Sock It To Ghoul G. Bush, Mr. Trump, And Keep Going

Bush, Neoconservatism, Pseudo-history, Republicans, Terrorism

Donald Trump has done it again. As part of his mission of mercy to us true freedom lovers, he has begun chipping away at the sacred cow of the pseudo-right: George W. Bush, the man who:

* intervened with the World Court against his own state of Texas, on behalf of José Medellín, rapist and murderer of Texan girls.
* kept the borders wide open for future Medellíns.
* spent the most money since Lyndon B. Johnson.
* supported the prosecution by U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of patriotic Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.
* cowed a cowardly Congress into authorizing war against Iraq, the repercussions of which are with us today.
* extended credit to the un-creditworthy to give us the subprime fiasco, also known at the Wall Street Journal as “The Bush Ownership Society” (much loved by editor Stephen Moore).
* gave banksters our money (or inflated the money supply to bail out the banksters).

On and on.

So when Mr. Trump refused to play footsie, Friday, and “suggested that former President George W. Bush had failed to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,” he was right!

In an interview with Bloomberg, Mr. Trump was asked how he would demonstrate compassion during a crisis such as a hurricane or attacks on the World Trade Center. Saying that he has more heart and is more competent than the leaders who dealt with those tragedies, Mr. Trump then criticized the former president.

“When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time,” Mr. Trump said.

Blaming 9/11 on Mr. Bush is taboo for Republicans and has largely been off-limits for Democrats. Pressed on whether he really meant to blame the attacks on Mr. Bush, the billionaire developer did not back down.

“He was president, O.K.?,” Mr. Trump said. “The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”

Donald Trump has begun a process that is absolutely vital to freedom lovers: challenging everything about the regimes that have gone before. It is a positive process in as much as it threatens to unsettle an ossified, corrupt, hermetically sealed political spoils system.

Mr. Trump, do not back down, do not waver. George Bush was, first and foremost, and enemy of his own people. The fact that he sent soldiers to die for naught, and now goes on bike rides with limbless, clueless soldiers, who crave a pat on the back from TCIC: this makes Genghis Bush even more of a ghoul (“Iraq Liars & Deniers: We Knew Then What We Know Now”).

UPDATED: Burn-The-Wealth Bernie & His Partial Enslavement System

Democracy, Hillary Clinton, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Socialism

“Burn-The-Wealth Bernie & His Partial Enslavement System” is the current column, now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine. An excerpt:

“The top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country own almost 90 percent … as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent,” roared the independent senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, at the first Democratic primary debate of 2015, in Las Vegas.

Standing for president, Sanders implies, somehow, that there exists in nature a delimited income pie from which a disproportionate amount of wealth is handed over to, or seized, by a class of evil doers: “the rich.”

Clueless Sanders omits the process by which that wealth magically materializes.

Wealth doesn’t exist pristine in nature, until individuals—deserving as much, if not more, of the pope’s love as the poor—apply their smarts, labor and savings to transform raw materials into marketable things that satisfy human desire and need.

But not if one listens to the socialist from Vermont as, sadly, too many Americans did.

You ask, why was it not just as discouraging when even more Americans tuned in to watch the first and second Republican Primary Debates, 24 and 23 million respectively?

For this reason: While Republicans are never to be equated with freedom, smaller government, or anything remotely libertarian; the voting public equates a vote for a Republican with a vote for less government and more freedom from the state.

Therefore, an interest in and a support for a Democrat is often a reliable proxy for the measure of statism in the land.

Over fifteen million viewers tuned in to watch two washed-out, walking clichés of the hard left (Hillary Clinton and Mr. Sanders) join two other political phantoms no one had heard of before (Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chafee), to malign and bring down their betters: the “highly productive and provident one percent that provides the standard of living of a largely ignorant and ungrateful ninety-nine percent,” in the words of professor George Reisman, author of the seminal “Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics.”

Countering Sanders’ pie-in-the-sky economics, Reisman notes that, “The wealth of the 1 percent is the overwhelming source of the supply of goods that people buy and of the demand for labor that people sell.” The wealth of the rich is not to be found in a huge pile of goods from which only capitalists benefit, but in the means of production that benefit us all. …

Read the rest.“Burn-The-Wealth Bernie & His Partial Enslavement System” is the current column, now on The Unz Review.

UPDATED (1/5/2016): Bernie Sanders ‘thinks’ that at heart, ISIS terrorists are really farmers who’ve been frustrated by climate change.

UPDATE II (2/7): https://twitter.com/IlanaMercer/status/693978051172958209

Open-Ended Stay In Afghanistan For Da Legacy

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, War

The latest in a series of similar decisions taken by Barack Obama, as to US presence in Afghanistan, is to “effectively leave the decision of when to end America’s 14-year military involvement to his successor.”

What’s at stake this time around? The same as last time: The lives of some of the finest men this country has to offer; the prospect of being killed and crippled for naught. That last line was penned here on 12.02.09

VIA TIME:

President Obama announced Thursday a significant slowdown in the pace of withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, scrapping his aim of leaving only a small U.S embassy-based force in the country when he steps down from office in 2017 …
As the Taliban insurgency in the country shows signs of renewed strength, Obama said the current contingent of 9,800 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan through most of 2016. Their focus will be counter-terrorism and training Afghan forces. “Their mission will not change,” Obama stressed, following the ending of U.S. combat operations in 2014.

But instead of withdrawing by the end of 2016 all but a residual force to be stationed at the heavily-fortified US embassy in Kabul, Obama said 5,500 American troops will remain in the country at four locations around Afghanistan.

Calling the decision “the right thing to do,” Obama said that while Afghan government forces had stepped up and fought for their country, they were not “as strong as they need to be.”

“In key areas of the country, the security situation is still very fragile and in some places there’s risk of deterioration,” he said.

The President’s reversal reflects an increasingly troubling reality: 14 years after they were displaced by the U.S.-led invasion of the country, Taliban insurgents are staging a violent comeback. Meanwhile, against the backdrop of a much-reduced foreign troop cover—the current U.S. presence, for example, is down from a high of over 100,000 in 2011—there is little sign that Afghan forces are strong enough to defend the country from the insurgency. …

MUCH MORE edifying than the non-news media’s pandering is Barely A Blog’s Afghanistan archive:

“The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn’t Care If You Read” (2012)

“Obama’s Address on the War in Afghanistan” (2009)

Wolf Blitzer Goes Berserk Over Armed Israeli Civilians

GUNS, Individual Rights, Israel

An interview about the unrest in Israel quickly devolved into a protest by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer at the encouragement of legal guns on Israeli streets. Blitzer went berserk, today, as Israeli Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld expressed enthusiasm for the actions taken by the Israeli Public Service Minister, in approving steps that would make it easier for Israeli civilians to obtain gun permits.

Apparently, the Israeli authorities are keen on galvanizing an armed citizenry to help in its own defense.

I paraphrase what this nice young man said:

“Absolutely, there is no problem with that issue whatsoever.” The more the better. Let’s not forget that a week ago a Palestinian woman stabbed an Israeli man in the back of his neck in the Old City. He promptly pulled out his pistol and almost dispatched the cow.

It is effective. Every Israeli has gone through years of IDF training. People who have pistols and permits should walk around the streets with their weapons. There is no problem with that; it’s an important step in the public safety equation.

[SNIP]

Doing what’ll benefit your people? What’s next? Protecting your borders? Oh, Israel already does that.

Watch: