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Everything In the Middle East Is Blowing Up

Sunday, July 15th, 2018

Or to put it another way, everything in the Middle East is blowing up slightly more than usual:

  • Hajin, reportedly the last Islamic State stronghold in Syria, has come under sustained attack by coalition forces. There are supposedly some 4,000 heavily dug-in Islamic State fighters there, but that number sounds way too high, being about the number of Islamic State fighters who defended the much larger Raqqa. Hajin is described as a “small city,” but it really looks more like a large town, perhaps on the order of a county seat for a mid-sized Texas county. It’s hard to imagine 4,000 besieged defenders holding out in a such a small area for the eight months since the fall of Deir Ez-Zor, just on the logistical difficulties of maintaining food and ammunition. But anything close to that number would explain why that Islamic State pocket has been so hard to eradicate. But the area is now being pounded with Syrian Democratic Forces artillery and coalition airstrikes, while SDF ground forces push into Hajin.

  • There was a report that “More than 30 soldiers and officers of the pro-Assad forces, including 13 officers, were killed by aerial bombardment in attempt to seize Hajin.” Since the Islamic State has no air force beyond the occasional drone, that would mean the coalition was bombing pro-Assad forces because they were on the east side of the Euphrates. But at least one Tweet suggests that report is false. “There was no attack by the Syrian Arab Army towards Hajin and there are no clashes between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian Arab Army. These attacks are only happening on social media.”
  • The SDF has also been making a large (and largely under-reported) push to roll-up what remains of the Islamic State in sparsely-occupied eastern Syrian along the Iraqi border, capturing a string of tiny villages as they push south.

  • Widespread unrest has broken out across southern Iraq (with a few outbreaks elsewhere), including strikes, protests and street blockages over government incompetence at providing basic services like electricity and water.
  • The war in Yemen grinds on. Saudi-backed forces have failed to capture the Houthi-occupied port of Hodeidah. There’s also mutterings about a peace conference. And there’s no telling how much a yesterday’s 6.2 earthquake might shake things up. (Sorry.)
  • Finally, Israel and Hamas went at it again. Hamas fired a bunch of projectiles into Israel, and Israel walloped a bunch of Hamas assets in Gaza. You know: the usual. But the Israel retaliatory raids were reportedly the biggest on Gaza since 2014.

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for July 13, 2018

    Friday, July 13th, 2018

    Happy Friday the 13th! FBI “Partisan Weasel” Peter Strzok smirked and slithered his way through his capitol hill testimony. “That Strzok could huddle with FBI lawyers while stonewalling a Republican-led committee speaks to the corruption of official Washington and the comparative impotence of Republican administrations. Does anybody think an FBI agent who had vowed to “stop” the candidacy of Barack Obama would have lasted a week at his job, let alone over a year, after the discovery of his bias?”

    And when I say slithered:

    Now enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm:

  • The U.S. Army has announced that Austin will be home to its new Futures Command. “The Futures Command center will focus on modernizing the U.S. Army and developing new military technologies. It is expected to employ up to 500 people.” Cool. My only question is: How do I get a job there?
  • “MSNBC Does Not Merely Permit Fabrications Against Democratic Party Critics. It Encourages and Rewards Them.” Also: “Anyone who criticizes the Democratic Party or its leaders is instantly accused of being a Kremlin agent despite the lack of any evidence. And the organization that leads that smear campaign is the one that calls itself a news outlet.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Three Democrats: “Here’s a bill to abolish ICE.” House Republican leadership: “OK, let’s put it to a vote.” Three Democrats: “Never mind, we’ll vote against it.” Hypocrite much?
  • “Fierce Gun Battle Erupts Between Mexican Troops And Cartel Gunmen Near Texas Border.”
  • President Trump on NATO: “Europe needs to pay it’s fair share for defense.” Eurocrats: “We have no idea what he’s saying! Stop speaking in code!”
  • Remember how socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated incumbent Joe Crowley in the 14th Congressional District Democratic primary? Surprise! Crowley is still on the ballot on the Working Families Party line. Read on for New York’s goofy third party rules (goofier than most). (Hat tip: Jim Geraghty.)
  • Problem: Residents of New Jersey are moving to Florida to escape high taxes. New Jersey’s solution: raise them even higher.
  • Saudi Arabia’s ruling class is falling in line with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reforms. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Social Justice Warrior game developer goes all Social Justice Warrior on gaming company partner on company time. Pink slip ensues.
  • Stop fixating on the Russia-hacked-the-election fantasy, says his Russian political foes:

    “Enough already!” Leonid M. Volkov, chief of staff for the anti-corruption campaigner and opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, wrote in a recent anguished post on Facebook. “What is happening with ‘the investigation into Russian interference,’ is not just a disgrace but a collective eclipse of the mind.”

    What most disturbs Mr. Putin’s critics about what they see as America’s Russia fever is that it reinforces a narrative put forth tirelessly by the state-controlled Russian news media. On television, in newspapers and on websites, Mr. Putin is portrayed as an ever-victorious master strategist who has led Russia — an economic, military and demographic weakling compared with the United States — from triumph to triumph on the world stage.

    “The Kremlin is of course very proud of this whole Russian interference story. It shows they are not just a group of old K.G.B. guys with no understanding of digital but an almighty force from a James Bond saga,” Mr. Volkov said in a telephone interview. “This image is very bad for us. Putin is not a master geopolitical genius.”

  • The citizens of European nations balk at erasing borders.

    The European Union has always been sold, to its citizens, on a practical basis: Cheaper products. Easier travel. Prosperity and security.

    But its founding leaders had something larger in mind. They conceived it as a radical experiment to transcend the nation-state, whose core ideas of race-based identity and zero-sum competition had brought disaster twice in the space of a generation.

    France’s foreign minister, announcing the bloc’s precursor in 1949, called it “a great experiment” that would put “an end to war” and guarantee “an eternal peace.”

    Norway’s foreign minister, Halvard M. Lange, compared Europe at that moment to the early American colonies: separate blocs that, in time, would cast off their autonomy and identities to form a unified nation. Much as Virginians and Pennsylvanians had become Americans, Germans and Frenchmen would become Europeans — if they could be persuaded.

    “The keen feeling of national identity must be considered a real barrier to European integration,” Mr. Lange wrote in an essay that became a foundational European Union text.

    But instead of overcoming that barrier, European leaders pretended it didn’t exist. More damning, they entirely avoided mentioning what Europeans would need to give up: a degree of their deeply felt national identities and hard-won national sovereignty.

    Now, as Europeans struggle with the social and political strains set off by migration from poor and war-torn nations outside the bloc, some are clamoring to preserve what they feel they never consented to surrender. Their fight with European leaders is exploding over an issue that, perhaps more than any other, exposes the contradiction between the dream of the European Union and the reality of European nations: borders.

    Establishment European leaders insist on open borders within the bloc. Free movement is meant to transcend cultural barriers, integrate economies and lubricate the single market. But a growing number of European voters want to sharply limit the arrival of refugees in their countries, which would require closing the borders.

    This might seem like a straightforward matter of reconciling internal rules with public demand on the relatively narrow issue of refugees, who are no longer even arriving in great numbers.

    But there is a reason that it has brought Europe to the brink, with its most important leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, warning of disaster and at risk of losing power. The borders question is really a question of whether Europe can move past traditional notions of the nation-state. And that is a question that Europeans have avoided confronting, much less answering, for over half a century.

    Snip.

    Perhaps the drive to restore European borders is, on some level, about borders themselves. Maybe when populists talk about restoring sovereignty and national identity, it’s not just a euphemism for anti-refugee sentiment (although such sentiment is indeed rife). Maybe they mean it.

    Traveling Germany with a colleague to report on the populist wave sweeping Europe, we heard the same concerns over and over. Vanishing borders. Lost identity. A distrusted establishment. Sovereignty surrendered to the European Union. Too many migrants.

    Populist supporters would often bring up refugees as a focal point and physical manifestation of larger, more abstract fears. They would often say, as one woman told me outside a rally for the Alternative for Germany, a rising populist party, that they feared their national identity was being erased.

    “Germany needs a positive relationship with our identity,” Björn Höcke, a leading far-right figure in the party, told my colleague. “The foundation of our unity is identity.”

    Allowing in refugees, even in very large numbers, does not mean Germany will no longer be Germany, of course. But this slight cultural change is one component of a larger European project that has required giving up, even if only by degrees, core conceits of a fully sovereign nation-state.

    National policy is suborned, on some issues, to the vetoes and powers of the larger union.

    Snip.

    European leaders hoped they could rein in those impulses long enough to transform Europe from the top down, but the financial crisis of 2008 came when their project was only half completed. That led to the crisis in the euro, which revealed political fault lines the leadership had long denied or wished away.

    The financial crisis and an accompanying outburst in Islamic terrorism also provided a threat. When people feel under threat, research shows, they seek a strong identity that will make them feel part of a powerful group.

    For that, many Europeans turned to their national identity: British, French, German. But the more people embraced their national identities, the more they came to oppose the European Union, studies found — and the more they came to distrust anyone within their borders who they saw as an outsider.

    European leaders, unable to square their project’s ambition of transcending nationalism with this reality of rising nationalism, have tried to have it both ways. Ms. Merkel has sought to save Europe’s border-free zone by imposing one hard border.

    Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian chancellor, has called for ever-harder “external” borders, which refers to those separating the European Union from the outside world, in order to keep internal borders open.

    This might work if refugee arrivals were the root issue. But it would not resolve the contradiction between the European Union as an experiment in overcoming nationalism versus the politics of the moment, in which publics are demanding more nationalism.

    That resurgence starts with borders. But Hungary’s trajectory suggests it might not end there. The country’s nationalist government, after erecting fences and setting up refugee camps, has seen hardening xenophobia and rising support for tilting toward authoritarianism.

    As the euro crisis showed, even pro-union leaders could never bring themselves to fully abandon the old nationalism. They are elected by their fellow nationals, after all, so naturally put them first. Their first loyalty is to their country. When that comes into conflict with the rest of the union, as it has on the issue of refugees, it’s little wonder that national self-interest wins.

  • The Air Force is rigging a test for the F-35 and against the A-10. Jerry Pournelle said the Air Force would always kill a hundred A-10s to buy one more F-35… (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • Why did President Trump nominate, and Texas Senator John Cornyn vote to confirm, a circuit court judge who opposed Heller?
  • President Trump pardons Oregon ranchers at the heart of the Bundy protests. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Parkland shooting survivors sue Scott Israel and the Broward County Sheriff’s Department. (Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
  • Democratic Rep: Data is racist.
  • “Shocking Video Shows Abortion Clinic Staff Playing With Aborted Babies Like Dolls.”
  • Oopsie! (Hat tip: Mike.)
  • Feminist Apparel’s male CEO fires entire staff after they confront him over his history of sexual abuse. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • Good news! Kinky Friedman has a new album out. Interesting news:

    Looking back through history, I can only think of two figures that have been mocked more than Trump, and they are Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ. So I say, give him a chance. How about a reality president for a reality world? Of course, this doesn’t sit well with people in New York I’m working with on projects, but, y’know, I would just withhold judgment on Trump. And it looks to me like he’s getting things done, and some of ‘em are pretty good things. And the last guy was a f*ckin’ Forrest Gump.

    Trump has already done one thing that the previous three Presidents looked in our eyes and told us they were gonna do — and they knew the whole time they were never gonna do – which is move that embassy. He did it. Every expert told him that would result in the apocalypse coming…he did that. And that’s a big thing to do. And he’s done other big things. Pulling out of the Iran deal took Pawn Shop-sized balls when everybody else was telling him what a horrible mistake that was. And…we’ll see. He may be the guy who does get Kim to come along with him, that very well might happen. I follow what Billy Joe Shaver says, which is, Remember that Jesus rode in on a jackass.

    No wonder Democrats never embraced him. Too much of a free-thinker… (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Lifestyles of the rich and felonious.
  • Size dysfunction among the London left:

  • Bye bye bag bans.
  • NFL owner sells team, but requires new owner to keep giant statue of him outside the stadium as a condition of sale.
  • William Shatner vs. the Social Justice Warriors.
  • “Thirteens my lucky number…” If you suffer from triskaidekaphobia, try to enjoy Social Distortion’s “Bad Luck.”

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for June 29, 2018

    Friday, June 29th, 2018

    Half the year gone! And so far, those of you who declared “Surely Democrats can’t keep up this level of lunacy” are losing your bets…

  • How Democrats’ said lunacy will backfire on them:

    Democrats should also understand that these public tantrums and other slights are simply bad politics. Voters don’t respond well to angry chanting losers harassing people, or to vulgar celebrities, or to threats verging on intimidation and violence. There is nothing inspirational about it, and it makes the targets of the anger look that much more reasonable. If Democrats think this crazed behavior will generate a “blue wave” in November, they are mistaken.

  • Why Democrats are freaking out over Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement:

    How did we get here? Two tracks converged to deliver us this dysfunction. The first is narrowly political. The Democrats, confident that they were on the right side of history, thought there was no harm in accelerating the rush to total victory. For years, Democrats practiced the rule that all is fair in judicial-confirmation battles, starting with the war on Judge Robert Bork in 1987. Then, under the leadership of Barack Obama and then–Senate majority leader Harry Reid, they did away with the filibuster on judicial appointments short of the Supreme Court, opening the door for Republicans to nudge it slightly more wide open.

    The second track is longer. Starting over a century ago, progressives began emphasizing ends over means. If the Supreme Court could deliver wins unattainable at the ballot box and unsupported by the Constitution, so be it. Thus was born the “living Constitution” — the doctrine that holds that the magical parchment should mean whatever progressives need it to mean at any moment. This was how Anthony Kennedy became an (apparently temporary) gay-rights hero. After consulting his feelings, he found a constitutional right no one had found in the text before.

    This idea that the Supreme Court is there to serve as a Praetorian Guard around progressive policies was on full display this week. Prior to Kennedy’s retirement announcement, the court issued a 5–4 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which held that public-sector unions can’t compel nonunion members to pay fees for union representation, thus violating the First Amendment.

    Justice Elena Kagan caustically disagreed. For her, the problem with the decision was that “public employee unions will lose a secure source of financial support.”

    “The First Amendment was meant for better things,” Kagan concluded in her dissent. “It was meant not to undermine but to protect democratic governance — including over the role of public-sector unions.”

    In short: The Supreme Court isn’t there to protect the meaning of the First Amendment; the Supreme Court is there to protect a secure source of financial support for public-sector unions. If the First Amendment gets in the way, that’s okay.

    The panic unfolding across the progressive landscape stems from the creeping fear that the Supreme Court might start doing its job — and not the job progressives have assigned it.

  • Hugh Hewett: “Turns out ‘But Gorsuch’ was a good argument after all.”

    What will the #NeverTrump coalition in the Beltway (with an annex in New York) say now?

    For a while, before tax cuts and regulatory reform boosted the economy, before defense spending increased, before Jerusalem was recognized as Israel’s capital, and before a “maximum pressure” campaign led to a detente with North Korea, #NeverTrumpers were fond of mockingly summarizing Trump supporters’ arguments as “But Gorsuch.”

    This bit of childish taunting always struck me as an unknowing admission of ignorance about the role assumed by the Supreme Court in modern American governance. Even when 21 appeals court judges took their seats — orchestrated by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues — still the one-note pundits played on, only louder: President Trump was so awful and evil, and conservatives who supported him had done so for one lousy seat on the Supreme Court.

    The implication from all the noise and a thousands posts was that “Gorsuch” wasn’t worth it. Now, after Justice Neil M. Gorsuch’s first year on the court, it will be impossible to overstate what his confirmation has meant.

  • Anthony Kennedy as moderate conservative pragmatist:

    While Justice Kennedy was usually a moderate conservative, there were areas of the law in which Justice Kennedy was not particularly moderate and others in which he was not particularly conservative. Particularly in areas touching on the freedom of speech and personal liberty, Justice Kennedy would swing for the fences. Justice Kennedy was easily the most speech-protective Justice on what was a quite speech-protective Court. Whether the speech at issue concerned political campaigns or product pricing, “offensive” messages or dishonest claims about military service, Justice Kennedy believed in uncompromising First Amendment protection. By some accounts it was Justice Kennedy who pushed the Court (and a reluctant Chief Justice) to invalidate the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, and this would be entirely consistent with what we saw in his First Amendment opinions.

    Speech was not the only freedom that mattered to Justice Kennedy. He had a deep concern for Due Process, as shown in his embrace of habeas rights for alleged enemy combatants, his concerns about the application of capital punishment to some classes of criminal defendants, and his embrace of constitutional limits on punitive damages. He also, perhaps most famously, believed that due regard for individual liberty barred the government from adopting laws prohibiting or disregarding same-sex relationships, as in Lawrence, Romer, Windsor, and Obergefell. In these areas, there was nothing modest, moderate, or minimalist about Justice Kennedy’s views or the doctrinal rules he would embrace.

    Given the makeup of the Roberts Court, as went Justice Kennedy, so went the Court. Where Kennedy was a moderate conservative favoring a minimalist approach, the Roberts court would tend to adopt a moderate conservative opinion. Where Justice Kennedy favored a more muscular approach, on the other hand, there were almost always at least four votes to go along. (NFIB v. Sebelius being a notable exception.) If Justice Kennedy wanted to recognize same-sex marriage or preclude the use of the death penalty for those convicted of non-lethal crimes, the liberals would agree. If Justice Kennedy wanted to protect campaign-related or commercial speech, the conservatives were there. so the Roberts Court was generally as conservative and as moderate as Justice Kennedy wanted to be.

    (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)

  • Kurt Schlichter on the insanity gripping the Democratic Party:

    There’s no sign of sanity. This week they turned the hate up to “11,” then cranked it to “17.” There are not many places to go once you reach “You are real live Nazis murdering children by not letting aspiring Democrat voters flow into the country at will!” At some point, instead of a few wild-eyed randos with crummy aim trying to off libs’ political/cultural opponents, they are going to start collectively going to go for the throat.

    Our collective throat. Which I do not anticipate us Normals responding to in a huggy, loving kind of way.

    Snip.

    We’re already seeing it play out. The mainstream media quit even pretending to be honest – it’s in full scale fib mode. Look at the Time magazine cover of the little girl whose scumbag mom dragged her across the desert to help her break our laws (apparently without daddy’s permission and not for the first time). That Time cover is a lie, but it’s no surprise. The only surprise is that Time magazine is still a thing.

    In fact, the whole manufactured outrage over Democrat-preferred criminals being treated like every other criminal was a lie. And the media not only doesn’t care but actively and consciously supports lying to you to support its liberal allies. But no one cares anymore. They can lie and lie and lie, and do, and we just smile and buy more guns and ammo.

    So the leftists attempt to intimidate us into submission, showing up at people’s houses and screaming at them in restaurants. Take that, Sarah! The idea is since the leftists can’t convince Normals with the power of their ideas – because leftists’ ideas inevitably involve Normals ceding more of their rights and money to leftists – the left wants to make submission and obedience the price for being able to participate in the culture. But what’s inevitable is that us newly militant Normals, whose power is political rather than cultural, are going to respond pursuant to the New Rules and demand that leftists bake us a cake.

  • The craziness among Democrats can be explained by the behavior of cultists after a prophecy fails: the moderates, the ones who were the biggest brake on untrammeled lunacy, are the ones out the door first.

    The more lukewarm Democrats are either keeping their mouths shut or are disappearing from the Party. The ones who remain are the ones who are more committed (translation: barking mad moonbats) who are the ones we hear talking about impeachment, banishing Trump supporters from the public square, protesting at Republican’s houses, etc.

    It also explains why Democratic Party big wigs are losing primary challenges to candidates of the more barking mad persuasion (e.g. Joe Crowley, one of the biggest of the Democratic House big wigs who lost to someone who can only be described as a commie).

  • Speaking of which, the House’s fourth-ranking Democrat just got knocked off by a woman who wants to abolish ICE. “The objection of the hard Left is not to the current style or kind of immigration enforcement; their objection is to the existence of immigration enforcement.”
  • Mega Turbo Democrat Dumbass: “I’m going to find the Congressman’s kids and kill them. If you’re going to separate kids at the border, I’m going to kill his kids. Don’t try to find me because you won’t.” Yeah, that last bit turned out to not be the case: The FBI arrested him within hours.
  • “Janus Ruling Could Cost Unions Hundreds of Millions.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “In ruling on bullet-stamping law, California Supreme Court says state laws cannot be invalidated on the grounds that complying with them is impossible.” Evidently liberals find this whole “reality” thing too much of a drag…
  • Keep in mind that a majority of Democrats don’t want to abolish ICE. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • In East Texas, more of that voter fraud Democrats claim doesn’t exist.
  • And also in South Texas. Bonus: Hidalgo County fraud, which we’ve previously covered.
  • Bonus: Judges orders redo of Democratic primary runoff due to voting fraud:

    A judge ordered a do-over of a contested Democratic primary runoff race in South Texas after invalidating the runoff results due to voter fraud. The runoff was decided by six votes.

    Ofelia “Ofie” Gutierrez contested the results of the May 22 Democratic primary runoff for Kleberg County Justice of the Peace Precinct 4 after losing to incumbent Esequiel “Cheque” De La Paz by a vote of 318 to 312.

    Gutierrez alleged that more than six illegal votes were counted, cast by people who didn’t reside within Precinct 4 and therefore weren’t eligible to vote in the election.

    On Tuesday, visiting Judge Joel Johnson threw out seven of the 16 ballots Gutierrez challenged in court. All seven were cast by voters related in some way to De La Paz.

  • “Head of prominent charity that campaigns against child abuse is arrested for ‘trying to arrange to rape multiple children as young as two.”
  • 200 Muslim migrants attempt to storm the Croatian border yelling “Allahu Akbar.”
  • Iran reopens uranium plant. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of Iran, protests there continued for a sixth day following a currency collapse. “On Sunday, the rial plunged 15 percent to IRR 89,000 against the dollar on the black market. Since the U.S. withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal on May 8, the rial has lost more than 40 percent of its value.”
  • The dumbasses at the Austin City Council approved building a soccer stadium. Because subsidizing a popular sport just wasn’t insulting enough to taxpayers…
  • Were Houston police officers dosed with flyers laced with Fentanyl left on patrol car windshields? Followup: Lab tests say no.
  • What it’s like to service an SR-71. “Our last structural integrity review was in 1987, and it declared that the aircraft was about 180 percent stronger than the day it was made. The higher and faster you flew it, the stronger the titanium became.”
  • CNN’s ratings fall below those of the food network. (Hat tip: Ace.)
  • Black man being arrested for shoplifting calls police Nazis. So they charged him with a hate crime. All hate crime laws are stupid, but those that criminalize free speech are an order of magnitude stupider. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • A Tweet with some numbers from the latest Harris poll:

  • A sample from the #WalkAway tag on Twitter:

  • Are eight AT&T buildings (including one in Dallas) hubs for NSA spying?
  • Multiculturalism Watch: Excavating the Aztec’s ceremonial skull rack, which the Spanish conquistadors estimated as holding 130,000 skulls from human sacrifices. “Gomoz Valdas found that about 75% of the skulls examined so far belonged to men, most between the ages of 20 and 35—prime warrior age. But 20% were women, and 5% belonged to children. Most victims seemed to be in relatively good health before they were sacrificed.”
  • Harlan Ellison, RIP.

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Supreme Court, Texas, unions | No Comments »

    Virginia APC Chase Ends Without Injury (UPDATED)

    Wednesday, June 6th, 2018

    “A soldier stole an armored personnel carrier from a National Guard base in Virginia on Tuesday and took the vehicle on a two-hour drive that ended in a police chase through downtown Richmond, the state capital, state police said.”

    Some video:

    That’s an M577, manufactured by BAE Systems, which is a variant of the M113 APC. The M577 is the command variant and generally unarmed. (News reports referring to this as a “tank” are from lazy, shiftless journalists who don’t care and should be shunned by polite society.)

    As for the SUPERgenius who decided it was a swell idea to take it for a joy ride:

    Update:

    “Police have identified the soldier accused of stealing an armored vehicle from a military base and leading police on a wild chase through Central Virginia Tuesday night.

    Police say 29-year-old Joshua Philip Yabut of Richmond took the M577 armored personnel carrier an from Fort Pickett in Nottoway County, near Blackstone, and led police on a pursuit up I-95 before surrendering in downtown Richmond.”

    In a release, the Virginia National Guard said Yabut is a first lieutenant assigned as the commander of the Petersburg-based Headquarters Company, 276th Engineer Battalion, with more than 11 years of service. He deployed to Afghanistan from 2008 to 2009 with the Illinois National Guard.

    Snip.

    “State police say Yabut has been charged with Driving Under the Influence of Drugs, one felony count of eluding police and one felony count of unauthorized use of a vehicle.”

    And there’s your motive. Drugs are bad, mmmkay? I think Mr. Yabut’s military career just came to an end.

    (Hat tip: J. R. Salzman.)

    Update 2: This is supposedly his Twitter feed. With retweets of Bernie Sanders, President Donald Trump and Popehat.

    Including what appears to be a few seconds footage from inside the YPC:

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    Posted in Crime, Military | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for June 1, 2018

    Friday, June 1st, 2018

    We told liberals they wouldn’t like the new rules being applied to them, but they didn’t listen. Liberals get Roseanne Barr fired, conervatives get Samantha Bee’s sponsors to pull out. (Disclaimer: I didn’t watch either of their shows.)

  • How #NeverTrump came to be a lifestyle choice: “These people aren’t operating from principle. The are operating from pique. Trump’s mere presence offends them because they just know they are his social and intellectual superiors.”
  • President Donald Trump has stopped apologizing and started innovating:

    Indeed, how many of these widely accepted (sometimes downright cherished) assumptions can one man challenge (disrupt) in such a brief period of time? The answer is plenty. He does it by questioning what often goes unquestioned in Washington, D.C. He simply asks “Why?” Why help fund a Shiite crescent in the Middle East? Why send tax dollars to a terrorist-friendly PLO? Why support anti-American programs at the U.N.? Why a “One China” policy? Why placate deadbeat NATO partners? Why pay premium prices for the F-35 and a new Air Force One? Why force nuns to provide birth-control coverage? Why tolerate sanctuary cities and a porous border?

  • British man goes to jail for telling the truth about Muslim rape gangs.
  • What it’s like to live on the border with Mexico:

    Five years ago, my husband and I bought a house in the emptiest county in America. We went there because the night sky is so dark, you can walk in the high desert by starlight and cast a shadow, so dark you can see distant galaxies and the zodiacal light. There are three types of people in our rural area: amateur astronomers, ranchers, and illegal aliens.

    If you climb the mountains behind our house and look south, you look into Mexico. If you climb those mountains to the top, you are on one of the major drug trafficking routes into America. If you stay in the desert at the foot of the mountains, you are in rattlesnake country—the greatest biodiversity of rattlers in America, and the night path of illegal aliens.

    It is not even a secret that the 60 miles between the border and Interstate 10 are treated as a no man’s land. We live and vote and pay taxes in America, but the government acts as if we are beyond the defensible perimeter of the country. Border Patrol is everywhere, but even with President Trump, they are just going through the circular motions of catch and release.

    They have high tech listening stations in the mountains, trucks equipped with radar on the back roads. They know when drugs are moving through, know regular drop-offs, are adept at finding caches. But if they can’t secure the border, they can’t keep the families that live here safe—and they don’t even try.

    We are the deplorables. All of my rancher neighbors have guns. Most are Evangelicals. To Democrats and open-borders Republicans, we are throwaway people. The Other. Disposable.

    The reason I am not naming names, even place names, is that these are my neighbors’ stories, not mine, and my neighbors—farmers, cowboys, and ranching families, strong, resourceful, tough people—my neighbors are wary and they are weary. They fear retribution by the drug runners and coyotes who bring the illegals across, because they have seen it happen.

    All of my neighbors have had encounters with illegals. Every single family. Everyone knows dozens of families whose homes have been broken into and worse—loved ones tied up, kidnapped, threatened, shot, permanently crippled by a hit and run attack, when they made too much of a fuss to authorities.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Get woke, go broke, college edition:

    Evergreen State College is eliminating dozens of staff positions as it struggles to cope with plummeting enrollment in the wake of the protests that engulfed campus last year.

    John Carmichael, the chief of staff and secretary to the Evergreen State College Board of Trustees, announced in a memo to staff and faculty members on Tuesday that the school has already cut 24 faculty lines and eliminated 19 vacant staff positions, and warned that up to 20 additional staff members could soon be laid off.

    “Over the past several days, 20 staff members have been notified that they are at risk for layoff,” Carmichael wrote. “These layoffs, although necessary to stabilize the college’s budget, represent a profound loss felt by many.”

    The staffing cuts, which include not renewing contracts for several adjunct faculty members, come shortly after the college revealed that it would be cutting $5.9 million from the budget in anticipation of a shortfall in applications of up to 20 percent.

  • Republicans have been using the Congressional Review Act to kill some of the worst regulations from the final days of the Obama Administration.
  • Came to Iraqi to join the Islamic State? Iraqi courts have no sympathy for you. Even if you’re a woman.
  • You may think you’re rich, but how much money does it take before an investment banker thinks you’re rich? Short answer: $25 million.

    Twenty-five million dollars in investable wealth. The kind of money you could afford to see dip into the red for a quarter or three, maybe even a year or two, without breaking a sweat. With $25 million, maybe, just maybe, you’re starting to be rich.

    Because in this era of hyper-wealth and hyper-inequality, that is simply where rich begins—a ticket, in truth, to the first, lowly rung of rich. For most of the planet, $25 million represents unfathomable wealth. For elite private bankers, it buys their basic service.

    Call it economy-class rich. Business class? That’s $100 million. First class? $200 million. Private-jet rich? Try $1 billion.

    I grew up thinking that rich was owning a two-story house, so I’ve got it made. Top of the world, ma! (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Texas Supreme Court strikes down short-term rental rule. The only surprise this time is that it was San Antonio rather than Austin making the stupid law.
  • A small pro-life victory.
  • A-10s to get new wings. Good. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Did Tranny Traitor Bradley Manning just threaten to off himself?
  • WisCon gonna WisCon. (Previously.)
  • Solo underperforms. I’m not sure there are any larger lessons to be drawn. For what it’s worth, I saw Deadpool 2 last Saturday, and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the original Deadpool.
  • Related: Fans call for Common sense Star Wars control.

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    Hey, Did You Notice That Israel/Hamas War?

    Thursday, May 31st, 2018

    I know CNN may not have had time to cover it, what with having to interview Stormy Daniels lawyer so many times, but did you notice that Israel and Hamas fought a short war a few days ago?

    Israel struck dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after coming under a heavy barrage of mortar and rocket fire by Palestinian militants.

    The Israeli military said it carried out over 35 airstrikes on seven sites across Gaza, including a cross-border tunnel controlled by Hamas and Islamic Jihad — the two primary militant groups in the Palestinian enclave — The Associated Press reported.

    Beginning early Tuesday morning and continuing past nightfall, Palestinian militants launched roughly 70 projectiles toward southern Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces. One mortar shell landed near a kindergarten just before it opened, and three IDF troops were injured in the bombardment.

    The Daily Caller was even kind enough to embed this IDF tweeted infographic:

    That Hamas happy kidnap tunnel Israel blew up was 1.2 miles long and extended into both Egypt and Israel.

    Did you notice that this dustup barely rated a blip from our mainstream media?

    It used to be that military action by Israel would dominate headlines for days, with Democrats rushing to cameras to sonorously demand the President personally intervene with Israel (always with Israel, never with the Scumbag Terrorist Enemy of the Week) to impose a unilateral ceasefire so as not to wreck the endless “Middle East Peace Process.”

    Mark that down as another thing killed by the Age of Trump. It’s gone from “If It Bleeds, It Leads” to “Print It If It Hurts Trump.” (Never mind that this endless molehill mongering has only strengthened Trump.) “Car bomb explodes in Beirut” was front-page news back in the 1980s, but today there are multiple concurrent wars going on in the Middle East that won’t make the news for weeks at a time. (When’s the last time you saw a top-of-the-fold story on the war in Yemen?)

    An end to the MSM’s fixation on Israel to the exlusion of every other country in the Middle East is probably all to the better. Now if only the MSM could be convinced to cover the violence committed against Americans in Democrat-run cities like Chicago and Baltimore with the same fervor they used to cover random dead Palestinians…

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    Memorial Day: Remembering Thomas W. Fowler

    Monday, May 28th, 2018

    For today’s Memorial Day remembrance, we honor Congressional Medal of Honor-winning Texan Second Lieutenant Thomas W. Fowler, who cleared a lane through a minefield and dragged men from a burning tank during the Italian campaign of World War II:

    For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty, on 23 May 1944, in the vicinity of Carano, Italy. In the midst of a full-scale armored-infantry attack, 2d Lt. Fowler, while on foot, came upon 2 completely disorganized infantry platoons held up in their advance by an enemy minefield. Although a tank officer, he immediately reorganized the infantry. He then made a personal reconnaissance through the minefield, clearing a path as he went, by lifting the antipersonnel mines out of the ground with his hands. After he had gone through the 75-yard belt of deadly explosives, he returned to the infantry and led them through the minefield, a squad at a time. As they deployed, 2d Lt. Fowler, despite small arms fire and the constant danger of antipersonnel mines, made a reconnaissance into enemy territory in search of a route to continue the advance. He then returned through the minefield and, on foot, he led the tanks through the mines into a position from which they could best support the infantry. Acting as scout 300 yards in front of the infantry, he led the 2 platoons forward until he had gained his objective, where he came upon several dug-in enemy infantrymen. Having taken them by surprise, 2d Lt. Fowler dragged them out of their foxholes and sent them to the rear; twice, when they resisted, he threw hand grenades into their dugouts. Realizing that a dangerous gap existed between his company and the unit to his right, 2d Lt. Fowler decided to continue his advance until the gap was filled. He reconnoitered to his front, brought the infantry into position where they dug in and, under heavy mortar and small arms fire, brought his tanks forward. A few minutes later, the enemy began an armored counterattack. Several Mark Vl tanks fired their cannons directly on 2d Lt. Fowler’s position. One of his tanks was set afire. With utter disregard for his own life, with shells bursting near him, he ran directly into the enemy tank fire to reach the burning vehicle. For a half-hour, under intense strafing from the advancing tanks, although all other elements had withdrawn, he remained in his forward position, attempting to save the lives of the wounded tank crew. Only when the enemy tanks had almost overrun him, did he withdraw a short distance where he personally rendered first aid to 9 wounded infantrymen in the midst of the relentless incoming fire. 2d Lt. Fowler’s courage, his ability to estimate the situation and to recognize his full responsibility as an officer in the Army of the United States, exemplify the high traditions of the military service for which he later gave his life.

    He was killed in action 10 days later.

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    Posted in Military, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Memorial Day: Remembering Ben L. Salomon

    Sunday, May 27th, 2018

    On this Memorial Day weekend, we remember Congressional Medal of Honor winner Captain Ben L. Salomon. His citation:

    Captain Ben L. Salomon was serving at Saipan, in the Marianas Islands on July 7, 1944, as the Surgeon for the 2d Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment, 27th Infantry Division. The Regiment’s 1st and 2d Battalions were attacked by an overwhelming force estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 Japanese soldiers. It was one of the largest attacks attempted in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Although both units fought furiously, the enemy soon penetrated the Battalions’ combined perimeter and inflicted overwhelming casualties. In the first minutes of the attack, approximately 30 wounded soldiers walked, crawled, or were carried into Captain Salomon’s aid station, and the small tent soon filled with wounded men. As the perimeter began to be overrun, it became increasingly difficult for Captain Salomon to work on the wounded. He then saw a Japanese soldier bayoneting one of the wounded soldiers lying near the tent. Firing from a squatting position, Captain Salomon quickly killed the enemy soldier. Then, as he turned his attention back to the wounded, two more Japanese soldiers appeared in the front entrance of the tent. As these enemy soldiers were killed, four more crawled under the tent walls. Rushing them, Captain Salomon kicked the knife out of the hand of one, shot another, and bayoneted a third. Captain Salomon butted the fourth enemy soldier in the stomach and a wounded comrade then shot and killed the enemy soldier. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Captain Salomon ordered the wounded to make their way as best they could back to the regimental aid station, while he attempted to hold off the enemy until they were clear. Captain Salomon then grabbed a rifle from one of the wounded and rushed out of the tent. After four men were killed while manning a machine gun, Captain Salomon took control of it. When his body was later found, 98 dead enemy soldiers were piled in front of his position. Captain Salomon’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

    Additionally, his body had 76 bullet wounds and numerous bayonet wounds, up to 24 of which may have been while he was still alive, and forensic evidence showed he moved the machine gun four times while fatally wounded.

    Here’s a description in video form:

    Quintin Tarantino should make a movie about this guy…

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    LinkSwarm for May 25, 2018

    Friday, May 25th, 2018

    Looking forward to the Memorial Day weekend…

  • Are we supposed to have Strong Opinions and Takes of Elevated Temperature over the fact that President Donald Trump has cancelled the summit with North Korea? Because the MSM certainly seems to have no shortage of such takes, despite the fact that Scott Adams (who keeps explaining President Trump’s persuasion techniques again and again to a press that refuses to listen) called it a month ago:

    It isn’t just that liberals, the MSM and #NeverTrump hate President Trump, it’s that they hate him with such a blinding, all-encompassing rage that they refuse to learn from their mistakes and keep making the same ones over and over again…

  • President Trump’s immigration crackdown is forcing companies to actually hire women.
  • Israel says it’s the first country to actually use F-35s in combat. (Hat tip: Neontaster’s Twitter feed.)
  • President Trump is killing off what little leftwing idealism of the 1960s remained:

    The children of the ’60s — you know, the hippies — and their ideological offspring in academia, politics, and, most especially, the media, are now not only okay with a sitting president’s weaponizing the intelligence community against a rival presidential campaign; they are all rolling over like whipped dogs to believe everything the intelligence community tells them, most especially when it is coming from the CIA — the CIA! — and the FBI.

    Basically, Trump has driven the hippies and their offspring so crazy they are not only A-okay with the CIA’s spying on American citizens, totally cool with FBI spies infiltrating a rival campaign, and feeling warm all over about wiretaps, unmasking, and lying to federal judges, they do not want any of this investigated.

    The other day, Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame was on CNN fuming over the fact that there will now be an investigation of the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the FBI, after it was discovered they are all guilty of spying on the political rival of a sitting president.

    Carl freakin’ Bernstein does not want the watchmen watched. Carl freakin’ Bernstein is swallowing every treat being fed to him by the CIA — the CIA! — and the FBI. Carl freakin’ Bernstein does not want an investigation, does not want to learn anything more than what he is being told (by the CIA!), and does not want the public to know anything more.

  • A Russian in Norway thinks the Norwegians are crazy to let their country be Isalmicized.
  • War with China within two years? I’m not sold on that idea, but it’s something to consider. (Hat tip: Ace.)
  • Bird is an annoying “scooter sharing” startup plaguing a few cities. Turns out that a recharging reward makes it even more annoying than it sounds, with rechargers gaming the system for maximum rewards by hoarding scooters. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Bomb detonates inside Indian restaurant in Canada, injuring 15.
  • Three more arrested in south Texas on that voting fraud that Democrats swear doesn’t exist.
  • President Trump nominates Texan Andy Oldham to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • Harvey Weinstein finally charged with rape.
  • Moses Farrow, adopted son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, talks about why he believes Allen and what a nightmare it was to live with Farrow:

    It was common knowledge in Hollywood that my grandfather, the director John Farrow, was a notorious drinker and serial philanderer. There were numerous alcohol-fueled arguments between her parents, and Mia told me that she was the victim of attempted molestation within her own family. Her brother, my uncle John, who visited us many times when we were young, is currently in prison on a conviction of multiple child molestation charges. (My mother has never publicly commented on this or expressed concern about his victims.) My uncle Patrick and his family would often come by, but those visits could end abruptly as Mia and Patrick would often wind up arguing. Patrick would commit suicide in 2009.

    My mother, of course, had her own darkness. She married 50-year-old Frank Sinatra when she was only 21. After they divorced, she moved in to live with her close friend Dory Previn and her husband André. When my mother became pregnant by André, the Previns’ marriage broke up, leading to Dory’s institutionalization. It was never spoken of in our home, of course, and not even known to me until a few years ago. But, as I look at it – as a licensed therapist as well as an eyewitness – it’s easy to see the seeds of dysfunction that would flourish within our own home.

    It was important to my mother to project to the world a picture of a happy blended household of both biological and adopted children, but this was far from the truth. I’m sure my mother had good intentions in adopting children with disabilities from the direst of circumstances, but the reality inside our walls was very different. It pains me to recall instances in which I witnessed siblings, some blind or physically disabled, dragged down a flight of stairs to be thrown into a bedroom or a closet, then having the door locked from the outside. She even shut my brother Thaddeus, paraplegic from polio, in an outdoor shed overnight as punishment for a minor transgression.

    Snip.

    The summer between first and second grades, she was having new wallpaper installed in the bedroom I slept in, across the hall from hers on the second floor of the Connecticut house. I was getting ready to go to sleep, when my mother came over to my bed and found a tape measure. She gave me a piercing look that stopped me in my tracks and asked if I had taken it, as she had been looking for it all day. I stood in front of her, frozen. She asked why it was on my bed. I told her I didn’t know, that perhaps a workman had left it there. She asked again and again and again.

    When I didn’t give the answer she wanted, she slapped my face, knocking off my glasses. She told me I was lying and directed me to tell my brothers and sisters that I had taken the tape measure. Through my tears I listened to her as she explained that we would rehearse what should have happened. She would walk into the room and I would tell her I was sorry for taking the tape measure, that I had taken it to play with and that I would never do it again. She made me rehearse it at least a half-dozen times.

    That was the start of her coaching, drilling, scripting, and rehearsing – in essence, brainwashing. I became anxious and fearful. Once, when I was given a new pair of jeans, I thought they would look cool if I cut off a couple of the belt loops. When Mia saw what I had done, she spanked me repeatedly and had me remove all my clothing, saying, “You’re not deserving of any clothes” and making me stand naked in the corner of her room, in front of my older siblings who had just returned from dinner with their father André.

    Plus how Farrow had drilled her children into reciting the details of the alleged “assault” over and over again.

    Read the while thing. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Amazon demonetizes Legal Insurrection, lies about the reasons.
  • Rachel Dolezal charged with welfare fraud. That’s taking your “I was born a poor black child” cosplay way too far…
  • One of those “Yeah, you just have to put it up” tweets:

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    In A Surprise Development, Germany Now Sucks At War

    Wednesday, May 16th, 2018

    One reason both Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolf Hitler were able to plunge the globe into successive world wars was that the German military was just that good. The combination of Germany’s industrial might and the Prussian military tradition proved a deadly and potent combination, which (along with innovations in tactics and technology) explain how the Wehrmacht rolled over so much of Europe between 1939 and 1941.

    Even after the war, those factors still made West Germany’s reformed Bundeswehr one of the more formidable fighting forces in NATO.

    But those days of military prowess appear to be gone, a victim of budget cuts.

    If Europe is to take its destiny into its own hands any time soon, Germany has a lot of work to do—the Bundeswehr, Germany’s defense ministry, is suffering from multiple readiness crises in a culmination of years of cost-shaving and poor management decisions. And the latest symptom to emerge of that crisis is the dwindling number of actually functional fighter jets that the Luftwaffe, Germany’s air force, can actually call combat ready. For the Eurofighter Typhoon, Germany’s main fighter aircraft, that number is four—out of a total of 128.

    But that’s not all:

  • The German Navy has had to refuse delivery of the first of its new class of frigates after the ship failed sea trials, and only five of the Navy’s existing 13 frigates were capable of being deployed.
  • The last available German submarine was pulled out of service for repairs, as all the other submarines in the fleet sit in drydock or sit idle due to lack of replacement parts. (One of those submarines may now be back in service.)
  • The German Army was found to lack enough tanks and armored personnel carriers, or even enough basic equipment for soldiers, to fulfill its commitment to NATO’s Very High Readiness Task Force at the beginning of 2019. While 105 out of 244 Leopard 2 tanks were called “ready for use,” only nine could be fully armed for the VHRF.
  • Only 12 of 62 Tiger attack helicopters and 16 of Germany’s 72 CH-53 cargo helicopters were available for exercises and operations last year; the rest were grounded for maintenance.
  • At any time over the last year, only three of the Bundeswehr Airbus A400M transport aircraft were ready to fly.

    • Stars and Stripes has more on the same theme:

    Germany’s military is virtually undeployable and security experts say it is too weak to meet its obligations to its allies, as it prepares to assume command of NATO’s crisis response force next year.

    Pressure on Berlin is mounting after a series of revelations has exposed the German military as one of the least combat ready in NATO, despite its economic heft.

    “The readiness of the German military is abysmal,” said Jorge Benitez, a NATO expert with the Atlantic Council in Washington. “For years, German leaders have known that major elements of their armed forces, such as tanks, submarines and fighter jets, are not fully operational and can’t be used for actual military missions.”

    The military dysfunction is likely to re-emerge as a flashpoint between Berlin and Washington when President Donald Trump attends a NATO summit in July.

    Berlin’s persistent shortcomings and resistance to meeting NATO spending targets is likely to further strain relations with Washington and risks a standoff that could eventually test the unity of the alliance and the American commitment to it.

    Trump, long ambivalent about the value of NATO, remains fixated on Germany as a security free-rider: The alliance “helps them a hell of a lot more than it helps us,” Trump said in December.

    If you’re going to have one major industrial power suck at war, Germany is a pretty good candidate, given all the Historical Unpleasantness that resulted when they didn’t. But that development does make it unlikely that NATO can maintain anything like the agreed-upon level of deterrence.

    (Hat tip: Borepatch.)

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