Archive for the ‘middle east’ Category

I have to give Joe Scarborough a lot of credit for taking a stance that is not popular with his new found friends on the World Series Booing Business:

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Remember Joe wants Trump to lose in 2020 but’s he’s intellectually consistent here, and as a Baseball fan he knows it’s bad for the game.


Allahpundit made two good points concerning this story as well

The overlap between MAGA Nation and the sort of people who can afford a ticket to a World Series game in Washington D.C. is small… …virtually all Nats fans are lobbyists, journalists, lawyers, or politicians/staffers, he should treat their contempt as a badge of honor.

Or as Mollie Hemmingway put it:

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Of course the media will spin it differently but what else is new?


Don Surber has officially announced that despite my suggestion after Sunday’s booing was rewarded by a Houston blowout he is not yet willing to put the Washington Nationals on the list. As he put it:

Until they’re destroyed, no Trumpenfreude.

That’s actually very fair. This is in fact baseball and as the last three games demonstrated the game isn’t over till that final out. Washington is a good team with an excellent pitching staff and a third baseman who is the closest thing to Brooks Robinson I’ve seen in decades. Furthermore Verlander who is pitching tonight is in my opinion a first ballot Hall of Fame quality pitcher he is vulnerable to the long ball and the Nationals certainly have the bats to exploit it.

Of course Houston is no slouch in the pitching department and has an even better offense than Washington. The Yankees would have been a better matchup for the Nats but as I said it’s not over yet. Interesting fact, if the Nats pull it off it will be the 1st seven game World Series in baseball where the home team didn’t win a single game.


It takes little bravery to boo Donald Trump and apparently too much for anyone in the NBA other than Shaq to boo China but unlike Trump there are actual great reasons to boo China, Here is another one:

Having hepatitis C may very well have saved Jennifer Zeng’s life.
In February 2000, she was arrested for being a Falun Gong practitioner and interrogated intensely about her medical history at a Labor Camp in 
China’s Da Xing County, she said. Zeng’s blood was drawn and she told them she had hepatitis C before she took up the spiritual practice.

“Twelve days later, my (cellmate) died as a result of forced feeding,” Zeng told Fox News. “Having hepatitis C might have unqualified me as an organ donor.”
It’s the stuff of nightmares. And it has been buried from public view, hard to prove, and shrouded beneath the cloak of silence for almost two decades.
But anecdotes and evidence are slowly bubbling to the surface that the organs of members of marginalized groups detained in Chinese prisons and labor camps are unwillingly harvested. Most affected is a spiritual minority, the Falun Gong, who have been persecuted for adhering to a Buddhist-centric religious philosophy grounded in meditation and compassion.

This is what people who are actually Hitler do, but to point this out would shatter too many narratives.


Finally there was something that took place last week which was narrative shattering that I meant to write about but didn’t get a chance. It concerned the narrative of Israel as an oppressive state whose neighbors only want to live in peace with the Jews. Well not really with…

The President of the Jordanian Bar Association, Mazen Irshaidat, confirmed that there is no land registered in the Land Department with the names of Jews in the areas of Baqoura and Ghamir.

These are the areas on the border with Israel that Jordan leased out to Israel for 25 years in the peace treaty. There have apparently been rumors that Jews had bought lands in those areas.

Irshaidat told the Jordan 24 site that it is unacceptable to have lands owned by the Zionists or Jews in that area, and he confirmed that he could not find any Jewish names in the list of landowners in those areas.

Remember Jordan is a state that is not only considered moderate but has made peace with Israel. yet they felt the need to assure their citizens that no Jew owns land there. Why it’s almost as if the narratives like the Palestinian desire for a two state solution…

Two states, he says, was merely a concession to the international community, but it is not a Palestinian desire. The entire land is solely theirs, and Jews have no rights there.

This is not usually said in English. Usually in English the Palestinians claim they want to live in peace with Israel. But now they are officially admitting that they never even wanted that; their real desire (as polls have shown) is to have a single Arab state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, and the two state idea was merely a stage towards that end.

…is just a myth.

Does anyone note the irony that this statement made in English at a public forum by the PLO’s UN rep was made in the city of Berlin?

As I watched things from the left media like this:

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and this

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and this

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and of course this

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Old friend Neo is a tad upset at these developments and so was I, then it hit me, there is one word that can be used to describe the reaction of the professional and media left to the successful raid to kill the head of ISIS

Churchillian

In fact this may be the most Churchillian thing thing the left has done in decades. Why? To understand my argument you have to remember that to the left Trump is Hitler, he’s Goebbles etc etc etc.

And if there is one thing that we all know about Sir Winston, is that as long as you are fighting Hitler you get a favorable reference, I quote:

“If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”

So it’s simple logic

  • Churchill makes favorable references to those who Hitler attacks
  • Trump = Hitler
  • Trump attacks Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi
  • Media makes favorable references to Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi
  • Media = Churchill

It’s a simple rational deduction.

I predict this is the last Churchillian thing that the left will ever do.

…and that every single person in media and many in congress were saying the same thing.

And if you were born two weeks ago you might remember it too.

At the time I wasn’t all that convinced it was the right move but said the following:

It’s possible that this is just part of the standard Trump doctrine of disengagement when possible, it’s also possible that there is a bigger deal that has been made concerning Turkey that I’m unaware of (possibly concerning Israel and a deal there) but we really don’t know. My gut says it’s the wrong move but Potus has played a pretty good hand so far so I’m going to see how the cards fall before I go insane over it.

I’m half wondering if President Trump was counting on the ISIS leadership buying all the propaganda of the left about running away and leaving him a free hand and stuck his head out. In fact I’ve got the livestream of NBC on right now and they’re still playing that line that the pullout is a betrayal as they await the president’s live announcement. They’re also trying to stress the idea that all of this started under Obama.

The spin is a great contrast to the actual announcement which not only stressed that

  1. No US casualties (update 2 minor wounds) other than one Dog who was hurt
  2. Baghdadi took three kids as human shields when he ran away and blew up the three kids with him.
  3. Lots of ISIS causalities and prisoners taken
  4. Lots of intelligence taken
  5. Mentioned the names of ISIS victims when making this announcements and stressed the atrocities of ISIS
  6. Thanked just about everyone from the Kurds, Russia, Iraq and Turks for help.
  7. Thanked the troops and generals and the pros involved in the operation

The President is now taking questions on the details of what is going on. He’s noting that the world should see the video to see how he died like a dog and a coward.

The media (and SNL who believe it or not had a skit about Trump bringing jobs back to ISIS going on live as the news broke) are hardest hit as it shatters every single narrative we’ve been seeing for weeks.

I suspect the MSM will leave this story as fast as they can, I suspect the president won’t allow it.

Update: That didn’t take long

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however some on the left are saying the right thing

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If they are smart other Dems will take notes here.

Update 2: this tweet didn’t age well

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The president stopped talking about 10:10 forcing me to a later mass today, turned on CNN and apparently the President didn’t thank the kurds loudly enough for them and thanked the Russians too loudly

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Bad news for the impeachment meme weekend planned on all the networks.

I must say that I’m not all that sure about the removal of US troops in northern Syria. As a general principle I don’t trust the Turks and I suspect that the Russians, Iranians nor the Syrian government have any interest in stopping Turkey from going after the Kurds who have been good friends to us. It’s generating a lot of critique and I think said critique is valid

It’s possible that this is just part of the standard Trump doctrine of disengagement when possible, it’s also possible that there is a bigger deal that has been made concerning Turkey that I’m unaware of (possibly concerning Israel and a deal there) but we really don’t know. My gut says it’s the wrong move but Potus has played a pretty good hand so far so I’m going to see how the cards fall before I go insane over it.


I’m a little pleased at the unity among left & right in the critique of the NBA over their kowtowing to China over a tweet on Hong Kong. When you’ve got Ted Cruz, Beto O’Rourke, Julian Castro, Rick Scott, Allahpundit, Rick Wilson and I all on the same page that’s really something.

The irony of NBA champs unwilling to go to the White House but NBA stars wiling to beg China’s forgiveness for one man’s support of the people of Hong Kong tells us all we need to know about the virtue signaling league and the degree of respect it deserves.


Was at the Happy Jack’s Buffet yesterday enjoying the all you can eat prime rib (yes you read that right) in it when I noticed CNN continuing to go over the top on Trump and impeachment in their on screen blurbs on one of the big screen which thankfully had no sound.

This is what happens when you decide to serve a niche market They simply aren’t trying anymore because it’s all about keeping said niche market happy. They’ve become a giant liberal infomercial and are just as informative and reliable.

Kinda sad.


Byron York has noticed something interesting about the so called “impeachment hearings“:

The hearings are part of an effort to remove the president from office. There could not be a matter of more pressing public concern. There could not be a matter in which the American people have a greater stake. And yet the public has no idea what is being discovered.
Last week’s sessions weren’t just secret. They were super-secret. The first hearing, in which the witness was former Ukraine special envoy Kurt Volker, was held in what is known as a SCIF, which stands for sensitive compartmented information facility. It is a room in the Capitol built to be impervious to electronic surveillance so that lawmakers can discuss the nation’s most important secrets without fear of discovery.
The second hearing, in which Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson testified, was also held in the SCIF.
Were highly classified matters discussed at the Volker and Atkinson hearings? Apparently not. Neither interview was classified. And even if some classified information were involved, it would be astonishing for Democrats to believe they could attempt to remove the president on the basis of information that is not available to the public.

I think it’s not astounding at all. If those hearing were public the networks that have been hyping them would be obliged to carry information that is devastating to their narrative. And while the number of viewers who would actually watch them are small, the amount of video it would provide to the Trump campaign illustrating that there is no “there” there would be more than the media/left could bear.


Finally while I would highly recommend Stacy McCain’s latest essay (he’s really been on a roll lately btw) I’d like to take issue with one impression that it gives.

Stacy’s history, particularly about the Hartford convention and New England being afraid of losing power is impeccable as are his assertions concerning Slavery in history and the left’s use of this for political purposes today. It leaves the impression that slavery itself was not the driving cause of the division and the Civil War which it produced.

This is a pet peeve of mine. In every way shape and form slavery was the driving force behind the American Civil War. If you read the newspapers of the era, the speeches of the era and the magazines of the era there can be no doubt that this was the case. Were there other issues involved as well, without question. Were the motives of some pushing abolition less that pure, I’d be shocked if it were otherwise. But let’s acknowledge the simple fact slavery was the engine that drive drove the separation and the war that followed.