Our oh-so-generous-with-other-people’s-taxes overlords at the TSA are giving a jail in Wright County, MO, one of their porno-scanners “to help keep contraband, like matches and lighters used to set fires” out of the cell-blocks.

The space between passengers and prisoners continues to diminish.

The ESPN incident wherein an “Asian-American” announcer was removed from calling an ESPN game because his name is Robert Lee has created much deserved blowback for the horribly leftist-ridden ESPN. From the New York Times:

The latest episode of the culture wars to wash into sports, and the news media that cover it, was prompted (unintentionally) by a broadcaster named Robert Lee. His employer, ESPN, announced Tuesday night that the name he shares with the Confederate general made him a poor choice for calling a University of Virginia football game…

…Compounding matters, Lee is Asian-American. The Asian American Journalists Association said in a statement that “it is unfortunate that someone’s name, particularly a last name that is common among Asian-Americans, can be a potential liability.”

Fortunately, ESPN is continuing to die a slow death, dragging down its parent company, Disney. Meanwhile, the memes and Photoshop’d pics continue to amuse.

Katoi was pretty much Detroit’s hottest, new restaurant when there was a fire one evening, shutting it down for a few months. As it prepared to open again, the restaurant owners came under fire (who/what *isn’t* under fire for something nowadays), and there came a tide of hate from the LGBT community with all of the vicious political agendists claiming the name “Katoi” is offensive because it apparently sounds like something that means something ‘offensive’ in some other part of the world. So the restaurant now takes the name “Takoi.” And folks keep letting these bullies win. To quote:

The name change comes after owners were approached by some in the community who felt the word “Katoi,” which comes from the Thai word “Kathoey” was an offensive term for transgender women.

Restaurant co-owner Courtney Henriette said the word means “ladyboy,” which is commonly referred to in Thailand as a transgender woman or an effeminate male.

I am told by someone who immigrated from that part of the world that the term referred to gays in the Thai community, a usage that preceded any reference to a “transgender” male. I did chuckle when I noted that the restaurant’s website still points to “katoi.“

So they went looking for any white statue, and found it. Right smack downtown, in Detroit, the hate contingent turned out to hate on a Christopher Columbus bust. I’m not so sure that the Detroit Free Press writer realized how ridiculous this sentence of his appears:

Organizers said they were unaware of any Confederate monuments in the city, so were focusing on memorials to other historical figures tied to a white supremacy mind-set.

The gist of the “protest” was that “Nazis, the Klan, and the police” are “destroying black futures.” Who are the “Nazis” and where is there a “Klan?” These people are a bunch of hostile, malleable tools who are sock puppets for the arbiters of divisiveness and proletariat usurpation. Meanwhile, just a couple of blocks away there sits a massive statue of a black fist that has smacked down (pun intended) every single challenge to its existence.

Richard Hubbard III, 25, was driving a 2011 Hyundai when he was pulled over … [in Euclid, suburban to Cleveland, Ohio, on August 12, for “roll[ing] through an intersection without stopping. A search of his vehicle revealed he was driving with a suspended license.” Sure: fine excuses, both of them, for savaging a taxpayer] … Police ordered Hubbard out of the car, instructing him to face away, so they could arrest him. Hubbard did not face away.

A video shows Hubbard on the ground while a woman yells. One of the officers is shown slamming Hubbard’s body repeatedly into the ground. The officer briefly puts his hands around the man’s neck and pushes his head into the ground a couple times.

The officer then sits over him and punches his face multiple times. The other officer pats his partner’s back… The violent struggle lasted more than three minutes…

When will we abolish the anti-Constitutional standing army known as “cops”? Meanwhile, one of the thugs who brutalized Mr. Hubbard has also abused other victims.

Before the War to Prevent Southern Independence Ulysses S. Grant and James Longstreet were best friends during their days as classmates at West Point.  Students of the war know that they both became famous generals — Grant being the commanding general of the Army of the Potomac, and Longstreet was Robert E. Lee’s right hand man, his “old war horse,” as General Lee called him. After the war the two men reestablished their friendship with President Grant appointing James Lonstreet to a job as some kind of railroad commissioner.

What few people know, however, is that Longsreet introduced his first cousin, Julia Dent, to Grant, and the two eventually married.  Before the war, Grant lived with his in-laws and was the overseer (“manager” according to the National Park Service Web site!) of the slaves on the family’s Missouri slave plantation.  As stated in this National Park Service site about the old plantation that was called White Haven, “the Dents, Grants, and an enslaved African-American workforce lived on the property.”  The slaves were not freed until they had to be after the Thirteenth Amendment became the law of the land in 1866.

How rich is it that Ulysses S. Grant’s slave plantation was called “White Haven?!”

So the man chosen by Lincoln to command the war “to end slavery” was a former slave plantation overseer.  Grant was not the first to be offered command of Lincoln’s army, however. The first man to be offered the job by Lincoln’s representative, General Winfield Scott, just before the war broke out, was U.S. Army Colonel Robert E. Lee, the officer whose troops apprehended John Brown at Harper’s Ferry.  (Lee’s wife, Mary Custis Lee, was a descendant of Martha Washington who inherited slaves who were freed by her husband in accordance with his father-in-law’s will).

Black people in the American South experienced a long period of discrimination under Jim Crow, lasting 68 years from Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) to the Civil Rights Act of 1964; or even longer if we go back to earlier Supreme Court decisions in 1873 (Slaughter-House cases) and 1876 (United States v. Cruikshank) that supported racial segregation. Government rulings, federal and state, brought about this intolerable situation.

Because of this history and experience, you might think that the leadership of the U.S. federal government as a matter of principle understand and stand against social and economic discrimination founded upon political power. You might think that politicians who routinely speak against the slightest trace of discrimination, racial and other, here at home would recognize discrimination in countries overseas, note it, speak of it and fashion their policies accordingly. This is not the case. Instead, their principles vanish and other interests of theirs take over. Ukraine is a case in point.

Ukraine has two major ethnic groups: Ukrainian (77.5%) and Russian (17.2%). The Russian community is primarily located in Crimea.

Donetsk and Luhansk are the areas where separatists have declared republics. “But whereas Crimea has an ethnic Russian majority (around 58.5%), Donetsk oblast has an ethnic Ukrainian majority (around 56.9%), with a sizable ethnic Russian minority (around 38.2%). Luhansk has a similar demographic profile — around 58% ethnic Ukrainian and 39% Russian.” (See here.)

The reasons for Crimea’s movement out of Ukraine and into the Russian Federation and for the separation of Donetsk and Luhansk from Ukraine included as one factor perceptions and fears of anti-Russian discrimination by a Kiev heavily influenced by right-wing Ukrainians. These fears were aroused especially after the coup in 2014. Viktor Yanukovych, the President who was chased from office, was from Donetsk oblast. Prior to that, “During the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko (2005–2010) anti-Russian statements became common in the media, in particular, aired by right-wing politicians.” “The right-wing political party ‘Svoboda’,[64][65][69] has invoked radical Russophobic rhetoric[70] (see poster) and has electoral support enough to garner majority support in local councils.”

There has been a longstanding political divide, described in this 2007 article in The Christian Science Monitor: “…the two sides remain separated by language, religious traditions, societal histories, and geopolitical preferences.”

The division is along geographical lines: “In the three eastern provinces, also containing a quarter of the electorate, people are eight times more likely to vote for the ‘Blue’ Party of Regions, headed by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, which wants to make Russian the second official language, forge closer economic ties with Russia and stay out of NATO.”

Because of his race, his party and his rhetoric, you might think that Obama would have been sensitive to these divisions and to the fears of discrimination aroused by Ukraine’s revolution; but he was not. His policy was to bring about and encourage the revolution. He ignored the divisions within Ukraine. He fully adhered to the aspiration of the neocons to push against Russia as far and as much as possible in order to make the U.S. the dominant world superpower. That meant intervening in Ukraine to expand the empire. After Crimea and Donbass responded to the revolution, Obama not only ignored the meaning of these responses, seeing no parallels to the American history of suppression of its black population, but also he demanded that Ukraine retain control over these regions. He even blamed Russian expansionism for the result that he had catalyzed and he imposed sanctions on Russia.

The empire is an engulfing and deeply embedded factor in U.S. foreign policy. It’s embedded in the institutions, personnel and culture of the U.S. government. It negates appeal to such principles as self-determination, freedom of association and non-discrimination if it so happens that these obstruct its expansion. The principle of the empire’s dominance sweeps away classical liberal and libertarian principles that are in its path if they obstruct its motion. Those in office become blinded by the false rationalizations of empire and power. The moral principles that they articulate when it suits their purposes fall by the wayside as they appeal to such ideas as national security or sanctity of state boundaries.

Katoi was pretty much Detroit’s hottest, new restaurant when there was a fire one evening, shutting it down for a few months. As it prepared to open again, the restaurant owners came under fire (who/what *isn’t* under fire for something nowadays) and there came a tide of hate from the LGBT community with all of the vicious political agendists claiming the name “Katoi” is offensive because it sounds like something that means something ‘offensive’ in some other part of the world. So the restaurant now takes the name “Takoi.” And folks keep letting these bullies win. To quote:

The name change comes after owners were approached by some in the community who felt the word “Katoi,” which comes from the Thai word “Kathoey” was an offensive term for transgender women.

Restaurant co-owner Courtney Henriette said the word means “ladyboy,” which is commonly referred to in Thailand as a transgender woman or an effeminate male.

. . . is “propaganda” and “race baiting,” explains Rev. Chuck Baldwin in his “Defense of Lee and Jackson.”

Mattis is in Ukraine expressing his support for supplying Ukraine with advanced weapons. Trump will decide this. In the article’s photo, Poroshenko is all smiles.

Mattis’s comments on this issue are all wrong. He doesn’t think this is an escalation, but of course it’s an escalation. He doesn’t forecast what Russia might do in response, but he should. He doesn’t understand that in the event of renewed hostilities (they’ve actually never fully stopped), Russia will escalate in support of Donbass and Crimea. He doesn’t mention that this is a threat to Russian territory in Crimea, but it is. Mattis doesn’t think this facilitates more intensive and aggressive war-making by Ukraine, but it certainly does because they will think they have an edge and that they have American weaponry and support at their backs. Mattis views the Donbass (and the Crimean?) political breakaway movements as things that Ukraine has a right to suppress, but they are not. They are not insurgencies designed to replace the government in Kiev. They are secessionary in nature.

Why should an American Defense Secretary be in Ukraine supporting its government anyway? It’s not only that Ukraine is a black hole politically and economically, but also that it is a distant land far removed from the security of America. And security of Americans is the only conceivable constitutional justification for getting involved there.

Involvement of the U.S. with Ukraine, through the coup, has already had unintended bad consequences, namely, it resulted in Obama placing sanctions on Russia and creating a long-term bone of contention over Crimea. It has separated Russia from the U.S. It has undercut their cooperation. It has led to more intense demonization of Putin. It has solidified the anti-Russia contingent in America and within its government. It has led to a more dangerous world. Now, Mattis wants further involvement. He’s wrong. He’s advocating more of the same stupid policy of U.S. allying itself with Kiev.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently tweeted a picture of a cute little baby in an ACLU “onesie” that said “Free Speech” on the front while holding an American flag.  This is the future that ACLU members want, said the ACLU.  But it is NOT the future the Lunatic Left in America wants.

The Lunatic Left went nuts all over cyberspace, accusing the ACLU of promoting “white supremacy” since the baby was white.  The ACLU then groveled and apologized to the civil liberties-hating Leftists.

Secretary of State Tillerson has made it clear that the U.S. is in Afghanistan to deny victory to the Taliban even if the U.S. isn’t victorious. In other words, the U.S. policy is to buy time by indefinite stalemate. The hope behind this policy is that the U.S. can negotiate a face-saving exit from Afghanistan.

The U.S. wants Kabul, the Taliban and Islamabad to come to terms politically and stop fighting. The Taliban won’t do this if they can continue to gain ground using current tactics and if Islamabad supports them. They’ll do it but only as a temporary measure if they think that under cover of peace they can gain ground and eventually take over, as North Vietnam took over South Vietnam 2 years after concluding an agreement with the U.S. The Taliban have a strong home court advantage.

Trump said he’s out to kill terrorists, not nation-build. That’s an admission of failure because the U.S. cannot defeat the Taliban without the partnership of a strong Afghan state on the ground in Afghanistan that has effective and substantial armed forces. These essential conditions do not exist. That is to say, the U.S. can’t defeat the Taliban at any reasonable cost. Sending in huge forces is out of the question. Bombing the whole country into oblivion is likewise out of the question.

The Taliban will continue to build their own nation-state in this vacuum, that is, in the face of the weak and corrupt Afghan government. They will chip away at Afghan and U.S. pockets of strength. The U.S. has failed at building a viable Afghan state. This was a foreseeable blunder, repeated in Iraq and Libya. Vietnam was an earlier dramatic example that the U.S. cannot build states as a general rule and under most conditions. Haiti has been a longstanding example of this. When a country is completely flat on its back and when it has a homogeneous society and when it has a prior tradition of a strong state, then it’s possible that a new nation-state can emerge on terms heavily-influenced by the U.S. Japan and West Germany show this. But under other conditions, such as non-homogeneous societies that have been held together by strongmen rulers, such is not the case. In the case of Afghanistan, the prior tradition of a strong state has been absent and there are tribal divisions. These have spelled the failure of the U.S. to build a nation-state.

Trump now says that the U.S. doesn’t aim to nation-build in Afghanistan. This is a welcome statement, but he cannot by himself change the empire’s course, even if he wanted to. Not only is he surrounded by advocates of empire, but also he doesn’t have a clear aim of accomplishing the goal of downsizing the empire. Parts of the U.S. government still harbor frustrated desires of nation-building. Nation-building is strongly embedded in the U.S. military structure and doctrine. That now shows up in the U.S. training of military forces in many countries in Africa. This doctrine is part and parcel of the larger political ambitions of the U.S. government. The military forward strategy is an arm of the embracing octopus of empire along side of programs of “aid”, treaties of defense, arms sales, bank loans, trade agreements and sanctions.

You may remember a passenger and runner of marathons named Roger Vanderklok: the TSA “detained” him in 2013 because of “a heart-monitoring watch” in his luggage. While questioning Mr. K, the thugs’ supervisor waxed “confrontational,” whereupon his victim asked to file a complaint. In the finest tradition of a police-state, the supervisor “retaliated” by calling the cops on Mr. K—and, for good measure, lied about him, too, claiming Mr. K threatened to bomb his flight. That bought the professional, never-before-arrested Mr. K a night in the hoosegow.

When the case went to court, the supervisor’s allegations didn’t match the surveillance tapes, so the judge dismissed the charges. Mr. K then sued the TSA, as well he should. And now we have the decision on his attempt to protect the rest of us from these corrupt bullies. As US News and World Report summarizes it, “U.S. Appeals Court Rules for TSA Screener Who Had Run-In With Flier.”

No surprise there. I can’t recall a single case in which Amerika’s pathetic excuse for a judiciary has ever favored “fliers,” justice, or even decency. But the judges’ excuse is more than the usual slap in the face to us serfs: “The Third Circuit said for the first time Tuesday that Transportation Security Administration airport screeners cannot be sued for allegedly retaliating against travelers who exercise free speech” because their “role in public safety is ‘so significant’ [oh, you betcha: 95% failure rate in finding contraband] that the judiciary should not create a remedy involving TSA agents who may violate the constitutional rights of passengers.”

There you have it, folks: a bald admission from Our Rulers that their damnable War on Terror trumps all our “constitutional rights,” even that of “free speech.”

I’ve seen atrocity upon atrocity while covering the TSA. But this time, I’m speechless.

Lincoln and the U.S. Congress publicly declared that their invasion of the southern states was not about slavery but “saving the union.”  The Northern-controlled House and Senate had also passed a proposed constitutional amendment (the Corwin Amendment) in March of 1861 that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with slavery.  Lincoln endorsed this amendment in his first inaugural address, saying that he had no opposition to making the protection of slavery “express and irrevocable” (his exact words) in the text of the Constitution.

So if the North was unequivocally not fighting to end slavery, how could it be that the South went to war only to protect slavery, asks Paul Craig Roberts.

Lew’s blog today on debunking CO2 global warming by using medieval data is important. I’ve found an article written by one of the co-authors of that scientific article. This article is quite readable, but that will depend on the training of the readers. Their entire paper is free here.

The artificial neural networks (ANN) method they use is a form of sophisticated curve-fitting and extrapolation. They “forecast what temperatures would have been in the absence of human-emission of carbon dioxide – for the last hundred years.”

“We figured that if we could apply the latest data mining techniques to mimic natural cycles of warming and cooling – specifically to forecast twentieth century temperatures in the absence of an industrial revolution – then the difference between the temperature profile forecast by the models, and actual temperatures would give an estimation of the human-contribution from industrialisation.”

“The average divergence between the proxy temperature record from this Northern Hemisphere composite, and the ANN projection for this period 1880 to 2000, is just 0.09 degree Celsius. This suggests that even if there had been no industrial revolution and burning of fossil fuels, there would have still been some warming through the twentieth century – to at least 1980.”

The blue line is an actual temperature series. The orange dotted line is what the ANN forecasted. Greater variation in actual data versus forecasted data is typical of forecasts.

What the song said, writes Vinnie.

and…how to:

Syria is on the verge of defeating ISIS. The final big battle is about to occur at Deir Ezzor. The Syrian forces have been greatly aided by Russian air forces. Russia has a large interest in defeating ISIS because it has experienced so many terrorist attacks on its soil.

Why is Russia succeeding in Syria after only 2 years with limited forces while the U.S. has failed in Afghanistan after 16 years and trillions of dollars?

Syria had its own conventional armed forces to fight ISIS on the ground. They have fought loyally for the government. The population was against ISIS. Syria invited Russia to help. They worked together. They used the right military strategies to defeat ISIS.

The U.S. quickly defeated the Taliban government of Afghanistan in 2001. However, the Taliban under Mullah Omar began an insurgency. The new government of Afghanistan didn’t have armed forces that could defeat the insurgency. The insurgency found support from important elements within Afghanistan and in Pakistan. The corrupt government didn’t command the loyalty of all Afghans. The U.S. forces in Afghanistan didn’t have a good Afghan armed force to work with. The U.S. counter-insurgency strategy (COIN) failed.

The U.S. applications of COIN are proven failures. This has been known since Vietnam. If a country doesn’t already have a strong government and strong armed forces, COIN fails against insurgencies. The U.S. cannot simultaneously build up a nation-state and fight an insurgency, even if it commits 500,000 ground forces and drops more bombs than in World War II. When we have experienced soldiers telling us “This needs to be a 50- to 100-year campaign. It requires persistence and presence. Colombia should be a model, not Iraq”, we know that COIN is a loser.

Bush and Obama made the same strategic mistakes again and again that Johnson and Nixon made in Southeast Asia. Trump is now repeating these mistakes. To name a few:

1. They think that the U.S. has interests in these distant lands important enough to require American armed forces and warfare. This is false.
2. They think that they can secure these interests by military means. This is false.
3. They think that the potential benefits are worth the costs. They aren’t.
4. They listen to over-optimistic top brass military and political advisors. They shouldn’t.
5. They listen to war hawks in Congress and intelligence agencies. They shouldn’t.
6. They fail to gather independent information. They fail to listen to lower-level military figures who have experiences with failed COIN strategies. They should.
7. They personally don’t want to preside over defeat or be blamed for defeat. This is an institutional defect built into any system of power that attracts ambitious men and women who want fame.
8. They personally do not bear, experience or even feel the increased misery of both their own and foreign peoples brought about by their decisions to make war. This is a human characteristic shared by all human beings, but it becomes a huge negative when its consequences are amplified by placing huge power into the hands of a very few.

The American people attempted to install a president who would exit Afghanistan. They failed. The system has thwarted them. Trump, a man who explicitly and repeatedly spoke up for withdrawal, has changed his mind. Presidents do this all the time. They often get away with it and get re-elected. There is a deep and continuing evil in a system of government in which the sound instincts of both a people and their president are perverted.

Get out. Stay out. Don’t go back. No matter what.

Now I think I was careful enough to make sure this is not satire. It is not. An Asian-American announcer named Robert Lee was removed from announcing a University of Virginia game. Once again, ESPN offends most of its customer base so they do not offend anyone else. Die quickly, ESPN.

The network’s full statement: “We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name. In that moment it felt right to all parties. It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play-by-play for a football game has become an issue.”

Not doing so well, especially the ones who were sexually assaulted in the military.

In July, the Democrat National Committee raised $3.8 million, a paltry sum when compared with the RNC’s staggering $10.2 million.

But the Left’s smart money isn’t going to the decrepit DNC. It’s going to the super-rich SPLC – the fomenter-of-hate group – with George Clooney and Apple raising millions in tax-deductible “donations” for the radical socialist group that opposes Catholic, pro-family, and pro-life groups as well as free-market and anti-terrorist advocates.

Curiously, SPLC shares the KKK’s pro-abortion, anti-Catholic hatred, but that doesn’t matter. Because asking about that is a forbidden question.

After the eclipse, access to major roadways should have been priced according to highway capacity and demand:

[W]ere there market-based, controlled access to the major roadways, access in the first hour after the eclipse could have been priced very high, and would therefore have limited access to those who really wanted to leave as soon as possible. It may even be that a toll of, say, fifty dollars may have been sufficient to convince many thousands of travelers to wait an hour or two before departing. Rather than spend fifty dollars, many might have elected to simply play card games for an hour, visit local shopping areas, or have a meal in town. (In Scottsbluff, Nebraska, where I took in the eclipse, restaurants and shops were hardly overflowing with people.)

An hour after the eclipse ended, the highways could then have been opened up to travelers willing to pay, say, thirty dollars to get on highways. At this point, more travelers would be willing to pay the toll, and would have departed at that time.

 

As it actually played out, many travelers simply rushed to crowd onto the highways in the hopes of “beating the traffic” since access was equally “free” for everyone, and distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Except what we ended up with was far worse than a “first-come, first-served” situation since access to the highways wasn’t closed once the highways were at full capacity. The highways remained upon even after reaching capacity, meaning that, in many areas, traffic came to a complete standstill.

Risk premiums determined in an unhampered market align the interests of savers and investors. When central banks interfere with this, trouble results. Thorsten Polleit explains:

Central banks have thus not only artificially reduced interest rates by lowering credit costs, they have also artificially reduced risk premiums by (explicitly or implicitly) signaling to the financial markets that they are prepared to basically ‘do whatever it takes’ to prevent another meltdown as witnessed in 2008/2009. The consequence is that financial markets and economies depend on central bank action more than ever before.

There is no easy way out of this situation. If interest rates go up — be it through rate hikes or the elimination of the ‘safety net’ — the current recovery will most likely come to a halt, if it does not turn into a bust straight away: With higher interest rates, the economic structure, built on artificially low interest rates, would run into serious trouble. The idea of central banks ‘normalizing’ interest rates without output losses or even a recession appears illusionary at best.

From a friend:

“Most of our forces in Afghanistan reside on bases totally supplied with generated electricity. It costs $40 per gallon for US taxpayers to provide diesel fuel necessary to power our military installations. In order to maintain volunteer military stationed in Middle East, US provides food to troops such as prime rib, lobster, etc.  For breakfast there was always buffet much like a fine US restaurant – omelets made to order, huge selections of pastries, meats, fruits. Costs $2,000,000.00 annually to deploy 1 service member overseas. Absolute insanity.”

Insanity? Think again. Yes, ten (lowball) to thirty (more likely) percent of total war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan went directly into the hands of the corrupt – Chalabis, Najibullah, et al.

But untold billions more went to “legal” contracts that have fattened the Deep State to the point that seven of the nation’s ten richest counties are those that surround Washington DC.

Insanity? Or Crazy like a pack of very successful parasites?

UPDATE: Afghanistan has vast mineral reserves, including lithium, “a soft metal used to make the lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries essential for powering desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. And increasingly, electric cars like Tesla’s. …

“In Silicon Valley and beyond, tech companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Sony, and Tesla rely on continual, and uninterrupted, access to lithium, as lithium-based batteries are the primary power storage devices in their mobile hardware.

“Without these batteries, MacBooks, iPads, iPhones, Kindles, Nooks, Galaxy IIIs, Chromebooks, and, yes, Tesla Model S cars would be largely worthless. If forced to use older, nonlithium batteries, their battery lives would certainly be much shorter.”

And don’t forget the corruption. Iraq and Afghanistan rank 166th and 169th (out of 179 countries) – ranking them among the Dirtiest Dozen corrupt countries in the world. Where could you find a better place where both war profiteers and international corporate plunder elites could prosper – all in the name of democracy and fighting terrorism!

The generals running the country’s Deep State undoubtedly threatened Trump: Oppose us – fulfill your promises – and we’ll ruin you. Your deplorables have no power, and right now it’s power, not votes, that runs this country and the world. You’ll be branded as the president who “lost Afghanistan” and “betrayed the free world.”

(Average Pashtuns, who sodomize little boys as a way of life, will take little notice. Life will go on, as it has since Alexander the Great.)

Having the feds impose nationwide reciprocity of gun licensing might sound like a good idea. But it really is just a scheme to federalize gun policy:

The Constitutional arguments are all well and good, but the US Constitution should never be viewed as the final word on any matter. The current constitution has always gone much too far in terms of centralizing political power in the United States, and the United States should never have been anything more than a loose military alliance and customs union. It’s no more necessary that the federal government regulate gun laws than it is necessary to define marriage or prohibit prayer at school sporting events.

In fact, gun policy, like abortion policy, wage policy, land-use policy, and everything else, should be relentlessly decentralized.

Ironic how many of those insisting that we “preserve history” do their best to erase from the record their fervid support of Bush’s disastrous invasion and occupation and destruction of Iraq and the elimination of the majority of the Christians there and in the rest of the Middle East.

Here’s video of modern-day New England “Yankees” in Boston at that anti-free speech riot.  The foul-mouthed, violent, rampaging rioters who threw bottles filled with urine at the police are the people who Trump PRAISED two days later, reportedly on the advice of Jared and Ivanka, the new co-presidents (who would have supported Hillary Clinton had Trump not run for the office).  In the video a young man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat with an American flag draped over his back says “I support President Donald J. Trump,” after which hundreds of people screamed at him “F _ _ k You!” “You have no right to be here!”  And much worse.  Trump publicly praised the foul-mouthed, anti-free speech punks who assaulted his few brave supporters who attempted to speak up in favor of free speech (unsuccessfully, thanks to the Boston police, who Trump also praised lavishly).

To reward him for being a good little kept swamp puppy, Raul Ryan held a “town hall” meeting in which he described Trump’s praise for the rioting Hitler Youth of Boston as “perfect.”