Monday, November 20, 2017

Would North Korea Attack the Olympics in 2018? (By the Way, They Will Be in South Korea)

The National Interest


“ 'The United States needs a new set of ideas and principles to justify its worthwhile international commitments, and curtail ineffective obligations where necessary,” argue Jeremi Suri and Benjamin Valentino, in the introduction to their edited volume Sustainable Security: Rethinking American National Security.
“Balancing our means and ends requires a deep reevaluation of U.S. strategy, as the choices made today will shape the direction of U.S. security policy for decades to come.”

"Though rarely spelled out in such stark terms, this question would appear to be at the core of America’s grand strategy debate—if such a debate were actually occurring. We should ponder why it isn’t, and therefore why an arguably “unsustainable” strategy persists. (As the economist Herb Stein famously said [7], “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”)

"I foresaw this problem not quite two years ago. “U.S. foreign policy is crippled,” 
"I warned [8] in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee:
by a dramatic disconnect between what Americans expect of it and what the nation’s leaders are giving them. If U.S. policymakers don’t address this gap, they risk pursuing a policy whose ends don’t match with the means the American people are willing to provide.

"And I concluded as follows:" . . .

This Is How America Would Fight North Korea in a War  "U.S. forces in the northwest Pacific are considerable, amounting to two ground combat brigades, approximately seven wings of fighters and attack aircraft, a handful of strategic bombers, an aircraft carrier, submarines, hundreds of cruise missiles and an amphibious assault task force. That already formidable force can be swiftly augmented by even more combat forces from Hawaii, Alaska, and the continental United States, including F-22A Raptors, airborne troops, and more aircraft carriers, submarines and bombers. It is a robust, formidable, adaptable force capable of taking on a variety of tasks, from disaster relief to war." . . .

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Top Nuclear General Says He Would Refuse 'Illegal' Order From Trump to Launch Nukes

See the source image

PJ Media "Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, told a security conference in Nova Scotia that he would refuse to obey an "illegal" order from Donald Trump to launch nuclear weapons.

"Asked if he has given much thought to how he would handle a nuclear strike order from President Trump that he thinks is unlawful, Hyten, who oversees the U.S. nuclear arsenal, answered, "I think some people think we're stupid. We're not stupid people. We think about these things a lot. When you have this responsibility, how do you not think about it?"

""I provide advice to the president, he will tell me what to do," Hyten said. "And if it's illegal, guess what's going to happen? I'm going to say, 'Mr. President, that's illegal.' And guess what he's going to do? He's going to say, 'What would be legal?' And we'll come up options, with a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is, and that's the way it works. It's not that complicated."

"He explained that if he were to execute an unlawful order, "You will go to jail. You could go to jail for the rest of your life."

"The key word here is "illegal." In fact, no U.S. military officer is bound to obey an order he believes to be "illegal," so why this is being made into a big deal is something of a mystery." . . .

It should be noted the general did not declare, as C.E.M. Joad's disciples did in the 30's, that he would not ever fight under any orders from President Trump. He declared simply what, hopefully all military leaders would, that he cannot wage what he might feel was an "illegal" war.
But the Nazis in the 1930's did hear and consider what Joad's  followers declared and knew the road was clear for Germany to aggressively swallow up country after country under Hitler's orders. The Tunnel Dweller

. . . Professor Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad, even while witnessing the rise and stated goals of Adolph Hitler, supported the proposition debated on Thursday 9 February 1933, was "that this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.” 

It should be noted that In his early life, as a Wikipedia contributor states, "Joad very much shared the desire for the destruction of the Capitalist system". . .



Churchill called WW2 "the unnecessary war", because Britain, France and their allies had no stomach to risk war with Germany. When they finally realized - as Hitler long knew - that pacifists such as Joad and millions of others had no stomach for military courage, it was too late to stop the Nazis without war. Millions would die because of pacifism.  TD

Those of us who are committed to facing the facts should condemn these peaceniks for what they really are: warmongers for our enemies.. . . "The absence of a peacenik peace plan is no accident. Pacifism is inherently a negative doctrine–it merely says that military action is always bad. As one San Francisco protester put the point: “I don’t think it’s right for our government to kill people.” In practice, this leaves the government only two means of dealing with our enemies: to ignore their acts of aggression, or to appease them by capitulating to the aggressor’s demands." . . .


See the source image

Obama Concealed Strength of al-Qaeda Before 2012 Election

Bin Laden Docs Show Obama Misled, Politicized Intelligence During 2012 Campaign  
 By the way, this story has been embargoed -- at least so far -- by all major media.
. . . "The only thing really surprising here is the lengths to which Obama went to justify pulling troops from Iraq -- that he would risk so much just to please his liberal base. Intelligence in this case was cynically manipulated to paint a false picture of American security." . . .

Legal Insurrection

"Bin Laden was dead, but al-Qaeda was very much alive."


"At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, the big moment was Joe Biden triumphantly declaring “Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.”
"It turns out that in order to make that narrative stick, Obama had to downplay the actual strength of al-Qaeda.
"Saagar Enjeti reports at the Daily Caller:
‘Cherry Picked’: Obama Downplayed Al-Qaida Strength In Lead Up To 2012 Election
The Obama administration deliberately sought to downplay how robust the al-Qaida network was in the lead up to the 2012 election by selectively releasing documents that enforced a preferred narrative, The Weekly Standard reports, citing experts at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and New York Times Correspondent Rukmini Callimachi.
The revelation of the al-Qaida network’s strength in 2011 comes after the final release of thousands of documents obtained by U.S. Navy SEALs in a 2011 raid to kill Usama Bin-Laden in Abbotabad, Pakistan. The documents reveal that Bin-Laden was minutely managing the day-to-day operations of his terror network all while former President Barack Obama assured the American public the group was “decimated.”
“Think back to when bin Laden was killed. It was 2011, it was right before a major campaign season. I don’t want to underplay the role that the killing of Osama bin Laden had,” Callimachi told the Friday audience, adding “But I think that that was theorized into something much bigger.”
"The obvious subtext here is that Obama and Democrats put his re-election above national security concerns. The fact that we’re just learning about this now also suggests that the media either knew this and ignored it, or was too busy cheering at the DNC to look into it. Anyone surprised?

"Jenna Lifhits of the Weekly Standard has more:" . . .

In the Franken Scandal, Be Careful What You Wish For



Peter Barry Chowka . . . Thomas Lifson had a summary of his similar concerns about the Franken story and what it might lead to, in the November 17 American Thinker, “Al Franken’s career is collateral damage for the Dems on the way to getting Trump:”
That sinking feeling Al Franken is experiencing is the realization that his career is now a pawn in the fanatical efforts of Democrats to get President Trump out of office. . . The logical steps for getting Trump are clear.
Step one: Establish that sexual harassment before taking office is sufficient grounds to remove someone from office. This is the necessary predicate. Franken’s departure from office will establish the purported sincerity of the Democrats in establishing this brand-new principle. . .
Step two: Apply this doctrine to Roy Moore if he should win the Senate seat for which he is running. If he loses, triumphantly announce that even the reddest of red states agrees that previous misbehavior is dispositive in removing an incumbent.
Step three: Throw Bill Clinton under the bus. . . .
Step four: As the hysteria mounts, following the blood sacrifices, demand that President Trump be impeached for actions before he took office. Failing that, tell voters that by hanging onto office, he is disgracing the nation and telling little boys to grope their little girl classmates in first grade.
. . . 

Political Cartoons by Lisa Benson

Hillary Clinton Says Bill Wouldn't Have Survived 1992 If Fox News Had Been Around

Townhall

Hillary Clinton Says Bill Wouldn't Have Survived 1992 If Fox News Had Been Around

"Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared with her husband President Bill Clinton on Saturday evening, and made some surprising admissions regarding the news media, specifically Fox News.
"The political duo appeared together on stage to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Bill’s 1992 presidential election victory over incumbent George H.W. Bush.
"As reported by the Daily Caller, Hillary had harsh criticisms of conservative media outlets.
“Unfortunately our body politic’s immune system has been impaired because there has been a concerted effort starting with the creation of the Fox network — it wasn’t there when Bill first ran, it was one of the reasons he probably survived, it was there when he ran the second time — it and all of its associated media outlets who are by no means delivering news. They are delivering partisan advocacy positions irrespective of the truth, the facts, the evidence,” Clinton said. (Emphasis Added) . . .

Emergency! Soros, Pelosi handing out new Resistance playbooks in Calif.

Canada Free Press

Michelle Malkin  **Written by Doug Powers
Is there a certain billionaire Dem Party puppet master out there who isn’t happy with his return on investment in recent years? It sounds like updated “Resistance” playbooks are being handed out in California this weekend:
Liberal billionaire George Soros and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were listed as the main attractions Friday at a California gathering of the anti-Trump elite.
The four-day event in Carlsbad, titled “Beyond #Resistance: Reclaiming our Progressive Future,” asked that guests refrain from contacting the media or posting to social media, the agenda shows.
Other speakers appearing in person or via video were expected to include U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-Minn.; and Democrats Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania and governor-elect Ralph Northam of Virginia.
Special guest speakers were listed as CNN contributor Van Jones and Center for American Progress CEO Neera Tanden.
The conference, which began Wednesday and runs through Saturday at La Costa Resort, was organized by the Democracy Alliance, a network of liberal donors
"The Washington Free Beacon obtained the conference agenda (at least one progressive conference attendee possesses sensitive party material about as responsibly as Hillary Clinton handled classified emails):" . . .

Trump Brought Back A Great Deal From China, But No One’s Talking About It; Too Favorable To Trump And Must Not Be Seen

President Trump represents this nation well, unlike feckless Democrats. Maxine Waters herself could not have done better.

Weasel Zippers


Glen Dale, W. Va. — Bad news travels fast. Good news, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to travel at all.
Last weekend in Beijing, as part of his 12-day trip to Asia, President Trump announced that the US and China had signed an $83.7 billion deal to create a number of petrochemical projects in West Virginia over the next 20 years.
If the agreement holds tight, it is an economic game changer for the state.
And yet, speaking to the locals here, you wouldn’t even know it had happened.
“I am surprised I heard nothing about it on the national news, nor in my local paper and newscasts,” said Jerald Stephens, 67, a West Virginia native and union rep, who has been a keen observer of local politics for as long as he can remember.
The BBC and CNN covered the news in their business sections, while The New York Times picked up a short story by The Associated Press on the deal. The stories’ headlines were muted; their placement low-key.
Stunning evidence of the power of the MSM to kill news favorable to Trump
. . . "As a candidate, Donald Trump promised to “make deals” that would benefit America. He is precisely delivering on this promise. In addition to the project in West Virginia, deals amounting to a quarter trillion dollars were announced in the wake of the visit to China.
"[media crickets]
"In addition, the deal reveals that President Trump has gotten the Chinese to consider becoming dependent on America for important energy supplies. That makes them far less likely to be antagonistic toward us, and addresses the chronic huge balance of payemnts deficit we suffer with China, keeping two more promises: to keep us safe and to keep us from digging that trade deficit hole deper.
"But this is news too helpful to Trump to be reported."  Thomas Lifson

Obama's 'unaccompanied children' turn up big in latest MS13 gang sweep

Monica Showalter   . . . "The "unaccompanied minors" who were encouraged and let into the country by Obama back in 2014 and up until his last day in office are worth a look, because Democrats did so much to browbeat Republicans and neighborhood groups who tried to stop it. such as the multiracial (this fact was never noted) people of Murrieta, Calif., who protested the dumping of these 'unaccompanied minors' in their community, unwilling to turn their small city of 100,000 into 'another Pomona' as one told me.
Here's what got the press narrative on CNN:
"It is deplorable that people espousing anti-immigrant hate language created unnecessary tension and fear for immigrant mothers and their children," Pedro Rios, a community representative of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium, said in a statement. "Even more concerning is that elected officials in the City of Murrieta instigated this tension. Mothers and their children on these buses have suffered through enough trauma."
"Here are the kinds of pictures that got printed:

"Here's what came along with them as they were all lumped in one big group we owed our 'compassion' and 'justice' to:


Obama wanted these guys to get to know you better:
Obama’s ‘Fair Housing’ executive order to force ‘diversity’ in neighborhoods across the US  " . . . President Barack Obama is pressing forward with new Department of Housing and Urban Development regulations that will withhold block grants to communities if they don’t build enough “affordable housing in wealthy neighborhoods.” The executive order, known as the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Act,” was issued by the president last year and will be used to promote racial quotas in white suburban neighborhoods. It will also force thousands of communities to house the nation’s burgeoning population of new immigrants." . . . From 2015

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Poor Kathy Griffin!

American Spectator
She exposes the ‘conspiracy’ to damage her career
 "When last we saw her, Donald Trump had broken her after she held up a prop that looked like Trump’s decapitated head. It was just a misunderstood publicity stunt that everyone blew out of proportion. Poor Ms. Griffin had to apologize for it, but a lot of mean people wouldn’t forgive her and her wonderful career took a nosedive. Perhaps that is why Griffin is now taking back her apology.

"Now it turns out that there was a conspiracy to derail Griffin’s career. And who is exposing this conspiracy? Why, the brave little girl herself:" . . .



The Perpetual Outrage Machine

American Greatness



"The media’s 10-month panic attack triggered by Donald Trump’s inauguration shows no signs of abating. Every news cycle is filled with breathless reports of yet another “scandal” that could lead to Trump’s removal from office.

"News of a federal grand jury’s indictments of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his associate, Richard W. Gates, is yet another hook upon which the media have hung their hopes for impeachment. But it is to no avail.
The 12 counts against Manafort and Gates have nothing to do with Trump’s campaign. Instead, they involve a money-laundering scheme and a conspiracy to conceal $75 million that Manafort and Gates received when they worked as unregistered foreign agents of Ukraine from 2006-2014. This is just one more nothing burger. Yet the media’s crusade continues.
"Then came the story the wait staff of the Democratic Party thought they had been waiting for. News broke that George Papadopoulos, a 30-year-old Trump campaign volunteer, was arrested by the FBI in July and has been cooperating with Robert Mueller’s investigative team ever since. But Papadopoulos was a low-level, unpaid foreign policy advisor to the campaign, and though he met in London with an intermediary who promised information from the Russian government, nothing ever came of it.
"The FBI’s Statement of Offense notes that Papadopoulos emailed Trump campaign officials about having a higher up or even Trump himself meet with his contact overseas. A campaign official wrote in an email conversation that “DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal.” The trip, however, “did not take place.” And as Paul Mirengoff of Power Line writes, Papadopoulos “pleaded guilty to making false statements, not to trying to arrange a meeting with Russian government officials. The latter is not, to my knowledge, a crime.”
"Quite simply, getting dirt on Hillary Clinton—even from foreign sources—is not a violation of federal law, whatever the DNC and its epigones in the press contend. Instead, it’s the Clinton campaign and the DNC that look to have broken the law with their machinations with Fusion GPS. The available evidence, or lack thereof, so far suggests that the entire Trump-Russia collusion “scandal” is a complete fabrication by individuals who seem to have projected on Trump and his team their own inclinations to countenanceunethical actions." . . .

Friday, November 17, 2017

The 11 Nations Of The United States

Zero Hedge

"In his fourth book, “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America,” award-winning author Colin Woodard identifies 11 distinct cultures that have historically divided the US."

Image result for 11 nations of the united states
. . . 
"Woodard says that among these 11 nations, Yankeedom and the Deep South exert the most influence and are constantly competing with each other for the hearts and minds of the other nations.
“We are trapped in brinkmanship because there is not a lot of wiggle room between Yankee and Southern Culture,” Woodard says.

“Those two nations would never see eye to eye on anything besides an external threat.”


"Woodard also believes the nation is likely to become more polarized, even though America is becoming a more diverse place every day.
"He says this is because people are “self-sorting.”
“ 'People choose to move to places where they identify with  the values,”  Woodard says. “Red minorities go south and blue minorities go north to be in the majority. This is why blue states are getting bluer and red states are getting redder and the middle is getting smaller.' ”
I do not see that as happening in Texas, which is becoming more liberal, that is, blue (a color arrangement I cannot abide).
 So who chose those two colors anyway? Red has been the major color of communist flags and when attached to the State Department, we dared not have any clothing or accessories that were red. Where can you find Soviet flags and Che T-shirts being exhibited? At Democrat gatherings, the "blue" party!

This song is for you, Kaepernick

Weasel Zippers

I did not edit the language in order that I don't change this song into what it is not



"Well played."  "Via Washington Examiner:
Country music singer Neal McCoy takes a jab at former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and others who protested the national anthem by taking a knee in his newest single he debuted last week.
The song, “Take a Knee, My Ass (I Won’t Take a Knee),” was performed in front of a small audience on Oct. 8th and shared online as a Facebook Live video, which has since gone viral.
“When I see someone on TV take their stand by bending their knee, whether it be on astro turf or grass,” the lyrics say. “I think of those whose freedom was not free, and I say: ‘Take a knee – my ass!’”
The song, which McCoy notes was written by a friend of his, cites the armed forces as a reason why he proudly stands for the national anthem.
“I’ve been on 15 USO tours,” McCoy explained to reporters. “I’ve entertained our troops in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and all over the world.”