It’s Wednesday, January 20th, 2016…but before we begin, a couple of quick thoughts on the passing scene. First, see if you can tell us…
…the disrespectful message Steve King and Paul Ryan sent these baby killers. Yeah…that’s right:
Nuns; from the Little Sisters of the Poor to be specific. If you truly can tell a lot about a person by the friends they keep, Hillary’s headed straight to Hell; do not pass “Go”, do not collect any more six-figure speaking fees.
Second, for any Evangelicals inclined to be suckered into backing Trump like you did Obama, The Donald exhibited the extent of his biblical knowledge during an address at Liberty University:
As one Eric Teetsel tweeted:
Sure enough, serving to prove both Teetsel and Forest Gump’s Momma right…
Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump’s presidential bid
“I am proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President of the United States of America”
Submitted for your perusal, three brief observations on the import of Palin’s action from people of impeccable judgment:
Jim Geraghty: “In the founding days of the Tea Party, Donald Trump was exactly what they were fighting against…and now some of those adherents have embraced him fully.”
Allahpundit: “The irony of Palin endorsing Trump this year of all years, if it happens, is that the tea party finally has a candidate running who not only passes nearly every litmus test they can throw at him but who’s run a brilliant campaign and stands a shockingly good chance of winning. That’s Cruz, a guy whom Palin herself has praised repeatedly in the past.”
Yours Truly: “We can see the end of the Tea Party from our house!”
When it comes to The Donald, we’re of a mind with the sentiments expressed by Sheriff Dan Shaw in High Plains Drifter when commenting on the redemptive qualities of the recently deceased Billy Borders:
“He didn’t have much personality and what he did have was all bad.” By the way, hat tip to the brilliant Stilton Jarlsberg for the Liberty University satire.
“Hillary Clinton’s emails on her unsecured, homebrew server contained intelligence from the U.S. government’s most secretive and highly classified programs, according to an unclassified letter from a top inspector general to senior lawmakers.
Fox News exclusively obtained the text of the unclassified letter, sent Jan. 14 from Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. It laid out the findings of a recent comprehensive review by intelligence agencies that identified “several dozen” additional classified emails — including specific intelligence known as “special access programs” (SAP).
That indicates a level of classification beyond even “top secret,” the label previously given to two emails found on her server, and brings even more scrutiny to the presidential candidate’s handling of the government’s closely held secrets.
This is becoming serious!
…Intelligence from a “special access program,” or SAP, is even more sensitive than that designated as “top secret” – as were two emails identified last summer in a random sample pulled from Clinton’s private server she used as secretary of state. Access to a SAP is restricted to those with a “need-to-know” because exposure of the intelligence would likely reveal the source, putting a method of intelligence collection — or a human asset — at risk. Currently, some 1,340 emails designated “classified” have been found on Clinton’s server, though the Democratic presidential candidate insists the information was not classified at the time.
“There is absolutely no way that one could not recognize SAP material,” a former senior law enforcement with decades of experience investigating violations of SAP procedures told Fox News. “It is the most sensitive of the sensitive.”…”
Here’s the juice; the only human asset about which this witch was ever worried…
…was herself! National security…the rule of law…the lives of four Americans in Benghazi; they weren’t just distant seconds. Like everything else standing between Hillary and her destiny, they didn’t even register on her concern-o-meter!
Next up, courtesy of the WSJ, Bret Stephens asks what inquiring minds want to know:
In Syria, Bashar Assad is trying to bring his enemies to heel by blocking humanitarian convoys to desperate civilians living in besieged towns. The policy is called “starve or kneel,” and it is openly supported by Hezbollah and tacitly by Iran, which has deployed its elite Quds Force to aid Mr. Assad’s war effort.
So what better time for right-thinking liberals to ask: “Is Iran really so evil?”
That’s the title of a revealing essay in Politico by Stephen Kinzer, a former New York Times reporter now at Brown University. “The demonization of Iran is arguably the most bizarre and self-defeating of all U.S. foreign policies,” Mr. Kinzer begins. “Americans view Iran not simply as a country with interests that sometimes conflict with ours but as a relentless font of evil.”
…“Our perception of Iran as a threat to vital American interests is increasingly disconnected from reality,” Mr. Kinzer writes. “Events of the past week may slowly begin to erode the impulse that leads Americans to believe patriotism requires us to hate Iran.”
What a weird thought. My own patriotism has never been touched one way or another by my views of Iran. Nor do I hate Iran—if by “Iran” one means the millions of people who marched alongside Neda Agha-Soltan when she was gunned down by regime thugs in the 2009 Green Revolution, or the fellow travelers of Hashem Shaabani, the Arab-Iranian poet executed two years ago for “waging war on God,” or the thousands of candidates who are routinely barred from running for Parliament for being insufficiently loyal to the Supreme Leader.
This is the Iran that liberals like Mr. Kinzer ought to support, not the theocratic usurpers who claim to speak in Iran’s name while stepping on Iranian necks. But we are long past the day when a liberal U.S. foreign policy meant shaping our interests around our values—not the other way around—much less supporting the liberal aspirations of people everywhere, especially if they live in anti-American dictatorships.
Today’s liberal foreign policy, to adapt Churchill, is appeasement wrapped in realism inside moral equivalency. When it comes to Iran policy, that means believing that we have sinned at least as much against the Iranians as they have sinned against us; that our national-security interests require us to come to terms with the Iranians; and that the best way to allay the suspicions—and, over time, diminish the influence—of Iranian hard-liners is by engaging the moderates ever more closely and demonstrating ever-greater diplomatic flexibility.
That’s a neat theory, proved wrong by experience at every turn…”
In other words, since the Shah was deposed, relations with Iran always comes down to…
With America always getting the short end of the stick.
Yet Stephen Kinzer offers no neater nor utterly inaccurate a theory as that espoused by the poster child for Libertarianism-run-amok, one Ron Paul, whose latest howling paints an impossible picture:
“…Events this week have dealt a harsh blow to Washington’s neocons, who for decades have been warning against any engagement with Iran. These true isolationists were determined that only regime change and a puppet government in Tehran could produce peaceful relations between the US and Iran. Instead, engagement has worked to the benefit of the US and Iran.
…I have often said that the neocons’ greatest fear is for peace to break out. Their well-paid jobs are dependent on conflict, sanctions, and pre-emptive war. They grow wealthy on conflict, which only drains our economy.Let’s hope that this new opening with Iran will allow many other productive Americans to grow wealthy through trade and business ties. Let’s hope many new productive jobs will be created on both sides.Peace is prosperous!“
To borrow a phrase from the carriage driver in Ghostbusters…
And a dangerously misguided a*shole at that! We don’t refer to Paul as Libertarianism’s Crazy Uncle in the Attic for nothin’!
But back to Bret Stephens’ original question: what brings the combined forces of The Left and this Libertarian loony together advocating for rapprochement between parties with what should be eternally irreconcilable differences?
That’s easy: an implacable, abiding abhorrence for…
…the state of Israel.
Speaking of sheer stupidity, the following story leaves us, quite literally, in awe of the subjects’ inexplicable imprudence:
Seriously…no, SERIOUSLY; they were actuallyhiking the Pakistan-Afghan border?!? Yeah…just where WE would take TLJ when she was five months pregnant! With all due respect, which is very little if not nada, you can bid these two…
We can only imagine what was next on their bucket list; perhaps heading down to Harlem to recreate…
…Die Hard: With a Vengeance?!? No offense, but next time, take a tip from Private Pyle:
It’s far quicker and significantly less painlful than hiking the border betwixt Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Turning now to a moment worthy of a Republican primary debate, Real Clear Politics tunes us in as…
Martin O’Malley Begs For Ten Seconds to Answer Question About Drug/Police Reform, He Is Denied
Following a firebrand back-and-forth from Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about drug policy and criminal justice reform, former Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley, known for his sweeping police reforms in the drug-plagued city(Now THERE’S a success story ANY politician would kill to have on THEIR resume!), attempts to break in to the conversation. “Lester, just ten seconds,” pled the mayor who was the inspiration for a character on The Wire, “just ten seconds.”
NBC anchor Lester Holt denies his request and throws the screen to a shot of some unrelated Google analytics. The former Maryland governor and Baltimore mayor can be heard laughing as the debate theme music begins to blare. Twenty seconds elapse from the time that Martin O’Malley asks for ten seconds to speak until the time NBC goes to commercial.
“Baltimore” and “sweeping police reforms”: almost as much of an oxymoron as “Baltimore” and “public school performance improvement”. As for Martin O’Malley, he’s just a moron.
Along with…
…the rest of the Dimocratic field.
And in the Environmental Moment, the WSJ takes us for a walk down Memory Lane, courtesy of yet another pronouncement of peak oil published in the August 21, 1998 edition of what should more properly be entitled Junk Science magazine:
The Next Oil Crisis Looms Large – and Perhaps Close
Yeah…when Hillarys fly!
This spring . . . the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported for the first time that the peak of world oil production is in sight. Even taking into account the best efforts of the explorationists and the discovery of new fields in frontier areas like the Caspian Sea . . . sometime between 2010 and 2020 the gush of oil from wells around the world will peak at 80 million barrels per day, then begin a steady, inevitable decline, the report says.
According to the International Energy Agency, hardly an unbiased source of information, production reached 97 million barrels per day…in late 2015.
Remember, these are the same simpletons so certain about the “science” of anthropogenic global warming!
On The Lighter Side…
Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with yet another Tale From the Darkside, and this just in from Portlandia:
Loading ...
You must be logged in to post a comment.