Author Archive: Stephen Green
April 2, 2019
BABY STEPS: U.S. ambassador and sanctions cause drop in German-Iran trade. “9% drop in German exports to Iran.”
The report notes that Britain, France, and Germany are still working to undermine the post-Obama sanctions regime through “a financial mechanism called Instex.”
Thanks, guys.
OVER AT THE PJM LIVE BLOG: Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, George Soros, Ukraine, and Russian Collusion.
FLASHBACK: Facebook Hearings Reveal How Government Regulations Work. “They will advocate some institutionalized changes in the way social media should work. Every change will involve compliance costs. Facebook will make sure that it can comply…and that its competitors cannot without great expense. That will give them a distinct advantage in the marketplace, make it more difficult for startups to compete, and guarantee this platform a leading place by law. This is why Mark readily agreed to be regulated. Regulations always work to the advantage of the largest market players.”
DAVID HARSANYI: Mark Zuckerberg’s Plan For The Internet Would Be A Disaster For Free Expression. “Zuckerberg’s case for government-instituted speech codes is a cynical attempt to deflect criticism aimed at his company.”
More than anything it’s an attempt to foster a regulatory scheme advantageous to established players like Facebook, which Harsanyi gets to in the second half of his column:
What Zuckerberg’s plan does is undermine competition. If a private company like Facebook sets speech codes that are too stifling for users, another innovator will jump into the gap and create a platform that isn’t. While I assume free political expression isn’t the predominate concern of most social media users, it does exist. When government sets a “baseline” for what’s acceptable for all websites, there’s no longer competition for open debate.
Worse, deliberation over free expression would be moved to the political arena, where the influence of scaremongering officials, ideologues, and rent-seeking tech corporations like Twitter, Facebook, and Google would dominate decisions.
Indeed.
KNOCK 5% OFF THE STICKER PRICE FOR EACH WARNING: China warns US on F-16 sales to Taiwan.
Earlier this month, however, the Trump administration gave its tacit approval to Taiwan’s request to purchase 60 F-16V fighter jets. A formal request would still need US congressional approval, but the news has already rattled Beijing.
Addressing the issue on Thursday (March 28), defense ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said that China “resolutely opposes” such sales to Taiwan and that any words or actions that undermine the one-China policy are “extremely dangerous.”
The only danger in allowing Taiwan better defenses is to Beijing’s imperial ambitions.
BLUE ON BLUE: Protesters Face Off in Dueling Rallies Over Kim Foxx’s Handling of Jussie Smollett Case. “Foxx must go!” “Racists must go!”
ROBERT FRANCIS O’ROURKE: Authors of Green New Deal ‘Absolutely Right on the Money.’ “During the ‘We the People’ forum, O’Rourke also called for abolishing the Electoral College.”
ALL IS PROCEEDING EXACTLY AS THE FOUNDERS HAVE FORESEEN: McConnell shuts down the Pelosi agenda. “The Republican Senate is where House Democratic bills go to die.”
As Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) put it: “We are the firewall.”
“Most of that stuff is really easy for Republicans in the Senate to message against,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “We think a lot of the ideas over there are crazy. I don’t see many of our folks who have much problem messaging against most of what their agenda’s going to consist of.”
Gridlock in divided government is a longstanding Washington tradition, with the fast-moving House frequently stymied by the Senate. It’s not all bad for Democrats, who can help lay the groundwork for Democrats’ 2020 agenda and show voters what the party can do if it sweeps into power in the next election.
Politico has got to cheerlead for the Democrats, I suppose, because Politico. But Republicans are absolutely counting on voters becoming aware of what Democrats can do if they sweep into power in the next election.
SPACE: Stars align as Beresheet spacecraft prepares for lunar capture. “Israeli spacecraft on schedule to jump into lunar orbit on Thursday and land on moon’s surface on April 11.”
There’s a nice graphic at the link showing the complexity of Beresheet’s upcoming moon landing.
I also liked this line: “With Beresheet, Israel hopes to become the fourth country in the world to land a spacecraft on the moon, following the US, Russia, and China.” That’s a nation of nine million people going toe-to-toe with the big players.
EXCLUSIVE: Omar facing campaign finance probe.
The key graf doesn’t come until midway in the story:
Campaigning in Minnesota’s staunchly blue 5th District, which includes the city of Minneapolis and has sent a Democrat to Washington every year since 1963, Omar defeated Republican challenger Jennifer Zielinksi with nearly 80 percent of the vote. Drazkowski complained that Omar’s gender and ethnicity — she is Muslim-American and an immigrant from Somalia — and her willingness to cast herself as a victim of discrimination make her critics fearful of speaking out against her, whether on substantive policy or ethics issues. “There’s a political fear that people have,” Drazkowski said, “of being called a name, being called a bigot, being called racist, being called Islamophobic.”
She acts as though she’s untouchable because at least until now, she has been.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Security Clearances, Border Headaches and Much, Much More. “I don’t want to have to defend Joe Biden but this guy has been touching people in a too-familiar way for years, it’s documented on film and in pictures. No one made a peep when he was in a position of power. And by the way, is there a flock of vulture journalists outside Obama’s fancy Georgetown mansion, screaming questions to him about the Uncle Joe allegations?”
That’s different because shut up.
HMM: America is still trying to win the last cyber war.
While the Vice President’s characterization of having “inherited” the previous status quo in cyberspace was uncharitable — the problem spans multiple administrations — it was based on a kernel of truth: For years, responses that could have protected Americans and deterred adversaries were held up by government processes that required the President himself to authorize cyber activities. This didn’t work when the malicious activities on the other side were authorized by a colonel, or a criminal, and were carried out not one-at-a-time but by the thousands annually. At some point indecision on the part of the U.S. became a decision unto itself, and that flawed decision-making process has been reversed so that cyber threats to national security can be more appropriately addressed as needed.
The Administration has also changed America’s national security posture to one that reflects a concern about winning a long, ongoing, multi-faceted competition affecting our national security in addition to longstanding concerns about preventing one-off, catastrophic events. That change in tone and resources is most evident in the National Cyber Strategy’s emphasis on economic threats, especially from China, which span not only traditional remote cyber operations to steal intellectual property, but also cyber-assisted human insider threats, legal mechanisms for forcing the transfer of intellectual property that can be informed by surveillance of company executives via cyber means, and broad theft of business sensitive information on suppliers, customers, outside legal counsel, and other trusted contacts whose information might benefit Chinese companies in international competition.
Cold War II involves all kinds of parameters which either didn’t exist before 1989, or were just in their infancy. It’s good to see the Trump Administration taking the new threats seriously, but even so a “Faster, please” doesn’t feel remiss.
WELL, GOOD: Man gets 20 years for deadly “swatting” hoax.
Tyler Barriss, whose hoax call to Wichita police led to the shooting death of an innocent man, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, the Associated Press reports. The sentence in Kansas federal court is a stark reminder of the serious consequences of the deadly prank called “swatting.”
The December 2017 death of Andrew Finch began with an online feud over a Call of Duty game. Casey Viner, then around 18 years old, allegedly recruited Barriss to “swat” the Wichita home of Shane Gaskill, who was about 19. Barriss called Wichita police pretending to be a deranged man with a gun holding members of his family hostage, giving what he believed was the target’s address.
As Barriss expected, the police responded by dispatching a SWAT team. But Gaskill lied to Barriss about where he lived. As a result, police surrounded a home occupied by the Finch family, which had nothing to do with the online dispute.
It wasn’t a hoax — it was premeditated murder, using the police as the murder weapon. What gets lost in the shuffle though is that too many SWAT teams are just too trigger-happy.
THEY’RE OUT OF WATER, BUT THEY’RE GETTING PLENTY OF RUSSIAN SOLDIERS AND WEAPONS: The Kremlin Prepares to Defend Venezuela’s Maduro Regime by All Means.
The decision to send around 100 military advisors, support staff and possibly some combat-experienced special forces personnel (as guards)—all led by the Army chief of staff—to market weapons to the insolvent and beleaguered government of President Nicolás Maduro at first glance appears wholly incongruent. Tonkoshkurov is a combat-experienced top Land Forces commander, not an arms dealer. Instead, his mission could be to thoroughly assess the current military/security situation in Venezuela, the deficiencies and real capabilities of the pro-Maduro military and security forces, and to prepare a list of concrete measures Moscow needs to take to ensure the survival of the regime and the defeat of the opposition, led by the self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido. Moscow views Guaido as Washington’s puppet and part of the alleged imperialist conspiracy headed by the United States to oust Maduro. According to Russian reports, the 35 tons of cargo just delivered to Venezuela was mostly food, but not for the starving locals. Rather, the foodstuff will feed the military mission in a situation where logistics have virtually collapsed. The Russian mission is apparently not a combat force per se, but will be assessing the situation and “taking measures” to mobilize and “put together” the pro-Maduro forces. It is preparing for a lengthy operation (Ura.news, March 25). The above-mentioned “measures” could involve additional shipments of arms, munitions and other equipment, the deployment of more Russian specialists and advisors and also a possible limited combat unit—presumably the Aerospace Forces (Vozdushno-Kosmicheskiye Sily—VKS) and anti-air assets—mirroring the Russian deployment in Syria in 2015 to keep in power the beleaguered regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
The fact that President Trump has warned Russia to “get out” of Venezuela just goes to show what a crafty Putin stooge he is, I guess we’re supposed to believe.
CONVERSION THERAPY: U.S. Navy Turned A British Amphibious Ship Into A Mine-Clearing Sea Base Packed With Drone Tech. “Being able to readily turn any ship into a mine-sweeping platform is a major part of the Navy’s future plans.”
Minesweeping is serious business, but doesn’t always get the institutional attention it deserves due to more-glamorous aircraft carriers, attack subs, and surface combatants. More creative thinking like this, and we can get up to a 355-ship Navy sooner than hoped.
LET THEM DRINK EVIAN: Millions without water as Venezuela crisis deepens.
Millions of Venezuelans were left without running water Monday amid a series of massive blackouts, forcing President Nicolas Maduro to announce electricity rationing and school closures as the government struggles to cope with a deepening economic crisis.
Maduro announced 30 days of power rationing on Sunday, after his government said it was shortening the work day and keeping schools closed due to blackouts.
The measures are a stark admission by the government — which blamed repeated power outages in March on sabotage — that there is not enough electricity to go around, and that the power crisis is here to stay.
Angry Venezuelans meanwhile took to the streets of Caracas to protest the power cuts and water shortages.
“We have small children and we aren’t able to give them a drop of water to drink,” said Caracas resident Maria Rodriguez.
If you’re opposed to socialism, it’s because you don’t care about children and other living things.
GOOD LORD: Mika Brzezinski Defends Joe Biden: He Was Just Being ‘Flirtatious’ and ‘Affectionate.’ “Whoopi Goldberg took it a step further: ‘I don’t want Joe to stop doing that’.”
Anything short of rape-rape is OK with Whoopi, provided it’s committed by the right people, of course.
April 1, 2019
CHANGE: Whole Foods will slash prices on hundreds of items starting Wednesday.
The VodkaWife™ and I have used their same-day delivery service several times since Amazon introduced it, and have been happy with the speed and freshness. We could always be happier about the price…
NOT APRIL FOOL’S: Come To North Korea, They Have Fried Chicken.
Flashback (From Ed): Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times assures me that the pizza in North Korea is excellent as well.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Pearl Clutch: Vox Frets that Conservatives are Hurting AOC’s Poll Numbers. “‘I wish this coffeeshop had Fox News on, so I could find out what I’m supposed to think about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,’ said no hipster ever.”
DAVID SOLWAY: Boeing’s Diversity and Inclusion Pronouncements Should Make Us All Uneasy. “Recently we have heard of the crash of two Boeing 737 Max8s, due apparently, as The Verge reports, to faulty MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) sensor readings, lack of safety features, inadequate pilot training programs and various cost-saving measures. One may also wonder to what extent, apart from greed and negligence, the practice of affirmative rather than merit-based hiring practices played a role in this, and no doubt other such disasters.”
Yes.
PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Now it’s time to investigate the investigators.