Archive for the ‘News/opinion’ Category

Trump Fighting General Sherman’s War

Posted: May 29, 2020 by datechguy in culture, News/opinion, politics
Tags: , ,

John Henry Thomas: We’ll give them a taste of General Sherman’s War

Confederate Col James Langdon: I remember

The Undefeated 1969

About a year before his more famous march through Georgia, William Tecumseh Sherman led a two pronged attack on Mississippi, namely on Meridian, and while the Cavalry prong was broken off by Nathan Bedford Forest against 2-1 odds Sherman’s main force hit the town and the country side around it in a devastating fashion causing millions of (1863) dollars of damage and laying waste to the area as a preview what would happen during his famous March Though Georgia (and South Carolina) in the coming years.

After his withdrawal from Meridian he put out a paper with the intention of having it widely circulated to as he put it “prepare the South for my coming”. It said in part:

If they want eternal war, well and good; we accept the issue, and will dispossess them and put our friends in their place. If they think different, let them persist in war three years longer, and then they will not be consulted. Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. All the powers of earth cannot restore them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many peoples with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence

And that in a slightly round about way brings us to Donald Trump and Joe Scarborough. A topic that I must confess I’m surprised to still be writing about a full week after this could and should have died.

I’ve already explained both why I presume there is no “there” there in this case and why President Trump saw advantage in the move. In fact Twitter’s caving into the Democrat mob on “fact check” might already have produced advantage, namely an excuse to remove their protection from suits, treating them as a publisher rather than a platform, but the more I see the reaction out there the more I think I missed the real point of this.

Gandalf: Saurman you were deep in the enemy’s counsel. Tell us what you know.

Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King Extended Version 2003

As a businessman who had to do business in deep blue cities and deal with deep blue pols, as a celebrity involved in the TV and movie business, as a person who ran casinos and as a much sought after source of funds for political campaigns, Donald Trump, like Saurman was deep in the enemy counsel. For almost half a century he was feted by these types. I suspect he has heard every single bit of gossip and rumor than all these types offered up after a few rounds (while he remained sober) and like the businessman he is squirreled that away for future reference.

TV Exec 1: What’s he writing?

TV Exec 2: “Duck? Did anyone do anything with a Duck?“

EdTV 1999

Furthermore we’ve already explained that Donald Trump is a Jacksonian who has no compunction about giving back exactly what he has gotten. Treat him nice, he’ll treat you nice. Say a good word about him, he’ll say a good word about you. Try to destroy him, and he will retaliate.

President Trump would have likely let this go if Mika and company had not gone after Twitter over it. And he has plenty of other balls in the air that he is giving his time to. But now that Mitt and others are trying to hit him over it. I think it’s likely that he might give this story one more hit to make the point clear to the next celebrity, newsman, pol who he has known for decades who tries to cross him.

Gillom Rogers: Mr. Books, How is it you’ve killed so many men? My spread wasn’t much bigger than yours.

John Bernard Books: First of all,friend, there’s no one up there shooting back at you. Second, I found most men aren’t willing, they bat an eye, or draw a breath before they shoot. I won’t.

The Shootist 1976

If he is willing to go this far with Scarborough he is certainly willing to do so with you. The left has suggested that they will retaliate against and and all who are Trump allies. Trump has now made it clear that no amount of pressure will prevent him from giving the Scarborough treatment to any person who comes after him the same way if he so chooses, and he has a long memory for events.

I’d swear his ancestry was Sicilian

Trump, Scarborough, Lori Klausutis, Jacksonian Jujutsu

Posted: May 26, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, culture, media, News/opinion, politics
Tags: , , , , ,

“For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

Luke 6:38

Today at both Twitchy & Powerline the attempt to have the president’s tweets concerning the Lori Klausutis deleted.  Her husband appeal to have it pulled gave the story further legs and now the AP, via the Star Tribune has weighted in:

No one in Klausutis’ family would talk about Trump’s tweets for this article, fearing retaliation by online trolls of the type who went after parents of the Sandy Hook massacre victims. Their grief has been disrupted by conspiracy theories before — not only over the past few years from the White House, but from some liberals who at the time of her death sought to portray then-conservative Republican congressman Scarborough as a potential villain.

“There’s a lot we would love to say, but we can’t,” said Colin Kelly, who was Klausutis’ brother-in-law.

Scarborough, who was 900 miles away in Washington, D.C., on the day Klausutis died, and his co-host and wife, Mika Brzezinski, have both expressed outrage on the air in recent days — saying that Trump’s false accusations were most hurtful to Klausutis’ family. Brzezinski called Trump a “cruel, sick, disgusting person” and said he was using the episode to distract from the pandemic.

emphasis mine

That throw away line in the piece is actually the key to this case. as I brought up last week here:

Does anyone think for one moment that the mainstream media, still angry over the Bush victory and the Clinton Impeachment (that Scarborough voted for) would not have jumped all over this story and made it national news (particularly given Scarborough’s Sept 5th resignation) and a talking point to hit Republicans over? After all here you have a GOP congressman representing one of the most republican districts in his state, A republican who voted for Slick Billy’s impeachment with a dead female intern in his office. It would be a Godsend for the left Would this have not lead on CNN or MSNBC? Would not the New York Times and Washington Post used this as a club asking every GOP member of congress or the cabinet with devastating effect? Would they not when that congressman resigned seven weeks later suggest it was proof that something was up? Would this not be made a campaign issue in the special congressional election with demands that GOP candidate call for a fuller and deeper investigation?

You bet your ass they would!

And remember this was BEFORE he transformed himself into the type of Republican that Democrats like the most, the type willing to attack the GOP.

bold in original

in a long twitter thread that started here: a sample

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

And even on my livestream podcast:

This is the argument to kill this entire thing, but it’s not a argument that anyone on the left wants to make because said argument could concede the media bias that even today they pretend doesn’t exist.

I suspect Joe Scarborough, who certainly doesn’t need this, wishes he could use this point, but instead they are stuck with the “conspiracy theory” card. Powerline notes a tad of irony:

This is an example of the kind of dumb thing I wish President Trump wouldn’t do. I assume there is no reason to think that Joe Scarborough had anything to do with Ms. Klausutis’s death. But isn’t there a larger point here? What has Joe Scarborough done for the last 3 1/2 years but spread “debunked conspiracy theories” about Donald Trump–most notably, but by no means limited to, the Russia hoax–“speculated without evidence” about the Russia hoax, the Ukraine kerfuffle and other matters, and “unleashed a torrent of false allegations, mischaracterizations and baseless rumors” about the president? That sounds like Scarborough’s job description at MSNBC.

And what about the Washington Post? Despite its high and mighty tone in describing the president’s “spread[ing a] debunked conspiracy theory,” hasn’t that been the Post’s own stock in trade for years, when it comes to Donald Trump? Speculating without evidence, spreading conspiracy theories that turn out to be false, and unleashing a torrent of false allegations, mischaracterizations and baseless rumors sums up very well the Post’s coverage of the Donald Trump campaign, and of his presidency since January 2017.

So, while I am critical of tweets like the ones the Post is complaining about, I have a hard time working up a lot of sympathy for Joe Scarborough, and I can’t read the Post’s self-righteous account with anything but derision.

I think this is worthy of critique but “dumb” is not the word here. Trump understands that every cry of “conspiracy theory” by the media, given what we saw over the last three years make the left look ridiculous , even to some who dislike the President, and of course if they speak the obvious truth that I’ve laid out here they confirm all the President has said about them which is even worse for the left.

POTUS can’t lose here that’s why he picked this fight. He is a Jacksonian whose entire philosophy can be summed up by this sentence written nearly twenty years ago by the late great Steven Den Beste one of the greatest bloggers who ever lived

The whole point of Jacksonianism is “You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. You play fair with me and I’ll play fair with you. But if you fuck with me, I’ll kill you.”

That’s Trump all over.

Update: Instalanche thanks Ed. If you like this post tune in tomorrow for a post on how Steve Den Bestie back in 2002 accidentally laid out how Trump would govern. Don’t miss our livestream podcast every Friday morning at 9:30 AM EST You can watch the latest edition on Judge Jackson,US foes buying US Universities (the last of the Monday 12:35 AM Edition ones) here.

Update 2: I was reading the comments at Instapundit I was shocked to read at least one person say it was unclear if the media jumped on this at the time or not. While I can’t see how someone would not figure it out from this post let me say explicitally that they did not and again refer to DaTechGuy’s 4th law of Media Outrage which states:

The degree of media exposure of the corruption or illegality committed by any individual or organization under investigation is directly proportional to its distance from the media’s ideology.

If this had happened in 2018 involving NEVERTRUMP Scarborough I could see the MSM ignoring it as they did, but it happened in 2001 involving conservative GOP Scarborough no chance they don’t jump on it if there was any there there.

Update 3: Quick FYI I work 3:30 to Midnight and don’t have a cell so I’m offline during that time and all comments are moderated so I apologize to anyone who had to wait for their comment to be approved.

Update 4: The sequel to this post is titled The Late Steven Den Beste on Trump (Accidentally)

My wife and daughter escaped the Illinois lockdown and traveled to Wisconsin

Posted: May 24, 2020 by John Ruberry in business, culture, economy, News/opinion, politics
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

As I wrote a couple of posts back the unemployment rate is 67 percent in the Marathon Pundit home here in suburban Chicago. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, they were furloughed from their jobs.

Obviously in possession of free time Mrs. Marathon Pundit and Little Marathon Pundit decided to travel on this holiday weekend–they headed to Wisconsin. I stayed here to work.

Illinois, run by a Democrat from Chicago, J.B. Pritzker, remains under lockdown. You cannot enter supermarkets or any store with out a mask. Up in Wisconsin, its state Supreme Court struck down its shelter-in-place order made by its Democratic governor, Tony Evers. And its mask requirements.

Wisconsin is a free state. Illinois is a lockdown state. It’s that simple. My wife and daughter’s money is being spent not her3 but north of the Cheese Curtain. In a way they remind me of Poles in the last years of the Cold War visiting West Germany.

Illinois, according to WalletHub, has the most restrictive COVID-19 restrictions in the nation.

I just got off the phone with Mrs. MP. She enthusiastically told me about her first dine-in restaurant experience in two months. The restaurants in Illinois that are open are open for take-out only. On Friday outdoor dining will be allowed in the Prairie State. What if it rains? What if these diners aren’t equipped for al fresco serving? What if they don’t have the necessary permits? What if the restaurant owners can’t apply for an outdoor dining permit because their village hall is closed because of the coronavirus lockdown? Thanks for next-to-nothing, Pritzker.

Then my wife told me about their arrival yesterday in the small town of Mineral Point in the southwestern part America’s Dairyland. There was–wait for it–a parade! One for recent high school graduates. While the graduation ceremony was cancelled, grads in Mineral Point received their moment of glory on the streets. As far as I can gather all parades scheduled in Illinois in spring or early summer were cancelled. “A few people wore masks,” she told me of the people participating or viewing the parade, “but most didn’t.” Some stores are open–mostly the locally-owned ones as opposed to the big chains. “When you go in those places, you don’t have to wear masks,” she enthused.

My wife and daughter went inside, yes inside, a coffee shop, and drank coffee, although a sign outside of that establishment said, “Masks are recommended.” But masks weren’t even recommended when they entered an ice cream parlor.

Many other Illinoisans have escaped to Wisconsin too. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel spoke to one refugee from the Pritzker Lockdown who journeyed to Lake Geneva. “‘All for it,” said Dave Gragnani of McHenry, Illinois, who said he planned to visit a coffee shop and skatepark without any mask or hand sanitizer. “People should have a choice. I’m having a wonderful time.'”

Good for you, Dave!

As the saying goes, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”

Not as much as Wisconsin, but Indiana is opening up too. And of course the welcome mat is open there for Illinoisans fed up with the lockdown. I’m sure Iowa, where my family traveled last month, as well as Missouri and Kentucky, the other states that border Illinois, are enjoying an influx of cash-flush Illinoisans.

Yes, I’m aware that nearly 100,000 people have died of the coronavirus in the United States, although nearly every one of them already had serious health problems. Nursing homes, hospitals, and senior centers need extra protection. 

It’s time to open up the rest of America. And the world. 

Dennis Prager earlier this month wrote that the worldwide COVD-19 lockdown might be biggest mistake in history. 

John Ruberry regularly writes at Marathon Pundit.

Open Skies, Game Theory, and what’s next for treaties

Posted: May 23, 2020 by ng36b in gaming, News/opinion
Tags: , , ,
The OC-135, the (very old) airplane the US uses for OPEN SKIES flights, from Wikipedia

Recently President Trump pulled the United States out of the Open Skies Treaties, continuing his push of leaving treaties he feels aren’t useful. Given that we’ve pulled out of the INF Treaty, redone NAFTA, and scrapped a few other treaties (like the JCPOA), are we closer to war, and what treaty is next on the chopping block?

Trump renegotiating deals, and in some cases leaving them altogether, isn’t a surprise. A quick read of his book The Art of the Deal, or a study of his real estate deals, or just watching a few episodes of The Apprentice, would tell you that Trump is all about big deals. He doesn’t nibble at the edges of a small deal. He goes in for the big deal, or nothing at all.

A big reason for that is waiting for the big deal typically maximizes the leverage he has. If you give something away first, and the other side doesn’t reciprocate, you lost a portion of your negotiating power. It’s like giving your kids dessert before dinner on the promise they’ll eat both. Sure, it could happen, but if the dinner isn’t finished, you can’t threaten to withhold dessert.

President Trump always looks to maximize leverage, which means pressing on points that do something while ignoring those that don’t mean anything. For example, very early on he called out a number of NATO countries and threatened to withhold US defense money. A critical media made it out to look like he was threatening to leave NATO. Ironically, this worked completely in his favor. The chances of Trump leaving NATO were pretty slim, because it wouldn’t gain much (by the way, the only country to have done so was France when it left the military portion of NATO). But with the media making it look like he would, and a re-surging Russia acting like it wants to re-establish the Soviet Union, many NATO nations upped their funding. Trump won pretty “bigly” in that case.

If you think the whole “negotiating” piece is a sham, you shouldn’t. In fact, Trump has said on many occasions exactly what he’s doing. Here’s a NYT piece from 2016, where Trump was being interviewed by David Sanger and discussing missile defense and Japan:

TRUMP: Or, if we cannot make the right deal, to take on the burden themselves. You said it wrong because you said or — or if we cannot make the right deal for proper reimbursement to take on the burden themselves. Yes. Now, Hillary Clinton said: “I will never leave Japan. I will never leave Japan. Will never leave any of our ——” Well now, once you say that, guess what happens? What happens?

HABERMAN: You’re stuck.

TRUMP: You can’t negotiate.

HABERMAN: Right.

TRUMP: In a deal, you always have to be prepared to walk. Hillary Clinton has said, “We will never, ever walk.” That’s a wonderful phrase, but unfortunately, if I were on Saudi Arabia’s side, Germany, Japan, South Korea and others, I would say, “Oh, they’re never leaving, so what do we have to pay them for?” Does that make sense to you, David?

It’s crystal clear: President Trump will threaten to leave, and then ACTUALLY leave a deal, if it’s not to his liking. That gives him the most leverage to get the other side to comply.

Open Skies is no different. The deal was first brought up in 1955, but was only recently ratified in 2002. It’s supposed to allow unfettered access to anywhere in the signatories countries. The US upholds that end, and as a military member, I’ve been notified before when the Russians plan to fly over an installation I’m working at. Russia began denying access to key areas, including exercise areas and parts of Georgia.

From President Trumps point of view, Russia gets a good deal and the US is slowly losing any advantage for the deal, so he pulled out. Both sides can pull other intelligence assets to make up the loss, but Russia will take a harder economic hit to do that than the US. This gives the US an advantage, and makes a subsequent deal easier. But the next Open Skies deal, if it was to happen, wouldn’t look like the old one. Trump will drive a hard bargain. I wouldn’t be surprised if he demands something completely absurd, like a drawdown of Russian forces from Kaliningrad and the Arctic, with verification flights to ensure compliance.

Now the Open Skies is going away, what’s next? My first thought was Nuclear Test Ban, since the US never ratified it, but the President already beat me to it. Expect the media to really blow this one up, which again plays right into the President’s hand. I would expect him to use this as leverage over China, because he could:

  • Threaten to arm Japan and/or Taiwan with nuclear weapons
  • Threaten nuclear weapons on hypersonic missiles
  • Change US policy and bring back tactical nuclear weapons
  • Negotiate a better nuclear deal with India, to include selling them nuclear submarine technology. Not only would that make China angry, but it would strip Russia of arms sales!

Another deal on the chopping block is the Outer Space Treaty. Trump already announced moon mining. I’d expect him to be looking for partner nations to mine the moon and asteroids. It’s a good chance to bring in non-traditional partners like Brazil, India and Japan that have this technology, but also places like Indonesia and parts of Africa where geography makes launching satellites easier.

The last one I’d expect to see go away is our treaties on drugs. This goes beyond legalizing marijuana. The drug enforcement cost in America is massive and yet is not particularly effective. Legalizing and taxing the drug trade could not only take money away from cartels, but also increase the safety for drug users. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t come up yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Trump proposed big changes to drug control.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

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