The Bookworm Beat 11-5-15 — Guy Fawkes edition, Part 2

I’ve still got a few more things I want to share with you tonight, so consider this Part 2 for the day (with Part 1 here).

The coming (and inevitable) Leftist implosion

Every time I read a Kevin Williamson article, I like his writing and thinking just a little bit more. In one of his latest outings, about the inevitable fissures on the Left (as exemplified by (1) the way Black Lives Matters activists are attacking old, white Bernie and Hillary, and (2) the way the black/Hispanic majority in very Leftist Houston nevertheless voted down men in women’s restrooms), Williams has the following wonderful lines:

The challenge for the Left is that while the Republican party is mainly a coalition of ideologies, the Democratic party is mainly a coalition of interest groups, and the current model of Democratic politics — poor and largely non-white people providing the muscle and rich white liberals calling the shots — is unsustainable. The social attitudes of non-white voters are pretty plainly not those of white liberals, and, at the same time — and probably more significant — the economic interests of white liberals are pulling away from those of the people in whose interest they purport to act. Hispanic immigrants and urban blacks make below-average wages; public-school administrators and other government employees make wages that are well above average. There aren’t a lot of people in Cleveland’s Glenville who give a fat furry rat’s patootie how much interest Caitlyn from Bryn Mawr is paying on the student loans that financed her women’s-studies degree. If you’re wondering why Democrats lean so deeply into the racial rhetoric — Joe Biden’s shameful “They want to put y’all back in chains!” etc. — that’s a big part of your answer.

Rich Lowry’s article nails why I don’t trust Rubio

Marco Rubio is bright, articulate, focused, conservative, and telegenic. I ought to like him . . . but I just don’t. I’ve been pfumphering around for a while trying to put my finger on my problem with him and I think it really does boil down to his support for amnesty:

Marco Rubio has a dubious distinction among the top-tier Republican presidential candidates. He’s the only one who crafted, sold and passed through the Senate a so-called comprehensive immigration reform that is anathema to the right.

As Rubio has demonstrated considerable political strength, the spotlight has turned to him. Inevitably, his role as frontman for the “Gang of Eight” bill will get extensively relitigated — and it should.

It was a colossal political and policy misjudgment. Among the flaws of the bill was the elemental one that it put an amnesty (sorry, that’s exactly what it was) before enforcement. Rubio got a respectful hearing from conservative talk radio. He and his team aggressively rebutted critics. And the bill passed with 68 votes in the Senate, enough, it was thought at the time, to bulldoze the opposition in the House.

I think this record is an extremely big problem (unlike the New York Times’ stupid harping on Rubio’s credit cards): Trump is riding high and he’s doing so in part because of his ferocious opposition to illegal immigration. However, I really don’t think he’ll last, and I’m assuming that, when he falls out of favor, his supporters will go looking for the next best candidate who opposes amnesty — and that won’t be Rubio. If the GOP’s big money interests manage to buy the nomination for Rubio, I’ll vote for him, but I suspect that a lot of the people that Trump galvanized will stay home . . . because amnesty.

I’m not saying this out of any animus to Trump or his supporters. I’m just spelling out what I foresee happening if Trump doesn’t make it to the finish line, but Rubio does.

Obama’s deadly and sustained attack on Israel

It’s amazing how, when the subject is antisemitism, even the most stupid, inefficient, incompetent person suddenly becomes a focused dynamo. Like Hitler, who turned his energy away from waging war in order to kill Jews, Obama seems to have expended an enormous amount of mental effort and political capital in order to destroy Israel:

Two weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal published a fairly detailed account of the US’s massive spying operations against Israel between 2010 and 2012.

Their purpose was to prevent Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear installations. The Journal report, which was based on US sources, also detailed the evasion tactics the Obama administration employed to try to hide its covert nuclear talks with Iran from Israel. According to the report, the administration was infuriated that through its spy operations against Iran, Israel discovered the talks and the government asked the White House to tell it what was going on.

Over the past several days, the Israeli media have reported the Israeli side of the US spying story.

Friday Makor Rishon’s military commentator Amir Rapaport detailed how the US assiduously wooed IDF senior brass on the one hand and harassed more junior Israeli security officials on the other hand.

Former IDF chiefs of General Staff Lt.-Gens. Gabi Ashkenazi and Benny Gantz were given the red carpet treatment in a bid to convince them to oppose Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear installations. More junior officials, including officers posted officially to the US were denied visas and subjected to lengthy interrogations at US embassies and airports in a bid to convince them to divulge information about potential Israeli strikes against Iran.

Sunday, Channel 2 reported that the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate’s information security department just issued guidance to all IDF soldiers and officers warning them about efforts by the CIA to recruit them as US agents.

[snip]

The implementation of Obama’s deal with Iran deal will form a central plank of whatever strategy the government adopts.

As far as Obama and his allies see things, the nuclear accord with Iran is a done deal. On October 21, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hosted a reception for Democratic congressmen attended by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to celebrate its official adoption.

Unfortunately for Pelosi and her colleagues, Iran is a far more formidable obstacle to implementing the deal than congressional Republicans. As Yigal Carmon, president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), explained in a report published on his organization’s website last week, at no point has any Iranian governing body approved the nuclear deal. Iran’s parliament, the Majlis, and its Guardians’ Council have used their discussions of the agreement to highlight their refusal to implement it. More importantly, as Carmon explains, contrary to US media reports, in his October 21 letter to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not give his conditional approval to the deal. He rejected it.

Carmon explained that the nine conditions Khamenei placed on his acceptance of the nuclear deal render it null and void. Among other things, Khamenei insisted that all sanctions against Iran must be permanently canceled. Obama couldn’t abide by this condition even if he wanted to because he cannot cancel sanctions laws passed by Congress.

[snip]

Carmon noted that Iran has taken no steps to fulfill any of these conditions.

With Khamenei’s rejection of the nuclear deal and Iran’s refusal to implement it, there are two possible ways the US and the EU can proceed.

First, as Carmon suggests, Obama and the EU may renew nuclear talks with Iran based on Khamenei’s new position. These talks can drag out past Obama’s departure from office. When they inevitably fail, Obama’s successor can be blamed.

The other possibility is that Iran will implement some component of the deal and so allow Obama and the EU to pretend that it is implementing the entire deal. Given the US media’s failure to report that Khamenei rejected the nuclear pact, it is a fair bet that Obama will be able to maintain the fiction that Iran is implementing the deal in good faith until the day he leaves office.

And yes, that was a reductio ad Hiterlum and I’m not going to back away from it. If the antisemitic shoe fits, Obama gets to wear it. Or, to shift metaphors, if it walks like an antisemitic duck, and quacks like an antisemitic duck, and sells Israel out to Iran, it’s probably a damn antisemite.

Muslim hatred and segregation

Because Leftists are never bothered by cognitive dissonance (those who are become ex-Left), the Left has no problem castigating Americans for purportedly continuing the grand old Jim Crow tradition of hate-driven segregation (a base lie), while simultaneously supporting Muslims for their full-throated, murderous, hate-driven, segregationist policies (a grim reality).

Maybe young men need 19th century style chaperones

As anybody who’s read a Regency Romance knows, young women of good breeding could never, ever be alone in a man’s company, unless the man was a relatively or so obviously young or old that it was inconceivable that the young lady’s virtue could have been impaired. Men, of course, could walk away from such an encounter with their reputation intact.

It’s two hundred years later and the tables have been turned with a vengeance. I highly recommend that young men make certain that they are never left alone with a young woman lest they find their reputations and lives utterly destroyed — and that’s true regardless of any and all evidence showing that the young man did nothing wrong.

WWII statistics and their modern implications

We tend to think about WWII in terms of battles or strategy. We may think about equipment, but only in terms of America’s amazing output once it entered the war, or the number of planes or tanks in a specific battle. But I doubt many of us think about the numbers underlying everything — the amount of fuel burned, the exact number of airplanes (and their crew) lost, the numbers of bombs dropped, etc. If you would like to learn those numbers, though, go here.

After you’ve seen the data, think how dearly America paid in blood and soil to free a Europe from fascism only to see it embrace mildly tyrannical socialism, which is paving the way for Europe’s complete abnegation at the feet of its new Muslim masters. (Incidentally, back in 2004, the always wonderful Zombie predicted with surprising accuracy what is happening in Europe today.) Then ask yourself “Why did we bother and should we ever bother to do it again?”

Next time (and we’re heading to a next time) , I vote that we let Europe deal with its own catastrophes, while we — if we get intelligent conservative leadership — turn ourselves into Fortress America to face down the coming European Caliphate and keep it from our shores.

Of course, given our military command’s staggering stupidity, it’s extremely doubtful whether Fortress America can defend itself. I mean, honestly, the Pentagon farmed out coding to Russia? Really? Really!? How can the Pentagon ever be trusted to protect the young men and women in the front lines, let alone the whole of America?

Pfeh!

And one more thing about Europe: Do we really want to bother saving a people who are convincing themselves that Hitler’s ideas — such as euthanizing handicapped people — are good?

I’m sorry, but I am so done with Europe.