SOCOM’S LATEST COMBAT DUNE BUGGIES: They’re more than dune buggies.

SOME THOUGHTS FOR ADAM SMITH’S BIRTHDAY:

From Fred Smith in Forbes Magazine.

Self-interest encourages deal-making and empathy makes it more likely that such deals will be fair—and, thus, more likely to be repeated. Smith recognized that free markets were the result of the creative synthesis of these two traits. Too few capitalist defenders today realize that understanding both traits is critical.

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Empathy deals with our awareness of how others will react to our actions and our choices. It permits us to get into the skin of another person and understand, to some extent, their motives and values. These dual traits distinguish mankind from other social animals. Animals, too, are self-interested and sometimes cooperate. But, as Smith notes, they don’t bargain—they lack the empathetic traits that would allow them to know what the other wants and reach a mutual win/win agreement. Smith notes: “Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this—no dog exchanges bones with another.”

To make a deal is human. Real the entire essay.

A FOR REAL UPDATE: Note that June 16 is Adam Smith’s Gregorian calendar birthday.

REFORM AGENDA FOR THE U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL: Ambassador Nikki Haley says The U.N.’s Human Rights Council has got to change — and she’s right. It’s biased against Israel. Human rights abusers are given seats on the Council. And it fails to treat serious human rights violations “equally and objectively.”

If the Council sounds a lot like a contemporary American university, well, it is.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA: A Canadian Sea King helicopter participates in an operation with a USN Surface Action Group.

NORMAL BUT DERANGED: The Washington Times examines James Hodgkinson and angry Democrats.

Trump Derangement Syndrome leads to the obsession that every ill and annoyance of life is the work of Donald Trump, a traitor out to betray the nation to its enemies. Millions of Democrats, disappointed with the results of the 2016 elections, have built their lives around despising the president. It isn’t healthy for the republic, it isn’t healthy for those afflicted and it won’t be healthy for those who die at the hands of assassins.

The Alexandria assassin, slain at the site, seemed to have been obsessed with equal parts hatred of the president and devotion to Bernie Sanders. “He did not come off as a radical,” a friend in his hometown says of him. “He did not come off as an unstable individual. He wasn’t belligerent, he was just a kind of normal guy.”

Normal, but deranged. Mr. Hodgkinson’s “social media accounts” — Twitter, Facebook and the other instruments of the life of an obsession with trivia — showed him, observes The New York Times, “as deeply committed to liberal politics and distrustful of Republican-controlled Washington. In posts, he rails against Republicans, lavishes praise upon [Mr.] Sanders … and shows a deep engagement with the churn of news coming out of Washington.”

Senator Sanders isn’t responsible for Hodgkinson’s criminal act.

But Bernie Sanders is part of those who spread the derangement, of making losing an election, with all the pain that goes with it, both science and art. The derangement he suffers carries over into how he conducts his Senate business. The senator, an atheist, declared he wouldn’t vote to confirm a Trump nominee for a trade post because he doesn’t approve of the nominee’s Christian faith, though the Constitution expressly forbids making a religious test a qualification for office.

Read the whole thing.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN NORTH KOREA: The NorKs prepare for a nuclear test.

2015 FACEBOOK POST SHOWS GUNMAN HODGKINSON DIDN’T LIKE REPRESENTATIVE SCALISE: The Daily Caller has published a Facebook post by James T. Hodgkinson. In the post the would be mass murderer maligns one of his victims, Congressman Steve Scalise. Remember, Hodgkinson was a Bernie Sanders supporter. Hey, Paul Krugman. That vote and the Facebook post strongly suggest Hodgkinson was a Democrat of some type. Some type.

MORE FOR PAUL KRUGMAN: Hodgkinson was a Trump-hater. Just like you, Paul. A Trump-hater. Of some type.

THE KRUGMAN PRECEDENT OF 2011:

You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.

Stand up, Paul! Stand up against the Democrat hate-mongers right now!

DID THE GUNMAN TARGET REPUBLICANS?:

It appears he did.

The suspected gunman is James T. Hodgkinson III, 66, from Illinois, according to multiple law enforcement sources. President Trump announced that the gunman, who was wounded in a shootout with officers, has died at an area hospital.

…As people offered prayers for the victims, a profile of Hodgkinson began to emerge. A Facebook page belonging to a person with the same name includes pictures of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and rhetoric against President Trump.

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Anger about his own colleagues being attacked was evident in the words of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who, suit in tie, stopped by the crime scene to pray, was viscerally angry about his own colleagues being attacked.

“America has bene divided,” he said, “and the center of America is disappearing, and the violence is appearing in the streets, and it’s coming from the left.” Kng did indicate it was impossible to separate the hyperpartisan climate in Washington — especially people protesting President Trump — with Republican members of Congress being gunned down at a baseball scrimmage.

“The divisions within the country, people that can’t accept the results of the election that are determined to try to take this country down, take this organization down,” King said. “This city was filled up with demonstrations the day after the inauguration, where you couldn’t drive down the streets.”

All the spelling errors (Kng, etc) are in the Washington Post story. It was written quickly — like a blog post.

Remember, Paul Krugman salaciously politicized a similar homicidal attack on Democrat representative Gabrielle Giffords. He politicized the crime with the intention of smearing Republicans. We are now in a world where leftist Democrats ritually call for the death of President Trump. Krugman and his ilk are a cult of media liars and frauds.

RELATED: Don’t get politicized, says E. J. Montini at The Arizona Republic. Tell it to Paul Krugman first, pal. And we didn’t come together in the Giffords shooting, sir. Refresh your memory. Krugman and his klan separated us.

STARVATION AS A WEAPON IN WAR: Starvation is a consequence of war. But sometimes it also serves as a weapon of mass destruction.

OUTFLANKING CHINA IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA:

From the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings Magazine:

To borrow a concept from Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, the way forward for the United States is “to attack the enemy’s strategy.” 8 By raising awareness of China’s actions in the South China Sea and enabling regional nations to invest in asymmetric capabilities for maritime defense, the United States can turn the tables on China’s A2/AD strategy and leverage geography and international partnerships to maintain freedom of navigation.

China has angered its neighbors:

China’s aggressive actions have alienated ASEAN bloc members and isolated Beijing on the international stage. The geography of China’s near seas may enable its counter-intervention doctrine, but it also can be used against it.

Read the whole article.

HACKING THAAD: The U.S. Army’s THAAD anti-ballistic missile battery in South Korea is a major target for North Korean, Chinese and Russian hackers.

The army knows it has a major problem with cyber protection as do the other services (air force, navy and marines). This was made clear after U.S. Army established its first Cyber Protection Brigade in late 2014. There were plans to create two more brigades by 2016. That did not happen because the army in particular and the military in general could not create or recruit enough qualified personnel. There were other problems but the key difficulty was a shortage of qualified people to staff the key units; the cyber protection team.

Read the whole thing.

F-22 OVER ALASKA: A very cool photo — plane and landscape.

RELATED: The F-22 Quick Reaction Force. It’s a very valuable combat aircraft.

DEMOCRAT ECONOMIST SEES THE FUTURE AND IT’S VENEZUELA: Democrats’ new economic plan will seal their minority status.

John Tamny at RealClearMarkets:

Interesting is that Bernstein’s next naïve suggestion involves “direct job creation policies, meaning either jobs created by the government or publicly subsidized private employment.” Ok, but all jobs are a function of private wealth creation as Bernstein unwittingly acknowledges given his call for resource extraction from the private sector in order to create them. This begs the obvious question why economic opportunity would be enhanced if the entrepreneurial and business sectors had less in the way of funds to innovate with. But that’s exactly what Bernstein is seeking through his $190 billion “universal child allowance,” not to mention his call for more “jobs created by the government.” Stating what’s obvious even to Bernstein, government can’t create any work absent private sector wealth, so why not leave precious resources in the hands of the true wealth creators? Precisely because they’re wealth focused, funds kept in their control will be invested in ways that foster much greater opportunity than can politicians consuming wealth created by others.

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Remarkably, Bernstein describes the ideas presented as “bold” and “progressive,” but in truth, they’re the same lame-brained policies of redistribution that the left have been promoting for decades. And as they’re anti-capital formation by Bernstein’s very own admission, they’re also inimical to the very prosperity that has long made the U.S. the country where poverty is cured. To be clear, if this is the best the Democrats have, they’ll long remain in the minority.

Bernstein is Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the ultra-leftist Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He thinks this time socialism is bound to work.

SECRETS ARE NOT WHAT THEY USED TO BE:

Other revelations from the Moscow archives revealed that the Soviets had already created schemes that were indeed stranger than fiction. These included a plan to move saboteurs from Nicaragua across the Mexican border and into the U.S. disguised as illegal aliens. Radar stations, pipelines and power towers were all targeted in great detail as were port facilities in places like New York City. Other archive documents, available to researchers for a few years in the early 1990s (when a fistful of hundred dollar bills could work wonders) delivered all manner of disturbing and now well documented proofs. The Rosenbergs were indeed Russian spies, Alger Hiss was mixed up in Russian espionage efforts and the American Communist Party was in the pay of the Soviet Union and served as a tool for espionage, subversion and propaganda. Many left wing writers and politicians were either on the Soviet payroll or eager to assist Soviet espionage activities.

Today they assist Kremlin chaos-creating activities.

THE DEATH OF BRICK AND MORTAR RETAIL: The death has been exaggerated — but a whole lot of shaking’s going on.

THE THAAD TANGO IN SOUTH KOREA: The U.S. State Department says the deployment to South Korea of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missiles is very important. And it is.

A THAAD battery has six launchers. Two of the six launchers in the THAAD battery now deployed in South Korea are in position. So is the battery’s radar. However, the new South Korean government has delayed the deployment of the other four launchers pending a “review of its environmental impact.”

This delay is all about South Korean internal politics. The Reuters summary is accurate. During the recent presidential election, South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in “promised to review the THAAD deployment decision.” The delay is political theater to demonstrate that he is different from his predecessor. His government knows China’s objections to THAAD are baloney. The weapon is a defensive system and the threat posed by North Korean missiles is real.

RELATED: Photo of a THAAD test launch from 2014. This test was particularly relevant to defending South Korea and Japan because it involved both THAAD and a USN Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) warship. Hence the caption mentioning “a layered defense.” The Ground-based Missile Defense system (GMD) is the “layer” designed to intercept ICBMs targeting North America.

WHY AMERICANS AREN’T LOVING RETIREMENT LIKE THEY USED TO: The USA Today opinion piece is a good read and it’s packed with common sense. It compares “retirement satisfaction trends” from 1998 to 2012. Key line: “…groups saw their satisfaction levels decline over time, as health and income eroded.” But I’m left wondering about the questions used in the satisfaction study.

IN MEMORIAM: StrategyPage honors Torpedo Squadron 8 and its heroic airmen. The memorial names all of the U.S. Navy fliers in the squadron that sacrificed itself at Midway. Ensign George Gay was shot down but survived. Everyone else in the squadron was killed in the squadron’s desperate attack on the Japanese fleet. These men were all genuine heroes and deserve our thanks. The battle’s 75th anniversary was this week (June 4-7, 1942). After the war Gay became a pilot for TWA.

JAPAN WORRIES ABOUT CHINA’S IMPROVING AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE CAPABILITIES: The UPI report mentions both Okinawa and the Senkaku Islands.

RELATED: My Creators Syndicate column this week, titled Careful and Forceful in Singapore, surveyed the conflicts along the east Asian littoral.

IRAN ENCOUNTERS THE POST-OBAMA MIDDLE EAST:

The government is facing a more aggressive United States and unsure how to deal with it. In part because the increased aggressiveness by the Americans has emboldened the Arabian oil states to be more bold. This is being seen in Yemen and especially in the recent actions against GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council, the Arab oil states in the Persian Gulf) member Qatar.

Good.

REVERSING THE DAMAGE OF OBAMA’S CUBA POLICY:

If “America First” means anything, it must mean preventing a virulently anti-American criminal enterprise from perpetuating its existence next door and reproducing itself throughout the hemisphere. And since this is precisely what President Obama’s opening to the Castros accomplished, President Trump is duty-bound to reverse this mistake.

Obama’s negotiations with Cuba were “back channel.”

PENTAGON: China’s South China Sea military build-up continues.

China is expanding its presence in the South China Sea with new buildup on disputed islands, according to the Pentagon’s 2017 survey of the Chinese military…

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The defense paper states China added 8,800 feet of runways on new airfields, after adding more than 3,200 acres of land across the Spratlys, including the Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs.

“China was constructing 24 fighter-sized hangars, fixed-weapons positions, barracks, administration buildings and communication facilities at each of the three outposts,” the report states.

Three regiments of fighter aircraft can be housed in the facilities.

VERY MUCH RELATED: SecDef Mattis addresses Asian defense in Singapore. (My latest Creators Syndicate column.)

THE CARRIERS AT MIDWAY: Historical sketches of the U.S. and Japanese flattops that fought it out in 1942.

DISTANTLY RELATED: A snapshot of the carrier U.S.S. Midway –taken from a distance of 600 kilometers. The ship is now a museum, permanently docked in San Diego.

THE MIDWAY CAMPAIGN: It’s the 75th anniversary (June 4-7, 1942).

RELATED: Remembering Midway. A column I wrote on the 70th anniversary.

CAREFUL AND FORCEFUL IN SINGAPORE: The east Asian littoral is a 21st century powder keg.