Another F-you from the departing Biden administration
It worked so very well for Obama:
When President Barack Obama released five Taliban commanders from the Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for an American deserter in 2014, he assured a wary public that the dangerous enemy combatants would be transferred to Qatar and kept from causing any trouble in Afghanistan.
In fact, they were left free to engineer Sunday’s sacking of Kabul [written in August 2021].
Soon after gaining their freedom, some of the notorious Taliban Five pledged to return to fight Americans in Afghanistan and made contacts with active Taliban militants there. But the Obama-Biden administration turned a blind eye to the disturbing intelligence reports, and it wasn’t long before the freed detainees used Qatar as a base to form a regime in exile…
Earlier this year, one of them, Khairullah Khairkhwa, actually sat across the table from President Biden’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, in Moscow, where Khairkhwa was part of the official Taliban delegation that negotiated the final terms of the US withdrawal. The retreat cleared a path for the Taliban to retake power after 20 years.
We have two weeks to go till Trump is inaugurated, and the outgoing Biden & company – many of whom are probably the same people from the Obama years – have plenty of time to do more damage and remind us once again of some of the reasons Trump was elected to a second term. For example, this:
In the most dramatic step in years to reduce the population at the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Biden administration has transferred 11 Yemeni detainees to Oman, which has agreed to help resettle them and provide security monitoring.
All of the men, who were captured in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, had been held for more than two decades without being charged or put on trial. All of them were approved for transfer by national security officials more than two years ago and sometimes long before that — one had been cleared for transfer since 2010 — yet had remained behind bars due to political and diplomatic factors.
Their release leaves just 15 prisoners at Guantánamo, cutting the number of inmates nearly in half.
The article goes on to say that their release had been planned by the Biden administration for October of 2023 but oops! October 7 happened, and the plans were delayed “due to concerns in Congress about instability in the Middle East.” And now those concerns are gone? Hardly. Now it’s not the left or the Biden group that has to worry about what happens on their watch – they can bequeath the extra problems to the Trump administration.
Buh-Bye, Trudeau
A sort-of goodbye, anyway. Trudeau is retiring as head of the party and then once the party figures out who his replacement might be he will resign as PM as well.
Or something like that:
From [a] Canadian friend: He’s effectively shut down government until March and then will slow rollout a leadership race that will push the election out as long as possible.
That means the election likely won’t happen until October.
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Trudeau told reporters he decided to step down now because it’s become clear that he would not be leader due to internal party conflicts that he cannot be the one to carry the liberal standard into the next election.
And of course it’s all-important to the left that conservatives must be stopped! The consensus is that conservatives under Pierre Poilievre are poised to win the next election.
If it seems to you that Trudeau has been in power forever, that might be because he’s actually been PM for ten years. And if you wonder how long a Canadian PM can serve, the answer is that there are no term limits in Canada. Trudeau has served long enough to have thoroughly worn out his welcome, but he’s not even close to beating the previous Canadian record:
Under this system, William Lyon Mackenzie King was Canada’s longest-serving prime minister, holding office for a total of 21 years and 154 days over three non-consecutive terms.
When I read that, I immediately suspected that (the aptly-named) King may have served at roughly the same time as our FDR, during the Depression and WWII. That turns out to have been the case, and he had other similarities to FDR as well:
William Lyon Mackenzie King OM CMG PC (December 17, 1874 – July 22, 1950) was a Canadian statesman and politician who was the tenth prime minister of Canada for three non-consecutive terms from 1921 to 1926, 1926 to 1930, and 1935 to 1948. A Liberal, he was the dominant politician in Canada from the early 1920s to the late 1940s.[a] King is best known for his leadership of Canada throughout the Great Depression and the Second World War. In August 1944, he ordered the displacement of Japanese Canadians out of the British Columbia Interior, mandating that they either resettle east of the Rocky Mountains or face deportation to Japan after the war. He played a major role in laying the foundations of the Canadian welfare state …
There are parallels and trends among Western countries. FDR and King, Reagan and Thatcher, and now – hopefully – Trump and Poilievre.
Today is the four year anniversary of J6
And Trump has been certified as the next president, to be inaugurated on January 20.
What a difference four years makes, and what a long strange trip it’s been – and hardly over yet. The left tried everything – and I mean almost literally everything – to stop him, and yet he was re-elected and has managed to stay upright and sentient, at least so far.
Much is being made in some circles of the fact that Kamala Harris presided over the session. Also, of the fact that the Democrats aren’t really contesting these results. That doesn’t mean they didn’t contest results in the past; they certainly did, and we have the video compilations to prove it. But more importantly, one reason this election wasn’t contested is that the voting rules were mostly tightened up, and the percentage of mail-in ballots – although still too high IMHO – went down significantly. What’s more, because Republican voters are not concentrated in urban areas controlled by Republicans, the mechanisms for significant fraud are less available to the GOP.
Still, many on the left would like us to remember J6 of 2020 as a day that will live forever in infamy. By electing Trump, the majority of voters rejected that idea. But there’s no question that the left got much use out of it, and managed to pervert the legal system to harshly punish even those uninvolved in any violence that day.
Open thread 1/6/2025
Honoring George Soros and Hillary Clinton
Someone at the White House has a sense of humor – Biden gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Soros and Hillary Clinton, among others:
Soros, 94, was among the 19 people chosen to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor at the White House, a group that included U2 frontman Bono, actor Denzel Washington and former senator Hillary Clinton — who also was panned as a recipient.
“George Soros spent millions electing soft-on-crime politicians that let criminals wreak havoc in our major cities,” Montana Senator Tim Sheehy told The Post. “Hillary Clinton abandoned our Navy SEALs in Libya.”
To the left those things are features, not bugs. And still another feature is outraging the right.
Judge Merchan schedules Trump sentencing hearing for January 10
And yet he also seems to be signaling that the case will be discharged without jail or probation. If that’s true, why do this at all?
Simple, says Jonathan Turley:
The sentence will finalize the case and allow for an appeal. However, it would also label the President-elect a convicted felon just before he is sworn into office. It is the final cathartic act for lawfare warriors…
For many months, Democrats have repeated over and over that Trump is a convicted felon, as though that has any meaning. It’s lack of meaning isn’t just because until the sentencing hearing it’s not technically true – it’s because he was convicted by a kangaroo court and anyone studying the case objectively realizes that the conviction only condemns the Democrats rather than Trump.
However, this is also true as far as it goes, although dismissing the case would have been far better:
Merchan said that “while Trump could have faced up to four years behind bars on each of the counts, ‘a sentence of an unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality’ and [indicated he will] allow Trump to pursue his appeal options,” according to the Post.
The case has been a travesty from the start.
Roundup
(1) The Las Vegas truck bomber was not a terrorist, but rather a veteran intent on suicide who wanted to publicize his views and get attention:
A highly decorated Army soldier who fatally shot himself in a Tesla Cybertruck just before it blew up outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left notes saying the New Year’s Day explosion was a stunt to serve as a “wake up call” for the country’s ills, investigators said Friday.
Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, also wrote in notes he left on his cellphone that he needed to “cleanse” his mind “of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.” Livelsberger served in the Army since 2006 and deployed twice to Afghanistan.
“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives,” Livelsberger wrote in one letter found by authorities and released Friday.
(2) I noticed nearly twenty years ago that the free speech protections in the US are more robust than in Europe, including the UK. It’s only gotten worse there – recently, much worse.
(3) How Israel penetrated Hezbollah:
(4) Revisiting the UK’s child abuse coverup. The scale was huge; thousands of innocent children were sacrificed on the PC altar. The details are ghastly, and who was the prosecutor who failed to bring charges? Why, the current PM of Britain, Keir Starmer.
(5) Mapping the bedbug genome might help us fight the nasty little critters.
Open thread 1/4/2025
Johnson is elected Speaker
There was really no other possibility, and all the objections were merely theater. Trump had – wisely, I think – endorsed Johnson. With the GOP’s razor-thin majority, unity was necessary and no other candidate was viable.
Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was re-elected speaker of the House of Representatives on Friday on the first ballot after two of the three fellow Republicans who initially voted for other caucus members switched to him.
Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Texas’ Keith Self flipped their votes to Johnson after huddling with him near the House floor as the chamber’s clerk kept the ballot open for more than an hour.
Only one Republican, Rep. Tom Massie of Kentucky, voted for someone else — Rep. Tom Emmer — in the final tally, which gave Johnson the minimum 218 votes he needed to win.
In other news, Matt Gaetz – who spearheaded the previous rebellion and resigned from Congress a while back – has a new gig on One America News Network.
Fundamentalist Islam provides an out for people who are suicidal
I’ve sensed from the start that both the New Orleans car attacker and the Las Vegas truck bomber had one thing very much in common: an impulse to suicide. The latter seems to have carried off his demise without seriously harming anyone else, whether that was his intent or not. But the former clearly wanted to kill as many people as possible – a classic jihadi impulse.
Jabbar, the New Orleans killer, had experienced a sharp downward trajectory in his life:
In a YouTube video he posted in 2020 for his real estate business, a clean-cut Jabbar described himself as a reliable, trustworthy native Texan who spent 10 years in the military, which taught him “the meaning of great service.”
But when he carried out the terror attack — one of the deadliest since 9/11 — Jabbar lived in a squalid trailer park on the outskirts of Houston that is home to mostly Muslim immigrants.
Geese, chickens and sheep roamed freely in Jabbar’s yard when The Post visited hours after the attack. …
He had … been divorced twice, and the failed marriages apparently left him in financial ruin.
It’s logical to think that Jabbar was depressed, and depressed people often turn to religion. That can work out nicely, but with fundamentalist Islam there’s a trap and Jabbar apparently fell into it: justification for murder/suicide as a heroic act which brings enormous rewards in the afterlife. It’s not hard to imagine how seductive such a belief system would be to someone already filled with rage against others as well as shame about how his own life is working out.
That’s apparently what happened with Jabbar:
While the FBI was looking into his “path to radicalization,” evidence collected since the attack showed that Jabbar was “100 percent inspired by ISIS,” said Raia, using an acronym for Islamic State.
Jabbar, who authorities said acted alone, was killed in a shootout with police.
His half-brother, Abdur Jabbar, said in an interview that Jabbar, who had worked for audit firm Deloitte, abandoned Islam in his 20s or 30s, but had recently renewed his faith. …
… [B]oth international and U.S.-based extremist groups follow a similar playbook to draw in new recruits.
The groups use social media to push their message and then move discussions to encrypted app such as Telegram, which could evolve into one-on-one conversations, Snyder said.
“Then people feel like they’re part of a community,” said Snyder, who left DHS in December and joined the race to chair the Democratic National Committee.
Recruits could either receive direct orders or self-radicalize to take action, Snyder said.
Individuals susceptible to recruitment “might have lost their jobs, might have had a mental health crisis, might have just concluded that however hard they’ve tried, they never belong,” said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British diplomat who led a U.N. team that monitors Islamic State and al Qaeda.
That last paragraph may sound like an excuse for murderers. However, it’s not. But it’s part of the explanation for what draws susceptible people in.
Liz Cheney gets a medal
Biden – or the people dictating to him at this point – is having fun in his last few weeks as president distributing largesses. Hunter was just the beginning. Then the 1500 pardons and the 37 death sentence commutations.
And now it’s Liz Cheney. He can’t put her back in her old position in Congress – the voters rejected her with great vigor for what she did while there. But he can do this:
President Joe Biden on Thursday awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, honoring one of President-elect Donald Trump’s most outspoken critics at a White House ceremony less than three weeks before Trump is set to reclaim the presidency.
The medal, given to those who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country, is the nation’s second-highest award, after the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Biden also gave the medal to Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Mississippi), who along with Cheney led the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
What a lovely thought. And an even lovelier one might be one of those pre-emptive pardons for Cheney and even for Thompson:
Mr. Biden is considering blanket preemptive pardons for prominent critics of Trump from both parties to protect them from possible “retribution” or legal prosecution by the incoming administration, multiple people familiar with the ongoing discussions told CBS News earlier this month. Among those who were under consideration are Cheney, Sen. Adam Schiff of California, who served on the Jan. 6 select committee while in the House, and retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has called Trump a “fascist.”
Not to mention a pardon to Cheney for witness tampering:
Former Rep. Liz Cheney is facing calls from GOP legislators that the FBI investigate her for “potential criminal witness tampering” related to her former role on the Jan. 6 House Select Committee, according to a report released Tuesday by House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight Chair Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga.
“Based on the evidence obtained by this Subcommittee, numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, the former Vice Chair of the January 6 Select Committee, and these violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” states the report, which was provided to Fox News Digital. “Evidence uncovered by the Subcommittee revealed that former Congresswoman Liz Cheney tampered with at least one witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, by secretly communicating with Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge.”
If Kamala Harris had won the election, my guess is that Cheney would have gotten more than a medal – most likely a position of some sort in a Harris administration. The consensus is, however, that Harris’ decision to make Liz Cheney a big part of her campaign cost her votes:
Unfortunately, while many Democratic tacticians were enthusiastic about Cheney’s jumping on board as a Harris backer, Republican voters couldn’t have cared less. The Cheney strategy was an abject failure that added few if any votes to the Democratic total, alienated voters who have no taste for the former GOP representative’s neocon extremism, and stole precious time from an agonizingly short campaign schedule.
While it is certainly not the sole explanation for why Democrats fared as poorly as they did, the Cheney detour was a political fiasco.
One of the many many things that the 2024 campaign revealed about Kamala Harris is that she has no gift for politics, no intuitive sense of what would appeal to voters, and no ability to carry it out. Come to think of it, that shows she’s got a lot in common with Liz Cheney.