Obama Gets His Progressive "War"

So Obama finally got himself a war, er, uh, a Prolonged Counter-Hatred Operation (PCHO), just in time for the mid-term elections.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the man who vowed to end "Bush's endless war"; who would heal the planet; who apologized to the Muslim world for the United States being the United States; who has tried to gut our military and destroy our network of global alliances, yes, that very man, now has the USAF and the USN turning small groups of Muslims people who claim to be Muslim but aren't really because "Islam is a religion of peace" into desert stew.

Taking a page from several past progressive war leaders such as Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, JFK, LBJ and Bill Clinton, he has launched into a sort of war with no clear exit strategy, no plan to win, no definition of "win," and no intention of trying to "win." He just needs to get through the mid-term elections without a major disaster while looking "Presidential."

The whole thing is repulsive beyond words.

In principle, I have no problem with spending our tax money to kill jihadis. The questions, however, immediately arise: Which jihadis? How many? When will we know that the last jihadi who needs killing has been killed? Well, the last question is probably answerable: the day after the mid-terms.

This whole mess is Obama's doing. He built it. He made clear that we will not stand in the way of Iran's adquiring a nuke capability. He threw out the victory in Iraq; made a hash of Libya, Yemen, and Egypt; drew erasable "red lines" in Syria; and ensured we would not even defend our own borders.  He can try to blame the intel community and his advisers, but we all know the truth. He has no stomach for confronting the enemies of the United States, because he, himself, is an enemy of the United States. He will "act" only when it becomes politically impossible not to do "something."

So, now, he does "something."

That "something" consists of conducting a very limited bombing campaign that will do little to nothing to dismantle ISIS. He, in other words, is doing the wrong thing. If you're going to bomb, then bomb; annihilate the jihadis. Blowing up a HUMVEE here, or an old dilapidated building there, does nothing except set the stage for the jihadis claiming victory over the West. We will eventually tire of the campaign, even without the mid-terms. The jihadis will still be there; we won't.

At this point in time, when we have thrown away what we won in Iraq, and are doing the same in Afghanistan, I can't help but wonder if the better course would be to do nothing. Well, that is, nothing except support the Israelis and the Kurds, and tell the rulers of Iran and Syria that they now have a serious problem bearing down on their turf: crazed Sunni jihadis! Let the Shias and the Sunnis kill each other by the thousands. Meanwhile, as I said, we support the Israelis and the Kurds, and frack, frack, frack.

I Watched that "Madam Secretary" Show . . . Stunned Ox.

I finally pulled the trigger . . . well, pressed the On Demand button and watched the opening episode of the Hillary campaign "Madam Secretary" TV show on CBS, the Clinton Columbia Broadcasting System. It, as expected, was rubbish.

Tea Leoni, who plays the lead character Elizabeth McCord, has perfected the mouth-breathing stunned ox look. She plays the whole episode looking like, well, an ox gasping for air after being hit in the head by a defective stun gun. She is a "brilliant" ex-CIA analyst, who left the Agency on "principle" to become a "brilliant" University professor, and is recruited by the President, played by Keith Carradine, to become his new "brilliant" SecState following the mysterious death of his old SecState in a plane crash on the way to Venezuela on a mysterious mission which might not have been authorized and--deep breath--his death might not have been accidental! Wow!

Before I go on, reality check, folks. The President, it turns out, headed the CIA for 12 years before running for President. Do you really think that some white guy who ran the CIA for twelve years could become President in today's world of lefty media bias? I doubt it.

Anyhow, the scenes at State run from ludicrous to idiotic to back to ludicrous. What is captured  accurately is that Secretary McCord is surrounded by a staff of feminine men ("Girly-Men" as Arnold would have called them) and ballsy women. That certainly fits with what I saw during Hillary's tenure. Her staff worries about nonsense, like her hairstyle, and what she is going to say about and at her dinner with the King of Swaziland (Why? Why pick on Swaziland?) That is pretty realistic. Secretary McCord goes through the day, of course, with her mouth agape and her eyes almost crossed with that stunned ox look Leoni has picked for her character.

Oh, yes, there is some convoluted storyline about some dopey American kids being captured by somebody in Syria who will execute them unless something or another happens. The Secretary's task from the President's evil Chief-of Staff, played by Slovenian actor Zeljko Ivanek, is to keep the kidnapping out of the press. Right. As though that would happen in today's world of online streaming. There is a botched military operation to rescue the kids "ordered by the CIA." Right.

Fear not, however, for the "brilliant" McCord knows a slightly corrupt Russian Cultural Attache who owes her favors and who has some mysterious connections with the kidnappers and arranges for the kids to be freed in exchange for $1.5 million in medical supplies . .  . right. Who writes this nonsense?

In addition, there is a mysterious death of a former CIA colleague who had tried to warn McCord that not everything is kosher; the episode ends with the Secretary gasping for air--of course--wondering if there is some plot within the administration.

That's it. Do not watch unless you think the stunned ox look is a good one.

Progressive Narrative Fail & Steeling Myself to Watch "Madam Secretary" so You Don't Have to . . .

The global beheading epidemic has arrived in Oklahoma.

The knife wielder was--Surprise!--a recent convert to Islam who tried to get fellow workers to convert to the "Religion of Peace." When they resisted he did what practitioners of the "Religion of Peace" do all over the world, he pulled a giant knife and beheaded one woman and stabbed another. He failed to "convert" others to the "Religion of Peace" only because one of the workers was a reserve deputy and carrying his firearm which he used to shoot the attacker.

Double Progressive Narrative Fail. The "Religion of Peace" destroys life; a gun-wielding man saves life. Not a good day to be  progressive.

I have that show On Demand. You know the one about the woman Secretary of State, the one that is NOT-- God Forbid!-- a campaign plug for Hillary. I will watch a couple of episodes and report back so that my faithful readers do not have to do so. I am trying to work up the courage to press that remote button.

Baron Münchhausen in the White House

As a child I got hold of an English translation of The Adventures of Baron Münchhausen. I loved reading his fantastic adventures and fantasies, especially the one in which he pulled his horse and himself out of quicksand by pulling on his own hair. Münchhausen, who actually existed, was a German nobleman who served in the Tsar's army fighting the Turks in the mid-18th century.  His adventures grew and got embroidered and, well, turned into the sort of fantasies we now associate with consummate liars or, well, just energetic raccontuers. His name also has been given to a serious mental disorder, Munchhausen by Proxy Syndrome (MBPS) in which a caregiver, usually a woman, exaggerates a child's illnesses or very often secretly inflicts suffering on the child, e.g., poisoning, to gain attention for herself and her valiant ministrations.

It turns out the biographic material on the Baron is inaccurate. You will only read this here, nowhere else. The Baron did not die in 1797 as is commonly thought. No, not at all.

He was elected President of the United States in 2008.

Obama is Münchhausen, or at least the one in the fantasy tales. I have strong doubts that Obama served in the Tsar's cavalry fighting the Ottomans.

Obama has a long history which identifies him as Münchhausen.

He is a teller of tall tales only loosely based on his life experiences. Since we are not allowed to read his real life, we must be content with his version and that of his handlers: we are told of the white girlfriend with her racist tendencies--that we later find out this girl never existed, well, never mind. We learn of his struggles with student loans but are never allowed a peak at his school records and how a mediocre student from a dysfunctional family, growing up in remote Hawaii and Indonesia, gets into a succession of elite and expensive schools. We have to rely on the Baron's accounts to learn how "brilliant" he was at university. He becomes president and--Behold!--he wins the Noble Prize for his oratory and story-telling! He tells one whopper after another, "Fast and Furious was a Bush administration operation," "Obama saved the car industry," "Obamacare will not raise your premiums and you can keep your doctor. Period."  And on and on.

In addition, our Baron surrounds himself with a court full of like tale-tellers: We have John "Xmas in Cambodia" Kerry; Hillary "Serbian snipers!" Clinton; Eric "Fast and Furious" Holder; Susan "It was the video" Rice: Lois "I did nothing wrong" Lerner, and on and on.

We live in truly marvelous times. The Good Baron is now leading us into a murky war in Syria--a war with murky objectives, and murky allies, and murky strategy. A war tailor-made for the telling of tales of great derring-do and heroics by the Baron.

As, furthermore, with all good progressives, our White House Baron is also a practitioner of MBPS (see above). The progressive seeks to make the body politic sick and then propose the path to good health. Increase poverty to fight poverty! Increase income inequality to fight income inequality! Solve illegal immigration by increasing illegal immigration! And on and on.

I can't wait to read the novel . . .

Aussies Round Up ISIS; "Experts" Have Questions

I have been reading about the Australian raids on some domestic would-be head-choppers.  These raids haven't gotten the sort of attention they deserve. In my view, PM Abbott has it exactly right when he said that the raids were "a show of force, they needed to be", and that the national security challenge to Australia was "more serious today than at any time in the past".

Well, instead of praising the quick and decisive action by Australian intel and security organizations, the usual "experts" say the raids "raise questions." We have "terrorism 
experts questioning "whether [ISIS] had the capacity or inclination to sustain a terror campaign so far from the Middle East." 

I see, Mr. Expert. So those are the questions we need to ask? I think a better one is, who exactly are these "experts"? 

What kind of "capacity or inclination" is needed by a fanatical bunch of thugs who claim to be out to conquer the world and make everybody convert to Islam or die? What sort of sophisticated and expensive logistics are we talking about? We are dealing with people, e.g., Al Qaeda, ISIS/ISIL, who rely on the Western mass and social media to spread their message and images for free around the world. We are talking about people who specialize in attacking civilians, the unarmed, the helpless, and in torturing and killing them with knives and axes. 

All these psychotics need is to have pockets of supporters in the right places. Guess what? They have them in the Muslim communities that have set up shop in all Western countries. 

There are questions to be asked, but the "experts" are not asking them. The real questions are more along the following lines: What kind of insane immigration policies have allowed these Muslims into Australia? What benefit accrues to Australia to allowing followers of a brutal, totalitarian creed to enter Australia, enjoy all sorts of freedoms and free goodies, and who then express their appreciation by plotting to behead Australians?

Let us not forget the other "experts" and "analysts" such as the one trotted out by the BBC who makes this valuable contribution,

The news of an alleged plot to publicly behead a random Australian will shock many people here, including the vast majority of this country's long-established moderate Muslim community. 

Many Muslims are unhappy with what's going on in Iraq and Syria but would never resort to violence. These raids risk antagonising the broader Islamic community.

We are back to the 99% argument and the persistent refusal to acknowledge that the problems are Islam and that countries such as Australia, UK, US, Canada, Netherlands, Spain, France, Belgium, etc., have a "broader Islamic community." 

Salmond Fishing in the Yemen?

Well that was embarrassing, eh, Mr. Salmond?

Oh, yes, and let's not forget those pollsters who saw it as "too close to call."

As I noted a couple of days ago, when the progre media starts saying an "electoral outcome is too close to call," or "it's down to the wire," you can just about bet that the progre cause or candidate is going down.

And so it came to pass in Scotland.

As of this writing the "YES" to rule by Brussels "independence"  is down some 9-10 points; Scotland, to the regret of Mr. Salmond and many of my English friends, has decided that it gets a better deal inside the Union than outside it. The "NO" campaign seems headed for a big win. That, of course, does not mean that the progres will drop their efforts to get another referendum on the ballot in due course, or that they will cease trying to separate Scotland and England via other tactics.

As in our own much besieged and benighted country, the lefties are aided by a rather limp-wristed opposition. In the UK's case, the Tories have conceded everything to the Scottish "nationalists" except formal "independence." Scotland's overwhelmingly Labourite MPs, for example, already get to meddle in English affairs, but not vice-versa, and Scotland gets more in the form of entitlements than does England. The Government, a nominally Tory one, has gone along with promising huge additional concessions to the Scottish political elites; these promised concessions, bribes, really, will now have to be made good or there will be hell to pay--well, in fact, there will be hell to pay if they are made good, at least I hope so.

How much longer will the beleaguered English taxpayer keep forking over his or her hard-earned money to appease Scottish nationalists and help Labour transform Britain into a Sharia-besotted land full of Pakistani rapist gangs and terrified, overpaid coppers? Anybody opposed to the rampant and insane political correctness loose in the UK is labelled a racist or a "right-wing extremist." Sounds like here in the USA where we are not allowed to say anything about what is happening to our country and which we so clearly "see  by the dawn's early light."

Well, the UK has survived, sort of. The Union, however, has been badly damaged by the incessant and expensive demands of a loud minority. The spotlight now turns to the 55 million Englishmen who have to decide how much more abuse they take.  They might want to gain inspiration from the actions in 1775 of some English farmers in the old Massachusetts colony . . .

Meanwhile, the destructive and egomaniacal Mr. Salmond should go somewhere far away: Quebec? Catalonia? Tibet? Or, maybe, the Arabian peninsula where he might try to gain the independence of South Yemen from North Yemen.

Scotland, Again . . . For Scotland Vote No, For England Vote Yes.

I have been drubbed by English friends for my wishing to see the UK remain as is, and opposing a "Yes" in the referendum re Scotland's independence scheduled for tomorrow.  I am, as result, coming to think that a vote on English independence from the UK would be a closely fought thing.

I can see the point that many English folks make about Scottish independence being a disaster for Scotland and possibly a boon, both politically and economically, for England. The most noted point is that the hideous Labour party depends on the Scottish vote. It seems not unreasonable to argue that were Scotland to go "independent" (we'll get back to the reason for the quotation marks) we would not see another Labour government in the remainder of the UK for years to come, if ever (Could, for example, the hideous Democrats in the US survive without California and New York?)

A Scotland-free UK might have a golden opportunity to reverse the lunatic economic and social agenda--including immigration policy--of the Labourites. England, arguably the most consequential country that ever has existed, would be free, potentially, to be England once more.

An independent Scotland would have to take on a goodly portion of the UK national debt or face getting no or only brutally expensive credit on the international market. London also could dump a lot of social entitlement liabilities by seeing Scotland go "indie."

On the issue of "independence," it strikes me that the Scots would substitute a London-based government over which they have considerable influence, for a Brussels-based bureaucratic nightmare over which Scotland would have minimal if any influence. Not a good deal for Scotland. The migration southward would be major.

Ok, Ok. Got it. I should have stayed out of this one and should not have expressed my somewhat emotion-based support for "No," especially since I am troubled by all the bribing going on to keep Scotland in the UK. If the government deliver on all the lavish promises made to the Scots to stay in the UK, I think that will encourage an English referendum on independence.

So, I guess I can sum up my garbled mess of opinion with the following slogan: "For Scotland's sake vote NO! For England's sake vote YES!"

Well, this is what I get for venturing into areas where I don't belong . . . sorry. Back to watching ACORN TV and the latest adventures of Hercule Poirot.