Monthly Archives: July 2017

Brussels Misunderstands

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This time on the matter of the deal with Iran that codifies its legal capacity develop nuclear weapons.

European diplomats say they are increasingly concerned the Trump administration will stretch out its review of the Iranian nuclear deal, undermining the agreement by curbing the economic benefits designed to ensure Iran’s compliance.

This is at the heart of their misunderstanding.  Regardless of the intent professed by those who negotiated this thing, those economic benefits do not at all “ensure Iran’s compliance.”  What they do do is fund Iran’s nuclear weapons development program and backfill its funding of its terrorist minions in the Middle East and proxies in Europe and the US.

What Brussels is carefully ignoring is that those economic benefits already have contributed to the funding for Iran’s missile development program (which tests are violations of a number of UN levies, as well as “understandings” underlying this Executive Agreement), Iran’s increased activities against our Navy in the Arabian Gulf, and Iran’s increased support for the Yemeni thugs.

This has been, all along, a deal whose payoff has been strictly one-way.

A Plan for Dealing with Northern Korea

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Ex-SecDef Robert Gates has one, as described by Gerald Seib in The Wall Street Journal.

Under the Gates approach, the US would make China the following offer: Washington is prepared to recognize the North Korean regime and forswear a policy of regime change, as it did when resolving the Cuban missile crisis with the Soviet Union; is prepared to sign a peace treaty with North Korea; and would be prepared to consider some changes in the structure of military forces in South Korea.

In return, the US would demand hard limits on the North Korean nuclear and missile program, essentially freezing it in place, enforced by the international community and by China itself.

“I think you cannot get the North to give up their nuclear weapons,” Mr Gates says. “Kim sees them as vital to survival. But you may be able to get them to keep the delivery systems to very short range.”

The stick for this?

Absent such an agreement, the US would “heavily populate Asia with missile defenses.” That would include missile-defense buildups in South Korea, Japan, and aboard additional American ships stationed in the Pacific. In addition, the US would declare that it would shoot down “anything we think looks like a launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile” from North Korea.

This is both foolish and naïve.  It’s naïve because it innocently envisions the men and women of northern Korea and the People’s Republic of China to be trustworthy in this matter, or any other regarding the Korean peninsula in particular and the western Pacific in general—and regarding us at all in the PRC’s case.  These worthies have shown their lack of reliability repeatedly, ranging from Baby Kim’s and his father’s before him, welching on agreements particularly concerning northern Korean nuclear weapons program to the PRC’s seizure and occupation of the South China Sea, attacks against other nations’ fishing and oil facilities in the Sea, and its aggressions against Japan’s Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

It’s naïve because “heavily populating Asia” with missile defenses would require agreement from the RoK to plus up (heavily or otherwise) a missile defense establishment it’s already disgruntled about having in place and strongly reluctant to increase.  It would require Japan to agree to emplacement of missile defenses much beyond the token batteries already present.  It would require other nations of Asia—Vietnam, for instance, and a Philippines that already prefers the PRC to our alliance—to agree to such emplacements.  It would require a heavy buildup of our Navy to build and launch “American ships” that are missile defense capable before we could get those numbers in place.

It’s foolish because, depending on the definition of very short range, such an agreement at best would sell the Republic of Korea into hostage against our behavior in Baby Kim’s eyes and those of whomever happens to be in power in the PRC at the time they decide to take umbrage against our activities.  In the South China Sea, say, or vis-à-vis Japanese islands in the East China Sea.  Or the Republic of China.

Aside from also selling Japan, the RoC, and the nations rimming the South China Sea down the river through those indirect means, that definition could be used to put Japan directly at risk, too, as well as our own military bases in the region.

That foolishness would be the height of immorality.

Free Elections

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The Progressive-Democratic Party version is playing out in California.  The good citizens of the state senatorial district straddling Orange, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles counties want to recall state Senator Josh Newman (D), who voted for a 12/gal gasoline tax increase.  A successful recall also would jeopardize the Progressive-Democrats’ supermajority in each house of California’s legislature, and so the one-party rule that’s currently devastating the state but accruing political power to those Progressive-Democrat incumbents.

Can’t have that.

This is where free elections, Progressive-Democrat style, comes in.

Turnout in special elections typically drops more for Democrats than Republicans. So Democrats last month passed legislation adding procedural hurdles that would delay the recall election from this fall to next June’s midterm primary, when liberal turnout is expected to be higher.

And

Democrats are also imploring the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission to upend a campaign-finance law that voters approved in 2000.
…
Yet Democrats now say legislators should be allowed to donate unlimited sums to their colleagues.

That would allow Progressive-Democrats in the state’s “safe” districts to pour money into Newsom’s defense.  Can you hear the screams from the Left that decried so piteously the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling?  I’m having trouble making them out.

Yeah, this will be a fair and free recall election, all right.

The Left

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…doesn’t like us very much.  And, by “us” I don’t mean Conservatives, I mean the United States in particular and Western Civilization in general.

Here are a couple of examples.  Recall President Donald Trump’s speech in Poland last week wherein he touted the successes of Western Civilization and the United States’ role in that and further said that we would never give in to the forces arrayed against us.

Our adversaries, however, are doomed because we will never forget who we are.  And if we don’t forget who are, we just can’t be beaten.  Americans will never forget.  The nations of Europe will never forget.  We are the fastest and the greatest community.  There is nothing like our community of nations.  The world has never known anything like our community of nations.

And

[W]e value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom.  That is who we are.  Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.

And

Our citizens did not win freedom together, did not survive horrors together, did not face down evil together, only to lose our freedom to a lack of pride and confidence in our values.  We did not and we will not.  We will never back down.

But these are bigoted remarks, the Left says.

According to Salon, these are “white nationalist” remarks, and

Trump was fairly begging to be labeled a fascist with his speech painting the purity of white civilization as under threat from racialized foreigners….

Here’s Brad Woodhouse, former Communications Director for the Democratic National Committee:

Western civilization and Christian Values are dog whistles to white nationalists[.]

Malcolm Nance, author and commentator from the Left on terrorism [starts around 5:05]:

That speech was the ultimate fulfillment of Usama bin Laden’s ideology of the belief that there would be a clash of civilizations between what he views as his crazy version of Islam and the West.

Never mind that that clash, that war for our survival, has been inflicted on us for years.

And from the tabloid New York Times:

In Warsaw, Mr Trump boldly stated, “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.” In saying that, he demonstrated his administration’s born-again commitment to preserve America’s post-Cold War Western alliances, though at the price of redefining the very meaning of “the West.”

In the heady days of the Cold War, “the West” referred to the so-called free world—a liberal democratic order. Today it has been replaced by a cultural, rather than political, notion. But unlike in the 19th century, when a “white man’s burden” took pride of place, today what dominates are the “white man’s fears.”

Sure.  Because an American President who happens to be a white US citizen said these things and is following an American President who happened to be a black US citizen and who retreated the US from the world, taking to global extent his own view that “there comes a time when you’ve made enough.”

In a side note, the NYT in particular, also chose to “misunderstand” along a different dimension, too:

What stands out most in Mr Trump’s speech is not its oft-quoted illiberalism but its stark pessimism about the future of the West.  …he appears preoccupied by the fear of defeat. What he promised his listeners was not the West’s “victory” but that the West shall never be broken.

Because “we will never surrender” was Churchill’s pessimistic fear of defeat and not his optimism of ultimate victory, so it is with “never be broken.”  Apparently these guys skipped over an earlier part of Trump’s speech (they didn’t bother to listen to it live):

…we know that these forces [adversaries and enemies], too, are doomed to fail if we want them to fail.  And we do, indeed, want them to fail.  They are doomed not only because our alliance is strong, our countries are resilient, and our power is unmatched.  Through all of that, you have to say everything is true.  Our adversaries, however, are doomed because we will never forget who we are.  And if we don’t forget who are, we just can’t be beaten.  Americans will never forget.  The nations of Europe will never forget.  We are the fastest and the greatest community.  There is nothing like our community of nations.  The world has never known anything like our community of nations.

Yeah, that’s pessimism, all right.  [/aside]

It’s racist bigotry to manufacture a racism beef where there is none present, and it’s a particularly dishonest bigotry (redundancy deliberate) to manufacture a bigotry beef purely for personal attention.

It’s almost like they hate themselves so much they have to relieve the pressure by projecting.

There’s a Hint

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This is the subhead on a Wall Street Journal article over the weekend:

New registrations of company’s vehicles dropped to zero from 2,939

This happened to Tesla’s electric car sales in Hong Kong, but it’s a lesson that’s universal.

Not a single newly purchased Tesla model was registered in Hong Kong in April, according to official data from the city’s Transportation Department analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.

The March sales figure was that 2,939, albeit the number is artificially high: it occurred after the subsidy’s end had been announced, but before the end was to take effect.  The drop to zero, though, is not at all artificial.

The reason for the collapse?  Hong Kong taxing authorities ended the tax break folks got for buying a “green” car.  It’s not just that side of the world:

Last year in Denmark, an incentive program expired and was replaced with a less generous one. New car-registrations for all-electric vehicles of all brands fell 70% in 2016 in the country to 1,373 vehicles, while across the European Union the number grew by 7% to 63,278 vehicles. In the first quarter of this year, only 48 all-electric vehicles were registered in Denmark.

In the rest of Europe, existing “incentive programs” were unchanged in the period.

Here’s the hint: if a technology can’t sell in a free market without government subsidy, it’s not ready for sale; it’s not economically viable.  Full stop.

In the US, the tax subsidy remains in place in the form of a $7,500 tax credit for each Tesla or other electric car bought.  Who do you suppose is actually paying those $7,500?  Anyone? Bueller?  Bueller?