Author Archive: Stephen Green
February 19, 2018
WELL-OILED CONFIRMATION MACHINE: While you were focused on … Republicans kept moving judicial nominees through pipeline.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Four ’80s Reunions We Want Next (After ‘Karate Kid’).
NIKKI HALEY: The U.N.’s Uncomfortable Truths About Iran.
Last week, the United Nations published a report with news a lot of people don’t want to hear. A panel of experts found that Iran is violating a United Nations weapons embargo — specifically, that missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels into Saudi Arabia last year were made in Iran.
The mullahs in Iran don’t want to hear this news, because it proves Iran is violating its international agreement. Die-hard defenders of the Iran nuclear deal don’t want to hear it because it proves, once again, that the Iranian regime can’t be trusted. And some members of the United Nations don’t want to hear it because it is further proof that Iran is defying Security Council resolutions, and the pressure will be on the U.N. to do something about it.
Yemen is the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis today. After three years of brutal civil war, 75 percent of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance. The government has virtually ceased to exist. Terrorist groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are exploiting that lawlessness to pursue their barbaric agendas.
The U.N. report reveals much more than just the Iranian sanctions violation. It charges the anti-government Houthi rebels with not only launching ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia but also using the people of Yemen as human shields and kidnapping Yemeni children to fight in the war.
Read the whole thing.
POLITICO’S BLAKE HOUNSHELL: Confessions of a Russiagate Skeptic.
NO. NEXT QUESTION? Would you surrender your assault rifles for free martial arts training?
GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Olympic Viewership Headed for Lowest Numbers Ever.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Florida Shooting Update, RUSSIAN Troll Farm Busted and Much, Much More. “Shortly after telling public that it had ignored a very specific tip about a maniac who would go on to shoot up his Florida school and murder 17 children and teachers, the DOJ decided to release a report on RUSSIA collusion so as to divert attention from its epic incompetence.”
Ouch.
SOUTH AMERICA: Guyana keeps eyes on possible Venezuela’s options.
Stratfor, a United States-based geopolitical intelligence platform, earlier this month reasoned that there could be a two-pronged benefit for the President Nicolas Maduro-led administration if it invades Guyana.
“There are a number of political considerations that may motivate Caracas to make a move. In the short term, the incursion could help Caracas in its ongoing dialogue with the Trump administration over the terms of President Nicolas Maduro and his party’s departure from power. The Venezuelan president won’t leave power — or even loosen his party’s grip over the opposition — unless he has assurances from Washington that he and his acolytes will receive some form of amnesty. And seizing and holding Guyanese territory might offer Caracas a bargaining chip, allowing it to wrangle a better amnesty deal in exchange for a troop withdrawal.
In the long run, holding Guyanese territory could offer Venezuela a way to delay the International Court of Justice’s ruling about the border dispute. After all, the court may hold off on a ruling if Venezuelan troops are present in Guyanese territory. Moreover, the Maduro government may be counting on the incursion to pump up nationalism among Venezuelans. By directing attention outside its borders, the government could be able to buy time before organized domestic unrest gain critical mass, or even forestall any possible military coup attempt by moving units far from the capital,” Stratfor said in its publication, World View.
Things may get a whole lot worse before suddenly falling apart.
PARTY OF YOUTH: Biden telling policy aides 2020 run a real possibility.
Biden met with several aides at his office near Capitol Hill to plan for his new diplomacy center. During the meeting, he reportedly told those in attendance — including his former chief of staff, his former national security adviser and a former State Department official — that he had not decided about 2020.
He indicated to his longtime aides that he’d be interested in them joining his campaign if he decides to make a run for the White House, The Associated Press reported.
A spokesperson for Biden declined to comment to the AP.
Biden, 75, is considered a strong Democratic presidential nominee if he runs. He has repeatedly indicated in public he is considering a campaign, but has not made a final decision.
If Biden were to run and win, he would be slightly older entering the Oval Office than Ronald Reagan was leaving it.
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Has Turkey Gone Rogue?
Erdogan’s slow motion strangulation of democracy, however, will not top Tillerson’s contentious agenda with his Turkish counterpart. A pronounced eastern tilt in Ankara’s strategic orientation has seen this erstwhile NATO ally agree to purchase an advanced Russian air defense system, and attend Moscow-sponsored talks on the future of Syria that excluded the United States. A recent trial of a Turkish-Iranian gold trader in New York revealed that top ministers in Erdogan’s government were involved in a lucrative scheme to help Iran circumvent sanctions over its suspected nuclear weapons program to the tune of an estimated $100 billion.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s campaign of intimidation against critics at home and abroad has included the arrest of U.S. consulate workers and two U.S. citizens in Turkey; the issuance of arrest warrants targeting U.S. critics at think tanks and universities in this country; and death threats by social media trolls close to the Ankara government. Last year Erdogan’s body guards viciously attacked peaceful demonstrators in Washington, prompting the D.C. police to issue arrest warrants for a dozen members of Erdogan’s security detail.
“Much like Iran, Turkey is increasingly becoming a ‘klepto-theocracy’ where government leaders and family members profit handsomely from their positions, and both governments are united by an Islamist worldview that stands in opposition to the West,” said Aykan Erdemir, a former Turkish parliamentarian and senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.
Islamism… Socialism… Communism… Fascism… it seems the only “ism” that doesn’t result in robbing a country blind is Capitalism.
OH: Minnesota Terrorist Let Go After Telling FBI She Wanted To Join Al Qaeda And Wear Suicide Belt.
After Tnuza Jamal Hassan was stopped from flying to Afghanistan last September, she allegedly told FBI agents that she wanted to join al-Qaida and marry a fighter, and that she might even wear a suicide belt.
She also said she was angry at U.S. military actions overseas and admitted that she tried to encourage others to “join the jihad in fighting,” but she said she had no intention of carrying out an attack on U.S. soil, according to prosecutors. Despite her alleged admissions, she was allowed to go free.
Four months later, the 19-year-old was arrested for allegedly setting small fires on her former college campus in St. Paul in what prosecutors say was a self-proclaimed act of jihad. No one was hurt by the Jan. 17 fires at St. Catherine University, but her case raises questions about why she wasn’t arrested after speaking to the agents months earlier and shows the difficulty the authorities face in identifying real threats.
The FBI can’t seem to recognize a threat even when they self-identify.
DOUGLAS SCHOEN AND ANDREW STEIN: Democrats will lose this fall by fighting over immigration now.
By focusing exclusively on the Dreamers and offering no practical limits on immigration, much less any border security, the Democrats are in the process of writing their own political obituary for November and beyond. But a deal with President Trump can turn this perennially difficult issue into an electoral benefit. Here’s how.
President Trump has proposed a compromise by offering a path to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers, building a wall on the southern border, ending the visa lottery program, and ending what he calls “chain migration” and what the Democrats call “family unification.”
In fact, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has proposed a bill in Congress based on these four planks. The Democrats have previously said this proposal is dead-on-arrival, which is a clear mistake and there are some small bits of evidence now that the party is waking up to the fact that the Schumer-Pelosi approach was just plain wrong.
My hunch is that Schumer and Pelosi are willing to take the risk because they don’t believe that 1.8 million legalized Dreamers are enough to ensure that elusive Permanent Democratic Majority.
On the other hand, as I’ve written here previously, for Democrats a “bad” deal might be better than no deal at all — if if looks like Mitch McConnell might be able to cobble together enough votes between Republicans and vulnerable Red State Dems for an even “worse” deal.
YOU DON’T SAY: Taliban Still Intent on Ruling Afghanistan After ‘Peaceful’ Message to U.S. “Press accounts of the letter reported it as a Taliban extension for peace. But the reality is there is nothing new in this letter. The Taliban has consistently stated over the past decade that it does not seek to share power with the Afghan government, and the only peace possible begins with the U.S. abandoning the country.”
Well, the press gets a lot of stuff wrong.
February 17, 2018
CORNELL PROFESSOR: The American Dream Is a ‘Hallucination.’
The cost of pursuing the American Dream at Cornell this academic year is $70,321 for non-residents.
BLUE STATE BLUES: Wondering Which States Americans Hate to Live In? Ask U-Haul.
Here are some examples (all data is taken from the U-Haul website; prices are for March 1, 2018, for a favorite 20-foot van.)
Renting a truck from New York to Orlando costs $2,214 and back $1,557 (the difference is $657, a 42% surcharge.)
Renting a truck from New York to Dallas costs $2,442 and back $1,962 (the difference is $480, a 24% surcharge.)
Renting a truck from San Francisco to Orlando costs $3,308 and back $1,988 (the difference is $1,510, an 84% surcharge.)
Renting a truck from San Francisco to Dallas costs $3,206 and back $1,128 (the difference is $2,078, a 184% surcharge.)
For comparison, renting the same truck from New York to San Francisco costs $3,409, and back $3,058 (the difference is $351, a surcharge of 11%).
Money well spent, as I learned 25 years ago when I had to pay a hefty moving van rental fee to escape from San Francisco to Colorado Springs.
UH-HUH: Florida Man Blames Stuck Gas Pedal for 95 MPH Highway Dash.
Another from the Annals of Great Excuses: “I wanted to go straight, officer, but the sign said ‘No, you turn’.”
BEER — IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Leave it to a beer company to save the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team.
DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS OR WHATEVER: The Media Stopped Reporting The Russia Collusion Story Because They Helped Create It.