libertybelle diaries

August 9, 2015 · 9:25 pm

More opinions on The Donald

FOX news is doing a rerun of the first GOP debate as I type this. After a few days of reading news reports, watching TV news coverage, reading blogs, Twitter comments, it’s become apparent that the Donald Trump supporters believe he’s a Washington outsider who will change Washington. Now, he has used his money to buy politicians, making him part of that thing his supporters claim to hate – big money interests controlling Washington, but there you have it – they believe he is a reformer.

He was a liberal Democrat until a few months ago, but he spouts off about illegal immigration, jobs going to China with language that barely rises above overt bigotry and here he is, a contender for the GOP presidential nomination. Call me stupid, but I have not heard him offer any concrete plans or even calm rational policy ideas – all he does is brag and bluster along, hurling insults at anyone who appears to have irritated him that day. He runs on sheer vitriol and from my observation, displays more moodiness than any woman I’ve ever dealt with at that time of the month, which sure seems what he was saying. Okay, he backtracked off that “blood coming from her eyes or wherever” comment, but he’s the one who displays the symptoms often attributed to the female menstrual cycle. Please, someone buy him some Pamprin!

Temper tantrums and endless outbursts and so much rudeness and anger and yet no real ideas, heck he seems clueless on history and foreign policy. Any who criticize, dare to question him or even disagree with – beware, as his former reality TV star turned campaign official , Tana Goertz, boasted, “If you mess with the bull you’ll get the horns, sweetheart!” Yeah, she’s another class act in this “GOP-goes-reality-TV mode”.

Earth to conservatives, you are being played! Donald Trump will end up making all of you look like fools, because he’s not a conservative, he’s friends with all the people in Washington you despise the most (MANY of them liberal Democrats whom he was supporting until a few months ago), he’s shamelessly using conservative anger, but he has not offered a single true plan to change anything. Maybe, he will call his friends, the Clintons, for some policy ideas. Really, I am confused with how to take his undisciplined, petty, mean-spirited tweets seriously as policy or as befitting the future President of the United States. He exhibits the self-control of a 12 year-old!

On the bright side, at least the Christie team prepped him to tone down his brash New Jersey mannerisms, because I don’t know if I could have endured the loud-mouth bragging from both a New Yorker and New Jerseyan in one debate. Phewww, lucky escape for all of us!

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Filed under General Interest, Politics

August 9, 2015 · 9:43 am

Sophisticated political manipulation?

Being tech un-savvy, I’ll leave the tech talk to this article, but with the impact social media has on everything from cute baby videos going viral to the Islamic State spreading its jihad, the power of its ability to influence people can not be underestimated. Opinions form quickly and many political activist groups successfully use this tool for successful public relations operations. Some use it to spread disinformation, misinformation and as a battleground to launch scorched-earth political nuclear attacks, effectively annihilating their political opponents. With this in mind, here’s a thought-provoking piece from Wired:

Google’s Search Algorithm Could Steal the Presidency

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Filed under Culture Wars, General Interest, Politics, The Media

August 8, 2015 · 9:57 pm

Iran: The Big Sell | Foreign Policy Research Institute

Iran: The Big Sell | Foreign Policy Research Institute. Hat tip to JK.

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Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics, Terrorism

August 8, 2015 · 2:53 pm

Don’t forget to watch the sleight of hand

While all the oxygen has been sucked up by Donald Trump, the Hillary Clinton email server fell to the back pages. She and her minions are defying a federal judge’s orders:

http://observer.com/2015/08/breaking-cheryl-mills-to-destroy-emails-about-hillary-clinton/#ixzz3iBGOasdu

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2015/08/state-department-request-for-huma-abedins-records-211955.html

So, while the press and we blabber on about Donald Trump, his friend, Hillary Clinton, and her girls club are stalling and doing the latest version of the Rose Law Firm billing records hokey-pokey dance. They’re particularly adept at the “shaking it all about” part – deflecting and obfuscating, hoping eventually those asking questions can be cast as the villains and Saint Hillary can boldly prance around proclaiming she’s been the victim of a vicious right-wing inquisition again.

The rule of law is for little people, not for Hillary Clinton.

Trump – the influence-peddler in chief

The first Republican debate ended with no clear winner emerging. Sure, there were plenty of gotcha questions, but Donald Trump didn’t answer any questions in detail, except the one explaining his support for Democrats in the past. His followers will latch onto his bombastic, red meat, xenophobic rhetoric, missing that Trump personifies exactly what these supporters hate about Washington. He eloquently described buying politicians and peddling influence. He represents the worst part of big money greasing palms in DC. I would have asked him why he wanted Hillary Clinton at his wedding, since he said his big donations compelled her to attend.

Nothing Trump said demonstrated he studied the issues and did some research prior to this debate. His performance reminded me of Sarah Palin, who reveled in throwing out the same sort of red meat rhetoric, devoid of any substantive details. If he doesn’t bother to read up on and research the complex issues facing America for this debate, one can only wonder how he would handle them as President. It speaks to a narcissism that echoes the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, another “I am the greatest” ego.

The other non-politician on the stage, Ben Carson, displays a genuine humility and seriousness. He talked about studying issues, while Trump acts like the details are beneath him. Interestingly, Carly Fiorina, another non-politician, shone in the earlier debate, specifically because she does her homework. Trump has lots of money, as he reminds us in every other breath, so why didn’t he hire top-notch coaches to prepare for this debate? I suspect the answer is he thinks his money will buy him the Presidency, after all that is how he understands the American political system. Sadly, so many conservatives are so angry at the state of our country and fed-up with Washington and the GOP establishment that they hunger for the red meat he’s offering. In reality, all he really has to offer is bologna.

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Filed under General Interest, Politics

August 5, 2015 · 9:05 pm

Buyer beware!

Many voters within the base of both parties feel betrayed by Washington insiders, so the Democrats have a declared Independent, unabashed socialist making huge inroads within the Democratic base. Many fed-up conservatives have embraced Donald Trump’s candidacy out of total disgust and anger at the GOP establishment politicians, who routinely betray conservatives.

Perhaps, it’s just a personal call, but the Washington Post is reporting a call that Bill Clinton made to Donald Trump shortly before Trump decided to run as a Republican. As one who remains extremely wary of Trump’s motives and his rather late in life swing to the GOP, this inquiring mind keeps wondering if he is just trying to sabotage the GOP. Or more likely, the Clintons got wind of Trump considering a run, so Bill Clinton might have been trying to ferret information out of Trump or encouraged Trump to run, in hopes he would throw the GOP race into chaos. Never underestimate the Clintons when it comes to underhandedness.

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Filed under Culture Wars, General Interest, Politics

August 5, 2015 · 8:48 am

A short Mugabe primer

Here is another link to read, ” Cecil the Lion and Robert Mugabe”, by Robin Wright at The New Yorker. Wright clarifies the situation:

“Mugabe’s autocratic rule has remained almost impossible to investigate or challenge. Opposition parties are officially permitted but unofficially not tolerated. “Human-rights abuses range from violent attacks, and sometimes murderous ones, on opposition figures to detentions and harassment,” Roth said. In June, the State Department accused Zimbabwe of not only curtailing freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, and movement but also of abducting and torturing dissidents—with no recourse. “Corruption occurred at every level of the police force,” the annual U.S. human-rights report declared.

Last Friday, Zimbabwe demanded the extradition of Walter J. Palmer, the Minnesota trophy hunter who shot Cecil with an arrow and then, forty hours later, finished him off with a gun. The country’s environmental minister announced that the “foreign poacher” had to be held to account for his crime.”

“Extradition to Zimbabwe”, be for real!

With all the ink already spilled elsewhere about Cecil the Lion, I had resolved to hold my tongue, but seeing the reports about a petition to extradite the dastardly dentist to Zimbabwe for justice, made we want to scream, “Who in the hell is going to extradite an American citizen to Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship in Zimbabwe?” Really, over a lion, we’re going to send an American citizen to Mugabe’s justice system??? Any idiot who signed that petition should be scorned and ridiculed!!! Besides the vast, decades long history of human rights violations by Mugabe’s government, it’s also one of the world’s most corrupt governments too. Americans need to wake-up and start thinking before they follow these lunatic leftist pop culture pipers, because it’s alarming how totally ignorant vast swaths of Americans truly are, yet they run around following TV personalities and idiots in Hollywood, based on emotional theatrics.

Various TV personalities do the man-on-the-street interviews to showcase the shocking ignorance of Americans on just about any political or historical topic, but the Mark Dice video on You Tube yesterday should alarm, not entertain you. He stopped random passers by and asked them if they would support Hillary’s campaign promise to repeal the Bill of Rights if she’s elected. Now, suspend arguments that she just might do that, since she has no respect for the rule of law, but truly she hasn’t suggested that. Dice uses these outlandish videos to showcase how ignorant and way too easily led many Americans are. Perhaps, its a toss-up on whether the worst part is these people blabber on oblivious to how lost in the fog of progressive muddled thinking they are or that these are the “low-information” voters the left tries to get to the polls. Leftists rant about “their rights” constantly, so it would seem that the “Bill of Rights” might ring a bell that THE “Bill of Rights” might be something important. What these people are following is celebrity. Hillary Clinton is a celebrity figure in America.

Time to listen to that sappy song “Born Free” popularized by the Elsa the Lion story, oh my, I can ponder freedom and lions’ rights to life all at once… yippee!

Here’s the Dice video:

Kurdistan?

Talk about serendipity, just after responding to Kinnison making the case for the Kurds, I read the latest article by G. Murphy Donovan at the New English Review, “Reform Islam? Recognize Kurdistan!” GMD writes:

“If the democratic West seeks to win the war of ideas with the theocratic East, it could do worse than support the national aspirations of a unique culture such as Kurdistan. Persians and Arabs have had their day, yet both are still yoked by religious repression. The time may have come to reward the kind of Muslim polity that the rest of the world can live with.

Recognizing Kurdistan sends a powerful message to Islam. Statehood for the Kurds could spark a reformation that enlightens the entire Muslim world. Indeed, Kurdistan would be, for example, a much more reliable Muslim “partner” in NATO than Turkish backsliders. A Kurdish state might not be the final answer, yet Kurds are surely a better bet than Turks or Palestinians – and a more enlightened addition to the community of tolerant, free nations.”

I think you guys are onto something and combine this idea with the ideas in a SSI paper from 2014 by Huba Wass de Czege, BG (ret.), that I mentioned in a May blog post, “A SSI Paper on defeating the Islamic State” and we might be on our way to a real strategy.

JK, yes, you’re right, the PKK does complicate matters and they are designated terrorists by both Turkey and the United States, but the Turks will use the latest terrorist attacks to crack down on Kurds, in general, if history is any guide.

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Filed under Food for Thought, Foreign Policy, General Interest, History, Military, Politics

August 3, 2015 · 12:26 pm

Some fresh ideas on “nation-building”

I like considering fresh ideas to approaching old problems and this article in the latest Strategic Studies Institute newsletter looks at fragile states in a new way. Instead of looking at fragile states remedies from a top down state-building approach, Dr. Robert D. Lamb states that outsiders, to include international state-building groups, can’t fix fragile states and he suggests a bottom up approach, recognizing that some subnational groups within fragile states manage to organize themselves and even govern themselves in some cases, despite the dysfunction at the national level. His ideas deserve consideration, in light of the dismal failure of “nation-building”:

“Strategic Insights: Fragile States Cannot Be Fixed With State-Building”

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Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics