Monday, October 10, 2016
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for the West as it commits suicide.
James Burnham
Rudolph Giuliani: Trump is right about ‘stop and frisk.’ Lester Holt should apologize
If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.
Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983
“Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Immigration without assimilation is invasion.
The news media concentrates on locker room remarks made by Donald Trump a decade ago. Speaker Ryan decides it’s the most significant issue of the day.
Paul Ryan won’t defend or campaign for Trump ahead of election
A decision Monday by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to not campaign with or defend Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump through the November election sparked a public feud with his party’s standard bearer within a matter of hours, suggesting that a widening split within the GOP could reverberate long after the presidential race is decided.
Ryan’s move — and a blunt assessment of the race that he and other congressional leaders delivered during a conference call with House GOP lawmakers Monday morning — underscored the perilous choice Republican officials now face in the wake of Friday’s release of a 2005 videotape in which Trump made lewd comments about women. [clip]
I think there are more important issues in this election than whether Donald Trump unsuccessfully tried to seduce married woman ten years ago. He wouldn’t be the only President to have had raunchy relations with women before entering politics.
Hillary Clinton calls for no-fly zone in Syria
10/01/15 09:24 PM—Updated 10/01/15 09:37 PM
In an apparent break with the Obama White House, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called for the creation of a no-fly zone inside Syria Thursday, the day after Russian warplanes started bombing rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
“I personally would be advocating now for a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors to try to stop the carnage on the ground and from the air, to try to provide some way to take stock of what’s happening, to try to stem the flow of refugees,” Clinton said in an interview with NBC affiliate WHDH in Boston after a campaign event nearby.
U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that Russian planes had started bombing anti-Assad forces in Syria, but that they did not appear to be targeting Islamic State forces as promised. “I think Putin is playing a very dangerous and cynical game. He’s clearly doing everything he can to prop up Assad and to establish sort of a Russian presence in Syria and the broader Middle East,” Clinton added.[Snip]
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-calls-no-fly-zones-syria
This is brinkmanship, and risks war. America is superior to Russian and Iranian forces in numbers of aircraft and certainly so in production capacity, but in airpower local to the eastern Mediterranean, the Russians have the technological advantage. They have mobile Surface to Air systems superior to all but our very best and already deployed in the region.
The S-300V/S-300VM/VMK/Antey-2500 is the world’s only truly mobile Anti Ballistic Missile system, and later variants are claimed to be capable of intercepting 4.5 km/sec reentry speed targets. The large size of the Grill Pan phased array and TELAR command link and illuminator antennas is evident. The system provides the capability to engage very low RCS aircraft at ranges in excess of 100 nautical miles. Below: 9M82 Giant round The highly mobile Antey S-300V and S-300VM remain one of the most lethal area defence SAM systems ever developed, firing hypersonic missiles designed to engage aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
Designed from the outset for high mobility and effectiveness against targets at all altitudes, the S-300V would have been a key player in any late Cold War conflict. This weapon was developed to provide not only long range area defence, but also to engage and destroy ISR assets like the E-3 AWACS, E-8 JSTARS and U-2, and tactical jammers like the EF-111A Raven and EA-6B Prowler.
Note the capability against AWACS and JSTARS. Declaring a no-fly zone is a matter of words; imposing one is a matter of forces within 100 nautical miles.
We can’t afford more wars in the Middle East. We already owe — every man, woman, and child each owes – some $60,000. We can’t pay for another war.
We have chosen the anti-Slavic side in the European conflicts. We have allowed the invasion of Kosovo by Albanian refugees, then used the presence of those refugees to force the Serbians out of Kosovo. We then bombed Serbia and dropped the bridges over the lower Danube, destroying the economy of nations dependent on Danube transportation. We bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade; something the Chinese are unlikely to forget just as we have not forgotten attacks against our various embassies. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese love us, and our service to China in the Open Door era is long forgotten, as is our industrial contribution to Russia in the Second World War.
Imposing no-fly zones on Russia will be expensive if even possible.
There are other issues. The economy is “recovering” from the “Great Recession”, but after 8 years of enormous budgets and doubling the national debt, it seems like a depression to a great number of Americans who don’t have jobs but officially are not unemployed.
The schools are an act of war against the people of the United State; actually an act of war of the federal government against the children in both the states and the District of Columbia. If we knew how to build great schools by spending lots of money, the DC school system should be a model for all the world; I submit that it is not.
The present administration acquired more debt than all the previous presidents from the founding of the republic, and there are no signs of slowing down deficit spending.
We have the most regulated society in our history, making it impossible for new businesses to start up with burning capital for compliance officers.
We have the question of open borders including refugees.
I could go on, but I submit these are more important issues than a locker room seduction story told ten years ago. Sure it was raw, and embarrassing. We would rather have a President who was more dignified. But after all, he was a Democrat when he told that story. Now he knows better.
Missing voters
It’s not just sloth or disinterest at the root of the ‘unregistered’ white voters. Not in my case.
I’ve lived in the same town for thirty-four years, voted in over 90% of the elections and in this heavily Democrat town sometimes my ballot was a very thin gruel. But I never thought about the need to register because I was registered. I thought.
After my wife’s passing, the thought occurred to me that I should ensure that her name was removed from the voter registration rolls. As the old joke goes; My grandmother lived in Chicago for twenty-five years and always voted for the GOP, then for the last five years she started voting for the Democrats, What changed? She died. So I did that and a few years later I went back to check that she was still not listed. She wasn’t, but then neither was I.
The bland and thin explanation was that periodically they purge the rolls of ‘inactive voters’. I’m sure that they are careful to purge the ‘inactive’ Democrats as well as the Republicans and in my case Independents. Not only had I voted in the last town election, but I was a poll worker and waved a sign outside the polls. I was the one guy with a red sign against the half dozen with blue signs. Of course, the half dozen were all union members, who were happy to comment that ‘They’ were all getting paid for their time.
Perhaps it’s why we haven’t been able to fit our problems in this country at the ballot box, it’s the old struggle of individual piece work against the ‘Machine’.
For what it’s worth, I’ll be back at Town Hall the week before the election with my water bill in hand, and while I’m there I’ll check to see if I’m still ‘Inactive’. Again.
Good on yer.
Trump = more wars in the Middle East
“We can’t afford more wars in the Middle East. We already owe — every man, woman, and child each owes – some $60,000. We can’t pay for another war.”
Donald Trump committed himself to another war in the Middle East, this time against ISIS. He said so in the debate the other night. He was very clear on the subject.
I only point this out because you’ve spent months, now, convincing yourself to vote for this man using all the intellectual rationalisations at your disposal. It’s been fascinating to watch.
Please, however, do not consider me intentionally impolite or disrespectful. I grew up reading your books and regard you very highly. I’m just a little bemused over the whole Trump thing.
But perhaps it’s none of my business. I live in the UK. I voted to Remain because I don’t want trade tariffs, I think free movement of people and goods are both good and beneficial things, I want to work and play across the continent without encountering unnecessary bureaucratic barriers, I like my European Health Insurance Card because I think the idea is very civilised, I like the protections granted to the populace by a supra-national regulatory body that reigns in the vicissitudes of each new government, and provides welcome oversight of our leaders because, frankly, I don’t trust any of them and prefer that they exist as small fish in a big pond, not big dictatorial fish in a small pond. And, finally, as a student of history I appreciate the fact that Europe has been quite peaceful all these years, and that closer union between the member states helped that a lot.
However, I’d take a so-called ‘Hard Brexit’ over Trump, any day. Hillary is a text-book politician of the kind we’ve had in the UK and Europe since the year dot. She lies, she manoeuvres, she games the system and so what? It’s called politics. We in the Old World don’t have the luxury of voting for people who are pure in word and deed. We don’t even subscribe to such fallacies. We deal with the situation as it is and make the best choice we can, with our eyes open and no illusions to cloud our judgement about the messy, dirty business called governance. We do not demand that our politicians be pure, we demand that they be competent. Trump went bankrupt 13 times! Does that make him competent? Trump didn’t pay his taxes, but is now asking to be elected to a position in which his job will be to spend other peoples taxes! Doesn’t that make him a hypocrite?
As I said, I mean no disrespect. I hope you won’t interpret my remarks as polemical for its own sake. I simply struggle to understand the appeal of Trump. Is he just not Hillary? In which case, the Republican party has really gone to the dogs if the biggest selling point of their candidate is that he’s not someone else.
Regards,
Mike Ranson
You are of course correct: I should have been more clear.
I maintain that we are now in a war with ISIS, so we cannot avoid it; and if we do have to have war, I prefer it to be on other people’s territory. We stuck our fingers into the hornets’ nest once too often. Fortunately, this is an already declared war (they declared it; we haven’t reciprocated, but we’re in it all the same). What we do with that must be decided, but it won’t be cheap, and it will not go away. I have said this so often that I weary of repeating it, but of course I should have done so, Clinton, like Obama, has no idea of what we should do. Mr. Trump might manage to get the Saudis to pay much of the cost, and give some of the benefits of victory to Jordon, thus working to restore the balance lost when we eliminated Iraq from the balance of power. Trump wisely does not discuss specific tactics, but we must restore some balance of power to the Middle East, and it is clear that Mr. Obama does not know how to do this.
If you want it all done by the UK, I encourage you to do it; it affects you more than us. On the other hand, we are natural allies, and the UK enjoys a privileged position in American hopes and dreams; and Middle East stability is desirable for us; not that it matters because we are already in a declared (by the Caliphate) war anyway. At this point we get deeper into grand strategy than I care to go at this time.
You don’t like Trump, but you aren’t asked to. He pays all legal obligations of taxes; you may be certain of that. So do the Clintons. I should have made it clear in the above that I am not advocating full isolationism; merely that we conduct our affairs with a view to our own interest, and recognize that we are not omnipotent, and with our debts we are no longer so rich.
Thank you for your views, and for reminding me of the ambiguity; we are already in a war with ISIS even if we do not act as if we are. Do understand, we have no choice but to finish the war we are in; I wish we didn’t have to. What I want is to avoid new ones, particularly in Europe. The world is a far more dangerous place now than when Mr. Obama took office. I do not think Mrs. Clinton has much notion of how to get out of this situation. She certainly did not exhibit an understanding of world affairs when she was Secretary of State.
Trump = more wars in the Middle East
We can not afford any wars today (we are dead broke). But we have them. Obama is busy having us supply (covertly) the weapons to overthrow Assad. (and since we are not defending ourselves that is a war crime — but who pays attention to the sovereign treaties that we sign.
Back in my day I was baby sitting 48 hydrogen bombs north of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile we were fighting a war that LBJ started as a result of an erroneous report of an attack on destroyers that were involved in covert operations. Even though a correcting message was sent LBJ pushed Congress into a war declaration.
Today we have Obama supplying weapons to overthrow Assad (with the help from the UK and France) because he will not allow a pipeline through the country. We bomb the enemy after telling him we are going to attack, but somehow miss our targets and hit the government forces. We airdrop weapons but miss our target and give them to Al Qaida (which in the CIA dictionary means “base” but colloquially means toilet – what self respecting army would call itself the toilet?) . This is a war of deception, but the people being deceived are the American public. So Trump wants to end the war (that we are already “fighting”)– decisively. The way the Romans ended the Punic wars – no Carthage.
Clinton on the other hand wants to start a new war – with Iran. Now we have been having a covert war with Iran for years – billions spent funding the terrorist groups in Iran, sabotage on the industrial facilities along with Israel. Murdering their researchers. – but no overt warfare. But Russia has now started to defend the Iranian state because it sees that it is also in our target list and would prefer to have a war outside its territory. The trouble is that war will not stay contained. It will go nuclear just like the Cuba missile crisis nearly went nuclear. Kennedy had IRBMs based in Turkey but felt it was impossible to let the Soviets have similar missiles on our doorstep. So he threated a blockade and invasion. Not knowing that the Soviet general had nuclear weapons on site and permission to use them if attacked. So officially the crisis was averted by the Soviets pulling back. No one mentioned that we also pulled our missiles from Turkey.
As Pogo says “ We have met the enemy, and he is us”.
Earl
We got out of the Cold War without any nukes going off. I count that a success, even if we later abandoned an ally in an invasion from the North. Korea was fortunate: their North State had a close and believable protector; North Viet Nam had to depend on luck and their Soviet allies. Fortunately, for them, domestic US politics prevented US intervention in their last massive invasion. Most American schools now pretend that Viet Nam fell to locals in black pajamas, rather than to massive invasion from the North.
Second Debate
I haven’t often made comments here of a political nature, but, well, things being what they are . . .
Every professional career politician — and those who serve their interests — knows that image means everything and substance means nothing. That’s an important thing to keep in mind as we see all the campaign messages. The most important task for the politician is to win the current election and prepare to win the next one. That means creating the most favorable image for him/herself and the most negative, destructive image of the opponent.
Nothing new here.
What we are seeing in the most recent “revelation” about Donald Trump is simply an illusion created by the Clinton campaign and their media cohorts. It is the illusion that the man in the 11-year-old video is the same person as the man who is running for President.
And it has worked, at least to an extent. Witness Jason Chaffetz, John McCain, and Paul Ryan’s self-righteous rescinding of their “support” of Trump. In reality, these people — and others of their ilk — have been living with deep-seated angst ever since Trump walked away with their party’s nomination. Horrors! Now they can pretend to have principles, which, conveniently, allow them to bail on Trump while creating the image (illusion) of still being loyal to their party.
Where were their principles when they passed Obama’s budget request without making any significant changes, giving the minority party everything they wanted. Every. Single. Thing. And much else besides. Is this what they think they were elected to do — act just like the Democrats they replaced? Did the Democrats take Republican’s wishes into account when they were in the majority? This whole matter, taking everything into account, crisply illustrates the farce that is the GOP’s OB club — the GOPe, or Republican establishment. Some have openly declared that they will vote for Hillary.
I, for one, am far more troubled by what Hillary has actually done than by what Trump has only said.
It is to be hoped that the millions who voted for Trump in the primaries will join their local Republican clubs and take control of the party away from these imposters.Richard
Establishments die hard.
Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.
