LinkSwarm for September 4, 2020

Greetings, and welcome to the Friday LinkSwarm! President Trump’s approval rises among black people, more antifa behaving badly, and a look at just how badly Lebanon is screwed.

  • President Trump’s approval rating among Black voters jumped by 60% during the Republican National Committee even as Democrats and progressives sought to brand the Republican president as racist. A HarrisX-Hill poll released Friday showed Mr. Trump’s net approval with Black voters from Aug. 22-25, which included the first two days of the RNC, rose to 24%, up from 15% in the pollster’s Aug. 8-11 survey.” If those numbers are accurate, and hold, all by themselves they could put Pennsylvania out of reach for Democrats, since they lost by 50,000 votes in 2016, and have to rack up huge black totals in Philadelphia to balance out their disadvantage in the rest of the state. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Dirtbag dirtnapped: “Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, died in Lacey, Washington, where federal agents were attempting to take him into custody for the shooting — the same night his interview on the shooting aired on Vice News.”
  • Chicago gangs form a pact to murder any Chicago police officers with a drawn weapon.
  • President Trump orders to begin defunding cities who refuse to control rioters and defund police:

    President Trump is ordering the federal government to begin the process of defunding New York City and three other cities where officials allowed “lawless” protests and cut police budgets amid rising violent crime, The Post can exclusively reveal.

    Trump on Wednesday signed a five-page memo ordering all federal agencies to send reports to the White House Office of Management and Budget that detail funds that can be redirected.

    New York City, Washington, DC, Seattle and Portland are initial targets as Trump makes “law and order” a centerpiece of his re-election campaign after months of unrest and violence following the May killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police.

    “My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones,” Trump says in the memo, which twice mentions New York Mayor Bill de Blasio by name.

    “To ensure that Federal funds are neither unduly wasted nor spent in a manner that directly violates our Government’s promise to protect life, liberty, and property, it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities.”

    Good.

  • How antifa operates at the street level:

    The course of the nightly action against the PPB followed a fairly predictable pattern: a contingent of notional BLM protesters rendezvoused with a group of antifa black bloc at a public park close to their objective. As they moved towards the police building which was their target, “corkers” -a sort of bicycle-mounted blocking force- closed off side streets and the scouting line -typically on mopeds- moved ahead and on the flanks. Behind them came the main contingent of black bloc. Upon arrival at the PPB the streets were blocked with vehicles and burning dumpsters, with the “corkers” stationed to direct traffic away from the action and the scouts setting up a picket line extending out several blocks, watching for police reinforcements and creating the strong impression of antifa control of territory.

    The black bloc then engaged in an steadily-escalating level of vandalism and property damage directed at their target, including unguarded police vehicles parked nearby. If uninterrupted, this quickly escalated to arson and serious destruction to the facilities.

    By this point the scouting line often detected the flanking lines of riot police and a riot was formally been declared. Blocs armed with shields deployed defensively to allow time for the rest of the rioters to disengage. These “shield walls” provided a tempting target for a police “bull rush”, video of which can then be used for propaganda purposes. Behind the shield wall other bloc members threw commercial fireworks, frozen water bottles, and paint-filled balloons. The paint balloons are often mixed with sand or abrasive material that scratches clear shields and visors when cleaning is attempted damaging expensive riot suppression equipment. Meanwhile the main element of the antifa black bloc continued to retreat into bordering residential areas.

    Antifa chooses the residential areas for specific reasons. As the police deploy flashbangs, tear gas, and assorted non-lethal munitions in order to control the ongoing riot, the disruptive effects are experienced by the local residents. Additionally, as the action moved further into the poorly-lit neighborhoods, small groups of rioters and black bloc would break off to either escape, or engage in vandalism against the original PPB target (if left unguarded) or other nearby targets of opportunity.

    The action concluded at some point in the early morning hours, usually 4-5 hours after the assembly in the designated park. The location was almost always shifted to a different location every night, very rarely going to the same location on successive nights. This means it’s rare for the same location to be targeted more than twice in one week.

    Plus suggested tactics on countering it.

  • “Flamethrower-Packing Antifa ‘Entered Fetal Position And Began Crying’ After Unsuccessful Escape From Cops.” This was in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I can’t believe I didn’t have a “flamethrower” tag until now.

  • Madison City Council approves illegal, racist, quota-driven police oversight board.
  • Goya CEO Bob Unamue, tells Democrats that “the ‘hatred and destruction’ are moving Latinos to Trump.” Plus a comparison to communist enforcement mobs. (Hat tip: @txpoliticjunkie.)
  • In an effort to prove how reasonable Democrats are, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser considers removing the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Former Trump skeptic changes mind, thinks Trump saved the GOP from itself.

    Like a lot of observers at the time, I thought Trump had no real policy agenda to define his campaign beyond a vague pro-America sentiment and a withering disdain for the political establishments of both major parties. I thought his political inexperience was a liability, that his penchant for insulting his opponents would turn voters off, and that the GOP had missed an opportunity to defeat Hillary Clinton by nominating someone else—anyone, really, besides Trump.

    But it turned out Trump was the best candidate to beat Clinton because Clinton embodied nearly everything voters had come to hate about America’s political class: the falsity, the naked hypocrisy, the barely disguised disdain for ordinary people. For all his obvious faults, Trump wasn’t a professional politician, had no record to defend, and was unconstrained by the conventions of ordinary political rhetoric. He was uniquely positioned to call out and exploit Clinton’s faults and shortcomings, and expose the contradictions at the heart of the Democratic Party.

    For Republican voters, Trump offered the promise of something different from the seemingly endless pattern of politicians who promised one thing and did another, especially on immigration and free trade. For decades, incessant Republican boasting about “securing the border” never actually secured the border as mass illegal immigration continued apace. Expressions of sympathy for the American working class never produced policies that might actually help the working class. Trump zeroed in on these things, and his message resonated because it was true (and still is).

  • The lockdowns have been ten times as deadly as the Wuhan coronavirus.
  • Evidently Democrats want to bankrupt any NYC restaurants they haven’t already: “Bill De Blasio Says NYC Indoor Dining May Not Happen Until June 2021.”
  • Joseph P. Kennedy III loses his senate primary to incumbent Ed Markey, who seemed to run to Kennedy’s left.
  • Speaking of members of the Kennedy clan running for office, NJ Democratic congressional candidate Amy Kennedy calls for lifting sanctions on Chinese companies. In one of those amazing coincidences, she also owns substantial amounts of Chinese stock. What are the odds? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • The Media Lynching of Kyle Rittenhouse. A liberal journalism professor not only omits the fact that Rittenhouse was attacked, but also thinks that the Kenosha riots will hurt Trump.
  • The rap sheets of Kyle Rittenhouse’s attackers.
  • Speaking of which, Twitter suspends the account of Rittenhouse’s lawyer, L. Lin Wood.
  • How is it that #BlackLivesMatter always chooses repeat felony offenders as their poster-children?
  • Dozens of “controversial” Joe Rogan episodes missing from Spotify.
  • Here’s a really meaty Art Keller Quillette piece on the fall of Beirut:

    The effects of the explosion of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the port of Beirut, Lebanon on August 4th was not restricted to 170+ deaths and 3,000+ injuries. The explosion’s metaphorical shockwaves may prove to be the death knell of Lebanon’s domestic politics and economy. Both were already collapsing from extreme corruption even before COVID struck. Add an explosion that caused billions of dollars of damage to an already bankrupt country, and the result is a failed state in the making.

    Lebanon is failing in no small part because the Shia terror group Hezbollah, which translates as “Army of God,” makes its home there. Hezbollah’s continued residency and effective Lebanese governance seem to be mutually exclusive propositions.

    Except calling Hezbollah merely a terror group is too simplistic, and nothing in Lebanon is ever simple or easy to explain.

    Hezbollah is responsible for countless murders, kidnappings, and terror attacks, including the 1983 suicide bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Marines. But Hezbollah is also a charity operating in refugee camps. It’s a social service provider for Shia Lebanese, operating clinics, hospitals, and schools (which teach wildly anti-Semitic propaganda). It operates a satellite TV channel. It smuggles guns, sells drugs, and launders money. It has a finger in almost every pie in Lebanon, and influence in Syria, Iran, Iraq, the Northern Triangle countries of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador), and Venezuela. (Click to see the Washington Institute’s regularly updated interactive map of Hezbollah’s globe-spanning activities, and the actions taken to counter them.)

    Beyond all that, Hezbollah is also a powerful paramilitary group with 30,000+ fighters, armed with tens of thousands of rockets, as well as precision munitions like guided ballistic missiles. Hezbollah fought Israel’s last incursion in Lebanon in 2006 to a standstill, and Hezbollah is often considered the winner of the clash, despite Israel’s access to the latest weapons tech.

    Yet, like every other organization in Lebanon, Hezbollah is in very deep shit.

    Lebanon’s current chaos is due to decades of previous chaos spawned of ongoing demographic and power shifts in the post-WWII era among Lebanon’s Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and the Druze (a splinter Shia sect). The brutal Lebanese civil war fought by sectarian militias from 1975 to 1990 ended with a peace deal splitting political power along explicit sectarian lines. By law, the Shia nominate the Speaker of the Parliament, the Sunni get the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Christians select the Lebanese President. The sectarian structure of the government mandated by the peace deal effectively embedded political corruption into law. Each sect controls a piece of the Lebanese government and economy, and each has installed a patronage system dispensing favors and money to their upper echelons, with little of the wealth trickling down to the sects’ underclasses.

    Enlightening, and depressing. Read the whole thing.
    

  • “Iowa Judge Voids 50,000 Absentee Ballot Requests.” “The Trump campaign argued the forms should have been blank except for the election date and type, per the Iowa secretary of state’s directions. Local officials in Linn County, which is home to Cedar Rapids, ignored those directions and sent out the applications with more information anyway.”
  • Boom:

  • Ordinary people are getting tired:

  • “Shirtless, spear-wielding man allegedly stabs teen in Times Square.” Later in the piece: “The man appeared to have mental issues.” Ya think?
  • The Brontosaurus is back, babies!
  • No endorsement of smoking, but this is pretty damn cool:

  • “Antifa Unveils New Pumpkin Spice Molotov Cocktails For Fall Protests.”
  • “Proud Mayor Lets His Entire City Burn To The Ground Just To Make Trump Look Bad.”
  • “Politicians Officially Exempted From Lockdown Rules Since Lizard People Can’t Catch COVID.” Well, Pelosi is pretty Icke…
  • “Rioters Beginning To Worry They Can No Longer Loot Safely.”
  • The Babylon Bee provides a handy guide to Wuhan Coronavirus safety:

  • I think he was hungry:

  • Visualize whirled peas:

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    One Response to “LinkSwarm for September 4, 2020”

    1. Howard says:

      Isn’t it convenient, Reinoehl confessed on camera, then killed hours later. How much you want to bet some people were very nervous he might spill the beans on his peers, and put out an anonymous tip?

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