Perp Walk U.S. Central Command Leadership

Foreign Policy, Government, Law, Middle East, Military

Imagine a large private company that invests half a billion dollars in a training program for a large workforce only to find that the program has failed, and that only 4-5 of those that underwent the training are kind of prepared to do the job they were trained to do. Imagine, further, that the company’s CEO decides not to scrap the program and fire those that dreamt it up—but, rather, to retain the program and merely shift its focus.

The creditors or the shareholders would have a field day in the courts (is it a derivative action that shareholders bring to “redress harm to the corporation caused by management?”) There might even be a perp walk or two.

Via RT:

The US State Department did not have a straight answer for RT’s correspondent when asked about why the program to train and equip ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels had failed, or why it believes the new version that is said to solely equip the rebels would work.

The State Department said the US has dropped the training program and decided to focus on just the equipping part of the plan.

“There is a pause being put in place, while we focus more on the equipping side of those groups that are in Syria now and have proven competent against ISIL [Islamic State, ISIS/ISIL],” State Department spokesperson John Kirby told RT’s Gayane Chichakyan at a Friday briefing. …

MORE.

These sort of scandals are an every day occurrence. And nothing is done. No one pays. China is known to execute officials for lesser embezzlement.

The US government and military, in this case I think Central Command is responsible, is terribly corrupt. It never has to account for ongoing embezzlement and it makes no pretense about having a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers.

Conservatives for Abolishing the Fact of Evil

Conservatism, Ethics, Media, Morality, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry, Reason

“Conservatives For Abolishing The Fact Of Evil” is the current column, now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine. An excerpt:

The public personas who pass as conservatives are NOT system builders. We know them as conservatives not by their well thought-out, philosophically consistent thinking; but because they’ve staked out certain positions on The Issues, over time.

“Gun violence” is the term used by conservatives with this messy habit of mind. A careful thinker would allude to “goon violence.”

“For guns are not the root cause of man’s evil actions. Neither are the multiplying categories of manufactured illness in the psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Evil is integral to the human condition, always has been, always will be. Evil can’t be wished away, treated away, medicated away or legislated away. It is here to stay.”

In cahoots with their left-liberal partners in crime, conservative jurists, journalists, politicians and pundits now routinely debase this moral vocabulary. “Gun violence,” they all jabber, is caused by mental illness.

Their cure for goon violence: Bring in the big therapeutic guns to do the diagnosing. With state imprimatur, the witch doctors will lay the “scientific” cornerstone for walling-in society’s oddballs.

Democrats concur: If someone does something awfully wicked, he must have an illness as real as cancer or Alzheimer’s.

Still, progressives are pioneers in abolishing the fact of evil and replacing it with a diagnosis amenable to state intervention. Did not Joseph Stalin replace the wisdom of the ages with a scientific system that deployed the therapeutic idiom to murder and imprison dissenters? Yes he did.

But while they dare not cop to it openly, a secondary goal exclusive to progressives is to destroy the very idea of a self-reliant citizenry. …

… Read the rest on The Unz Review.

It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp: A Break In The Hustle And Flow Of Political Pimping

Constitution, Democracy, Iraq, Politics, Republicans

The series of eruptions begun when Donald Trump appeared on the scene to send The System’s sycophants scattering continued in the people’s House, today. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a shoo-in for the position of speaker and status quo enforcer, is gone. McCarthy will not be vying to be speaker of the House.

Like others among the mummified media, CNN’s Dana Bash confessed to being flabbergasted. You see, Bash is used to the hustle and flow of political pimping. Yeah, it’s hard out here for a pimp.

Last night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow spun a riveting yarn. It all began with a good GOPer named Walter Jones (R). A really good GOPer, as Rachel is wont to say. North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones (R) is in the humble habit of signing off as “Walter.” But that’s not why “Walter” is a really good guy. “Walter” has also repented, as a moral man would, after voting to invade Iraq:

“I did not do what I should have done to read and find out whether Bush was telling us the truth about Saddam being responsible for 9/11 and having weapons of mass destruction,” Jones said during an interview on The Tyler Cralle Show.
“Because I did not do my job then,” Jones continued, “I helped kill 4,000 Americans, and I will go to my grave regretting that.”

Other Republicans should repent too! Said Saint Augustine: “The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.”

The latest good deed by “Walter” is to force the events aforementioned. Jones,

sent a letter to the No. 4 House Republican saying any candidate for leadership who has committed any “misdeeds” since joining Congress should “withdraw” from the contest.

Jones, a 20-year veteran of Washington, is referring to marital infidelity, and made reference to former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), who stepped down due to an affair before he was slated to become speaker, and Newt Gingrich.

“With all the voter distrust of Washington felt around the country, I am asking that any candidate for Speaker of the House, majority leader, and majority whip withdraw himself from the leadership election if there are any misdeeds he has committed since joining Congress that will embarrass himself, the Republican Conference and the House of Representatives if they become public,” Jones wrote in a letter to Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.).

From Hustle & Flow (an American film about a pimp who aspires to become a rapper) we move on to The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …

Kevin is gone. This is not chaos, as the mummified media would have it; it’s creative destruction.

PAULI ON THE PILLARS OF REPUBLICAN & DEMOCRATIC POLITICS

BAB's A List, Democrats, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, libertarianism, Republicans

By Myron Pauli

The 2015 Republicans rest upon 3 fundamental pillars:

[1] SUPPORT OF “FAMILY VALUES”: whereby government promotes abstinence education, school prayer, and the old “Leave It To Beaver” lifestyle of sexual abstinent; of heterosexuals who married until death do us part with no drugs, abortions, or much booze. Those values were nostalgic and on the way out even in Beaver’s 1950s. While Bruce Jenner may no longer suffer gender confusion; many can appreciate that a nation that worships an Olympic athlete who is considering lopping off his manhood suffers moral confusion. The old time ideals still hold sway especially among the rural white Protestants in the “Red States”.

[2] CUTTING TAXES ON THE WEALTHY: In other words, “supply side economics” from the 1980s where tax rates of 70% were cut while the Federal Reserve jacked interest rates to 18% and led to renewed prosperity when inflation was finally conquered. People forget that Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole raised payroll taxes and that government spending skyrocketed. The “supply side” formula did not work under Bush-II and most people see that the bailouts enrich Wall Street megabanks and that billionaires like Donald Trump buy politicians of both parties, and don’t shy away from using eminent domain laws to grab private property and bankruptcy laws to default on $5 billion of debt. The middle-class treads water and the “working class” drowns (as its jobs disappear overseas or are lost to robots) while the Fiorinas come in, fire employees, tank the stock, and walk away with $100,000,000. Nevertheless, the “supply side” idea has enough libertarian appeal and sufficient economic common sense to garner political support.

[3] GLOBAL WARMONGERING: Where the neocons make war on demons intent on destroying us – Afghans, Yemenis, Libyans, Russians, Chinese, Syrians, Iranians, “terrorists,” and where we pump billions into defense contractors. The “bad guy” drumbeat never stops, with every beheading or “Russians expanding influence” or some or other existential threat to Peoria—such as Saddam Hussein’s nuclear-armed cruise missile “mushroom cloud”—constituting a reason to keep up the drumbeat. Fear is not only a great motivator but wins votes as well.

The 2015 Democrats have their basic pillars:

[1] TO BE THE MAJORITY OF THE “MINORITIES”: Immigrants, Hispanics, non-whites, non-Christians, non-heterosexuals, and feminists with enough identity grievances constitute a Democratic majority. Lesbians and Muslims may not have common cause, but do have a common enemy. Blacks and Asians have little love for one another, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend; and rural, heterosexual, anti-immigrant, white Protestant men are The Enemy.

[2] CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES/DEPENDENTS: Discounting the military and defense contractors who lean Republican, millions of academicians, Amtrak employees, elderly, students, welfare recipients, firefighters, Sallie Mae employees, social workers, TSA gropers, and their families get their compensation from the government. This forms an almost unstoppable bulwark even if a small percentage of that constituency are Republicans. Money means self-interest and money talks.

The libertarians, constitutionalists and non-interventionists who’re not into the Red and Blue- State identity politics only have apathy and cynicism to turn to. Also stuck in the middle of this muck are old rural white, gun-owning Jacksonians like Confederate descendant James Webb who started as a Democrat, left the party of McGovernization, worked as Reagan’s Navy Secretary, and then returned to the “old Democracy” after watching the neocon plutocrats of Bush-II screwing over his rural Virginian constituents.

Webb and others are as much political orphans as the libertarians.

The political season opens up with 2/3 of Republicans rejecting their own politicians for 3 candidates who never served in any public capacity. The Democrats are stuck with an openly corrupt ex-Secretary of State and Presidential spouse who raises billions from the Wall Street crowd. Or an aging Marxist who does not even belong to the party.

While a majority will stay home on election day, the only major motivation to vote is fear of the other party!

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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.