DUE PROCESS? WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ DUE PROCESS: Campus Police Adopt ‘Guilty Until Proven Innocent’ Approach To Rape Accusations.
Archive for 2017
June 29, 2017
IT WOULD BE THE WORST THING TO HAPPEN TO OBAMACARE SINCE OBAMA SIGNED IT INTO LAW: What happens if the health care bill doesn’t pass?
NEW YORK TIMES SAYS HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO AMERICA WITH MOST NEW YORK TIMES HOT-DOG TASTING EVER: “Happy birthday, America! If you enjoy only additive-free, all-beef hot dogs and live within several blocks of a Whole Foods, here’s the list for you!”, Mary Katharine Ham writes.
But now that Jeff Bezos owns Whole Foods, why is the New York Times sending their readers to a place that help keep the lights on at the Washington Post?
CENSORSHIP: Canadian Supreme Court Says It’s Fine To Censor The Global Internet; Authoritarians & Hollywood Cheer. Hollywood is a reliable friend to dictators.
ANDREW MALCOLM: A Frustrated Tillerson Said To Erupt In White House Meeting.
Tillerson has come under criticism for slow staffing in Foggy Bottom. But many of his selections have been vetoed by the White House as Democrats or, worse, Republicans who opposed Trump. Johnny DeStafano is in charge of the clearing operation, which is standard procedure for any president.
Last Friday Tillerson’s frustrations apparently came to a head during a White House meeting in Priebus’ office, according to four unidentified Politico sources. Tillerson, the 65-year-old former emperor of the Exxon empire, blew up at the 38-year-old one-time aide to John Boehner questioning the secretary’s judgment and opposing his picks.
According to Tillerson, Trump promised him autonomy in his department appointments.
If personnel is policy, not having personnel is…?
SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: Hallelujah! Only Three More Years of Climate Hectoring, Steve Hayward quips at Power Line:
The climatistas have issued this definitive declaration:
World has three years to save humanity from climate change, warn experts
Read the whole thing, and note that the above headline Steve quotes appeared in the London Independent, source of this classic prediction from 2000:
A half-century of playing Chicken Little, and climate “scientists” wonder why nobody trusts them. Personally, I blame the Frisbee ion.
NOAH ROTHMAN: The Syria next door.
As Maduro continues to shed the confidence of Venezuelan power brokers, the talk of a military coup has grown louder and louder. The head of a group of exiled Venezuelan officers, former National Guard Lieutenant Jose Colina, told The Telegraph that the regime’s support rests on the shoulders of a handful of politically loyal army officers. The unreliable ones are being sent to the provinces or are being disposed of in other, grislier ways. “The government is purging the armed forces as it anticipates having to use the army to repress growing street protests,” said retired Admiral Ivan Carruto.
While there are no outward signs of dissent against the government, Reuters revealed that recruiting for the military and police is becoming more difficult. The Telegraph reported that, according to exiled sources, some 5,000 officers have left the Venezuelan army and could make up the backbone of paramilitary forces in the event of a putsch. The stability of government is, however, due entirely to the fact that most of the army remains loyal to it. A coup attempt with sufficient support could fail. If it did, it would likely result in a civil war.
The prospect of a protracted Syrian-style conflict in the Americas seems an event for which policymakers in the United States are ill-prepared. Such a scenario would mean the implosion of a country rich with oil resources, a state flush with government-backed narcotics traffickers, money, and weapons.
Interesting times.
WELL, THE “INTERNET OF THINGS” IS BASICALLY A WELCOME-MAT FOR HACKERS. Personal Transportation Gadgets: Hot. Integrated Smart Home IoT: Not.
WELL, YES: McMaster Points To Obama’s ‘Premature Disengagement’ For Current Afghan Mess.
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster cast blame for the dire current situation in Afghanistan on the previous administration’s handling of the war effort, while speaking at a Center for New American Security conference Wednesday.
The national security advisor’s comments came during an answer to a question as to how increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan can change the tide of the war. McMaster pointed to former President Barack Obama’s “precipitous withdrawal” from Iraq and subsequent development of the Islamic State as an example of what the Trump administration intended not to do in Afghanistan.
The Taliban have made unprecedented gains across Afghanistan since the end of the U.S. combat mission in 2014, controlling nearly a third of the population. The U.S. backed Afghan National Security Forces have borne massive casualties in the last two years of fighting and continue to suffer from major systematic problems.
Obama’s legacy has been self-inflicted defeat everywhere we faced Islamist terror. Plus, some history, worth repeating again:
IT’S TRUE. HE LACKED COURAGE AND INTELLECT. Obama whines he just didn’t ‘have the tools’ to act on Syria.
Well, here’s some history for you:
Rachel Maddow Tries to Rewrite History of Obama ‘Ending the War’ in Iraq.
Flashback: No Doubt About It — We’re Back in a Ground War in Iraq.
Without much fanfare, Obama has dramatically reversed his Iraq policy — sending thousands of troops back in the country after he declared the war over, engaging in ground combat despite initially promising that his strategy “will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.” Well, they’re on foreign soil, and they’re fighting.
It would have been easier — and would have cost far fewer lives — if we had just stayed. But Obama had to have a campaign issue.
And I suppose I should repeat my Iraq War history lesson: Things were going so well as late as 2010 that the Obama Administration was bragging about Iraq as one of its big foreign policy successes.
In the interest of historical accuracy, I think I’ll repeat this post again:
BOB WOODWARD: Bush Didn’t Lie About WMD, And Obama Sure Screwed Up Iraq In 2011.
[Y]ou certainly can make a persuasive argument it was a mistake. But there is a time that line going along that Bush and the other people lied about this. I spent 18 months looking at how Bush decided to invade Iraq. And lots of mistakes, but it was Bush telling George Tenet, the CIA director, don’t let anyone stretch the case on WMD. And he was the one who was skeptical. And if you try to summarize why we went into Iraq, it was momentum. The war plan kept getting better and easier, and finally at the end, people were saying, hey, look, it will only take a week or two. And early on it looked like it was going to take a year or 18 months. And so Bush pulled the trigger. A mistake certainly can be argued, and there is an abundance of evidence. But there was no lying in this that I could find.
Plus:
Woodward was also asked if it was a mistake to withdraw in 2011. Wallace points out that Obama has said that he tried to negotiate a status of forces agreement but did not succeed, but “A lot of people think he really didn’t want to keep any troops there.” Woodward agrees that Obama didn’t want to keep troops there and elaborates:
Look, Obama does not like war. But as you look back on this, the argument from the military was, let’s keep 10,000, 15,000 troops there as an insurance policy. And we all know insurance policies make sense. We have 30,000 troops or more in South Korea still 65 years or so after the war. When you are a superpower, you have to buy these insurance policies. And he didn’t in this case. I don’t think you can say everything is because of that decision, but clearly a factor.
We had some woeful laughs about the insurance policies metaphor. Everyone knows they make sense, but it’s still hard to get people to buy them. They want to think things might just work out, so why pay for the insurance? It’s the old “young invincibles” problem that underlies Obamcare.
Obama blew it in Iraq, which is in chaos, and in Syria, which is in chaos, and in Libya, which is in chaos. A little history:
As late as 2010, things were going so well in Iraq that Obama and Biden were bragging. Now, after Obama’s politically-motivated pullout and disengagement, the whole thing’s fallen apart. This is near-criminal neglect and incompetence, and an awful lot of people will pay a steep price for the Obama Administration’s fecklessness.
Related: National Journal: The World Will Blame Obama If Iraq Falls.
Related: What Kind Of Iraq Did Obama Inherit?
Plus, I’m just going to keep running this video of what the Democrats, including Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton, were saying on Iraq before the invasion:
Because I expect a lot of revisionist history over the next few months.
Plus: 2008 Flashback: Obama Says Preventing Genocide Not A Reason To Stay In Iraq. He was warned. He didn’t care.
And who can forget this?
FACT: President Obama kept his promise to end the war in Iraq. Romney called the decision to bring our troops home “tragic.”
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 22, 2012
Yes, I keep repeating this stuff. Because it bears repeating. In Iraq, Obama took a war that we had won at a considerable expense in lives and treasure, and threw it away for the callowest of political reasons. In Syria and Libya, he involved us in wars of choice without Congressional authorization, and proceeded to hand victories to the Islamists. Obama’s policy here has been a debacle of the first order, and the press wants to talk about Bush as a way of protecting him. Whenever you see anyone in the media bringing up 2003, you will know that they are serving as palace guard, not as press.
Related: Obama’s Betrayal Of The Iraqis.
Plus: Maybe that Iraq withdrawal was a bad thing in hindsight. Obama’s actions, if not his words, suggest that even he may think so.
ROBERT SPENCER: When a Gay Playwright Discovers Islamic Jihad.
BETTERIDGE’S LAW OF HEADLINES SHALL NOT BE BROKEN: Will the media learn from CNN’s mistakes? Prepare to be disappointed.
WHEN ROCK AND ROLL GOES PLUG AND PLAY: How Replacement Vocalists Saved Four of Rock’s Finest.
Though this article has nothing on the story of how Eric “Stumpy Joe” Childs kept Spinal Tap going after John “Stumpy” Pepys mysteriously died in a “best left unsolved” gardening accident.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Islamist Minotaur.
POTEMKIN FLEET: Russian Navy To Build Nuclear Powered Destroyer and New Aircraft Carrier.
Or perhaps not:
“The project will be developed by the Severnoye design bureau. The Russian Navy will undoubtedly have large surface ships with a nuclear propulsion unit. The Lider undoubtedly won’t be the sole one in the series,” Navy deputy commander-in-chief for armaments Vice-Admiral Viktor Bursuk told reporters at the International Maritime Defense Show (IMDS-2017) on Wednesday, June 28, according to the Moscow-based TASS News Agency.
The massive 15,000-ton warship is being designed to replace many of Russia’s existing Soviet-era surface warships including the Udaloy I (Project 1155 Fregat), Udaloy II (Project 1155.1 Fregat II) and the Sovremennyy-class (Project 956 Sarych) destroyers. The vessel might also partially replace the Kirov-class (Project 1144 Orlan) nuclear-power battlecruisers in Russian Navy service.
However, analysts both in the United States and in Russia—as well as defense industry officials—have doubts that the Lider-class will ever actually be built.
The Russian Navy does not really have a genuine need for the vessels and the ships are expected to be extremely expensive.
“So from the words of the admiral, it follows that the project is not yet finalized, and these are only ‘wishes’,” one Russian defense industry official told me.
“My opinion is that it will be another ‘white elephant’ in addition to the Project 1144 ships.”
And that planned carrier? Even if it is built, it won’t be deployed before 2030. And even then — and this has always been a kink in Russia’s plans to be maritime power — it would have to pass through narrow waters guarded by Western air bases before it ever reached the open seas.
UNEXPECTEDLY: Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble, the New York Times reports.
Funny how that always seems to happen whenever a region moves further and further to the left. It’s just bad luck, I guess. And note this quote:
“More and more, there is a sense of futility,” said Anson Chan, the second-highest official in the Hong Kong government in the years before and after the handover to Chinese rule. She blames Beijing’s interference for the city’s woes. “We have this enormous giant at our doorstep,” she said, “and the rest of the world does not seem to question whatever the enormous giant does.”
Not least of which, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, who in 2009 praised the “great advantages” of one-party autocracy, “led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today.”
THE BEST DEFENSE: Six held in Spain, UK and Germany in anti-jihadist raids.
The suspects are said to have produced and spread violent videos to recruit would-be jihadist Fighters online.
One was a 43-year-old Islamic preacher from Birmingham.
He was arrested in the city’s Sparkhill area under a European Arrest Warrant and later appeared in court in London.
The man was identified as Tarik Chadlioui, a Belgian-Moroccan father of eight children who arrived in the UK in 2015. As he challenged a Spanish extradition request, the judge told him he was alleged to be a member of a terrorist organisation who was actively engaged in terrorist activities.
Of course, six isn’t even a speck at the point on the tip of the iceberg.
On a related note, how many native Belgian fathers have eight children?
HOW LONG CAN HUMANS LIVE? “Hekimi said the takeaway of the study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is, ‘that no plateau in the increase in maximum human lifespan can currently be observed.'”
TRUE — BUT THAT’S SETTING BAR AWFULLY LOW: Why James O’Keefe Is a More Honest Journalist than the MSM, Roger Simon writes.
TRANSMIT THAT TO VLADIMIR: Mattis Says Russia Must Know ‘What We Will Not Tolerate.’
Mattis sounds somewhat less in Putin’s pocket than, say, someone promising “more flexibility” towards Moscow after his final election.
ET TU, MUELLER?
Many have said that Donald Trump is like Julius Caesar, even depicting his assassination in similar fashion in the latest production of William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.”
And just like in the legendary play, other public figures have come forward to justify and explain their various attacks on Trump, insisting that Trump — like Caesar — is “ambitious,” or “illegitimate,” or “corrupt,” or, at the very least, deserving of investigation.
Then, as if on cue, President Trump showed his open-handed generosity to one of them by calling Robert Mueller an “honorable man.”
With apologies to Shakespeare, the parallels are just too obvious to ignore.
Robert Mueller, a friend of James Comey, who staffs his investigation of Trump with Hillary donors and ex-campaign workers, stands to make a lot of money for himself and his partisan team as this process continues with no end in sight.
But, Mueller says Trump is the one under suspicion, and Mueller, as we’ve been assured, is an “honorable man.”
James Comey admitted under oath that Trump had committed no crime, but that he merely sought to create the circumstances for a special counsel to harass and ultimately assassinate (the character of) Trump.
Now Comey says Trump should be investigated for firing him. And Comey, as we’ve been assured, is also an “honorable man.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer knew Trump was not under investigation for Russian collusion when he lied and publicly claimed otherwise.
But Schumer has said repeatedly that Trump is not a legitimate president, and Schumer, we’ve been assured, is an “honorable man.”
And California Rep. Adam Schiff says no collusion actually took place between Russia and Trump, and yet demands an investigation to uncover any crime, whatever it may be, and sure, he is an “honorable man.”
So, are they all — “honorable men.” Well, maybe in the swamp of Washington, D.C.
Sad! And don’t forget Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who’s also under investigation.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Public College President Salaries, 2015-16. Over $1.5M per year at a state university?
We need federal legislation capping administrative salaries at any university — public or private — that receives federal funds. I think no university administrator should make more than a Supreme Court justice.
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