Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- CIA
- Sondland
- Fired
- Red Flag
- Stooge
- RAS
- Cruelty
- CIA. Ran across a great American Thinker article Nov. 25 by Monica Showalter that explored Nancy Pelosi’s change in heart regarding impeachment. As we remember, Pelosi fended off calls to impeach President Trump for nearly a year and a half before abruptly changing her mind midsummer. Showalter suggests a possible explanation that involves our Good Friends in the CIA, the very same CIA that has screwed up every single prediction since they missed the fall of the Soviet Union. She believes that the CIA (home of Eric Ciaramella) got together with Adam Schiff and Pelosi with promises of a list of angry CIA and State Department employees who would seal the deal through their testimony. After a host of selective media leaks, Pelosi caved and announced her support for impeachment. Pelosi over her better judgement caved in and trusted them, not unlike Flounder in Animal House trusted his fraternity brothers 40 years ago after they tore up his Uncle’s car.
The intel community has morphed from a group of incompetent schlubs into a bunch of treasonous vermin. They blame their incompetence on faulty intel, the ultimate circular argument. Their problem is far too much time spent on politicking than doing their jobs. They managed to take down Bush 43 with their lies about the lack of an Iranian nuclear program and promises that Iraqis would flock to democracy once US Troops liberated Iraq. That only got us the insurrection in Iraq that led directly to the rise of ISIS. More recently were intel promises that the Venezuelan military was ready to defect. It wasn’t. it didn’t. Today, these same incompetent clowns are on the verge of taking out Pelosi’s majority in the House. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people.
- Sondland. Interesting timing following EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s less than supportive (of impeachment) testimony two weeks ago. The Portland Monthly published named accounts by three women who claimed that Sondland retaliated against them professionally after they rejected his sexual advances more than a decade ago. This took place while he was a hotelier from Seattle in 2008, long before he got hooked up President Trump as a big dollar supporter. There are a couple interesting things about the timing of the claims, both of which tell me that they are both bogus. First is the claims were made in a publication out of Portland. Portland is in part represented by the democrat congress critter, Earl Blumenauer, who Tweeted “… welcome to the resistance” when Sondland gave his initial testimony to Schiff’s committee. It was the same congress critter leading a boycott of Sondland’s business to pressure him and his wife before he gave his testimony. No witness tampering there. AntiFa, business boycotts, now carefully timed sexual harassment claims a decade old all out of the same locale. How convenient. Second is the timing of the claims, a week after Sondland was not as supportive of the impeachment narrative as the democrats had hoped. What a surprise. Not. The more I think about this, the more I have come to believe that Sondland was threatened and eventually did the right thing in his testimony, although he tried mightily not to. #MeToo is little more than another vehicle for democrat thuggery and has nothing at all to do with women or their rights.
- Fired. President Trump needs another Secretary of the Navy. If he does things right, he will need a handful of new Admirals too. A couple weeks ago, Trump pardoned three military members accused and convicted of war crimes (in reality Lawfare violations) for their actions in Afghanistan. These three, Matthew Golsteyn, Eddie Gallagher and Clint Lorance were all pardoned of murder charges in a war zone. Gallagher was a former SEAL, convicted via gross malfeasance by military prosecutors who hid evidence, spied on the defense and gamed the system. Gallagher was cleared of 6 of 7 charges, finally being convicted of being photographed with the carcass of a dead terrorist. The prosecutors celebrated the conviction by awarding themselves medals (all approved by their command chain). The WH rejected those awards. Naval brass was not all that happy with the outcome or the pardon and decided to pull Gallagher’s trident pin, awarded upon completion of SEAL training. Trump tweeted that wasn’t going to happen. The SECNAV opined he wouldn’t be taking orders via tweet. It took Trump via the SECDEF less than 24 hours to fire him. Kurt Schlichter makes the case that not only should SECNAV have been fired, but a handful of Admirals in the chain of command including the CNO, the SEAL Commandant and the Chief of Information. Sooner or later, someone needs to do something about military insubordination. Too many O’Bama flag officers remain. I do expect that number to decrease over the upcoming weeks to months.
- Red Flag. Yet another reminder of the gross perversion of liberty that are the Red Flag laws. This one comes from NJ, where a guy is in a heated defamation lawsuit with his former physician. The doc and his lawyer filed the Red Flag complaint against the guy, leading to police stripping the guy of his firearms on Sept 25. The patient was aggressively and loudly pushing for treatment after surgery didn’t go all that well resulting in significant pain. He was kicked out of the clinic where the doc worked due to aggressive behavior aimed at the staff. He then went and wrote negative reviews of the practice and clinic that led to the defamation lawsuit. There were multiple phone calls by the patient that were unpleasant, but no overt threats were made. In response, the doc and his lawyer filed the Red Flag complaint. My prediction? Red Flag complaints will be used early and often against firearms owners just like physical abuse claims are used pro-forma by ever single divorce lawyer representing a woman in the Family Courts as they have been for the last 30 years.
- Stooge. Here’s a fun question: Precisely is a Putin stooge these days? Precisely who is doing his bidding, furthering his foreign policy and economic goals? Donald Trump, the target of Russian disinformation paid for by the Clinton campaign that showed up as the basis for the Steele dossier? Or California Governor Gavin Newsom, who just stopped approval of new fracking permits in California until a “panel of experts” can review them via executive fiat? He also imposed a moratorium on new permits for steam-injected drilling, something state greens blame for a petroleum spill in Kern County over the summer. His rationale? Some mumbo jumbo about strengthening oversight of oil and gas extraction as Cali phases out dependence on fossil fuels. Apparently, Newsom and his fellow Cali democrats and greens didn’t pay attention to impeachment witness and celebrated Russia expert Fiona Hill, who testified that she heard Putin at a 2011 conference describe fracking as a great threat to Russia. Newsom is not the only Putin stooge sitting as governor. NY Governor Andrew Cuomo is doing much the same thing, opposing fracking, natural gas production, new oil and natural gas lines in NY. Most of the democrat presidential candidates are in the same boat, vociferously in opposition to fracking and American energy independence. When the US is not independent with energy, we play right into the hands of Putin, Gazprom, and his close personal friends in the Middle East. Once again, democrats are accusing Trump of being what they are actually doing, something the left does very well.
- RAS. My favorite outdoor writer here in Alaska is Craig Medred. He has been around a long time, spends a lot of time out of doors, and understands both the state and the economics. In recent years, he has documented the economic threat posed by fish farming to commercial fishermen here in Alaska. Via a number of stunningly idiotic economic decisions (mostly protectionism), Alaska commercial fishermen decided not to participate in the burgeoning worldwide marketplace for farmed salmon. The most recent technical advance is recirculating aquaculture system (RAS). This is essentially a land-based fish farm where water is cleaned and recirculated. The salmon do not eat and are not exposed to anything that the company does not want in the system. As such, these fish are cleaner than wild salmon. There are several of these being built in the US. One in FL near Homestead. Another company has plans for two RAS plants, one in Cali and the other in Maine. A couple weeks ago, Dubai announced a large RAS project in the desert next to the Persian Gulf, leading to a great Medred title: Desert Fresh Salmon. The Florida plant already has fish in the tanks and plans for an annual harvest of 220,000 tons by 2031, half the current salmon consumption in the US today. Global farmed salmon today are 2.2 million tons/year. Norway’s production is over 1 million tons/year. Alaska’s annual commfish catch is in the vicinity of 450,000 tons/year. Norway plans to ramp up their production to 5 million tons/year by 2050. Given their history and commitment, this goal is reasonable. So, where does this leave Alaska? We are about to get crushed by the economic wheels as the world salmon marketplace is flooded with an increasing amount of fish every single year. And the farmed fish will be cleaner, fresher, and more parasite-free than anything caught in the wild. Yet Alaska commercial fishermen and the politicians they put into office refuse to do anything about it. In economic terms, this is little more than a reminder that protectionism never, ever works.
- Cruelty. President Trump signed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act a week ago. The legislation was aimed at shutting down animal snuff videos on YouTube where animals are tortured to death. On the face of it, this is the right thing for the right reason. The problem will be when the very fine goals of this legislation are picked up by the animal rights activists as a vehicle to go after sports or other activities that involve animals. Craig Medred wrote a pair of articles last week on the subject. The first asked what happens when the animal rights crowd, which have had the Iditarod in its crosshairs for decades define sled dog racing as torture? The second was about an animal cruelty complaint against Cooke Aquaculture in Maine, whose employees were videoed stomping on salmon to kill them and using salmon fry as compost. The company was cleared of charges, but the opening round in this was sent downrange. The animal rights group making the complaint played it for all it was worth, using terms like “shocking video”, “careless and cruel handling”, “unconscionable.” The discussion devolved into a the most recent variation on the PETA notion that “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy” and how much pain a fish can feel. Interestingly these very same people seem not to care a whit about a baby human who feels very real deadly pain inflicted in the throes of an abortion. Expect the new law to be gleefully grabbed and abused by the animal rights crowd as they use their shiny new tool to go after many, many new targets. Three thoughts about this. First, is the road to a very hot place continues to be paved with good intentions. Second, no good deed will go unpunished. Finally, we are about to get yet another moderately painful lesson in the drawbacks of ignoring the notion of federalism.
More later –
– AG