Archive for the ‘Uncomfortable Truths’ Category

AFRICOM headquarters in Africa…why not?

Posted: August 15, 2020 by ng36b in News/opinion, Uncomfortable Truths, war
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AFRICOM HQ building, from https://www.dabangasudan.org

The US military in Europe is in a bit of a shakeup. After years of tolerating Germany’s low military investment, President Trump announced that 12,000 troops would move out of Germany, many of them moving to Poland, which has been investing in its military. Because of the “Orange Man Bad” complex, somehow the fact that this saves us money over the long term, is part of continued investment in a country that will be purchasing more US energy resources, and places troops closer to Russia as a deterrent seems to be lost in the media. It’s a smart move economically and strategically.

The shift of forces includes moving the US European Command headquarters to Belgium and the US Africa Command headquarters to…somewhere. But not Africa, according to a few news sources. When AFRICOM stood up, placing it in Stuttgart initially made sense, since many of the staff members came from the EUCOM staff. But AFRICOM’s lack of presence in Africa isn’t smart long term. The US should be more invested in Africa, and moving AFRICOM to Africa would help that investment.

Where in Africa? The best spots are Nigeria, Morocco, Ethiopia or Liberia. Nigeria is a long-term powerhouse in Africa. Not only will it become one of the world’s most populous nations, but it has a positive view of the US and has a democratic government. Morocco was the first nation in the world to recognize the US and we’ve maintained friendly relations for most of our countries history. Ethiopia is another democratic powerhouse in Africa. Liberia, while not as developed as the other three, is still a good choice given its close history with the US.

There is some concern about “militarizing” Africa, but I contend that’s a poor argument. Did we militarize Europe by stationing troops there, or did we stop a continued trend of larger and larger wars that seemed to erupt between European powers? We’ve had a longer peace since the US stationed troops in Europe. Other nations are directly moving into Africa, and while some seem altruistic (like France), others are not aligned with the US (Russia and China). We can’t counter these large investments with minimal footprints.

There are plenty of good options for AFRICOM to be in Africa. Africa is only going to get more important in coming years. We’re either all in on Africa, or we cede that ground to China.

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.

To leftists like Lori Lightfoot they are not people they are automatons

Posted: August 9, 2020 by John Ruberry in crime, culture, News/opinion, politics, Uncomfortable Truths
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By John Ruberry

President Donald J. Trump isn’t the only public official prone to Twitter rants. Yesterday after a trip to Chicago’s lakefront on a hot and humid day, the city’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, let loose on her constituents.

“It’s called a pandemic, people,” she Tweeted. “This reckless behavior on Montrose Beach is what will cause us to shut down the parks and lakefront. Don’t make us take steps backwards.”

That “reckless behavior” consisted of people gathering at the beach. Chicago’s 18-miles of lakefront parks were closed–they were guarded by Chicago police officers for most of the spring and much of this summer. The cops remained posted at these parks during the riots and looting in May–by people presumably spreading the COVID-19 virus. Riots of course are now, by the liberals, viewed as free speech. After the Lake Michigan parks opened, Lightfoot dispatched an army of “social distance ambassadors” to enforce safe-distancing. I reckon that this snitch army took Saturday off.

Leftist mayors like Lightfoot, Bill de Blasio in New York, Ted Wheeler in Portland, Jenny Durkan in Seattle, and Ethan Berkowitz in Anchorage, they, as I’ve similarly remarked before, love “the people,” but not people. They believe they rule over automatons, faceless entities consisting of countless “Julias,” the void visage featured in the notorious and creepy “Life of Julia” Barack Obama campaign video from 2012. Of course these Julias need an enlightened being, blessed with the correct knowledge, the wisdom of liberalism.

Someone of course like Lightfoot.

At Montrose Beach yesterday Lightfoot saw, like a child in a bedroom, toy soldiers or Barbie dolls to be ordered about. “The people” not people.

Chicago is making national headlines of course for violence, or more specifically, people shooting other people, sometimes killing them.

Late last month a 9-year-old boy was shot to death while playing in a vacant lot. The next morning on Twitter Lightfoot blamed “a bullet,” not the alleged shooter.

“When a 9 year old’s life is ended by a bullet,” she said in that Tweet, “we must all be outraged. These deaths are not mere statistics. And prayers alone will not sooth a broken heart.”

The gang culture that dominates many Chicago neighborhoods is the city’s real problem. And many gang members think it is fine to indiscriminately fire guns at people. Such as the unidentified hoodlum who shot 15-mourners at a funeral home ten days before the 9-year-old was slain.

In a reply to her own Tweet about the murder of that child, Lightfoot added, “Gun violence is every bit a public health crisis as COVID-19.” When I saw that Tweet I thought she had come around, as I thought she Tweeted “gang violence” instead of “gun violence.” If you scanned the brain of Lightfoot you won’t find the words “individual responsibility” paired together.

And if you are from one of those states that Lightfoot labels as a coronavirus hot spot and you visit to Chicago, you may be subject to social media monitoring to ensure you are quarantining.

Thank you Big Sister.

The ultimate responsibility for Lightfoot are the hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans, most of whom, I hope, are not automatons, the ones who voted for Lightweight. She won all 50 of Chicago’s wards over Toni Preckwinkle, who is possibly even more left-wing than Lori, in a runoff election.

What was it that H.L. Mencken said about democracy? Ah yes, here it is, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

UPDATE 4:30pm EDT: The mayor also known as Beetlejuice today dispatched police officers to block off access to Montrose Beach. And snow fencing is also preventing access to the beach on this hot and humid Sunday.

John Ruberry regularly blogs just north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.

Spliternet? Spare me.

Posted: August 8, 2020 by ng36b in economy, News/opinion, Uncomfortable Truths
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No, seriously, its not

There has been plenty of discussion about Microsoft’s attempted acquisition of TikTok and the recent executive order that barred working with TikTok, WeChat and other Chinese social media apps. But amid all of this came an interesting article in the BBC accusing the United States of “splitting the internet.” Yup, really.

“It’s shocking,” says Alan Woodward, a security expert based at the University of Surrey. “This is the Balkanisation of the internet happening in front of our eyes.

“The US government has for a long time criticised other countries for controlling access to the internet… and now we see the Americans doing the same thing.”

Dr. Alan Woodward

The article does backtrack a bit and brings up legitimate security concerns posed by China. It sparked my curiosity in Pompeo’s speech, which hasn’t really made the news. So I found the transcript, and Pompeo had outlined five lines of effort for a Clean Internet:

First, Clean Carrier. We are working to ensure that untrusted Chinese telecom companies don’t provide international telecommunications services between the United States and foreign destinations.

Second, we call Clean Store. We want to see untrusted Chinese apps removed from U.S. app stores.

Third, Clean Apps. We’re working to prevent Huawei and other untrusted vendors from pre-installing or making available for download the most popular U.S. apps. We don’t want companies to be complicit in Huawei’s human rights abuses or the CCP’s surveillance apparatus.

Fourth, Clean Cloud. We’re protecting Americans’ most sensitive personal information and our businesses’ most valuable intellectual property – including COVID vaccine research – from being accessed on cloud-based systems run by companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, China Mobile, China Telecom, and Tencent.

Fifth and finally, Clean Cable. We’re working to ensure that the CCP can’t compromise information carried by the undersea cables that connect our country and others to the global internet.

Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, in a speech on August 5, 2020.

This list doesn’t resemble censorship. Nowhere in the list does the U.S. censor information from other countries, prevent people from being critical of the United States, or otherwise interfere with other countries operations. It narrowly targets tech Chinese companies with known issues while leaving an open door to every other nation. It highlights some significant problems like stealing of COVID vaccine research that not enough people are tracking.

There is this libertarian view that a free and open internet means government’s should have no role whatsoever in the internet. There are plenty of flaws with this idea. The largest flaw is that this view fails to act when an entity like the Chinese Communist Party seeks to dismantle the Internet and subvert it for its own good. The BBC would perhaps brush this off as “market forces,” and to be sure, the UK has stood on the sidelines while China filters Hong Kong’s internet and even the internet at UK universities.

Perhaps better said in the movie Team America: World Police: “Freedom isn’t free.”

You can, and should, limit government involvement and allow the market to drive innovation, but when an obviously dark force threatens to break the freedom of information on the internet, you must act to stop it.

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.

William J LePetomane for Mayor of Minneapolis

Posted: August 4, 2020 by datechguy in comedy, crime, culture, entertainment, Uncomfortable Truths
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Governor Lepetomane: [pointing to a member of his cabinet] I didn’t get a “harrumph” out of that guy!

Hedley Lamarr: Give the Governor harrumph!

Politician: Harrumph!

Governor Lepetomane: You watch your ass.

Blazing Saddles 1974

When I compare the authorities of Minneapolis who put out this notice

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

To the governor who put out this message:

One must conclude that the later (albeit for political reasons) is more interested in the safety of the citizens then the former .

If you told me six months ago that the city of Minneapolis would be better off & safer under a parody pol created by Mel Brooks vs their current government I wouldn’t have believed you.

Now it’s self evident.

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