First Debate: Rocky vs. Walter Mitty

OK, it's 2 am, I just got in after a long drive in torrential rain so don't hold me to anything I write here. If needed, I will deny ever stating any of it.

Went to Raleigh and with two of my sons watched the first presidential debate.

General observation: the organization of the debates does not fit the bill. Instead of holding the candidates to some arbitrary six sections of topics, controlled by a moderator, often biased or inept, let them debate. Have them ask each other questions! Have them give each other answers! DEBATE!

I will vote for Trump, as will the Diplowife and the Diplosons. I don't think this debate will have changed anybody's mind. If you favored Trump before, you most likely still do. If you favored Biden before, you most likely still do. In that regard the debate proved a draw but . . . a draw in long-run games such as world chess championships or the Tour de France can prove part of a strategy for winning, well, in the long-run. Maybe.

Very briefly: each contestant played his version of hard-ball. Trump clearly came off as the more aggressive and energetic; critics would say he came off as a bully--I'll come back to that. Biden generally held up well, and aided by the moderator, Chris Wallace, on occasion managed to get Trump a bit flustered. Both interrupted one another, and Biden even engaged in outright name-calling, to wit, calling Trump a "clown" and a "liar," and telling him to shut-up. These guys obviously don't like each other.

Trump did not give as strong a defense of his naming a SCOTUS justice in an election year as he could have. He started saying, in essence, he would because he could: he has the White House and the Senate, and the other side would do the same if the situation allowed it. Realpolitic, and all that. Fair enough, but not very "principled," I guess, for want of a better word at 2 am. Toward the end of his statement, he concluded how he should have started: the President has a four-year term, not a three-year term, and the Constitutional responsibility and power to nominate a Justice for consideration by the Senate does not end in the last year. Precedents exists in our history for such nominations in an election year.

I found Trump's defense of his COVID policy a bit confusing and not as strong as it should have proven. He, after all, has done what the "scientists" said, and even imposed a ban on travel to and from China before they said he should--certainly well before Biden came around to that position. He needs a much leaner, cleaner explanation and defense. Biden, for his part, still can't say what he would have done differently and of what his "plan" consists. Come on Joe, save our lives, reveal your plan! End the mystery.

Biden, who looked old and waxen, did not deal well with the story of his son Hunter's blatant corruption. It just doesn't cut it to keep repeating that the stories of Hunter's corruption and financial links to China, Russia, and Ukraine have been "debunked." Uh, no they haven't, Joe, no they haven't. Hunter's a drug-addled crook whom you aided via the vice presidency in getting rich.

The tax issue? Meh. If you actually read the NYT story--a gruesome endeavor which I undertook--it does not state what the headlines claim. Trump, in fact, paid millions in taxes; the infamous and much-ballyhooed $750 was in addition to the millions he already had paid in estimated taxes. Trump fumbled a bit with this, but I don't think it hurt him much.

Biden proved totally inept on the issue of law-and-order, and made an absurd statement/lie about Antifa not comprising an organization but an idea. He also got caught by Trump's demand to know what law enforcement groups had endorsed Biden. Couldn't do it. He needs to prep better on that issue.

The Trump as bully meme? Don't know; don't care. Let me state, however, that I don't want as my president some timid clerk-type afraid of his own shadow and unable to take on real bullies such as Putin and Xi. 

I don't want to go on too much longer. Let me note that Trump seemed playing the long game by getting Biden, in essence, to disavow his own party's platform. Biden would not endorse nor condemn calls to pack the SCOTUS. Even more startling, he dumped the Green New Deal to Trump's shout, "You just lost the radical left!" In any regular election that would prove a crucial development. 

The problem, however, that Trump faces--as do all who love America--is that the left knows that Biden is not a real candidate, but rather a delusional Walter Mitty. It doesn't matter what he says, including his boast that "I am the Democrat Party!" No, no, you are not. You are just chaff thrown out to confuse the radar and let the real bombers get in. You, sir, won't be the real President even if elected.

More later.

 

Wedding, BLM, and Latin Lives Matter!

Diplowife and I just returned from a pleasant weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina. Although many establishments remained on ChiCom virus "lock down," total or partial, or required face masks, enough functioned to give a taste of Charlotte's greatness. The three hour-plus drive from Wilmington runs though a lot of beautiful NC countryside and small towns. We still have no interstate all the way; I, selfishly, hope it remains that way. You, however, must watch your speed since dramatic drops in the posted limit occur as you approach some towns. 

American flags and Trump/Pence signs greeted us all along the route: I have no doubt of how rural North Carolina will vote.

We went for the Saturday wedding of a good family friend; our three sons served as groomsmen. We stayed in downtown Charlotte, although the event itself took place in a vineyard some 30 miles away. Having arrived in the city the night before, we wanted a good nearby restaurant, and asked the receptionist for a recommendation. A Caribbean immigrant, judging from her accent (see disclaimer below), she urged us to exercise care; a few days prior the neighborhood had suffered BLM violence, with "protestors" erupting into the hotel. She hoped things would stay quiet; the "protestors" who stormed the lobby had frightened her a great deal. 

Outside, indeed, we saw evidence of the "protests": broken and boarded windows, graffiti, and a portion of the street on one side of our hotel blocked. That blocked stretch of street displayed a bizarre BLM mural, and a four-foot, greenish, faux "Lady Liberty" statue standing on a two-foot pedestal, right fist raised, a noose holding the "scales of justice" dangling from her left hand, and an upside-down American flag draped over her back. About a dozen, maybe more, "protestors" milled about, including several obese white women, some wearing the standard SS-type black BLM/Antifa outfits. They left us two old reactionaries alone; the "activists" seemed more interested in taking pictures of themselves adopting faux "revolutionary" poses in front of faux "Lady Liberty." Clowns. Stupid ignorant clowns. Proud products of our faux universities.

We found a nice Brazilian restaurant and enjoyed an excellent dinner, even if the wait staff wore masks and gloves giving off a bit of an emergency room air. Our walk back to the hotel passed without incident, although a small number of bored-looking "protestors" still wandered around the BLM mural. They, again, ignored us . . . oh, in case you ask, and, ahem, just in case, I had my Springfield Armory 1911 EMP--a very good carry weapon.

The open-air wedding ceremony the next day had about 90 or so participants--no masks, no distancing, lots of handshakes, hugs, back slaps, and kisses. Nearly the entire group, including the groom, consisted of Venezuelans living in Florida. Officiating the nuptials, we had a pastor from a small town in Wales--one of my sons, a fanatic about and very accurate when it comes to accents, claimed the good Rev obviously had spent time in Northern Ireland because of how he pronounced certain vowels. I don't know what to say about that. I have little ear for accents--to my son's chagrin, I can't tell an Aussie from a Kiwi, or a Canadian from a Yank--but having watched a couple of Welsh police dramas on TV, at least I thought he sounded Welsh. I kept looking for subtitles to appear when he spoke, but dim. 

All had a good time. Your humble correspondent filled the role for which God has him on earth: sitting at a table, watching over the purses and the shawls of the ladies cavorting on the dance floor. 

The ENTIRE wedding crowd proved fanatically pro-Trump. One very smart young Venezuelan-American told me, "Do brown lives matter? Do Latin lives matter? I don't hear those protestors saying that!" He would vote Trump, needless to say, but said anyhow.

Back in Wilmington, my own presidential debate prep has begun: you know, buying popcorn and pizzas. I will head to Raleigh to watch that debate with two Diplosons. In the absence of decent stand-up comedy these days, the Trump-Biden rumble will have to do.

Hunter "of Millions" Biden Becomes the Prey

The majority report put out jointly by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the Senate Committee on Finance (text here), "Hunter Biden, Burisma and Corruption: The Impact on U.S. Government Policy and Related Concerns," makes for some disturbing reading. We should congratulate the authors for writing so well, and digging out lots of information despite the failure to cooperate and other obstruction by former Obama officials.

I won't summarize the report in any detail; you can read it and weep on your own.

 Let me, however, state that the report does show the Biden family as avaricious and highly corrupt. Hunter, the drug-addicted and ne'er-do-well son of Joe Biden, showed no hesitation in using his last name to secure megabuck deals with the corrupt Burisma corporation in Ukraine, and to get millions from corrupt Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs. State Department officials, named in the report, warned the Department and the Vice President's office that Hunter's activities lent, at a minimum, the appearance of a "conflict of interest" given that Vice President Biden served as the point man for Obama on Ukraine (and China). 

I found even worse than his dealings with Ukraine and Russia (Mueller and Schiff, call your offices), Hunter's dealings with the Chinese. These included setting up the sale of a US company that manufactured military technology to a CCP/PLA-controlled firm; getting billions (yes, with a 'b') from the Chinese to invest in the US; and even getting the Chinese to set up a large checking account (of at least $100,000) for unrestricted use by himself as well as by his uncle and others of the Biden clan. Hunter Biden, of course, traveled with his dad on Air Force 2 to China where he pursued his lucrative deal-making.

Veep Biden and SecState Kerry, aware of these activities, did nothing to prevent them, turning a blind eye when not facilitating the needed USG permissions for certain sales. 

I think this report has scratched the surface. 

If we dig a bit deeper, we will find much more corruption. The mass media, of course, either ignore the report, try to make it appear a baseless GOP hit job, or state that nothing directly links Joe to the corruption. Right-o, boys.

I understand Senator Paul has forwarded the report to the DOJ recommending further action. Good.

RBG, RIP

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died at the age of 87. I express my condolences to her family and friends. May she rest in peace.

You can go to all sorts of media stories about her life, so I won't bother going over it all. 

Her death unleashes yet another political firestorm in a year in which it was hard to imagine yet another political firestorm. We will see a battle over whether President Trump should or should not name a replacement for RBG. The Dems will wheel out the tired arguments about not naming a Justice during an election year--unless, of course, a Democrat is in the White House. The Republicans, I hope, will cite RBG herself,

When asked if the Senate should consider then-President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, Ginsburg said, “That’s their job,” the New York Times reported. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the president stops being president in his last year,” Ginsburg added.

So, do the head count, if the Senate votes exist, then move on. Let the Dem mob riot in the street, that's what they do best.

Now, let's turn to RBG herself. 

We see her held up as an icon, described--even by President Trump--as "amazing." We have a true intellectual giant such as Meghan Markle, the Royal High Grand Duchess of Cupcakes and NetFlix or whatever, telling us mortals, from her mega-mansion on the California coast, that RBG, “has been a true inspiration to me since I was a girl. Honor her, remember her, act for her.” 

Yeah, right . . . as if Her Royal Cupcakeness had heard of RBG before some PR flack wrote that blather for her. No word from defrocked Prince Harry as to whether RBG inspired him to become a little girl . . .

OK, fine, but, sorry, at the risk of seeming cruel and uncouth, might we ask for proof of that judicial greatness? 

I see lots of puff pieces and hagiographies, e.g., here, but they come off rather skimpy when listing her achievements as a Justice. 

OK, I got it: she favored killing unborn children and "promoting" women, but other than that? What?

Just a thought.

Good News on the Middle East

I find myself envious of those who worked on the UAE, Bahrain, Israel agreements, known as the Abraham Accords. As an old FSO, I would have given just about anything to get involved in something like that, but only under President Trump, who introduced radical ideas into these sort of agreements: reality and common sense. 

Not that I ever will--Oh Heaven Forfend! Never!--but I would like to yell loudly at tell my old colleagues in the NEA (Near East Asia) bureau, "I told you so!" 

Let me explain.

During my nearly 34 years at State, I stayed away from two major topics. State considered them the Holiest of the Holiest, suitable only for an elite possessed of THE Revealed Knowledge; both consumed an extraordinary amount of time and resources, e.g., lots of travel and nice hotels. I speak in hushed reverential tones, of course, of two sacred "Processes": nuclear arms talks with the USSR, and the "search" for Middle East Peace. 

As an outsider and "non-expert," not worthy of The Knowledge, I found, and stated on multiple occasions, that the US government's approaches to both topics seemed hopelessly convoluted, opaque, and apparently designed to keep solutions at bay and legions of bureaucrats fully employed for decades. Neither ever struck me as particularly difficult to handle. Both of those long-running "Processes," however, had become captive to the "experts," who developed arcane language and rituals to protect their Enlightened Brotherhood. God help the unwashed outsider who expressed a less-than hagiographic opinion on those! 

On those occasions in Foggy Bottom when I stated strong doubts that these "Processes" and their endless negotiations served US interests, I remember the exasperated sighs, the eye-rolls, the sneering lips, and the condescending explanations from the Anointed Ones in NEA, EUR, and PM/ACDA as to why only an idiot, such as yours truly, would doubt the Wise Ones and their doings. Those Wise Ones told me to keep to my own ken, and far away from the "Processes." Fine by me; I had a much better time in Latin America and Asia.

Well, well, how the worm turns . . . the "idiots" proved correct. 

The threat from the USSR did not end thanks to some complex, clever agreement hashed out by the Wise Ones with their Soviet counterparts. It ended with the collapse of the USSR engineered by a cowboy movie star who realized that the USSR could not compete with US technology and GDP. Ronald Reagan did not prove popular with the Wise Ones, but he did prove right, to wit, in international affairs, strength proves better than weakness, and don't give up that strength in the pursuit of a flimsy deal. Simple, no? As an aside I would note, the British also ignored that dictum as we saw in PM May's hapless and Byzantine negotiations re Brexit, joining us as another Western power victimized by the "experts." In sum, when you have the upper hand, use it.

If possible, the Middle East Peace Process (always become skeptical of just about anything in international affairs employing the word "process") seemed even more convoluted than the arms control charade. The State Department, I would note, was and remains overwhelmingly anti-Israel, regardless of the White House's occupant.  

We got involved in decades-long talks with the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Saudis, the UN, the EU, etc. We spent years mulling over moving our Embassy in Israel to the capital of Israel, but could never bring ourselves to do it: the "experts" predicted regional mayhem if we did--and it would make the Palestinians unhappy(ier). Couldn't have that. No way. Such a move would sabotage the "Peace Process." Above all else the "Process" needed protection. We sent our troops on disastrous expeditions to Lebanon, for no good reason. We refused to become energy independent, leaving ourselves open to blackmail. We constantly hectored the Israelis--who, along with Eastern Europeans, are the world's ultimate realists--about the need to play nice, you know, ignore the threats to annihilate them coming from across their borders and daily at the UN. We shuttled; we talked; we paid enormous sums of money to the Palestinian Authority and to corrupt anti-American UN agencies, e.g. UNRWA. It made no sense. I saw the so-called Palestinian cause as a fraud of the first order (here, for example.) When I would converse with Arab and other Muslim diplomats, in private, they made clear they couldn't care less about the Palestinians and, in fact, had gotten fed up with them. They couldn't say so in public, but made it known through many actions, including their growing concern over Iranian involvement in "Palestine" issues. None of the Muslim countries wanted Palestinian "refugees," and all seemed content to let the West pay for and take them in. 

We, nevertheless, kept playing a stupid game wherein the deceitful Palestinian authorities, who had zero interest in peace or good governance, could--and would--veto any proffered settlement. They could accept only the total elimination of Israel, but--Surprise!--the Israelis would not agree to that. Damn Jews . . . what's another holocaust if it brings peace? Eh? Take a hit for the team, sheesh . . .

Well, as with so much else I find appealing about Trump, he skipped the "experts" and their warnings about the "Process." He relied on facts and a clear vision as to what proved in the US interest. He did what I had advocated for so long, ignore the Palestinians, do an end run on them. He moved our Embassy to Jerusalem, and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan. He cut off US funding for the corrupt Authority, and the equally corrupt UNRWA, and did not waste a lot of time talking with that Authority. All this combined, of course, with US energy independence, and our acknowledging--at long last--that the Arabs fear Iran much more than they do Israel. He used our strength to weaken and corner Iran--no more pallets of cash--and to push the Saudis to a realization that it was time to move. Let's face it, the UAE and Bahrain deals could not have gone through without getting the Saudis on board--and Trump did that. I am sure we will see in the next few months more Gulf States, and others, join in recognizing Israel and becoming part of the US-led anti-Iran alliance. The Saudis, too, will eventually come out in public.

The Palestinians? Well, they got put in a box. Trump has done what we should have done long ago, to wit, in essence, declare the Palestinian issue one for Israel and Jordan. We do not need to get involved. 

Sitting with the Palestinians in that box we find the Iranians and their friends in the Democrat Party. The landscape in the Middle East has changed dramatically against them. There no longer is any validity--if ever there was--to a policy appeasing the Iranians. Another legacy from the Obama misadministration has bitten the dust. John Kerry proved wrong about it all. Kerry, go talk to your buddy Soleimani  . . . oh, that's right. I forgot. Turns out nobody needs you in the Middle East. Go find some other way to show hatred for America. You're good at that. 

Good news. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

Pretty Good Old Style War Movie: Greyhound

Won't bore you with a long review, but wanted to state that I found myself pleasantly surprised by the Apple TV production of "Greyhound," based on C.S. Forester's novel The Good Shepherd. I haven't read the novel, and, therefore, don't know whether the movie remains faithful to the original source.

The film stars Tom Hanks, who wrote the screenplay, and Stephen Graham (one of my favorite actors; he can do anything.) It tells the story of a perilous Atlantic crossing by a US-UK-Canadian convoy sailing from North America to England with vital supplies in the early days of official American entry into WWII.

In these times of crippling "wokeness," I found it refreshing to watch a film that keeps the political correctness of this insane age under control, and tells a good old-style story in a straightforward old-style manner. What a shock! And from Apple!

The film leaves no doubt as to the story's heroes; it doesn't inject fake prog characters to appease today's woke demands. We see no "bad ass" women on board, no transgender sailors, none of that. The heroes are straight, God-fearing men undertaking a perilous task for their country; they are overwhelmingly white, with a brave black sailor filling a role appropriate to those times. The movie has a welcome patriotic and religious tone, portraying Hanks' character, U.S. Navy Commander Krause, skipper of the Greyhound and head of the beleaguered convoy, as a man who seeks strength from his faith. 

The battle scenes are very well done; the CGI is quite good most of the time. The U-boats are appropriately menacing. They frightened me, anyhow, but then the North Atlantic in the winter always frightens me, even without Nazi U-boats.

Quite aside from the story it tells, I found this film, along with "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,"an excellent study in the demands of leadership. Throughout the film, Krause has to make multiple life-and-death, split-second decisions, in the midst of great confusion and a flow of often contradictory and limited information. He doesn't always make the right one. Very well done.

Worth seeing: a blast of bracing salty air after all the stale, smelly garbage that gets passed off as entertainment.

See it, if you can.

9/11: Then and Now

Had they had a properly working crystal ball, the suicidal Islamic terrorists who slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001, could now enjoy rich, fat, and happy lives in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or some other spa-like location in the Middle East or South-Central Asia. Along with their boss Osama, they gave up their miserable lives to murder thousands of us in an effort to bring down the United States and the West. 

As it turns out, Mohamed, you  had no need to do that. Mo, you poor deluded fool, we can do it ourselves.

I have written a lot about the 9/11 attack (here, for example) and won't bore the five or six readers of this exercise in narcissism with more. Let me just state, that back in those far off days, I saw that Islam posed the number one threat to America and the West, even if certain progs, e.g. Obama, could not bring themselves to so state. I thought that President Bush, despite his MANY shortcomings, had it right when he bluntly told the world in his September 20, 2001, address to Congress, "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." True words. With us or against us. Pick a side. No neutral ground. Blood in our eye. We're coming for justice and revenge. We were united and soon the loons in the hills of Afghanistan found out what that meant.

Well, of course, that just ain't so any more. 

As readers of this humble blog can attest, I increasingly came to realize (here and here) that the greatest threat to the West came from within: idiotic immigration policies, the desire not to offend those who want to kill us, and decades of leftist "education" producing semi-literate, self-entitled morons all over the West convinced that the West is Bad, and full of all sorts of oppressions. Not only are they convinced, they act on it, too. It turns out that those who opposed us reacting to the Islamic threat, were themselves the greater threat.

We see violent anarchist-fascist-Red Guards, going under the banners of Antifa and BLM, tearing up our cities while their rich privileged enablers sip lattes and engage in bouts of cancel culture, and help extort millions of dollars, pure Mafia style, from the "wokesters" now running many global corporations.  They gain support also from the prog-dominated mainstream media and, of course, from that famous criminal organization known as the Democrat Party.

In sum, we can't blame this violence and destruction on a foreign occupation force, or an attack by foreign terrorists. Nope. It's all done by our own Quislings, our own home-grown Maoists, and leftist Brown Shirts. 

September 11, 2001 vs September 11, 2020. Not a good contrast.