In the nutball era, you can have a president who put the Taliban in charge of the war on terror, and a leading opponent of his who thinks an antisemite has a legitimate role in the defense of liberal democracy

 

The hysterical Peggy Noonan says Trump, whom everyone now knows to be a bumbler because of Iran, still might not bumble the overthrow of the republic?!

You've got to be kidding me.

He's been bumbling everything since he was elected in 2016. Hell, he bumbled his 2016 campaign, during which he switched from Lewandowski to Manafort to Bannon/Conway! He wasted 2017 trying to repeal and replace Obamacare. He could never get The Wall built. He lost the House in 2018. He handed the war on terror over to the Taliban! Weeks later he utterly capitulated to hysteria during the pandemic, even boasting about the spending orgy of the $2.2 trillion CARES ACT. His cosplaying revolutionaries who strolled through the Capitol in January 2021 had dinner reservations for that evening at The Olive Garden. In 2025 he launched an insane tariff regime, fought the Houthis to a draw, made our friends in The Great White North our enemies, sent ICE goons into the streets who ended up executing two Americans in broad daylight in January, and in February started this stupid war completely unprepared to finish it.

Trump has never been a threat to the Republic. He's the chief clown in a circus act. He's ten times the bungler we ever thought Obama to be.

But whatever happens Tuesday, just remember that Peggy is just fine with giving the revolutionaries of the other side power and influence.

Better to keep your head while everyone else is losing theirs.   

The Case for a Historic Wave: The president should be dealt a rebuke, a rebellion and a rout. Only then can the Republican Party be rebuilt.

 ... Mr. Trump’s problem is that everyone on both sides of the issue knows that he’s out of his depth in running a major war. They weren’t sure of that when it started.

Democrats think he went in because he’s a bumbler, Republicans think he can’t win because he’s a bumbler. Supporters and opposers of his decision are united: He’s a bumbler whose bumbling made things more expensive.

... If Tuesday yields only a small wave, it will embolden and empower the president’s attempts to undo the results. He will try—he’s Donald Trump. They rigged it! We won’t certify!

He never misses an opportunity to toy with the republic, and it didn’t start in 2020. McKay Coppins’s recent biography of Mitt Romney recounts how supporter Donald Trump reacted to Mr. Romney’s 2012 loss to Barack Obama. In transit to Mr. Romney’s victory party, “Trump sat in the dark of a helicopter, unraveling.” He decided, based on nothing, that the election had been stolen. He started tweeting: “This election is a total sham and a travesty.” “We are not a democracy!” “We should march on Washington and stop this travesty.” “Revolution!”

The 2012 election wasn’t a sham, Mr. Trump just made his charges up, as he did in 2020, when his supporters stormed the Capitol.

It’s what he does. He’ll likely do some variation next week.

... It is likely true that if the Democrats get a big, historic outcome Tuesday, they will misread their mandate and go off on various toots. They’ll think that change by definition must be extreme or won’t be noticed. A growing number will continue their grim plodding toward socialist revolution. ...

War is the father of everything awful

  

 War is the father of debt, and of the Navy Seal barbarians in Congress who know how to destroy but not how to build:

... a lethal band of expert killers ... the current generation of ex-SEALs, who mostly came of fighting age during the Gulf War and the war on terror, have eagerly embraced a more combative style of politics — one that favors partisan warfare, legislative brinksmanship and an open embrace of Trump. ... it draws on the combativeness at the heart of what several of the members called the SEALs’ “warrior mentality”: the sense the SEALs will do whatever it takes — short of opposing Trump outright — to achieve their objective. ... they see the objective of their mission as tearing down an irreparably broken system rather than working within that system to pass bills. Judged by this metric, the former SEALs have been diligent foot soldiers in the MAGA movement, especially insofar as they have green-lit the Trump administration’s more aggressive efforts to extend his authority over independent agencies created by Congress and concentrate policy making power in the executive branch. ...

More.

 

2024 Biden pledging aid to the new terrorist regime in Syria is 2020 Trump putting the war against terror in Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban

 Syria's new leader.

Stephen L. Miller isn't going to let the truth get in his way, no sir, he'll just shoot his way through

Of course Trump isn't responsible for what Biden did, only for giving him the opportunity to one-up Trump's own fuck-up.

Hey, how is the Taliban war on terrorism going anyway?

 

The US has had 22,000-140,000 civilian deaths on its hands in the war on terror and pleads for understanding, but Biden won't ask the same for Israel

 More than simply a double standard, the constant haranguing of Israel by the United States over the deaths of innocents – the accidental deaths of innocents, the unavoidable deaths of innocents during wartime – constitutes an immoral attack against an ethical army that is doing its best to prevent civilian casualties. 

More.

The stock market didn't give a flying fig about the Fed's quarter-point interest rate increase today: Powell was way too timid, should have just gone with one full point

 The insanity of easy money is liked most by the stock market, which is why Powell is going slow on his way to two percent after he completes the six more increases he's promising over the next year.

If he thinks the rate ought to be 2% to curb inflation, well then get on with it, boy, and show us what you've got! Nip it in the bud if it's that big a FD.

Truth is they've got nothing, and intend to do nothing about inflation.

Inflation this high needs a bigger gun than 2% one year down the road. That's not how it was done in the 1980s, and 2% even if done right now won't do a damn thing.

This is just inflation theatre, just like the TSA war on terror security theatre, the this government theatre, the that government theatre, and lately the vaccine theatre.

Meanwhile the first in line to all this easy money keep getting richer, and richer, and richer.

Gotta keep that going while appearing to DO SOMETHING!

What a crock.

 

Sean Hannity told a whopper today just after 4pm Eastern: He said Trump's agreement with the Taliban let the US keep Bagram Airfield

This is simply false.

Under the terms of the agreement, the US agreed to withdraw initially from 5 bases, and then from "all remaining bases".

There is no such provision as claimed by Hannity.

Read it for yourself.

Trump would have presided over a complete withdrawal of all US and Coalition forces from Afghanistan had he been re-elected.

Conservative talk radio has been pretending for a week that Donald Trump intended a different outcome than a complete withdrawal.

It's just not true.

Trump not only committed the sin of negotiating with terrorists, he tried to pass them off as new partners in the war on terror, making our continued presence moot, which is utterly absurd.

Ever had Trump Wine? A Trump Steak? A degree from Trump University?

Donald Trump is responsible for the framework leading to the debacle we are witnessing in Afghanistan under Joe Biden.

They are a pair of Pontius Pilates, washing their hands of the country.

Even Peter Bergen recognizes Biden made a huge mistake abiding by Trump's insane handover of the war on terror in Afghanistan to the Taliban

 The whole thing is worth reading, here:

Biden could have easily said the Taliban had reneged on their agreement with the United States so he could continue to keep a relatively small US military force in Afghanistan to advise and assist the Afghan Army and to support the Afghan Air Force to thwart Taliban advances.

 

... the American presence in Afghanistan had shrunk to only 2,500 troops -- particularly few for a force of 1.3 million active-duty US service personnel. That small force helped to sustain the Afghan military physically and psychologically, not least with close air support.

Now, the Biden administration unilaterally has pulled the plug on the US troop presence in Afghanistan, which cratered morale among the Afghan military and population. It also precipitated thousands of Western-allied soldiers to head for the exits, as well as the many thousands of contractors in Afghanistan that were, among other things, keeping the Afghan Air Force aloft.

 

And now the white flags of the Taliban flutter all over Afghanistan. It did not need to be this way.

The Orwellian situation in Kabul right now began Feb 29, 2020 when Trump announced that the Taliban would be taking over the war on terror

 You read that right, the Taliban.

How did we not understand this 100% crackpottery for what it was at the time?

Down is up, evil is good, enemy is friend.

Starting at about the 3:15 mark.

Gramps, born in 1926, says this is worse than 2008

Dad will be 94 this year if the coronavirus doesn't get him first.

He's been through a lot, seen it all. Darmouth graduate. Served in the US Navy from World War II to Vietnam, retired as a captain.

He was just a little kid during the Great Depression, didn't really know any better. But he's watched America become a lot better since then, and now it suddenly isn't.

Things may end for Dad the way they began, with Great Depression II.

Long war on terror, coronavirus, economic meltdown.

We've had war, plague and depression before in this country, sometimes in rapid succession. WWI ended with a whimper as the Spanish Flu pandemic killed tens of millions, followed quickly by the depression of 1920. That one was very deep and severe, but ended quickly because the government . . . did nothing.

Free market economies, if left to be free, quickly recover from catastrophes because debt overhangs are allowed to clear through bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is the cure.

But we can't stomach that, same as we haven't been able to say No to our children. Self-esteem and all that.

So, expect the suffering and disorder to continue.

Sad. 

This bad Greer take is like George W. Bush saying you're either with us or against us in his war on terror

Tariffs are especially called for against communists qua communists, but Trump would be just fine with free trade with the Chicoms as long as it were truly free. Trump has no there there.

Trump calls war on terrorism a battle between good and evil

Full transcript of remarks in Saudi Arabia here.

Gee, sounds just like Bush (and ISIS) and conservative talk radio is thrilled.

Typically, this rhetoric is used to justify treating the evil as less than human, which is what ISIS does, or sending American troops abroad in search of monsters to destroy. But we're 16 years into Afghanistan now, with no end in sight, and the monsters just keep reproducing themselves.

This is not to suggest moral equivalence, but only that the West continues to delegitimize the "Islamic" in Islamic State in order to keep the military-industrial complex busy.

The goal of war, rather, is supposed to be to end the enemy's ability to wage it. We haven't been serious about that, and I don't think Trump will be either.

Either end it, or quit it, but carrying on like this is bankrupting the country.

Enough. 

Bring back waterboarding, Mad Dog Mattis can go have his beer and a cigarette

James E. Mitchell, here:

It is understandable that Gen. Mattis would say he never found waterboarding useful, because no one in the military has been authorized to waterboard a detainee. Thousands of U.S. military personnel have been waterboarded as part of their training, though the services eventually abandoned the practice after finding it too effective in getting even the most hardened warrior to reveal critical information.

During the war on terror, the CIA alone had been authorized to use the technique. I personally waterboarded the only three terrorists subjected to the tactic by the CIA. I also waterboarded two U.S. government lawyers, at their request, when they were trying to decide for themselves whether the practice was “torture.” They determined it was not.

Wake up America: Russian Orthodox chaplains are embedded in most military units

Rebuilt starting in 1995, Stalin destroyed the original Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow in 1931

Reported here in The Christian Science Monitor:

'Not well known or understood in the West, the Russian Orthodox Church has been Russia's chief source of spiritual identity for most of its 1,000-year existence. Though it was nearly destroyed by the communists, it has since rebounded sharply to become once again the Kremlin's ideological bulwark.

'As that relationship has solidified, the church has also integrated with the military.  Russian media frequently run photos of priests blessing weaponry, including war planes, while Orthodox chaplains are embedded in most military units. And now, it is underscoring its enthusiastic backing for Russia's military intervention in Syria – a fight Father Chaplin dramatically describes as "a holy war against terrorism." ...

'About 70 percent of Russians identify themselves as Orthodox Christians.'

Ron Paul, delusional as ever, says global war on terror is a lie, champions free-trade and ignores the illegal immigrant invasion

Charlie Hebdo massacre scene: Just lies to Ron Paul!

At, where else?, Zero Hedge, here, in a speech long enough for Fidel Castro to give:

"With cradle-to-grave welfare protecting all citizens from any mistakes and a perpetual global war on terrorism, which a majority of Americans were convinced was absolutely necessary for our survival, our security and prosperity has been sacrificed.

"It was all based on lies and ignorance."

Charles Krauthammer Loves The Drone War, And So Do You

Here is Charles Krauthammer for National Review:

"[T]he case for Obama’s drone war is clear."

And The New York Times, here, says 71% of you approve of the drone war, too:

"And on several issues, the CBS News poll finds a majority of Americans are in the president’s corner. Most, 59 percent, back a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the deficit; 53 percent say gun control laws should be made more strict; 53 percent support a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants currently working in the United States; and 71 percent favor carrying out drone strikes against suspected terrorists."

It's getting pretty lonely on the extreme right when we have to look to far left people like Glenn Greenwald for friends calling for an end to this madness. One of these days a Commander in Chief will exercise a fictitious right both to declare you an insurrectionist and to snuff you out in the middle of the night as you sleep, right here in River City because, hey, the whole world's a battlefield, even Grand Rapids, Michigan. The only thing the war on terror has achieved is to reveal that most Americans already surrendered their freedoms long ago, 1861 to be precise.

US Gross Public Debt Grew Most Under Reagan, Least Under Truman Since WWII

The record of Ronald Reagan for increasing the US gross public debt is so bad in the post-war era it is a veritable outlier compared to everyone else.

It represents the price this country paid for hefty tax cuts at the same time defense spending was increased to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Conservatism as understood by Ronald Reagan was primarily anti-communist, not fiscal. This is more in keeping with the Democrat Party of the time which he abandoned as communist influence over it grew through the labor unions. Along with the rest of his record, it is arguable that Ronald Reagan out-liberaled the liberals in many respects, making the Republican Party the home of liberals while the Democrat Party got radicalized by the so-called progressives.

Maybe Mitt Romney had a good reason not to think of himself as a follower of Reagan back in the 1990s. This country could use a Republican in the mold of Eisenhower again to restore some credibility to the Republican Party from the fiscal side.

The 170 percent increase in the public debt metric over an 8 year period under Reagan makes his predecessor Jimmy Carter look almost moderate by comparison, who racked up a 40 percent increase in 4. And Bush The Younger was actually in the very mold of fiscally liberal Ronald Reagan, cutting Clinton's tax increases and increasing spending on The War On Terror as well as Drugs For Seniors. Bush The Younger's 99 percent increase in the debt over 8 years comes out to roughly 12.38 percent per year, but it must be remembered that some of Obama's emergency spending in early 2009 became part of Bush's fiscal record, which ended October 31, 2009, another price of electoral defeat. The winners write the history.

Harry Truman narrowly beats out his successor Dwight Eisenhower for being the king of fiscal rectitude, posting an 11 percent increase in the debt in 4 years with Ike logging 23 percent over 8 years.

The numbers on which I relied for the following come from usgovernmentdebt.us, but not for Barack Obama, for whom I relied on the very latest figures available from treasurydirect.gov, which regrettably go back only through 1993. The percentage average annual increase in the debt shown below is for illustration purposes only since the percentage increase in the debt is calculated from beginning of the fiscal period to the end, not for each individual year. Multiply by 4 or 8 to get the actual figure for the term of office (but shown values are rounded, and Obama's record will not be complete until October 31, 2013, over a year from now, in which case multiply by 3).

Reagan                     21.25 percent

Bush The Younger  12.38 percent

Nixon/Ford              11.75 percent

Obama                     11.64 percent

Bush The Elder       11.50 percent

Carter                      10.00 percent

Clinton                      4.50 percent

Kennedy/LBJ           4.38 percent

Eisenhower              2.88 percent

Truman                    2.75 percent

Over time, Republican presidents have averaged a 12 percent annual increase in the debt while in office, while Democrat presidents have averaged almost 6 percent per annum.

Neither record is good, but things are not what they seem in the Republican Party, so-called home of the fiscal conservatives. 

The UK Guardian Savages Obama As An Authoritarian and Killer

Here:

[T]he three major policies of the Bush war on terror – rendition, military commissions and indefinite detention – continue to this day. But Mr Obama has also presided over a massive expansion of secret surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency. There is a ferocious crackdown on whistleblowers. He has made more government documents classified than any previous president. And he has become a true believer in drones. ...

[T]his administration is highlighting the fact that its president is a killer. In this new age of secrecy, three dozen current and former advisers are allowed to talk to the New York Times about the president's role of personally overseeing the shadow war with al-Qaida. Mr Obama has not been shy about the role he personally played in Osama bin Laden's death. His counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan makes speeches defending drone strikes as legal, ethical and wise. This administration is not on the defensive about its summary executions. It positively seeks to advertise them.

Peter Beinart Another Peter Bergen

"The war on terror is over."

-- Peter Beinart, here