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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
20 U.N. Peacekeepers Wounded in Mali Attack
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Page 4: Opinion
2 17:37 NoMoreBS [3] 
1 12:28 NoMoreBS [2] 
2 15:52 Rob Crawford [3] 
2 12:29 Abu Uluque [1] 
3 16:35 BrerRabbit [1] 
1 13:56 KBK [1] 
19 23:13 Bobby [3] 
6 12:42 Abu Uluque [1] 
1 16:57 rjschwarz [1] 
3 17:29 Pancho the Cheap8652 [1] 
1 12:17 Glenmore [2] 
9 19:24 Frank G [1] 
10 23:16 Bobby [1] 
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Page 6: Politix
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-Land of the Free
Impeach Kamala goes viral… (Citizen Free Press)
[CitizenFreePress]
Posted by: Angumble Phish5980 || 02/11/2021 02:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Looking for pres Pelosi?
Posted by: KBK || 02/11/2021 13:56 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Debunking the 'White Privilege' thing
[Tiktok]
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 13:25 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I didn't realize it needed debunking
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/11/2021 15:40 Comments || Top||

#2  The true white privilege has been paying trillions of dollars pissed away on subsidizing the emerging black racism you see erupting everywhere. Thats been the “privilege “. I’m all in for real segregation, segregating the democrat party from my wallet!
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 02/11/2021 17:37 Comments || Top||


Media, Big Business, and Political Establishment Colluded to Rig 2020 Election
[Daily Bell] Who really got Joe Biden elected? Molly Ball, storied DC insider and Swamp chronicler, spills the beans in her Time Magazine post-election analysis:
"a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it. And they believe the public needs to understand the system’s fragility in order to ensure that democracy in America endures."

Ball calls it the "inside story of the conspiracy to save the 2020 election." Like, as in, a real-life conspiracy — confirmed by the perpetrators themselves for all to read — that tilted the "free" US presidential election.

So, where are all the #Resistance banshees on the "election interference" war-path? Meddling in the "democratic" US election process only counts when it’s done by imaginary Russian oligarchs?

Russia, Russia, Russia. Like that annoying blonde girl from The Brady Bunch said, it’s always about Russia.

As the evidence bore out, CNN and the New York Times’ Russian election meddling conspiracy theory was a hoax. The existence of the Deep State, on the other hand, is now an established fact of reality. It indeed functions — just as the "conspiracy theorists" claim it does — as a permanent and unelected bureaucracy.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 10:16 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  probably a violation of campaign finance law since they didn't report their activity as a contribution but this takes years to investigate and adjudicate
Posted by: Lord Garth || 02/11/2021 12:25 Comments || Top||

#2  So I followed this link to the Daily Bell and then followed the link there to Molly Ball's piece at the Time Magazine site so I could read the whole piece. There I found the following:

There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.

AFL-CIO, huh? Then I remembered an article from yesterday's Rantburg about how Biden's agenda is smashing into reality in which I found the following:

Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO that spent millions to get Biden elected, excoriated the new president's climate policies this past weekend for erasing thousands of well-paying union jobs with the shutdown of the Keystone pipeline from Canada.

Hope you get everything you wanted, Trumka. Good and hard.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/11/2021 12:29 Comments || Top||


Anderson Cooper Compares Capitol Riot to 800K Killed in Rwandan Genocide
[RedState] On today’s episode of "The Most Trusted Name in News," CNN anchor Anderson Cooper continues his torrid pace of making nonsensical hyperbolic comparisons between Donald Trump and his supporters to some of history’s most horrific events.

As you might recall, Cooper in early January laughably declared that Republicans who continued to follow Trump were "like a nihilistic death cult."
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 01:46 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  they had the pieces all ready to go before anything happened. like the pre-written obituaries. and they ran with them.

had the 'riot' been a simple drum circle, they still would be calling it the worst thing since Hitler.
Posted by: Bob Grorong1136 || 02/11/2021 7:45 Comments || Top||

#2 
Posted by: Woozle Trotsky8701 || 02/11/2021 10:02 Comments || Top||

#3  The people who do business in that chamber condoned brutal attacks on local businesses and police officers across this nation as well as perpetrated election fraud.
Posted by: Ebbomoger Speaking for Boskone4589 || 02/11/2021 10:15 Comments || Top||

#4  Apparently math (7 v 800K) is not one of Cooper's strong suits. Hyperbole on the other hand...
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/11/2021 10:45 Comments || Top||

#5  #4 Maybe she's just a racist: 7 Americans > 800,000 Rwandans?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/11/2021 11:15 Comments || Top||

#6  they had the pieces all ready to go before anything happened. like the pre-written obituaries. and they ran with them.

Sure seemed that way to me. All those voices singing from the same page in unison. Can you say Reichstag fire?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/11/2021 12:42 Comments || Top||


Tucker exposes Democrat lies about Jan 6th in fantastic monologue, including the truth about Officer Sicknick's death
[Right Scoop] The monologue runs for just over 12 minutes, but you can keep watching if you want.

The part I wanted to highlight specifically is what Tucker reported about Officer Sicknick’s death. It was reported widely that Sicknick was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher by a rioter and that he later died. But according to Tucker, that’s not what happened:
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 01:12 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  that’s not what happened:
A consensus of media outlets says that's what happened, so now, that's what happened.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/11/2021 12:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Doesn't matter. They need a martyr and Sicknick their guy so shut up.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/11/2021 12:48 Comments || Top||

#3  St George Floyd all over again.
1. Manufacture a martyr for the cause.
2. Hide the medical examiner's report from public view for months while you exploit the fake murder for maximum political mileage.
3. Two or three months after the death, quietly insert into the court records the medical examiner's findings (Floyd = massive fentanyl OD, Sicknick = natural causes / e.g. aneurysm).
Posted by: Pancho the Cheap8652 || 02/11/2021 17:29 Comments || Top||


Thomas Sowell's Politically Incorrect Legacy Is Built On ‘Following Facts Where They Lead'
[Federalist] On this episode of "The Federalist Radio Hour," the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss his new documentary and book highlighting the life of economist, social theorist, and acclaimed intellectual Thomas Sowell and how his work affects American culture today.

"He’s marked the shift from pushing for equal opportunity to pushing for special privileges," Riley said, noting that Sowell started his work early in the civil rights movement. "He said this is wrong and that they are barking up the wrong tree here. This is not the road that they should be going down and this is where they eventually, of course, did go down that road in terms of affirmative action and other special privileges."

Sowell, Riley said, "follows facts where they lead" and isn’t afraid to be politically incorrect in his views on race, culture, and social theory. Many progressives, Riley said, find this worldview threatening and counter to their own narratives.

"The focus for Tom has always been on building human capital, on developing a group, developing skills and habits and attitudes, and he doesn’t see culture as something set in stone," Riley explained. "There are different groups that have excelled in the past and then progressed, and then excelled again, and he says you have to look and learn from these different groups of people and what they’ve tried, what they’ve done, what they haven’t done, and how things have worked out."

Watch the new Sowell documentary here.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 01:08 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I first encountered this national treasure on the Rush Limbaugh show many years ago.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/11/2021 12:17 Comments || Top||


Four Scary Facts – Where We Are
Posted as a comment yesterday by our own Whomotie Tojo.
[Association of Mature American Citizens] The US Constitution protects Americans against government suppression of free speech, especially "matters of public concern." In a self-governing republic, election integrity, processes, outcomes, and public corruption must be discussed — trust depends on it. Four scary facts define where America is right now. Here they are.

First, the 2020 presidential election sits uneasily with Americans. Those who voted Biden-Harris do not feel the outcome is honored; those who voted Trump-Pence question 2020 novelties and anomalies, including overdependence on mail-in ballots. If done, they worry about the future.

Easy to see where hard feelings come from. Ideological stakes were — and are — high. One side pushes more centralized control over states, small businesses, and individual liberties (e.g., limits on speech, worship, assembly, travel, self-defense, and privacy), rolled back border security, police, and military, high spending on COVID, redistribution of wealth (e.g., higher taxes), race relations, fossil fuels, abortion (including late term), and reconnection with Iran and China.

The other side is a mirror image — less government, more deference to states, small businesses, individual liberties, border protection, police funding, military readiness, concern over federal debt, spending, and higher taxes, reopening the economy, getting kids back to school, turning off riots, opposing abortion, and holding international bad actors accountable via sanctions.

Clear is the ideological rift. In 2020, it created a hyper-partisan contest, "all or nothing." Rather than a national conversation, America fractured along ideological lines. The depth of this fissure, a chasm on ideas, is dangerous. Free speech — if allowed — helps us get beyond it.

Second, preoccupation with personality. Danger two is how one personality — Donald Trump — dominated the cycle. From Washington and Lincoln to FDR and Reagan, Americans view politics through their leader; we hear a message but see a candidate. Donald Trump is an outsized personality, whether you like or hate him. That, by itself, is fine.

The problem is that this cycle — going back four years — was all about him. Those who thrill to less government, reduced regulation and taxes, strong borders, police, military, moral compass, and patriotism saw in Trump a moral leader. His style was different, voice authentic. Those who oppose such things made him the moral villain. Therein lies the problem. When we demonize — or lionize — we start to slip. Our Republic rests on laws, objectivity, reason, history, rights, and national security — not emotions, devotion to personalities, or preoccupation with venality.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Finally! Somebody who distinguishes between Trump the man & Trump the symbol.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru PB || 02/11/2021 4:27 Comments || Top||

#2  what a load of crap to obsicate the theft of an election
Posted by: Lampedusa Tingle7472 || 02/11/2021 8:37 Comments || Top||

#3  /\ Yes, direct the narrative and control of the media.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 9:40 Comments || Top||

#4  Personality or otherwise, the point is that Trump issued dozens of EOs instead of doing the hard work of persuading Congress to pass laws.

Now Biden has eliminated every one of those EOs, and replaced them with his own dictates. This is a really disturbing trend.
Posted by: Albemarle Ulort2983 || 02/11/2021 12:11 Comments || Top||

#5  Imperium emerges from the ashes of the Republic. Where have i read that before?
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 02/11/2021 12:41 Comments || Top||

#6  RIP, Constitutional Republic. 230 years was a good run.
Posted by: Enver tse Tung9437 || 02/11/2021 12:53 Comments || Top||

#7  Ref #6: Who would argue we are 'Les pas sous occupation' (A country under occupation). Things may grow difficult, but not impossible.

A most interesting of times. We shall see how it all plays out.....this time.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 13:03 Comments || Top||

#8  the "Party's" have replaced the "People" as the voice of America
Posted by: 746 || 02/11/2021 14:17 Comments || Top||

#9  Trump issued dozens of EOs instead of doing the hard work of persuading Congress to pass laws.

He tried, Albemarle Ulort2983. The Republican leadership in both House and Senate were for the most part uninterested in working to get the things they’d been campaigning on since Newt Gingrich was in charge. Senator Mitch McConnell was willing to do the work for judges, and there was agreement to pick away at Obamacare if not to get rid of it altogether, so that is pretty much what happened. The first budget sent to President Trump, when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, was huge — containing everyone’s pork wishlist — after President Trump had sent them a budget proposal that actually cut spending.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/11/2021 16:32 Comments || Top||

#10  Some day, I'm going to send this to my Never-Trump wife of 50 years.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/11/2021 23:16 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Study: Smaller cars may be why crashes injure women more
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The smaller, lighter vehicles that women more often drive, and the types of crashes they get into, may explain why they are much more likely to suffer a serious injury in a collision than men, a new study published Thursday found.

Researchers from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research group supported by auto insurers, looked into whether there was some sort of gender bias in the research into vehicle crashes or whether body type had anything to do with the injuries.

They analyzed injuries of men and women in police-reported tow-away front and side crashes from 1998 to 2015. Among the findings were that in front crashes, women were three times as likely to experience a broken bone, concussion or other moderate injury, and twice as likely to suffer a serious one like a collapsed lung or traumatic brain injury.

Men and women crashed in minivans and SUVs in about equal proportions, the researchers found. But around 70% of women crashed in cars, compared with about 60% of men. And more than 20% of men crashed in pickups, compared with less than 5% of women.

Men are also more likely to be driving the striking vehicle in two-vehicle front-to-rear and front-to-side crashes, according to the researchers.

"The numbers indicate that women more often drive smaller, lighter cars and that they’re more likely than men to be driving the struck vehicle in side-impact and front-into-rear crashes," said Jessica Jermakian, IIHS vice president of vehicle research, in a statement. "Once you account for that, the difference in the odds of most injuries narrows dramatically."
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 07:43 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  T-boned in my lifted F350 by a Mustang.
Hit just below/behind my wife's door.
Scalded my hand with McDonald's coffee.
My sweetie broke a nail on the door handle.
Mustang motor pushed parts of the driver into the trunk.
Posted by: Glererong Snort3166 || 02/11/2021 9:55 Comments || Top||

#2  More than 3 TONS of FUN !
Sure you'll coome out the winner in most "accidents" <-- (Texting While Driving)

The MooseTang was out of its league in this bang bang smash'm up.

You ='d 2010 Ford F350 Lariat Super Duty Short Bed - weighs 9,400 pounds 2010 Ford F350 with Base trim - weighs 9,200 pounds 2011 Ford F350 with Base trim - weighs 12,500 pounds 2011 Ford F350 Super Duty XLT - weighs 10,600 pounds

MooseTang ='d On the whole, the average weight of the Mustang has hovered around 3,500 pounds, a number even first generation Mustangs reached on occasion. Though there are a lot of additional safety components that can be hefty in newer Mustangs, that weight tends to be evened out by advancements in new materials for car parts and greater design efficiency. According to Autocar's report, the Mach-E will tip scales in a range of 4,394 pounds (1,993 kilograms) to over 4,890 lbs (2,218 kg). That easily makes it the heaviest Mustang of all time.
Posted by: Deadeye Wittlesbach3430 || 02/11/2021 10:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Mass wins every time. Its science over feelings.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 02/11/2021 16:35 Comments || Top||


The Decline of Intelligence in the West
[PJ] Recent studies have reported a worrisome decline in IQ scores in Western nations over the last decades, a reversal of the once-hopeful Flynn Effect (named after the late philosopher and psychologist James R. Flynn) which posited a growth in cognitive abilities for much of the 20th Century. Now the Flynn Effect seems to have reversed, leading to predictions of a general dumbing down of selective populations. Other studies report that IQ erosion is not confined to this century but that IQ has dropped by an average of 14.1 percent over the last century. As Evan Horowitz writes for NBC News, "A range of studies using a variety of well-established IQ tests and metrics have found declining scores across Scandinavia, Britain, Germany, France and Australia."

Horowitz argues that the plummet in cognitive abilities "could not only mean 15 more seasons of the Kardashians, but also... fewer scientific breakthroughs, stagnant economies and a general dimming of our collective future." Flynn himself, who did the original research on the eponymous effect, has stated that "The IQ gains of the 20th century have faltered." Flynn’s more optimistic Are We Getting Smarter: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century was published in 2012; his subsequent findings led in an opposite direction.*

The brainchild of French psychologist Alfred Binet, the IQ construct is a controversial issue with many different interpretations and applications. Charles Spearman proposed the variable notion of a g factor, or general intelligence measure, responsible for overall performance on various mental ability tests such as memory retention, spatial processing, and quantitative reasoning. The g factor has been compared to general athletic ability which allows a person to excel in different fields and activities. There has been vigorous debate over the strict equivalency between IQ scores and intelligence, but there is broad agreement on a general waning of intelligence or, from a clinical perspective, an ebbing of IQ scores. Of course, smart people can sometimes do poorly on IQ tests and obtuse people can sometimes rank high on aspectual tiers of these tests. But the consensus appears to be that the correlation approximately holds while allowing for scalene anomalies. In effect, the g factor is eroding.

One recalls MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, the architect of Obamacare, who referred to "the stupidity of the American voter" as helping him to pass the controversial law. One wonders if Gruber ever heard of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget’s test results purporting to show that "the rot starts at the top." This would implicate Gruber and his cohort in the experience of what Piaget calls horizontal décalage, which stymies the application of cognitive functions and logical operations to extended tasks. In other words, Gruber et al. are also stupid, gradually destroying the very society that enabled them to flourish. But the rot can also start at the bottom, as a combination of generalized mental vacancy and low-to-no-information voters furthers cultural and social degeneration. As Morris Berman remarks in The Twilight of American Culture, "A society cannot function if nearly everyone in it is stupid."
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 01:52 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The progressive's Alinsky-ite "drive through the education system" may have a lot to do with this.
Posted by: Deadeye Jaiting7534 || 02/11/2021 2:01 Comments || Top||

#2  Fluoride Toxicity has a similar effect as referenced neutral study explains. (bold-link)

Posted by: Fleresh Uleart1138 || 02/11/2021 3:22 Comments || Top||

#3  After I read the material and started looking for a graphic, epiphany, kind of like the 2020 map on the election, deep blue not for the incumbent, lighter blue for the incumbent. Coincidence ?
Posted by: Fleresh Uleart1138 || 02/11/2021 3:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Did they disaggregate by ethnicity?
The massive demographic shift since 1965 in this country would explain a lot of the aggregate decline
Posted by: Caesar Protector of the Trolls1632 || 02/11/2021 3:52 Comments || Top||

#5  IMO, IQ decline and rise in obesity have the same cause - lack of exercise.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru PB || 02/11/2021 4:29 Comments || Top||

#6  Most of the decrease in intelligence is due to public schools, TV and popular culture (People Magazine, American Idol, social media, etc.)
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/11/2021 4:48 Comments || Top||

#7  The West (and probably fat Americans leading the way) has become physically and mentally indolent. When you have reality shows, UFC, high fructose corn syrup, a microwave oven, and Facebook, what else does one need? Throw in a wretched education system, and there you have it.
Posted by: Clem || 02/11/2021 5:03 Comments || Top||

#8  College was suppose to be not just an institution of higher learning, but a mean to cull the population of those who can perform from those who could not. It was suppose to be rigorous. People were expected to fail. It shifted to a paper mill so everyone gets an attendance ticket to jobs. "No child left behind". If you can not fail you can not succeed. It's been a race to the lowest common denominator. How does that raise IQ?

Or as the good professor would allude to - Intelligence has its limits. Stupidity does not.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/11/2021 8:33 Comments || Top||

#9  The movie "Idiocracy" was not a satire but a forecast of what has come to pass.
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 || 02/11/2021 12:41 Comments || Top||

#10  The Intellectual Yet Idiot chapter by Nassim Taleb
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 || 02/11/2021 12:42 Comments || Top||

#11  Ignorance has increased (#1 pointed out the most likely reason).

Intelligence has simultaneously increased in specialized areas and atrophied in other areas.

The ability to know ones limitations, as well as the concept of shame, appears to be dead in our elites.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/11/2021 12:44 Comments || Top||

#12  I have started to do a basic intelligence test on new acquaintances. I make a reference to whether or not a person can quickly and easily answer the question "What state is Columbus, Ohio the capital of?" and observe the response.
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 || 02/11/2021 12:46 Comments || Top||

#13  ^ "Grant's Tomb?"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2021 13:13 Comments || Top||

#14  #12 The State of Jefferson?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/11/2021 13:23 Comments || Top||

#15  Cristobal Colombia?
Posted by: Huputing Elminetle3747 || 02/11/2021 16:23 Comments || Top||

#16  and there you have it.

Title example.
Posted by: Herb Thaviling8829 || 02/11/2021 17:41 Comments || Top||

#17  I was asked, "Which two states have their name as part of another state's name?"

I'm inclined to agree with g(r)om about the exercise - Lord knows the Don't Give Up learned from losing there panned out with a number of subjects I didn't just 'get' - but the lack of curiosity and lack of perseverance are the primary filters, and that is a culture deal.

Technology is a sap on those traits, as well as creativity and, more importantly, retention: a crutch instead of a tool.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/11/2021 18:12 Comments || Top||

#18  ^ Dakota Fanning; Carolina Herrera
Posted by: Marilyn Panda1676 || 02/11/2021 21:30 Comments || Top||

#19  Round on the ends and high in the middle
Think, think, think, think what's the riddle?

Round on the end and high in the middle
Oh high oh.

My Dad drove me crazy with that for weeks. 60 years ago.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/11/2021 23:13 Comments || Top||


-PC Follies
Chamber of kommerce Gets Buyer's Remorse
[PJ Media] It was for your own good. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce coordinated with a bevy of left-wing activists, unions, and others to "fortify" the 2020 election for Joe Biden. The Chamber is getting the open borders it wants and the soft-on-China policy it wants, all to the detriment of working families. Of course, in the Time recounting of a year-long initiative that pulled every lever of power in the country, the Chamber’s motives were pure, to ensure a fair and unquestionable election. To do this, the Chamber helped to change election laws nationwide, destroying election integrity in multiple swing states and demonizing anyone who questioned the results.

Then the members of the "conspiracy" ‐ Time‘s characterization, not mine ‐ put pressure on the media and social media to manage what Americans' were allowed to see and read. They kept the pressure up as the Trump campaign attempted to demonstrate its claims of election irregularities in several states. We would come to find out that in swing states where vote-counting stalled there were significant infusions of cash into Biden-heavy districts. These donations funded a get-out-the-vote initiative through selected election offices that are supposed to be financed by the taxpayer. The Amistad Project currently has lawsuits against the counties that took the funds from the not-for-profit funded by Mark Zuckerberg's wife.

Yet the U.S. Chamber of Commerce partnered with these progressive groups and somehow expected Biden would not implement those groups' radical wish list. The proposed energy policies alone should have scared them, but they didn't. Now, with Biden's express endorsement of a $15/hour minimum wage, the Chamber has objections:
Posted by: Bobby || 02/11/2021 11:59 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Theater for the rubes and cover for the closet progressive leadership. Just like Trumpka claiming they didnt think and the Bidet Administration was serious about the pipeline and energy policy. Pure kabuki theater for the stupid peasants who actual trust anything a Democrat says.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 02/11/2021 12:28 Comments || Top||


Government
Radical Idea: What if the Air Force Was No Longer Its Own Branch?
[The National Interest] Key point: The Air Force used to be a part of the Army. Did separating it actually make any sense?

With the Iraq War over and the fighting in Afghanistan winding down, why does the United States need to maintain two large land armies, the Army and Marine Corps? The question seems perfectly reasonable given the apparent absence of large terrestrial threats, but it leads us down the wrong path.

The United States military is all about redundancy; in addition to two armies, it also fields two navies — the Navy and the Coast Guard — and five or six air forces, depending on how you count the aerial arms of the various branches.

The real problem isn’t that the Army is marginally more or less useful that it was 10 years ago, but rather that the institutions that were designed in 1947, when the Army and Air Force split, are insufficiently flexible to negotiate the modern security landscape.

The fault for this lies not primarily with the Army, but with the United States Air Force, an institution built on the optimistic vision that ordnance delivered from the air could, cheaply and cleanly, bring about a peaceful, American-dominated world.

HOW TO BUILD A MILITARY BRANCH
Look, creating institutions is all about drawing useful lines between areas of responsibility. Historically, it made sense to divide the responsibility between managing security on land and on sea between specific organizations tasked with training, managing and equipping professionals in their respective arenas.

In other words, an army and a navy. They had their disputes from time to time, but by and large their missions were sufficiently distinct — as distinct as earth and water, really — that differences in outlook, opinion, and interest didn’t interfere all that much with fighting actual wars.

But even from the dawn of flight, it never made much sense to separate the professional upbringing of aerial warfighters from their sea and land counterparts. Since before World War I, aviators have supported soldiers and sailors through reconnaissance, interdiction of enemy transit, air transport and direct attacks against fielded enemy forces.

Separating aerial military assets from the ground and naval assets they organically support makes no more sense than the creation of separate arms for tanks and submarines. The creation of the Air Force broke apart the organic unity of the Army.

By contrast, the Navy, though threatened by air power pioneer Billy Mitchell and his ilk, fortunately managed to insulate itself, its carriers and its aircraft from Air Force influence — and the Marines likewise managed to keep their own aviation arm because, well, they’re the Marines.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 11:21 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yep, tac air back to the Army. Move the high altitude air defense the other direction. Reclassify the Air Force as Strategic Forces thus folding back in Space Force.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/11/2021 12:28 Comments || Top||

#2  And Space Force should use navy ranks.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 02/11/2021 15:52 Comments || Top||


-PC Follies
Author criticizes continued 'culture of war' with troops in Iraq, Afghanistan
[The Hill] Author Michael Knox told Hill.TV he is disappointed that President Biden has signaled he might leave certain troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, after the president committed to ending some wars during his 2020 campaign.

"I would say it’s a disappointment, but it’s to be expected. Joe Biden ended his nomination acceptance speech and his victory speech and his inauguration speech with the words ’And may God protect our troops,’" said Knox.

The professor emeritus at the University of South Florida said former Presidents Trump and Obama also expressed similar sentiments about the U.S. military in their speeches.

Knox, author of "Ending U.S. Wars by Honoring Americans Who Work for Peace," said those kinds of repeated remarks by presidents are part of a "culture of war" in American society that emphasizes militarism.

A congressionally mandated panel recommended Wednesday that the United States delay its withdrawal from Afghanistan after finding that the Taliban has not met the conditions of an agreement made with the Trump administration last year.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 01:16 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Obama and Trump said similar things about pulling troops back but trump actually pulled troops out while Obama moved them around and expanded the war into a dozen other countries using SF and drones.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/11/2021 16:57 Comments || Top||


I Refuse to Absolve Liberals of Their Sin of Being Annoying
Kurt Schlichter
[Townhall] Okay, by now we've all heard of that seriously goofy LA Times editor lady who was micro-aggressed by her Trump-digging neighbors who just up and dug out her snowed-in driveway. If you are one of the three people in Conservativeland who have not, read about it here. The important takeaway is that we are dealing with morally illiterate lunatics.

Now, it's hard to decide what is the most hilarious part of this whole insanity: the idea that someone doing you a favor would drive you into spasms of uncertainty about how to respond to a courtesy, or that she would write about it on purpose and let the entire world know about it.

Or, perhaps, it's the notion that we Trump supporters are waiting for absolution from neurotic city-slickers who failed Human Interaction 101 in Life School.

Yeah, I bet Jim and Debbie with the snowplow are white-knuckling it in their well-provisioned, well-defended home hopin' and wishin' and prayin' that the editorette sees fit to bestow her forgiveness upon them for their sin of not harkening to her freak show narrative.

I'm baffled at her thought process all the way through this. It snows. Her neighbor with a plow clears her driveway so she doesn't starve when the guy from Instacart can't get through the snow to deliver her kale and kombucha. And her first thought is, "But but but he likes Trump!"
Posted by: Bobby || 02/11/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We have some friends in a hard way. Hubby is in home hospice. Can't be left alone. Wife needs help and someone to watch him when she has to go out.
Neighbors cut them off without a word or eye contact when our friends' Trump sign went up. As one person said, that's sad, and sadder that it isn't surprising.
Fortunately, there are sufficient bitterly clinging irredeemable deplorables around that our friends get the help they need.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey || 02/11/2021 7:26 Comments || Top||

#2  /\ Fortunately, there are sufficient bitterly clinging irredeemable deplorables around that our friends get the help they need.

Modern day Samaritans.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/11/2021 7:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Liberals want all of America to bear the sin of one institution's history of slavery, segregation and the Klan.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/11/2021 8:40 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm guilty of having no white guilt. This infuriates them bigly...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/11/2021 9:46 Comments || Top||

#5  ^ Oh Yeah...to appropriate a meme #metoo. That one died when Sniffy Joe and the Ho stole an election.
Posted by: Warthog || 02/11/2021 9:55 Comments || Top||

#6  I refuse to absolve liberals for any of their stupid behavior. They have earned what is coming.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/11/2021 9:57 Comments || Top||

#7  I refuse to forgive them for their Orwellian DoubleThink
Posted by: magpie || 02/11/2021 17:17 Comments || Top||

#8 

Posted by: Griffin the Head Collector2020 || 02/11/2021 17:50 Comments || Top||

#9  I've earned most everything the hard way and with stupid setbacks only of my own creation. You want to sell White Supremacy/Privilege to me get prepared to be torn down
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2021 19:24 Comments || Top||



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Thu 2021-02-11
  20 U.N. Peacekeepers Wounded in Mali Attack
Wed 2021-02-10
  5 Detained For Death Threats To French Teen Who Criticized Islam As ‘Religion Of Hate'
Tue 2021-02-09
  Houthis launch attacks on Soddys in Al Jawf and Marib
Mon 2021-02-08
  Syrian teen arrested in Norway for plotting attack
Sun 2021-02-07
  LeM chief arrested in Jammu; major terror strike foiled
Sat 2021-02-06
  U.N. Report Says Qaida's Leader in Yemen under Arrest
Fri 2021-02-05
  Border Patrol Agents Arrest 11 Iranians in Arizona Who Illegally Entered US
Thu 2021-02-04
  IS Attack Kills 19 in Hama
Wed 2021-02-03
  Israeli Delhi embassy bomb: National Investigation Agency registers case, police busily following leads
Tue 2021-02-02
  Somali forces end Al-Shabaab siege of Mogadishu hotel; 9 dead
Mon 2021-02-01
  Kidnappers Demand 15,000 Libyan Dinars for Each Egyptian Kidnapped in Tripoli
Sun 2021-01-31
  A busy day in Kabul: Talib assassin toes up, Talib Kabul Number 2 tied up, 2 kabooms kill 1
Sat 2021-01-30
  Lashkar-e-Islam leader killed in an IED explosion
Fri 2021-01-29
  At least 150 Soddies defect to Houthis in Yemen
Thu 2021-01-28
  Turkey announces arrest of 12 foreign ISIS members attempting to enter Syria

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