Category Archives: Politics

American Patriot Explains A Russian Patriot

Media, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Politics, Russia

No wonder the brilliant Pat Buchanan is nowhere to be seen on cable news channels imparting his considerable knowledge of history and geopolitics to American media ignoramuses. Much like Henry Kissinger’s well-informed, balanced analysis on Ukraine and Russia, smuggled into the Washington Post over the ignorant din made by the likes of Chucky Krauthammer—Buchanan understands and knows stuff. That makes those egos in the anchor’s chair look even more idiotic.

Writes Buchanan in “Is Putin the irrational one?”:

… if Putin is not a Russian imperialist out to re-establish Russian rule over non-Russian peoples, who and what is he?

In the estimation of this writer, Vladimir Putin is a blood-and-soil, altar-and-throne ethnonationalist who sees himself as Protector of Russia and looks on Russians abroad the way Israelis look upon Jews abroad, as people whose security is his legitimate concern.

Consider the world Putin saw, from his vantage point, when he took power after the Boris Yeltsin decade.

He saw a Mother Russia that had been looted by oligarchs abetted by Western crony capitalists, including Americans. He saw millions of ethnic Russians left behind, stranded, from the Baltic states to Kazakhstan.

He saw a United States that had deceived Russia with its pledge not to move NATO into Eastern Europe if the Red Army would move out, and then exploited Russia’s withdrawal to bring NATO onto her front porch.

Had the neocons gotten their way, not only the Warsaw Pact nations of Central and Eastern Europe, but five of 15 republics of the USSR, including Ukraine and Georgia, would have been brought into a NATO alliance created to contain and, if need be, fight Russia.

What benefits have we derived from having Estonia and Latvia as NATO allies that justify losing Russia as the friend and partner Ronald Reagan had made by the end of the Cold War?

We lost Russia, but got Romania as an ally? Who is irrational here? …

… If the people of Eastern Ukraine wish to formalize their historic, cultural and ethnic ties to Russia, and the people of Western Ukraine wish to sever all ties to Moscow and join the European Union, why not settle this politically, diplomatically and democratically, at a ballot box? …

MORE.

Surveillance For Thee But Not For Me

Constitution, Founding Fathers, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Politics, The State

Remember when the The Transportation Security Administrator dared to manhandle Sen. Rand Paul in the same way these goons grab our privates daily? Rand responded by telling CNN’s Erin Burnett, essentially, that the TSA folks were good people bogged down by inflexible rules. He followed up with special pleading, suggesting a system of sectional privileges and rights, based on professional need and proximity to power.

But that’s the way the system was destined to work. I know: This nerd’s lasting infatuation is with the unsung heroes of the American founding: the Anti-Federalists. And one of the Anti-Federalist essayists said that the Constitution creates a city or district in which power is concentrated. Once the elected representative (too few to represent anyone meaningfully) reached Rome on The Potomac—they would act as a cloistered, privileged ruling class, impervious to the people’s pleas.

And this has come to pass.

That phony, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), is furious that the CIA “has secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program.” Lo and behold this bitch has “discovered” the Fourth Amendment and is bemoaning its violation. “The Fourth … bars unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as various federal laws and a presidential executive order that prevents the agency from conducting domestic searches and surveillance,” Feinstein preached.

Man of the people whistleblower Edward Snowden said all there is to say. He “accused the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee of double standards on Tuesday, pointing out that her outrage at evidence her staff were spied on by the CIA was not matched by concern about widespread surveillance of ordinary citizens.”

Snowden said almost all there is to say about the premise of surveillance for thee but not for me under which Americans labor.

It is eminently reasonable to surveil politicians. Because of the special privileges and powers they are able to arrogate to themselves, they ought to be exempt from many of the so-called protections afforded to ordinary citizens.

And of course, they should be denied the vote.

UPDATED: Procedural Mishap Turns Democrat Elijah Cummings Into M.O.P.E (Most Oppressed Person Ever)

Democrats, Politics, Republicans, Taxation

It’s in the nature of politics in this country. The terrifying Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has targeted conservative non-profits and conservative individuals. Yet a procedural silliness has made Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings the focus of attention, as the M.O.P.E (Most Oppressed Person Ever) in the IRS scandal. (The IRS is a scandal.)

Long story cut short: The American President’s Woman, Lois Lerner, who was likely involved in the “agency’s improper targeting of conservative groups,” has once again refused to talk, taking “the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination nine times during the House Oversight Committee hearing,” a constitutional right that ought not be available to state officials.

Rep. Cummings of Maryland began carrying on like a crazed man when “Congressman Darrell Issa of California” “shut down the committee hearing on Wednesday when the IRS official at the center of the scandal” refused to talk.

Issa … defended his actions and told reporters after the hearing: “He was not directing questions toward the witness and the committee [had] already adjourned.”

He later told Fox News that Cummings “was simply endlessly slandering the efforts of the committee.”

Members of both parties, though, have apparently criticized Issa’s actions.

MORE mindlessness.

UPDATE: Search engines are probably biased. It is not easy to find the text of the emails released in 2013, that “show that Lois Lerner “specifically singled out applications for tax-exempt status from organizations that described themselves as right-wing ‘tea party’ groups, and ordered that the politically sensitive requests should be held in limbo until the IRS could develop a coherent policy to address them.”

The Daily Mail online has excerpted fragments of the incriminating emails, barely:

The ‘Tea Party Matter [is] very dangerous, Lerner instructed her IRS colleagues in February 2011. ‘This could be the vehicle to go to court,’ she added, on the question of whether a Supreme Court ruling about the status of political donations from corporations might also apply to nonprofit groups.
‘Counsel and Judy Kindell [Lerner’s top advisor] need to be in on this one … Cincy should probably NOT have these cases.’

MORE.

And at The Blaze.

The Two Party Dilemma: Dr. Mengele Vs. Dr. Frankenstein

Barack Obama, Bush, Democracy, Democrats, Economy, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Politics, Republicans

BY MYRON PAULI

As President’s Day approaches, I will say that I am not enamored with our current White House occupant, or with his recent predecessors. Barack Obama is a boring windbag egomaniac, mouthing a lot of leftist rhetorical garbage. However, in spite of the adulation of his supporters or the detraction of his political enemies, he is not some good or evil demigod, but rather just symbolic of the bloated corrupt corporate-socialist government.

His main opponents, Republicans (most but not all) might have one believe that on 19 January 2009, this government was a small peaceful government running a surplus and respectful of civil liberties presided over by James Monroe – until (eeek eeek) Obama the Space Alien took over. Bush and his legacies of leaving no children behind, warring in Iraq and Afghanistan, the TSA, the Patriot Act, prescription drug plans, and the bailouts – has been lost in the memory hole of amnesia. I find myself not necessarily “defending Obama,” but rather disgusted at the amnesiac hypocrisy of the Republican detractors.

So suppose that in 2016 some Republican wins – Christie, Jeb Bush, Ryan, or one of the so-called “Tea Party” Republicans. Do I expect the budget to be balanced? Do I think they will repeal previous Republican legacies like OSHA, EPA, TSA, DEA, HEW, Student Loans, Americans with Disabilities Act, Patriot Act, Leave No Child Behind, Prescription Drug Plan, and Drone Warfare? What was Reagan’s domestic legacy – repealing CETA and Nixon’s 55 mph speed limit?

Take the most important issue of world history – homosexuality…. Democrats would compel Boy Scouts to take gays and make Christians photograph and cater to gay weddings. Republicans in Virginia passed this: “This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage” – thus my will and medical directive might be invalid. Whatever happened to the right of people to create contracts? Democrats want to shove “Heather Has Two Mommies” in the school curricula while Republicans want to shove “Abstinence Education”. And where in this Kultur-Jihad is freedom of association, freedom of contract, and the authority of parents?

Another good example is health care. Democrats would have everyone compelled to pay for such wonderful medical procedures as drilling holes in developing babies, in utero, and to even require certain trained slaves called “health care providers” to partake in these procedures whether they want to or not. Republicans would have the taxpayers pay millions of dollars to resurrect a dead pregnant woman and keep her on machines for months for the 0.001% chance of creating a baby. Both parties believe they can play G-d with voters choosing between Dr. Mengele and Dr. Frankenstein.

Can we expect better in foreign policy, where our attitude towards foreign nations is either to bribe a country, bomb a country, overthrow a country, or occupy a country? Will either party stop bribing crowds to demonstrate in Kiev or dropping drones on weddings in Yemen? Republicans obsess about 4 dead in Benghazi while ignoring the hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq, forgetting the 242 marines in Beirut, and upset that American forces left Indochina after our interference in a civil war wound up with over 4 million dead.

Do we expect better for civil liberties when Republicans are upset when individual states do not want to jail dope smokers? Do we expect Republicans who shout “kill Snowden” to be any better reforming the NSA, CIA, TSA, no knock SWAT team raids, or the Patriot Act (especially with the last two being their own creations?).

Will either party eliminate agribusiness farm subsidies, ethanol mandates, quantitative easing, Sallie Mae, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, BATF, either DoE, HuD, mission to Mars, the F-35, troops in Italy, Ex-Im bank, trade ban with Cuba, DEA, Amtrak, federal student loans,…?????? Surely you jest! The irony of King Obama is that the expression that his opponents resemble the “pot calling the kettle black” is both figurative AND literal.

The rhetoric will change and the hot, putrid air will blow in the opposite direction.

******
Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.