Indo-Pakistani Conflict: Day Three

February 28th, 2019

Quick roundup on the Indo-Pakistani conflict:

  • Facing a quick, widespread Indian military mobilization in Kashmir, Pakistan is saying they’re just going to hand the captured Indian pilot over as a gesture of goodwill. (Pakistan’s earlier airing footage of the captured pilot on TV was, in fact, a violation of the Geneva Convention.)
  • Another reason war may be averted in Kashmir is due to bad weather.
  • India supposedly shot down an Pakistani F-16, the pilot of which is MIA.
  • Reports of Pakistan shelling Indian positions. Indian news source, so take it with a grain or two of salt.
  • Evidently the Indian Air Force staged several mock runs to stress Pakistan’s air force before the actual strike.
  • Not buying all the points here, but the analysis of differing Pakistani and Indian nuclear strategy is interesting:

    The Pakistani military’s fear is that the Indian army has an overwhelming advantage, in terms of men and tanks, so may mount a “Cold Start” conventional attack that quickly could seize the major Pakistani city of Lahore and effectively win a war without employing nuclear weapons. As a consequence, whereas India, initially at least, developed strategic nuclear weapons designed to reach all of Pakistan, the latter’s military switched to tactical nuclear weapons to stop dead any Cold Start Doctrine adventure.

    But how easy would it be to halt Indian tank divisions pouring across the desert in the flat border region south of the mountainous terrain of Kashmir, where the current action is taking place? It may sound that I have strange friends, but I know people who have “run the numbers” on this. The answer is that it would take more than 20 Pakistani nuclear weapons to blunt an Indian attack.

    The conventional wisdom is, or certainly was, that nuclear weapons create a balance of terror between rivals. That logic may have applied in the days of the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union, but it no longer is valid — at least between India and Pakistan.

  • “Britain, US and France ask UN to blacklist Jaish-e-Mohammad leader Masood Azhar.”
  • “Jaish-e-Mohammad head Masood Azhar, the real architect of the deadly Pulwama attack, receives the same military protection in Pakistan’s Punjab province as Osama bin Laden did in the military town of Abbottabad, India Today’s open-source investigation shows…India Today’s open-source intelligence team has pin-pointed the Jaish den in Bahawalpur, the 12th largest city of Pakistan’s Punjab.”
  • In both India and Pakistan, people are asking the important questions: Will the war interfere with the Cricket World Cup? In fact, Pakistan’s president Imran Khan is a former cricketer.
  • Pakistan Shoots Down Indian Aircraft

    February 27th, 2019

    In a follow-up to yesterday’s story, Pakistan claims it shot down two Indian aircraft, though India says Pakistan only shot down one, and that India shot down a Pakistani aircraft. The Indian plane lost is reportedly a MiG 21, a plane so old it was used in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, AKA the Bangladeshi Liberation War. Pakistan has closed off its airspace to all commercial flights and India has instituted a more limited ban on its northern airspace.

    Pakistani PM Imran Khan is calling for talks. Meanwhile, significant portions of India’s population seem positively giddy over India’s airstrikes against the Jaish-e-Mohammad camp. Indian PM Narendra Modi’s tough stance towards Pakistan seems to be boosting his chances in the forthcoming April-May general elections.

    Here’s the BBC News live feed. Local news sources in both India and Pakistan seem too biased to trust.

    As I’m writing this, there are unconfirmed reports of heavy exchanges of fire along the line of control in Kashmir.

    Pakistan has been playing its double game of backing Islamic terrorists while denying it’s doing so for a long, long time. They’ve been doing the same with the Taliban in Afghanistan for three decades. It would be nice if they could be dissuaded from continuing this course of action short of full-scale war.

    Developing…

    Indian Planes Hits Pakistan

    February 26th, 2019

    India and Pakistan’s on-again/off-again conflict over Kashmir is on again:

    Pakistan says India launched an airstrike on its territory early Tuesday that caused no casualties, while India said it targeted a terrorist training camp in a pre-emptive strike that killed a “very large number” of militants.

    The overnight raid was the latest escalation between the nuclear-armed rivals since a deadly militant attack in the disputed Kashmir region earlier this month killed more than 40 Indian soldiers. Pakistan has denied involvement in the attack but has vowed to respond to any Indian military operation against it.

    The Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility. The bomber, who made a video before the attack, was a resident of Indian Kashmir.

    Pakistan’s military spokesman, Maj. Gen Asif Ghafoor, said the Indian “aircrafts” crossed into the Muzafarabad sector of Kashmir, which is split between the two countries but claimed by each in its entirety. He said Pakistan scrambled fighters and the Indian jets “released payload in haste” near Balakot, on the edge of Pakistani-ruled Kashmir.

    India’s foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale, told reporters in New Delhi that Indian fighter aircraft targeted Jaish-e-Mohammad camps in a pre-emptive strike after intelligence indicated another attack was being planned.

    “Acting on intelligence, India early today stuck the biggest training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed in Balakot,” he said. “In this operation a very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and Jehadis being trained were eliminated.”

    The best working assumption here is that everyone involved is lying, which is to assume that Pakistan is backing and funding Jaish-e-Mohammad (probably, like the Taliban, through the ISI), and that Indian planes did hit their targets, but have no way of knowing how much damage they actually inflicted.

    The Indian Air Force used Sukhoi-30MKIs and Mirage 2000s with laser-guided bombs in the strike. Neither of those is state-of-the-art. Sukhoi-30MKI is a local build of a Russian F-15 clone introduced in the 1990s. The French Mirage 2000 was first introduced in the 1970s, though the Indian version has been considerably upgraded. None of those are remotely close to state-of-the-art. Fortunately for Indian, Pakistan’s air force is not much more modern, with American F-16s and the Pakistani/Chinese co-built F-17 Thunder being their top of the line.

    Three of India and Pakistan’s four wars have been fought over Kashmir, mostly recently in the Kargil War of 1999, when Pakistani troops infiltrated into Kashmir over the “line of control” and got their asses kicked. The biggest difference between 1999 and now, of course, is that both India and Pakistan have considerably expanded their nuclear arsenals, both thought to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 nukes each.

    Now there are reports of both countries mobilizing, of sporadic gunfire across the border, and Pakistan stating it will strike back “at a time of its choosing.

    Making things even more unpredictable is that both Pakistan and India are ruled by weird religious-ethnoationalist populist parties, Imran Khan’s Islamist Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Narendra Modi’s Hindu Bharatiya Janata. It’s hard to know just how far either will take things if push comes to shove. Probably well short of letting the nukes fly, but who knows?

    It would be nice if our media would focus on things like “possible nuclear war” rather than, say, the beliefs of Trump’s pastry chef, but that’s not the media we have…

    Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for February 25, 2019

    February 25th, 2019

    I updated last week’s clown car update to note that Bernie Sanders was In, and he promptly raised $6 million for his campaign. Now we’re waiting on the other three Bs (Biden, Beto and Bloomberg) to make up their minds.

    538 Presidential roundup.

    538 polls.

    Democratic Party presidential primary schedule.

    15 Democratic contenders ranked by a Washington Post columnist, with Harris at the top, just in case you needed a nice tall glass of consensus MSM grab-fanny.

    Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Out.
  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out.
  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Learning toward In. All people know about him is a speech slamming Ted Cruz. Like slamming President Trump, that’s not exactly going to make you stand out from the field. Also, if he does run, his brother, James Bennet, will step down as New York Times option editor. Thanks for reminding everyone, yet again, how incestuously intermixed our elite mainstream media is with the Democratic Party.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: Leaning toward running. Hamlet is still expected to run. 538 notes that Biden not running wouldn’t be unprecedented, with Gore 2004 as the closest example, but the latter had just come off a huge losing general election effort. Vox wonders what happens if he doesn’t run.
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Leaning toward In. In a shocking development, people who have received money from Michael Bloomberg are quite enthused with Michael Bloomberg running for President.
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Silicon Valley loves Cory Booker. That could be a problem for him.”

    Booker, long the darling of the tech industry and some of its marquee leaders, is traipsing into a transformed Silicon Valley when he touches down in town this weekend for his first fundraising trip here since he announced he was running for president. Friday lunch guests at the San Francisco home of David Shuh, Friday dinner guests at the 9,300-square-foot Piedmont home of Ali Partovi, and Saturday evening guests at the Atherton home of Gary Lauder (an heir to the Estée Lauder beauty empire) are paying up to $2,800 each to rub shoulders with Cory Booker.

    Then again, most have probably met him before. The presidential candidate has collected half a million dollars from the internet industry over his five years in the Senate, from people like LinkedIn’s Hoffman, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Emerson Collective founder Laurene Powell Jobs, and early Facebook exec Sean Parker.

    Why? He is culturally of this place, donors say.

    But times have changed, and Silicon Valley is no longer merely an ATM for Cory Booker.

    Twitter is no longer primarily a place to find an elderly man snowtrapped in his home in Newark, like Booker once did — it is now also a cesspool of hate and misinformation. Mark Zuckerberg is no longer a hero brandishing a $100 million check in a well-meaning attempt to save Newark’s schools, like Booker once described him — he is a bogeyman who badly mishandled our last election and is now as divisive as any of the people running for president.

    Silicon Valley is itself a minefield that in some ways sums up the broader political challenge for Booker in 2020: He’s running as a liberal on issues including tech regulation, but the progressive left holds him in suspicion — and he could face more as he begins to court tech money more openly.

  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Likely In. Say’s he’ll make a decision next month and swears he’ll be the most pro-union candidate. Would being the darling of an ever-fading part of the blue coalition be enough to win in a divided field? Maybe.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Leaning toward In, but is reportedly going to wait until Montana’s legislative session finishes, which would be May 1.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. He gets lots of good press…in Indiana. Elsewhere? Not so much.
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. He was in Denison, Iowa. Want a live feed of his Iowa tour? If so, what’s wrong with you?
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not. But she met with Biden and Klobuchar. Her endorsement could be a serious boost for Klobuchar. For Biden? Doubt it.
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: Out.
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. He appeared in Iowa for crowds of 20 to 40.
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. He appeared on The Steele Report in Waterloo, Iowa. Said voters are not interested in socialism. I’m starting to get the hunch that Delany may hang around in the field longer than you might think.
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. Twenty Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Tulsi Gabbard, including the fact she’s of American Samoan, not Indian, decent. Gets a Guardian profile.
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. She hired two more Iowa staffers and Pfizer executive Sally Susman is hosting a fundraiser for her. And she’s already losing to ranch dressing.
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Out.
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. Says she’s not a socialist. Heh: “Viewers Starting To Doubt Objectivity Of Reporter With ‘KAMALA 2020’ Face Tattoo.”
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: Probably In. Appeared on a stage in Ames with Castro and Harris. Also says he’s not cut out to be a senator. Who’s asking you?
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Gov. Jay Inslee says he could decide on presidential run ‘as soon as’ this week.” Wait, I thought he was already in. I mean, he even has a SuperPAC Sometimes it’s hard to see all the way to the back of the clown car…
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. Here’s this week’s “Klobucher treats her staff like shit” article, including the “she ate a salad with a comb” bit that got covered everywhere.
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Leaning toward a run. He was “close to making a decision” seven days ago, then nada.
  • Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley: Sounding doubtful.
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: Starting to seem doubtful. Other than a foreign policy chat at the Brookings Institution, it’s radio silence on the Moulton front.
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: Maybe. He’s days away from that “end of the month” decision window. “Beto Tries to Trick Hispanics Into Thinking He’s One of Them“:

    The Hamlet of West Texas—who recently retired from Congress after somehow managing to lose a Texas Senate race against an opponent with sky-high negatives despite raising more than $70 million from a national donor base, and then went on a “listening tour” across America to find himself—recently acknowledged that he is trying to make up his mind about whether to spend 2020 running for president or taking another stab at the Senate by challenging Republican incumbent John Cornyn.

    My guess is that O’Rourke will ultimately travel whatever road is lined with the most television cameras. Of course, vanity—even to the point of narcissism—is not a disqualifier in a politician. It’s practically a job requirement.

    Snip.

    Take the name, which he switches on and off like a light switch. He was “Robert” at birth, “Beto” in childhood, “Robert” again in boarding school and at Columbia, and “Beto” again when he returned to El Paso to run for office.

    Either this guy has an identity crisis the size of Texas, or he is just crafty enough to try to have his flan and eat it too—becoming Latin, or a white male, whichever is more convenient.

    The urban legend has it that O’Rourke came by his nickname the ol’ fashioned way—by having it bestowed upon him by Latino friends in El Paso, who thought he was pretty decent for a white guy, dubbed him an honorary Mexican, and declared that, from that day forward, he would be known as “Beto.” According to this narrative, O’Rourke became Latino simply by rubbing shoulders with Latinos. It’s like how you get poison oak.

  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Democratic Representative Tim Ryan: Maybe? Still thinking about it.
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Nothing pays quite like pimping socialism: “Sanders Blows Past Other Candidates, Raised $5.9 Million in First 24 Hours.” “The Bernie backlash has already begun.”
  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Out.
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: Leaning toward In. The big Swalwell story last week was him tweeting about not having coffee at Trump Tower. Because nothing says “sacrifice” like walking an extra half block…
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Backs “reparations” for black people and American Indians. The jokes pretty much write themselves. (Which didn’t stop The Babylon Bee: “Elizabeth Warren Claims Two Men In Colonial Outfits Assaulted Her With Smallpox-Infested Blankets.”)
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. (She has 2.6 million followers.) “Marianne Williamson Wants to Be Your Healer in Chief.” Believe it or not, the article is actually sappier than the headline implies. Sweet Jesus, the women who buy healing crystals finally have their candidate.
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: Running but no one cares. Twitter. Facebook. Finally, a man willing to take on the robot threat.
  • Tank News: New M1A2 SEPv3 Emerges

    February 24th, 2019

    The army started receiving the SEPv3 upgrade version of the M1A2 Abrams tank (now dubbed the M1A2C) back in 2017. But this week they released pictures of M1A2C’s sporting some interesting modifications (including more turret armor):

    A picture has popped-up online showing the latest variant of the Army’s M1 Abrams tank with what appears to be a new armor package on its turret. The U.S. Army is already in the process of adding the Trophy active protection system to the vehicles, which will help guard against anti-tank guided missiles and infantry anti-tank rockets. But the service is also interested adding additional passive armor in light of the threat of potential adversaries, such as Russia, with their own upgraded tanks and new armor-piercing shells.

    The Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona posted a picture of an M1A2 System Enhancement Package Version 3 tank, or M1A2 SEPv3, with both Trophy and the add-on armor package, as well as explosive reactor armor, on its Facebook page on Feb. 21, 2019.

    Snip.

    There do not appear to be any specific announcements about improved passive armor for the M1A2 SEPv3 in the past beyond statements that the variant would include added ballistic protection. Earlier pictures of the prototype M1A2 SEPv3s show weights on the front of the turret, as well as similar weights on the hull front.

    These surrogates were supposed to simulate the added weight of the SEPv3’s Next Generation Armor Package (NGAP). There had been no indication, however, that the final turret shape would change significantly.

    More about Trophy:

    The Trophy active protection system that will go onto the latest M1A2 SEPv3s is another “hard-kill” system that works by firing a shotgun-like blast to knock down incoming threats. The Army first announced it would install the Israeli-made defensive system on its tanks in September 2017.

    Unfortunately, these systems are far less effective against fast-flying kinetic penetrators, such as those in modern armor-piercing discarding-sabot tank shells, which rely on sheer force to break through armor. So, there is still a need for a passive armor layer to defend against these threats.

    Trophy is designed to defeat close-in top and sides attacked from things like RPGs, not kinetic perpetrator APFSDS rounds fired from another tank. That green section on the Abrams looks like the Trophy system.

    And SEP v4 (AKA M1A2D) is already under development.

    (Hat tip: NSFW Henry Pongratz on Gab.)

    Interesting Video on Recovery

    February 23rd, 2019

    Interesting interview with actor Dax Shepard (Frito in Idiocracy) about recovering from addiction, and how addicts frequently hit several bottoms:

    I’m doing everything I had dreamt of doing for 30 years. It all came true. And I am the least happy I’ve ever been in my life. I’m closest to not wanting to be alive as I’ve ever been, and I have every single thing on paper that I wanted. And that was a very weird…I feel grateful for this, because I was able to say something much more profound is broken. Because up to then I could tell myself “Well, if I had money, I wouldn’t need to do this. If I was doing the thing I wanted to do, that would solve everything.” I think a lot of us proceed through life thinking: We would be happy if, we would have self-esteem if, we would know contentment if. And those are illusions that most people don’t get to find out are illusions, and I got to find out it’s an illusion. I was lucky enough to have million dollars. My whole life, if I had a million dollars, like, do you know how I would feel if I had a million dollars? You know what my life would be like with a million dollars? Well, I had a million dollars.

    Shepard also talks about how another friend in recovery came across his AA book (“the big book”), where he had written down the dates he had fallen off the wagon. Shepard saw it as a record of his failure. His friend found it inspiring, because he hadn’t given up.

    LinkSwarm for February 22, 2019

    February 22nd, 2019

    Enjoy a 2/22 LinkSwarm!

  • Trump Is On Solid Legal Ground In Declaring A Border Emergency To Build A Wall.”

    A review of existing federal laws makes clear that President Donald Trump has clear statutory authority to build a border wall pursuant to a declaration of a national emergency. Arguments to the contrary either mischaracterize or completely ignore existing federal emergency declarations and appropriations laws that delegate to the president temporary and limited authority to reprogram already appropriated funding toward the creation of a border wall between the United States and Mexico.

  • When lawmakers want to talk to President Donald Trump, they just pick up the phone. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Andy Ngo helpfully provides an extensive list of fake hate crimes in the Trump era.
  • “Covington teen Nick Sandmann sues The Washington Post for $250M.”
  • Shocker: Washington Post tells the truth about guns:

    Gun homicides have dropped substantially over the past 25 years — but most Americans believe the opposite to be true. Why? Perhaps in part because of the media focus on multiple-victim shooting incidents in recent years. Perhaps, too, because of the number and deadliness of those incidents. We’ve noted before that the number of fatalities in major mass-shooting incidents has increased dramatically in recent years; it’s possible that people are conflating increases in frequency and deadliness of mass shootings with the United States getting more dangerous generally.

  • New York Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez adapts quickly to the ways of Washington, puts her boyfriend on her congressional payroll. But that’s not all! She also featherbedded him on her campaign payroll by laundering the funds through a third party.
  • The fight between Second Amendment activists and Michael Bloomberg’s money:

    The time for division is not now. We need a strong NRA. If you quit NRA over bump stocks or red flag laws, you aren’t helping. I’m not saying we can’t have disagreement, but we all need to be rowing in the same direction and understanding what’s important. Miguel notes that activists in Florida are concentrating on Open Carry. I would advise concentrating on stopping the ballot measure Bloomberg is going to foist on you in 2020. NRA has to have money to fight that. We cannot write off the third most populous state. We will never be able to outspend Bloomberg, but we sure as hell can out-organize him. We have a blueprint, and last I heard the dude who pulled off defeating the Massachusetts handgun ban is still alive. The odds were stacked against him too.

    Forget about the fucking bump stocks. It’s not where the fight is. That’s over. The fight is preserving the right to own semi-automatic firearms. That’s ultimately what they want, because they are well aware no state’s gun culture has ever come back from an assault weapons ban. Gun bans are a death blow to the culture. If you want to get the hard-core activists worked up over saving an impractical range toy, or in some misguided effort to (badly) get around the machine gun restrictions, you’re not paying attention to where the actual fight is.

  • “Government report reveals CBO was scandalously off in Obamacare estimates.”
  • The Supreme Court unanimously rules that there are limits to civil asset forfeiture under the Eighth Amendment. Good. Now congress should tackle such abuse legislatively.
  • Note the obvious truth that the media is overwhelmingly liberal? Expect to be attacked.
  • Nicolas Maduro would rather let his own people continue to starve rather than let foreign food aid reach them. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • His army evidently relies on Cuban military personnel. Too bad for him that Cuba’s military intervention in Angola showed the world that Cuban troops sucked. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • “Even the UN IPCC says we’re not headed for climate disaster.”
  • The boy who inflated the concept of wolf:

    Suppose that instead of one shepherd boy, there are a few dozen. They are tired of the villagers dismissing their complaints about less threatening creatures like stray dogs and coyotes. One of them proposes a plan: they will start using the word “wolf” to refer to all menacing animals. They agree and the new usage catches on. For a while, the villagers are indeed more responsive to their complaints. The plan backfires, however, when a real wolf arrives and cries of “Wolf!” fail to trigger the alarm they once did.

    What the boys in the story do with the word “wolf,” modern intellectuals do with words like “violence.” When ordinary people think of violence, they think of things like bombs exploding, gunfire, and brawls. Most dictionary definitions of “violence” mention physical harm or force. Academics, ignoring common usage, speak of “administrative violence,” “data violence,” “epistemic violence” and other heretofore unknown forms of violence.

    Ditto “Gas-lighting.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Pro-top: Try not to steal guns from the SHOT show.
  • The English-language narrator of Islamic State execution videos has been captured.
  • Gay magazine takes the Mullah’s side to own Trump:

  • Former women’s tennis champion and out lesbian Martina Navratilova vilified for daring to point out that men shouldn’t be competing in women’s sports.
  • “Medical examiner barred from Travis County courtrooms amid Rangers investigation.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Stafford: the Texas city without property taxes.
  • B-1s to be retired before B-52s.
  • Followup: But they’re buying more F-15s. (Hat tip: The Political Hat.)
  • Philadelphia’s stupid soda tax has not reduced consumption, brought in less revenue than expected, and has cost Philadelphia over 200 jobs. Also, corrupt union officials helped push it through as a “screw you” to the Teamsters. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Lt. Governor Dan Patrick bitchslaps some shoddy journalism from the Houston Chronicle so hard they had to retract the story. (Hat tip: Cahnman’s Musings, though the Scribed link is broken.)
  • Giant “nightmare bee” previously thought to be extinct found alive. Pleasant dreams:

  • A new football league, the Alliance of American Football, just debuted. Their main bread and butter isn’t ticket sales or broadcast rights, its refining technology to help boost sports gambling.
  • Trump-supporting comedian Terrance K. Williams recovering from a car accident:

  • Speaking of Williams:

  • Instant classic:

  • “Atheist Requiring Evidence To Believe Anything Knows For Certain Trump Colluded With Russia.”
  • La zzzzOOOOOMMMMMMMzzzz Le schzzzzzzcchh-Mmmmmmmmmwaaaaaaahh!
  • Pretender: Endgame

    February 21st, 2019

    The perpetrator of the fake hate crime du jour is now reaping his rewards:

    CHICAGO — “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett has been officially charged with felony disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report, officials announced on Wednesday.

    The Cook County state’s attorney’s office said Smollett filed the false police report claiming he was attacked on Jan. 29. A court hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. CT Thursday.

    Earlier on Wednesday, Smollett “officially classified” a suspect in a criminal investigation for allegedly filing a false police report, according to a tweet from Chicago police spokesman Officer Anthony Guglielmi.

    A Cook County grand jury was hearing evidence just weeks after the young actor reported being the victim of a hate crime on January 29, the police spokesman said. Filing a false police report is a Class 4 felony.

    Smollett’s transformation from victim to suspect in a reported crime that captured national headlines came on the same day that a high-ranking police source said Chicago detectives were working to obtain the actor’s financial records.

    So: Filing fake hate crime reports to paint your political opponents as racist gay-bashers is bad, mmmmkay?

    Now let’s go to the memes:

    And The Babylon Bee: “Jussie Smollett Offered Job At CNN After Fabricating News Story Out Of Thin Air.”

    But wait! There’s even a cherry on top! Snopes actually fact-checked the Babylon Bee story: “This was not a genuine news story, although some readers mistook it for such.”

    Conclusion: Snopes has some really, really stupid readers…

    Follow-Up: Houston To End No-Knock Raids

    February 20th, 2019

    In a follow-up to Monday’s story, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo announced that HPD will no longer carry out no-knock raids:

    Houston police will no longer use no-knock warrants following a drug raid on a home that turned into a deadly shootout in which two suspects were killed and five undercover officers were injured, the city’s police chief said.

    “The no-knock warrants are going to go away like leaded gasoline in this city,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo announced during a town hall meeting Monday.

    He said officers will need to request a special exemption from his office to conduct a no-knock raid.

    The decision comes as the city faces criticism from local community activists for the Jan. 28 raid that led to the deaths of 59-year-old Dennis Tuttle and 58-year-old Rhogena Nicholas, who both lived in the home. Four officers were shot in the gunfight and another was injured but not shot.

    Acevedo revealed last week that an investigation into the drug raid found a 30-year veteran of the force lied in an affidavit to justify storming the house without warning. Officer Gerald Goines, who prepared the search warrant, has since been suspended and it’s unclear what charges he could face, according to the police chief.

    Goines couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

    “I’m very confident we’re going to have criminal charges on one or more of the officers,” Acevedo said.

    Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said her office will investigate and hold those involved accountable.

    Acevedo also announced a new policy for undercover officers to wear body cameras during raids.

    So: Progress! On a number of fronts. Let’s hope that HPD follows through on these reforms, and that other law enforcement agencies follow suit.

    Seven Labour MPs Split Over Corbyn, Antisemitism

    February 19th, 2019

    Significant news from across the pond:

    Seven MPs have resigned from the Labour Party in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to Brexit and anti-Semitism.

    They are: Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey.

    Ms Berger said Labour had become institutionally anti-Semitic and she was “embarrassed and ashamed” to stay.

    More from NRO:

    The seven defectors have named themselves the “Independent Group,” and they hope more MPs will join them. Time will tell.

    “I cannot remain in a party that I have today come to the sickening conclusion is institutionally anti-Semitic,” said Luciana Berger, who has endured sustained anti-Semitic attacks and accordingly had a bodyguard at the party’s annual conference last year. Chris Leslie added, “We did everything we could to save it, but it has now been hijacked by the machine politics of the hard Left.”

    Snip.

    Since April, the Labour party has received 673 official complaints, according to its National Executive Committee, of anti-Semitism and has suspended 96 individuals. Much of this is visible at the grassroots level, for instance, in the movement Momentum (Jeremy Corbyn’s unofficial fan club), which was described last year by a Labour backbencher as “a party within a party” full of “Trots, Stalinists, Communists, and assorted hard-left” activists for whom “anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is fundamental to their politics and their values.”

    Since becoming leader, Corbyn has been personally implicated in a number of anti-Semitic scandals. Britain’s former chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, compared Corbyn’s derogatory remarks about “Zionists” to Enoch Powell’s 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech. A survey conducted by the Jewish Chronicle found that 40 percent of British Jews say they would consider leaving the United Kingdom if Corbyn were to become prime minister.

    This schism has been building for a while. Way back under Tony Blair, the Labour Party decided there simply weren’t enough votes to be had among native Britons, Scots and Welsh to keep them in power, and undertook a deliberate strategy to open the floodgates of immigration to produce an electorate more to their liking. This included a number of unassimilated Muslims. As a result of this, and the general hatred of Israel by leftwing parties in Europe, the Labour Party now has significant institutional antisemitism, because significant portions of their unassimilated constituents are antisemitic.

    NRO also notes that Corbyn’s Euroskepticism, and thus his opposition to the “second referendum” scheme to derail Brexit, also had a role in the split, as did Corbyn’s unpopularity among MPs (as opposed to Labour voters). As John Gray wrote just after the Brexit vote:

    Leading Labour figures have denied adamantly that the party’s stance on immigration is central to the collapse of its working-class base. It was a complex of issues to do with de-industrialisation, they repeat, that led to mass desertion by Labour voters. There is some force in this, but it is essentially a way of evading an inconvenient truth.

    Free movement of labour between countries with vastly different wage levels, working conditions and welfare benefits is a systemic threat to the job opportunities and living standards of Labour’s core supporters. Labour cannot admit this, because that would mean the EU is structured to make social democracy impossible.

    Labour still hasn’t come to terms with the fact that it’s Europhilic, anti-Brexit leadership is diametrically opposed to the interests of its (pro-Brexit, anti-immigration) traditional working class base. The question is how many more schisms have to occur before it comes to grips with that fact.