Political Gambit

Hillary's Strategic Dilemma

2016-05-24T18:33:00.000-04:00

In the lead up to the 1806 Battle of Jena pitting Napoleon Bonaparte against Prussia, the Prussian high command appeared supremely confident. This was somewhat strange, given that less than a year earlier, Napoleon had orchestrated a masterpiece at the Battle of Austerlitz, defeating the much larger combined Austrian and Russian armies, thereby cementing his reputation as one of the greatest commanders of his time.

Yet the proud Prussians, renowned for their own military prowess, were largely unimpressed. They believed that Napoleon’s success could largely be attributed to the relative ineptness of his enemies and an uncanny streak of good fortune, like the dense fog at Austerlitz. If he were to face the superior Prussian military machine, his good luck would run out, the Prussians reasoned.

The Prussians’ overconfidence proved fatally misguided, and once again at Jena, Napoleon scored a decisive victory.

The Prussian defeat was rooted in their failure to recognize that Napoleon had revolutionized modern warfare, relying on speed, deception, and momentum to outmaneuver opposing armies, whose orthodox column formations were too sluggish and inflexible to counter Napoleon’s nimble corps. That was the source of his battlefield success, not the ineptness of his enemies.

The Prussians were, as the saying goes, fighting the last war. Napoleon had changed the rules of warfare, just as Alexander the Great, Hannibal and Genghis Khan had done centuries earlier and just as the successors to the Prussian military, Germany’s Wehrmacht, would do over a hundred years later in unleashing the Blitzkrieg on their bewildered enemies.

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign parallels Napoleon's unconventional warfare in at least one key respect: he’s completely unpredictable and doesn’t play by the established rules of the game that have guided political campaigns for decades.

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign (at least so far) parallels the mindset of the 1806 Prussian military: she’s over relying on her formidable political machine to defeat a political novice, who she believes had benefited from the weakness of his GOP primary opponents, as well as the small sample size of the electorate, i.e. GOP primary voters, that paved the way for Trump’s nomination.

On numerous occasions, Hillary and her team have signaled the view that in a general election against the full force of the Clinton and the Democratic Party political machine, Trump’s unconventional tactics will prove futile.

Yet throughout history, far shrewder strategic thinkers than Hillary and her brain trust have failed to heed the eternal aphorism to never underestimate your enemy. A corollary to that aphorism is that you should never underestimate an opponent who defies conventional rules of warfare to the point of appearing reckless.

A prerequisite to most successful political campaigns is a clear message; a rationale for why voters should vote for you and against your opponent. Right now Hillary is struggling to crystallize the right message. She is testing various themes and slogans to see what will work against Trump. This week, she unveiled a new slogan, “stronger together,” emphasizing unity in contrast to what she hopes the electorate will perceive as Trump’s divisiveness.

At a time when voters are hungry for change, disgusted with the status quo, resentful of the “establishments” in both parties, this message strikes me as anachronistic and impotent. One might say its reminiscent of the stagnant Prussian column formations at Jena utterly unsuitable for Napoleon’s brand of war.

The idea that we’re “stronger together” is a safe message most voters probably agree with, at least in theory. But in a political environment in which clichéd campaign rhetoric rings hollow and bold pronouncements trump small-ball policy prescriptions, “stronger together” is a dangerously safe bet, and perhaps suggests that Hillary is content to fight the last war, despite clear warning signs that the political landscape has been fundamentally transformed, and tactics that worked in past campaigns may be obsolete.

But the far bigger and more complex challenge for Hillary is not how she defines herself; it's how she defines Trump. This is a challenge that all of Trump’s sixteen primary opponents failed to meet.

Does she portray Trump as a bully? As too dangerous? Too incompetent? Too ignorant?

On last week’s Meet the Press, Clinton used that platform as a springboard to bounce off anti-Trump messaging, accusing Trump of being an ignoramus, unqualified, dangerous, demeaning to women, harmful to America’s world standing, ego-driven, and so forth.

The problem with hurling insults at Trump is that as any political operative will tell you, a litany of messages is a terrible substitute for one clear message.

And that is the crux of Hillary’s strategic dilemma: as of right now, she doesn’t know how to attack Trump.

Attack him on degrading women, and he instantly neutralizes the attack by invoking her husband’s seedy past. Attack him on not having any political experience, and it only reinforces the electorate’s contempt for the political class. Attack him on ethics, and it reminds voters of your own numerous ethical lapses.

She can attack him on ignorance, extremism, egomania, etc., but all those attacks failed in the GOP primary. Yes, the general election battlefield is bigger than the primary battlefield, but many of the public’s underlying attitudes about politicians and the “establishment” that sunk Trump’s Republican opponents may still be in play in the general election.

One message that won’t work for Hillary is touting her experience and track record of “getting things done.” The American electorate has never particularly valued experience as much as some pundits lead us to believe, often preferring candidates who exude charisma or promise fundamental change. And in an environment where being a politician is more of a liability than an asset, saying the kinds of things that “experienced” politicians with “track records” usually say isn’t likely to resonate with huge swaths of voters who simply don’t trust politicians to get anything done. But more importantly, as her high untrustworthiness and unfavorability ratings demonstrate, Clinton is probably the least credible messenger for a message that’s not particularly credible in the first place.

There’re sixteen Republicans, including celebrated senators and governors, who can attest to the futility of employing a conventional approach against Trump. If Hillary thinks these Republicans are Austria’s General Mack at Austerlitz, and she’s Prussia, her fate might already be sealed.

How to Defeat Donald Trump's Unconventional War

2016-02-17T20:06:00.000-05:00

Trump has a 17 point lead in South Carolina despite sounding like Michael Moore in the last debate. If these numbers hold (which against my better judgment, I continue to stubbornly believe will not) and he decisively wins South Carolina, he becomes the clear favorite to win the nomination. That’s because he has a 20 point lead in Nevada and the anti-Trump bloc remains tragically divided.

Until now, his rivals have fought a gentlemanly war against Trump, replete with polite “he’s not a conservative” and “he doesn’t even know what the Nuclear Triad is” lines of attack.

In a conventional presidential race, a candidate who is exposed for not knowing what the nuclear triad is, is instantly eliminated from contention. In fact, I don’t recall the last time a presidential candidate survived such an egregious blunder. Ted Kennedy’s campaign was famously sunk in 1980 because he couldn’t articulate why he wanted to be president. In 1988, Michael Dukakis was panned for showing a lack of emotion when asked to consider a gruesome hypothetical scenario challenging his opposition to the death penalty. These were standard political blunders, not holy shit these guys are woefully uninformed about basic issues.

Trump is able to survive previously thought to be unsurvivable blunders because he is not running a conventional campaign.

Trump is Genghis Kahn. Maybe not as brilliant of a tactician, but bold, fearless, ruthless, and above all, disdainful of convention. You cannot defeat a Genghis Kahn or an Alexander the Great or a Caesar utilizing knightly virtues. You have to counter their ruthlessness with ruthlessness. It doesn’t mean you compromise your values, either. It means you recognize what (political) warfare is.

Are Republicans willing to allow a pseudo-conservative populist to win the nomination because they’re rigidly committed to fighting a conventional, “knightly” war?

During the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans in futile desperation executed in cold blood dozens of US troops in Malmedy, Belgium. They did it because their dwindling supplies and insurmountable logistical disadvantages prohibited them from taking POWs.

The massacre served as a rallying cry for US troops, who from that moment on dispensed with conventional rules of warfare and basically, to put it delicately, went ape shit on the Nazis. Most reputable ethicists agree that the ensuing “war crimes” against the Germans were morally justified given what had just transpired and the nature of the enemy they faced.

Fighting a fanatical enemy using conventional means spells disaster.

Time is running out for the GOP.

The Republicans’ predicament is akin to the Seinfeld episode when Jerry refuses to thank an acquaintance for giving him hockey tickets the day after the game because he’s fed up with gratuitous thanking. Offended, the acquaintance doesn’t offer him tickets to the next game. Kramer implores Jerry to call and thank him. Unable to penetrate Jerry’s obstinacy, the exasperated Kramer calls Jerry a “stubborn, stupid, silly man” and storms out.

The GOP is Jerry: refusing to break convention despite overwhelming evidence that failure to do so means not getting those coveted hockey tickets. Or something like that.

If Trump wins South Carolina, the GOP will have to either fundamentally alter its strategy or face the tragic fate virtually all conventional armies overrun by revolutionary commanders face: embarrassing and total defeat.

Meet the Insufferable Chuck Todd

2015-11-24T18:44:00.001-05:00

My column in the American Thinker on Meet the Press host's Chuck Todd's inexcusable journalistic malpractice.

No, Democratic Presidents aren't Great Job Creators

2015-11-17T10:56:00.002-05:00

My article in the American Thinker explains the discrepancy in job creation numbers between Clinton, Obama, and Bush, and offers a blueprint for Republicans on how to counter the Democrats' talking point that Bill Clinton and Obama are great job creators.

My Serendipitous Discovery of Marcus Aurelius

2015-10-21T18:51:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, I stumbled on the philosophy of 2nd century AD Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius. I highly recommend his best known work, Meditations, which crystallizes and expands on the Stoic philosophy. The essence of Stoicism is that virtue (i.e. acting according to principle and doing what is right) is the root of happiness, regardless of what calamities befall you.

A few days into reading Meditations, for no reason other than to provide interesting content to my fiercely loyal minions, I started to post Marcus Aurelius’s quotes on my book’s Facebook page, A Life of Misery and Triumph.

Last night, I was at the gym reading Meditations in between sets (I cannot get Pandora to work at my new gym--which is one calamity befalling me that I will never get over--so I’m forced to read on my phone’s Kindle app). As I posted another enlightening quote, I realized that the main character’s name in ALOMT is MARCUS and that he founds a pseudo-religion/philosophy grounded in Stoic ethics (and in drinking).

Incredibly, this was the first time I made the connection between the protagonist Marcus and the Roman Emperor Marcus. Also incredible is the fact that I had never heard of Marcus Aurelius until AFTER I had written and published ALOMT, at least not that I remember. Perhaps I had encountered the name at some point and it seeped into my subconscious like when Elaine inadvertently plagiarized a Ziggy cartoon in the New Yorker, eliciting Mr. Peterman’s indignation.

So in fact, I had been casually and unwittingly posting Marcus Aurelius’s quotes on a page promoting a book whose protagonist Marcus is the philosophical heir to Stoicism. Sort of. He’s primarily a degenerate drunk. But that’s neither here nor there.

And the kicker? Serendipity is a major motif in ALOMT. My stumbling on Marcus Aurelius and randomly posting his quotes on the ALOMT page without discerning the obvious connection is quite serendipitous indeed.

Deconstructing the Trump Voter

2015-09-20T12:50:00.003-04:00

There’s arguably no greater mystery in the land of punditry than Donald Trump’s continued dominance in the polls, both nationally and in early primary states.

Political analysts on the right and left are befuddled as to how a man who had a public feud with Rosie O’Donnell replete with sophomoric insult swinging is the Republican frontrunner in an election that most Republicans and many neutral analysts believe is eminently winnable for the GOP.

It’s inexplicable. Except it isn’t.

Donald Trump has been on every side of every issue for most of his public life. He has supported single payer healthcare (a far more radical version of ObamaCare) and most incredibly, he has publicly praised Hillary Clinton AND given her money. Hillary Clinton. The presumptive Democrat nominee and the most prominent Republican villain.

Yet, he’s leading in the polls.

Every time we predict his demise, he emerges unscathed or even stronger. Surely his shameful smear of John McCain’s heroism would sink his campaign. Didn’t happen. Well how about his terrible first debate performance? Actually, a plurality (not a majority) of GOP voters said he was the winner. Ok, surely, his attack on respected and well liked Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly would be his Waterloo? Yeah, no. He was still far ahead in the polls.

Poll numbers are beginning to trickle in post second debate. We won’t know for sure if he remains untouchable or if it’s the beginning of the end for Trump—a beginning pretty much everyone thought would commence a long time ago—until next week.

Trump appears to be impervious to the pitfalls that have traditionally destroyed campaigns. In fact, campaigns have been sunk by missteps and gaffes far less egregious than Trump’s. In 1980, Ted Kennedy never recovered after he couldn’t articulate why he wants to be president. A messaging blunder to be sure, but infinitely less cringe worthy than Donald Trump retweeting a vile Megyn Kelly insult. Or any of his other antics for that matter.

As counterintuitive as Trump’s rise is, it does have a rationale. An excellent CNN documentary, "Evocateur," about 80's bellicose political TV host Morton Downey Jr. indirectly elucidates the Trump appeal.

As a brilliant businessman and self-promoter (he is unquestionably both, his Atlantic City bankruptcies not withstanding) Trump gets the niche entertainment formula. He understands that the quickest path to celebrity is not to make everyone like you, but to carve out a niche of people who love you. This is the classic branding strategy that Trump excels at.

Trump's niche is bold, unapologetic populism. Never back down, never show hesitation or reflection. Tell it like it is, never apologize, and above everything else, be entertaining or really funny.

It's the Morton Downey Jr. brand, and that brand has a big fan base.

Howard Stern and all the other shock jocks are the disk jockey versions of Morton Downey Jr. Not in terms of political leanings (conservatives and liberals listen to Stern), but in terms of here's the truth as I see it, and here's why anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and stupid.

Stern was the first disk jockey to embody the Morton brand. Trump is the first famous politician to embody the Morton brand.

The other aspect of Trump’s appeal is his “Make America great again” campaign theme. As any political consultant will tell you, a strong campaign theme is key to winning elections. As a branding guru, Trump understand that, and so he’s running with a theme that resonates with a significant bloc of the GOP base that thinks Obama has precipitated America’s decline.

His brashness, political incorrectness, cockiness, and even crassness are all refreshing qualities to voters who have come to resent and even hate the tedious predictability of the political class. Coupled with the inherent attractiveness of his underlying theme, Trump is able to maintain a passionate and loyal base of support that doesn’t care about any of the things that his detractors point to as proof of Trump’s un-presidential demeanor or utter lack of principled conviction.

And then there’s the three-pronged message that buttresses his goal to “make America great again”: immigration, trade, and bravado. Trump promises to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it, renegotiate current free trade deals, and force his will on friends and enemies alike. In other words, he is going to solve the immigration problem (something that a significant portion of the GOP base cares about deeply), end free trade deals that Trump alleges are hurting the American worker (this was a major theme in both the Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan populist campaigns, and many conservatives don’t buy the mainstream conservative argument that free trade is good), and act like a tough guy winner doing these things the whole time.

These are the traits that make Trump so appealing to a large enough faction of voters to make him the frontrunner in a preposterously crowded field. They don’t care that he is prone to personal insults, or that he’s not a principled conservative. They don’t even care that he donated money to Clinton and the Democrats. None of those weaknesses rank as high in terms of issues his supporters care about as Trump’s anti politically correct bravado, the impression that he’s not beholden to anyone, and his stance on immigration and trade.

Voters almost always choose imperfect candidates with whom they agree on some issues, disagree on others. What ultimately determines who you vote for is issue intensity: how much do you care about issue X compared to issue Y. For Trump voters, immigration is the central issue. So as long as he toes their line on immigration (build a wall, enforce the law) they’ll give him a pass on all his other positions, even if those positions directly violate conservative principles.

Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee, but his sustained surge is explained by a combination of niche branding, a powerful campaign theme, skilled messaging, and personality.

On Jon Stewart

2015-08-06T17:39:00.000-04:00

A mistake some conservatives make is trying to convince people that Jon Stewart isn't funny.

First, if people think he is funny, you're not going to change their sense of humor by writing 800 unfunny words.

Second, he is funny.

The problem with Jon Stewart is that he's every bit as biased as the people he excoriates for bias, he oversimplifies complex issues as readily as the people he excoriates for oversimplifying complex issues, and he is every bit as intellectually shallow as the people he excoriates for intellectual shallowness.

To his credit, Stewart does occasionally mock his political brethren, unlike Colbert who only mocks conservatives. Stewart is not as rabid of a partisan as Colbert is a compliment I would pay Stewart.

That, and he's legitimately funny. And seems like a good guy.

John Kasich Is a Game Changer

2015-07-21T20:38:00.001-04:00

John Kasich injects even more intrigue into the most fascinating primary in US history. He is a two term governor of a must-win state for Republicans who won reelection in a landslide. His political leadership spans decades.

He was instrumental in passing the 1986 Goldwater–Nichols act, which streamlined the military's chain of command, and despite fierce opposition by some in the military establishment (the act removed the chiefs of staff form the chain of command), the reorganization was vindicated 5 years later during the Gulf War. He was also the Chairman of the House Budget Committee that balanced the budget in the 90s.

Kasich is by far the most experienced candidate in the race, he is a conservative who appeals to centrists, and just as important, he is likable and does well on TV. His weaknesses include that many conservatives don't trust him because he expanded Ohio's Obamacare medicaid provision.

He is primarily going to peel mainstream conservative votes from Walker and Bush, which will help Cruz--whose base is exclusively tea party/movement conservative--by diluting the others' votes.

The fundamental strategic challenge for Kasich, Walker and Bush, is how to solidify the mainstream conservative bloc.

The fundamental strategic challenge for Rubio is how to form a winning coalition of mainstream conservatives and movement conservatives.

This is thrilling stuff.

Yes Iran, America is Better Than You

2015-07-20T11:52:00.000-04:00

Iran's Vice President, a woman who was incidentally (not incidentally) the spokesman for the students holding American hostages in 1979, told ABC's Martha Radditz, in a calm and dispassionate tone, she resents the view harbored by some Americans that America's objectives are “superior” to Iran's objectives.

She suggested that the aura of American superiority shouldn’t underlie the talks. This was an indirect, but obvious, knock on the notion of American exceptionalism.

Fortunately for the purveyors of this much maligned notion, I'm here to offer a defense. It's not very nuanced, but it is angry, so everyone wins. Here it goes.

Seeing as how the government you represent, madam, (the government that uses you as a pawn to soften its image) is ruled by a cabal whose leader is awaiting the return of the twelfth Imam to usher in a glorious apocalypse, a cabal that controls all levers of government--with the media, the Parliament and the military under the Supreme Leader's direct control--a cabal that KILLS homosexuals, imprisons political dissidents, oppresses women, funds paramilitary organizations that brazenly and unapologetically violate every rule of war, and is a fucking police state, I think I'll go ahead and emphatically declare that America IS in fact on a higher moral ground.
That is not the same thing as saying the Iranian people are inferior to American people, which would be blatantly racist. But culture matters.

I am of Russian descent. Do I think Russian society is inferior to American society? Yes, without question. Does that make me a self-loathing Russian? Yes, without question. I mean no, no, it doesn’t. I got carried away with the "without question" idiom, it’s very catchy and powerful. What the hell was I talking about?? Culture! Culture matters. The Iranian people, God bless them, are enslaved by a 7th century dictatorship. Just like Russians have been enslaved by tyrants (some worse than others) since the beginning of time. So you better fucking believe that a free republic negotiating with a theocratic dictatorship has the moral high ground. Call it American exceptionalism, call it common sense, just don’t play the underdog card by implying that the US is a big bad bully and you’re just a meek, noble nation seeking a fair shake. Actually do that, because it’s apparently working.

A Message to Teachers

2015-07-16T14:44:00.000-04:00

The National Education Association (NEA), the largest and most powerful teachers union in the nation, is lobbying to make so-called ethnics studies classes mandatory for all public school students.

Everyone who is not a blind idiot or even an idiot with excellent eyesight, understands that "ethnic studies" means the proliferation of radical leftist theories on race and culture, centering on such pseudo-intellectual themes as "white privilege" and "cultural appropriation."

My daughter is two and a half years old. So here's my message to teachers.

Shortly after my daughter starts school, a great flood will subsume the Northeast--a flood of tears shed by teachers and their union bosses who attempt to indoctrinate my daughter.

I will review every homework assignment, every syllabus, and every test question. If I find any propaganda, I will watch Seinfeld for an hour and eat a protein rich snack before mobilizing an army of parents to descend on school grounds.

I will attend every PTA and school board meeting sporting an intimidating scowl.

At these meetings, I will be calm and rational or boorish and unhinged, as the situation warrants.

Tears will be shed. This is my sacred vow.

Who Will Save Mexico?

2015-07-13T17:29:00.000-04:00

Commenting on what El Chapo's "escape" reveals about Mexico, Don Winslow writes,

"Chapo has the power, connections and influence to get his rivals sent to purgatory in America while using that same leverage to keep himself in Mexico until he can "escape."

Unlike Don Winslow, I am not an expert on Mexican drug cartels, but I do have internet connection, so here's my take.

The elected leaders deny it, but it's likely that the current Mexican government has a peace treaty with the paramilitary drug cartels. The treaty is theoretically designed to keep the violence in check by restricting the cartels' sphere of operations, but of course as long as the cartels run by ruthless career criminals have power, they will continue to wreak havoc on Mexican society.

To wipe out the cartel's influence over the government, influence that pervades most Mexican institutions and perpetuates the country's shitty state of affairs, a leader with courage, intelligence, strategic savvy, and probably a ruthless streak would have to emerge.

Any presidential candidate running on the "I will crush these assholes" platform will be a target for assassination and will have mutiny/treachery in the ranks, akin to the politicians who took on the mafia in Sicily in the 80s. In that kind of environment, it's generally the most ruthless leader with autocratic leanings, perhaps a high ranking military officer, who emerges as the self-proclaimed people's champion.

Dictators generally seem to be best equipped to destroy these embedded paramilitary organizations for a variety of reasons. Mussolini shattering the Italian mafia is one example.

I'm picturing some asshole draped in medals even though it's not clear which war he fought in standing in front of 60 microphones surrounded by a dozen or so other assholes also draped in medals vowing to destroy the cartels and return Mexico to the people.

For those who think drug legalization in Mexico is the answer, keep in mind that these cartels will continue to exert power much like the American mob continued to thrive after prohibition ended (on a much smaller scale than the Mexican cartels obviously).

It's hard to envision a thriving Mexican society without the eradication of Mexico's version of the mafia from its institutions, driving the cartels to a permanent underground status. Yet an ambitious would-be-dictator might be more likely than a pro-democracy politician to successfully carry out the crusade.

The White Privilege Lie

2015-07-04T14:14:00.000-04:00

My column in the American Thinker takes on the White Privilege lie and its destructive implications:

Of all the invectives launched against the United States by the resurgent American Left, the charge that in America, White Privilege reigns supreme is the most insidious and culturally ruinous. Its intent is unambiguous: leftists perpetuate the White Privilege lie to smear America and its institutions as inherently racist, and therefore unworthy of adulation and in need of fundamental socioeconomic transformation...Read more

A Life of Misery and Triumph

2015-05-13T11:34:00.000-04:00

This is my first nonpolitical post on this forum and it's about a novel I wrote, which is now available in Kindle and paperback.

A Life of Misery and Triumph is a comedy thriller about two unlikely vodka entrepreneurs.

Summary:

Upon completing a highly unusual apprenticeship in the art of writing with his reclusive and deranged uncle, Marcus enjoys fame as a vodka label writer for a burgeoning micro-vodka company called Misery, Inc. But when he meets a woman whose dark secret puts Marcus in the crosshairs of a vengeful cult of master authors, he sets out on a hilarious spiritual journey and becomes engulfed in alcohol induced messianic zeal.

Also check out the novel's Facebook page.

My sincere thanks to everyone who encouraged me to write my debut novel and to everyone who has already read the book and offered their feedback.

Justifying the Baltimore Riots

2015-04-28T10:49:00.000-04:00

I hate to politicize the tragedy of a major American city being burned down but everyone else is doing it so what the hell? And by "hate to politicize," I mean I'm going to politicize this.

Baltimore has a majority minority police force, not a minority minority police force like Ferguson. Baltimore has a black female mayor, who also happens to be a very liberal Democrat and a rising star in the Democratic Party. Baltimore's city council and representation at the state and federal level is majority African American.

If socioeconomic factors cause/explain this as so many are arguing, do these left-wing African American leaders bear responsibility for failing to solve the socioeconomic problems that allegedly culminate in senior citizen centers and CVSs getting burned down?

If not, and if these leaders are helpless as past oppression and institutional racism continue to inexorably drive looting, rioting, and violence, are there no solutions short of inventing a time machine and wiping out the history of slavery and Jim Crow?

The notion that this violence is the manifestation of a history of police brutality, institutional racism, and past racial oppression is belied by the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of African Americans are NOT engaging in this behavior. They know it's immoral and inexcusable, regardless of issues with police brutality and historic wrongs.

The politicians/pundits/so-called civil rights leaders who implicitly condone/excuse this shit are themselves NOT partaking in burning down black owned businesses. They must also know that it's wrong. So why do they equivocate even when condemning these acts?

Why does Marc Lamont Hill tweet "to dismiss these uprisings as mere thuggery and criminality is to delegitimize and pathologize black rage," suggesting that destroying the city's economic centers is at least in part legitimized by "black rage."

Why isn't Marc Lamont Hill rioting and looting? Why is it acceptable for others to express "black rage" by burning down buildings, but not acceptable for Marc Lamont Hill?

The people burning down buildings are not political actors. They're not angry over Freddie Gray--men like Freddie Gray, that is young African Americans, are gunned down in Baltimore by gangs every day. They're criminals with no political agenda, no goals, no vision for the future.

But the politicians/pundits who DO have a political agenda are using these misguided fools as pawns in their perennial crusade to castigate American society as irredeemably racist in lieu of accepting the harsh reality that neither past nor current racism motivates these criminals.

Joe Biden vs. Tom Cotton

2015-03-10T14:59:00.004-04:00

Joe Biden's foreign policy record:

Opposed Reagan's defense buildup
Proclaimed the fall of the Shah was a step forward for human rights in Iran
Voted against the 1991 Gulf War
Voted for the 2003 Gulf War
Opposed 2007 Iraq War "Surge"
Opposed authorizing Navy SEALs to take out bin Laden

Tom Cotton's foreign policy record:

Authored a partisan letter to Iran's leadership in an effort to a) do a little political grandstanding and b) undermine what he believes is a catastrophic nuclear deal that will lead to a nuclear-armed theocratic dictatorship whose authority is derived from the doctrine that because the twelfth imam went into hiding in the 9th century, a supreme leader must exercise his authority until he returns to kill all infidels.

What will prompt his return? Some say, a good ol' fashioned nuclear holocaust.

FACT: You're Not Likely To Be Killed By a Police Officer

2014-12-08T11:22:00.001-05:00

Seeing that there’s a burgeoning perception shaped by the left and the neo-libertarian right that cops routinely execute citizens for no reason, I took the liberty of being the best and came up with the following statistical guide that I hope will assuage the collective fear of being killed by a police officer.

US Population=316.1 million

# cops (state and local law enforcement personnel)=1.1 million

# of cops killed in the line of duty in 2013=76

# of citizens killed by police (justified + unjustified)=1000* (*The numbers are surprisingly hard to get, but this is the high end estimate according to Nate Silver’s 538 blog. FBI puts it at 500. I'll go with the high end estimate.)

Percentage of citizens killed by police (justified and unjustified)=1000/316.1 million=.00032%.

That's .00032%

Percentage of cops killed in the line of duty=76/1.1m=.0069%

That's .0069%

.0069%>.00032%

So in fact, a police officer is 22 times more likely to die in the line of duty than a citizen is at the hands of the police.

Now controlling for race.

US black population=43 million

# of black people killed by police (justified and unjustified) in 2013: according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number is 123. Many critics have pointed to numerous flaws in the CDC’s data, yet are unable to offer a better estimate. So let’s use Nate Silver’s data (i.e. 1000 people killed by police in 2013) and assume that 75% of the victims were black (this is almost certainly higher than the actual number). # of black people killed by police=750 (high end estimate).

Percentage of blacks killed by police=750/43m=.0017%

That’s .0017%

.0069%>.0017% .

So, the odds of a cop dying in the line of duty is still greater than the odds of an African American being killed by the police. And to reiterate, this is based on an unrealistically high estimate of the number of blacks killed by police, and includes both justified and unjustified cases.

None of this is consolation to Eric Garner’s family. But seeing social media inundated with wildly inaccurate assumptions about police brutality compelled me to run these numbers.

The Shamelessly Dishonest Sports Media

2014-12-01T11:36:00.000-05:00

Now that a federal judge has reinstated Ray Rice because constitutional republics depend on federal judges to arbitrate private sports leagues' personal conduct matters, I am anxiously counting down the seconds until the sports media, the pseudo sports media (Deadspin) and the anti-NFL lobby blame Roger Goodell and the NFL owners for Ray Rice's indefinite suspension being revoked.

Actually, I don't need to count down seconds per se, because as this ESPN article strongly implies, this is all Roger Goodell's fault.

You see, because Roger Goodell initially caved into the NFL players' union (NFLPA) demand that players accused (convicted or just accused?) of domestic violence only be suspended for two games, he is responsible for Ray Rice punching out his fiancee.

This article is rife with some truly Orwellian stuff (as opposed to neo-Orwellian stuff).

The judge criticizes the NFL's ostensible failure to take cases of domestic violence seriously, and at the same time, criticizes the NFL for suspending Ray Rice indefinitely after acknowledging that it didn't take cases of domestic violence seriously enough!

Now, a reasonable lady or gentleman could make the case that the NFL acted in an ex post facto manner, and that Ray Rice should never have been suspended indefinitely.

That would be a reasonable, perhaps controversial, stance.

But that is NOT what the sports media is harping on.

They're saying straight up that Roger Goodell beat Ray Rice's wife and should be fired. Wait what? No, ok, they're not going that far, but the narrative advanced by the sports media strongly suggests that Roger Goodell is the main villain in this story. Not the woman beater. The guy who disciplined the woman beater.

The arbitrary punishment piece is a glaring red herring. We know this because after handing down the initial punishment, Roger Goodell did the mea culpa dance and was universally praised by every gasbag on ESPN for having the integrity to admit he was wrong.

None of his detractors gave a shit about ex post facto back then.

The truth is that Ray Rice's retroactive punishment only became an issue once the unhinged anti-Goodell lobby went after the NFL.

Terry O'Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW)--a hyper political organization which represents at most 40% of women and clearly does not speak for all women--was invited on every ESPN show to belligerently attack the NFL as either endorsing or condoning violence against women. Without ever being challenged for the extremely incendiary and potentially libelous charges.

Given the fact that the NFLPA was defending the woman beater Ray Rice while the NFL was arguing against him, will Terry O'Neill slam the NFLPA and praise the NFL? Will she slam the judge who reinstated Ray Rice?

Haha, good one.

Politics takes precedence over so many things that most people don't want politicized. Including, in this case, reason.

The bottom line is this.

The NFL disciplines its employees for conduct unbecoming. Ergo, the NFL disciplined Ray Rice consistent with the rules negotiated and agreed to by the NFL and the NFLPA.

When the initial punishment didn't appear to fit the crime, the NFL responded to media pressure by quickly changing the rules to more severely punish perpetrators of domestic violence. (Again, it's unclear whether the new rules apply to convictions or simply allegations. Clearly, if it's the latter, then legitimate questions must be raised about presumption of innocence. But that's a separate matter.)

When the graphic nature of the elevator video ignited even more outrage over the lax punishment, Roger Goodell retroactively suspended Ray Rice.

Then, in a brilliant stroke of Orwellian chutzpah, the sports media, Terry O'Neill et al., pounced on Roger Goodell for not taking domestic violence seriously or worse, even though he was super hawkish on domestic violence, going so far as to retroactively change the rules to punish woman beaters.

Logic is hard.

The Radical Left is Now Mainstream

2014-11-24T09:34:00.001-05:00

Reacting to the first African American Republican woman being elected to Congress, the lynchpin of liberal political and cultural commentary, the Huffington Post, published a column by Darron Smith, Ph.D., creepily titled:

“She Looks Black, but Her Politics Are Red: What Mia Love's Victory Means for the Face of the GOP.”

The implication is that Congresswoman-elect Mia Love is not really black. As Mr. Smith writes, she only “looks black.”

Rational Americans might ask, what could that possibly mean and does anyone take this tripe spewed by a smarmy radical leftist seriously?

Some leftists might respond that being black is not simply a matter of skin color. It’s every bit as much a matter of ideology. If your skin color is black and you embrace the hard left agenda, you’re legitimately black. If your skin color is black, but you support principles of limited government, then you’re not a legitimate African American.

It’s the left-wing equivalent of Todd Aiken’s infamous “legitimate rape” comment, only it’s not universally mocked and derided. Just the opposite: it’s celebrated and inexorably advanced across the liberal media landscape.

The stark reality is that this one Huffington Post column is not an anomaly. It’s the new normal.

Once confined to niche left-wing publications, fringe political movements, and ultra-liberal university faculty lounges, radical leftist dogma is now embedded in the liberal media establishment.

Terms like "white privilege" and "cultural appropriation" pervade mainstream media outlets. They’re no longer considered fringe or controversial on the left. And anyone—including people of color—who dares question the merits of these ideas will be bizarrely vilified as a benefactor and purveyor of “white privilege.”

In short, radical leftist views have been mainstreamed by popular websites like Gawker, The Daily Beast, and the Huffington Post.

It’s as if in a cruel twist of fate the radical left has won the civil war against the liberal establishment many thought it had lost in the 1960s. This victory over the relatively moderate liberal establishment is evidenced by the fact that The New York Times, The Washington Post and other standard bearers of mainstream liberalism don’t dare counter radical tripe, such as the notion that American institutions are inherently and irreversibly racist. Occasionally, they even publish these diatribes in their op-ed pages.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the mainstreaming of the leftist school of thought is that scores of apolitical and ideologically diverse readers regularly visit the Huffington Post, Gawker, et al. for celebrity news and entertainment, not for politics.

But when those outlets do delve into politics directly or indirectly, they invariably infuse their columns with leftist ideology, such as the notion that all white Americans enjoy genetic privilege. This is a far cry from the time when only ideological readers browsed The Nation.

By targeting audiences seeking entertainment or soft news and then hitting them with leftist propaganda, these outlets cultivate far more influence than their fringe predecessors.

It is supremely ironic that the counter culture failed so spectacularly to mainstream their ideas during the glory days of left-wing radicalism in the 1960s, yet today, when left-wing radicalism is no longer a credible political movement, their ideological successors enjoy mainstream status.

Late-Term Abortion: A Winning Issue for Republicans

2014-05-02T17:01:00.001-04:00

When I hear that Republicans are waging a war on our daughters, mothers, wives, aunts and sisters, I begin to hate myself. As a registered Republican, how dare I wage a “war on women,” when women mean so much to me? I must be a masochist or a nihilist. Or a masochistic nihilist.

The absurdity of the charge notwithstanding, the “war on women” calumny has been a potent line of attack for Democrats. And since the Democrat-friendly mainstream media legitimize it by not dismissing it as exceedingly cheap demagoguery, Democrats can play this gambit whenever they need a wedge issue to divide the country and slander the opposition.

An issue central to the “war on women” is abortion. Pro-life Americans believe that because a fetus has all the biological properties of a human being, it has a right to life. Ergo, conservatives hate women. Logic is hard.

To date, Republicans have been diffident about going on the offensive on the abortion issue, presumably out of fear that it would further alienate the young, single female demographic that has morphed into a reliable voting bloc for Democrats.

I can understand the reluctance to speak extensively about abortion in general, but what about late-term abortion specifically?
Why not force Democrats to defend their stance on late-term abortion?

The Democratic Party’s national 2012 platform unequivocally supports the right to abortion, including late-term abortion.
While most Americans still support the right to an abortion in the first trimester, Americans by large margins oppose abortion during the second and third trimesters. According to Gallup:

"A solid majority of Americans (61%) believe abortion should generally be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, while 31% disagree. However support drops off sharply, to 27%, for second-trimester abortions, and further still, to 14%, for third-trimester abortions."

In other words, only 14% of Americans agree with the Democratic Party’s position on late term abortion. From a political standpoint, this is a devastating statistic for Democrats.

Yet for some reason Republicans aren’t exploiting the hell out of it. I know abortion is not the preeminent issue—it ranks below jobs, the economy, and a number of other issues—so I am not suggesting we make the GOP’s opposition to late-term abortion a central campaign theme.

But because abortion is a popular wedge issue for Democrats, it is critical for the GOP to fight effectively on that battlefield, rather than retreat.

Democrats have already been put on the defensive and have had to backtrack on late term abortion in two high profile statewide races.

Democratic Senate candidate, Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is waging an underdog campaign to unseat the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, distanced herself from the national Party’s radical abortion stance when she publicly declared her opposition to late-term abortion.

Incredibly, and to the glee of every conservative in the galaxy, so has the nascent liberal icon, Wendy Davis, who rose to fame by unsuccessfully filibustering a bill that banned abortions after twenty weeks and subjected Texas’s abortion clinics to new regulations. She also rose to fame because the media were smitten with the running shoes she wore during her filibuster.

It is true that Kentucky and Texas have more pro-life voters than say, liberal Vermont. Davis and Grimes made the calculation that not opposing the gruesome practice of aborting a viable fetus would be an anathema to many pro-life Democrats and independents who may otherwise be inclined to vote for them—and whose votes they absolutely must have to win.

However, only 14% of Americans support late-term abortions in the entire country, not just in conservative bastions.

If Democrats insist on attacking Republicans for waging a war on women, being anti-reproductive rights, against women’s health, or whatever the focus group tested libelous meme might be in play in 2014 and 2016, why doesn’t the GOP hit back with the late-term abortion issue?

This would have the effect of putting Democrats on the defensive, forcing them to double down on their Party’s platform, equivocate, or outright reject late-term abortion a la Davis and Grimes.

From a strategic standpoint, it is imprudent to remain on the defensive. Americans are not divided on second and third trimester abortions; they overwhelmingly oppose them.

So shouldn’t Republicans force national Democratic candidates to take a position on late-term abortion? I am looking at you, Hillary Clinton.

To this date, Republicans have cautiously avoided a proactive strategy on this issue. Given where the country stands, it would serve the national Party and its leaders well to pose this question: “Mrs. Clinton, do you endorse the Democratic Party’s platform supporting the right to an abortion for any reason at any point in the pregnancy?”

It would be fascinating to hear how a skilled politician like Hillary Clinton would respond. There’s really no wiggle room to equivocate. If she says yes, Republicans can hold her accountable for a radical view on abortion. This will invariably hurt her with swing pro-life voters and raise questions about her moral compass.

If she takes the Wendy Davis and Allison Grimes route, and voices her opposition to late-term abortion, it would send tsunami shock waves through the pro-choice movement and the Democratic establishment. NARAL, NOW, Planned Parenthood et al. would be in full panic mode. The Left would be on the defensive, scrambling to craft sensible talking points on late term abortion that don’t repulse over 80% of the country.

It’s time for conservatives and the GOP to go on the offensive: attack the Democrats’ extreme position on late term abortion, and watch them squirm.

Why Doesn't Ta-Nehisi Coates Flee Oppression?

2014-03-31T15:27:00.000-04:00

Ta-Nehisi Coates's latest installment in his ongoing debate with Jonathan Chait uses tortured logic, perverts history, and systematically rejects reality to present a wholly distorted view of the United States as a racist hellhole.

Mr. Coates opens with an illuminating discussion seeking to clarify the difference between "black culture" and a "culture of poverty." He contends that the unfairly maligned "black values" are indeed critical virtues for black people in certain walks of life, although they are not necessarily transferable to other walks of life, which is why they’re oft derided.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Mr. Coates launches into a vicious tirade against the United States, going so far as to mock Jonathan Chait's irrefutable assertion that the United States has made tangible progress in terms of race relations since its founding.

How can an ostensibly intelligent man deny the strides the United States has made to eliminate institutional racism?

How can anyone seriously argue that white supremacy is at the heart of contemporary U.S. society, as Coates does without any equivocation whatsoever? Is there a cabal of Freemasons and Jews (to mock a Nation of Islam conspiracy theory) systematically persecuting African Americans?

White Supremacy cannot merely be an amorphous entity or some abstract notion. To persecute African Americans as systematically as Coates imagines African Americans are being persecuted, the white supremacist system must be institutionalized and clearly identifiable.

Are black politicians who run inner cities at all levels of government, black police chiefs, and black city managers members of this white supremacist cabal? Are there meeting minutes?

What is most disconcerting about Coates's world view is its inherent hypocrisy.

My family fled the anti-Semitic Soviet Union because they couldn't justify remaining in a country hostile to their heritage, not to mention a country that squashed individualism and liberty.

If Mr. Coates truly believes that the U.S. is inherently--and as he makes clear, irredeemably--racist, how does he justify remaining in the United States?

It's irrational at best, cowardly at worst.

I suspect I know the answer.

Mr. Coates enjoys getting paid big bucks to write. Though he won't admit it, he cherishes the freedom bestowed on him by natural law and guaranteed to him by the U.S. Constitution to write scathing diatribes against his country.

Mr. Coates MUST know that he would not have the freedom to write the kinds of things he writes were he living in any country in Africa or the Middle East or most parts of South America.

So he cheerfully collects his check without contemplating the implicit absurdity of a black man choosing to live in a country he purports is dominated by white supremacists, while making good money writing about white supremacy.

Is Mr. Coates really so oblivious as to not appreciate that the freedom of expression he enjoys in the United States is a freedom that so many other countries do not afford their citizens?

It is quite extraordinary that in his tirade against the U.S., Coates never deigns to express even a modicum of gratitude for the Bill of Rights and the Constitutional freedom he has to make a living writing half-truths and lies about his country.

Nor does Mr. Coates dare to mention the tyranny and oppression that pervade his ancestral homeland, from which millions of men and women have voluntarily fled over the last 150 years for Europe or the United States.

Does Mr. Coates ever wonder why so many Africans, Arabs, Latinos and Asians choose to come to the United States, where they will be relegated to "minority" status, instead of remaining in their homelands where they would be in the ethnic majority?

Does the answer unnerve Mr. Coates because it so vividly dispels the myths he spreads about the country in which he inexplicably chooses to remain?

If Mr. Coates was intellectually honest and truly believed that white supremacy in the United States was not only alive and well, but indeed, irreversible, it would behoove him to escape the United States, to flee this oppressive land, as so many millions (including my family) fled their oppressive homelands (for the United States).

Bill Maher Is an Idiot and Other True Stories

2014-03-18T21:17:00.000-04:00

Appearing as an iconic (?) comedian (?) and a noted expert (?) on all things political, Bill Maher dazzled fan Harry Smith of NBC News on Meet the Press with witty (?) banter themed around how Republicans are bad and Republican voters are dumb.

The segment is worth watching, because Bill Maher for all his faults—including the fault of being the caricature of pretension and snobbery—in a vital way epitomizes how the American Left views conservatives and Republicans.

You see, Bill Maher is an idiot.

Although I enjoy calling people idiots because it makes me feel intellectually superior, I assure you that calling Maher an idiot is fair, accurate, and above all, makes me feel intellectually superior.

Bill Maher thinks that Americans who are not in the so-called “1%” are “corporate America's useful idiots” if they vote Republican.

Note the strikingly original (and not-at-all intellectually shallow) reference to the “1%,” a term coined by a leftist fringe “movement,” whose only other worthless contribution to American politics was being chased out of public parks by ultra-liberal mayors who for some reason valued public health over incoherent anti-capitalist drivel and the inalienable right to defecate in public.

“1%.” LOL insert smiley face winking. Bill Maher is so witty!

But beneath the veneer of an idiot who uses uninspired clichés to make anti-intellectual partisan points, is a bigger idiot who believes that a majority of Republican voters vote against their self-interests.

This theme was thoroughly and mindlessly overanalyzed in a 2004 book, “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” which has become the leftists’ gospel for psychoanalyzing conservatives because it portrays Republican voters as misinformed morons. And that makes leftists happy.

We see this theory advanced whenever elections don’t go the Left’s way.

When Volkswagen employees in Tennessee voted against joining the United Auto Workers union, the crazies at MSNBC blamed racism (duh!), but also lamented that the workers were voting against their economic benefits.

Bill Maher and other idiots echo this crackpot theory every chance they get, in part because it makes them feel better for not having a coherent philosophical foundation for their ideas. There is no Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Thomas Sowell, or Henry Hazlitt on the left. Unless of course we count Karl Marx. There are liberal authors, but there are no leftwing intellectual heavyweights who have ever come close to offering a compelling counter-thesis to Friedman’s epic “Free to Choose.”

What books do you suppose Bill Maher has read that have shaped his world view? I’ll venture to guess he’s read such brilliant authors as Michael Moore and Al Franken. It’s clear from his firm and courageous reliance on platitudes and sophomoric analysis that he has never read anything serious or substantive.

To fill the intellectual void and to avoid reading Friedman, Hayek, et al., liberals like Bill Maher rely on some variation of “What’s the Matter with Kansas” to explain why lower-class and middle-class Americans vote Republican.

I want to help Bill Maher understand—in so much as he is capable of understanding anything—why people who are not as filthy rich as Bill Maher vote Republican.

Here’s a very short list.

Public Schools

The United States’ public school monopoly is failing a great number of kids, especially kids in poor neighborhoods. As even some Democrats who support public school reform have recognized, the blame rests squarely with teacher unions and their left-wing enablers in federal, state, and local governments.

Let’s say Mark, a fella of average means, who cannot afford to send his kid to private schools, decides he’s had enough with union abuses and votes for a Republican who pledges to take on the corrosive influence of teacher unions on education. Seems to me, Mark is voting his self-interest.

The debate over charter schools, which is inextricably linked to the power wielded by teacher unions and their political allies, is playing out in New York City, where far left-wing Mayor Bill De Blasio is waging a war on these quasi-private schools.

This has drawn the ire of predominately Democratic voters in Harlem, who are suing De Blasio for violating their kids’ civil rights.

Janette makes $30,000 per year. She is a lifelong Democrat, but votes for a Republican who runs against De Blasio and pledges to not violate her son’s civil rights by denying him the right to attend a school of Janette’s choosing.

In short, if members of the “99%” aren’t happy that policies advocated by teacher unions have the effect of trapping kids in failing public schools, they may vote Republican.

Public Unions

Jack is struggling to get by. He works two jobs and resents the fact that employees in his state’s public sector earn higher salaries and receive more generous benefits than their private sector counterparts. The discrepancy is not based on merit, but rather on union bosses having spent millions of dollars to elect liberal Democrats who use Jack’s tax dollars to pay off those who got them in power with disproportionately high wages and benefits.

Jack decides he’s had enough of this unethical and unfair collusion between unions and government, including the havoc it’s reeking on his state’s budget, and decides to vote for a Republican governor who pledges to rein in out-of-control public union contracts.

Detroit

That’s it. Checkmate. Okay, I’ll needlessly elaborate.

Detroit is the shining example of decades of liberal policies. Try as they may (and Bill Maher’s partner in idiocy, Ed Schultz tried) liberals cannot get around the straightforward, unambiguous fact that liberal Democrats at the local, state, and federal levels destroyed Detroit.

In fact, if you look at virtually every impoverished, crime ridden neighborhood, you will notice that the people who run it at all levels of government are Democrats.

So maybe Martha, who lives in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood, is disgusted with the liberal Democrats who have failed to lower crime, reduce poverty, and create jobs in her hometown, studies the experience of New York City under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and decides to give a tough-on-crime, pro school choice, pro tax credit Republican mayor a shot.

You see, Billy, it’s in her self-interest.

Ok, there you have it. A few reasons why people of all backgrounds may choose to vote Republican. There’s also the debate about the proper role of government, the balance between individual liberty and government control, the practical effects of an ever-expanding welfare state, the morality of income redistribution, and other philosophical issues that Bill Maher could not possibly begin to understand.

Because, you know, he is an idiot.

Eugene Robinson’s Inexcusable Historical Revisionism

2014-03-05T11:48:00.001-05:00

In an atrociously reasoned essay—comical really in its contempt for logic—liberal Washington Post columnist, Eugene Robinson, managed to condemn the U.S. liberation of Kuwait in the first Gulf War, the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban in the aftermath of 9/11, and the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The crux of Mr. Robinson’s unfortunate thesis is that all military intervention and occupation is the same. No, really. Context is irrelevant. U.S. has no moral authority to condemn Russia for invading Crimea, because of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also throws in Panama and Grenada in the stew of moral equivalence to make sure that no anti-Western talking point remains unmentioned:

“the United States, frankly, has limited standing to insist on absolute respect for the territorial integrity of sovereign states. Before Iraq there was Afghanistan, there was the Persian Gulf War, there was Panama, there was Grenada.”

Robinson’s shockingly flawed argument takes minimum analytical firepower to debunk, which begs the question as to why a shrewd editor didn’t point out to Robinson that his brazen assault on reason was ill advised.

Let’s examine each case separately.

Russia has invaded and occupied Crimea, a sovereign territory of Ukraine, taking over its government buildings and military installations. The sovereignty of Crimea is not in dispute. It is unequivocally sovereign Ukrainian land, whose sovereignty was reaffirmed in 1994 when Russia signed a treaty guaranteeing that Crimea remains a part of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons. Russia is unambiguously in violation of that 1994 treaty (among other treaties).

Russia’s justification for the invasion and occupation centers on the claim that ethnic Russians are being threatened and persecuted by Ukrainians (and strangely, neo-Nazis). So far, no independent reports have confirmed Russia’s claim.

In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait under the pretext that Kuwait had refused to forgive Iraq’s debt accumulated during the Iraq-Iran war when Saddam was fighting on behalf of all Arabs against the Persian enemy (or something like that. Saddam offered a litany of reasons for the war of aggression, none of them compelling.)

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States petitioned the United States to first protect Saudi Arabia and others from Saddam (operation Desert Shield) and then to expel Saddam from Kuwait (operation Desert Storm).

The United States organized and led a coalition of 39 nations to expel Saddam Hussein from Iraq.

JUST LIKE RUSSIA’S INVASION OF CRIMEA.

What’s that you say? The unilateral (literally unilateral, Russia is the only “coalition” member) occupation by Russia of a sovereign country that has not invaded its neighbors is NOT like an international coalition liberating a sovereign country occupied by a maniacal tyrant?

Ok, let’s keep going.

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States issued an ultimatum to the Taliban, Afghanistan’s ruling party: surrender Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and expel al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, or face an international coalition to overthrow your government on the grounds that you are harboring terrorists responsible for an act of war against the United States.

The Taliban refused to comply, and the United States organized and led an international coalition, this time of over 40 nations, to overthrow the barbaric Taliban regime.

JUST LIKE RUSSIA’S INVASION OF CRIMEA.

No? Some minor differences there? Ok then, Robinson surely nails the next analogy.

In 2002, the United Nations passed a resolution demanding that Saddam Hussein (yes, the same Saddam Hussein who invaded Kuwait, and the same Saddam Hussein who was in material breach of every single UN resolution passed after a ceasefire agreement ended the first Gulf War) disclose when and where his WMD stockpiles had been destroyed as he had claimed.

After Iraq failed to meet the stringent requirements outlined in the 2002 resolution, the United States led a coalition of over 30 nations to overthrow one of history’s most brutal dictators; a dictator who had used weapons of mass destruction against Iraqi Shiites, Iranians, and Iraqi Kurds, who had been a prolific sponsor of international terrorism, and who continued to defy the international weapons inspectors, according to most objective experts, including none other than the UN’s chief arms inspector Hans Blix.
JUST LIKE RUSSIA’S INVASION OF CRIMEA.

Eugene Robinson, whose smugness is only eclipsed by his hatred of facts, unapologetically draws a parallel between Crimea and Iraq:

“We’re supposed to be shocked — shocked! — that a great military power would cook up a pretext to invade a smaller, weaker nation? I’m sorry, but has everyone forgotten the unfortunate events in Iraq a few years ago?” [emphasis mine]

No, Eugene, we haven’t forgotten that every intelligence agency in the world had concluded that Saddam Hussein had WMD stock piles, financial and operational ties to international terrorism, and a capacity to reconstitute his WMD programs even if the programs were currently dormant (only the first of these claims proved to be based on faulty intelligence).

On the other hand, there is no international consensus to back up Putin’s claim that ethnic Russians are being targeted. In fact, Putin is the only one making this claim.

Ok then, what about the U.S.’s actions in Central America in the 1980s. Surely, those cases revoke all moral credibility the U.S. has in opposing the Russian occupation of Crimea, because they are totally the same.
In the 1989 invasion of Panama, the United Stated deposed and arrested the thuggish dictator, Noriega, who was under indictment in Florida for drug smuggling. The rationale for the invasion centered on protecting the integrity of the Torrijos–Carter Treaties governing the Panama Canal, which Noriega was continually threatening, and on defending democracy and human rights, which no person familiar with Noriega’s rule disputes were under attack.

The 1983 invasion of Grenada must be seen through the context of the Cold War. Communist controlled Grenada was one of the few nations that refused to condemn the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan 4 years earlier, and most U.S. national security experts considered Grenada to be a satellite of Cuba.

The Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Barbados and Domenica supported U.S. action to liberate Grenada from a group of communist thugs who had literally machine gunned their way into power. That these thugs were brutalizing the people of Grenada is not in dispute, unlike the dubious and unsubstantiated claim by Putin that ethnic Russians are in danger.

And again, Russia was the sole member of the “coalition” to occupy Crimea. No other nation or international body called for Russian intervention in a territory only Russia believes is being overrun by neo-Nazis and terrorists.

If Robinson wanted an apt analogy, he could have drawn one between the Russian occupation of Crimea and the German annexation of Sudetenland in 1939. It would go something like this:

Hitler claimed the right to the sovereign Czech region because of the 3 million ethnic Germans living there, allegedly under persecution by the Czechs. Putin is claiming that occupying Crimea is necessary to protect that sovereign region's ethnic Russian population, which is allegedly being threatened by ethnic Ukrainians, though there is no independent confirmation that this is happening. Hitler used Sudetenland as a pretext for occupying all of Czechoslovakia; Putin is signaling that other territories in Eastern Ukraine with large pockets of ethnic Russians are in his sphere of influence. Hitler assumed Europe would do nothing, Putin assumes Europe, NATO, and the U.S. will do nothing.

But of course, that analogy does not advanced Robinson’s goal of perverting U.S. history in order to question the U.S.’s moral authority in condemning Russia.

Like so many good leftists who preceded him, Robinson is unapologetic in drawing a shameful moral equivalence between U.S. interventions on behalf of freedom, and Soviet (now Russian) wars on behalf of tyranny.

It's Cruel and Unusual Punishment To Not Execute Some Convicts

2014-02-25T18:16:00.000-05:00

Denis Prager has a heart-wrenching piece in the National Review on the injustice rendered in the case of two scumbags who violently assailed a father of two, leaving him severely brain damaged. The two "men" got 4 and 8 years in prison, a woefully inadequate and unjust punishment for their heinous crime.

I am only half kidding when I say that we need to revisit the "no cruel and unusual punishments " clause in the Bill of Rights. Until we do, the people and their state representatives should fight to reinstate the death penalty in all 50 states. It's cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on the victims to allow the worst kinds of criminals to spend the rest of their lives in America's exceedingly humane and gratuitously snug prisons.

Racialists Value Lives of Murdered Blacks More if Murderer is White

2014-02-18T11:36:00.002-05:00

Is an innocent black life taken by a white murderer worth more than an innocent black life taken by a black murderer?

If you’re not a race-obsessed sociopath, this is a ludicrous question.

But if you’re racialist, the answer is inevitably yes.

Racialists are far-left ideologues of all races who invariably view all public policy and indeed, all human action, through a racial prism. For the racialists, race is a paramount trait (which is why the line between racialists and racists is often blurred).

This race-based, pseudo-intellectual worldview serves to polarize society along racial lines, and is used to smear the United States as an inherently and irredeemably racist country.

Frighteningly, this school of thought, previously endemic to Nation of Islam rallies and faculty lounges of the most left-wing universities, is gaining traction as a mainstream idea.

Last Saturday, the so-called “loud music” trial ended with a Florida jury convicting Michael Dunn, a white male, on three counts of second-degree attempted murder of three black teens and one count of shooting a deadly missile.

The jury was hung on one remaining count of first degree murder of 17 year-old Jordan Davis. Dunn faces up to 60 years in prison, and Florida’s state attorney has vowed to retry Mr. Dunn for first degree murder.

While the legal experts who followed the case closely can debate the merits of the charges against Dunn and the jury’s verdict, I want to expound on the perverse racial narrative that dominates this case and cases like it.

If you followed this trial on Twitter or in the mainstream press, you know that race has been the central theme. Why did a white male murder an ostensibly unarmed (there is controversy as to whether Dunn believed the victim was wielding a weapon) black man?

The consensus among the racialists is that Dunn is a racist who was threatened by innocent black teens playing loud rap music. His fear and inherent racism led him to open fire with tragic consequences.

This is not an impossible scenario, and it may very well be true. Yet the racialists go much farther, and contend that this case is a microcosm of American society: a society plagued by racist, trigger-happy whites, who won’t hesitate to gun down innocent black men for any arbitrary reason.

We heard near-identical arguments during the George Zimmerman trial, involving a Hispanic man (dubbed white-Hispanic by the media) who killed an unarmed black teenager, and who was tried and acquitted on self-defense grounds.

Not insignificantly, unlike Zimmerman, Dunn was found guilty of four out of five counts, and will be retried for the fifth count. Implausibly, the racialists point to two cases with opposite outcomes to prove that whites are not only racists but can actually get away with murdering blacks because of the racist U.S. justice system.

But the most sinister consequence of the racialists’ obsession with misguided racial politics is the devaluing of innocent black lives taken by black murderers.

This devaluing occurs when the left-wing racialists bestow martyrdom on black murder victims if the perpetrator happens to be white, but remain eerily silent when the perpetrator is black.

According to a 2007 Special Report issued by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, 93% of blacks homicide victims and 85% of white homicide victims were murdered by members of their own race.

The Dunn and the Zimmerman cases are anomalies, representing approximately 7% of all cases according to the most recent data available.

Yet the racialists will have you believe that there is a white-on-black crime epidemic.

Why do these cases garner so much national attention and evoke virulent indignation from left-wing activists on Twitter and in liberal newsrooms, while the same people say virtually nothing of 93% of black homicide victims?

One explanation is that white-on-black crime conjures the painful memories of past racial injustices, including lynching. But that would only explain the initial emotional response, not the tireless effort to paint contemporary America as a haven for racists.

The more plausible explanation is that publicizing black-on-black crime does not advance the racialists’ goal of smearing the United States as inherently racist.

The malicious demagoguing of white-on-black homicide cases as windows into American racism underscores the striking indifference to the African Americans who live in communities plagued by black-on-black crime. For the racialists, it’s all about racial politics. They cannot perpetuate the myth of a racist America by focusing on black-on-black crime.

It is tragic that a majority of innocent black people murdered by other black people remain anonymous outside of the occasional local news broadcast, obituaries, and memorial services, while the black people murdered by whites are cynically used as props to advance the racialists’ warped word view.

'Never Again'

2014-02-17T12:37:00.001-05:00

Where are the fake human rights activists who righteously denounce NSA "spying" or drone strikes on troglodytes who plot to kill Westerners and non-Islamist Muslims? Where are the fake human rights activists who are obsessed with demonizing the free and democratic state of Israel? There is a Holocaust happening before our eyes in North Korea. Unspeakable, widespread torture. Babies murdered in front of their mothers, mass starvation, and universal terror. Yet NOTHING is being done about it. Sanctions? What a joke. The world’s leaders are silent. The aforementioned humanitarians? Forget about it; bringing down the North Korean regime does not advance their leftist political agenda. George Bush referred to North Korea as part of an “axis of evil.” The Left vilified him for speaking the truth. The United States under Barack Obama does not lead on human rights issues—that much is obvious. Will another nation fill in the leadership vacuum left by the United States and force this infinitely evil regime to crumble by any means necessary? I hope so, because otherwise, the oft-referenced promise made post-WWII that “never again” would we allow another Holocaust to happen, will be broken yet again.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/17/world/asia/north-korea-un-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t1