Yup.

You know what's the funniest thing about all this [Scaramucci, Priebus, Sessions, Spicer]? The funniest thing is that it's still better than having the Democrats in power!

"President Chaos and the Keystone Kongress." By Andrew Klavan, PJ Media, 7/28/17.

Overreach and hemorrhage.

A global empire costs money … lots of it. Since WWII, the United States has established and maintained its worldwide hegemony with bribes and military force. The two foundations of that power are a worldwide network of military bases with a military budget that exceeds the combined military budgets of China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Kingdom, India, France, and Japan … and uneven trade agreements that systematically transfer wealth from the United States to our trading partners. This is not sustainable. We pay to play and that cost has hollowed out our economy.^[1]

The single most important feature of Donald Trump's personality is that he understands that it is not America's responsibility to be every foreigner's bitch. Which is in stark contrast to all morons and betrayers who thought (1) to dump billions and billions of dollars on a communist dictatorship through factory relocation and bizarre trade imbalances and (2) to pursue ridiculous will-o'-the-wisps in the Hindu Kush and Nineveh and Tyre with our military.

Afghanistan, Syria or Iran any threat to us? No. Does it matter what gas and oil pipelines go through what countries? No. But U.S. troops half way around the world, confrontations with non-submissive foreigners, and overheated rhetoric in spades? You bet. Three bags full.

U.S. southern border defended by U.S. troops? Don't be naive. What an utterly ridiculous thought. Somewhere in some distant land is a shaky government with a lukewarm commitment to democratic governance, not to mention modernity and rationality itself. So THAT is where you can find our military. Pissing away lives and treasure.

However, I have to say that Trump, as usual, manages to present a confused picture. It seems I voted for a military confrontation with N. Korea and needlessly confrontational relations with Russia and China. Every week that goes by is a week of lost opportunities. Maybe Gen. Kelly can create order where there is chaotic lurching. For starters, there has to be someone in one of the few slots filled by the Trump administration who can explain to him and the Congress that "health care" isn't a constitutional responsibility of Congress.

Notes
^[1] Comment by Jester on "The Demolition of U.S. Global Power." By Alfred McCoy, The Unz Review, 7/16/17.

Off for a short trip.

Posting might be sporadic for the next week. I'm heading off for a short trip and hopefully will return with greater wisdom and insight. Which won't be hard.

I believe that.

Apart from some negligible combat missions in the early days of the revolution, it was only in the end of July 2012 that the SyAAF became actively involved in suppressing the rebellion. This was done mostly by deploying L-39ZAs on bombing runs over Aleppo and its suburbs. These sorties resulted mostly in civilian targets such as hospitals and schools being hit, and unsurprisingly led to numerous civilian casualties.

"The Syrian Arab Air Force, Beware of its Wings." By Oryx, bell¿ngcat, 1/16/17.

Pearls of expression.

Horse Pizzle:

The locals speak Kurdish.

Shemp 4 Victory:

If you have a point, feel free to make it.

"Pentagon Furious After Turkey Leaks U.S. Base Locations In Syria: 'Hard Not To See This As A F-You.'" By Tylker Durden, Zero Hedge, 7/19/17.

Everything that is wrong about our Syrian policy.

H/t: Zero Hedge.

Minneapolis cheese-eating, surrender monkeys.

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Strong, 2014.

H/t: World Net Daily.

Oh. That!

The Western attempt to free Jerusalem in the Middle Ages has been condemned as Christian imperialism, while the Muslim campaigns to colonize and Islamize the Byzantine Empire, North Africa, the Balkans, Egypt, the Middle East and most of Spain, to name but a few, are celebrated as a season of enlightenment.

"Qatar, Saudi Arabia to Islamize One of Europe's Greatest Cathedrals." By Giulio Meotti, Gatestone Institute, 7/18/17.

Hillary who?

From the Clinton Cash man:

Bill and Hillary Clinton received large sums of money directly and indirectly from Russian officials while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. Bill Clinton was paid a cool $500,000 (well above his normal fee) for a speech in Moscow in 2010. Who footed the bill? An investment firm in Moscow called Renaissance Capital, which boasts deep ties to Russian intelligence.

* * * *

It seems strange that while some in Congress are eager to investigate the activities of General Mike Flynn and his contacts with Russia, they have no interest in looking into a transaction in which the Clinton Foundation received a staggering $145 million. It’s that kind of inconsistency that saps all credibility from those raising these issues.

Beyond the Clintons themselves, there is also the troubling case of one of their closest aides, John Podesta. . . .^[1]

Recommended reading if you have a strong stomach.

Notes
^[1] "Russia ties (guess who always got a free pass)." By Peter Schweizer, Fox News, 3/3/17.

Putin and the assassination claim.

But there is no evidence, none at all, that Putin was ever involved in the decease of any journalist.

"As Anti-Trump / Anti-Russia Campaign Fails - Yascha Mounk Feeds New Lies." By b, Moon of Alabama, 7/16/17.

A disturbing take on "modernization."

However, it seems that "modernization" is spreading, winning our region.

That thought came to me the other night as I watched some two hours of several video footages from Syria and Iraq in a special showing in a London TV studio.

I saw a "modernized" Middle East with armies marching across scorched plains, soldiers and mercenaries cursing in a dozen different languages, the choir of cannons and the choreography of armored cars and tanks. I saw refugees and displaced-person camps, barbed wires, watch-towers, loudspeakers spreading the latest version of truth. There were minefields and grieving mothers, naked children, and victims of gas attacks and chemical weapons. The skies were dotted with warplanes dropping more bombs on Syria and Iraq than on Germany during the Second World War.

Yes, and there was a frame which showed the shattered body of a child alongside his teddy-bear toy, a Western-style image of tragedy. Meanwhile, we in exile light candles and observe a minute of silence in the public squares of Paris, London or New York. Even our grief has been Westernized.

A landscape of ruins, reminding one of Berlin, Warsaw or Leningrad in 1945 -- in other words very modern, very Western. This looked like Europe in 1918 or 1945, only magnified many times over thanks to the superior power of destruction we now have.

"The Modernization of Middle East is a Sight to See." By Amir Taheri, Gatestone Institute, 7/16/17.

An apt reference to old but relevant events.

If America stumbles into a war with Russia that all our Cold War presidents avoided, the Russia baiters and Putin haters will be put in same circle of hell by history as the idiot war hawks of 1914 and the three blind men of Versailles in 1919.^[1]

As I've said a few times, we can look back on events of 100 years ago or so and wonder what were they thinking. What was of such earth-shaking importance that such massive bloodletting had to take place and, worse, continue after it became clear that the defense was the strategy of decision? Why are memories so dim in the face of death tolls in the millions?

The answer may lie in my post immediately following this one (above). "Modernization" consist not in greater understanding of human affairs but only of the uses of technology to control citizens and fleece them by a host of sly legal innovations and usurpations.

The phenomena of the massive central state and the loss of citizen control over public affairs bedevil us at this very hour. Bagmen and ward heeler politicians walk the halls of the U.S. Congress and worthless men aspire to executive power. The Bible teaches that in the end times that "men shall be lovers of their own selves, . . . Without natural affection . . . ." (2 Timothy 3:2-3. KJV.) What is more central to understanding the Western immigration catastrophe than that very thing? Our leaders have no affection for their own kind. Their natural affection affection is reserved for the foreigner and the minority. An abomination, in truth, though, as befits the temper of the times, it's much celebrated.

Harbinger of the 20th century.

Consequently, is it any surprise that supposed leaders play at statecraft and recklessly pursue immoral, recondite, dishonest, and undisclosed ends? Who are these fools who decide who is worthy and who unworthy? Whose animating principle in matters relating to foreign policy is nothing more than "If you can, you should"?

Who are these morons who ignore a century of ghastly, mass slaughter and casually describe the head of a nuclear state as a thug, racist, and assassin?

Notes
^[1] "Russia Baiters and Putin Haters." By Patrick J. Buchanan, Creators, 7/14/17.

H/t: Russia Insider.

Pearls of expression.

For the neocons, it’s always 1938. The enemy is always the reincarnation of Hitler, and anyone who questions the wisdom of war is denounced as an “appeaser” in the fashion of Neville Chamberlain or Lindbergh. Yet no one ever examines and challenges the assumption behind this rhetorical trope, which is that war with the enemy of the moment – whether it be Saddam Hussein, the Iranian ayatollahs, or Vladimir Putin – is inevitable and imminent.^[1]

And of immense benefit to the people in the war zone and to the people of [name of Western country].

Notes
^[1] "Tucker Carlson, Neocon Slayer." By Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com, 7/14/17.

Deranged neocons.

The net result of neocon led foreign policies have [sic] resulted in thousands of dead Americans, the entire middle east reduced to rubble, millions of civilians dead and/or displaced -- and they have the stones to call Putin evil.

Pray tell me, who has killed more people in the world over the past 30 years, America or Russia?^[1]

If I recall correctly, both Max Boot and LTC Ralph ("The Unhinged") Peters, in a preceding appearance on Tucker Carlson's show, made a big deal about Putin's alleged assassination of a critical journalist(s). Yes. A yuuuge point against Putin (submitted as divine truth, of course). But Mr. Fly's question above is particularly damning in comparison to that penny ante point.

Yes, yes. Killing is not to be treated lightly but in a world where military deaths on the Eastern Front once reached 10,000 a day, and death tolls in both world wars were in the millions, let us not get hypocritically exercised over every sparrow that falls to the ground. The supposed Saudi and Qatari "allies" of the U.S. have financed and supplied the jihadi scum in Syria and Iraq. It doesn't seem to have caused the U.S. to think twice about continuing that "alliance" when ISIS literally burned a caged Jordanian pilot alive. Or beheaded a 10-year-old boy.

Boot and Peters, of course, do precisely that -- climb onto their hypocritical high horse. Vladimir the Terrible.

Jeebus could we get a sense of proportion and some integrity in our public debates?

Notes
^[1] "Tucker Carlson Annihilates Neocon Errand Boy Max Boot on Russia." By The Real Fly, Russia Insider, 7/13/17.

The steaming pile of hypocrisy on "collusion."

The Trump campaign in the primaries and the general election seemed more about somewhat inarticulately stated general themes such as "let's not be stupid anymore" and "our interests are more important than the interests of any other country." Hillary's email problems were dogging her footsteps but I don't recall any rabbit that Trump pulled out of his hat that revealed anything about Hillary that wasn't already known or a matter of speculation. A dash of Comeyism no doubt helped Trump but that came out of his own calculations about the safety of his skin or which way the winds were blowing.

American presidential politics are a giant fur ball of slander, innuendo, opposition research, billionaire egos, deals and back stabbings. Plenty of all-American political advisors and commentators are wide of the mark each go round and polls are for people with time on their hands or where there's only one channel in the jail. The idea that the Russians would undertake to jump into that fur ball, that bucket of snakes, that wood chipper of reputations and sanity, is an odd one in my view. Blackmail is entirely understandable but the provenance of the supposed hotel room antics of Trump left something to be desire.

But the charge is not that the Russians have something on Trump, it's that he colluded. Horror of horrors. This concern for what THE RUSSIANS might have done or are doing in America is a recent arrival in the Dem arsenal. When the Soviets had our federal government thoroughly penetrated, one Sen. McCarthy was reviled as the love child of Satan for bringing this fact to the attention of the American people. (H/t: Diana West.) NOW the drooling left is beside itself with loathing for the evil, neo-Soviet, love child of Beria: Putin.

For real manipulation of the American political process you can't beat AIPAC and its supporters in and outside our borders. A certain nation state is said to play the American Congress like a Mighty Wurlitzer but don't look for this to be on the evening news.

Too, Hillary Clinton and her husband raked in millions in speaking fees from assorted governments and people believed to be interested in influencing U.S. government policies and spending decisions. Many more millions were contributed to something called the Clinton Foundation by foreign governments, news of which governments and said millions plunked into the placid lake of American politics with not even a ripple ever to reach the far shore.

The full-court press underway against Trump is fascinating and instructive for the panic induced by Trump is revealing some of the true interests who think they are destined to control and dispose of all things American. So, as with the Syrian hypocrisy and the anti-Russian hysteria, I say keep up the greasy, non-stop hand wringing about "collusion." Please do. It's a heck of an education for us in (1) the real Who's Who in American and (2) what real hypocrisy looks like.

Asia for Asians, Africa for Africans but . . .

. . . white countries for EVERYbody.

So went the late Bob Whitaker's mantra, which is about as much truth about immigration as you can find packed into one sentence.

Why do white people have no place in Africa?.

Driven out at the point of slaughter in state after state then reverting to savagery and starvation.

Rhodesia becomes the cesspit known as Zimbabwe.

Currently thousands of white farmers and their families are being systematically and brutally murdered in South Africa.

The world looks away.

However when it comes to the white nations of Europe - we are being forced - not least by threats and coercion - to accept millions of these semi primitive thugs - as though they have some right of occupation.

All it will do is reduce Europe to third world poverty and violence.

Its madness.

~ Comment by mog.^[1] (All comments here are from the same source.)

More wisdom on the issue of immigration from Grandad Grumps though he ran out of wisdom after the second paragraph:

Yes, it is hard to understand what is going on inside the heads of the unelected EU bureaucrats and those few elected, such as Angela and the sun godling Marcon.

It really makes one a believer in demonic possession.

Africa is such a rich continent, maybe the people of Africa should be supported, rather than stolen from or kicked out?!?

Then there's this bit of rock-solid common sense from The Harlequin:

It's quite simple really. Take all the money given to NGOs, pseudo-charities and clandestine operations, add to that the combined funds from all international aid plus the proceeds of every military contract which feeds instability in vulnerable nations, throw in for good measure fifty percent of the estimated social impact costs of attempting to assimilate this massive influx, say over the next decade or so...

...then spend it all on repatriation and foreign infrastructural investment programs, while policing arms, drugs and human trafficking to the absolute hilt at strong, uncompromising frontiers. We will soon see that there is no "refugee" problem, that cultural integrity is NOT an immoral concept, expose and denounce the hypocrisy of the politicians behind the current agenda, and remove them from power. Jean-Claude Junckers is top of my list of incompetent Eurocrats to get a long deserved ass-kicking!

Shovelhead's future in Germany is not bright should he choose to go there or stay there:

Anything that isn't unabashed praise or even acceptance of Merkel's policy is deemed HATE SPEECH and "promotes xenophobia".

Because we all know that "stop importing Muslims" is exactly the same as "Kill all Muslims".

Responsibility for the destruction of Europe is shared by many.

Barbara Lerner Specter says Jews will play a leading role in making Europe multicultural. Somebody told her to shut up after she made that particular comment so further details won't be forthcoming from her why she thinks Europe is, uh, too "monolithic," meaning "too white." But it's more than just her announced agenda. Satanic is the operative word in the actions of all the actors working to bring this about. Human understanding is inadequate when it is time to try to understand the evil that behind this.

But make no mistake. Destruction and massive killing is the precise goal of all. People intend the natural consequences of their acts. The rest of what they say is just garbage. Every single official action on this issue will be the precise opposite of what common sense and love of one's own kind would dictate.

This is the modern phenomenon of obtuseness. Official conduct that is exactly the opposite of what centuries of human experience would affirm. Masked leftist scum rioting int he streets and attacking decent citizens? Old-time approach? Crack heads, arrest people for wearing masks in order to commit violence, read the Riot Act, clear the streets. Modern approach: encourage, praise, ignore, and support scum.

Notes
^[1] On "Europe's Mass Migration: The Leaders Vs. The Public." By Douglas Murray, Zero Hedge, 7/10/17.

Don't call it a war!

It's a happening. A something. Spirit of San Francisco! Indispensable nation.

Unlike their coalition partners, and unlike previous combat operations, no name was initially given to the conflict against ISIS by the U.S. government. . . .

The U.S. decided in October 2014 to name its military efforts against ISIS as "Operation Inherent Resolve" . . . .^[1]

The legal basis for the U.S. war on Syria is as elusive as the punch line in a shaggy dog story. Let's not go THERE.

You must be some kind of disturber to wonder why the U.S. is involved in a coalition with the scum of the earth that supports the scum of the earth who are fighting one of the more enlightened and popular governments in the Middle East. Let's replace the current Syrian government with Islamic rapine, killing, anarchy and a medieval experience that would appall even Angela Merkel.

Let's show the world what American foreign policy leadership is capable of.

Notes
^[1] "Operation Inherent Resolve." Wikipedia.

Our Saudi "allies."

TEHRAN (FNA)- A leading Egyptian newspaper released a number of documents proving that Saudi Arabia's new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his counterpart in Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, have long been supporting the ISIL and al-Qaeda terrorist groups' global operations.

* * * *

The documents were revealed after a new report [PDF] released by a British think tank on Wednesday said that Saudi Arabia is the “foremost” foreign funder of Islamist extremism in the UK and other western countries.

"Egyptian Daily Releases Documents of Saudi Crown Prince's Support for ISIL, Al-Qaeda." By FARS, 7/9/17.

H/t: Pundita.

And that wall is . . . where?

Ann right on target, as usual.

No one voted for Trump because of the “Access Hollywood” tape. They voted for him because of his issues; most prominently, his promise to build “a big beautiful wall.” And who’s going to pay for it? MEXICO!

You can’t say that at every campaign rally for 18 months and then not build a wall.

Do not imagine that a Trump double-cross on the wall will not destroy the Republican Party. Oh, we’ll get them back. No, you won’t. Trump wasn’t a distraction: He was the last chance to save the GOP.

Millions of Americans who hadn’t voted in 30 years came out in 2016 to vote for Trump. If he betrays them, they’ll say, “You see? I told you. They’re all crooks.”

No excuses will work. No fiery denunciations of the courts, the Democrats or La Raza will win them back, even if Trump comes up with demeaning Twitter names for them.

It would be an epic betrayal — worse than Bush betraying voters on “no new taxes.” Worse than LBJ escalating the Vietnam War. There would be nothing like it in the history of politics.

"Not Building the Wall IS a Government Shutdown." By Ann Coulter, Human Events, 4/26/17 (emphasis added).

Occam shows the way.

A simpler explanation, my theory, and the theory that best meets Occam’s Razor is the Fed has no idea what it is doing. All the talk of inflation expectations, consumer confidence, regional diffusion indexes, and other useless theories and measures provides strong supporting evidence.

The Fed is oblivious to bubbles other than they may possibly form sometime in the future. It’s too late to worry about that now. The bubbles are here, massive, and obvious.

The Fed has a 100% track record or never predicting a recession as well as a 100% track record of not seeing massive bubbles.

"Rethinking The Fed: Sowing The Seeds Of Financial Destruction." By Mike Shedlock, Zero Hedge, 7/7/17.

Government as your daddy, your benevolent pal.

Come to think of it, Jefferson would not recognize England as the home of the Whigs in whose writings colonial Americans were steeped -- John Locke, Algernon Sidney, Paul Rapin, Thomas Gordon, and others.

The essence of this "pattern of ideas and attitudes," almost completely lost today, explains David N. Mayer in The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson, was a view of government as an inherent threat to liberty and the necessity for eternal vigilance.

"The Declaration No Longer Expresses 'The American Mind'." By Ilana Mercer, American Thinker, 7/6/17.

The roar of the European Commission’s hypocrisy.

[Member of the European Parliament] Hans-Olaf Henkel, one of the leading politicians of AfD, a Eurosceptic party in Germany, when interviewed recently by Anna Rybinska, made remarkably impressive statement in the Polish wPolityce.pl portal’s article. He argues that the proceedings against Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary are, above all, the “roar of the European Commission’s hypocrisy. I do not recall,” the EU official said, “that the EU initiated proceedings against Germany for breach of EU law, when it first violated one of the Maastricht criteria after the introduction of the euro, that the budget deficit should not exceed three percent of GDP.” The Maastricht Treaty has been violated at least a hundred times in other respects. “And nothing happened,” Henkel went on, “and suddenly it turns out that the rejection of the reception of refugees by the Poles, Czechs and Hungarians is a terrible misdemeanor … It is too transparent and a totally inconsistent reaction.”^[1]

It's clear that immigration madness is the number one objective of the E.U. Those swine are fanatically committed to the destruction of Europe.

The image above for the European Commission is the wrong one, actually. Here's the right one:

Notes
^[1] "The Third Mohammedan Invasion." By Konrad Sutarski, Gates of Vienna, 7/5/17.

Leftist hypocrisy.

An excerpt from Milo Yiannopoulos's new book, Dangerous:

During my college talks, I’m often asked what arguments to use when debating with the regressive Left. I always have the same answer: Islam.

There is nothing else which better exposes the modern Left’s rank hypocrisy, their disregard for the facts, and their hatred for the West and all it stands for than their attitude to Islam. Every noble principle the Left claims to uphold, from rights for women to gay liberation, even diversity itself, dies on the altar of its sycophantic defense of Islam.^[1]

The Breitbart article with excerpts from the book is well worth your time.

Notes
^[1] "DANGEROUS Excerpt: MILO Explains ‘Why Muslims Hate Me’." By Breitbart Tech, Breitbart, 7/5/17.

H/t: Gates of Vienna .

The leftist agenda.

And decency isn't one of the things they strive for.

The left-wing liberal agenda seeks to destroy the socio-political infrastructure of American democracy and transform it into a dependent socialist state with cradle to grave control by the government. Their strategy of destruction is to target the traditional American institutions of family, religion, and education that promote independence, adulthood, individualism, and ego strength — the qualities that made America great and support American democracy and sovereignty.^[1]

Hence, the recent absurdity of some brainless feminist saying that breast feeding is not an exclusively female task and some other twit talking about asking permission of her infant son before picking him up. The former thought flies in the face of simple biological truth and the latter attacks the very idea of parental authority. Since when do parents conduct their family affairs as though their kids have an equal say in anything, let alone a veto?

Where is the lode star, the point of reference of these people? They lay waste to centuries of experience and simple common sense and to what end? Normal people might entertain some marginal idea but family or friends provide useful perspective. But these people get an idea in their heads and then they float away like untethered balloons.

These days, every day in the leftist-dominated U.S.A. is a Steven King, Freddie Kruger, or Kathy Griffin adventure. Vladimir Putin is assumed to have vast power over American affairs, which is a manifestation of psychological projection on the part of those who push this absurd idea. They too arrogantly assume their power to order human affairs is vast, it's just that Putin is the wrong one to attempt to do what they want to do. Search and destroy. And after the destruction, command.

Notes
^[1] "Orwell's Doublespeak: The Language of the Left." By Linda Goudsmit, Canada Free Press, 7/5/17.

H/t: Gates of Vienna .

Pearls of expression.

[Dilbert' creator Scott] Adams writes: "Wake up, people! It’s common sense! Tweets kill! On a totally unrelated topic, I have confirmed that 30% of the public can’t identify a joke without the help of a service animal."

"Scott Adams: President Trump Has Destroyed Civilization As We Know It With His Tweets." By Tim Haines, Real Clear Politics, 7/2/17.

Dreaded ISIS allahu akbar uniform stomp.

ISIS goes too far.

Pearls of expression.

TheFederalistPapers:

The Museum of the [Magic] Negro may be delayed [by Illinois's fiscal problems] and where will they store all of the Susan Rice and Valerie Jarrett papers?

No Federal bailout.

Humiliate these fuckers.

Illinois is just a larger Detroit.

Stormtrooper:

No problem with the papers. They were already totally lost during transport.

Comments on "'From Horrific To Catastrophic': Court Ruling Sends Illinois Into Financial Abyss." By Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, 7/2/17.

Dan Stewart on the implausibility of a Syrian chemical attack.

Dan Stewart's 6/29/17 comment on an American Conservative article by Scott Ritter^[1] is very good on why Pres. Assad of Syria would not have ordered a chemical attack on the Syrian population. All around common sense.

See comment here. Cliff Notes version: Assad had nothing to gain and everything to lose by using chemical weapons.

Notes
^[1] "Ex-Weapons Inspector: Trump’s Sarin Claims Built on ‘Lie’." By Scott Ritter, The American Conservative, 6/29/17.