deleted a comment that violated our long-standing policy against substituting links for commentary.

If you have something interesting to say, say it, don't spam my comments with your links.

 

A Masked Memorial Day: 2020

Apparently honoring the dead isn't an "essential function."

None of the usual solemnities are scheduled, nominally because of the State of Emergency (which has been extended into a fourth month) regards them as inherently dangerous.  Standing in the open air of the cemetery carries too much risk of infection.

It's far safer to buy a lottery ticket in a liquor store.

Such is our world.

As is customary, each year I dedicate this post to a friend who died too soon, Capt. Sean Grimes.  He was engaged to be married, and by now he might be watching his kids graduate high school.

I remain convinced that striking militarily against both Afghanistan and Iraq after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was both justified and worthwhile, but had I known it would be managed with such strategic ineptitude, I would have opposed both.

This is a bipartisan condemnation, because neither the Bush administration nor the Obama one had any plan other than managing an eternal conflict.  The lives of our troops were just the cost of doing business.  It's clear that the Democrats used the peace movement as a convenient club, because they're otherwise fine with Wars of Choice (see also, Libya, Syria, etc.).

Our leaders are fine about these losses because they don't know people like Sean.  He doesn't exist in their world, at least not that they know of.  Maybe if they went to his civilian medical practice in later years they'd note in passing an honorable discharge on the office wall, but maybe not.

But we remember him, and all others who - like him - have made the supreme sacrifice for their nation.

Rest in Peace.

Obama and his lying liars will continue to lie about his crimes

The ongoing revelations about the depth and scope of criminality within the FBI, Dept. of Justice, intelligence services and the Obama White House has unleashed a predictable set of excuses based on outright lies.

Oddly, some people are bothered by this.  I assume they expect Obama's minions to hang their heads and mutter that they could have gotten away with it too, if was wasn't for those meddling kids.

In fact, the lies are all the left has left.  All their policies are based on lies, and they have to lie about their predictable failures as well.

Should any go to prison, they will be declared political prisoners, complete with candlelight vigils - even if they plead guilty.

Remember, these people have been screaming "Free Mumia!" for decades.  They have zero shame.

Of course, if a Howard Dean figure emerges (and doesn't commit suicide), things will get more difficult.

This is why Mexico's demand for information on Eric Holder's "Fast and Furious" criminal enterprise is so intriguing.  It will be a treat watching the Democrats pivot from praising Mexico to trashing it.  I don't expect much to come of it, but it would be interesting if it actually happens.

In the meantime, the real game will play out in the courts, and if we see indictments handed down, maybe something tangible will come of it.

The Wuhan Plague

We've gotten used to a level of safety and security that is without precedent.

Two generations have grown to mature middle age without lasting privation or the experience of widespread disaster.

Perhaps this is why there have been so imaginary panics over the intervening decades.  Humans are hard-wired to detect danger and when non materializes, they invent it.

But now there is something very real to fear.  Pestilence rides the land once again.

Naturally, the remnant main stream media is worse than useless.  Their pathetic partisan plays are self-refuting and whatever political capital they hoped to make for the Democrats from large-scale loss of life was destroyed by their premature gloating about it.

PRO-TIP:  You can pretend to mourn thousands of dead if you're openly talking about how you'll profit from their demise before they even die.

They've also decided to go all-in on parroting Chi-Com propaganda regarding the spread of the Wuhan virus, which is never a good look.

Given the current dilapidated state of the US administrative state, the Trump administration's actions have been timely and appropriate.  I will also give a nod to Michigan's Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whose decision to close schools statewide was also correct.

The only way to get ahead of this thing is to shut things down early.  A single infected individual in a school building could immediately generate hundreds of additional cases.

Our ancestors understood this.  When travel was difficult, diseases could be contained with less disruption.  Closing the city gates and patrolling the countryside would often stop the outbreak.

The advent of steamships and railroads rendered this approach inadequate, hence the massive public measures taken in 1918.  Put simply, we cannot test or isolate individual cases to stop this thing.

This is why the Democrat howling about cutting travel routes is not only stupid but dangerous.  The only sure way to stop infection is to stop infected people from moving about, and to hell with the economic consequences.

Economies exist to serve people, not vice-versa.  This short-sighted and callous fixation on the bottom line is what hollowed out American industry, destroyed its working families and left us crippled and unable to meet our own pharmaceutical and medical needs.

The Quisling Never Trumpers have much to answer for in this regard.  Is it a "blessing of liberty" that Communist China can hold us hostage by refusing to provide the vital medications our own scientists developed? 

What dystopian author of years gone by could imagine that people we be so feckless, so stupid to allow the crowning glory of science to be sold off to a hostile and ambitious foreign power for stacks of paper - no, not even paper - electronic money?

In a just society, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush would be driven from public life, forced into overseas exile while a People's Tribunal would even now by rounding up the Obama administration officials who allowed this weakening to take place.

A nation that can't even provide medical masks for its own doctors is not even an independent state, let alone a superpower.

 

Seattle shooting vs Richmond demonstration

Nowhere is media bias more insidious than in prioritization given to various stories.

As noted, the Richmond Second Amendment demonstration was entirely without violence.  On cue, liberal outlets scrambling to claim that but for super-diligent law enforcement there would have been violence, and so we should still treat it as the significant threat it actually wasn't.

You know, the threat that left no one even injured.

Meanwhile, seven people were shot in Seattle last week, with one death and yet the national media is silent.

That's because they only care about crimes that fit their narrative.

"White Nationalism" is the essential myth to keep black voters from supporting Trump.  They are the Nazis under the bed that everyone should fear.

Actual violent criminals with dozens of arrests who somehow remain outside of jail and are able to obtain more guns and kill people with them?

Not important.

Murder rates are spiking in liberal jurisdictions - again, those are actual dead people.

Not they hypothetical dead people we are supposed to be worried about in Virginia, but real human beings with loved ones who now have their lives wrecked.

The media doesn't care about them.

The politicians don't care about them, either.

In the early days of this blog, there was much serious debate about whether gun control was an effective way to reduce crime.

It is now irrefutably clear that it doesn't.  Germany - that paragon of gun control - just had six people shot last week.

Gun control has never worked, anywhere.

Interestingly, the people pushing it no longer care.  Crime rates don't interest them. 

This is because gun control is about political control, not public safety.  Anyone who pretends otherwise is lying, stupid or both.

China's leadership failue

For the last three decades or so, we've been bombarded with stories about how China's brilliant leadership is running rings around the United States.

Some of these books and articles have made valid points, but a number have struck me as just the latest incarnation of the Yellow Peril, the inscrutable Menace from the East.

In many ways, China has played the West for saps, but it's now clear that this was because the West allowed it to happen.

It wasn't that China is led by geniuses, the West was simply being run by incompetent sell-outs.  Donald Trump's policies are not revolutionary or particularly brilliant, but they are effective.

Indeed, Trump's desire of preserving American manufacturing was once so obvious as to be unremarkable.  Both parties understood that a nation incapable of making its own arms and goods would be a helpless target for foreign aggression.  It was only in the halcyon and feckless years after the Cold War that elites convinced themselves that war was impossible and selling out to foreigners was the smart play.

China now has three serious crises to contend with. 

The first is the lingering rebellion of Hong Kong.  China should have taken care of this long ago, and its persistence is proof of the regimes ineptitude.  It also serves as a harbinger of worse risings to come.

The trade war has also gone badly for China.  When Trump put tariffs on manufacturing goods, China's response of retaliating against imported food was idiotic in the extreme.  Of course it failed because people need to eat.

Now we see yet another failure as a deadly disease threatens to kill tens of thousands of people.  China's response has been dilatory, opaque and inept.  The ostentatious quarantines complete with physical road blocks and frenzied hospital construction are nothing more than photo ops to show the regime is in control.

But it isn't.

One thing I've learned over the years is that traditional Chinese culture is largely gone.  Much play is given to the works of Sun Tzu, but it's clear that the ChiComs don't read the old boy any more.

If they did, they would know never to make a trial of strength in a city.

They would know that open confrontation in trade only works if you already have the upper hand, which includes the ability to feed your own people.

Finally, the ChiComs are violating the central tenet of his teachings that one must know oneself and know the enemy.

The Chinese know neither.  They lie to themselves all the time and they lie just as much about their enemies.  The regime has placed a premium on lying, which is why nothing can be trusted.

This is the great weakness of all totalitarian societies.  The leaders only want to hear good news, so that's all they get.

Reality has a way of asserting itself.

For all the mockery of the left and their Never Trump Quisling allies, Trump is an actual practitioner of Sun Tzu's arts.  He sees into the very hearts of his enemies and knows himself completely.  He plays to his strengths in every instance and will shift ground abruptly if he loses the advantage.

It is hard to imagine China collapsing.  It appears so strong, so formidable, but then again, so did the USSR.

In many ways, the question is not whether it will fall, but instead how much longer can the regime hang on?

Virginia Gun Rights Demonstration Totally Peaceful - Fake News Hardest Hit

The big story yesterday was the thing that didn't happen.

Gov. Klansman Blackface of Virginia, demanded extraordinary measures to contain the alleged white nationalists who were sure to descend on Richmond, bringing looting and violence.

You know, like leftist mobs do, only worse.

He even declared a pre-emptive state of emergency.

Alas, it was all for naught.  Around 20,000 citizens gathered peacefully, waved signs, posed for photos and then went home.

This of course reinforces the truth that law-abiding citizens pose zero threat to the public order.  Mountains of research prove this.  The notion that less guns = less crime has been refuted in every culture and every continent.  There is not a single example of gun control curtailing violence.

Why then do people push it?  The answer is partly that it's an emotional response, but increasingly it is yet another aspect of the authoritarian progressivism that deems to control the Democrat Party.

Their policies are increasing about punishing perceived enemies rather than improving the quality of life of the whole.

This is increasingly clear to normal Americans who are luke-warm at best on Donald Trump.  I suspect that will heavily influence voting come November.

Iran at bay

All last week the Democrats and their media allies did everything short of opening fire on the White House in their desperation to see Iran succeed.

Indeed, it was fascinating to see the two Dem candidates with military experience openly blaming Trump for Iran's clumsy and inept air defense system. 

The double standard is amazing.  If a US anti-aircraft battery shot down one of our airliners by mistake, there would be no attempt by the left to blame anyone but the leadership, including the president.  But when Iran does it, it's still Trump's fault.

Trump has apparently set the record for most likes for a Farsi-language post declaring his support for the people of Iran against their corrupt and murderous leaders.  This of course puts the Dems in the positions of backing a theocracy, no doubt in the name of "stability."

Weird how they channel Realpolitik whenever our enemies benefit.

I've seen accounts that the Iranians have detained the British ambassador, which would be yet another act of war.  This is a regime that is lashing out in desperation.  Trump has ended the charade that we aren't at war with the Mullahs, leaving them forced to take overt actions - which in turn invite overt responses.

Once again Trump is acting as a massive disrupter, shattering the corrupt status quo.

House Leader Nancy Pelosi has said that impeachment will forever taint Trump's term in office.  I think she has it exactly backwards.

If Trump succeeds in toppling the mullahs, bringing troops home from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, it is the Democrats who will be excoriated in history.

The Soleimani Fan Club

It's getting hard for the Deep State to surprise, but their Democrat minions is giving it the old college try this week.

How else to explain the growing number of "foreign policy/national security experts" positively gushing over one of America's greatest enemies?

No wonder this guy was arrogant enough to openly flaunt his presence wherever he want.  The US officials tasked with protecting us from him were actually his fan boys!

Donald Trump's decision to grease this terrorist is not going to start World War III, as the Dem-dominated media now hopes.  Instead, it's sending a shock wave from Tehran to Pyongyang, reminding them that the US is no longer run by weaklings dedicated to cutting America down to size.

While our Quisling Experts are busy pumping up Iran's ability to escalate, in fact there is little the Mad Mullahs can do.  The US has just declared open season on their operatives and in the short run, all their people are going to be too busy scurrying for cover to do anything else.

This also signals that the Israelis have greater freedom of action.  The same applies to the Saudis.

In short, Trump changed the rules of the game.

The old model of US troops and installations serving as passive targets while terrorists romp with impunity has been rightly discarded.  Here as with trade and immigration, Trump is throwing away one-sided rules that weaken America.

The great irony here is that far from starting World War III, he's likely preventing it by showing adversaries like China and North Korea that the US will strike back in unexpected and irresistible ways.

IMPEACH HIM AGAIN!  I do think the Dems pulling their chins about the legality of this is rich, given the Obama Administration's death by drone fetish.  Of course the House can impeach him a second time, but given they can't work up the energy to send the first impeachment to the Senate, that dog is unlikely to hunt.

2020 Starts with a Bang in Baghdad

Overnight, Iran tried to gin up a propaganda victory by attacking the US embassy compound in Iraq.  Local security forces stood down so that Iranian-controlled militias could do their dirty work.

As the news broke, the anti-American left and the Quisling Never Trumper (but I repeat myself) exalted that Donald Trump now had a Benghazi of his own.

Except that he didn't.  Trump responded quickly and resolutely.  Reinforcements have already arrived and others are on standby.

What was telling about this was not just the gloating over the potential deaths of fellow American soldiers and diplomats, but the fact that nominally pro-veteran individuals and organizations joined in.

Vote Vets is an astroturf sock-puppet organization created to serve as a club against George W. Bush.  Nominally non-partisan, its Twitter account openly expressed the hope that sufficient American corpses could be laid at Trump's feet to overshadow Obama's 2012 failure in Libya.

These people are sick.

Noted incompetent Ben Rhodes also tried to make hay over the incident, only to be slapped down when people properly pointed out that Iran's current activities were largely funded by the Obama administration's pallets of cash.

I sense that 2020 is going to see the trend of unmasking accelerate as the left burns through all of its artifices and strategms in a desperate attempt to remove Trump from office.  A second term - likely with pro-Trump majorities in both legislative chambers - is an extinction-level event for the Deep State.

We can only hope.