Hi there, !
Today Sat 10/19/2019 Fri 10/18/2019 Thu 10/17/2019 Wed 10/16/2019 Tue 10/15/2019 Mon 10/14/2019 Sun 10/13/2019 Archives
Rantburg
531699 articles and 1855982 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 74 articles and 279 comments as of 14:17.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Spain, Sweden, Canada, UK halting sales of military material to Ankara
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
16 18:00 swksvolFF [1] 
16 16:39 Bobby [1] 
7 20:41 Rob Crawford [1] 
3 19:10 Lex [] 
5 22:34 JohnQC [2] 
1 07:43 M. Murcek [] 
1 12:18 Lex [] 
4 14:44 M. Murcek [2] 
25 19:26 Lex [] 
2 01:36 Besoeker [2] 
0 [] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
0 [2]
0 []
3 10:00 Dale [4]
0 []
0 []
2 08:54 Dron66046 [2]
0 []
0 [3]
0 [3]
2 12:45 Bright Pebbles [2]
0 [1]
1 09:41 Sonny Black []
0 []
3 23:27 Raj []
0 [2]
5 22:53 Whiskey Mike [2]
0 [1]
1 08:19 AlanC []
0 []
1 08:21 Chereting Pelosi1889 [1]
0 [1]
3 21:11 Rob Crawford []
1 08:43 Dron66046 []
0 [1]
0 []
0 []
Page 2: WoT Background
6 15:55 M. Murcek [3]
22 19:58 Lex [1]
2 12:34 Lex []
3 14:29 Abu Uluque [1]
1 14:19 Abu Uluque [1]
0 [2]
7 22:00 swksvolFF []
1 09:11 Dron66046 []
6 12:23 DarthVader []
6 12:32 Lex []
1 12:08 Mercutio [1]
0 [2]
0 []
2 09:14 Dron66046 [1]
5 19:28 Mercutio [2]
Page 3: Non-WoT
16 21:38 bbrewer126 [1]
3 15:07 Lex []
18 21:48 bbrewer126 []
3 14:51 M. Murcek [1]
12 21:48 Besoeker []
3 18:40 Bobby [1]
0 [1]
0 []
1 07:50 Procopius2k []
0 []
0 []
0 []
1 19:24 Lex []
5 18:14 swksvolFF [3]
4 16:28 trailing wife []
Page 6: Politix
4 12:49 Bright Pebbles []
7 21:21 Lex [2]
10 13:44 g(r)omgoru []
3 23:46 trailing wife []
16 16:51 swksvolFF [2]
3 15:10 magpie [1]
6 13:25 NoMoreBS [1]
-Short Attention Span Theater-
LeBron James Says Rosa Parks's Bus Protest 'Could Have Waited A Week'
[Babylon Bee] NBA superstar Lebron James recently told reporters that while he respects what Rosa Parks did for civil rights by refusing to give up her seat on a bus in 1955 Alabama, he thinks her protest "probably could have waited a week."

James, an expert in geopolitical relations as well as the game of basketball, went on to explain that people in power stand to lose a lot of money when protesters challenge the status quo. "Civil rights demonstrations should really be limited to times that are convenient to everyone," James told sources. "When Rosa Parks started the bus boycott by refusing to give up her seat, I guess there were some sporting events scheduled that week in downtown Montgomery that lost a lot of revenue. It wasn't fair to them. I can't really blame Ms. Parks though. She was just misinformed."

"In the future, I hope people will think about how voicing their support for civil rights and freedom might impact rich and powerful people, like me," James added.
Moar Bee: Oppressed Chinese Citizens Apologize To NBA Players For Disrupting Their Difficult Week
Posted by: Frank G || 10/16/2019 07:35 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Emancipation could have waited a while too.

Think of all the lives that would have been saved.

Think of all the money the planters had invested.

Why did middle aged white males like Lincoln and Grant have to stick their nose in?

Tsk tsk.
Posted by: charger || 10/16/2019 8:36 Comments || Top||

#2  According to Rosa she wasn't trying to protest. She was just tired and her feet hurt and she didn't feel like getting up and walking to the back of the bus because a white man wanted her seat.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 10/16/2019 8:43 Comments || Top||

#3  I underestimated Ming James. Apparently he can also make big money by dribbling with his chin.

According to WZ:
Hong Kong protesters don masks of Lebron James to protest.

Not sure I would have passed that round of Bee/Not Bee.

Beautiful.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/16/2019 10:40 Comments || Top||

#4  Would LeBron James "wait a week or a month or a year" for his paycheck, hmmm? Being virtuous with other people's lives is so very, very easy.
Posted by: magpie || 10/16/2019 10:58 Comments || Top||

#5  Which paycheck?

Sportsball player.
Sportsball promoter.
Video games.
Clothing brand, especially shoes and headband.
Disney character.
Carbonated cranberry sugar beverage.
Hair re-growth.
"What I wear for pre-game video montage."
Personal music system and headphones.
Automobile preference.
Social media.

Also LeBron:
"I kneel with Colin Caperneck because police brutality must be addressed."

Chinese Communist Policeman shoots civilian in chest point blank.

"Hey everyone, can't believe you ruined my big movie week. You just have no idea how much time I had to spend in a green room so we could pretend I was playing basketball against space alien cartoons. You leave Hong Kong police alone!"
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/16/2019 11:22 Comments || Top||

#6  Which paycheck?

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” ― Eric Hoffer

Environmentalism, Civil Rights, Social Justice, the United Nations, Human Rights... lots of people getting some nice paychecks.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/16/2019 11:47 Comments || Top||

#7  It's all about shoe sales.

Posted by: jpal || 10/16/2019 12:15 Comments || Top||

#8  "I kneel with Colin Caperneck because police brutality must be addressed." Chinese Communist Policeman shoots civilian in chest point blank.

But these civilians are NOT part of Lebron James' tribe, are they?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2019 12:19 Comments || Top||

#9  Anyone else looking for chinks in the NBA's morality?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 10/16/2019 12:39 Comments || Top||

#10  Turning point?
Posted by: Lex || 10/16/2019 12:55 Comments || Top||

#11  Yes, it could be a turning point if enough people showed up wherever that nitwit is playing and shame people who bought a ticket to see it. What would quickly follow would be attempts by local gummints to suppress such shaming activity which of course is just doubling down of "keep your free speech off muh wallet." Good times.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 10/16/2019 13:49 Comments || Top||

#12  Deacon Blues, I don't think she was a random innocent with tired feet no matter what she says..
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/16/2019 13:55 Comments || Top||

#13  #11 I think their ticket sales will suffer some as well. This isn't a good look for a league that managed to (largely) avoid the anthem glare that Koepernick inflicted on the NFL.
Posted by: Crusader || 10/16/2019 17:01 Comments || Top||

#14  nba attendance has been nearly constant for over a decade (a bit more than 17k per game)

I think the season begins next week. It will be interesting to see.
Posted by: lord garth || 10/16/2019 17:39 Comments || Top||

#15  If I had Warcraft, I'd create a character, name him Ming James, make him a bard, equip him with a lyre and a pair of shoes, and walk around playing the chinese national anthem and saying silly shit through my mic like, "Chairman Mao most brave!" "My shoes number one for long march!"
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/16/2019 17:47 Comments || Top||

#16  Maybe find an army of like minded players, make all the same character and name and such, all do a suicide run at the same time yelling Lebron James! a la Leroy Jenkins.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/16/2019 18:00 Comments || Top||


Europe
The EU is right to fear an ultra-competitive independent Britain
h/t Instapundit
Remainers like to think of the UK as a non-entity, but it is Europe that is the over-regulated backwater

In recent years, Brexit’s most implacable opponents have revelled in rubbishing Britain’s hopes of succeeding on the world stage. Britain is a diminished country, they insist, incapable of functioning on its own. Consider Emma Thompson’s description of the UK as "a cake-filled misery-laden grey old island", or Michael Heseltine’s glorious Freudian slip when challenged about our economy outperforming EU rivals: the UK "is doing significantly better than you might hope".
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2019 01:28 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It'll be interesting to see how how Britain can possibly survive without a constant influx of unemployable, unpleasant, economic refugees from North Africa and Arabia. Hopefully they'll manage.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/16/2019 13:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Independent Britain

Irony is sweet.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 10/16/2019 14:06 Comments || Top||

#3  😊😊😊
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2019 14:12 Comments || Top||

#4  But who will sell Nigel and Fiona their kebabs and a spot of blow before they nip on down to the betting shop?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 10/16/2019 14:44 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
End of An Era: America's Mideast Long War Phase is Over
A taste.
[GeopoliticalFutures] The origins of new US-Turkish relations

For several years, there has been a significant shift underway in U.S. strategy toward the Middle East, where Washington has consistently sought to avoid combat. The United States is now compelled to seek accommodation with Turkey, a regional power in its own right, based on terms that are geopolitically necessary for both. Their relationship has been turbulent, and while it may continue to be so for a while, it will decline. Their accommodation has nothing to do with mutual affection but rather with mutual necessity. The Turkish incursion into Syria and the U.S. response are part of this adjustment, one that has global origins and regional consequences.

Similarly, the U.S. decision to step aside as Turkey undertook an incursion in northeastern Syria has a geopolitical and strategic origin. The strategic origin is a clash between elements of the Defense Department and the president. The defense community has been shaped by a war that has been underway since 2001. During what is called the Long War, the U.S. has created an alliance structure of various national and subnational groups. Yet the region is still on uneven footing. The Iranians have extended a sphere of influence westward. Iraq is in chaos. The Yemeni civil war still rages, and the original Syrian war has ended, in a very Middle Eastern fashion, indecisively.

A generation of military and defense thinkers have matured fighting wars in the Middle East. The Long War has been their career. Several generations spent their careers expecting Soviet tanks to surge into the Fulda Gap. Cold Warriors believed a world without the Cold War was unthinkable. The same can be said for those shaped by Middle Eastern wars. For the Cold War generation, the NATO alliance was the foundation of their thinking. So too for the Sandbox generation, those whose careers were spent rotating into Iraq or Afghanistan or some other place, the alliances formed and the enemies fought seemed eternal. The idea that the world had moved on, and that Fulda and NATO were less important, was emotionally inconceivable. Any shift in focus and alliance structure was seen as a betrayal.

After the Cold War ended, George H.W. Bush made the decision to stand down the 24-hour B-52 air deployments in the north that were waiting for a Soviet attack. The reality had changed, and Bush made the decision a year after the Eastern European collapse began. He made it early on Sept. 21, 1991, after the Wall came down but before the Soviet Union collapsed. It was a controversial decision. I knew some serious people who thought that we should be open to the possibility that the collapse in Eastern Europe was merely a cover for a Soviet attack and were extremely agitated over the B-52 stand-down.

It is difficult to accept that an era has passed into history. Those who were shaped by that era, cling, through a combination of alarm and nostalgia, to the things that reverberate through their minds. Some (though not Europeans) spoke of a betrayal of Europe, and others deeply regretted that the weapons they had worked so hard to perfect and the strategy and tactics that had emerged over decades would never be tried.

The same has happened in different ways in the Middle East. The almost 20-year deployment has forged patterns of behavior, expectations and obligations not only among individuals but more institutionally throughout the armed forces. But the mission has changed. For now, the Islamic State is vastly diminished, as is al-Qaida. The Sunni rising in Iraq has ended, and even the Syrian civil war is not what it once was. A war against Iran has not begun, may not happen at all, and would not resemble the wars that have been fought in the region hitherto.

This inevitably generates a strategic re-evaluation, which begins by accepting that the prior era is gone. It was wrenching to shift from World War II to the Cold War and from the Cold War to a world that many believed had transcended war, and then to discover that war was suspended and has now resumed. War and strategy pretend to be coolly disengaged, but they are passionate undertakings that don’t readily take to fundamental change. But after the 18 years of war, two things have become clear. The first is that the modest objective of disrupting terrorism has been achieved, and the second is that the ultimate goal of creating something approaching liberal democracies was never really possible.
Posted by: Lex || 10/16/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte

#1  One of the clearest thought pieces we've seen in decades.

This especially nails it:

"The world has changed greatly since 2001. China has emerged as a major power, and Russia has become more active. Iran, not Sunni jihadists, has become the main challenge in the Middle East and the structure of alliances needed to deal with this has changed radically since Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. In addition, the alliances have changed in terms of capability. The massive deployments in the Middle East have ended, but some troops remain there, and to a section of the American military, the jihadist war remains at the center of their thinking. To them, the alliances created over the past 18 years remain as critical as Belgium’s air force had been during the Cold War.

"There is another, increasingly powerful faction in the United States that sees the Middle East as a secondary interest. In many instances, they include Iran in this. This faction sees China or Russia (or both) as the fundamental challenger to the U.S. Its members see the Middle East as a pointless diversion and a drain of American resources.

"For them, bringing the conflict to a conclusion was critical. Those who made their careers in this war and in its alliances were appalled.

"The view of President Donald Trump has been consistent. In general, he thought that the use of military force anywhere must be the exception rather than the rule. ...

"Given the shift in American strategy, three missions emerge. The first is the containment of China. The second is the containment of Russia. The third is the containment of Iran. In the case of China, the alliance structure required by the United States is primarily the archipelago stretching from Japan to Indonesia and Singapore – and including South Korea. In dealing with Russia, there are two interests. One is the North European Plain; the other is the Black Sea. Poland is the American ally in the north, Romania in the south. But the inclusion of Turkey in this framework would strengthen the anti-Russia framework. In addition, it would provide a significant counter to Iranian expansion.

"Turkey’s importance is clear. It is courted by both Russia and Iran. ..."
Posted by: Lex || 10/16/2019 0:49 Comments || Top||

#2  China has emerged as a major power

WOT was a real boon to China
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2019 1:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Notice something - none of these super duper strategic experts mentions the word "fracker" anywhere?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2019 1:10 Comments || Top||

#4  There you go again, seeking out that which is not mentioned. Good on you !
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/16/2019 1:43 Comments || Top||

#5  So too for the Sandbox generation, those whose careers were spent rotating into Iraq or Afghanistan or some other place, the alliances formed and the enemies fought seemed eternal. The idea that the world had moved on, and that Fulda and NATO were less important, was emotionally inconceivable. Any shift in focus and alliance structure was seen as a betrayal.

THIS. It's blatantly obvious by this point that these thinkers are in a box and cannot see outside. They are so focused on military operations that they aren't aware that it is precisely military operations that are the problem.

others deeply regretted that the weapons they had worked so hard to perfect and the strategy and tactics that had emerged over decades would never be tried.

The sunk cost fallacy rears its ugly head once again. Oh darn, there's no war! Your career was a waste! Well, we'd better have thousands of people die so that you don't feel unfulfilled.

The first is that the modest objective of disrupting terrorism has been achieved, and the second is that the ultimate goal of creating something approaching liberal democracies was never really possible.

Bam! Hit the nail squarely on the head. We can't change the middle east. Only their people can do that. And the vast majority of them don't want to change.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 10/16/2019 4:28 Comments || Top||

#6  Ref #5: ....Oh darn, there's no war! Your career was a waste! Well, we'd better have thousands of people die so that you don't feel unfulfilled.

Your rant of course, but I suspect there are a few here who could have done without that comment.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/16/2019 5:49 Comments || Top||

#7  Once an asshole, always an asshole
Posted by: Frank G || 10/16/2019 6:39 Comments || Top||

#8  Now let's take a similar look at Europe. It's not the one endangered by totalitarians from Berlin or Moscow. It's one dominated by authoritarians, though in better suits, from Brussels.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/16/2019 8:11 Comments || Top||

#9  The whole point of the Cold War was training so we didn't have to fight. Mission accomplished. "Deeply regret"? How can anyone deeply regret winning the war without firing a shot? Sun Tzu would be beaming with pride at this outstanding application of the warrior's mission.

Should I take a page from the SJW Left and start worrying about hurting people's feelings? I thought we were about good arguments and intellectual discourse, not personal attacks and emotional states. I'm getting the idea that I keep making good arguments that nobody can counter, thus the retreat into character attacks. This always happens when I'm on Reddit or other left-wing dominated forums, I sure don't expect it here of all places.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 10/16/2019 8:53 Comments || Top||

#10  #2 has emerged as a major power WOT was a real boon to China

Could I suggest crooked, self-enriching politicians and bad policies as an alternative explanation?
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/16/2019 9:43 Comments || Top||

#11  Back in the late 90s Apple computers was going down fast. They brought in Gil Amelio to make the cuts required to save the company. When that was done Steve Jobs took over and made the company profitable again.

I often get the impression Trump is like Gil Amelio doing the dirty work, getting crap for it, and knowing he'll probably never get the credit he's do.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/16/2019 9:58 Comments || Top||

#12  The first is the containment of China. The second is the containment of Russia. The third is the containment of Iran.

Ahh... a lot of containment I see. A sort of economic McCarthyism then. Well, contain to your heart's content. States will not give up trying to exceed their 'place' in the world designated for them by others.

the modest objective of disrupting terrorism has been achieved

It has ?

RANT

This article is basically saying everybody who ever served in any long war, those with the Northern Alliance, before that against Saddam, those who hunted daesh, everyone who ever commanded an offensive or watched over a conflict is a fool with too much diesel in his wagon and sand in his head. A trigger-happy, delusional thug who'd rather watch thousands die than accept that the world is easier disciplined by macro-economic punitive measures on entire populations, not by just killing the real offenders.

I echo the last line though.

You shouldn't even have tried projecting an altruistic, civilizing influence. These places are tribal hell holes. You take from them what you want, and maybe set up a dictator stooge providing contracts for infra and communications, rake in the moolah and the resources. That worked for the UK for decades, why start this democracy shtick with an already liberal democratic people ? All they do is based on consensus, religiously motivated asshole consensus, but the islamists have a true republic ethic. It's the sharia and the ulema that dictates the mental set that their republic ethic serves. Aren't they liberal in allowing men to rape young women ? To stone and behead and impale each other ? There is no robed bureaucrat telling the people what should be done. They're assholes by choice.

The error of the west has always been that they didn't understand the nature of the muslim animal. China didn't either, for that matter. But they chose their policy well. They don't have to understand it. They'll quarantine the rabid and keep them from reproducing, until there are no more.

I can't blame the Americans for not understanding the muslim threat, but I'm sure Israel would have advised US presidents many times on the right course of things. And that advice must have fallen on ears deafened by self-interest and the 'what's in it for us ' refrain.
Rant ends.

I still trust God is with Trump, and whatever he does shall prosper As you all know by now, my reasonings are part fanatical .
I just pray he never makes the mistake of evaluating Israel with the same cost-benefit treatment. The day he does, it's 'Mene mene' time.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 10/16/2019 9:59 Comments || Top||

#13  It has ?

Yes.

a fool with too much diesel in his wagon and sand in his head. A trigger-happy, delusional thug

This is an emotional reaction. It is an exaggeration that wasn't said anywhere in the article. Nonetheless, a new paradigm needs to take place. Bush standing down the B-52s is a good comparison. Good, serious people were shocked and absolutely convinced it was all a trick to get us to let our guard down, then BAM! It's because they were so inside a box that they couldn't see outside. All they could see was everything they had worked for all their lives descending to rack and ruin. The sunk cost fallacy.

not by just killing the real offenders

We've been killing the "real offenders" for 18 years now. Victory has not been achieved, nor is it in sight. It doesn't work. Time for a new strategy.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 10/16/2019 10:48 Comments || Top||

#14  You shouldn't even have tried projecting an altruistic, civilizing influence. These places are tribal hell holes. You take from them what you want, and maybe set up a dictator stooge ...

Agreed. The only way to deal with a monster like this is the realpolitik way: without sentiment or lofty Wilsonian illusions about remaking people or tribes or religions.

Stop talking. Avoid BS "one-world" universal-aspirations-of-mayonnaise rhetorical tropes and operate ruthlessly to crush these cockroaches wherever you can--with the lightest possible footprint. If there's to be an overseas expedition, make it punitive.

Above all, I think--I hope-- we've learned that, whatever our flaws, our number one goal is to advance our own interests and keep our people safe, our economy solvent and our communities and families strong.

Very few of the policies pursued by our virtue-signaling "global citizen" elite over the past 30 years have produced the above benefits.

Fracking is one: it's been a runaway success-- and the leading Dem contender for POTUS says she wants to "ban" it.

But our China policy has been a disaster, our policy in the Middle East a mess, our Afghan policy a bitter stalemate, and our policies toward Iran and Russia under the previous administration have been comically stupid.

Time to reboot.

Posted by: Lex || 10/16/2019 12:29 Comments || Top||

#15  Above all... keep our people safe, our economy solvent and our communities and families strong.

Which is all one expects from a good king. Trump seems to me a God fearing man, unwilling to give in to the reactive demand for violence and abundant deployment of forces, from people like me. I respect that greatly.

The next term should show us the fruits of just what has been sown now. God knows Trump will need all the support we can drum up regardless of what his policy on the mid-east. The survival of the American republic itself should be a priority for a prez and it is.

The bloodthirsty screech of the desert Djinns will never cease, until Megiddo itself.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 10/16/2019 13:10 Comments || Top||

#16  Numbers 14 and 15 are absolutely spot on.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/16/2019 13:16 Comments || Top||

#17  Innit funny how so many people who believe you have no right to self defense also believe there is an infinite need to spend American blood and treasure on some of the most indefensible barbarians on the planet elsewhere?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 10/16/2019 13:43 Comments || Top||

#18  Because it's twofer, MM.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2019 13:44 Comments || Top||

#19  In the past the US made folks want to be civilized and like us by being Awesome. People came here and tried to be Awesome in order to fit in. Some took a generation but most made it. We were never about going out and forcing others to be like us until WW2 (which was a somewhat unique situation).

We need to get back to that. We need to stop tolerating the bogus folks and regain confidence. Trump has done a remarkable job so far at this, I can't imagine how things would be if he didn't have a nonstop drum-beat of doom and dragging feet surrounding him constantly.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/16/2019 14:04 Comments || Top||

#20 
"First time to the US, Sir ?"

"Hmm ? Yes." [nods gaily]

"Purpose of visit ?"

"Oh... uhh, I'm here to be Awesome !!"
Posted by: Dron66046 || 10/16/2019 14:09 Comments || Top||

#21  Indeed. Everything is awesome (when yer part of a team)
Posted by: Lex || 10/16/2019 14:35 Comments || Top||

#22  Seriously, MM's point ("awesome") is well-taken.

Our effective sphere of control extends to our borders plus the two oceans and the countries on those borders.

We need to get back to focusing on events within our sphere of control, and make that sphere as, well, awesome as we can-- instead of fighting for Girls' Education in Tribal Afghanistan, or Good Government for Mosul, or Extending the Blessings of NATO to Ukraine, or creating Kurdish Republic #7 in Wherever.

It's damned hard to create an effective republic - safe solvent & strong - in a huge, socially-diverse geographic area such as ours. That's enough. Being awesome would be even better.

Time to reboot.
Posted by: Lex || 10/16/2019 14:44 Comments || Top||

#23  Time to reboot, and since we are no longer beholden to other oil suppliers, our own selfish, self-interests are different than they were ten years ago. Take a breath. Time to reboot.
Posted by: Bobby || 10/16/2019 16:30 Comments || Top||

#24  Lex...as they used to say, "Right On!"..just sent #14 to an upper east side $ Dem formerly with the Hillarious camp..hope it sinks in.
Posted by: Unosh Hupinelet8756 || 10/16/2019 18:50 Comments || Top||

#25  Thanks, U.
Ask your friend to support Rantburg while he's at it.
Best,
L
Posted by: Lex || 10/16/2019 19:26 Comments || Top||


Great White North
The First Illegal Border-Crossing Terrorist Is On Trial, But Don’t Expect The Media To Cover It
[Federalist] Trump, after all the media ridicule, was correct in saying that potential Death Eaters have illegally crossed the United States' southern border. Abdulahi Hasan Sharif of Somalia did. And it could happen again.

Many who have professionally worried, as did former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, that violent jihadists might illegally cross the United States’ southern border are often sanctimoniously challenged with this: "Name a single U.S. border-crossing immigrant asylum-seeker who ever committed a terrorist attack."

Introducing Abdulahi Hasan Sharif of Somalia.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/16/2019 01:37 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists

#1  Shitshow, Part 131
Posted by: Lex || 10/16/2019 12:18 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Oak Park Trustee to White Colleague: 'You Shouldn't Have an Opinion... You Have Been White from Birth'
[PJ] In the most racist incident to happen in all of 2019, look to Oak Park, Ill., trustee Susan Buchanan, who was caught on tape berating her fellow board members for being white and male.

Arguing to adopt a new equity statement for the city of Oak Park, Buchanan lost her marbles and started telling the white men on the board they have no right to an opinion.

"I don't want to hear what you have to say!" she yelled. "Why do you have an opinion on equity? You have been white from birth...why are you arguing 'what is a system of oppression?' You've never experienced one. Just stop Dan. Stop Dino. You are not oppressed...You stop it. You are a white male."

Then she turned to a non-white male of Middle Eastern descent, Mayor Anan Abu-Taleb and said, "Your skin is white enough." Luckily for all of us, white woman Susan Buchanan is qualified, somehow, to decide whose skin color is light enough to make their opinions void.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/16/2019 02:53 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Now if this were fiction, they'd had an African-American cop arrest her for public disturbance, an Indian-American shrink classify her as crazy, and Hispanic-American nurses take care of her in the loony-bin.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2019 5:06 Comments || Top||

#2  #1 Don't forget her wise and witty (and sassy!) gay friend.
Posted by: charger || 10/16/2019 8:53 Comments || Top||

#3  I guess Susan Buchanan can have an opinion since she is white Stockholm Syndrome victim or a commie tnuc. One or the other.
Posted by: Victor Emmanuel Flusoling2728 || 10/16/2019 11:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Susan Bitchanan received threats later, which is understandable.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 10/16/2019 13:45 Comments || Top||

#5  Sounds pretty racist.
Posted by: Hellfish || 10/16/2019 13:57 Comments || Top||

#6  Blue states are so racist.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/16/2019 13:57 Comments || Top||

#7  The proper response is to stand up and scream, "I WAS BORN A POOR BLACK CHILD!"
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 10/16/2019 20:41 Comments || Top||


Venezuelan Assemblyman: I Suggest Bernie Sanders 'Go to Venezuela Without Bodyguards' for a Week
[PJ] Jose Guerra, a member of the National Assembly legislature in Venezuela, told PJM that Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) should live in Venezuela for an extended period of time without bodyguards to see how bad the humanitarian crisis is in the country under Nicolas Maduro's dictatorship.

Guerra was asked for his opinion of politicians such as Sanders not referring to Maduro as a dictator.

"Maybe they misunderstand what is going on in Venezuela. It's a dictatorship. There's no power separation and more than 400 political prisoners that have been prosecuted like me. It's a new dictatorship," Guerra said during a recent video interview. "Those people should go to Venezuela and live in Venezuela for a couple of weeks in order to have a very good picture of what is going on in Venezuela. I suggest that they go to Venezuela."

To date, more than 50 countries support recognizing Juan Guaido, president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, as the country's president. According to a report in July, Guerra, a member of the assembly’s finance commission, "left Venezuela in June when the Supreme Court stripped him of his parliamentary immunity from prosecution. The commission is now missing five of its 12 members." The report also said "intelligence agents" in Venezuela "arrested Guaido’s assembly deputy, Edgar Zambrano, in May and he remains jailed."

Posted by: Besoeker || 10/16/2019 02:50 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'll chip in on the airfare if he takes AOC along.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/16/2019 2:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Great idea. But maybe they should become ex pats down there.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/16/2019 9:40 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm in for Batshida & Omar's airfare.
Posted by: Lex || 10/16/2019 19:10 Comments || Top||


Survey Finds More People Would Support Impeachment If They Knew What Crime Trump Was Supposed To Have Committed
[Babylon Bee] U.S.‐A new study found that support for impeaching President Trump would rise significantly if someone, anyone could just tell people what crime Trump is supposed to have committed.

Republicans and many independents are stubbornly resisting the impeachment inquiry, as though you have to have some kind of reason to impeach the president. Democrats oppose this logic, saying that impeaching a president who insists on being Trump is a constitutional duty. Many Americans are just kind of confused by the whole thing and are waiting for something more interesting to come on TV.

"Impeachment is polling pretty strong just goin' on emotion and stuff," said one pollster, "but man, if we could point to some kind of impeachable offense, the numbers would go way, way up. We're talking very strong support once there is a crime to impeach for."

"Man, if we could just find that Trump, like, secretly nuked Canada or something---that would be the smoking gun," he added wistfully.

A small minority of Americans said they would support Trump even if there ends up being a clear, blatant high crime exposed, though this demographic was almost entirely made up of televangelists and Seb Gorka.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/16/2019 02:34 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  something more interesting to come on TV.

There's going to be a [baseball. for you out-of-towners] World Series game in D.C. for the first time since 1933. Washington nationals sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in four games.
Posted by: Bobby || 10/16/2019 9:02 Comments || Top||

#2  "Man, if we could just find that Trump, like, secretly nuked Canada or something---that would be the smoking gun,"
We should be able to find a CIA whistle blower who will claim he heard about that happening...
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/16/2019 10:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Survey Finds More People Would Support Impeachment If They Knew What Crime Trump Was Supposed To Have Committed

That's kind of a problem for these lunkheads who are so keen on impeachment.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/16/2019 17:20 Comments || Top||

#4  There's going to be a [baseball. for you out-of-towners] World Series game in D.C. for the first time since 1933. Washington nationals sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in four games.

Wholloped.

Now if NY can just get eliminated could have a good World Series.

No, it isn't the team or even the fans who get me; its the announcers. They are just as bad when the Mets are in the playoffs.

It was so bad during the KC/NYM World Series, and got worse as it was increasingly apparent KC would thump NY. I had to shut off the volume when NY was up to bat. I turned it back on when KC was at the plate just to hear the sweet, sweet tears of boy crushes getting their hearts broken.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/16/2019 19:36 Comments || Top||

#5  The communists had "show trials." These were trials where the outcome was already determined. These trials were presented to the public where the accusation and verdict were both read. The trials were meant to be for propaganda purposes as well as to serve as a warning to others. Retribution for not following the party line was also a part of these show trials. What is going on with Schiff is not worthy of being a called a communist "show trial" as it is all being done in secret. It is antithetical to American values, basic rights and due process. Most people, when asked, wonder what crime was committed.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/16/2019 22:34 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
JUI-F’s existential crisis
[DAWN] MAULANA Fazlur Rehman
...Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty...
’s Azadi march has ruffled many a feather in recent days. From the accounts of rifts within the PML-N to the PPP’s confusion to predictions about Imran Khan
...aka The Great Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer...
’s uncertain future, no political player has been left untouched.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 10/16/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Pres. Trump Wants to End the "Stupid Wars"?
[Unz Review] The discussion, if one might even call it that, regarding the apparent President Donald Trump decision to withdraw at least some American soldiers from Syria has predictably developed along partisan, ideologically fueled lines. Trump has inevitably muddied the waters by engaging in his usual confusing explanations coupled with piles of invective heaped upon critics. The decision reportedly came after a telephone call with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but what exactly was agreed upon and who else might have been present in the room to report back to the intelligence community remains uncertain. Trump clearly believed that he had obtained some assurances regarding limits to any proposed Turkish military action from Erdogan, who almost immediately launched air attacks followed by ground troop incursions against the former U.S. supported Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

It should be observed that the Syrian incursion by the American military, which was initiated by President Barack Obama and his band of lady hawks during the so-called "Arab Spring" of 2011, was illegal from the gitgo. Syria did not threaten the United States, quite the contrary. Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was Washington that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which were, at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.

When American soldiers first arrived in Syria the U.S. War Powers act was ignored, making the incursion illegal. Nor was there any mandate authorizing military intervention emanating from any supra-national agency like the United Nations. The excuse for the intervention was plausibly enough to destroy ISIS, but the reality was much more complex, with U.S. forces in addition seeking to limit Iranian and Russian presence in Syria while also bringing about regime change. The objectives were from the start unattainable as Iran and Russia were supporting the Syrian Army in doing most of the hard fighting against ISIS while the regime of President Bashar al-Assad was not threatened by a so-called democratic alternative which only existed in the minds of Samantha Powers and Susan Rice.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/16/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which were, at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel

It's nice to rule the World.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2019 1:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Essentially capturing it all, Vernal Hatrick's comment late last evening on the topic 'Trump Followed His Gut on Syria. Calamity Came Fast.'

#37 I'm generally on the side of staying out in Syria. There is nobody there (including the Kurds, who are moderates only the sub-standard standards of the region) worth fighting to protect. Israel would be, should they actually need it, but they don't need anybody's protection (except maybe help from us managing idiots in the EU and the theocracy in Iran on a larger scale). The idea that a stable, developed nation will ever emerge in the region looks increasingly like a foolish notion. Turkey came closer than anybody else ever has in the Islamic world, and they've essentially blown it now.
Posted by Vernal Hatrick 2019-10-15 21:48|| 2019-10-15 21:48|| Front Page Top
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/16/2019 1:36 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Rutgers Prof ties black female obesity to Trump policies, racism
[Campus Reform] A New Jersey professor suggested on a TV program that racism and President Donald Trump’s policies are responsible for black female obesity.

Rutgers University women’s and gender studies professor Brittney Cooper made the argument during an appearance on “Black Women OWN the Conversation” on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

"I hate when people talk about Black women being obese," Cooper said on the program. "I hate it because it becomes a way to blame us for a set of conditions that we didn’t create."

"We are living in the Trump era," the professor said. "And look, those policies kill our people. You can’t get access to good health care, good insurance."
"We CAN get cheetos, though"
Cooper said that research points to black women losing less weight and at a slower rate than do white women, claiming that public health practitioners tie increased stress to a change in metabolism.

"It’s literally that the racism that you’re experiencing and the struggle to make ends meet actually means the diet don’t [sic] work for you the same," she adds.

Campus Reform followed up with Cooper about her appearance on the show and the professor suggested there was a scholarly basis for her remarks.

"I wasn’t making an argument about Trump admin policies and weight," the professor said. "Dr. Arline Geronimus’ research from the 1990s argues pretty convincingly that black women have physiological stress responses to racial stimuli and this affects our long term health. I was citing this body of work and the president’s status as a racially polarizing figure that contributes to issues of racial stress for people of color."
Brittney Cooper:
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/16/2019 06:10 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Magical how it just suddenly appeared starting in November 2016.

Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma. - Wizard of Oz
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/16/2019 7:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Rutgers University—New Brunswick's ranking in the 2020 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, #62. (Another overfunded JC.)
Posted by: Chereting Pelosi1889 || 10/16/2019 8:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Just because you have tourettes of the elbow doesn't mean it is whitie's fault.
Posted by: DarthVader || 10/16/2019 9:18 Comments || Top||

#4  This professor is the master of non-sequitur relationships. Brittany does seem to know something about black female obesity and unconnected relationships.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/16/2019 9:37 Comments || Top||

#5  She probably does have a valid element underneath her argument. Not the Trump element or even current racism, but biological selection in the past few hundred years, where black women who were metabolically-efficient survived longer and generated more and stronger babies than those who 'wasted' scarce calories.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/16/2019 10:01 Comments || Top||

#6  Stacy "Tank" Abrams body double triple
Posted by: Frank G || 10/16/2019 10:07 Comments || Top||

#7  How... professorial.

Maybe black women have just too much to eat for the amount of work they do, since Obama ?
Posted by: Dron66046 || 10/16/2019 11:01 Comments || Top||

#8  If only they had an activity, like picking cotton, that burns off all those empty calories.
Posted by: Victor Emmanuel Flusoling2728 || 10/16/2019 11:08 Comments || Top||

#9  where black women who were metabolically-efficient survived longer and generated more and stronger babies than those who 'wasted' scarce calories.

It's not genetic in Africans. In many African societies, a fat woman is a sign of beauty and a high status item. Young women nearing marriage age, who are almost always skinny, are force fed until fat w/ huge butt. It shows they have the wealth to raise a family.

Some SW American Indian tribes (Hopi and related if I remember correctly) do have genetic adaptions to famine and during times of plenty are predisposed to put on fat.
Posted by: Victor Emmanuel Flusoling2728 || 10/16/2019 11:16 Comments || Top||

#10  I can remember when fat was synonymous with "rich," affluent, comfortable, not worried about hunger or deprivation
Posted by: Lex || 10/16/2019 12:07 Comments || Top||

#11  Didn't hear anything about diet. Lower income means you tend to eat cheaper foods with more starches and high calorie counts.
Posted by: Mercutio || 10/16/2019 12:22 Comments || Top||

#12  I was raised in the Deep South in the 1970's with almost as many black woman around me as white women - and almost none of them from either group skinny. (There were of course exceptions.) Their diets were pretty similar: lots of deep friend food, sugar on anything you could ladle it onto or into, barbecue, and picnics, socials, and parties every week, especially after church. (I was raised Baptist.)

Good times. Good eating. GREAT eating, in fact! It's amazing I'm a skinny dude, even now. But, yeah, Southerners of any variety tend to be fat. It's the food combined with the lifestyle... which I don't remember being all that stressful for most people (and racially my environment was basically 60w/40b), even with the serious, overt, and even dangerous racism of the time.

Now, admittedly, I'm a white guy, and was a child in the 70's. So there were definitely bad things I didn't see, so maybe it was a lot more stressful for black people than I remember. (Again: I was a child.) But I wouldn't characterize things as generally stressful for most people based on what I recall. Just a lot of good eating and hanging out with friends and family.
Posted by: Secret Master || 10/16/2019 13:19 Comments || Top||

#13  Have another donut, you fat pig!
Posted by: Raj || 10/16/2019 13:41 Comments || Top||

#14  There's too much food! Impeach!
Posted by: Croque Spoluling6656 || 10/16/2019 14:18 Comments || Top||

#15  physiological stress responses to racial stimuli

Science is ruined.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 10/16/2019 14:34 Comments || Top||

#16  Gee, I wish some professor would tell me why I'm overweight. Fifty years ago, I was skinny (6'-0", 145 pounds skinny).

Lessee, two pounds a year, so for Carter, Clinton, and Obama - that's almost half of my fat, right there!
Posted by: Bobby || 10/16/2019 16:39 Comments || Top||


Government
Beltway Bidenspawn-Ship Has Its Privileges
[Townhall] I wrote the book on the Obama administration's "Culture of Corruption" 10 years ago, including a thick and sordid chapter on the Beltway swamp creatures of the Biden family. See-no-evil liberals scoffed at my catalogue of back-scratching, shady Delaware deals and Wall Street funny money: What nepotism? What ethical lapses? What corruption?

Now, Hunter Biden himself, the youngest son of former Vice President and Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, finally admitted this week what Daddy's pooh-poohing pals have long (publicly) denied:

"I don't think that there's a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn't Biden," Hunter confessed on ABC's "Good Morning America" Tuesday.
A truly amazing list of high-paying positions with daddy's "friends" follows
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/16/2019 02:02 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "At some point you have made stolen enough money..."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 10/16/2019 7:43 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
34[untagged]
17Sublime Porte
5Islamic State
4Moslem Colonists
3Commies
2Taliban
2Arab Spring
1Govt of Pakistain Proxies
1Govt of Pakistan
1Govt of Iraq
1Jamaat-e-Ulema Islami
1Govt of Iran
1Baloch Liberation Army
1al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2019-10-16
  Spain, Sweden, Canada, UK halting sales of military material to Ankara
Tue 2019-10-15
  Notre-Dame plot: Five women jailed over foiled car bomb attack
Mon 2019-10-14
  Trump tells Pentagon to begin withdrawing remaining troops from northern Syria
Sun 2019-10-13
  Syria now considers itself at war with Turkey!
Sat 2019-10-12
   Palestinians riot on Gaza border; 49 said wounded
Fri 2019-10-11
  Orange Man confirms bomb maker and terrorist Ibrahim al-Asiri is Tango Uniform
Thu 2019-10-10
  2 ISIS 'Beatles' transferred from Syrian prison to US military custody
Wed 2019-10-09
  Possible terror attack with automatic guns in Halle (Germany)
Tue 2019-10-08
  Turkey starts bombing Kurds
Mon 2019-10-07
  Iraqi premier rejects resignation of seven ministers, Baghdad governor steps down
Sun 2019-10-06
  91 protesters killed by Iraqi police over week of demonstrations
Sat 2019-10-05
  Masked gunmen attack TV stations reporting the protests in Iraq
Fri 2019-10-04
  At least 35 Russian mercenaries killed fighting for Haftar in Libya
Thu 2019-10-03
  Breaking: Paris knife attacker kills 4 people at police headquarters
Wed 2019-10-02
  Soleimani claims he and Nasrallah barely escaped Israeli air raid in 2006

Better than the average link...



Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
3.82.58.213
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (26)    WoT Background (15)    Non-WoT (15)    (0)    Politix (7)