Images | Commentary | Digital Scrapbook
“…Russian misbehavior aside, this ostensibly bilateral treaty is obsolete in a multilateral world, giving a strategic advantage to other adversaries. China has aggressively expanded its intermediate-range missiles to assert its influence in the Pacific while the U.S. is constrained by the INF, threatening both our posture in that theater and the security of our Pacific allies.
Advocates of the deal insist that leaving the treaty removes any chance that Russia would return to compliance, but Moscow has had ample opportunity to do that already. They insist, too, that leaving confers no advantages. But there are significant costs to remaining in the treaty, which complicates the testing of American missile-defense systems and sends a signal that the U.S. is not serious about enforcing the terms of its agreements with other countries.
The INF set up an enforcement regime that was reasonably effective in the first decades of its signing. It no longer works, and it hamstrings us in other key domains. Barack Obama forgot Reagan’s doctrine that “to be serious about arms control is to be serious about compliance.” Trump remembered it, and not a moment too soon…”
This is a great article. Click on the link and go read it.
David Reaboi:
“…While Broidy’s lawsuit is a story about crooked American lobbyists for Qatari interests, the fascinating details also give an important insight into the operations of today’s media in full flight, including astounding levels of partisanship and bias that contribute to the collapse of honest journalism as an industry…”
“…Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D.) commented Wednesday about a controversial 40-week abortion bill and in so doing said the law allows an abortion to take place after the infant’s birth.
“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” Northam said, alluding to the physician and mother discussing whether the born infant should live or die.
A Democratic lawmaker in the Virginia House of Delegates proposed a bill Tuesday that would allow abortions through the end of the third trimester of pregnancy. The video of Delegate Kathy Tran presenting her bill led to an exchange where she admitted that her bill would allow for a mother to abort her child minutes before giving birth…”
Conrad Black:
“…Last week’s arrest of Roger Stone at the behest of Special Counsel Robert Mueller incites me to recall Joseph Welch’s famous question of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy at the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you no decency?”
Sending 29 FBI agents in bullet-proof protective gear and brandishing submachine guns at 6 a.m. to the house where Stone—who is 66 and does not own a firearm—lives with his wife, two dogs, and three cats, to effect another shakedown arrest for alleged untruths uttered by Stone to a congressional committee since Mueller was installed in his totalitarian sinecure, was disgusting and un-American.
The charges could have been laid—and if there is the slightest truth to them, should have been laid—by contacting Stone’s lawyer during normal business hours and asking him to produce his client for charging and processing. So slight was the risk of flight (Stone claims his passport has expired), the judge set bail at an easily manageable (for him) $250,000, which was produced at once. The entire hideous procedure, as if Stone were a suspected violent criminal with vast resources, at the head of a heavily armed and dangerous organization, and in a home extensively guarded by armed and experienced gangsters and with a helicopter in the backyard, was an outrage that must shock every civilized American, as it astounds the civilized world.
There was absolutely no need or excuse for such an absurd and repulsive use of force in effecting the arrest of a man with no history of violence who is an improbable flight risk and certain to surrender quietly and respond to allegations against him through due process in the courts. Moreover, he is fully entitled to the constitutional presumption of innocence.
Media Collusion
This shock-and-awe extravaganza was leaked in advance to the chief media arm of the Democratic Party, CNN, (though MSNBC is a rival in rabid support of the enemies of the Trump regime). CNN’s unctuous claim that it was able to capture this pre-dawn thuggery thanks to the clever intuition of a reporter who could deploy a film crew to a Fort Lauderdale residence before dawn on a hunch is as wildly implausible as the rest of the network’s political “news” (which could be described better as a partisan screed of relentless fervor and acoustic, not to mention cognitive, irritation)…”
Kyle Smith:
“…The second part of the BuzzFeed makeover, coming soon, is to grow. BuzzFeed has hinted that it intends to hoover up many other similar sites, all those fourth-rate imitators of a third-rate product that also seek to provide micro-dopamine infusions to cupcake-scarfing arrested-development cubicle prisoners as they daydream of shopping at Forever 21 and wonder if Jafar is kind of hot. If 17 bajillion dollops of extreme-low-quality content delivering 150 gajillion eyeballs doesn’t work, double down! If gigantic scale doesn’t work, activate ludicrous scale!
By the time all of these mergers and acquisitions are complete, the next recession will be nigh, the first thing that always happens in recessions will happen first again (America’s great companies will slash ad budgets) and low- and medium-quality media companies reliant on advertising are going to segue from creating dystopian movie plots to experiencing them. Say, BuzzFeed, Which Pandering And Meretricious Yet Doomed Advertorial Dungbot Are You? Take The Quiz!…”
“…The new list includes three nominees for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the liberal-leaning court that oversees the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii, and which has been a frequent target of Mr. Trump’s ire. The president also named four picks for district judgeships in California.
The announcement came after conservatives said they feared the president was working on a deal with Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala D. Harris, California’s two Democrats, to submit a consensus list that wouldn’t dramatically shift the court’s ideological balance.
Mr. Trump’s list should put those fears to rest.
Two of the appeals court nominees — Daniel P. Collins and Kenneth Kiyul Lee — were names he’d submitted last year, while a third, Daniel A. Bress, is considered a rising star.
“We are relieved to see that the White House has decided to move forward with a list of extraordinarily qualified nominees,” said Carrie Severino, chief counsel for the conservative Judicial Crisis Network…”
Kristen McQueary:
“…Like thousands of others, I tired of the one-party system, rising pension debt, no change to the current pension system, increasing property taxes (mine doubled), increasing crime and soft approach to criminals…”
David Rutz:
“…If Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) had any concern her frequent attacks on the media were alienating anyone outside of Fox News, she need only watch five minutes of CNN on Sunday to be relieved.
In a segment that was almost dizzying in its contradictions and apologia, here’s what we learned: Spew bromides about journalism being the foundation of democracy, and you can attack, obfuscate and bungle the facts to your heart’s content. Helps to be a Democrat, too, of course.
On CNN’s corporate media defense hour “Reliable Sources,” host Brian Stelter and a decidedly unbalanced panel discussed Ocasio-Cortez’s social media power, as well as the attention she attracts and her frequent barbs at the press who question her. My colleague Alex Griswold has already outlined the reason she keeps getting fact-checked: she says lots of incorrect things that need to be fact-checked…”
U.S. Marines with Bridge Company, 8th Engineer Support Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, and 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division (MarDiv), transport two M1A1 Abram tanks across the New River on an improved ribbon bridge during a company level exercise at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Jan 25, 2019.
ROGER KIMBALL:
“…So, why the hysterical rage? Why the calls to destroy these boys? Why the eructation of moral preening, from the Right just as much as from the Left?
I think there is a specific answer and a more general one. The specific answer is Donald Trump, for whom the MAGA hats were effective metonymies. Donald Trump has driven certain segments of the American public, especially the elite American public, mad, as exhibitions over the Covington Catholic boys vividly illustrates.
The more general answer has to do with the poison of political correctness and identity politics, which have warped our civic discourse and blinded us to elementary truths.
A middle-aged Indian beating a drum and chanting wildly has no greater presumption of moral dignity than a white, Trump-supporting boy who participates in a pro-life march. But that is precisely what the imperatives of political correctness demand we acknowledge.
The public—though not, for the most part, the academic elite—has reacted with condign disgust at the treatment of the boys from Covington Catholic. It knows that Nathan Phillips is no more “native American” than Nick Sandmann: both were born here and have equal title to American natality. And it senses that the culprit is the political correctness that has distorted our common life and even our ability to speak the truth about sensitive issues. If there is a silver lining in this disturbing episode, it is that public revulsion at this episode may, just possibly, spark a reconsideration of our ill-advised and demeaning adherence to the tenets of political correctness…”
