First up, writing at his Morning Jolt, Jim Geraghty reminds us…
This Isn’t Ioffe’s First Gaffe
GQ correspondentJulia Ioffe, on CNN, yesterday: “I think this president, one of the things that he really launched his presidential run on is talking about Islamic radicalization. And this president has radicalized so many more people than ISIS ever did.” (For perspective, estimates of ISIS forces at their apex ranged from 9,000 to 200,000.) Ioffe later apologized.
After the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Ioffe claimed“this president makes this possible”and contended that Jews who voted for Trump“have some thinking to do”.(In 2009, an 88-year-old white supremacist shot at the U.S. Holocaust museum, killing one and injuring another. In 2014, there were two shootings at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community in Overland Park, Kan., leaving three dead. Did the president at that time ‘make those possible’?)
Previously, Ioffe contended that a “silent majority” of Trump supporters are “okay with racism and anti-Semitism.”
She once asked the Trump organization in a list of written inquiries, “Was there ever a time when Donald Trump Jr. felt any oedipal impulses?”
After the appointment of three retired generals, Ioffe said the Trump administration should be called a “junta.”
She contended that Republican animosity towards Susan Rice is driven by racism.
She suggested that President Trump was having sexual relations with his daughter, leading to her dismissal from Politico.
She refers to the attorney generalas “Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.” While this is indeed the attorney general’s middle name, use of all three names is an attempt to play into negative stereotypes of the South. The press was rightly wary about those who consistently referred to the previous president with all three names — “Barack Hussein Obama.”
Some of us remember back in 2013, when Ioffe, then writing for The New Republic, suggested President Obama should deal with Congressional Republicans the way Boris Yeltsin did, by dissolving parliament and then using military forces to shell the Russian parliament building when they refused to leave.
In other words…how many awful things do you have to say before the CNN bookers say, “Hey, let’s leave Julia off the panel?”
What Geraghty calls a gaffe we view as patent prevarication.
He also neglected to mention neither the tweet which got Ioffe fired from Politico…
The real reason behind Trump’s nuclear treaty withdrawal isn’t Russia. It’s North Korea.
In announcing his decision to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, President Trump cited Russia’s repeated violations and the fact that the treaty does not bind China, which is engaged in the world’s most ambitious ballistic missile development program.But Trump’s withdrawal may also be designed for another purpose.It sends a subtle but unmistakable message to North Korea: If you refuse to denuclearize, we can now surround your country with short- and medium-range missiles that will allow us to strike your regime without warning.
At the moment, the Trump administration appears to be making little progress in nuclear talks with Pyongyang. The threat of deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Asia could change the dynamics of those negotiations. Recall that in 1983, President Reagan announced plans to deploy hundreds of US intermediate-range Pershing II missiles in Western Europe in response to the Soviet Union’s deployment of SS-20 nuclear missiles. The US deployment sparked mass protests throughout Europe, but it also put enormous pressure on Moscow — and in so doing laid the groundwork for a series of arms control breakthroughs, including the INF Treaty.
By withdrawing from the INF Treaty, Trump can now put similar pressure on Pyongyang.The treaty barred both conventional and nuclear land-based missiles with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles. Freed from the treaty’s constraints, the United States can now deploy hundreds of conventional short- and medium-range missiles to bases in Asia, including in Guam (2,100 miles from North Korea) and Japan (650 miles). There would no longer be a need to send US aircraft carriers on temporary deployments to waters off the Korean Peninsula as a sign of military strength. The deployment of intermediate-range missiles in the region would put North Korea permanently in our crosshairs.
Pyongyang certainly does not want these US missiles on its doorstep. Neither does Beijing, which knows such a deployment would restore U.S. military supremacy in the Pacific. According to Adm. Harry Harris, former commander of US Pacific Command, China possesses the “largest and most diverse missile force in the world” — and 95 percent of its missiles “would violate the INF [Treaty] if China was a signatory.” The fact that Beijing has such missiles, while the United States does not, puts the United States at a strategic disadvantage in any conflict with Beijing. As my American Enterprise Institute colleague Dan Blumenthal pointed out in The Post, our only possible response would be to strike China with intercontinental ballistic missiles — an unacceptable escalation. By contrast, the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty allows deployment of conventional mobile ground-based missiles in Guam and Japan, improving our ability to deter Chinese aggression.
Trump can deploy Tomahawk cruise missiles on ground launchers to the Pacific almost immediately after withdrawal from the treaty. Withdrawal would also pave the way for US development and deployment of new missiles banned by the treaty, as well as new hypersonic weapons — which travel five times faster than the speed of sound — to compete with China’s massive investment in these capabilities. This would be a massive strategic setback to both China and North Korea.
So by withdrawing from the INF Treaty, and clearing the way for such deployments, Trump has given the United States a massive new bargaining chip. North Korea now has a new incentive to denuclearize, and China has a new strategic interest pressuring them to do so.
It still may not work.But if those negotiations fail, Trump’s INF Treaty withdrawal has given the United States a fallback option that will allow Washington to more effectively deter both Beijing and Pyongyang — and reassert American military primacy in the region.
And all Ronald Reagan did…thanks in part to his Pershing II plans…was win the Cold War!
Turning back for a moment to the Morning Jolt, Jim Geraghty urges those seeking to blame others for their ills to…
“What do the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, the Florida mail-bomber, the angry young man who drove a van into a crowd on a Toronto street in April, and last year’s shooter at the congressional baseball field have in common?
Based on what we know at this time, they all subscribed to a worldview where the problems in the world stemmed from a particular group of people they deemed sinister and powerful.The Pittsburgh synagogue shooter believed it was a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. The Florida mail-bomber believed that it was George Soros and prominent Democrats. The Toronto van driver believed that it was a vast, coordinated effort of the world’s women to keep him and other “incels” from relationships and happiness. The shooter at the congressional baseball field believed that President Trump and Republicans had “destroyed our democracy” and that they were the “Taliban of the USA.”
At some point, all of these men became fixated on “them” — some sort of group that they could blame for all of the problems in their lives. The baseball-field shooter was married and had his own business once, but he had been arrested for domestic battery towards a foster daughter; another foster daughter killed herself. The baseball-field shooter eventually dissolved his business and became increasingly obsessed with politics. The Florida mail-bomber had declared bankruptcy, had been arrested nine times, and was living in his van. The Toronto van driver was nearly friendless, awkward, technically proficient, but had difficulty with social skills.
We’re still learning details about the synagogue shooter, but by Sunday, the familiar portrait was coming into focus: “an isolated, awkward man who lived alone and struggled with basic human interactions, neighbors and others who knew him said on Sunday.”
It’s almost always the same, isn’t it? Few or no friends, no relationships, estranged from family, difficulty holding down a job, and a lot of time spent online on chat boards and sites that reinforce growing paranoia, scapegoating, and hatred. It’s safe to assume this shooter’s life, like the others, did not turn out the way that he had hoped.
All of these men shared an inability to face the possibility that the problems in their life were a result of their own decisions and actions. They retreated to the flattering conclusion that only a vast conspiracy of powerful forces could possibly have brought them to this state of perpetual disappointment.
The good news is that very few of us walk around thinking like this.If all it took to turn someone into a homicidal maniac was a Donald Trump speech, or a Bernie Sanders speech, or an anti-Semitic website, or a rant against women, then the world would be nonstop massacres.
…What we need is a broad, society-wide push to hammer hard truths into people’s heads.
If you’re having problems with your career,it’s your own damn fault. If you’re having problems in your relationships,it’s your own damn fault. It’s not because of the Illuminati, or the Trilateral Commission, or the Bilderbergers, or the Stonecutters.
If your life has not turned out the way you wanted it to, do something about it — stop sitting in front of a computer screen, reading a site that is assuring you that it’s because of government false-flag operations, or that the elections are rigged, or they’re putting stuff in the water, or that natural-cause deaths of famous figures were disguised assassinations, or that the weather is being controlled, and that secret government agencies are behind every major news event.You’re not important enough for the world’s rich, powerful, and/or sinister to get together and seek to undermine you. They don’t need to hold you back; you’re doing that job just fine on your own…”
This of course excepts the faked moon landings, the alien spacecraft stored at Area 51 and the undeniable fact Elvis lives.
Then there’s this from the WSJ, as Michael Mortitz asks…
“No well-run organization would spend $300 million without a solid plan or clear goals. But that’s what the backers of Proposition C, the homeless initiative on the ballot in San Francisco, intend to do.This head-spinning spectacle has the makings of a Mel Brooks movie: The central characters are cast in the opposite roles one would expect. The fiercest opponent of this attempt to expand government spending is San Francisco’s Democratic mayor, London Breed, who grew up in public housing. The most fervent supporter of what would amount to the city’s largest-ever tax increase is Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
Ms. Breed knows that for 30 years San Francisco’s budget for the homeless has continued to grow, but the problem has only worsened. If money could solve the homeless problem, there would be no one sleeping in tents, no needles littering sidewalks and no human waste in the streets.Supporters of Proposition C confuse good intentions and wishful thinking with an effective plan for dealing with the grim realities. While Proposition C does a spectacular job outlining how to spend money, it doesn’t effectively explain why the proposals would work, how they should be judged and measured, or when they would take effect.
…Homelessness is not one problem and requires subtle approaches. Some suffer from mental-health issues, while others are from families that have fallen behind on rent or lost a job. Many are lost to drugs and some are children who somehow still manage to attend school. Homelessness is also closely associated with other local problems—especially housing and zoning policy and the lack of high-speed regional transit systems.San Francisco has limited the supply of homes and apartments. This raises rents, which drives people (or, more accurately, helps drive people) onto the streets. Every soul who has encountered the cruel hardship of homelessness requires a different and specialized form of assistance.
Proposition C opponents can easily be described as wealthy, tone-deaf, self-interested and heartless even if they have been longtime donors to homeless causes. But all we seek is a coherent approach. Only a systematic plan that can be monitored, measured and tuned—and that deals with all aspects of homelessness—will bring about change. If that’s assembled, there’s reason to expect things to improve. Without it, there’s no chance.“
Based on his belief high-speed mass transit represents a solution to homelessness, we’re inclined to conclude Mr. Mortitz leans Progressive. But his refusal to adhere to the Liberal dogma society’s ills only exist due to a lack of funding shows there’s hope for him yet.
Which brings us to The Lighter Side:
Finally, Courtesy of G. Trevor, here’s a video from a year ago November 7th which graphically depicts the hazards law enforcement officers face on a daily basis:
This is not to say or even suggest there aren’t occasional bad apples in the law enforcement barrel, or that police officers shouldn’t be held to account for their actions. Rather its a reminder there are far more bad guys than bad cops.
P.S. Though the officer shown diving over the guardrail was shot twice and seriously injured, both troopers are now fully recovered and the perp is a guest of the State of Pennsylvania for the next 53-1/2 to 110 years.
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