Protests across Iran continue after the Islamic Republic government admitted their forces shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet. Protestors demand the resignation of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
President Donald Trump has tweeted out his support for the protestors, in both English and Farsi:
To the brave, long-suffering people of Iran: I've stood with you since the beginning of my Presidency, and my Administration will continue to stand with you. We are following your protests closely, and are inspired by your courage.
به مردم شجاع و رنج کشیده ایران: من از ابتدای دوره ریاست جمهوریم با شما ایستادهام و دولت من همچنان با شما خواهد ایستاد. ما اعتراضات شما را از نزدیک دنبال می کنیم. شجاعت شما الهام بخش است.
President Trump's tweet in Farsi expressing his support for Iranian protesters has already earned over 200,000 likes, making it the "most liked Persian tweet" in the social media giant's history, according to a leading think tank adviser.https://t.co/ioyTZ4Vpzc
To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!
If you’ve read Charles Murray’s Losing Ground, you probably know the story already, but this piece provides a nice summary of the same information even if you haven’t:
The 1960s Great Society and War on Poverty programs of President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) have been a colossal and giant failure. One might make the argument that social welfare programs are the moral path for a modern government. They cannot, however, make the argument that these are in any way effective at alleviating poverty.
In fact, there is evidence that such aggressive programs might make generational poverty worse. While the notion of a “culture of dependence” is a bit of a cliché in conservative circles, there is evidence that this is indeed the case – that, consciously or not, the welfare state creates a culture where people receive benefits rather than seeking gainful employment or business ownership.
This is not a moral or even a value judgment against the people engaged in such a culture. Again, the claim is not that people “choose to be on welfare,” but simply that social welfare programs incentivize poverty, which has an impact on communities that has nothing to do with individual intent.
We are now over 50 years into the development of the Great Society and the War on Poverty. It is time to take stock in these programs from an objective and evidence-based perspective. When one does that, it is not only clear that the programs have been a failure, but also that they have disproportionately impacted the black community in the United States. The current state of dysfunction in the black community (astronomically high crime rates, very low rates of home ownership and single motherhood as the norm) are not the natural state of the black community in the United States, but closely tied to the role that social welfare programs play. Or as Dr. Thomas Sowell stated:
“If we wanted to be serious about evidence, we might compare where blacks stood a hundred years after the end of slavery with where they stood after 30 years of the liberal welfare state. In other words, we could compare hard evidence on “the legacy of slavery” with hard evidence on the legacy of liberals.”
It then provides a nice overview of the various Great Society welfare programs before covering the the resulting breakdown of the black family, declining black participation in the labor market, etc. The section on black business ownership is one I don’t think Murray really touched on:
Participation in the labor market is not the only metric of economic activity. Another is business ownership. The years between 1900 and 1930 are known as “the Golden Age of Black Entrepreneurship.” By 1920, there were tens of thousands of black businesses in the United States, the overwhelming majority of them very small, single proprietorship. This in no way diminishes the importance of this sector of the black economy. People who had, in many cases, started their lives as slaves were now, even when “poorer” in terms of income, freer than many of their white counterparts who worked for wages.
There was also a social aspect to this period of black entrepreneurship. Black insurance companies and black-owned banks represent the apex of the economic pyramid in the black community. While the black community was comparatively poorer than its white counterparts, money spent by black Americans could stay within the black community. Thus, the black community could enrich itself from the bottom of the ladder all the way up to the top.
This concept was known as “double duty dollars.” The idea is that money spent at black businesses not only purchased goods for the consumer, but also played a role in advancing the black race in America. This, and not government handouts, was seen as the primary means of achieving, if not a perfect equality with whites, a social parity with them.
Another aspect of why black entrepreneurship was so important in the black community was that national businesses tended to ignore the black market entirely. This, however, began to change in the 1950s and, to a much greater extent, by the dawn of the next decade. No one forced national businesses to begin marketing their products to black America. National businesses simply saw that there was an emerging black middle class with money to spend and didn’t want to get cut out of the market.
Today, black business ownership is in a state of “collapse” according to Marketplace.org. This cannot entirely be laid at the foot of the Great Society. For example, the unlikely culprit of integration is one of the reasons that the black business districts began to fall apart. For example, once the biggest burger joint in town would serve black people, there was no reason to go to “the black burger joint” anymore.
Still, it’s impossible to separate the end of the thriving black business districts from the Great Society. These were once centers of the community, in addition to being centers of commerce. Now they are virtually extinct. While other factors are in play, it’s difficult to not notice the overlap between the rise of the welfare state through the Great Society, the overall decline in the black community’s civil society anchored by the black business community, and black business ownership in general.
Read the whole thing. (And read Losing Ground if you haven’t already; it’s the most important book written about welfare policy in the last half century.)
Iran news, analysis, etc. dominates today’s LinkSwarm!
“The targeting of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force and arguably the second most powerful man in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is a major blow to the Islamic Republic of Iran. His death will likely result in a devastating chain of suspicion and insecurity in Iran’s nodes of power.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
This week, President Donald Trump launched a global round of teeth gnashing when he ordered the killing of the greatest terrorist leader in the modern Middle East, Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Soleimani was unquestionably responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in Iraq and thousands of others throughout the Middle East — mostly Muslim. His global terror network ran from South America to Europe to Africa to Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Soleimani was an unparalleled organizer and a pitiless murderer. His death was richly earned.
But for many in the media and on the domestic and international left, Trump’s action was precipitously “provocative.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Soleimani’s killing — which came directly after a Soleimani-approved terror assault on America’s embassy in Baghdad and amidst reported further plans for escalated terror against American targets — “disproportionate.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., suggested that Trump, not the Iranians, had “escalated” the situation. Former Vice President Joe Biden said that Trump had “just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.”
This reaction has been magnified by the media, many of whom have been speculating about the possibility of all-out war between the United States and Iran. Think pieces have been written about whether the United States will reactivate the draft (spoiler alert: No, we won’t). Musings have filled the newspapers about the supposed conflagration prompted not by Iranian evil but by Trumpian reactivity.
All of this smacks less of legitimate concern about what comes next than it does of sheer panic that Trump has overturned a decade of American and European appeasement of the Iranian regime. Ben Rhodes, former President Obama’s deputy national security adviser, architect of the Iran deal and an overt liar who told the American public that Iran was on its way to moderation if only the United States would loosen economic restrictions on the terror state, has placed blame for volatility squarely before Trump. Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser during the Iran deal and another overt liar who told the American public that Islamic terror against our Benghazi embassy was rooted in anger over a YouTube video, soberly informed Americans that “Americans would be wise to brace for war.” Biden suggested that in throwing out the Iran deal, Trump had paved the way for war — and, oh, by the way, the Iran deal was “airtight.”
This is a deliberate misreading of history designed to absolve the Obama administration of its Iran policy debacle. The administration pursued a policy of strengthening Iran economically — and did so while openly acknowledging that Iran would use that newly gained economic strength to pursue terrorism and ballistic missile testing. In speaking of the sanctions relief given to Iran, then-Secretary of State John Kerry explained in January 2016, “I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists.”
Snip.
Then Trump ordered the killing of Soleimani. Suddenly, we have been informed by dishonest Democrats and their media allies, Iran has gone rogue.
Nonsense. Iran has been rogue for decades. The Iran deal was simply an attempt to whistle past the graveyard with the terror regime — to pay it off long enough so that President Barack Obama could declare the problem handled. This was, after all, the Obama strategy in Crimea and Syria: Declare a red line; run away from it; pretend that pusillanimous inaction is bravery and deterrence provocation.
Besides Rosenstein, the other defendants named in the complaint are Shawn Henry, Sean Wesley Bridges, Robert Clarke, and Ryan White.
In 2010, then FBI Director Robert Mueller named Shawn Henry as the executive assistant director (EAD) of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch (CCRSB).
Henry left the FBI in 2012 and now is president of CrowdStrike Services, the cybersecurity firm hired by Democratic National Committee to examine its computer network in 2016 after it had been hacked. Crowdstrike ultimately determined Russia had hacked the DNC emails.
Shaun Wesley Bridges served as a Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service for approximately six years, according to the complaint.
Between 2012 and 2014, he was assigned to the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force, a multi-agency group investigating illegal activity on the Silk Road, a covert online marketplace for illicit goods, including drugs.
In 2015 and 2017, Bridges was convicted of corruption related to his government work, and is now serving a prison sentence.
Defendant Robert Clarke was also a member of the Silk Road Task Force and Ryan White worked as an undercover informant for the DOJ.
White also worked as a contractor operating out of the Baltimore office under a group supervised by Rosenstein, according to the complaint.
Lots of interesting information here, especially the Crowstrike connection. Funny how the same names just keep coming up again and again when it comes to Justice Department abuse of power under Obama… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Hey look, it’s another Democratic Party dark money group! “Mind the Gap, the secretive group quietly reshaping big-money politics in Silicon Valley, is aiming to spend as much as $140 million to boost Democrats in the 2020 election.”
Waiting for President Donald Trump in Toledo:
JAW-DROPPING:
Look at how massive the line is for the #TrumpRally in Toledo tonight!
No longer news: Mexicans kill four other Mexican. Why it should be news: In Kansas City.
Some places in the United States have a long history of Latino settlement, with communities stretching back for generations, even centuries. One is not surprised by the large Mexican-American populations in California, Arizona or Texas, and we’re accustomed to Cubans in Miami, Puerto Ricans in New York, etc. However, on does not think of Kansas City this way, so when the headlines inform us that three guys named Villanueva-Morales, Alatorre and Caballero are charged with killing a combined total of seven people named Meza, Calderon, Anaya, Rodriguez-Gonzalez, Rodriguez and Rodriguez-Santilla in Wyandotte County, Kansas — well, what the heck is going on here? It appears, for example, that two gunmen can open fire in a Kansas City bar without risk that any of their bullets will hit someone who was actually born in America.
As evidence that our immigration problem is absolutely out of control, this situation in Kansas City is rather conclusive, but notice that this criminal mayhem in Kansas is just “local news.” If some deranged “alt-right” white guy had shot four Mexicans in Kansas City, CNN would be providing around-the-clock updates, but because it’s Mexicans killing Mexicans, nobody at the networks seems to care.
I believe this is YouTube/Twitter personality Sargon of Akkad (though this is a different YouTube channel from his main one) on the big nothingness of Iran’s retaliation:
“It looks like the Iranian regime is actually so impotent they couldn’t kill a single American.”
“This was just the yappy dog, yapping.”
(Hat tip: Poster TheWanderingJewels on this Instapundit thread for Stephen green linking yesterdays’s Iran piece.)
Over an intense half-hour before dawn on Wednesday, Iran bombed targets in Iraq, striking in and around two large military bases that house thousands of Iraqi and American servicemen and women.
But when the barrage of 22 missiles was over, the damage appeared to be to the bases’ infrastructure, not to people.
In a short statement released on Wednesday morning, the Joint Command in Baghdad, which includes both Iraqi and international representatives, said that neither coalition nor Iraqi forces had “recorded any losses.”
Of the 22 missiles, the majority were aimed at Al-Asad, an air base in the desert of western Anbar, an entirely Sunni Muslim area. Of the 17 missiles aimed at the base, two fell outside it near the city of Hit, but did not explode, officials said.
Five of the missiles were aimed at an air base in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and hit the headquarters building. Damage assessments were ongoing on Wednesday.
Iran announced that the missile strike had “concluded proportionate measures” against the United States in response for the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani by an American drone strike on Friday.
So we take out their combination of Erwin Rommel and Che Guevara, plus a Random Jihadi Assortment Pack, while they blow up some local concrete and promptly announced “OK, we’re done?” And 22 missiles suggests that Iran’s military has all the staying power of an 80-year old man whose Viagra prescription has run out.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced on Tuesday that reconnaissance of the state’s computer networks by foreign operatives has surged in the last two days to 10,000 attempts per minute.
While it’s not uncommon for adversaries to attempt attacks on an hourly basis, Texas has detected increased activity from “outside the United States, including Iran,” according to the Texas Department of Information Resources.
There have been warnings of Iranian cyber attacks in the wake of the killing of an Iranian general in a U.S. airstrike last week.
The Texas agency emphasized that it has successfully blocked every attempt to gain entry, but declined to explain exactly where hackers have tried to gain access.
The agency “constantly detects and blocks malicious traffic on the networks of the multiple state agencies it services,” according to a statement issued by the state after Abbott met with his domestic terrorism taskforce. “As global threats to cybersecurity increase, we urge Texans to be vigilant and use heightened awareness as they conduct Internet activity.”
A few relevant pieces about just how badly Iran has screwed up:
Iran has not developed its capabilities and regional strength in order to prevail in a conventional 21st century conflict. It has rather focused on pumping money and military hardware into regional allies, proxies and militias with the aim of spreading political prosperity and enabling them to project power in the region and beyond…
Given the extent of its regional activities, how much money is it actually pumping into its neighbors? The Soufan Center’s research shows where Iranian money is flowing in the Middle East and where Iranian-backed proxies and militant groups are active. Syria receives an estimated $6 billion annually of economic aid, subsidized oil, commodity transfers and military aid. Iraq receives up to $1 billion, some of which ends up in the hands of militia organizations. Lebanon, which is of course home to Hezbollah, sees around $700 million of financial support, practically all of which goes to the militant group.
It is hard to understand Iran supreme leader Khamenei’s blunder in attacking the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. He either believed that Trump was weakened by his impeachment, as Western liberal media breathlessly and continuously reported, or might have been misled by John Kerry’s incompetent advice (apparently, Kerry met again with Khamenei’s emissaries in Paris just few weeks ago). Whatever the reasons, his goal of triggering a limited war with America to rally his people around the regime has failed miserably.
Iran desperately wanted a war — drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s heart of oil production, false-flag hits on oil tankers, unrest in Yemen — all aimed at this goal. Trump restraint in responding to these provocations must have been disappointing. But as Tehran resorted to attack the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, it must have realized that it had overplayed its hand when the reaction was surgical, devastating, and unexpected: the elimination of the mass murderer Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, Khamenei’s right-hand man and chief executioner.
Channeling Lenin, Khamenei must be asking himself: What is to be done? Contrary to doomsayers’ forecasts, his options are limited.
His first reaction in fact was to declare: “Iran will stop abiding to the terms of the 2015 Nuclear Deal,” by which it had never abided (inadvertently revealing that his fatwa against nuclear weapons was false). As face-saving measures go, it verges on pathetic.
Any way you look at it, we are here because Obama and Europe forgot or preferred to ignore that Iran is an apocalyptic messianic regime bent on exporting terrorism and Shi’itism to intimidate its enemies and should never be allowed to develop or possess nuclear weapons.
Iran has some difficult decisions. They and their proxies, such as Hezbollah, promise revenge, but they have to decide if Trump has changed.
At the beginning of the Trump Administration, the Iranians feared the American president would challenge the regime. The Iranians have always been afraid of a direct conflict with the United States, and they were careful to farm out their strikes against Washington, D.C. and its allies to their proxies, from Hezbollah to Islamic Jihad. Trump wanted a deal, and for a while he was swayed by the likes of Rand Paul, who advised the president to pursue an agreement with the mullahs.
The effort failed. Ayatollah Khamenei did not, and does not want a deal with the Americans. Khamenei was stalling for time, hoping that the 2020 elections would result in a Trump defeat, and hence a more Obama-ish president. Meanwhile, attacks against us continued apace, reaching their apex with the killing of an American contractor in Iraq.
Trump had changed his mind; he saw the Iranian position accurately, and unleashed the American military against Iranians in Iraq. To the astonishment of the Iranian regime, it was not a case of tit-for-tat. Trump approved a full response, from drone attacks to air assaults, to the use of special forces and a rapid reinforcement of American strength on the ground. Soleimani and his buddies were killed. The Iraqi Parliament declined to throw out American forces, and, in polling results, 67% of Iraqis said they were in favor of maintaining security agreements with the U.S.
There is a lot going on, and a lot of confusion, much of it revolving around the notion that “war” between Iran and the United States has become more likely.
That is misguided. As Eli Lake tweeted, it’s misleading to say that the killing of Soleimani is the opening of a new war…It’s more accurate to say that it opens a new chapter in an ongoing war, a war that Iran declared immediately following the revolution of 1979. The new chapter is reminiscent of the older ones. An intermediary from Oman was told by the Tehran regime that Iran is not interested in having the Omanis mediate disagreements with America. The Iranian leaders said they would only seek revenge for the death of Soleimani.
One of the keenest observers of the situation, Omar Taheri, recently tweeted that all the Iranian bluster about the Soleimani killing should not distract us from reality:
Soleimani was a cog, OK a big cog, in an infernal machine that remains operational & must be broken. We must remain focused on our real goal: the dissolution of the Islamic Republic.
I do wonder how we’re supposed to take Ali Khamenei seriously when he’s channeling Curly from the Three Stooges:
This was the current Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khemenei, during Soleimani’s funeral.
Multiple missiles have been launched at Iraq from Iran targeting American military facilities, according to a U.S. official….A U.S. official confirms to ABC News that ballistic missiles have been fired from inside Iran at multiple U.S. military facilities inside Iraq on Wednesday morning, local time. The facilities include Erbil in northern Iraq and Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq, the official said.
“A U.S. official” means the news should be treated with caution until confirmed by an official (named) source. Even more so when it comes to the unconfirmed reports of American casualties racing across Twitter.
If they’re truly launching missiles from inside Iran, they’re probably not going to be happy with the American response…
Update: Ebril has also been hit. “A senior administration official told ABC News, ‘We are not seeing any American casualties at this moment.'” Number launched is reportedly “over a dozen,” which hardly suggests a full-hearted attempt at vengeance.
Remember Solyndra, the solar energy company with Democratic Party connections that sucked up some half a billion dollars worth of green energy loans before going belly up?
If you liked Solyndra, you’re gonna love the Crescent Dunes solar plant near Tonopah, Nevada. Thanks to the efforts of Obama energy secretary Steven Chu and then-majority leader Harry Reid, it sucked up $737 million in federal loan guarantees.
Tiny problem: It was obsolete before it ever came online:
Ten thousand mirrors form a spiral almost 2 miles wide that winds around a skyscraper rising above the desert between Las Vegas and Reno. The operation soaks up enough heat from the sun’s rays to spin steam turbines and store energy in the form of molten salt.
In 2011 the $1 billion project was to be the biggest solar plant of its kind, and it looked like the future of renewable power. Citigroup Inc. and other financiers invested $140 million with its developer, SolarReserve Inc. Steven Chu, the U.S. Department of Energy secretary at the time, offered the company government loan guarantees, and Harry Reid, then the Senate majority leader and senior senator from Nevada, cleared the way for the company to build on public land. At a Washington celebration of SolarReserve’s public funding, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Smith told the assembled politicians, “We’re proud to be doing our part to win the future.”
SolarReserve may have done its part, but today the company doesn’t rank among the winners. Instead, it’s mired in litigation and accusations of mismanagement at Crescent Dunes, where taxpayers remain on the hook for $737 million in loan guarantees. Late last year, Crescent Dunes lost its only customer, NV Energy Inc., which cited the plant’s lack of reliability. It’s a victim, ironically, of the solar industry’s success over the past decade. The steam generators at Crescent Dunes require custom parts and a staff of dozens to keep things humming and to conduct regular maintenance. By the time the plant opened in 2015, the increased efficiency of cheap solar panels had already surpassed its technology, and today it’s obsolete—the latest panels can pump out power at a fraction of the cost for decades with just an occasional hosing-down.
“Green energy” subsidies aren’t carefully evaluated projects designed to advance technology, they exit to transfer money from the pockets of taxpayers to the pockets of those tied into what Ayn Rand called “The Aristocracy of Pull.” This is why government should stay out of the business of picking winners and losers.
Are SolarReserve Inc. executives connected to the Democratic Party? And how!
Chairman Lee Bailey donated tons of money to Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, Barbara Boxer and (naturally) Harry Reid.
CEO Tom Georgis has only sent money to two candidates: Barack Obama and Harry Reid.
Board member James McDermott? Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Bart Stupak (remember him?).
Yes, it’s a great mystery how SolarReserve Inc. got all those federal subsidies…
Castro drops Out, Williamson lays everybody off, Q4 fundraising numbers drop, Biden tells coal miners to start slinging code, Klobuchar talks UFOs, and a three way tie for first in Iowa. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!
Those who expected Sanders to fade after his heart attack were badly mistaken. He has enough money to fight Biden all the way to the convention, and his broad small amount donor base can continue to raise money for him without hitting any campaign contribution limits.
Biden comes in third. Has any frontrunner ever trailed so badly in the money race? It suggests an inability to find the right people to fill staff roles.
Yang’s haul is hugely impressive, considering that no one (myself included) gave him any chance early on. He’s got enough funding to stay in through at least Super Tuesday, where he has a shot at picking up at least some of California’s 416 pledged delegates.
Though relegated to second place, Buttigieg continues to punch above his weight in fundraising.
No reports yet on how much cash Bloomberg and Steyer shoveled into their own campaigns this quarter.
Hill/Harris X: Biden 28, Sanders 16, Warren 11, Bloomberg 11, Buttigieg 6, Booker 2, Klobuchar 2, Yang 2, Castro 2. Delaney 2, Gabbard 2. Bloomberg at 11 ought to terrify the other candidates. But why is Sanders called out as “Bernie” on the chart, despite everyone else being referred to by their last name?
With an unprecedented advertising spending binge, billionaire presidential wannabees Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer have launched themselves all the way to….the middle tier of the Democratic primary field.
The two candidates have spent a combined $200 million on television ads—with Bloomberg accounting for about $120 million of that total since he jumped into the race less than a month ago. No other candidate in the field has spent more than $18 million on ads so far, Politico reports. Bloomberg spent more than that in the first week after entering the race in late November.
Despite the advertising blitz, Bloomberg and Steyer are almost certainly wasting their money chasing political power. While it is foolish to rule out any electoral outcome in a world where Donald Trump is president, voters have responded to both Democratic billionaires with a resounding meh, and there seems to be little reason to think that will change [this] year, no matter how much money the two candidates pour into the race.
There are two lessons here. First, Bloomberg and Steyer seem to be on an inadvertent crusade to prove that progressive fears about the influence of money in politics are largely unfounded.
Secondly, the two billionaire candidates are providing a real-world lesson about opportunity costs by setting fire to their huge campaign war chests. They’ve got the means to change the world, but getting involved in politics isn’t the best way to do it.
The Atlantic offers a cheat sheet that includes the also-rans and never-rans. Most interesting tidbit: “[Deval] Patrick’s estranged father played in the alien jazz great Sun Ra’s Arkestra.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. Biden tells coal miners to learn to code. Amazing how someone who has never mined coal or written code so confidently asserts that one who has done one job can easily do the other. “Biden touts himself as the embodiment of honesty while spreading a well-known lie. That’s an exquisite form of lying.” Speaking of indicting yourself:
A young man tells Joe Biden that his father lost his health insurance plan and the cost doubled, even though Obama promised insurances will be cheaper. He asks if Joe was lying or if he didn't understand Obamacare when he supported it.
But no matter what Biden says, his poll numbers seem unsinkable. Another editorialist points out that Biden’s immunity to his many gaffes shows why he’ll win the nomination:
It starts with the polls. Biden has been dominant. Since Real Clear Politics started its polling average in December 2018, Biden has led for all but one day. Sen. Elizabeth Warren eclipsed him by 0.2 percentage points on Oct. 2. She now trails him by 13 percent and is in third place, also trailing Sen. Bernie Sanders.
This isn’t how many political pundits expected last year to go. They chalked up Biden’s pre-announcement lead to his high name ID. He was supposed to gaffe his way into an early exit. He wasn’t progressive enough for the liberal wing of the party either.
What makes Biden’s durability look sustainable is that he hasn’t been a great candidate. Far from it. His debates have been cringeworthy. In July, he messed up the address of his campaign website. He made a bizarre reference to record players in September. In November, he forgot that Sen. Kamala Harris — who was on the stage with him — was a female, African-American senator.
The campaign trail hasn’t been much better. During a September CNN town hall, his left eye filled with blood, presumably from a blood vessel bursting. He called New Hampshire “Vermont” during a summer visit. In August, he said, “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” He appeared to mean “rich” not “white,” but that mistake could have ended another candidate’s campaign.
Biden’s done a better job undercutting his own candidacy than any of his opponents ever could have — and his support has hardly budged.
He keeps promising bipartisanship. I think Republicans all remember how “bipartisan” the Obama Administration was…
As president, I'll turn the East Room into an open office plan, where I’ll sit with our team.
I’ll use the Oval Office for some official functions – never for tweeting – but the rest of the time, I’ll be where a leader should be: with the team. https://t.co/zIU3ZL5uIvpic.twitter.com/jLwWKJCmxw
He answered a Military Times questionnaire. It’s full of “on the one hand, on the other” platitudes, though he does say he’ll negotiate with the Taliban, but also leave a small force in Afghanistan, which sounds like it amounts to “stay in and lose,” with a side plate of living tripwires. He did approve of the Suleimani strike.
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. Billionaires backing Buttigieg. “Forty billionaires and their spouses have donated to Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, according to an analysis of federal election filings, making the South Bend, Indiana mayor a favorite among America’s richest people.” That includes a surprisingly high number of hedge fund managers, as well as Google founder Eric Schmidt’s wife, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom’s wife, Square founder Jim McKelvey’s wife, David Geffen, Barry Diller, Netflix’ Reed Hastings, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, Blackstone’s Jonathan Gray, the wife of casino video game mogul Jon Yarbrough, members of the Ziff family, the Pritzker family, the NFL Giant’s Tisch family, etc. etc. etc. “Why Pete Buttigieg Enrages the Young Left.”
As the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries draw near and South Bend’s boy wonder, Pete Buttigieg, seems buoyant in the all-important early-state polls, “Mayor Pete” has been perpetually dogged by a major issue: the youngest and most activated voters in his party all seem to—how to put this delicately?—hate his guts.
Normally the first candidate of a generation can expect to ride a wave of youth enthusiasm, as John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton once did. For the 37-year-old Buttigieg, it’s been quite the opposite. The newly radicalized Teen Vogue invoked a cringeworthy class-warfare pun to declare his campaign a “Lesson in ‘Petey’ Bourgeois Politics.” Jacobin, tribune of the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, has developed seemingly an entire vertical focused on slamming Mayor Pete. A writer for Out magazine, putting it in starker terms, tweeted that if he “had balls he’d run as the republican he is against trump in the primary.”
Why is the enmity from young, left-wing activists toward Buttigieg so visceral? It’s true that they favor Bernie Sanders, but Buttigieg comes in for a type of loathing that surpasses even that they hold for Sanders’ older rivals, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.
But those explanations are still too general to explain the fury inspired by a fourth-place presidential contender and Midwestern college-town mayor. And it’s not his ideology: The resentment he inspires runs much deeper than that earned by the Amy Klobuchars and Michael Bennets of the world—both of whom have more politically moderate tendencies than Buttigieg, who has, among other positions, argued for raising the minimum wage to $15, introducing a public health care option, expanding the size of the Supreme Court and abolishing the Electoral College. (Asked for comment for this article, a representative from the Buttigieg campaign told Politico that staffers are occasionally vexed by the cold reception to a platform that’s well to the left of any recent Democratic presidential nominee.)
The unspoken truth about the furor Buttigieg arouses is that his success threatens a core belief of young progressives: that their ideology owns the future, and that the rise of millennials into Democratic politics is going to bring an inevitable demographic triumph for the party’s far left wing.
Snip.
It’s especially galling that the first millennial to take a serious run at the presidency is nothing like the left’s imagined savior. Buttigieg is a veteran, an outspoken Christian, a former McKinsey consultant, and, frankly, closer to Mitt Romney than Sanders or generational peer AOC in his aw shucks personal affect. In the eyes of radicalized young leftists, Buttigieg isn’t just an ideological foe, he’s worse than that: He’s a square.
Snip.
Buttigieg is a young professional with an elite pedigree who’s chosen to buy into the system as a reformer instead of attacking it as a revolutionary. To a certain class of left-wing thought leaders, he’s an unwelcome reminder of the squeaky-clean moderates with whom they once rubbed elbows. And quite possibly, his elite credentials may also be an unwelcome reminder of their own. The editor-in-chief of Current Affairs, for instance, isn’t just a random antagonist: He’s also a fellow Harvard alumnus.
The educated young people leading the left have worked closely with these overachievers throughout their careers—often at the same elite institutions they deride, rightfully or not, as venal consensus factories. Such activists are baffled by their counterparts’ optimism and adherence to tradition in the face of the Trump era’s grimness and vulgarity.
And, again, it seems many of their peers agree. Buttigieg does not enjoy considerable support among young people. In a recent New York Times/Siena poll of Iowa voters, he placed a distant third among 18-to-29-year-olds, behind Sanders and Warren. But he does appeal to a certain kind of young person, as now represented in the cultural imagination by the “High Hopes” dancers. And to the self-renouncing meritocrats who act as thought leaders to the young left, those people represent both a personal frustration and a political fear—that the institutions of tomorrow may yet be built by those with faith in yesterday’s ideals.
The path to Washington may be clearer for them than their radical counterparts, even as more millennials age into political life. The youngest Democratic member of Congress is, of course, the 30-year-old AOC, who seems all but inevitable to succeed Sanders as the standard-bearer for democratic socialism in America. But if you look at the next 10 youngest Democrats in Congress, they include mostly moderates: the venture capitalist Josh Harder, the military veteran and Blue Dog Max Rose, and Conor Lamb, whose district lies deep in Pennsylvania’s Trump country.
When it comes down to it, the hard left would rather seize control of the Democratic Party than win elections, and Buttigieg refuses to immanentize the eschaton. Another look inside those high dollar fundraisers:
At an annual charity fund-raiser in October, Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, shared a table with the designer Michael Kors and Pete Buttigieg, then the mayor of South Bend, Ind., who wore one of his trademark navy suits.
The event was a benefit for God’s Love We Deliver, a nonprofit that began delivering meals to New Yorkers with AIDS in 1986 and has since expanded to serve other homebound people. On the second floor of Cipriani’s South Street location, guests bid for meals with the actor Neil Patrick Harris, watched the model Iman receive an award for her philanthropic efforts and heard a short speech from Mr. Buttigieg, who was also honored that evening. He said volunteers for the organization had offered sustenance “in substance and in soul.”
Sitting at a table near the stage was the theater producer Jordan Roth, who back in April held an event for Mr. Buttigieg’s presidential campaign at his home in the West Village, at up to $2,800 per head. Nearby was the board chairman of God’s Love, Terrence Meck, who had co-hosted an event for Mr. Buttigieg in Provincetown, Mass., just after the July 4 holiday. (Tickets for that ran upward of $1,000 per person.)
Snip.
So it is perhaps unsurprising that Mr. Buttigieg’s dinners and fund-raisers — complete with cozy pictures on Instagram of Mr. Buttigieg standing beside high-net-worth bundlers — have turned into grist for his critics.
Guests at a December fund-raiser for Mr. Buttigieg held at the New York home of Kevin Ryan, an internet entrepreneur behind Gilt Groupe and Business Insider, were greeted outside by protesters who banged pots and pans and called Mr. Buttigieg “Wall Street Pete.”
The police arrived when a protester got inside. By that point, Mr. Buttigieg had left for Ms. Wintour’s West Village townhouse, where a campaign dinner was being held. Tickets cost up to $2,800 each and the actress Sienna Miller was among the attendees.
Days later, Mr. Buttigieg appeared at a fund-raiser held inside a Napa Valley wine cave. Afterward, progressive activists reached deep into political crisis history to note that one of the hosts, Craig Hall, who is now the owner of Hall Wines in Rutherford, Calif., was a real estate developer involved in the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s. Mr. Hall went to Jim Wright, then speaker of the House, for help when he was facing bankruptcy — and the cascade of events led to a bailout for Mr. Hall, a congressional ethics investigation and, ultimately, Mr. Wright’s resignation as speaker.
Mr. Hall’s wife, Kathryn Walt Hall, co-hosted the Napa benefit. She was a prolific donor to President Bill Clinton and served as ambassador to Austria from 1997 to 2001.
Snip.
Prominent donors in Los Angeles argue that Mr. Buttigieg is also approaching celebrity fund-raising differently than Hillary Clinton did four years ago.
While her campaign publicized the appearances of Katy Perry and Lena Dunham at events, he’s kept a lid on similar associations.
The fund-raiser that Gwyneth Paltrow held on his behalf last May? The campaign declined to publicize it. Instead, Mr. Buttigieg spoke in front of cameras that evening during a $25 (and up) appearance at the Abbey — sort of a gay, West Hollywood equivalent of dining at Sylvia’s in Harlem with the Rev. Al Sharpton.
“He wasn’t doing a song and dance with Gwyneth on national television,” said Simon Halls, a prominent entertainment industry publicist who in July was scheduled to co-host a reception at the television producer Ryan Murphy’s home. (That event was canceled after a white police officer fatally shot a black man in South Bend; the reception has not been rescheduled.)
An offer by the designer Tom Ford to dress Mr. Buttigieg during the course of the campaign? Declined.
In July, Mr. Buttigieg appeared at the Provincetown fund-raiser Mr. Meck hosted with Bryan Rafanelli, an event planner whose clients have included the Clintons. Although tickets cost a minimum of $1,000, Mr. Meck said the event took place after a free, packed and publicized town hall event. As Mr. Meck told it, Mr. Buttigieg told him that he wanted to spend his time in Provincetown actually meeting people. Later in the summer, he hit the Hamptons to collect more money.
Interesting approach. “I don’t want your star power, just your money.”
Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: Dropped out January 2, 2020. “Castro failed to make the last two debates or even achieve 2% in the polls despite promising government handouts for basically everything. Along with Sen. Cory Booker, he whined to the DNC about unfair qualifications for the January primary debate. More than likely he would not have participated in that debate.” “Dropout Julian Castro’s insufferably woke presidential campaign won’t be missed“:
Give Julian Castro some credit: In a crowded 2020 Democratic field originally featuring cringeworthy candidates such as Beto O’Rourke and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the former housing and urban development secretary still managed to run the most insufferably woke presidential campaign of this cycle.
Thursday morning brought the official end of Castro’s campaign. But it never really got off the ground, and the candidate failed to qualify for the November debate, getting under 2% of the vote in polling averages. Outside of a few fringe Marxist professors and woke liberal activists, Castro’s campaign was so radical that even Democratic primary voters weren’t buying it.
It’s not hard to see why. Castro’s only memorable contributions to the 2020 race are viral moments where he embarrassed himself.
For one, there was his cringey decision to randomly pronounce certain words with a Spanish accent during Democratic debates, despite not actually being a native Spanish speaker. Then there was his call for completely decriminalizing illegal border crossings, and attacks on other, slightly less terrible Democrats who declined to endorse his radical proposal.
Don’t forget the countless shudder-worthy instances where Castro pandered to the woke crowd with fact-free rants about “transgender women of color” being gunned down in the street in a supposed epidemic of anti-transgender hate crimes. Castro ignored the complete lack of evidence for this narrative, instead choosing to stir up bogus outrage for votes. His pandering even included a bizarre call for expanding abortion access to transgender women (aka biological males). Castro was also the first candidate to honor “International Pronouns Day” by putting his preferred pronouns, he and him, in his Twitter profile. This was, of course, a pure virtue-signal: Everyone already knew he was a man.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) Esquire writer has a case of the sadz over his withdrawal. “Castro should have been viable all the way to the convention. (This is also true of Jay Inslee and Kamala Harris.) But the merciless criteria of polls and money worked against all three of them.” No, all three are out because all of them sucked in various ways, and all of them were terrible, inauthentic candidates spouting far-left bromides. Ace of Spades HQ: “He never stopped talking about giving trans women pap smears and abortions. Weird that he never connected with his presumptive Latino base.” 538’s postmortem talks about debate missteps but paints a picture of general suckage.
Whereas Joe Biden seems permanently diminished by his own verbal and intellectual confusion and by his son’s self-dealing, Bernie is getting stronger.
He has raised the most money of all the Democratic candidates, by far — some $95 million in 2019 from 5 million donations — though the average contribution to Bernie is $18. He raised $34.5 million in the last quarter alone. He got 40,000 new donors on the last day of the year.
When Mr. Sanders renounced bundlers and PACs it was said that he had unilaterally disarmed himself in the money race. Instead he is killing it.
Mr. Sanders is also raising money in the 200 “pivot” counties Barack Obama carried in 2012 and Democrats lost to Donald Trump in the swing states in 2016.
And he is not only acceptable to but well thought of by an astounding 75 percent of his party.
Those are singular metrics.
He is also the only candidate in a position to take either first or second in the first contests — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.
He polls as well as Mr. Biden in a direct matchup against Mr. Trump, though surely, as Mr. Sanders says, Donald Trump could eat Mr. Biden’s lunch on his votes in favor of NAFTA and the endless and futile Iraq War.
The money race and the size of his crowds show that Bernie Sanders is connecting, just as they show Joe Biden is not. His resilience is no fluke.
Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. Hits donor threshold, hasn’t hit the polling threshold. “In addition to garnering the necessary number of voters, Democratic candidates need to reach 5 percent support in at least four DNC-approved polls, or at least 7 percent support in two single-state polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina. So far, Steyer is polling at 5 percent in two of the four polls conducted in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.”
Many Democratic presidential candidates, such as former vice president Joe Biden, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), have robust organizations. But among locals, Warren’s organization stands out.
While the campaign has declined to release exact numbers, the Massachusetts senator is believed to have more than 100 field staff fanned out across the state, including some who have been on the ground for the better part of a year. Warren staffers have become deeply embedded, showing up at high school sports games, book clubs, bingo nights and potluck dinners dressed in the campaign’s signature liberty green attire. In Fairfield, Iowa, a family recently named their newborn goat Herb, after the Warren field organizer who has prolifically canvassed that town for months. In Mason City, an organizer who was in the hospital for emergency surgery used his recovery time to pitch the ER staff on Warren’s candidacy.
The stories about Warren staffers in Iowa and how far they go to sell her candidacy regularly circulate among rival campaigns, eliciting both eye rolls but also grudging admiration. “It’s like, where did they find these kids?” marveled a longtime Iowa Democratic activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she endorsed another candidate in the race.
Caveat: Every one of these borderline-admiring pieces on a female Democratic candidate’s organization (be it Warren, Harris, or Gillibrand) always seems to come from a female writer, and this one’s from Holly Bailey. Warren calls Suleimani a murderer, then backtracks due to pushback from the hate-America left. “Elizabeth Warren Opens Casino To Help Finance Campaign.”
Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Flush with cash, Yang wrestles with where to spend it.”
Andrew Yang has more money than his campaign knows what to do with.
He still can’t quite get accustomed to his surprising fundraising haul — Yang collected $16.5 million in the fourth quarter — or how to allocate it in the run-up to the Iowa and New Hampshire contests.
“We’re going to buy gold coins, and then put them in a vault, and then I’m going to go on top of the pile of gold coins and then wave my arms and legs up and down,” he joked in an interview.
The reality is that his newfound campaign riches are creating internal tension about whether to beef up the Iowa operation or bet it all in New Hampshire.
Yang’s strong focus has always been on New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state where he has spent more time than any of the top-tier candidates. The campaign sees it as ripe ground for him — Democratic voters relish their independent-streak and showed they were open to non-traditional candidates in the past, delivering Sen. Bernie Sanders a decisive win in the 2016 primary.
Their goal, to date, has been to finish at the top of the second-tier in order to stay relevant after the early-voting states. Suddenly though, with money to play in Iowa as well, there is a vigorous debate about where to spend the cash and Yang’s other precious commodity — his time.
“I think if we overperform expectations will have a very powerful narrative coming out of New Hampshire that people don’t expect us to be at the top four here,” Yang said after wrapping up the final of 14 events during a four-day trip here. “If we break the top four, I think people will see that we have a ton of energy behind us.”
Yang’s $16.5 million — 65 percent more than the previous quarter — placed him fifth in terms of fundraising for the Democratic presidential candidates, about $4.7 million less than Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who came in fourth. He raised almost five times more than Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, another second-tier candidate who has invested so heavily in New Hampshire that she has all but moved here.
Honestly, instead of Iowa, he should probably look to Super Tuesday and build out an organization in California and either North Carolina or Texas, all of which have significant concentrations of high tech industries, where workers seem somewhat more attuned to his issues. Texas has a bigger population, and thus is more delegate rich, and a bigger concentration of Asians, but the diverse markets are brutal for ad campaigns. On the other hand, a $5 million direct mail/TV/radio push in the Research Triangle in North Carolina might well make an impression. Ohio is going to screw him out of a place on the ballot due to a technical filing issue. Yang has pretty much the same reaction to Biden’s “Coal miners should learn to code” suggestion:
Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang on jobs: "Someone who suggests that coal miners become coders is generally neither of those things." pic.twitter.com/2dmBRXfKys
These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running, or who declared then dropped out:
“In the age of #MeToo, here’s a girl who takes responsibility for her state,” says Gilliam. “Whatever happened in this character’s life, she’s not accusing anybody. We’re living in a time where there’s always somebody responsible for your failures, and I don’t like this. I want people to take responsibility and not just constantly point a finger at somebody else, saying, ‘You’ve ruined my life.’”
The day we meet, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein – who’s been accused by dozens of women of rape, assault and sexual harassment, allegations that kickstarted the entire #MeToo movement – broke his silence, to lament the fact that his work “has been forgotten”, and to boast that he is a “pioneer” of female-led films. Isn’t it a bigger problem that men are refusing to take responsibility for abusing women, and abusing their power? “No. When you have power, you don’t take responsibility for abusing others. You enjoy the power. That’s the way it works in reality.”
And then that phrase comes up. Witch hunt. “Yeah, I said #MeToo is a witch hunt,” he says. There’s a silence. “I really feel there were a lot of people, decent people, or mildly irritating people, who were getting hammered. That’s wrong. I don’t like mob mentality. These were ambitious adults.”
“There are many victims in Harvey’s life,” he adds, “and I feel sympathy for them, but then, Hollywood is full of very ambitious people who are adults and they make choices. We all make choices, and I could tell you who did make the choice and who didn’t. I hate Harvey. I had to work with him and I know the abuse, but I don’t want people saying that all men… Because on [the 1991 film] Fisher King, two producers were women. One was a really good producer, and the other was a neurotic bitch. It wasn’t about their sex. It was about the position of power and how people use it.”
Suggesting that women are not helpless victims, and might have moral agency of their own, is pretty close to heresy in feminist circles these days.
Gilliam mentions a famous actor he was speaking to recently. “She has got her story of being in the room and talking her way out. She says, ‘I can tell you all the girls who didn’t, and I know who they are and I know the bumps in their careers.’ The point is, you make choices. I can tell you about a very well-known actress coming up to me and saying, ‘What do I have to do to get in your film, Terry?’ I don’t understand why people behave as if this hasn’t been going on as long as there’ve been powerful people. I understand that men have had more power longer, but I’m tired, as a white male, of being blamed for everything that is wrong with the world.” He holds up his hands. “I didn’t do it!”
It is deeply frustrating to argue with Gilliam. He is both the devil and his advocate. I try to say that it’s not that white men are to blame for everything, but that they are born with certain privileges that, too often, they exploit. He interrupts.
“It’s been so simplified is what I don’t like. When I announce that I’m a black lesbian in transition, people take offence at that. Why?”
Because you’re not.
“Why am I not? How are you saying that I’m not?”
Are you?
“You’ve judged me and decided that I was making a joke.”
You can’t identify as black, though.
“OK, here it is. Go on Google. Type in the name Gilliam. Watch what comes up.”
What’s going to come up?
“The majority are black people. So maybe I’m half black. I just don’t look it.”
But earlier, he described himself as a white male.
“I don’t like the term black or white. I’m now referring to myself as a melanin-light male. I can’t stand the simplistic, tribalistic behaviour that we’re going through at the moment.” He smiles. “I’m getting myself in deeper water, so I have to trust you.” I’m not sure what he’s trusting me to do.
Maybe to think and take a joke rather than sic the kneejerk SJW cancel culture brigades on him? Obviously his trust was misplaced.
I’m talking about being a man accused of all the wrong in the world because I’m white-skinned. So I better not be a man. I better not be white. OK, since I don’t find men sexually attractive, I’ve got to be a lesbian. What else can I be? I like girls. These are just logical steps.” They don’t seem logical. “I’m just trying to make you start thinking. You see, this is the world I grew up in, and with Python, we could do this stuff, and we weren’t offending people. We were giving people a lot of laughter.”
If a man can magically “transition” to a woman just by declaring he’s a woman, why can’t Gilliam become a black lesbian by the same process? The fact that neither can, and that SJW sorts can’t admit this obvious truth due to how sacred “trans” has become to their intersectional ideology matrix, is what makes the joke funny.
The writer complains: “Python was silly and whimsical, its more pointed satirical moments punching up, not down.” But as Social Justice Warriors have abrogated to themselves the roles of cultural gatekeepers, attacking social justice absurdity is punching up.
Remember how Christian fundamentalists destroyed Gilliam’s career over Life of Brian? Me neither. Given how they openly espouse destroying people’s careers over refusing to toe the Social Justice Warrior line on race, sex, etc., today’s SJW woke scolds are obviously far more intolerant of opposing views than the Moral Majority ever was.
And I’ll take Monty Python and Brazil over every artistic work every Social Justice Warrior ever created.
Suleimani is no longer simply a soldier; he is a calculating and practical strategist. Most ruthlessly and at the cost of all else, he has forged lasting relationships to bolster Iran’s position in the region. No other individual has had comparable success in aligning and empowering Shiite allies in the Levant. His staunch defense of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has effectively halted any progress by the Islamic State and other rebel groups, all but ensuring that Assad remains in power and stays solidly allied to Iran. Perhaps most notably, under Suleimani’s leadership, the Quds Force has vastly expanded its capabilities. His shrewd pragmatism has transformed the unit into a major influencer in intelligence, financial, and political spheres beyond Iran’s borders.
It would be unwise, however, to study Suleimani’s success without situating him in a broader geopolitical context. He is a uniquely Iranian leader, a clear product of the country’s outlook following the 1979 revolution. His expansive assessment of Iranian interests and rights matches those common among Iranian elites. Iran’s resistance toward the United States’ involvement in the Middle East is a direct result of U.S. involvement in the Iran-Iraq War, during which Suleimani’s worldview developed. Above all else, Suleimani is driven by the fervent nationalism that is the lifeblood of Iran’s citizens and leadership.
Suleimani’s accomplishments are, in large part, due to his country’s long-term approach toward foreign policy. While the United States tends to be spasmodic in its responses to international affairs, Iran is stunningly consistent in its objectives and actions.
The Quds Force commander’s extended tenure in his role—he assumed control of the unit in 1998—is another important factor. A byproduct of Iran’s complicated political environment, Suleimani enjoys freedom of action over an extended time horizon that is the envy of many U.S. military and intelligence professionals. Because a leader’s power ultimately lies in the eyes of others and is increased by the perceived likelihood of future power, Suleimani has been able to act with greater credibility than if he were viewed as a temporary player.
Ben Shapiro says that Suleimani’s death is great news:
On Thursday, in the most audacious and brave move of his presidency, President Trump ordered the killing of Iran’s top terrorist, Qassem Soleimani — a man who was also the top general of the country. Commentators have compared Iran’s loss of Soleimani to the loss of the Defense Secretary, head of the CIA, and the head of the FBI simultaneously. Soleimani was the man closest to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and some speculated that he would succeed Khamenei at some point. Now, he’s been reduced to pulp.
His death makes the world a significantly better and safer place. Soleimani was responsible for the killing of hundreds of American troops in Iraq (by State Department estimates, 17 percent of all Americans killed in Iraq were Soleimani’s handiwork), the arming of Hezbollah in Lebanon with tens of thousands of rockets, the Houthi terrorism in Yemen, the building of Islamic Jihad, and a bevy of terror plots all around the world, including the latest assault on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Speculation that this represents an “act of war” is utterly baseless — Soleimani is a terrorist who was killed while abroad, in Iraq, planning further acts of terrorism.
Suggestions that the Trump administration is responsible for “escalation” with Iran — after months of Iranian aggression in international waters and in foreign countries, after downing an American drone and attacking an American embassy — are absurd and morally disgusting. When Nancy Pelosi tweets that it is “disproportionate” to kill a terror leader planning action against Americans and our assets and allies, she’s not just reflecting moral confusion — she’s evidencing moral foolishness of the highest order.
Snip.
it’s obvious that President Trump was attempting to restore a deterrence against Iran that had been completely disintegrated by the Obama administration. History didn’t begin with Trump, and Iranian aggression didn’t start with the end of the Iran nuclear deal. Far from it. Iran has become more powerful and aggressive thanks to the overt planning of the Obama administration.
President Obama’s preferred strategy with Iran was wishful thinking and bribery. The Obama administration openly lied to the American people, claiming that there was a “moderate” faction inside the Iranian government that would be elevated through signing them checks and ushering them into the world economy. That was utter nonsense, as national security aide Ben Rhodes later admitted. The Obama administration engaged in the worst sort of appeasement, guaranteeing billions of dollars in economic growth to a regime dedicated to the destruction of American interests around the world and hell-bent on regional domination.
When Trump entered office, after years of increased Iranian aggression in the region, he pulled out of the bribery arrangement. Iran increased its aggression, including targeting American interests and allies directly. Trump ignored that or responded minimally for years. Then the Iranians attacked an American embassy. That was the final straw, and Soleimani was on the chopping block.
The fact that the Trump administration was unwilling to pay off the world’s worst terror regime, that the terror regime never stopped pursuing terrorism, and that the Trump administration responded — all of that Trump administration action is not only perfectly reasonable, but perfectly moral.
For all this talk of the killing being “unlawful” from the ruffled petticoats crowd, remember that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in it’s entirity, including the Qods Force, has been designated a terrorist group by the State Department. Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, has also noted that it was lawful:
The targeted killing of Soleimani was a lawful, proportional, preemptive military action against a combatant enemy who had killed and was planning to kill Americans. See my book: Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways.
Insta weighs in. He notes that an Iranian resistance leaders hailed the killing as “an ‘irreparable blow’ to the Iranian regime.” (Caveat: Resistance leaders and disgruntled ExPats are always saying things like this. Remember how Ahmed Chalabi said Iraqis were just itching for a chance to rise up against Saddam Hussein en mass when we invaded?)
Given the indisputable terrorist activities of IRGC, with Soleimani at the helm, it would seem that celebrating his death would come naturally, in the same way that commentators on both sides of the aisle expressed relief and joy that Osama bin Laden had finally been captured and killed in 2011. According to the Pentagon, at the time of his death, Soleimani was in the process of planning future attacks on Americans diplomats and service members currently in the region, his death being treated as a means of foiling those plans and possibly deterring future ones from taking shape.
But reactions to the killing from media talking heads were predictably pathetic, given that they immediately assume the direct opposite of Trump’s position on any given issue, no matter the level of intellectual gymnastics such maneuvers require.
Unsurprisingly, Trump’s targeted killing of the terrorist leader has been deemed a litany of unseemly adjectives, including “reckless” and “incoherent.” Perhaps the most breathtakingly stupid reaction has been the notion that this attack somehow represented the first strike or an “act of war,” as if Iran and its proxies had not been targeting U.S. bases, seizing control of oil tankers, and laying siege on our embassy in Baghdad these last few months.
And the tweets! So many tweets! Evidently killing murderous Islamic terrorists just brings out the best in Twitter. Whoever popped up to do the Suleimani parody account is on fire:
Well:
1) It's very hot 2) All the beer is warm 3) All the virgins are men 4) This Adolf guy won't shut up 5) Lot of pissed off suicide bombers saying this wasn't what they signed up for https://t.co/7fYCqWfTds
Perhaps it would have been a better idea to send him $1.7 billion in unmarked bills, in pallets on planes in the dead of night, so he could kill more Americans? https://t.co/t5Mj2SMyq5
Naturally, for CNN this is a chance to strike at Donnie Two-Scoops:
like @charlescwcooke said, this is not the behavior of a news network. this is the behavior of a politcal activist group with press credentials. https://t.co/CFS4pONfen
Soleimani has the blood of upwards of 600 American troops on his hands, how could Pelosi possibly think putting him in the ground is 'disproportionate'?
Iran sabotages 6 oil tankers in Strait of Hormuz Trump downplays it
Iran shoots down US drone Trump downplays it
Attacks Saudi Oil field Trump does nothing
Iran attacks US embassy Trump finally responds
America haters: WHY DOES HE WANT WAR?!
— United States Space Force Ⓥ (@SpaceCorpsUS) January 3, 2020
Qassem Soleimani masterminded Iran’s reign of terror for decades, including the deaths of hundreds of Americans. Tonight, he got what he richly deserved, and all those American soldiers who died by his hand also got what they deserved: justice. https://t.co/1wkjtvj2QA
POTUS has the authority to eliminate an imminent threat without congressional approval. No one at this point knows if the alleged threat is real. It's not like Soleimani has never attacked US interests in the middle east before. 20 incidents in 2019 alone including US embassy pic.twitter.com/1ScQ9m8NGA
But what? We should just keep letting the IRGC/PMF attack Americans while you move your red line back? Maybe we should pay them off with a pallet of cash?
This kind of thinking is absurd and driven by partisanship and cowardice. (3/3)
— Whitest Whine / Miss Karl Lagerfeld (@WhitestWhine) January 4, 2020
Finally: “Democrats Call For Flags To Be Flown At Half-Mast To Grieve Death Of Soleimani.” ” Flags were spotted flying at half-mast around the country, notably at The Washington Post, The New York Times, and in front of several celebrities’ homes. The celebrities went out and bought an American flag for the first time just to fly it at half-mast for this important time of grief.”
