Posts Tagged ‘Mohammed bin Salman’

LinkSwarm for March 13, 2020

Friday, March 13th, 2020

Happy Friday the 13th! This is the world we’re living in now:

  • President Donald Trump imposes 30 day ban on travel from Europe, based on Coronavrus fears. Doesn’t include the UK.
  • Prescient Trump:

    From the outset of Donald Trump’s entry into the world of politics he espoused a series of key tenets around what he called his “America-First” objectives:

    1. The U.S. needed to have control over our borders, and a greater ability to control who was migrating to the United States. A shift toward stopping ‘illegal’ migration.
    2. The U.S. needed to stop the manufacture of goods overseas and return critical manufacturing back to the United States. A return to economic independence.
    3. The U.S. needed to decouple from an over-reliance on Chinese industrial and consumer products. China viewed as a geopolitical and economic risk.

    Donald Trump was alone on these issues. No-one else was raising them; no-one else was so urgently pushing that discussion. In 2015, 2016 and even 2017, no-one other than Trump was talking about how close we were to the dependence point of no return.

    Given the status of very consequential issues stemming from the Chinese Coronavirus threat; and the myriad of serious issues with critical supply chain dependencies; wasn’t President Trump correct in his warnings and proposals?

  • The NCAA Basketball tournament has been cancelled.
  • They say the neon lights are out on Broadway.
  • MLB opening delayed two weeks.
  • The idea driving this is not to stop all transmission of coronavirus (nice though that would be), but to flatten the curve so that American health care resources are not overwhelmed.
  • Coronavirus and the joys of National Health Service.
  • In Italy, you can say goodbye to Grandma. “Doctors are being told that they’ll likely need to deny care to senior citizens and those with other health conditions as the virus explodes across the nation.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Norway shuts down.
  • Ireland locks down.
  • School’s! Out! For! Well, early Spring at least, in Houston ISD.
  • “Report: Hassan Nasrallah Infected with Coronavirus.” Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy…
  • Remember: It’s the “Wuhan Coronavirus”:

  • Coronavirus: A timeline.
  • Ex Jon: Don’t panic.
  • “Nation’s Nerds Wake Up In Utopia Where Everyone Stays Inside, Sports Are Canceled, Social Interaction Forbidden.”
  • “Parents Worried They’ll Have To Raise Their Own Children As Government Schools Shut Down.”
  • Nice try, China.

  • “U.S. Companies in China Were Struggling Before Coronavirus.”

    Before the coronavirus epidemic, U.S. companies were heading for record-low profitability in China as business conditions deteriorated and China’s economy slowed to its lowest rate in decades, according to a new survey of U.S. companies with operations in China…

    American companies surveyed by AmCham reported their lowest levels of profitability since the Chamber first began asking the question 18 years ago: 61% of members described their 2019 financial performance as profitable or very profitable, an eight-percentage point drop from the year before.

  • “In Warning Sign for Democrats, New Florida Poll Shows Trump Making Inroads Among Key Dem Voting Blocs.” 45%+ among Hispanics and 18%+ among blacks.
  • “Former UAW President Gary Jones Charged in Union Embezzlement Scandal.”

    He is charged with embezzling more than $1 million in union funds and properties to buy “luxury condos” in California, “lavish” dinners with “premium liquor,” five sets of custom-made golf clubs, horseback riding on a beach, and other non-union expenses that prosecutors allege the UAW covered up by mislabeling them as payments to vendors or meals for UAW officials, according to Matthew Schneider, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

  • Florida man convicted of scamming more than $2 million from a Fort Worth school district in a spearphising attack.
  • DOJ/DEA announce arrest of over 600 alleged cartel members as part of Project Python.

    No, not that Python

  • Uncle Sam brings the hammer down again against Iranian backed militias in Iraq.
  • “Saudi Arabia arrests 3 members of royal family in alleged coup plot.” If they’re anything like the other royal family members arrested on behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, this is probably good news.
  • Twitter verifies congressional candidate that doesn’t exist.
  • I don’t follow any of the singing competition TV shows, but, well:

  • Interesting essay on Chuck Leavell, the road keyboardist and musical director for the Rolling Stones.
  • Max von Sydow loses his chess game. He was in lots of fine films, perhaps none better than The Exorcist.
  • Alex Jones framed by reptoids arrested for DWI. But another report has him blowing under 0.8 BAC, which would suggest he can get the charges dismissed.
  • Social Justice Warriors slam University of Wisconsin for honoring basketball player who happens to be white. Because black people are so underrepresented in basketball…
  • Heh:

  • Ignorant Boomer Shares CNN Article Thinking It’s Real.”
  • Attack of the hungry monkeys:

    Sadly, Troy Hurtubise is no longer around to design a monkey-proof suit…

  • Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof:

  • Let’s be careful out there…

    Update: “Austin Public Health has received two presumptive positive cases of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Austin-Travis County. These are the first cases to be confirmed in the area.” Not community spread.

    How Qatar Buys Influence (and a bit about Saudi Arabia)

    Wednesday, March 27th, 2019

    I saw this video about Qatar buying influence at a number of American media outlets and think tanks. It’s 23 minutes long, but worth you’re time if you’re interested in the subject.

    A few takeaways:

  • Qatar has poured a lot of money into the Brookings Institute, so much that their scholars are forbidden to criticize it. And no one knows just how much they’re pouring into Brookings’ Doha branch.
  • I knew that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had sidelined many hardline Wahhabist clerics in 2017, but I didn’t know that (as this video asserts) he at least some threatened with a sentence of beheading. But that does appear to be the case.
  • Nick Muzin, Ted Cruz’s deputy chief of staff for strategy in his 2016 Presidential campaign, opened lobbying agency Stonington Strategies and became a registered agent for Qatar, specifically for pitching them to the American Jewish community. According to Tablet, Muzin’s firm was pulling down $300,000 a month from Qatar, though he says he cut ties with them last year (which is not in the video).
  • Qatar has evidently launched hacking attacks against many of its critics.
  • I think their overall take, that Qatar continues to fund the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorist groups, and that Mohammed bin Salman is largely cleaning up Saudi Arabia’s act when it comes to sponsoring terrorism, is general correct. This does not make the Saudis our friends, but it does make them somewhat less repugnant allies.

    Speaking of the Saudis, this piece in Foreign Policy states that “Mohammed bin Salman Is Here to Stay“:

    for all the talk of the crown prince’s brashness (former State Department officials Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky described the crown prince as a “ruthless, reckless, and impulsive leader”), some of the changes he has brought to his country have benefitted the United States. Not least among them are his efforts to drastically curtail Wahhabi clerical influence at home by detaining dozens of radical clerics and drastically limiting the power of the religious police and to empower Saudi women by better integrating them into the workforce.

    And despite what many in the West see as Saudi Arabia’s missteps during his tenure—including its involvement in the war in Yemen, blockading Qatar, detaining Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the imprisonment and alleged torture of women’s rights activists, the detention of Saudi political and moneyed elites, and the diplomatic spat with Canada—Saudi Arabia has also used its considerable diplomatic and financial leverage to support key U.S. policies throughout the Middle East. These include efforts at Arab-Israeli peace and stabilization and reconstruction initiatives in Iraq and northeastern Syria.

    The United States should remember that Mohammed bin Salman’s successes as well as some of his mistakes are products of the same qualities: his youth and drive. He is 33, which is an asset insofar as it aligns him with the needs, wants, and hopes of a country in which 70 percent of the population is under 35. Youth entails boldness and an increased appetite for risk—essential qualities in a leader who is trying to bring about the type of total social and economic transformation the kingdom requires.

    I think that this analysis is largely correct as well, but a large measure of caution is always in order where the Saudis are concerned.

    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.”
  • Real Reform in Saudi Arabia?

    Monday, March 26th, 2018

    Displaying another tiny crack in the wall of Saudi Arabian intransigence, Riyadh has allowed overflight of its country to Israel-bound air traffic for the first time.

    Saudi Arabia opened its airspace for the first time to a commercial flight to Israel with the inauguration of an Air India route between New Delhi and Tel Aviv.

    Flight 139 landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport after a seven-and-a-half hour journey, marking a diplomatic shift for Riyadh that Israel says was fuelled by shared concern over Iranian influence in the region.

    To be sure, it’s not Israeli air traffic, but baby steps. Combine this with Friday’s story about Saudi Arabia purging Muslim Brotherhood members from the country, and signs that he wishes to loosen the restrictive dress code on omen (hat tip: Instapundit), and it appears that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is ushering in real reform in the kingdom. To be sure, the results will not remotely resemble modern western liberal democracy, but they will mark a vast improvement over the status quo that prevailed before his ascension.

    Speaking of Saudi Arabia, they also shot down seven ballistic missiles launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the shrapnel from one killing an Egyptian citizen. Pretty much everyone believes the missiles are manufactured and supplied by Iran. Do you think Egypt is going to take that lying down? I rather doubt it. Egypt supports the Saudis in Yemen, but have avoided intervention due to their own unpleasant history there.

    Reform in Saudi Arabia is potentially one of the biggest stories this year, and the mainstream media is barely covering it at all.

    The Middle East in 2017: Sucking Slightly Less

    Tuesday, December 26th, 2017

    For all the talk of Donald Trump being unworthy of the Presidency and inadequate for the job, there have been a number of positive developments in a surprising number of places this year, not least of which is the Middle East.

    That mostly wretched hive of scum and villainy haven’t turned into stable democratic states (nor is that likely to happen in my lifetime), but there has been modest-to-radical improvement on a number of fronts:

  • At the beginning of the year, the nightmarish Islamic State was a going concern that held vast swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, including the major cities of Mosul and Raqqa. As 2017 closes, both those cities have been liberated and the would-be caliphate has lost some 90% of it’s territory, the overwhelming majority of its soldiers, and has been dismembered into a few sparsely inhabited desert enclaves. This is a big win for the entire civilized world.

  • Before President Trump took office, Saudi Arabia was the same oppressive Wahhabist-backed monarchy it had always been. But in 2017, for the first time since the founding of the Kingdom in 1930, something resembling real reform finally seems to be afoot under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Remember Trump’s much-derided visit to Saudi Arabia? Trump not only repaired the rift between the United States and Saudi Arabia created by the Obama Administration’s inexplicable Iran deal, he apparently gave bin Salman the greenlight for radical change, both domestic and foreign, including stripping the religious police of their arrest powers and detaining many hardline clerics in the course of consolidating his own power.
  • Israel already found Trump a vast improvement over the Obama administration’s open hostility, but President Trump implementing the long-delayed move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem has further solidified ties and brought additional dividends, with other countries in talks to follow suite. And despite predictions to the contrary, widespread Palestinian violence in reaction to the move has not materialized.
  • Relations with Eqypt have improved since Obama’s ill-advised snit over the overthrow of the brutal Morsi Muslim Brotherhood government.
  • To be sure, myriad problems continue to plague the Middle East: The Syrian civil war, the Saudi-Iran proxy war, Turkey’s oppressive Islamist government, instability in Lebanon, and Qatar’s friction with other gulf nations (and possibly continued support for terrorism). It is, after all, still the Middle East. But there has still been remarkable (and frequently unexpected) improvement in a number of areas in the Middle East during Donald Trump’s first year as President of the United States of America.

    LinkSwarm for December 8, 2017

    Friday, December 8th, 2017

    Last night mother nature dumped a bunch of snow on Austin…very little of which stayed on the ground through this morning. Which is just fine for those of us who have jobs.

    I’ll still sorting out the latest DOJ/FBI revelations to have them all filed in the next Clinton Corruption update, which should be ginormous.

  • California is on fire.
  • “Traffic through central Mordor is slow but steady.”

  • The Wisconsin Witch Hunt was even worse than even conservatives feared:

    Wisconsin’s infamous John Doe investigation was more sinister and politically driven than originally reported.

    A Wisconsin Attorney General report on the year-long investigation into leaks of sealed John Doe court documents to a liberal British publication in September 2016 finds a rogue agency of partisan bureaucrats bent on a mission “to bring down the (Gov. Scott) Walker campaign and the Governor himself.”

    The AG report, released Wednesday, details an expanded John Doe probe into a “broad range of Wisconsin Republicans,” a “John Doe III,” according to Attorney General Brad Schimel, that widened the scope of the so-called John Doe II investigation into dozens of right-of-center groups and scores of conservatives. Republican lawmakers, conservative talk show hosts, a former employee from the MacIver Institute, average citizens, even churches, were secretly monitored by the dark John Doe.

    State Department of Justice investigators found hundreds of thousands of John Doe documents in the possession of the GAB long after they were ordered to be turned over to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

    The Government Accountability Board, the state’s former “nonpartisan” speech cop, proved to be more partisan than originally suspected, the state Department of Justice report found. For reasons that “perhaps may never be fully explained,” GAB held onto thousands of private emails from Wisconsin conservatives in several folders on their servers marked “Opposition Research.” The report’s findings validate what conservatives have long contended was nothing more than a witch-hunt into limited government groups and the governor who was turning conservative ideas into public policy.

    “Moreover, DOJ is deeply concerned by what appears to have been the weaponization of GAB by partisans in furtherance of political goals, which permitted the vast collection of highly personal information from dozens of Wisconsin Republicans without even taking modest steps to secure this information,” the report states.

    Snip.

    The Department of Justice, however, recommends the John Doe judge initiate contempt proceedings against former GAB officials and the John Doe probe’s special prosecutor for “grossly” mishandling secret evidence. Schimel also recommends that Shane Falk, who served as lead staff attorney in the John Doe probes, be referred for discipline to the Wisconsin Court System’s Office of Lawyer Regulation. Falk took a job with a private law firm in August 2014, just as allegations of investigative abuse began to surround the political investigation.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Perspective: Nancy Pelosi seems to think the GOP tax bill is worse than the Fugitive Slave Act
  • Another sexual harassment followup on Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen: “Hey, Nancy Pelosi knew all about my sexual harassment charges last year, and threw money at me anyway. So why’s she getting her knickers in a knot now?”
  • “Eye Doctor Tied to Bob Menendez Case Convicted in $100 Million Fraud Scheme.” And Democrat Menendez is still, as of this writing, a Senator.
  • Months after the Las Vegas shooting, and there are still dozens of unanswered questions about what actually happened.
  • 92 percent of illegal aliens arrested this year had ‘criminal convictions, pending criminal charges, were an immigration fugitive, or were an illegal reentrant.'” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Man Deported 20 Times Sentenced to 35 Years for Sexual Assault.” So when is San Francisco throwing him his parade?
  • “Swedish Government to Ban Websites that List Ethnic Origin of Criminal Suspects.”
  • Related: “Swedish lawyer Elisabeth Fritz claims that in the majority of rape cases she has had to work on the suspects have been individuals from migrant backgrounds.”
  • “Swedish Chief Prosecutor: No-Go Zone Rinkeby Is Like a ‘War Zone.'”
  • “You know who doesn’t have a refugee problem? Japan.” This year Japan has taken in three refugees. Last year it was 28.
  • Hmmmm: “A federal judge in Argentina indicted former President Cristina Fernandez for treason and asked for her arrest for allegedly covering up Iran’s possible role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center that killed 85 people, a court ruling said.”
  • Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks to resign over asking staffers to consider being a surrogate mother for him and his wife? Franks, unlike Al Franken, has actually resigned, not merely promised to resign at some unspecified date in the future.
  • More on how Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman plans to revitalize the kingdom:

    Last Sunday premiered the newly formed Islamic anti-terrorism coalition, putting together leaders from Sunni Arab nations to denounce and combat fundamentalist terrorism throughout the Middle East and the world. It was another bold initiative towards the West of the young and energetic Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, coming on the heels of other bold moves that have looked to consolidate political and religious power in the Kingdom.

    Together, all of these initiatives couldn’t be more transparent. They represent a movement of the most economically powerful nation in OPEC towards social, cultural and economic change, the realization of the Saudi “Vision 2030”. It is a top-down Arab Spring movement that likely has a better chance of success than the populist movements that resulted in more chaos than change in 2010.

    However, the ultimate success for Vision 2030 will rely upon achieving the main economic goal of this revolution – the divestiture of Saudi Arabia from the singularity of oil revenues. Because we know that ultimately money – and lots of it – will be needed to drive the engines for change, we get a far better picture of just how important these latest production extensions agreed to in Vienna were for the young Prince.

    And here we’re brought back to the upcoming IPO of Saudi Aramco, still on tap for 2018.

    Even the planned 5 percent offering of the Saudi state oil assets could yield an instantaneous $100 billion dollars, if the $2 trillion-dollar valuation of Saudi Aramco is accurate. That’s a lot of capital to start the process of rebuilding a Saudi economy from one that is now virtually completely reliant upon the State. 75 percent of the Saudi public is under 35 years old, and they are starving for a new economic infrastructure that will bring job opportunities, cultural diversity, music, education – global access of all kinds – the kind of freedoms that the 2010 Arab Spring uprisings were supposed to deliver. Only this time, the push for change is coming from the top down, not as a populist movement from the people upwards.

  • “Tesla – which lost $619 million in Q3 – delivered only 3,590 vehicles in November in the US, down 18% from a year ago.”
  • In a rare moment of sanity for Sports Illustrated, they named J. J. Watt and the Houston Astro’s Jose Altuve as co-sportsmen of the year. Next week I’m sure they’ll get back to their usual Social Justicing…
  • Texas writer Bill Crider enters hospice care. Bill’s not particularly political, but he is a friend of mine, and I have frequently stolen some of the lighter LinkSwarm items from his blog. He’s a prince among men and he will be missed…
  • You’ve got to admire the designers of http://www.theworldsworstwebsiteever.com for having the courage of their convictions.
  • “Opossum breaks into liquor store and gets drunk as a skunk.”
  • Hell to the no
  • A tweet that tells you all you need to know to evaluate forthcoming legislation:

  • A shot of yuletide Archer cheer:

  • LinkSwarm for November 17, 2017

    Friday, November 17th, 2017

    I ate German food Saturday, and ever since it’s like the Wehrmacht has been conducting field maneuvers in my lower intestine. Enjoy a short pre-Thanksgiving LinkSwarm:

  • The United States House of Representatives has paid out $15 million to secretly settle sexual harassment claims from a secret slush fund. 435 Harvey Weinsteins.
  • Kurt Schlichter is scathing in his assessment of the GOP congress’ apparent inability to do, well, anything:

    My first priority, and yours, was always to give amnesty and citizenship to millions of illegal aliens, and the GOP caucus is chomping at the bit to do that. Apparently Dreamers’ dreams of taking advantage of violating our laws and eventually become loyal Democrat voters are much more important than our own conservative voters’ dreams of their mandatory crummy health insurance rates not doubling.

    Snip.

    What a mess. The Republican Party seems to have no interest in addressing its electile dysfunction. The Democrats are preparing for battle; the Professional Republicans are sulking because their voters won’t obey. They seem not just unable but unwilling to pass the agenda they promised the base. And whenever there’s a narrative damaging to the party to be hopped on, despite reasonable grounds for skepticism, hop on they do. If the GOP establishment wanted to lose, what would it do differently?

  • Funny how every Democratic Presidential candidate of the last quarter-century had connectons to pedophiles.
  • Playboy model says Al Franken groped her. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • More Donna Brazile revelation: Obama drained the DNC of money spending millions on popularity polling. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s moves are not “bold experiments,” they’re desperately needed reforms for a country facing multiple existential threats.
  • Back Donald Trump’s plan or resign, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tells Palestine.” In other news: Trump has a plan for Palestine? If so, the press doesn’t seem to have covered it…
  • 267 MS-13 gang members arrested nationwide. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Obama’s illegal alien “dreamers” have one-quarter the college graduation rates of Americans. (Hat tip: Mickey Kaus.)
  • “Harvard: A Tax-Free Hedge Fund That Happens To Have A University.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Duke professor: You stinking college newspaper reporters aren’t worthy of my course!
  • Why is DHS giving Muslim-only tours of Minneapolis airport security?
  • Jaron Lanier frets about social media manipulation. “We’re living in this time of total opacity where you don’t know why you see the news you see. You don’t know if it’s the same news that someone else sees. You don’t know who made it be that way. You don’t know who’s paid to change what you see. Everything is totally obscure in a profound way that it never was before.” He has a point, but missing from this frame is the fact that before the Internet, the number of media outlets that could control your reality filter (including The New York Times, which published this profile and in whose pre-Trump reality bubble Lanier obviously wishes to dwell) was vastly smaller than it is now…. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • The NFL’s Roger Goodell has actually done a pretty crappy job.
  • What The Hell Is Going On In Saudi Arabia?

    Tuesday, November 7th, 2017

    I’m hardly the most astute of Saudi-watchers, but a tremendous amount of upheaval has wrecked Saudi Arabia in a very short period of time:

  • Dozens of the Saudi royal family have been arrested on corruption charges, presumably for opposing Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who seems hellbent on dragging Saudi Arabia into at least the 15th Century. (When he starts arresting or sidelining Whabbist clerics, I’ll start believing that he’s a real reformer.) The Saudi government is sayng that these anti-corruption moves are just a start.
  • In a remarkable coincidence, roughly the same time arrests were being made, a helicopter carrying “Prince Mansour bin Muqrin, the deputy governor of Asir province,” crashed while he was returning from an inspection tour. Given that Mansour was the son of Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, a former intelligence chief who was crown prince between January and April 2015, before Mohammed bin Salman’s father King Salman pushed him aside for his own son, the chances that this was a mere coincidence would seem remote.
  • Saudi Gulf Affairs Minister Thamer al-Sabhan stated that Lebanon has “declared war” against the kingdom, which is more than a little loopy. The tiny kernel of truth here is that Hezbollah is, in fact, part of the current ruling Parliamentary majority in Lebanon, and that Hezbollah is backing Assad and Iran in the Sunni-Shia civil war that’s raging across multiple fronts. This followed the resignation of Saad Hariri, Lebanon’s Saudi-backed prime minister over the weekend.
  • The Saudis are also threatening open war (rather than the current proxy war) with Iran over the Houthi in Yemen firing long range missiles at them. Can’t say as I blame them.
  • So what’s going on? Here’s my half-assed guess:

    The Saudis are getting their asses kicked on two fronts:

    1. They’re slowly losing the proxy war against a newly emboldened Iran, which is breathing much easier thanks to the billions Obama foolishly handed them and the sanctions he lifted not so much for a handful of magic beans, but rather the vague promise that Iran might possibly send him a picture of said magic beans.
    2. Their plan to drive American oil sands frackers out of the market by ruthlessly driving down prices backfired, and now they’re hurting on the oil revenue front as well.

    Because America is the Saudi’s unipolar patron and main weapon supplier, there’s fark all they can do about Problem 2. Either they need to take the war directly Iran, or they need to buy themselves some economic breathing room and hope oil prices rise again.

    My guess is that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is about to lay a serious perestroika-style smackdown on the largely hidebound, stagnant Saudi economy, along with just enough glasnost to make the whole thing palatable to the non-royal Saudi masses. If this theory is correct, the “hey, woman can drive” thing was actually a trial balloon designed to smoke out the most fervent traditionalists out of the woodwork so he can sideline them while he puts his plan into action.

    Of course they could very well be bracing for more direction action against Iran as well. There’s a lot more they could do against Iran, including more direct support for the largely-Sunni Kurds.

    The Saudis are not our friends, just the least bad of various options in the region (just imagine theocratic Iran or a revitalized Islamic State in charge of Mecca). It will be a significant improvement if Mohammed bin Salman can merely make them a bit less loathsome.