Monthly Archives: September 2015

Lawyered Up

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Recall the PRC’s invasions of our government computer systems including theft of personally identifying information—including fingerprints—of millions of Americans who are, or were, or merely applied to be Federal government employees. Keep in mind that “government employees” includes our soldiers and our intelligence personnel.

Recall what President Barack Obama said he’d do about that.

We’re not going to just stand by while these threats grow. If you think you can just hide behind borders and leap laws and carry out your activities, that’s just not going to be the case.

Here’s what Obama actually did about that. He got PRC President Xi Jinping to agree to this:

neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.

Of course the PRC’s non-government entities will be winked at (Did that do that? Really? That’s a shame) and go merrily on their way doing the thefts to the State’s content.

Never mind, too, that there are a lot of reasons to penetrate another nation’s computer systems other than to steal information:

  • test their cyber penetration tools
  • test our cyber defenses of their penetration tools
  • test our cyber defenses generally
  • learn what we know about their capabilities—military, economic, cyber, political, etc
  • learn what we know, or think we know about our own capabilities—military, economic, cyber, political, etc
  • oh yeah—steal information for its own sake

Of course the famous Yale Law Review Editor and Constitutional Law Instructor knows this, full well.

Mysteries

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That’s what foreign policy seems to be full of for our State Department boys and girls.

Russia is in Iraq, joining a loose coalition of Iraq, Iran, and Syria, ostensibly to help Iraq fight the Daesh. Russia is inserting generals into a “coordination” cell in Baghdad, and it’s moving in fighter aircraft to fly “reconnaissance” missions for Iraq (and for themselves…).

Separately (at least the boys and girls in State seem think it’s a separate thing), Russia has been supplying ground combat hardware and soldiers to Syria, ostensibly to fight the Daesh there, and to prop up Bashar al-Assad.

What’s going on here, as Walter Cronkite might ask?

A carefully anonymous “senior US official” who attended a meeting between the head boy, the guy who sits in the SecState chair John Kerry, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov mumbled this:

We’re just at the beginning of trying to understand what the Russians’ intentions are in Syria, in Iraq, and to try to see if there are mutually beneficial ways forward here. We’ve got a long way to go in that conversation.

In other words, State, caught completely by surprise by Russia’s move into Syria, has been caught even more flat-footed by Russia’s move into Iraq.

It’s actually pretty clear “what’s going on here.” Syria was a Soviet client since shortly after World War II. Iraq was a Soviet client—a heavily supplied and armed one—for nearly as long. Apparently, in the latter case, the boys and girls missed whose equipment we shot up in two Iraq wars, for instance.

It seems, too, that our boys and girls have forgotten Russian Premier Vladimir Putin’s goal of reconstituting the Soviet Empire. The collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin has said, was a geopolitical tragedy of epic proportion, but it seems our boys and girls slept through that part of the lecture. Or perhaps the idea is just so foreign to them that they can’t conceive anything about it.

Putin is busily reconstituting that Soviet empire. Pure and simple. And if any of that deprecates American influence, if any of that embarrasses us (always assuming anyone in the Obama administration has the grace to be embarrassable), so much the better.

No mysteries there.

This Is Why

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A letter from Tom McClintock (R, CA), late of the House Freedom Caucus, the right-side group of Republican Congressmen in the House. The man is as Conservative as it gets, nevertheless, it’s come to this.

September 16, 2015

Congressman Jim Jordan

Chairman, House Freedom Caucus

1524 Longworth House Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20515

HAND DELIVERED

Dear Jim:

When the House Freedom Caucus formed in January, I fervently hoped that it would provide responsible and effective leadership to advance conservative principles in the House of Representatives.

I know that every member of the HFC sincerely supports these principles, but as I have expressed on many occasions during our meetings, I believe the tactics the HFC has employed have repeatedly undermined the House’s ability to advance them. Allow me to review a few examples.

On February 27th, we faced the imminent shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security over the funding of Obama’s unlawful amnesty orders for illegal immigrants. Although the American people overwhelmingly opposed these orders, they also overwhelmingly opposed shutting down DHS. House Republicans attempted to pass a three-week stop gap bill so we could avoid a catastrophic shutdown of our security agencies while continuing to bring public opinion to bear to de-fund the orders. At the behest of its board, most HFC members combined with House Democrats to defeat this effort, resulting in the full funding of these illegal orders for the fiscal year.

In May, the House had the opportunity to adopt the most important free trade bill in nearly two decades, restoring the long-standing and essential process that has made it possible for our nation to negotiate free trade agreements with other nations. At the behest of its board, most HFC members combined with the vast majority of House Democrats in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat this legislation.

Last week, the House was scheduled to adopt the Resolution of Disapproval of the disastrous Iran nuclear agreement – the only legally binding action available to Congress under the Corker Act. Once again, the House Freedom Caucus leadership threatened to combine with House Democrats to defeat the Resolution, forcing the House leadership to abandon it in favor of a symbolic and legally meaningless vote. Ironically, while Harry Reid and Senate Democrats blocked a vote on the Resolution of Disapproval in the Senate, the House Freedom Caucus leadership was instrumental in blocking its consideration in the House.

For several months, Harry Reid and Senate Democrats have threatened to shut down the government on October 1st unless Congress unleashes another unsustainable cycle of tax increases and borrowing. Last week, the House Freedom Caucus formally vowed to shut down the government over funding Planned Parenthood.

I have strongly opposed the public funding of abortions throughout my 29 years in public office, but this tactic promises only to shield Senate Democrats from their responsibility for a government shutdown and to alienate the public from the pro-life cause at precisely the time when undercover videos of Planned Parenthood’s barbaric practices are turning public opinion in our favor. I suspect this is why the leading pro-life organizations have been conspicuously unwilling to endorse the HFC position.

A common theme through each of these incidents is a willingness – indeed, an eagerness – to strip the House Republican majority of its ability to set the House agenda by combining with House Democrats on procedural motions. As a result, it has thwarted vital conservative policy objectives and unwittingly become Nancy Pelosi’s tactical ally.

I feel honored to know and work with every member of the House Freedom Caucus. I have never served with a group of patriots more devoted to our country and dedicated to restoring American founding principles. However, I feel that the HFC’s many missteps have made it counterproductive to its stated goals and I no longer wish to be associated with it.

Accordingly, I resign.

What he said.

Elect Louis Gohmert (R, TX) Speaker of the House. Take this group of Congressmen out of the safety of their carping from the sideline, and make them deliver on their tough talk. And then they’ll own the Republican loss of both houses of Congress in 2016.

Government Responsibility

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At least one charity is figuring out the impediment that is government involvement in what is, at bottom, an individual responsibility.

Andrea Koppel, Mercy Corps’ Vice President of Global Engagement and Strategy, wants the UN’s involvement in the current Middle East refugee crisis severely downsized. Her focus is on the UN as a quasi-government, but she’s also moving further and wanting sovereign government roles downsized, too.

The better idea, Mercy argues, would be to sweep away the old institutions where they are not likely to be effective and place greater reliance on new combinations of private-sector organizations, civil society groups and different levels of government. This, the report says, would allow humanitarian organizations to take bigger risks to support local victims regardless of government response, and work faster and more easily with local communities when national governments are virtually non-existent.

It’s not an explicit call for government(s) to be the last resort rather than the first, but it’s a move in that direction.

A Cynical Distortion

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And, perhaps, a sign of growing Democratic Party desperation.

Republican Presidential candidate Jeb Bush, on a campaign stop in South Carolina last week, said this to his black audience:

Our message is one of hope and aspiration. It isn’t one of division and get in line and we’ll take care of you with free stuff. Our message is one that is uplifting and says, “You can achieve earned success. We’re on your side.”

There are few things that terrify Progressives and Democrats more than those trapped into dependency on Progressive Government escaping the trap and being able to do for themselves, without those Progressives doing for them—and collecting personal political power in the process.

So: when a Republican comes along and says he can help those trapped and want out a way out, Democrats come out of the woodwork with their distortions.

You can achieve earned success. We’re on your side. How does that get distorted in to “black folks all want free stuff?” Only a Democrat can follow that pseudo-logic.