Sunday, March 13, 2022

The William Barr Code

The former attorney general’s memoir is one deep state revelation after another.


At the outset of his newly published memoir, One Damn Thing After Another, former Attorney General William Barr recalls his concern about President Trump’s claim that the 2020 election had been “stolen” through voting “fraud.”  

“There’s always some fraud in an election that large,” Barr explains, and “there may have been more than usual in 2020.” But Barr’s Department of Justice didn’t see it changing the outcome, so by extension, cellar-dweller Joe Biden, who had openly touted the most extensive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics, won it fair and square. 

As he winds down the memoir, Barr charts President Trump’s many successes: tax reform, deregulation, the strongest and most resilient economy in American history, unprecedented progress for many marginalized Americans, withdrawal from the Iran deal, peace accords in the Middle East, and so forth. Trump achieved all this “in the face of bitter, implacable attacks,” but it wasn’t enough to get him a second term. 

If Trump had just exercised “a modicum of self-restraint, moderating even a little of his pettiness,” he would have won. As the two-time attorney general has it, “the election was not ‘stolen.’ Trump lost it.” That’s Barr’s basic message, and the rest of the book is like a bikini, interesting as much for what it conceals as what it reveals. 

Back in December 1969, William Barr applied for an internship with the Central Intelligence Agency and was admitted to the program. While attending law school at night, Barr worked at the CIA and as a lawyer continued in the CIA’s office of legislative counsel. Aside from Jimmy Carter’s pick—Stansfield Turner, “a disaster”—CIA bosses come off pretty well in Barr’s book. 

In 1976, college student John Brennan voted for old-line Stalinist Gus Hall, candidate of the Communist Party USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Soviet Union. That disqualified Brennan from any job with the CIA. As Ronald Radosh notes, Clinton national security advisor Anthony Lake thought Stalinist spy Alger Hiss might have been innocent, and that played a role in Lake’s failure to get the CIA’s top post. 

In 1980, by contrast, the CIA readily hired Brennan, who served in the Directorate of Intelligence and rose through the ranks. In 2013, the composite character president David Garrow described in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama made Brennan CIA director. Barr, a veteran of the CIA, shows no curiosity about the strange career of Brennan, a key player in the Russia hoax. Barr is quite familiar with other cast members. 

“I had known [James] Comey for more than twenty years,” Barr reveals, and “helped him become US Attorney in New York.” In 2016, FBI Director Comey held a news conference “sharply criticizing Clinton for her mishandling of classified emails.” Readers might think that a former attorney general and CIA man would outline the federal statutes Clinton violated. 

Barr fails to detail the big fix that kept Hillary in the campaign, so he doubtless shares Comey’s belief that “no reasonable prosecutor” would have indicted her. By extension, former first ladies must be above the law, along with FBI bosses. 

Trump wanted Barr to indict Comey for giving out memos containing confidential information. Barr told the president “everyone at the department agreed the evidence showed Comey lacked criminal intent. No one thought that the prosecution could be justified.”

As Barr explains, criminal intent is hard to prove unless an official commits “an inherently wrongful act—like altering a document.” FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith altered a document about Trump adviser Carter Page. Clinesmith got probation and Comey and Peter Strzok never endured a criminal prosecution. 

Barr is also a fan of former FBI boss Robert Mueller. “I admired Bob,” Barr writes. “We became friends as did our wives.” 

Barr also knew the Justice Department’s Rod Rosenstein “for many years” and “believed him to be a consummate professional with a broad and deep understanding of the department’s business.” It was deputy attorney general Rosenstein who suddenly appointed Mueller special counsel to investigate Trump, a “controversial” move according to Barr.

“Few can appreciate the complexities Rod faced during that tumultuous time,” writes Barr, “and even fewer will know the important contributions he made to the administration and the country.” Barr leaves it there, so readers are left to wonder. 

One Damn Thing After Another shows how FBI and Justice Department bosses mounted operations against a duly elected president. Barr holds them above the law and extends the same privilege to former presidents and vice presidents. As Barr explains, “I made it clear that neither President Obama nor Vice President Biden were [sic] in [U.S. Attorney John] Durham’s crosshairs.” 

William Barr first became attorney general on November 26, 1991, the selection of George H.W. Bush, the former CIA director who came into office talking up a “new world order.” Barr does not speculate whether his own experience with the CIA was a factor. Barr recalls the Pan Am 103 bombing but omits a key episode from his first stint as attorney general. 

During the Ruby Ridge siege of 1992, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot unarmed Vicki Weaver in the head as she held her infant child. Snipers are trained carefully to “acquire” the target so the killing was not accidental. Barr spent two weeks organizing former attorney generals to defend Horiuchi, who already had government lawyers working on his behalf. 

The shoot-without-provocation rules were approved by the FBI’s Larry Potts. Barr told the New York Times Potts was “deliberate and careful” and “I can’t think of enough good things to say about him.” 

In his January 2019 Senate confirmation hearings, Democrats asked Barr if he had ever undertaken pro bono activities to serve the “disadvantaged.” As James Bovard observed, “nobody is asking about Barr’s legal crusade for blanket immunity for federal agents who killed American citizens.” That seems to be an ongoing problem.

The “forcible breach of the Capitol by rioters” on January 6, 2021 “was reprehensible,” Barr writes. But he neglects to mention the only person shot dead that day. Unarmed Trump supporter and Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt was gunned down by Capitol police officer Michael Byrd. Barr fails to mention this shooting and also seems unaware of the FBI role in January 6 events, as Julie Kelly has charted in great detail

Also missing from Barr’s account are several Russia hoax players, including U.S. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former Justice Department official Andrew Weismann, and Democrat lawyer Michael Sussman, the subject of recent revelations from John Durham. 

Barr does reveal that in 2016 his choice for the Republican nomination was Jeb Bush, a “thoughtful and soundly conservative” contrast to Donald Trump, whom he regarded as “a political opportunist who had no real political convictions.” After confirming that collusion charges against Trump were false, and charting his considerable achievements, Barr wants Trump to butt out. 

As the two-time attorney general sees it, the Republicans can now boast “an impressive array of younger candidates fully capable of driving forward with MAGA’s positive agenda.” Good luck with that under current conditions. 

As One Damn Thing After Another reveals, the deep state is deeper and more powerful than embattled Americans have imagined. The CIA, once headed by a Gus Hall voter, meddles in domestic affairs. The vaunted Justice Department functions as the pro bono law firm of the deep state. The FBI, the U.S. equivalent of the KGB, has become the strike force of the Democratic Party. 

FBI boss Christopher Wray hotly denied that any spying against Trump had taken place. President Trump wondered if Wray was the right person to clean up the FBI, but as Barr writes, “the more I worked with Wray, the more I thought he should stay.” He did, and now heads up operations against “domestic terrorists”—essentially anyone less-than-worshipful of Joe Biden, anyone concerned about voter fraud, and those parents who protest the racist indoctrination of their children. And so on. 

At the close of his memoir, Barr says “it is time to look forward.” Embattled Americans should take his advice. 

August 21 will mark 30 years since the Ruby Ridge siege, when the federal government deployed massive military force against a single family and an FBI sniper killed an unarmed woman holding her infant daughter. In August, with midterms looming, embattled Americans doubtless will be protesting voter fraud, ongoing vaccine mandates, soaring energy costs, inflation, and a lot more. 

If things get rowdy, and the FBI, DHS, ATF, U.S. Marshals, National Guard, Capitol Police—now stationed in Florida and California—state police or local police should happen to gun down any unarmed women, Americans will know where William Barr stands. As Trump likes to say, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.


X22, On the Fringe, and more-March 13

 



If tonight's episode is good, and if I'm up to it, I might write a review of NCIS LA's new episode tonight. ('Might').

Here's tonight's news:


Ukraine War Highlights the Rise of a New International Order


American allies, Republican officials, and policy analysts the world over are concerned that if the Biden administration countenances Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, it will signal that China is free to move against Taiwan. The fact is, it’s probably too late already.

The issue is not that Washington couldn’t protect its client state in Kyiv but that it has never countered Beijing itself. After all, the United States didn’t lift a finger when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) assimilated Hong Kong. Nor has it held Beijing accountable for lying about the origins of COVID-19, even as the CCP’s deceptions and actions regarding the pandemic amounted to an opportunistic campaign of asymmetric warfare.

With hundreds of thousands of Americans dead, the country’s national security establishment did nothing to counter Beijing. In an assessment published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, President Joe Biden’s spy chiefs concluded that there’s no way of knowing what happened in Wuhan—unless the Chinese themselves decide to divulge what they know. And thus, the U.S. national security establishment cleared the CCP of any responsibility for the possible release, accidental or otherwise, of a dangerous virus.

Seen in this context, Kyiv is an effect not a cause. The issue is not that the war on Ukraine may lead to the Chinese capturing Taiwan, but rather that America’s repeated failures to check the CCP, especially over Wuhan, have emboldened U.S. adversaries, including Putin.

As I explain in the latest episode of “Over the Target,” the conflict in Ukraine has brought to light the rise of a new international order led by China and Russia that has taken shape in opposition to Washington’s leadership. Does the growing strength of this anti-U.S. bloc mean that the Washington-led post-World War II order has come to an end?

No—or not necessarily. But it does mean that present American leadership has undermined the chief strategic goal of the postwar period—to prevent the Russians and Chinese from joining forces. In other words, an era that began 50 years ago last month has come to an end.

Richard Nixon and his top foreign policy adviser Henry Kissinger believed that opening relations with the CCP would force further divides between the two communist powers and weaken the then more formidable regime in Moscow. And so in February 1972, Nixon visited China and helped set in motion a series of events that would leave America as the world’s sole superpower. Managing that outcome proved too much for the U.S. ruling class.

After the Soviet Union crumbled, the economic “shock therapy” counseled by U.S. and other Western consultants further weakened traditional institutions already damaged by communism and gave new life to the corrupt institutions built by the Soviets. Russia’s current ruling structure is the logical result: a former KGB officer fueled by resentment sitting atop a pyramid of oligarchs.

At the same time Putin was rising to power, the U.S. ruling class made China the centerpiece of globalism, a political and economic order dependent on a pool of cheap labor controlled by the CCP. The arrangement enriched American and Chinese elites, at the expense of the American working- and middle-classes—and U.S. national security.

And now half a century after the historic opening with the CCP, the geopolitical concept with which Nixon and Kissinger shaped the world to America’s benefit has been turned on its head. Beijing and Moscow are closer than ever, with the former as senior partner. And the United States, at least under the Biden administration, has assumed the part of shrinking supplicant.

According to a recent report, U.S. intelligence officials shared information with Chinese spy services about their assessment of Putin’s Ukraine plans. The United States reportedly asked China to rein in the Russian president.

It’s a strange story. And given the prestige media’s role as a platform for operations run by U.S. intelligence services, and their joint efforts to shield Biden’s blunders from scrutiny, it’s likely worse than what’s been reported. But it’s bad enough that the account underscores a strange habit among Biden officials. The White House says it sees China as a challenge and competitor but is instead treating it like a world power to which it is beholden.

Just months ago, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley boasted that he’d called his CCP counterpart to promise that he’d give advance warning if then President Donald Trump resolved to move against China. At the very least, this would seem to settle any lingering questions about America’s resolve to defend Taiwan. In publicizing his discussion with a senior CCP official, America’s top military adviser made clear that he prioritized Chinese national interests even above those of the country he’s sworn to serve and protect.

And this raises the question: Why wasn’t Milley fired, or worse? How did the U.S. national security establishment come to accept as normal a four-star general’s vow to disclose classified intelligence about U.S. troop movements to a prospective enemy combatant?

It’s because the Biden administration represents the terminal stage of a decaying ruling establishment. Whether this class drags the rest of this country into the netherworld along with it will depend on the strength of new American leadership rising to meet the rising challenges abroad.


Slow Joe, Bad Vlad

Vladimir Putin is certainly worthy of condemnation. But that does not mean Donald Trump was wrong when he observed it would be “a good thing, not a bad thing” if America got on well with Russia.


Proverbial sayings seem to have seasons just as fruits and flowers do. Here’s one misattributed to Mark Twain that’s in season now: “If you don’t read the news, you are uninformed. If you do, you are misinformed.” I don’t know how many times I have encountered that one recently. It’s probably always relevant, but it seems especially so now that “the fog of war” has rolled in everywhere following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of February. 

It has been amusing to see the beautiful people exchange their Black Lives Matter yard signs and lapel pins for stylized images of the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag. A couple of summers ago, I had to reach for the Dramamine when I started getting emails from various corporate concerns declaring their solidarity with George Floyd and their staunch opposition to “white supremacy” and “systemic racism.” The same emporia are now emitting bulletins announcing their brave support of Ukraine and its media-savvy president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

There have been some dissenting voices. U.S. Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), for example, just described Zelenskyy as a “thug” and the Ukrainian government as “incredibly evil.” He was harshly criticized for those comments. “Let’s be clear,” sniffed one lawmaker, “the thug is Putin.” You have probably noticed that “pro-Putin” has replaced “white supremacist” as this week’s epithet of choice. It doesn’t matter that Cawthorn also observed, “The actions of Putin and Russia are disgusting. But leaders, including Zelensky [sic], should NOT push misinformation on America.”

Two points. First, it won’t matter what Cawthorn says about Putin’s invasion. He has dared to attack a sacred cow. He has arrayed himself on the side of the goats. He must be vilified. 

Second, a more general point. Two different things can be true at the same time. Vladimir Putin can be a murderous thug and Ukraine can be a corrupt country beholden to various left-wing interests. 

Some commentators who have pointed that out ask why it appears to be so difficult for people to take that observation on board. I don’t believe that the issue is one of understanding. Rather, it is an issue of politics. The Left (which includes the NeverTrump, chiffon Right) has realized that calling someone “pro-Putin” might be a useful political weapon, much as “soft on crime,” “liberal,” and “socialist” were in the dim, distant past. Expect anyone who comments on the situation in Ukraine who does not echo the press releases being issued by Kyiv to be tarred with the “pro-Putin” brush. 

In this great game of power politics what is wanted is not the truth but strict, not to say abject, ideological conformity. It is only by subscribing to that narrative that, for example, Joe Biden could hope to get away with the claim that rising energy costs are Putin’s fault. Notwithstanding Jen Psaki’s assertions to the contrary, Joe Biden shut down vast swathes of the American energy industry. The result has been sharply higher energy costs for months. Now that he has turned off the spigot of Russian oil, costs are shooting up even higher—and the worst is yet to come—but that is on Biden, not Putin. 

As many commentators (including me) have noted, Biden’s green energy policy helped pay for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. That revenue stream was just tied off, but too late. Some 190,000 Russian troops had massed on the Ukrainian border, and on February 24 they rolled on over. Putin is in the process of being starved now. But what will the issue be? Will the sanctions bring him to his knees, as the pols and pundits predict? Or will they back him into a corner? 

“With his survival now at stake,” one analyst conjectures, “this rat will strike anything in its path to get out of its corner.” That’s a possibility that those, like Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who advocate sending warplanes to Ukraine might ponder. “Enough talk,” Romney said recently. Quoth the Grecian Formula pol: “People are dying. Send them the planes that they need. They say they need MiGs . . . They want MiGs. Get them the MiGs.” And then what?

A couple of observations. First, I agree with those who have argued that, if Donald Trump had been president, it is highly unlikely that Putin would have invaded Ukraine. This offends The Narrative, I know, but look at the record. That’s one of the undigestible morsels that the anti-Trump regime apologists will just have to swallow, hoping no one will notice.

Second, it is almost impossible to sift through the haze of misinformation being issued by all sides, including, it should go without saying, the government of the United States. Some silly commentators are confident they know how the conflict will end and, moreover, what its end will portend for politicians they do not like. But they know as much as you and I do: nothing really, at least nothing upon which a confident prediction about the outcome of Putin’s latest adventure could be based. 

Go ahead and condemn Putin if it makes you feel better. He is certainly worthy of condemnation. But that does not mean Donald Trump was mistaken when he observed it would be “a good thing, not a bad thing” if the United States got on well with Russia. For one thing, it would give the United States leverage over Putin and expose areas of common interest. The alternative, on view as I write, is to drive Putin into the arms of the Chinese and the Iranians. Maybe this misbegotten invasion will wind up destroying Putin. Then again, maybe other things—more dear to us—will be destroyed, instead or alongside.


Biden Loses It Over Americans Correctly Knowing the Cause of Inflation

Biden Loses It Over Americans Correctly Knowing the Cause of Inflation

Biden Loses It Over Americans Correctly Knowing the Cause of Inflation

Speaking to House Democrats at their winter retreat in Philadelphia Friday afternoon, President Joe Biden started yelling at Americans who pin inflation on excessive government spending. 

"I'm sick of this stuff!" Biden screamed, throwing his arms in the air. "The American people think the reason for inflation is government spending more money. Simply not true."

“I’m SICK of this stuff!”

Joe Biden is furious that Americans blame inflation on his government spending. pic.twitter.com/quRxB2lfvA

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 11, 2022

But it is true. Take a look at the rise in inflation after Biden's $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan was passed and signed. 

????Happy Birthday American Rescue Plan????
CPI +7.9% (highest o 4 decades)
Gasoline +38%
Used Vehicles +41%
Food at Home +8.6%
* Food at elementary schools -53% because too many children still forced to "learn" from home.
Real Wages in freefall
Note: free money ain't free pic.twitter.com/bLhCKLOEC7

— Charles V Payne (@cvpayne) March 11, 2022

This week's Consumer Price Index report not only showed inflation at the highest level since 1982, but broke historic records for price increases on essential goods. 

Many price increases are the **highest ever recorded** by @BLS_gov

Hotels +29%
Furniture +17.1
Chicken +13.2
New cars & trucks +12.4
Flooring +11.3
Lunchmeat +11
Dry clean +9.5%
Tools +8.7
Baby food +8.4
Full service restaurant +7.5
Pet supplies +7.5
Toys +6.7
Car repair +6.7

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) March 10, 2022

During an interview with CNBC Thursday afternoon, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned inflation is here to stay.

Today Jen Psaki said that prices increases, especially in energy, would be "temporary, and not long lasting."

Just HOURS later, Janet Yellen says "we're likely to see another year in which 12-month inflation numbers remain very uncomfortably high." pic.twitter.com/uM0sCU247q

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 10, 2022

How to Establish a No-Fly Zone Without Starting World War III

We’ll call it the fly-all-you-want-but-you’ll-be-sorry zone.


In the rotten days immediately prior to World War II, Franklin Roosevelt sought a way to help the nationalist Chinese beat back the Japanese army, which was slowly devouring China with the great assistance of its air force. 

FDR couldn’t send troops without a declaration of war. But airplanes were a different story. He charged one of his aides, Lauchlin Currie, with making it happen. Currie devised a covert operation to send 100 brand new P-40 Tomahawk fighters to China with pilots who were “civilian instructors” and mechanics who were “metal workers.” With the help of William Pawley and his Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company, the covert operation emerged as the Flying Tigers

In one move, the United States had aided the Chinese by providing modern aircraft with Chinese markings, using American civilian volunteer “instructors” to take on and beat back the Japanese Army Air Force. In the seven months of their combat flying, the Flying Tigers destroyed 296 Japanese aircraft with a loss of only 14 American pilots.

Why not do the same today for Ukraine, only instead of fighter aircraft, we send drones

The reality is, NATO will not and cannot establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine. In the conventional military mind, a no-fly zone means patrolling the skies with lots of jet fighters. Of course, the first time a NATO fighter shoots down a Russian airplane, the big war will start. 

There is, however, an alternative. It is here christened “the flying robot minefield.”

Because of the onslaught of a huge Russian force, there is no time to reconfigure obsolete MQ-1 Predator drones from the boneyard. 

But we do have 300 MQ-9 Reaper Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Why not transfer the entire fleet to Ukraine and paint them with Ukrainian markings? Anything piecemeal, such as a handful of used Polish Mig-29s, would not have the desired shock effect upon the Russian invasion.

If Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Brown starts to whine, he can go over to that olive drab hood ornament, General Mark Milley, and they can find a safe space in the Pentagon basement next to the purple water fountain where they can palaver about next year’s diversity goals.

Meanwhile, lease U.S. Air Force UAV satellite control stations to the Ukrainians and move them to a friendly non-NATO country in the northern hemisphere. Air Force  personnel could be instructors to the Ukrainian operators actually flying the missions. Only civilian contractor personnel would be on the ground in Ukraine training Ukrainians to support the aircraft. 

Next, bring out old-fashioned Marine Corps SATS (short airfield for tactical support) portable airstrips, adapt them for Reapers, and emplace and re-emplace them at frequent intervals to keep from being targeted by Russian airstrikes or artillery.  

Arm each of the Reapers with 12 Stinger missiles and launch flights of four flying in wide line-abreast “combat spread.” The breath of the formation will be set as to optimize the hemispherical kill zone in front of the Reapers. The UAVs would fly at a low altitude and at low airspeed to take advantage of radar ground clutter and the “digital notch” so that Russian moving target indicator radars will have a hard time seeing them.

Meanwhile, flying waaaaay back over friendly territory are even friendlier radar aircraft watching for “bogies” flying across the Ukrainian border. Those aircraft can then satellite the data to the UAV control station and the Ukrainians can maneuver their flight of Reapers as if they were a WWII U-boat wolfpack using rudeltaktik: aim the pointy end at the enemy, wait for him to come into range, unt zen, torpedo los! . . . oops . . . missiles away!

Imagine the fun the Russian Air Force will have dodging up to 48 heat-seeking missiles, at close range, with no prior intelligence as to where the missiles would be, no radar warning receiver alert tone, and—unless they have two large Cossacks with snow shovels in the ass-end, heaving out piles of infra-red decoys—not nearly enough flares.

Think of flyboy Lieutenant-General Sergey Dronov of the Glavnokomanduyuschiy VVS  trudging up to Putin’s office and attempting to explain how he just lost a dozen Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack jets to missiles launched from a position that wasn’t there an hour ago.

We’ll call it the instant fly-all-you-want-but-you’ll-be-sorry zone.

Meanwhile, back at another SATS base full of Reapers, another four MQ-9s are launched with 12 Hellfire missiles each. Again, relatively low and slow. They are on an armed reconnaissance looking for a Russian convoy where they will use the Finnish Motti tactic: Find them, segment them, annihilate them.

Again, waaaaay back over friendly airspace looms another peculiar friendly airplane whose radar can “see” all manner of radar reflective objects, such as tanks, trucks, or artillery. Its satellite links the target coordinates to the Ukrainians in the UAV control station under some palm trees on the Mediterranean coast, and they cue their four Ukrainian Reapers in the general direction of the target. When each Reaper acquires the target convoy and sends back a TV picture of the soon-to-be-hosed bad guys, the outboard Reapers each launch one Hellfire missile, one at the nearest tank and one at the farthest tank. Then in the next 15 minutes or so, the Reapers engage in a kind of robot skeet shoot, leaving smoking debris where the convoy used to be.

We’ll name it the instant drive-all-you-want-but-you’ll-be-sorry zone.

Meanwhile, at another Reaper SATS base, the lumbering beast is armed with a load of golden oldies: 2.75-inch folding-fin aircraft rockets. Except now they have wrap-around fins, a much more powerful rocket engine . . . and they are laser-guided

So what kind of target would be ideal for such a system? 

Latrines. 

Yep, those stinking, identical little tents set behind each trio of big squad tents that you will find in every Russian encampment are easy targets to discover with the Reaper’s electro-optical day-night observation system. 

What could be more demoralizing to a Russian soldier than when, in that one moment where he is trying to defecate in a place that is temporarily out of the freezing wind, a laser-guided 10-pound warhead suddenly explodes in the malodorous latrine next to his, sending a giant geyser of human excrement, dirt, canvas, and his unit’s last sheet of toilet paper flying skyward in an ominous brown plume which then thunders down, splattering everything within 100 meters with a horrendous steaming goo? 

Best of all, four Reapers armed with pods of AGR-20s could destroy all the latrines in a Russian brigade in about 20 minutes.

We could dub it the instant use-the-tent-at-your-own-risk zone.  

The Russians have actually thought about this and have developed a toilet-equipped tank, but alas, they haven’t deployed any.

Let the Reapers, you will pardon the expression, doo-doo that for a week and the Russian troops can only mutter, “Same stuff, different day.”


Maybe It’s Not Racism - Maybe It’s You

Maybe It's Not Racism — Maybe It's YOU

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

Several years ago I was hired to do a corporate show for a company in Ohio. I was at the venue talking with the owner of the business, and he began pointing people out and telling me who they were, their job titles, etc. He pointed to a black guy and said, “That’s Chuck. Last year at this time he was on probation. I thought I was going to have to fire him. This year he signed more new clients than anyone else.”

“What’s his secret?” I asked.

“Perspective,” the man answered. “He complained that he was only on probation because he was black. He said I needed to fire someone to save money, and of course, it would be the black guy. I showed him the numbers and proved he was on probation because of his performance, not his skin color. Now he’s #1.”

Everyone on the left should learn from Chuck. Sometimes I’ll say that racism isn’t holding people back. Yet some very successful black people scream “RACISM” when they screw things up.

The progressives have built an army of victims. Whether it’s their skin color, their gender, their pretend gender, or the fuzzy animal costume they wear on dates, every leftist has a built-in excuse for when they fail, and it’s always someone else’s bigotry.

OPINION-O-RAMA! Excuses are comfortable fallback for people prone to failure.

The left has pretended for years that equality was the goal (and as a former liberal I believed this myth). It’s not, nor has it ever been.

Are minorities equal today? I guess that depends on whom you ask.

Considering that the U.S. is the only democratic republic to have a mostly white voter base elect a black man to lead it twice, I’d say things are looking good. There are tons of black police chiefs around the nation, as well as judges and prosecutors. If there is “systemic racism” in the legal system, there are a LOT of black people in on it.

I’m not saying there is no racism in today’s America. Who could forget the black supremacist who ran over 62 white people in a Christmas parade?

Imagine a country with so little racism toward minorities these days that successful lefties actually have to fake it.

Of the 400 + fake hate crimes reported in the U.S. in recent times, Jussie Smollett’s attempt to create racism where there was none takes the trophy for the “You Can’t Be Serious, Dude” of the Decade Award.

Smollett likes to play two victim cards, one for being black and one for being gay, neither of which kept him from enjoying a successful career in acting, a vocation where 90% of the unionized actors are traditionally unemployed.

Rather than enjoy his success and the lack of bigotry that helped him get there, Smollett needed more victimhood. Here was his battle plan (thank GOD Smollett wasn’t a general or we would all be speaking Chinese):

  • Hire two black guys to pretend they are white guys in MAGA hats.
  • Pretend they were in downtown Chicago at 2:30 a.m. in 14-degree weather.
  • Pretend they are carrying bleach and a noose as they wander in the cold Chicago night.
  • Pretend these two “white guys in MAGA hats” watch whichever show Smollett was on (as a white guy in a MAGA hat, I had never heard of Smollett OR his show), recognize him, beat him, bleach him, and put a noose around his neck.

Rather than have me spell it out, watch comedian Dave Chappelle point out how insane Smollett’s attempt at victimhood really was:

LANGUAGE WARNING

The Blue-check lefties JUMPED at the chance to defend Smollett. Why not? It was two white guys in MAGA hats. Libtards HATE “those obviously racist types.”

Yesterday, Smollett got some of the spankings he deserved, and what did he do in response? He denied his guilt and blamed racism and homophobia for the reason he will spend 150 days behind bars. He had it all, he ruined it by faking racism, and THEN he blamed racism and homophobia for going to jail.

I’ll say it again: he faked racism and yet STILL blamed racism for his jail sentence. You can’t win with a far lefty.

Also, just before Smollett blamed racism for his botched plan, “racism” didn’t seem to affect Corey Pujols, who was sentenced to mere house arrest for punching and killing a 77-year-old white man who had allegedly called Pujols a naughty name.

Frank Abrokwa skated out of a New York City jail after dropping a deuce in a bag and smearing it onto the face, eyes, mouth, and nose of a Hispanic woman.

Watch him brag about it and threaten to kill her in the video below. Note how he mentions “God.”

⚠️Demonic dusty who rubbed feaces on woman speaks out & threatens to k*ll women⚠️

Frank Abrokwa was arrested 44 times prior to this incident. He says he would have k*lled that lady if he had a weapon.

These are the men BW are marching protecting & “defunding the police” for: pic.twitter.com/aSEwx1F4Co

— Platform for #Divested #BW (@DivestHub) March 7, 2022

If “systemic racism” ruled the country, this guy would be dead. But it doesn’t; political correctness does, so Abrokwa is out in NYC as you read this, perhaps even looking for a woman to drop another crab-cake on.

The harpies on The View believe that “racism” and “misogyny” are the reasons people are criticizing Kamala Harris’ painful cackle in Poland. WWIII is supposedly on, and Harris is whooping like a crane. She isn’t being attacked because she is black or a woman; it’s because she’s a chortling dumbass. The ONLY reason she was picked as Biden’s VP is that she is a black woman. No racism, no misogyny. Quite the contrary.

Ditto Chicago’s mayor Lori Lightfoot. She claimed that “99%” of the criticism lobbed her way is due to “racism and sexism.” Maybe she just sucks at her job. Have you seen Chicago’s crime stats?

No one took more abuse from the press than President Trump. Lightfoot and Harris don’t get a pass because they are black and/or women. We are treating them the same as we treat anyone else in politics who consistently underachieve. It’s called equality, and it’s supposed to be the goal, right? Too bad the left doesn’t believe in it too.



Google's Moral Relativism and Media Approved Hatred Against Russians


Neil Oliver takes the opportunity of his weekend monologue to put the context of recent government events into a framework of history.  Oliver eloquently reflects on our current condition, yet far too few people can see it.

As he looks from where he is, Oliver can see we are in a new world order kind of place.  A place where government, big tech social discussion platforms, and the mindful authorities in charge of directing our focus,  have decided in their unilateral magnanimity, to dust off the moral relativism tools, use the fine-tuning mechanism, and target our attention so that we hate the Russians.

Like most of us, Neil Oliver refuses to give the powers that be access to that place in his mind where he determines right from wrong.  Instead, knowing how these same moral relativists have just used COVID to create harm, that has yet to be appropriately quantified, Oliver stands firm with the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and says, “fuck off.”  But he says it in a nice way for television.  WATCH:



This Deep State Veteran’s Answer On Alleged Biolabs In Ukraine Is Cause For Concern

This Deep State Veteran's Answer On Alleged Biolabs In Ukraine Is Cause For Concern

Willis Krumholz - The Federalist


Nuland and many D.C. politicians are not in search of the truth here. 

They have an agenda of military confrontation with Russia.


Does Ukraine have a bioweapons research program, and if it does, is the United States involved in it? In a characteristically insightful op-ed, Glen Greenwald noted that a colloquy last Monday at a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee between Sen. Marco Rubio and Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland shed light on that question.

Both Russia and China have suggested that Ukraine has a bioweapons research program, and Rubio, apparently confident that Nuland would rebut those claims, asked her if they were true. To Rubio’s apparent surprise, Nuland replied, “uh, Ukraine has, uh, biological research facilities” and “we are now in fact quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to, uh, gain control of [those labs], so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.” 

Rubio, who had begun the questioning by noting that he had only one minute of time left, chose not to pursue Nuland’s (apparently reluctant) admission. Rather than asking her to detail whether Ukraine’s “biological research facilities” were engaging in bioweaponry research (and whether the US was supporting that activity), Rubio used his remaining time to get Nuland to affirm that if a biological attack were to happen, Russia would be the guilty party. Obligingly, Nuland agreed that she was sure of that.

As Greenwald notes, this brief exchange raises a number of questions that our government needs to answer. Among them:

  1.  The question Rubio posed was whether Ukraine had “chemical or biological weapons.” Nuland’s answer referred to “biological research facilities.” Was that an indication that Ukraine did have biological weaponry, or the capability to develop it? Was Nuland really answering “Yes” to Rubio’s question?
  2.  Rubio seemed surprised by Nuland’s answer. But he is the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. If the US is in fact assisting a Ukrainian bioweapons program, was the Senate Intelligence Committee not told of that?
  3. Why did Rubio cut Nuland off rather than following up and take the colloquy in a different direction?
  4. Why is the US urgently “working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces”? Is it perhaps because the materials would provide evidence of US involvement in a Ukrainian bioweaponry program?
  5. If the labs are working on Russian bioweapons, as the Pentagon claims, why has it taken so long to remove these biomaterials and why is Nuland worried that Russian bioweapons would fall into the hands of old Russians (who certainly would already have these bioweapons)?
  6. Rubio sought Nulan’s assurance that if there were an incident involving bioweapons, only Russia would be to blame for it. By asking that, Rubio heightened the risk of a “false flag” episode in which the Ukrainians used bioweaponry (assuming that there are such materials in the “facilities”), secure in the knowledge that the US would denounce the Russians for using it. Rubio seemed to be trying to close off any suggestion that Ukraine – and the US, if it is partnering with Ukraine in bioweaponry research – should be held accountable for any incident. How can the Republican chair of the intelligence committee be this irresponsible?

As Greenwald emphasizes, these are only questions, not claims of fact. We simply do not know, for sure, what is going on in Ukraine’s “biological research facilities.” The Ukrainian research program may well be designed solely for innocent and valid purposes such as animal health (e.g., combating swine fever virus) as Robert Pope, the Director of the Defense Department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, has contended

Mr. Pope affirms that the Russians may be seeking to gain control of the research facilities in order to fabricate evidence that would be used to substantiate their claims. Our urgency in preventing them from entering the facilities might be due to fear that that would happen. It would not be motivated by a desire to conceal or destroy evidence of Pentagon involvement in illegal bioweapons research.

The Pentagon’s Cooperative Defense Threat Program originated three decades ago as, essentially, an effort to undo the work of the large-scale Soviet bioweapons program, find alternative employment for the 65,000 scientists who had worked for it, clean up and monitor the sites where the illegal research had been done and promote research that would contribute to public health in the countries, including Russia, where the Soviet labs had been located. (Russia was initially favorable to the program.) According to Pope, the US has worked with 26 labs, some large, others small, in Ukraine and provides direct material support to six of them.

The evidence may bear out the Pentagon’s account. But the mere fact that Russia and China are unreliable sources and may well be spreading disinformation does not mean that suspicions about our own government or Ukraine’s are unfounded. Our government may be trying to prevent the Russians from obtaining evidence that would back up their charges – and seeking to preempt the effects of such disclosures by putting out our own “disinformation.”  

More investigation by Congress, the media, foreign governments, and international organizations is required. We cannot presume that State and Defense Department officials involved with Ukraine and its biological research programs are disinterested witnesses telling the world the whole truth and nothing but the truth. There are solid reasons to doubt the veracity of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s accounts of the NIH’s role in funding research in Wuhan; why not that of other officials with skin in the game? Which brings us to the reliability of Rubio’s witness: Victoria Nuland.

Who is Victoria Nuland?

According to Salon magazine, Nuland, Biden’s Under Secretary of State, “is stuck in the quicksand of 1950s U.S.-Russia Cold War politics and dreams of continued NATO expansion, an arms race on steroids and further encirclement of Russia.” Nuland is married to the prominent neoconservative writer Robert Kagan, and was a foreign policy adviser to then-Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003-5, later migrating to Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy staff. 

She has risen in the State Department since then and even played a role in the Russiagate conspiracy. Her activities included pushing Fusion GPS conspiracy theories in the State Department, and then disseminating these conspiracy theories into the broader Obama administration — all while she was planning on serving a Hillary Clinton administration if Trump lost.

If you are searching for an Avatar of the Deep State, dial Nuland.

Let’s go back to Ukraine’s “Maidan Revolution” of February 2014 — a US-backed coup or revolution that brought down the legitimate, elected (but also corrupt, dishonest, and “pro-Russian”) Yanukovych government of Ukraine. 

The events marked a critical turning point in US-Russian relations. It sealed the end of President Obama’s fumbling attempt at a Russian “reset.” It helped confirm Vladimir Putin’s belief that US “democracy promotion” was a guise for extending the US sphere of influence and encircling Russia with hostile neighbors. And some of the key players in those events eight years ago — Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden — are running US policy on Ukraine today.

Architect of the Second Cold War

When Nuland was an Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, piloting US policy in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, she revealed that the US had “invested” over $5 billion in democracy promotion in Ukraine since 1991. She also took it for granted that Ukraine had a “European future” – from which, apparently, Russia would be excluded.  

Then in February 2014, as the Yanukovych government began to crumble in the face of popular demonstrations, Nuland had a telephone conversation with the US Ambassador in Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. The conversation was intercepted (presumably, by Russian intelligence) and released. (The US has not denied its authenticity). The transcript is available online

Together, Nuland and Pyatt began to handpick the personnel to lead the post-Yanukovich government. According to Richard Sakwa, a leading British scholar of Russian and Ukrainian affairs, “[a]lthough the mantra of the Atlantic powers was that Ukrainian sovereignty should be respected, the tape revealed that the US had clear ideas on who should assume power… [I]t reveals a high degree of US meddling in Ukrainian affairs.” Nuland rejected one opposition leader, Vitaly Klitschko and nominated another, Arsenty Yatsenyuk (who indeed was anointed as the next Prime Minister).

Then Nuland and Pyatt discussed how to bring this result about. Nuland wanted to bring in the UN, to put an international seal of approval on the deal, and expressed – using the traditionally nuanced language of diplomacy – her dissatisfaction with our European allies’ efforts: “I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, fuck the EU.”  

Nuland also informed Pyatt that the US would wheel in then-Vice President Joe Biden at the appropriate time to bless the regime change. The BBC’s lightly edited version of the transcript reads: 

When I wrote the note [US vice-president’s national security adviser Jake] Sullivan’s come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need [US Vice-President Joe] Biden and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden’s willing.  

Reflecting on this episode in his magistral 2018 book “Republic in Peril“, the international relations scholar David Hendrickson writes: 

The renewal of the cold war with Russia in Europe was the most lamentable, and perhaps even most inexplicable, blunder of the Obama presidency. Victoria Nuland marched into Kiev with as much élan as any neoconservative could muster, successfully encouraging the February revolution, but the grim and predictable result was a stark deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations and the breakdown of the post-Cold War peace. 

What is to be Done?

Nuland and many D.C. politicians including Rubio are not in search of the truth here, rather they have an agenda of military confrontation with Russia. This agenda is both wildly irresponsible, and completely ignores the overwhelming will of the American people to stay out of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Because of the lack of honestly from the D.C. political class, honest politicians and media professionals need to be dogged in their search for answers. Recall that China, as well as Russia, has accused the US of promoting bioweaponry research – and not only in Ukraine.  According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, “The US has 336 labs in 30 countries under its control, including 26 in Ukraine alone. It should give a full account of its biological military activities at home and abroad and subject itself to multilateral verification.” And Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian has argued that “the United States, as the party that knows the laboratories best, should release relevant specific information as soon as possible, including what viruses are stored and the research that has been carried out.”

That seems like a perfectly reasonable request: if the US and Ukraine truly have nothing to hide, why not disclose what viruses have been stored and what research has been carried out in Ukraine? And why notsubmit to independent, international verification of the kind we demanded when Iraq was suspected of creating weapons of mass destruction?

Moreover, why shouldn’t the US welcome Russia and China to submit their alleged evidence to international scrutiny? Russia has called for a special meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the purported US bioweapons program. If this is merely Russian propaganda distracting from Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, America should have the means to thoroughly demonstrate this fact before the world. It could call for a special Security Council meeting itself.

And meanwhile, let the global community, including the US, call on Russia not to take control of – still less, to damage – Ukraine’s biological research facilities. Let the facilities be isolated, as far as possible, from both parties to the ongoing conflict and from us, and let them be cordoned off (like a crime scene) by some kind of international police force. 

If Russia and China are lying, the world needs to know. If the US is lying, the world needs to know that too. 


W