Archive for 2018
May 14, 2018
#MMEGA. Roger Simon: As Jerusalem Embassy Opens, Is Trump Fixing Middle East Too?
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Has Iran Fallen Into a Strategic Trap?
The IDF, while formidable, is short-ranged. Its conflicts have all been fought on the border or within Israel itself. The United States, though able to project power long distances, did not have the political will or the obvious justification to mount a military action against Tehran. Thus, while the Islamic Republic of Iran stayed within its borders it was probably safe from any meaningful American or Israeli threat.
Viewed in this way, Israel’s problem has been how to bring its arch-foe within effective range. That problem may have been solved by the ayatollahs themselves. The Islamic Republic is now embroiled in three major campaigns: a proxy conflict with Saudi Arabia in Yemen; participation on behalf of the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war; a state of conflict with Israel across the Lebanese border via Hezbollah. These not only represent a considerable burden for Iran’s limited resources, they also bring a large part of Tehran’s forces within effective range of the IDF.
Read the whole thing.
FRACK, BABY, FRACK: Shale Drillers Look Beyond Texas as Prices Rise. “As Permian Basin experiences bottlenecks, companies look to fields in Colorado, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming.”
While the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico remains the fastest-growing shale spot, congested pipelines and shortages of labor and materials there are crimping profits, making other fields attractive alternatives.
EOG Resources Inc., EOG -1.29% one of the shale sector’s leaders, is active in the Permian but also in Colorado, North Dakota and Oklahoma. In Wyoming, the company has built up larger lease holdings and expanded production over the past two years.
Chief Executive Bill Thomas recently touted the “diversified assets” of EOG’s portfolio when discussing the company’s blockbuster first quarter, in which production rose 15% and profits surged more than 2,000% from a year earlier.
“Last year it was all about, ‘How much can you put in the Permian?’” said Daniel Romero, an analyst with the energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. “But now, a few months later, it’s what else are you doing outside of the Permian?”
Let’s see if we can’t drill our way to lower energy prices — again.
ANOTHER CLINTON SUBTERFUGE EXPOSED: Joe Schoffstall at Washington Free Beacon shines light on yet another illustration of the Clinton Way: ZFS Holdings LLC was established in 2013 with Delaware registration to manage her income from speeches and books. The registered agent for ZFS is Corporation Trust Company, a U.S. subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Wolters Kluwer.
Why is that significant? Schoffstall notes that the agent is “an epicenter of U.S. corporate secrecy,” due in great part to the anonymity allowed registrants by Delaware.
But wait, there’s more (isn’t there always with the Clintons?): Clinton’s 2016 president campaign committee has paid ZFS nearly $150,000 since her loss: “The first transaction from the committee to ZFS was made on May 4, 2017 in the amount of $32,929.28, nearly six months after Trump had defeated Clinton. Each payment from the committee to ZFS was marked as ‘rent,'” Schoffstall reports.
“Seven additional payments were made ranging from $9,617.87 to $36,369.39. The most recent payment to ZFS, for $20,822.92, was made on March 15, filings show. The campaign has pushed $149,456.78 to ZFS Holdings since early May of last year.”
And the problem with that? Schoffstall asked campaign finance expert Cleta Mitchell:
“The only disbursements allowed for the Clinton or any other losing campaign are for winding down the campaign. So the question is whether this is really for rent or whether the payments are to this entity for other types of work for Hillary, which would be personal use if it isn’t specifically tied to the winding down of the campaign.
“Personal use is illegal under federal campaign finance law. There are a number of questions that need to be answered to ensure that the campaign is using leftover campaign funds for a legally, permissible purpose.”
WHEN THEY’RE NOT CALLING THE COPS ON HARMLESS BLACK PEOPLE, IT’S THIS: Leftists call cops to report conservative free speech event.
CONTAINMENT: Finland, Sweden and US sign trilateral agreement, with eye on increased exercises.
But speaking to Defense News after the signing, both visiting ministers emphasized that this is a starting point for future strengthened relations, and that there will be a particular emphasis on increasing and planning joint exercises.
“We need to work in a deeper way with exercises [in order] to develop interoperability. I think this agreement will make it easier for us to sit down together and plan for that sort of activity,” Hultqvist said. “So I think this is a platform to develop different sort of activities that can make more security and stability in our part of Europe.”
Niinistö called the potential for greater coordination and increased exercises the “most concrete and important part” of the letter, adding that the discussions will have an impact as Finland prepares to host a major exercise with its partners in 2021.
Even baby steps are a big deal, when they involve these two previously neutral nations.
NIXON HAD HIS 18-MINUTE TAPE GAP, OBAMA HAS A 10-HOUR BENGHAZI GAP: And amazingly enough, considering the legions of people on the Internet calling themselves “investigative journalists,” America still has no officially confirmed idea of what President Barack Obama was doing during the Benghazi Massacre that killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevenson and three U.S. security specialists who bravely held off the inevitable for long hours.
Magoo at the Daily Gouge is asking an interesting question about all this today: “We know the MSM’s still playing cover for him, but this doesn’t explain why not even a single individual who puts truth and honesty above the continued protection of the first un-American occupant of the Oval Office has surfaced.”
Three years ago, Washington Post columnist and former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen pointed to the best place to start looking — the Presidential Diarist records. And he suggested what may well be confirmed there – Obama was doing debate prep while Americans were being murdered in Benghazi. Obama advocates could end the continuing speculation today simply by telling the truth. A novel concept, to be sure, but worth a try.
ARKANSAS CAMPUS CARRY: No gun troubles yet, say Arkansas colleges; lawmakers hear mixed opinions.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Embassy Opens Today in the Capital of Israel and Much, Much More. “Our European allies, desperate for economic relations with Hezbollah Iran to prop up their garbage economies are at risk of getting some big fat sanctions from the United States if they want to stay in the trashed Iran deal.”
VEDDY INTERESTING: Iran Threatened To Name Politicians Who Took BRIBES To Pass Nuclear Deal.
THE CRAZY LEFT MIGHT BE SMALLER THAN IT SEEMS: For decades, the same group has been turning up over and over again–often with the same individuals and usually with the same lawyers.
Here’s what’s new this week: A Sacramento County Superior Court Judge declined to drop felony charges against a leader of the so-called “Antifa.” The individual—47-year-old Yvette Felarca–was involved in a riot between approximately 300 Antifa types and 30 Alt-Right types in Sacramento in 2016. At that event, she was caught on video punching out one of the attendees. Unlike others in positions of authority, the Sacramento District Attorney wasn’t willing to ignore it.
Felarca was the subject of a fawning blurb in Newsweek back in September. This was during the period the media thought Antifa activists were the good guys, here to save us from the fascist right. By now, I think they’ve figured out the Antifa is at least as fascist as anything on the right—or at least I hope they have. But it shouldn’t have taken them (or anybody else) so long. Felarca is a member of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (a Detroit/Oakland-based organization that calls itself “BAMN”). Alas, I’ve been dealing with BAMN for more than 20 years now. During the campaigns for California’s Proposition 209 in 1996, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative in 2006 and the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative in 2010, this violent offshoot of the Revolutionary Workers League was always there, often engaged in violent and disruptive activity. We just had to work around them. Mercifully I’ve never been in physical proximity to any of them, but my colleagues in these campaigns haven’t always been so lucky.
Just one among dozens of examples of BAMN’s willingness to use “any means necessary” was its attempt to intimidate the Michigan Board of Canvassers into refusing to certify the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative for the ballot. BAMN brought in busloads of mostly-teenaged protesters who shouted down officials, chanted “They say Jim Crow, we say hell no,” jumped on chairs, and stomped their feet, flipping over a table in the process. As the director of elections of the Michigan Secretary of State put it, “Never before have I see such absolutely, incredible and unprofessional behaviors from lawyers urging this disruption.” BAMN’s co-chair and attorney saw things differently: “Our tactics win. That’s the bottom line.” (They didn’t win in that case. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative was certified and passed by Michigan voters. BAMN even took the initiative to the Supreme Court, where in the final round, BAMN lost.)
I find some comfort in the fact that the same few people from BAMN turn up in so many places. Perhaps there really aren’t that many utter nut cases out there.
CHANGE: New Saudi TV station feeds into modernisation drive.
“This is a general channel that’s seeking to attract the new generation of Saudis,” said the station’s director Dawood Shirian, a frank-talking TV personality who previously hosted a talk show tapping into the public’s gripes.
“Most of the content, about 75 percent, is geared toward the youth between 15 and 35 years old,” Shirian told AFP, adding that SBC would “complement the changes seen in the kingdom in the artistic, cultural and entertainment spheres”.
Shirian was poached late last year from private rival MBC to head up the state-run Saudi Broadcasting Corporation, and to mastermind the launch of SBC.
The move was seen as a deliberate shock for the state broadcaster — one in a series of radical changes guided by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
The 32-year-old heir to the Saudi throne, who declared to foreign investors in Riyadh last October that his generation of Saudis “want to live a normal life”, is seen as the guiding hand behind the lifting of longstanding social restrictions.
The real test will come when producers at SBC take a pitch for a Saudi reboot of Xena: Warrior Princess.
A 400 PERCENT INCREASE IN STEM VISAS? Latest Pew Center analysis of the number of foreign students graduating from U.S. schools and then opting to remain here and work shows a veritable explosion, according to LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby.
CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: Maduro’s biggest test comes after election day in Venezuela. “Widely expected to be re-elected on May 20, the president faces a mounting crisis.”
Dimitris Pantoulas, a political analyst based in Caracas, believes the president’s confidence is well-founded. “Maduro will win. Of that I have zero doubt,” he said. “What’s more, I don’t think he’ll even need to resort to outright fraud on election day to do it. The electoral process is skewed so much in his favour that he will get the votes he needs.”
The bigger question is what Mr Maduro will do after next Sunday’s vote given the magnitude of Venezuela’s economic collapse, mounting international opposition to his rule, social discontent at home and increasing restiveness within the armed forces.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a coup within Chavismo . . . He [Maduro] can’t keep running the country like this,” Mr Pantoulas said. referring to the ruling movement formed by the late President Hugo Chávez, Mr Maduro’s patron and predecessor. “Venezuela at the moment is ungovernable.”
Oh please. Venezuela isn’t ungovernable — it’s suffering from a surfeit of government. And now that the country is about out of things for the socialists to loot, that’s the last surplus Venezuelans will “enjoy” until the socialists are gone.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Law School Applicants Are Up 8.8%. People are saying this is because of Trump, so I guess lawprof jobs are just another domestic industry he’s saved!
In the next tweet they explain, “Iran’s Shahid Bagheri Missile Industries Company & other companies connected to Iranian Defense Industries Organization were dependent on NorthKorea to design & develop their short & intermediate range ballistic missiles for IRGC. Now North Korea has left them.”
Hat tip to Flight 93 Militia, but that’s all I’ve been able to find on this story so far. If this is real, none of the major news outlets have caught wind of it yet — or they aren’t bothering to report it.
JACK SHAFER ON THE DENVER POST: THIS IS HOW A NEWSPAPER DIES — WITH A SPASM OF PROFITS.
BLUE WAVE? Sorry, there’s not going to be any ‘blue tidal wave’ this fall.
Jared Whitley:
The writing is simply not on the wall for a Democratic blow-out. The president’s approval rating has been consistently higher than Obama enjoyed at the same point in his presidency. Economic news has been staggeringly good. The unemployment rate is at a 44-year low. The Democrats have no coherent message. The NRA is flush with cash following this year’s extremist anti-gun rhetoric. And the RNC has 40 million dollars more than the “dead broke” DNC.
Now, this is not to suggest that Republicans will make huge gains themselves. Honestly, how many more offices are left for Republicans to win? The only place where Republicans could see real growth is California, where we might not even be able to field a candidate for governor or senator. The party’s silver lining for the Golden State is, as always, that California is the living embodiment of the failure of left-wing politics. With no grown-ups in Sacramento, California’s pain is the Republicans’ gain.
And for their electoral woes in the other 49 states, Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
The underlying numbers — political and economic — run the gamut from great to not too bad, which is about as much as anyone could ask for. But I’d feel better if the GOP Congress were legislating as though they gave a damn.
CHANGE: Female Concealed Carry Surges. “Women are increasingly taking responsibility for their own defense. National Carry Academy reported that enrollment in its concealed carry courses rose 24 percent in the weeks following the tragedy in Parkland, Fla. While calls for gun bans reverberated across the mainstream media, concealed carry permits obtained through NCA jumped 120 percent, with women making up half that number, compared with just a third earlier.”
DANIEL FLYNN: Donald Trump’s Best Week Ever.
The missteps and crashes of celebrity Trump haters over the past seven days compounds matters for the rank-and-file Trump haters.
Eric Schneiderman, who sued the Trump administration over immigration, the environment, transsexual rights, and much else, resigned this week over allegations that he physically abused several women, including one who got slapped for boldly refusing his advances. Late last year, TBS host Samantha Bee called Schneiderman “Spiderman” and compared him to Superman. Bee be like, “You’re gonna save us” and “you are a superhero.” One woman’s Superman is another bruised woman’s Lex Luthor.
Michael Avenatti, the camera-friendly lawyer of Stormy Daniels, issued startling allegations that President Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen received payments from such places as Kenya, Russia, and Malaysia. “No, I never talk with or meet Trump,” a 26-year-old El Al employee named Michael Cohen told NBC News. He received a wire transaction from his brother in Kenya. “He owed me some money.” The real Michael Cohen’s lawyer wrote of a Canadian with the same name who received money from Tanzania, “The Michael Cohen who was actually involved in this transaction has expressed grave concerns about the breach of his privacy by Mr. Avenatti’s apparently improper possession and publication of his personal bank records.”
Marc Cohen of “Walking in Memphis” fame, Mets play-by-play man Gary Cohen, and comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen remain safe from Avenatti’s probe — but for how long?
Plus:
What’s most amusing is, being in possession of the “vision of the anointed,” the Left can neither help itself from overreaching, nor learn from its mistakes when it does.
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Wellstone legacy ‘goes dormant’ after family ousted in Democratic feud.
As John Podhoretz tweets, “This is one of the more fascinating pieces of 2018 so far–the battle of the woke left vs. the older left.”
More thoughts from Power Line’s Steve Hayward, who concludes, “The subtext is clear. Minnesota’s urban liberals have decided their principal message to rural Minnesotans is: ‘Drop dead.’ Looks to me like one more small step to Minnesota turning red.”