Monthly Archives: October 2016

Cowed by the PRC?

Posted on by
Reply

Canberra confirmed last week that the Australian Navy won’t conduct freedom-of-navigation patrols in the international waters of the South China Sea, giving China’s bid to dominate the strategic area a boost.

And

An international tribunal ruled in July that China’s bid to claim most of the sea violates international law. But the verdict will be rendered moot unless law-abiding states are willing to push back. That would give Beijing effective control over the 60% of Australian trade that transits the sea.

However, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop appear to have gotten their marching orders from PRC President Xi Jinping and Wang Yi.  Embarrassingly (did Turnbull have the grace for embarrassment), Turnbull has decried opposition to this acquiescence as “highly political,” and a measure of “immaturity and unreadiness to take responsibility for these issues.”  Bishop is terrified that enforcing freedom of navigation imperatives—even international law—would “escalate tensions.”

You bet the matter is highly political, Turnbull.  Enforcing international law—or surrendering the rights involved to the biggest bully—is purely political.  In what venue would you place it otherwise?  Your inability to understand that, or your timidity in acting on an accurate understanding, marks your own political immaturity and unreadiness.

Escalating tensions?  The PRC is already doing that with its seizure and occupation of the South China Sea, and it’s actively pressing its advantage gained from your backing away from tension.

You guys used to be made of sterner stuff.  What happened to the Australian government that faced down a rampant Japan on your doorstep just 75 years ago?

Or are you thinking you have no support from the US, which already is in retreat before the PRC?  That, at least, would have a ring of shameful truth to it.

State Department and Quid Pro Quo

Posted on by
Reply

Another thought on State’s quid pro quo offer to the FBI occurs to me based on an exchange between Fox News‘ Catherine Herridge and State Department spokesman Mark Toner concerning the FBI’s 302 (interview summary form) containing the apparent offer.  The relevant part of the exchange began with Herridge calling out Toner on his denial of certain facts.

“[Redacted] indicated he had been contacted by PATRICK KENNEDY, Undersecretary of State, who had asked his assistance in altering the email’s classification in exchange for a ‘quid pro quo.’ “[Redacted] advised that in exchange for marking the email unclassified, STATE would reciprocate by allowing the FBI to place more Agents in countries where they are presently forbidden.”

“I mean, this conflicts directly with what you’re saying today,” Herridge said after reading it aloud.

“I’m sorry,” Toner said, smiling. “I could speak to the fact that 302s are simply interviews conducted by the FBI.”

“So you’re saying the FBI agent either got it wrong or is lying in this 302?” Herridge asked.

“I can’t speak to what his or her intentions were, saying these kinds of things, but clearly expressing a personal opinion about what happened,” Toner said. “Any, really, assertion that this was somehow tit for tat or quid pro quo, exchange in that manner, really, frankly is insulting.”

No, Toner, what’s insulting is your cynical, Alinsky-esque refusal to answer the question and your attempt at deflecting by insulting the questioner.

Clinton Quid Pro Quo?

Posted on by
3

Via Fox News‘ Catherine Herridge and Pamela K Browne comes this statement from the FBI.  The statement concerns a subject exposed in the FBI’s release to Congress of several more 302s IFBI interview summaries) last Friday:

allegations of a “quid pro quo” between a senior State Department executive and FBI agents during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, two congressional sources told Fox News.

The FBI statement follows:

Prior to the initiation of the FBI’s investigation of former Secretary Clinton’s personal email server, the FBI was asked to review and make classification determinations on FBI emails and information which were being produced by the State Department pursuant to FOIA. The FBI determined that one such email was classified at the Secret level. A senior State Department official requested the FBI re-review that email to determine whether it was in fact classified or whether it might be protected from release under a different FOIA exemption. A now-retired FBI official, who was not part of the subsequent Clinton investigation, told the State Department official that they would look into the matter. Having been previously unsuccessful in attempts to speak with the senior State official, during the same conversation, the FBI official asked the State Department official if they would address a pending, unaddressed FBI request for space for additional FBI employees assigned abroad. Following the call, the FBI official consulted with a senior FBI executive responsible for determining the classification of the material and determined the email was in fact appropriately classified at the Secret level. The FBI official subsequently told the senior State official that the email was appropriately classified at the Secret level and that the FBI would not change the classification of the email. The classification of the email was not changed, and it remains classified today. Although there was never a quid pro quo, these allegations were nonetheless referred to the appropriate officials for review.

This sure sounds like the State official (separately identified as Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy) and the FBI discussed a quid pro quo—those extra overseas slots.  That the FBI seems in the end to have rejected the quid is irrelevant to the apparent existence of the discussion.

She Was Right the First Time

Posted on by
1

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, recall, commented on NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling when our national anthem was played before the start of San Francisco 49ers games, saying that Kaepernick and his ilk have the right to protest but that it’s “dumb and disrespectful.”

Now she’s apologizing for saying that, even though she’s done nothing here that wants an apology.  She’s doing so, too, just a short time after she expressed her contempt for Republican Party Presidential candidate Donald Trump, thereby irrevocably demonstrating her prejudice and the fact that she’d prejudged any case that might come before the Court from a Trump administration.

This is another Supreme Court vacancy waiting to happen, and not too long into the next administration.

In Just One Year

Posted on by
Reply

It is, though, something that’s been well-known for several years; it’s been baked into our economy by the prior spending and taxing paradigms of this administration from its passage of Obamacare forward.

A slowdown in the growth of federal revenues, as well as rising government spending, pushed the US deficit up in the 2016 fiscal year for the first time since 2011, reversing the trend of falling deficits as the economy recovered in recent years.

The budget shortfall widened to $587 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept 30, the Treasury Department said Friday, up 34% from the previous fiscal year.

And the deficit is going to continue to rise in the coming years unless government spending is sharply curtailed.  The sequester has been good for generating those smaller deficits, but it’s badly damaged our national defense capability—which was the point of the extortion President Barack Obama (D) attempted when he offered the sequester in conjunction with his fellow Democrats’ refusal to agree to a responsible budget.

[A] growing number of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security recipients, as well as slightly higher interest rates on publicly held debt, helped drive up total spending by 5% in 2016, while total revenues grew by just 1%.

This puts a premium on reforming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and on getting our debt under control.  Which demands getting rid of our deficits, not growing them.  Which demands reducing government spending, not growing it.

But that’s going to take a change in administrations and the preservation of the Senate and the House.