Category Archives: The State

UPDATE (7/30): What-Aboutism: A Pale, Weak Defense Of Trump’s Pro-American Tactics With Putin

Argument, China, Foreign Policy, Government, Propaganda, Reason, Russia, The State

Limited government has a constitutional obligation to secure the peace by defending and protecting its constituents—not the world. Duly, and since my values are not yours and vice versa, a limited government doesn’t enforce “our values.” 

POTUS is doing just that with Mr. Putin.

Hence this Breitbart article amounts to a bit of “What Aboutism.”

In “The President’s Controversial Policy Toward Russia: The Good Guys Risk Losing If the Bad Guys Are United — Part One,” the author seems to galvanize FDR and Churchill to argue—what exactly?—that Putin is a Stalin, with whom we have to make strategic common cause?

No idea.

What Aboutism should be added to the list of logical fallacies. It is not a substantive argument to say, “Oh, lookie, FDR did it too, Churchill did it too. You like them. Why not Trump?”

The other “argument” here is that China is worse than Russia, the premise being that we should do battle with the former but not the latter. In other words, the American government, a paragon of perfection, has enemies more worthy than Russia.

It might be that Synophobia is more justified than Russophobia, but the point remains that an American president should pursue not war, but peace and prosperity, albeit through mighty strength. Those are pursued through diplomacy.

UPDATE (7/30):

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UPDATED (7/22): NEW COLUMN: Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community

Homeland Security, Intelligence, Russia, The State

THE NEW COLUMN IS “Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community.”

Peter Strzok, the disgraced and disgraceful Federal Bureau of Investigation official, is the very definition of a slimy swamp creature. Strzok twitched, grimaced and ranted his way to infamy during a joint hearing of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, on July 12.

In no way had he failed to discharge his professional unbiased obligation to the public, asserted Strzok. He had merely expressed the hope that “the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating such horrible, disgusting behavior.”

But we did not elect YOU, Mr. Strzok. We elected Mr. Trump.

Strzok is the youthful face of the venerated “Intelligence Community,” itself part of the sprawling political machine that makes up the D.C. comitatus, now writhing like a fire breathing mythical monster against President Donald Trump.

Smug, self-satisfied, cheating creature that he is, Strzok can’t take responsibility for his own misconduct, and blames … Russia for dividing America. In the largely progressive bureau, moreover, Agent Strzok is neither underling nor outlier, for that matter.

He’s an overlord, having risen “to become the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, the second-highest position in that division.”

As Ann Coulter observed, the FBI is not the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover.

Neither is the Intelligence Community Philip Haney’s IC any longer.

Haney was a heroic, soft-spoken, demure employee at the Department of Homeland Security. Agents like him are often fired if they don’t get with the program. He didn’t.

Haney’s method and the authentic intelligence he mined and developed might have stopped the likes of the San Bernardino mass murderers and many others. Instead, his higher-ups in the “Intelligence Community” made Haney and his data disappear.

Post Haney, the FBI failed to adequately screen and stop Syed Farook and blushing bride Tashfeen Malik.

A “blind bootlicking faith in spooks” is certainly unwarranted and may even be foolish.

What of odious individuals like former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and his predecessor, James Comey, now openly campaigning for the Democrats? Are these leaders outliers in the “Intelligence Community”?

As Peter Strzok might say to his paramour in a private tweet, “Who ya gonna believe, the Intelligence Community or your own lying eyes?” The Bureau in particular and the IC cabal, in general, appear to be dominated by the likes of the dull-witted Mr. Strzok.

Similarly, it’s hard to think of a more partisan operator than John O. Brennan—he ran the CIA under President Obama. True to type, he cast a vote for Communist Party USA, back in 1976, when the current Russia monomania would have been justified. Brennan has dubbed President Trump a traitor for having dared to doubt people like himself.

The very embodiment of the Surveillance State at its worst is Michael V. Hayden. Hayden has moved seamlessly from the National Security Agency and the CIA to CNN where he beats up on Trump. …

… READ THE REST. THE NEW COLUMN IS “Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community.”

UPDATE (7/22):

TUCKER:

Ann:

Paul Craig Roberts on politicos all hostile to peace:

Patrick Buchanan:

Swamp Creature Peter Strzok Struts His Stuff And Shatters What’s Left Of The FBI’s Credibility

Donald Trump, Elections, Government, Intelligence, The State

Disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok rants that he had hoped “the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating such horrible, disgusting behavior.” But WE DID NOT ELECT YOU, Mr. Strzok.

Is Strzok the face of the youthful, progressive FBI? Agent Strzok is a smirking, smug, self-satisfied, cheating swamp creature. He can’t take responsibility for his own misconduct, no wonder Strzok blames … Russia for division in America.

Bear in mind: Strzok is no lowly official; he “rose to become the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, the second-highest position in that division.”

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NEW COLUMN: Applauding The Donald’s Ongoing Creative Destruction

Constitution, Democrats, Donald Trump, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Natural Law, Republicans, The Courts, The State

“Applauding The Donald’s Ongoing Creative Destruction” is the current column, now on WND.COM.

An excerpt:

Big Media, the policy veterans and the chancelleries across Europe and Britain are constantly complaining: Donald Trump has had the temerity to defy their international order, summit—and seek peace—with their enemies, and mess with the multilateral maze they call agreements. He even declared, early in June, that the US would be far better off if it negotiated bilateral trade agreements.

Or, in Trump speak, “country-on-country agreements.”

But what does an entrenched punditocracy, a self-anointed, meritless intelligentsia (which is not very intelligent and draws its financial sustenance from the political spoils system), oleaginous politicians, slick media and big money care? They’ve all worked in tandem to advance a grand government—national and transnational—that aggrandizes its constituent elements, while diminishing those it’s supposed to serve.

These political players have built the den of iniquity Trump keeps trampling. Against these forces—NAFTA, NATO, FBI, DOJ, CIA, a whole alphabet soup of acronyms that stands for the Permanent State, national and international—is Trump, still acting as a political Samson that threatens to bring the house crashing down on its patrons.

And his latest. Trump’s judicial appointments, in particular, might just prove to be “his most enduring legacy,” lamented the liberal Economist. These certainly threaten to cement the Supreme Court’s originalist bent:

.. No president has confirmed more federal appellate judges (12) in his first year than Donald Trump. He has also seen six federal district-court judges confirmed, and one Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch. Another 47 nominees await confirmation; 102 more federal judgeships remain open for Mr. Trump to fill. With two of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices, and its one unpredictable member (Anthony Kennedy) aged 79 or older, the president [will] get to name another justice [maybe two] …

Published in June of 2016, “The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” made the case that Donald J. Trump is the quintessential post-constitutional candidate.

In the “Opening Statement” titled “Welcome To The Post-Constitutional Jungle,” oldies will recognize a nod to the Guns N’ Roses classic, “Welcome to the Jungle,” as well as to broadcaster Mark Levin’s coinage.

We inhabit what Levin has termed a post-constitutional America. The libertarian (and classical conservative) ideal—where the chains that tether us to an increasingly tyrannical national government are loosened and power is devolved once again to the smaller units of society—is a long way away.

Where the law of the jungle prevails, the options are limited: Do Americans get a benevolent authoritarian to undo the legacies of Barack Obama, George W. Bush and those who went before? Or, does the increasingly ill-defined entity called The People continue to submit to Demopublican diktats, past and present?

The quintessential post-constitutional candidate, Trump’s candidacy was for the age when the Constitution itself is unconstitutional. Like it or not, the original Constitution is a dead letter, having suffered decades of legislative, executive and judicial usurpation.

The natural- and common law traditions, once lodestars for lawmakers, have been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute. However much one shovels the muck of lawmaking aside, natural justice and the Founders’ original intent remain buried too deep to exhume.

The Constitution has become just another thing on the list of items presidential candidates check when they con constituents.

The dissembling words of many a presidential candidate notwithstanding, the toss-up in the 2016 election was, therefore, between submitting to the Democrats’ war on whites, the wealthy and Wal-Mart, or being bedeviled by mainstream Republicans’ wars on the world: Russia, China, Assad and The Ayatollahs. Or, suffering all the depredations listed and more had Candidate Clinton been victorious. …

… READ THE REST. “Applauding The Donald’s Ongoing Creative Destruction” is the current column, now on WND.COM