Category Archives: General Interest
Short Veterans Day Tribute
Filed under American Character, Food for Thought, General Interest, Military
The good, the bad and the buttinski
The Fox News Business GOP debate is over. Hooray!!! This GOP debate covered more substantive issues than the CNBC debate or the previous FOX News debate, with the focus clearly on policy rather than pitting the candidates against each other.
Here’s my quick, completely amateur rundown. Jeb didn’t do enough to resuscitate his campaign. Kasich repeats the same stuff in each debate and it’s too moderate to win over the GOP base. Trump acted calmer and gave more detailed answers, which came across as more serious answers and less bombast – he did himself some good. Cruz didn’t hurt himself, but his stentorius delivery, like he’s a Roman orator, comes across as if he’s talking down to people – there’s something cold about it.
Carson gets a “meh” – nothing lost, nothing gained. Paul gained more support from his small niche of supporters, but did not expand his reach.
So, let me give a gold star to Rubio, because he really shines in the debate format. He comes across as knowledgeable, upbeat, well-studied on issues, but most importantly – he radiates likeability.
Now, last, here comes the biggest loser – Carly Fiorina. Her continual interruptions to grandstand and launch into boring soliloquies on her policies diminished her to an angry harpy rather than a Thatcher-esque figure. For once, I was in complete agreement with Donald Trump, when he complained to the moderators about Fiorina’s continual interruptions, Her dour recitations of her talking points and her arrogance doesn’t project well at all. She lacks all the likeability that Rubio oozes. Too bad she wasn’t in the second string debate and Christie in the first string, because he did fantastic in the second string debate.
Still, don’t have a “favorite” and remain uncommitted. I disliked Trump less and disliked Fiorina a good bit by the time this debate was over. Then again, I found her whining for days on end to get on the main debate stage as a typical feminist gimmick, where it seemed at some point she’d be borrowing Hillary’s “glass ceilings” lines. Christie good-naturedly moved to the second string and took it like a man. Okay, I’ll stop there, ha, ha, ha.
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics
An America Monarchy?
On Sundays my family began having Sunday dinner together, since my oldest daughter and four granddaughters moved back to this state in June. We’re still missing one daughter who lives in another state with her husband, but these dinners with my two sons, my oldest daughter and my four granddaughters almost invariably include my other daughter as my kids live on their cell phones and text back and forth constantly. Last night, my sons were discussing their views on Hillary Clinton’s private email server and frankly their views surprised me.
Both of my sons have studied The Constitution and yet when discussing this private email server, their comments left me wondering if, at the core, my view is antiquated and obsolete. They kept insisting that the State Department information on Hillary’s server belongs to the executive branch and since the President is in charge of that, this information belongs to him and he can decide what’s classified or not whenever he wants. I kept saying, “the information belongs to the executive branch, not to the individual officeholders – it isn’t theirs personally”. The whole problem Hillary Clinton faces is she treated “official State Department information” as if it belonged to her – personally. “Am I off-base? Is my view, that the President and all of our government officials are merely holders of their offices, sworn to uphold The Constitution and the public trust, in carrying out the duties of their offices, misguided and naively idealistic? I remember Watergate, in which retrospectively, the gravity seems much smaller than in the callous disregard for national security in this private email server scandal, where Hillary Clinton set up this system in such a premediated manner, to avoid scrutiny of her official business and all the official correspondence she generated on a daily basis. My sons, on the other hand, just shrug and seem okay with whatever the President decides on her private email server and handling of classified information, saying, “the information belongs to him, he can do whatever he wants.” He was sworn to uphold the “office of the President”. Do we now have an absolute monarch, who can do whatever he wants?
The effort to bury this email scandal keeps piling on fresh dirt to cover up the TRUTH as information is unearthed. The Obama administration seems to have joined the effort, with the NY Post editorial opinion, “Whitewashing Hillary — step one in shutting down the FBI’s probe“:
“Well, whaddya know? Maybe those Hillary Clinton emails didn’t include top-secret information after all.
At least, that’s the conclusion reportedly drawn by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s office — overruling the finding of Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough that two Clinton emails (from a sample of just 40) contained highly classified info.
Hmm. Clapper answers to the president — who issued clear marching orders months ago, announcing that Clinton’s server scam was “not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.”
Oddly, news of Clapper’s finding got leaked to Politico soon after the Washington Free Beacon reported Clinton did indeed, right after taking over at State, acknowledge her responsibility to properly guard classified info — and that “negligent handling” of it could bring criminal penalties.”
Last week on the O’Reilly Factor, Monica Crowley reported information from two “anonymous” sources, so take it for what it’s worth. :
So, justice in America now is reliant on just one man – the FBI Director. Is this really the state of our constitutional system – justice depends on the FBI Director, James Comey, or the law is whatever President Obama decides it is? Is Hillary Clinton above the law?
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics, The Constitution
News from amongst the Syrian rebels
This is a short post with mostly some news links, because frankly I am busy with my needlework and can’t write blog posts and sew at the same time. The Syrian rebels are making the news again. Here’s a news story I mentioned the other day and let’s hope these aren’t part of elusive “moderate Syrian rebels”:
“Hundreds of women locked in cages to act as human shields against Assad’s air-strikes: Rebels parade families loyal to president through streets as horrifying deterrent”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3301364/Hundreds-women-locked-cages-act-human-shields-against-Assad-s-air-strikes-Rebels-parade-families-loyal-president-streets-horrifying-deterrent.html#ixzz3qeD2S6En
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Next there’s this msn report of mustard gas being used in a battle in August. Note the combatants were some Syrian rebel group and the Islamic State, not Assad’s forces. Once again, let’s hope these aren’t part of the elusive “moderate Syrian rebels”:
“EXCLUSIVE-Chemical weapons used in Syrian fighting – watchdog”
Perhaps, someday we’ll get past the delusional reasoning, the hunt to create moderates among Islamists, which Stephen Coughlin, the former Pentagon expert on Islamic law and Islamic terror, explains stems from creating this false narrative of “countering violent extremism” rather than naming the source of that violent extremism. Our government actively refuses to recognize the Islam in Jihad. Here’s an excellent interview where Coughlin explains the problem:
Stephen Coughlin on “Is Al-Qaeda Really the Moderate Alternative to ISIS?” — on The Glazov Gang
On the home front, Carol Brown at the American Thinker wrote a piece:
“Good News and Bad News as the Federal Government Faces Global Jihad”, reporting on legislation being introduced by Senator Ted Cruz in the Senate and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart in the House that would designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
To understand the mixed nuts in the radical Islamic assortment, it’s important to understand the ideology. Coughlin, mentioned above, was one of the Pentagon’s foremost experts on Islamic law and understanding Islamic terrorism, but in the Obama era, his contract at the Pentagon was not renewed. There’s been an organized and concerted effort to pretend some Islamists are “moderates”, whom we should cultivate (arm in some cases, too it appears). Now, the Cruz/Diaz-Balart legislation will not garner White House support, which promotes the narrative of the Muslim Brotherhood as mostly a secular organization.
To understand the who’s who amongst the Sunni radicals this 2005 link covers The Salafist Movement from it’s inception to present holy terrors:
“The Salafist Movement” By Bruce Livesey
So, to fight the Islamic State, ruthless killers who number in the tens of thousands, President Obama last week ramped up his fight and actually sent his spokesman out to make the announcement that he was sending 50 Special Forces operators into Syria…. That no general stepped forward and resigned in protest to using military force, that has no strategic purpose whatsoever, for a shameless and stupendously stupid PR gambit, demonstrated clearly the sorry state of our military leadership and it also highlighted the callous disregard this President has for the US Armed Forces. 50 – yes, 50 to serve as walking targets for the Islamic State. Some strategy….
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Islam, Military, Politics, Terrorism
Adding it up
Here’s a typical journalist’s report from the Washington Post – this one from June 2015, on a group of refugees’ flight from Aleppo, Syria to Gmünd, Austria. The group consists of 4 adults and one child. So, the reporter, Anthony Faiola, in vivid prose, wrote about the hardships and harrowing experiences, on “The Black Route”, but I kept jotting down the dollar amounts listed and this does not include food or lodging, only the cost of transportation paid to smugglers and the cost of a smartphone, which is how the refugees communicate with each other and the smuggling network. Here’s the list:
$275 smartphone (article states that is almost 3 months of the one refugee’s pay)
$2,000 per adult (4 adults) paid to Ukrainian smugglers to take them from Turkey to the island of Tilos
$12,000 amount paid to a Syrian smuggler, whom they say absconded with their money
$330 for a 52 mile taxi ride from Thessaloniki to the Macedonian border
$550 each to pay a smuggler to get them from Hungary to Vienna, although the story says they only had half that amount by this point
Now they didn’t pay that $550 each, because that plan fell through, but excluding that $2,750, the story indicates over $20,000 was paid to smugglers to get 4 adults and 1 child to Austria.
$275 was almost three months pay for one of those men, a deliveryman in Aleppo. His niece, another of this group worked as a kindergarten teacher, then there are two other young men, whose occupations aren’t mentioned and the one child. Where did they come up with over $20,000 for this journey? These are the kinds of things I wonder about.
So many of these stories don’t add up, both in dollars and cents, but also in common sense.
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics, The Media
Some loose foreign policy threads
The mainstream media does a terrible job at gathering the back story required to make sense out of many stories that burst upon the national conscientiousness. Partisan political interests cast deep, dark shadows on the truth and as time passes, public interest wanes and the media moves on, unaware of their failure to ever report the full truth.
Let’s start with the oh so glorious Arab Spring, the media couldn’t talk enough about a few years ago. What happened to the Arab Spring? Where has “democracy” or “freedom” flourished in the Mid-East?
Libya stands as a western intervention where reporting failed to flesh out even the basics. Who exactly were the Libyan rebels facing “genocide” as Hillary Clinton states? Which European leaders were pushing to oust Gadaffi and who vetted the intelligence, which the Obama administration used in making the decision to intervene? To this day, details remain sketchy at best. Then Benghazi in the messy aftermath and still more questions persist. Hillary Clinton stated weapons were being gathered up by the US in a security effort, but what happened to those weapons? Where were they being sent? What exactly was the CIA mission in Benghazi? After that hearing where the Democrats declared everything had already been covered in previous investigations, well, I wonder why was ambassador Stevens meeting with a rebel leader from an Al Qaeda affiliate? Congressman Pompeo showed that photo and Secretary Clinton stated she had no idea, but doesn’t that information seem important in light of the attack on the US facility later that day by Al Qaeda-like rebels?
Syria also remains awash in myths and outright lies, so let’s start with the assertion that we should have intervened sooner in Syria? What justification was there for the US to intervene in a civil uprising in Syria at the outset? Of course, as time wore on the Obama administration played the genocide/gross human rights violations card and pushed intervening on the Samantha Power “responsibility to protect” mantra, but truly who were these “moderate Syrian rebels”? The entire reasoning process used with the regime change proponents seems very flawed, so can anyone explain this in simple terms?
The recent dramatic increase of refugees seems like an orchestrated event to destabilize Europe. Who is behind it and who is funding the effort? All of the photos and videos show people with Western-style clothes, coats, hats, shoes, etc. Who is providing the humanitarian assistance? Who is helping these refugees along the path to Europe? Obviously many aren’t Syrian refugees, but there’s a storyline that Assad is depopulating areas of Syria? Is this true? Today, the British Daily Mail has stories of Syrian rebels fighting Assad using Alawite women and children as human shields – packing them into metal cages and transporting them on the backs of pick-up trucks and tractor trailers, to dissuade Russian and Syrian army bombings. Are these the rebels McCain and the “Syrian moderate” proponents are supporting?
Does anyone else have questions about these US foreign policy issues?
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics, The Media
Presidential politics… it’s a laugh
The Legal Insurrection blog has these Bad Lip Reading videos from the political debates posted:
First up, the First Democratic Debate;
Next the First Republican Debate:
Filed under General Interest, Humor, Politics
Musings on the 3rd Republican Debate
Assuredly the professional punditry class will dissect last night’s CNBC Republican debate at great length, so here are my amateur viewer observations.
Last night’s debate started off predictably, like the two previous GOP debates, which differ markedly from the one Democratic debate, the quintessential Hillary coronation, where the entire exercise was to airbrush her scandal-ridden, lying image into the feminist icon, “first woman President”.
So, the questions began last night – personally insulting questions designed to destroy each candidate’s credibility, questions designed to incite attacks between the candidates and sadly, Kasich, Trump, Bush and Rubio played along, until Ted Cruz, the candidate who was passed over quickly in the previous two debates, stepped into the fray and neatly turned the tables on the moderators, who appeared to be left-wing shills.
After that the debate actually got into some interesting policy exchanges and although I doubt, Cruz or Christie can ever garner the GOP nomination, let alone win in a general election, they assuredly are two of the smartest minds in the GOP field.
Trump toned it down somewhat and stayed quiet a good bit of the time, so he walked away unscathed. In fact, the only candidate that seemed to diminish as the debate wore on was Fiorina, whose chances to speak sounded like rehearsed campaign sound bites and boring boiler plate partisan attack lines.
Huckabee had the best line of the night comparing the government to that US Army blimp that tore loose of it’s mooring and reeked havoc tearing down power lines yesterday.
All in all, I thought the GOP candidates finally got a chance to demonstrate why the GOP has much more to offer than Hillary Clinton, with her recycled liberal mantra from 30 years ago. Frankly, her ideas sound almost as old, tired and repetitive as her lies. You’ve got to hand it to her though, the mainstream media remains loyal and it looks like there is no level too low for them to sink to help her campaign.
Filed under General Interest, Politics, The Media
Obama’s turbulent Mid-East magic carpet ride
Since last week’s Benghazi hearing the partisan clamor on the right ended up looking like a witch hunt and truly could there be a more perfect caricature of an evil witch, replete with the cackle, than Hillary Clinton? I think of her as “thatwitch2016”, but there again my feelings are based on what personally happened to me during impeachment (Messages of mhere, tabbed at the top of my home page), but that aside the Republicans, as usual, followed the bread crumb trail laid down by that witch2016 and into the oven went their attempt to expose her. Sure, they scored a few hits, exposing her as callous and mendacious, but she walked away having the last laugh.
The Republicans keep trying to pin the September 11,2012 attack on Hillary Clinton, but the real responsibility for Benghazi resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Benghazi “mission” was not in the State Department facility, but at the CIA facility and that’s where the questions need to be answered – what were we really doing in Benghazi. When that is answered, the timeline moves further back to why did we really oust Gadaffi and who were the sources of this intelligence of impending alleged “genocide” Gadaffi was plotting? Was he really plotting a “genocide”? Who really were the “rebels” in Libya, for whom we instigated regime change to protect? Were they “freedom fighters or radical Islamists and Al Qaeda? Once that Gordian knot is untangled, let’s ask the same questions in Syria. How did “Assad the Reformer” poof into “Assad the genocidal monster”? Who were the sources of the intelligence used to make these assessments?
Yes, whose intelligence does the Obama administration rely on to make foreign policy decisions? That is the central question! With that in mind, a day early, I’m doing a throwback Thursday rerun of my January 25,2015 prognosticative blog post on Obama’s turbulent Mid-East magic carpet ride. Compare my assessment in January to where we are now and along with the questions posed above, ask how the Obama administration went from claiming Yemen a success story in the fight against terrorism, in September 2014, to the collapse of the Yemeni government in January 2015. Supposedly, our counter-terrorism campaign was a stunning success according to the President in September and in January 2015 terrorists, financed and armed largely by Iran, toppled the government. How was the intelligence so lacking or whose intelligence did the Obama administration use to form the September 2014 assessment? Was it flat out false and falsified intelligence or did the administration choose to write their own fairy tale? These are the questions we really need answered – because the blame goes all the way to top on Benghazi and Hillary served as the administration’s fire break line last week. For not exposing the administration’s real activities in Benghazi, it’s likely she earned herself a “get out jail free card” in regards to her email problems. Here’s my big picture view from January 2015:
January 25, 2015
The Yemen “Success” Story In Flames
Malcolm Pollack wrote an excellent post on the Houthi coup in Yemen, “Rock and Roll, Houthi Coup”. Malcolm compiled the pertinent facts on Yemen being another Muslim failed state, clinging to the edge of the cliff – economic despair, a population reliant on government for its basic needs, a water supply imperiled by khat production, and internecine fighting. He states:
“About Yemen, President Obama — who, when it comes to foreign policy and a whole lot more, has been described of late as “King Midas in reverse” — had this to say back in September:
This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.
As always, up is down, black is white, etc. Meanwhile, this:
The collapse of the U.S.-backed government of Yemen on Thursday has left America’s counter-terrorism campaign “paralyzed”, two U.S. security officials said, dealing a major setback to Washington’s fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a potent wing of the militant network.”
I recommend you read his entire excellent post. Now, along with collapse of the Yemeni government, to the north, Saudi Arabia’s relic of a king passed away. So, we’ve got the “kingdom” of Saudi Arabia passing the crown to a 79 year-old, who reportedly suffers from dementia, while the court swarms with intrigue. Now, this kingdom feels threatened on all fronts – existentially from Shia expansion, from radicalized Sunni/Salafi Islamist groups, and from crashing oil prices. In reaction to these external threats they’re building walls (a defensive posture) to keep foreign dangers at bay and bankrolling President Obama’s half-hearted battle to defeat IS/ISIL/ISIS (a money down the drain effort). John McCreary’s Nightwatch predicts, the new king will likely move toward more conservative domestic postures, which makes sense, to try to preserve power and maintain political stability within the kingdom. Nightwatch’s analysis states:
“Be prepared for policy changes. The instinctive reaction of living systems is to contract during times of internal stress, and even more so during a leadership crisis. Leadership transition is a time of vulnerability. Most systems increase their defensive vigilance during that period.
Applying that to Saudi Arabia, guards will be extra vigilant to protect the new King and the Crown Prince. Restrictions on population movements and border controls usually tighten. Dissidents and miscreants usually go to ground for a while.
The protective and defensive instinct also applies to policies. That instinct ensures the continuation of the bedrock principles of a state, but not necessarily more discretionary initiatives. In Saudi Arabia, the monarchy, Wahhabism, the tribal heritage and oil are four of the bedrock principles. Experiments in modernity are expendable.
The emphasis in a leadership transition always is stability because when a King dies, the Kingdom can be at risk. Abdallah did all that a reigning monarch can do to protect the monarchy. Readers must expect that his policies and programs will be modified, assuming they survive at all.”
Shia powers smell weakness, as do the radicalized bands of Islamist nutcases, emboldening them to embark on ambitious offensive measures to seize more territory in rudderless states, left from the oh so glorious Arab Spring, our ass backwards, leader from behind, championed. Sorry, namby-pamby, narrative writers at the White House, the rest of the world isn’t in the business of selling Obama t-shirts, Obama policies or the Obama “legacy” (#ChickensCameHomeToRoost), so they already wrote Obama off as a weak, unreliable partner.
So, we’ve got bands of drug-crazed, drug-financed Islamists and batshit crazy Shia mullahs fighting to rule swaths of war-ravaged, barren sand pits, swarming with millions of hopeless, starving, illiterate people. Yemen is just one more to add to the list.
Don’t expect the Obama administration to do more than rewrite their “narrative” and send John Kerry bearing love beads, groveling to the Iranians once more, begging for them to cooperate on Peace in the region. “Up in smoke” goes the Obama foreign policy on Yemen, hailed only months ago as a huge “success” – like Somalia, no less (yep, failed state Somalia is a Obama success too, who knew….). To round out President Obama’s capitulation to the threat we can not name – (Islamic Imperialism) , stay tuned, because soon we will see how, the Iranian regime, Terror Central, incorporates nuclear weapons into their OFFENSIVE MILITARY POSTURE. One can only wonder if the Obama administration has chewed too much khat like the Somalis and Yemenis or scarier to consider, perhaps these stellar graduates from some of America’s finest universities really believe their own
bullshit, oops, “narratives”.Psst, no, no, no watch and see, it’s those nefarious “right-wing, gun-toting, clinging to their religion Americans” (ostensibly, those dastardly WASPs) who pose the greatest threat to America. Let me sip another cup of tea:-)
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics, Terrorism
libertybelle diaries 