Posse Incitatus

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.

The Fake Impeachment Christmas

I've been posting less often these days simply because events are so pointless.

The Democrats have at last gone certifiably insane.  It is impossible to figure out their next move because logic, good policy and even self-interest are no longer factors in their decision-making.  I wonder if they're on  permanent cocaine binge.

The media is even worse, stomping all over its own narratives with wild abandon.  What was acceptable yesterday is now EEEEVIL today, but will be fine tomorrow, depending on what the new cycle demands.

For the last three years, President Trump has labored under the constant threat of impeachment.  We now know that his administration is the cleanest in American history.

We know this because the entire intelligence apparatus of the United States, working hand-in-hand with Australia and the United Kingdom, infiltrated and monitored every corner of it and continuing doing so until well after Trump was sworn into office.

Every communication, every device, every meeting, every action was meticulously recorded. 

No crimes could be found, not even misdemeanors.

In their desperation, the House Democrats are now demanding to breach attorney-client privilege, proving that they have zero respect for any legal principle.  They will stop at nothing to bring down Trump. 

To put it another way, an illegal immigrant has more rights in the US right now than the president.

The difficulty of course is that Trump's already been impeached.  The Senate will surely vote to acquit, leaving the House Dems out of ammunition.  Their new idea to impeach him again, perhaps monthly, until the election.

Surely this "unprecedented" action will move the American people to abandon him!

As I said: their actions have no logic or reason behind them.  The Dems would be better off electing a Magic Eight Ball as Speaker.

This is the time of year when I usually cut back on posting, and I will do so again, though given my current slacking, I don't expect the pace to change much.

My advice: turn off your devices and spend some quality time with real people talking about something besides politics.

Enjoy your Christmas Eve.

Gun control's brain-dead authoritarians - Virginia edition

A recurring theme of this blog is how the modern left has abandoned persuasion and now operates solely on the basis for intimidation.

They don't want you to fall in love, just fall in line.

Nowhere is this clearer than gun control.  This blog is old enough to have within its archives posts regarding intense academic debate on whether gun control achieves its stated objectives.

Since those days, the answer is clear: no, it doesn't.

Gun control cannot reduce violent crime in any measurable way and in fact is likely to increase it.  Barack Obama may lie through his teeth and say that public shootings are unique to the US, but incidents in Canada, the UK and Australia (to name but a few) prove otherwise.

It's increasingly clear that American gun control supporters have two objectives, both of which are entirely unrelated to public safety:

1. Punish demographics they dislike, and
2. Establish unquestioned state authority beyond any power of resistance.

When Congressman Eric Swalwell floated the possibility of using nuclear weapons on recalcitrant gun owners, he opened a window into the ugly contents of his petty authoritarian mind.  Swalwell obviously doesn't care about persuading anyone - he wants to bully them into  submission.

If they won't submit, he's willing to flirt with the thought of devastating those parts of the country he can't rule.  He's not alone on the left.

It is against this backdrop that the increasingly shrill threats coming from Virginia Democrats have to be analyzed.

Late last week, another idiot congresscritter hypothesized that in the event rural Virginia gun owners - and their local units of government - follow through with their pledges to resist state-ordained gun confiscation, the governor (Blackface and KKK costume enthusiast Ralph Northam) could simply call out the National Guard and arrest them all.

This in turn prompted the head of the Virginia National Guard to put out a statement to calm service members.

Apparently it didn't occur to any of the Dem blowhards that:

1. A number of Virginia National Guard armories are located in the same "sanctuary counties" they want to bring to heel, or that
2. A substantial amount of their soldiers and airmen own the firearms in question or have friends and family who do.

What makes this whole episode even more stupid is the fact that the laws in question don't even exist.  The new legislature has yet to be seated or do anything of note.

So this is all about bullying over hypothetical laws that may never be enacted.

Yet the Virginia Dems have managed to raise the specter of martial law over enforcing gun control.

Great job, guys.  Tell us again how "no one is going to come for your guns."

 

 

BoJo's win shows the power of the new conservatism

The old conservative coalition is dead.

Long live the new conservative coalition.

It seems the UK's Boris Johnson has duplicated Trump's winning electoral formula - a strong nationalism combined with highlighting the needs of the working class.

The stories are still rolling in, but a number of "ancestral" Labor seats were lost by the Tories gaining unexpected support from blue-collar and lower-income workers.

Brexit will soon be accomplished and following that, a new Anglo-American trade agreement to boost both economies.

Tighter controls in immigration will push wages higher, a benefit that is particularly pronounced at the lower end of the pay scale.

This represents yet another defeat for the globalists.  Ironically, these people fancy themselves progressive, if not socialist, but they are in fact advocates for the most rapacious form of capitalism since the slave trade.

In another sense, the Labour debacles is reminiscent of the current virtue spiral going on in the Democrat party.  Rather than seeking to win over the vital center, all of the Dem candidates are vying to be the most extreme.  They will likely garner a similar electoral result.