Archive for 2017
October 6, 2017
BIG BADDA-BOOM: Why Tactical Nuclear Weapons Are Still A Thing.
Tactical nukes are a vital part of the deterrence mix. If Superpower A only has strategic nukes, then Rogue Nation B might be tempted to risk using a tactical nuke (or chemical weapon) of his own, gambling that Superpower A wouldn’t risk Global Thermonuclear War over a non-strategic nuclear matter. If Superpower A has the ability to respond in a “smaller” way, more in kind, and with less risk of escalation, then Rogue Nation B ought to be deterred into keeping their nukes holstered.
SEE, IF YOU’RE NOT SERIOUS ABOUT FRACKING, YOU’RE NOT SERIOUS ABOUT INDEPENDENCE: Fracking Fails in Scotland.
England may be tentatively embracing shale drilling once again, but Scotland is taking a more wary approach. Earlier this summer Britain drilled the vertical shaft of its first shale well since 2011, when the country issued a moratorium on fracking following a series of small magnitude earthquakes. This week, Scotland energy minister Paul Wheelhouse announced that his country would extend its own moratorium on fracking indefinitely.
Wheelhouse pointed to an overwhelming negative response from the public, when asked for comment about fracking.
But that’s not the only problem:
But the biggest problem for Scottish shale is geologic in nature: there just isn’t that much oil or gas to frack. According to the British Geological Survey, Scotland contains just 80 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, a far cry from the 622 trillion cubic feet here in the United States. The upside just isn’t there.
Add Scotland to the long list of countries where exporting the American shale experience has been unsuccessful. The U.S. energy revolution has been churning for nearly a decade, and yet commercial production elsewhere has been scant, despite the fact that vast reserves of shale gas and tight oil can be found around the world. The longer shale continues to be a uniquely American experience, the more we can appreciate just how many variables had to go just right to get it off the ground.
American exceptionalism.
FIRST SIX WORDS ARE AN EVERGREEN HEADLINE. Be skeptical of Ken Burns’ documentary: The Vietnam War.
Reading the lengthy blog post by former Cobra helicopter gunship pilot Terry Garlock, it sounds like Burns’ documentary was created as part of the PBS Full Employment act for Media Myth Alert blogger and author W. Joseph Campbell.
Related: Vietnam Veterans for Factual History.
The Hollywood mogul thinks that shadowy right wing forces are ‘out to get me’ and that he is being targeted for his liberal views.
In an echo of his close friend Hillary Clinton’s notorious claim that ‘a vast right-wing conspiracy’ was out to get her and her husband, the Democratic supporter is making the claim to those around him – despite his admission
Weinstein believes a team of lawyers linked to conservative groups have been digging up dirt on him and that other prominent Democrat supporters will be attacked next.
The Oscar-winning founder of film company Miramax was accused of reaching at least eight settlements with women for inappropriate behaviour going back three decades in a bombshell investigation by the New York Times.
He is said to have asked Ashley Judd to watch him shower and paid Rose McGowan $100,000 under a settlement for an incident shortly before her breakthrough role in ‘Scream’.
The right wing is deeply sorry for having dressed up as Weinstein and forcing Ashley Judd to watch us shower, and we regret the error.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, “SHOULD WE REALLY BE TAX-EXEMPT AS NONPARTISAN?” EDITION: The president of the University of North Texas personally attempted to derail a scheduled talk by Donald Trump, Jr., according to emails sent to faculty members who raised objections to the privately-sponsored speech.
THEY KNEW ABOUT HIS BEHAVIOR — BECAUSE, APPARENTLY, EVERYONE KNEW — BUT HE WAS USEFUL AND AS POLITICIANS THEY HAVE NO ACTUAL VALUES OR PRINCIPLES BEYOND POWER: Harvey Weinstein Harassment Claims Put Obamas, Clintons in Tough Spot.
SENATOR TOM COTTON: ‘Willing’ to Give Administration, Allies More Than 60 Days to Try for ‘Better’ Iran Deal.
RELATED, FROM STEPHEN HAYES AND MICHAEL WARREN: The art of decertifying the Iran deal.
What happens after decertification is a precarious balancing act if the president hopes to succeed in renegotiating a better deal that achieves the U.S. goal of preventing a nuclear Iran. There are a lot of things Trump and his administration could do to try to improve the deal before deciding whether to scrap it altogether. As Mark Dubowitz and David Albright put it in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, these include: designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, slapping Iranian companies and organizations with new non-nuclear sanctions allowed under the JCPOA, insisting on making permanent the “sunset clauses” that only temporarily restrict Iran’s nuclear program and testing, and demanding thorough and complete inspections of Iranian facilities to ensure compliance. In his Council on Foreign Relations speech, Tom Cotton echoed these ideas.
Success on this post-decertification route will require working closely with Congress, negotiating with European allies who have economic interests in Iran and want to expand them, and follow-through and commitment on the part of the administration. John Bolton tells TWS he’s highly skeptical of the news reports of this plan. “What’s been described is an incoherent policy mishmash,” says Bolton, who was candid in his criticism of Tillerson, Mattis, and McMaster’s guidance of the president toward recertification back in July. “If they failed to present the president with the full range of policy options, it is—and I say this wittingly—a dereliction of duty.” If Trump begins to feel this way again, he could upend the difficult path forward for improving the deal.
It’s the worst of all possible deals, locked in by Russian and Chinese intransigence and our own foreign policy and national security establishments.
Thanks, Obama.
FROM MY COLLEAGUE JONATHAN ROHR AND YESHIVA UNIVERSITY’S AARON WRIGHT: Blockchain-Based Token Sales, Initial Coin Offerings, and the Democratization of Public Capital Markets. Download it early and often!
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Gov. Jerry Brown signs bill, makes California a sanctuary state.
Old and busted: Confederate-era Democrats believe they can pick and choose which federal laws they wish to enforce.
The new hotness? Err, pretty much the same in the Trump era.
RENT-SEEKERS GOTTA SEEK RENTS: Despite a May ruling declaring the ban unconstitutional, Wisconsin continued to target home bakers.
According to the state attorney-general’s office, Judge Duane Jorgenson’s ruling only applied to the three women who had challenged the baked-good rules in court: Dela Ends, Lisa Kivirist, and Kris Marion, all farmers and bakers who wanted the right sell homemade goods directly to consumers. They filed a lawsuit last year with help from the nonprofit Institute for Justice (IJ).
Today, Jorgenson issued an opinion clarifying that no, the ruling was not limited to letting Ends, Kivirist, and Marion peddle home-baked foods, but applied to all entrepreneurs like them in the state.
“This is more than a win for us home-based bakers,” said Kivirist, “it’s recognition that all small businesses have the right to earn an honest living free from irrational government regulation.”
Kudos to Judge Jorgenson for delivering a swift kick to the state attorney general’s office behind, which seems to be in thrall to Big Bakeries.
THE WALKING DEEP STATE DEAD: The rotting corpse of Wisconsin’s John Doe investigation still stinks.
You may recall the two John Doe investigations of Scott Walker, his supporters and almost the entire Wisconsin conservative movement. It was a nasty, vicious investigation which saw military-style raids in the middle of the night.
There was John Doe No. 1, investigating Scott Walker’s time as Milwaukee County Executive. They never came up with any wrongdoing by him.
Then there was John Doe No. 2, regarding Walker’s alleged unlawful collusion with conservative groups during the recall election. It is John Doe No. 2 that has generated litigation over several years. In the end, every court that ruled on the issue found that the entire prosecution legal theory was legally unfounded — that even if these conservative groups did what they were alleged to have done, it was constitutionally protected speech and not illegal.
Lives were ruined over an attempt to punish constitutionally protected speech by conservatives.
Read the whole thing.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Las Vegas Massacre Update and Much, Much, More.
THE “INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY” JUST KEEPS LOOKING WORSE: Russian hackers stole NSA tools using Kaspersky antivirus: report.
Russian state hackers stole a collection of National Security Agency hacking tools and other documents from the personal computer of an agency contractor who had taken the classified documents home from work, reports The Wall Street Journal.
The reported breach took place in 2015 but wasn’t discovered until spring of last year.
The Journal reports that the hackers identified the documents through Kaspersky Lab antivirus software. The Department of Homeland Security recently barred federal agencies from using Kaspersky products due to security concerns but has been tight-lipped about what intelligence linked the popular, Moscow-based computer security firm to specific intelligence operations.
I mean, who does supersecret intelligence work and puts Russian antivirus software on his computer? Dumbasses, I guess, who seem to be plentiful.
THIS IS CNN: Vegas Shooting Because America ‘Silently Accepting the Rage of White Men.’
Why are Democrat-monopoly institutions such cesspits of racism?
WHENEVER YOU SEE A BUNCH OF HOLLYWOOD TYPES TALKING FEMINISM ON AN AWARDS SHOW, remember that they knew about Harvey Weinstein and didn’t say anything, because they valued their careers more than their alleged principles.
Related (From Ed): Huffington Post picks wrong day to quit sniffing glue and running stories headlined, “New Project Asks Fathers To Talk To Their Daughters About Feminism.”
WASSERMAN-SHULTZGATE UPDATE: Lawyer For IT Aide Says Dem Congressmen To Blame For Falsified Spending Records.
House Democrats ordered the systematic falsification of records showing how they spend their taxpayer-provided office budgets, according to lawyers for two former House information technology (IT) aides.
It’s a remarkable accusation that pits sitting lawmakers against the former aides, Imran Awan, his brothers Abid and Jamal, and his wife Hina Alvi. Imran was arrested in July while trying to board a flight to Pakistan, and then indicted on four counts of bank fraud involving moving money to that country. Imran and Hina, who was also indicted, face a court date Friday.
One of Imran’s lawyers, Aaron Page, acknowledged the invoicing discrepancy Aug. 21, telling The Daily Caller News Foundation, “This is just how things have been done for forever. This is what experienced members of Congress expect: to expedite things, they adjust the pricing.”
The swamp just keeps getting deeper.
THE HILL: Momentum builds for bump stock ban.
I have to echo what SayUncle said yesterday: Even if the NRA goes along, the GOP will lose a lot of support from gun owners if it enacts a ban without getting something for gun rights in return. A national carry reciprocity requirement would be good. There are other possibilities. But there needs to be something.
SHOT: May’s troubles inspired pity – but she needed to inspire Britain.
Theresa May may not have the love of her party. But she has its admiring, horrified sympathy.
If her speech today had been precisely choreographed to act as a metaphor for her premiership, it could not have been more perfect.
A bright, confident start. A sudden disruption (via a “comedian” with a P45). The whole thing plunging off the rails, as May’s voice went from strong and stable to weak and wobbly.
The PM struggling on, even as many in the audience were begging her to stop. Equilibrium just about restored, but still the sense that the whole thing could fall apart at any point. And then – just when she thought she’d got through it, the slogan behind her starting to fall apart.
CHASER? YES, THAT WAS A METAPHOR FOR SOMETHING: The Tories are giving Jeremy Corbyn a clear run at No 10.
Corbyn is now the bookies’ favourite to be the next prime minister. He has Theresa May to thank for this change in his fortunes. It was her decision to call an early election that allowed him to turn things around. Up to this point, Corbyn — for all his grassroots adulation — had been a bit of a Westminster joke: 172 of his own MPs had previously declared that they had no confidence in him. But his internal critics, who wanted to ensure there was no stab-in-the-back narrative, stayed silent this time. Corbyn was free to fight a campaign where low expectations worked in his favour.
Helped by Tory divisions, Corbyn has consolidated his position since the election. Voters have hardly recoiled on realising how close to power he is. Instead, Labour is still polling at 40 per cent or above.
May is no Thatcher and Corbyn is no Blair — Britain’s mood may be swinging dangerously Left.
WHY LATE-NIGHT TV GOT GRIM AND POLITICAL: “If the big, broad, general audience you used to have is gone, and deep down you think it’s never coming back, then why not make a harder bid for the loyalty of the smaller audience you’ve got left? . . . What were once cultural institutions with a broad, bipartisan audience are becoming niche players with a narrow fan base. They no longer view partisan politics as a dangerous move that will shrink their audience. Instead, they’re using partisan politics as a lure to secure the loyalty of their audience, or what is left of it.”
PAUL MIRENGOFF: Harry Reid’s role in the Menendez scandal. “Earlier this week, former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified in the corruption trial of former Senator Robert Menendez. According to Sebelius, she was pulled into an ‘unusual’ meeting regarding an $8.9 million billing dispute between Menendez’s friend and benefactor, Dr. Salomon Melgen, and Medicare. The meeting occurred in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with Reid present.”
BUCKLEY MUST BE SPINNING IN HIS GRAVE: Yale Student Suggests Chelsea Manning for Buckley Society ‘Disinvitation Dinner.’