What The Hell Is This?

With each week, Michigan looks more and more like a flip for Trump. That's a hole in the Blue Wall. If Biden loses Michigan and Pennsylvania, he loses the election (assuming he doesn't somehow take North Carolina). The lack of Democratic attention to college students and young people might finally cost them everything. It only takes a few upset defeats like this to ruin hundreds of millions of American lives. Assuming Trump squeaks out a victory, this would be the third time in 24 years that the winner of the popular vote -always a Democrat- loses the election. The sadness, despair and anger that we have felt since Trump took over the GOP in 2015 is going to become unbearable. How does everyone feel about the Democrats having a tiny majority in the House while Trump and the Senate pack our Federal courts to strengthen GOP minority rule? Won't it be fun? And all because the elders in the Democratic party thought it wasn't worth their time to listen to the needs to young people. Seriously. Leaders like Pelosi thought that young people would be a little upset about Gaza, but they'd get over it and vote in November. As unpopular as Biden is, I think young people would rescue him in November if there wasn't an invasion of Gaza. For now anyway, it appears Biden's embrace of Netanyahu's war crimes is the red line that causes millions of young people to abstain from voting this November. Biden barely had re-election in the bag! Now I am not sure.

LOL

I don’t need to break through the Washington Post’s paywall to know just how incorrect and foolish this editorial is from the papers resident spook, David Ignatius.

The American empire is in decline. Has been for decades now. And sometime during the Trump administration, the other industrialized nations of the world finally behaved as if they knew it. Because they now know it.

Russia is down? Sure. They have made a devastating choice. But the US is not up. That is laughable.

This is an old man reaching back to the times that made him a trusted journalist for the CIA and a well-paid pundit on MSNBC (which he still is).

The Washington Post is good for two things: solid investigations of the White House, and it’s a journal of how the American Empire sees itself and the world. It is the official news outlet of the empire. Which is why this editorial also just dropped today, which argues that banning abortion would weaken the response capabilities of the US armed forces.

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LOL

Trump Can't Be Smooth And Likable Like Reagan When He Dips Into White Nationalism

When Trump goes all racist and white nationalist, he can’t make it go down easy. He can’t say it with a joke or a smile. He just rants, and can’t use coded language or dog whistles. He is a racist bullhorn.

Trump is closing out his campaign by attacking Senator Kamala Harris for her ethnicity, complexion, sex and name. Grandfather Reagan would never do this. He was so much more smooth.

Remember 1980, when Reagan opened his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town where 3 civil rights workers had been murdered by klansmen in 1964? He insisted it was merely a coincidence, and not an obvious appeal to the white racist vote in the south. After all, the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter, was from Georgia, and Reagan was counting on the southern states to get him elected. This was the same "Dutch" Reagan who incessantly spoke of a ‘welfare queen’ who drove a pink Cadillac and spent her food stamps on booze, (which is impossible because food stamps can't be used to buy alcohol). Who spoke of young, unemployed black men as "strapping young bucks" and who told Richard Nixon that African diplomats in the U.N. hadn't yet learned "how to wear shoes.”

The party of Lincoln long ago abandoned any pretense of concern for African Americans, as it pursued power by following a race based " southern strategy " Trump is just the latest, and worst, iteration of the corruption and cynicism of the Grand Old Party.

So of course this past spring, Trump chose another atrocity site to launch his campaign for reelection. It's as predictable as the sunrise. He only changed the date when enough outraged people pointed it out that his planned rally was on Juneteenth. So imagine that - a campaign launch on Juneteenth and in Tulsa. A double dose of deliberate insults and salt in our wounds that will never heal.

India And Pakistan Had a Small Undeclared War Last Year

2020 might be the year that I complete drafts and unfinished posts. Here’s one from last February.

In 1971, the last time India and Pakistan waged war, neither country possessed nuclear weapons. In that struggle, India helped East Pakistan achieve its independence and become the nation of Bangladesh. This time, the unresolved dispute is Jammu and Kashmir. This clash is genuinely terrifying because both nation's have large arsenals of atomic warheads, and the means to deliver them. 

Fuck The USA

Donald Trump is more friendly and warm with Kim than any other world leader at the G20. He doesn’t know what American freedom is. He doesn’t respect the history of the Korean war. He doesn’t respect our allies. It is time for our allies to recall their ambassadors and cut all diplomatic ties with the US. There need to be serious consequences for this betrayal. Today, Donald Trump betrayed every free person on earth. Fuck this. Fuck him. And fuck us.

Trump’s supporters love it when he breaks things, is contrarian, or causes retired generals and pundits to condemn his actions. If he bombed New York, they would praise him. They will love what he did today, but it was an attack on our freedom and an insult to every US citizen. Full stop. And frankly, fuck what they think or like. 

New CIA Chief Is A Trusted Torture Site Manager

Gina Haspel will almost surely become the next CIA chief on May 9. She managed a torture site in at least one nation. The torture employed at her black site had the usual - dark isolation, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, physical torture, psychological torture, and water boarding. 

Contrary to what Barack Oabma said, the USA never stopped its rendition and torture program. It's still with us. If we were serious about stopping it, there would have been a truth commission, investigations, reports and accountability. Of course that didn't happen, aside from one Senate report. Americans had more apps to play with one their phones and the CIA continued to orchestrate the torture of people all over the world. And now one of their torture managers will be head of the agency. 

And what did the DC elite say when she was nominated to head the agency? They said that she was just being loyal and was following orders when she ran a black site in Thailand. It's the Nuremberg Defense. 

I call this the good German defense, which was used by Adolph Eichmann when he was on trial in Jerusalem for his part in organizing the Holocaust. It was dismissed then, and should be dismissed now, and for the same reason. To argue that one may commit crimes against humanity because you were only following the orders of the legal authority in your country fails as a matter of law and a matter of morality. Such an order is illegal, always, and its immorality is self evident. 

A Revolutionary War Mass Grave In Brooklyn?

Here's another story for 2017 I didn't post until now. A Brooklyn site next to the Gowanus Canal is to be excavated. There's reason to believe it holds a Revolutionary War mass grave, dug in the aftermath of the Battle of Brooklyn.

The Battle of Brooklyn wad a bad defeat, but thanks to Mr. Glover of Marblehead Massachusetts, Washington's troops were able to make good their escape to the Jersey shore, and live to fight another day. By the way, Continental cannons were emplaced in Red Hook to strike the British fleet as it entered the harbor, but they didn't hit a thing! If they find a mass grave, the city, state and Federal governments should erect a fitting monument. 

A White House Run By Generals

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders tells the press that criticizing generals is "innapropriate."

When Trump appointed Kelly, Mattis and McMaster to high posts in the government, a chill went through me. There's a solid, history-based reason for insuring civilian control of the military. There are only a few thousand good histories of the phenomenon, available in any University library, or I suppose these days, online. We now have an ignorant president, with a childlike admiration for high ranking military figures. Far too many commentators took solace in that fact, imagining that they would bring intelligence, discipline, and common sense to an otherwise chaotic administration. There is no reason, no reason whatever, to believe that's true. Trump hiding behind generals means we're in deep trouble in this country. Those are totalitarian techniques, and I think it will get a hell of a lot worse in the next few years. 

The Most Sacred Topic In the USA

Our bloodthirsty, military-worshiping news media declares the president's swipe at his predecessors and dead soldiers as "rock bottom." Not pussy grabbing. Not "both sides." Not the white nationalists had "permits." No, rock bottom has to be his swipe at dead soldiers. That's bad. I get it. But this is not rock bottom Trump. This is not the worst he can get. This is the US news media showing its military-worshiping ideology. Worshiping military service members and even military hardware has become our official religion behind the worship of money.

The Poor Do Our Fighting

The majority of people who enlist in the US armed forces come from poor families. And after a few wars, what has emerged is a warrior caste. You ever hear how just a handful of families have ruled the Philippines for the last 600 years? Well some tens of thousands of US families have done virtually all our fighting since the Vietnam war.

Vietnam poisoned the idea of a large military draft, feeding an endless and stupid ground war, for millions of Americans. The citizens of this country are unlikely, any time soon if ever again, to tolerate the existence of a conveyor of healthy young men, fed into a war machine. The draft enabled Johnson and Nixon to pour young lives into an unwinnable and unjustifiable conflict in Southeast Asia. The lesson the political class learned from this was to establish an all volunteer force, largely removed from the great majority of the population. Now, when these wars are fought, justifying the immense defense budgets which enrich an entire industry and securing the professional opportunities of our military elite, the mass of voters hardly notice. The wars go on and on, the money and the promotions flow, and the politicians don't even have to explain to the taxpayers. Genius!!

Military Events in London Now And This Weekend (May 15-18)

We almost never post about events here, as this is a small blog with infrequent posts. But right now in London, The Honorable Artillery Company, the oldest artillery regiment in the country, is staging an event in East London. They have soldiers doing drills, a parachute drop, a chinook helicopter, and at least one howitzer.

And this weekend is something even more special. If you are in London between May 15 and 17, you can go see the surviving little ships of the Battle of Dunkirk.

Leave it to the British to convert one of the most thorough defeats ever suffered by the United Kingdom into a glorious "victory". As some readers know, the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium in 1940 was as badly mauled by the Germans as the French had been. When the soldiers got back to England, they had left all their tanks and heavy guns behind, and only the Channel, the RAF, and Royal Navy stood between Hitler and the U.K. Still, the many ordinary citizens who sailed these little ships saved many lives, and displayed undaunted courage. It would be fascinating to see them in the Thames. My annual trip to London has already happened. But you are there, go see them.