Yoda: 2009-2023

 Our Papillon, Yoda, passed today. You will be missed Yoda.

Is Pete Buttigieg toast?

 Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck discuss the non-future of Pete Buttigieg:

How you know he's not serious about stopping Russia

Let's Go Brandon has sent what, $120 billion dollars to the Ukraine to fight off the Russia invasion.  But he won't send fighter jets and worse still, Poland wanted to send fighter jets and he vetoed the idea.  During the Trump presidency, we knew there was a problem with Europe pulling it's own weight in NATO and if ever there was a need for them to do so, it's now that Russia has brought war to the NATO European's doorstep. 

Why would Let's Go Brandon nix the sharing of fighter jets to Ukraine? Poland has Russia MiGs, it's not like the Russians could capture advanced NATO technology by downing a Ukrainian pilot and capturing the wreckage of the plane; it's their own technology.  It's been speculated that the 'brain trust' behind Let's Go Brandon's 'strategy' in dealing with the Ukraine invasion are worried that if Ukrainian pilots go past the Russian border and bomb inside of Russia it could cause Putin to declare this is a war of aggression by NATO. Twisted, illogical, but from Putin it's likely.

It causes more problems; the will of the Russian people are not strongly behind this invasion.  An incursion into Russian territory could easily change that to a more nationalistic mood.  That combined with Putin's vague nuclear threats brings up the possibility of a tactical nuclear engagement.

There's an argument to be made that these factors make sense of the decision to disallow fighter jets to be dispensed by any NATO ally to the Ukraine.  Here's the problem; if you believe that is the case why are you sending billions of dollars into a war where eventually, you are going to be on the losing side? You are sinking A LOT of money into an engagement that becomes a no-win scenario. A LOT of money. All this while simultaneously ignoring a man-made disaster at home.

Let me play "Brandon's advocate" again for a minute. Russia is a geopolitical adversary. They have been so since at least 1946 and arguably earlier. If the war is unwinnable and even if there is no strategic value to NATO and the West for the country (arguably there is), the invasion presents an opportunity to significantly weaken a geopolitical adversary and ensure their victory is at best a pyrrhic victory. If it costs Russia lives and far too much treasure to emerge with Ukraine or vast stretches of Ukraine in Russia's pocket, it could dramatically weaken the imperialist nation, removing them for at least decades as a existential threat to America, allowing the United States to focus on China.  With Russian demographics not on their side, it could accelerate the end of the Russian empire, relegating them to a far more local sphere of influence.

Okay, the Let's Go Brandon establishment case has been stated.  We know he's not serious about ensuring Ukraine wins; you don't fight an enemy with one hand tied behind your back (Vietnam is a prime example), but he (or rather the Pentagon) may have a case in weakening Russia.  Again, there's a problem.  Russia has other weapons at it's disposal besides its clearly lackluster army.  It has its own air force and it won't hesitate to use it: 

 

While the above assessment doesn't hold out much hope of Russian air power turning the tide of war, but what if it's wrong? Then what?  If Ukraine had been able to step up defensively in the air war, then Russia would be further stymied. But thanks to Let's Go Brandon, that's likely not going to be the case and they may be caught off guard when Russia brings its own air force to bear.  Or what if it goes badly and Russia panics into indiscriminate use of tactical nukes? What would NATO's answer be?

Again, what are the objectives for America/NATO here?  It's hard to tell if the strategy and tactics align with the objectives unless the objectives are just to drain Russia as much as possible before it eventually succeeds in taking Ukraine.  That in itself is a good geopolitical objective but it's being dishonest with the Ukrainian people.  Dishonesty however, is Let's Go Brandon's stock in trade.

Is India the next China?

 First, Peter Zeihan's take on it:

He seems to predict a mixed bag but positive future for India.  The have labor in abundance, they have less land than appears on the surface due to the mountainous nature of much of the country.  They are not capital rich.  Those are the 3 classical factors of production.  The 4th, more modern component of production is entrepreneurship.  The latter factor boils down to the notion of maximizing what you do with the other 3 factors.  Because India still has one foot in the Soviet era Russia camp, their is less of an entrepreneurship than there could be.

Much of what vaulted China into its current economic zenith was Western investment.  A naive West pumped a lot into China in the mistaken notion that China would liberalize and a whole massive new market would be created and available for a new source of demand.  Now that this particular illusion is evaporating, India is one of the countries in a position to benefit.  For the United State the cheap labor option is clearly Mexico.  But there's Europe and Japan who will still need a low to middle range tech production option.  India is in a position to take advantage of this.  But so is Turkey, which does have a geographic locality advantage for Europe. There's also Vietnam as a potential competitor in that regard.  And Bangladesh for the really low tech industries like textiles.

I'm not sure India won't benefit from the new paradigm.  In fact I believe they will, but I don't know that they will benefit as much as they could potentially.  They are not a point politically where they  are seizing the opportunity and availing themselves to situation.  It's always hard to predict the future because things change, political decision impact the landscape, be they internal or external.  Nevertheless India has an opportunity, whether it does its best to seize that opportunity is the real unknown.

Let's Go Brandon's Business Ties To CCP-Linked Individuals

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) detailed his and Sen. Ron Johnson's (R-WI) reports on the Let's Go Brandon family.

Sunday verse

 

Bill Whittle on James O'Keefe vs. Project Veritas

 Bill Whittle discusses the ouster of the brains and force behind Project Veritas, James O'Keefe.

Saturday Learning Series: Jordan Peterson's Biblical series I

I haven't done a Saturday Learning Series post in a long time.  In fact I'd abandoned it some time ago. In fact I'd started on Jordan Peterson's Biblical series shortly before I stopped.  I wanted to revisit and finish that series now because it's a good series on the Bible as part of society and more importantly it's part of Jordan Peterson's personal journey towards Christianity, and that's inspiring to see.

Here's part 1 (again):

Putin's START Treaty withdrawal

Peter Zeihan's take on Putin's decision to withdrawal Russia from the START Treaty.  Have we actually already slow-rolled into WWIII?

Woke Latino racists versus truth and logic

In this reaction video, HistoryLegends points out what we are dealing with intellectually when we are talking about woke racism. The reactor has a wonderful knowledge of history and his smart interpretive look at the potential reasons for some of the DNA infusion results, using logic and his knowledge of history (and DNA tests for that matter).

Happy Presidents' Day America

 Boy, you sure could use a real one now.

Sunday verse

 

Evidence the GOP may be catching on

A special election victory for Republicans in Pennsylvania might be an indicator that the GOP is starting to get it on how to fight elections using the same tactics as Democrats.  Either that or Republicans simply won a safe district and they haven't really adjusted.  You decide.

The fallacy of the logic and facts approach

You have to talk to people in terms that they will understand.  I don't mean intellectually understand, I mean in a way that resonates with them.  The problem with conservatives is we believe in facts and we believe in logic. Facts and logic can bring you to the truth, but that in itself is not a universal truth because many people operate illogically.  That's a fact conservatives often overlook.  The logic and facts approach is pure fallacy in many situations.

When talking to a woke liberal, we often forget that facts don't matter to everyone.  What resonates with people are things that affect them emotionally.  Take for example the notion that inflation has recently been at historical highs. Telling someone that fact has far less emotional impact than saying simply "I can't afford eggs anymore."  Implicit in that latter statement are a couple of fundamental notions that all revolve around empathy;

• it is likely they are in the same boat, or a similar one and have similar complaints
• complaining sounds whiney and woke liberals love that (snarky but not untrue)
• they can sympathize and feel bad for you (woke SJWs have to have an underdog to protect)

You have not only started a discussion with something that they can empathize with and also get behind trying to solve.  It's the start of a more pliable conversation instead of a debate.  You have started on what is probably common ground or at least at a place of empathy or sympathy.  The way forward at least exists from that point.  Hammering someone with facts will more have the opposite effect; entrenchment.

We don't do enough as conservatives to understand our audience and with each generation that happens it gets harder and harder to do because each generation has been Overton windowed further away from the fundamental truths of life.  I'm not talking just religion here, I'm talking about even the fundamental basics of common sense (e.g. 2 genders).

We have to understand that we are currently on the losing side of the culture war.  We have not lost but we are losing.  That means we have to work both harder and smarter.  I'm not suggesting I have all the answers as to who.  But I think one of the key notions is that we need better understanding.  We need to understand how to connect, but in order to do that we need to understand the map, the lay of the land as it currently exists.  We cannot change beliefs for the better without having both a starting point and an end point.

Here, as an example of trying to get to that understanding, Ken Ham discusses the state of Gen Z as it pertains to (lack of) religious belief.  It's a specific but excellent example of how to change the direction of society from a massive leftward drift to back on course.

Ohio train derailment blame

Buttigieg’s department ‘screwed up’ in Ohio train derailment according to Sen. Vance:

Objects threaten North American airspace

Canada's CBC news reports on some of the latest details:

A few points to consider:

• This is an existential threat to North American airspace.  Colonel Let's Go Brandon is clearly ill-equipped to handle it effectively. 
• The U.S. doesn't need spy balloons, it has satellites - the Chinese counter-accusations are ridiculous and defensive in nature.
• As a reminder, no one in the Trump White House was told about Chinese balloons, because it wasn't realized until after he left office (via CNN):

The Biden administration official now says the incidents were not discovered until after the Trump administration had already left. But the official did not say how those incidents were discovered or when.

As details continue to emerge a threat assessment will likely come together.  It's too soon to speculate on that. 

DeSantis or Trump in 2024?

My position on the 2024 presidential election has always been that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis should cede the nomination to Trump, but now that's wavering.  My rationale has been that if Trump wins then we could follow that with 2 consecutive DeSantis presidential terms, giving America 12 consecutive years of Republican rule.  Think of what could be accomplished!  But now I wonder if a Trump 2024 victory is a sure thing.  I thought 2020 would be but some how Let's Go Brandon got 81 million votes. I won't rehash how that was even possible here; the net effect was it happened.

DeSantis I think could demolish any opponent. But right now it's still early, I'm reserving judgement and opinion on who the better candidate for 2024 might be.  If it ends up being DeSantis, we still owe president Trump a debt of gratitude for moving the ball down the field in the right direction. He woke up the conservative voters and some of the Republican party.  He made Americans aware of the fact that America first is not a bad thing.  He showed everyone that the status quo is not immutable. That's huge.

Here, Dave Rubin discusses Bill Maher's advice to Ron DeSantis.  It's an interesting take on both parts.

Meanwhile in Italy

Is Italy actually moving to the right? It seems so, but hopefully this small update is not just part of a temporary blip.

A critical eye on Peter Zeihan

From time to time I have shared videos from geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan because he's right about a lot of stuff.  But I'm no zombie.  Unlike a mindless horde of woke leftists, I like to validate my beliefs and part of that comes from applying a critical eye towards what I believe in.  Question your beliefs.  Yaron Brook, whom I also like, spent a long form monologue critiquing Zeihan's analyses.  While he also appreciates Zeihan's assessments, he also raises some valid points about where he believes Zeihan was not correct, or not completely correct.

As I said, the critical eye towards your own accepted views is one of the best tools a person has to check if he or she is on the right path. That's what critical thinking is all about.

Sunday verse

 

Democrats have weaponized your government against you

The FBI is just one part of this, but you have to hear this and then no longer stand for it.  Where are Democratic voters on this?  Why are they silent?  Is it ignorance, tacit approval or is it fear?  In an case, if they do love America, they need to stand up.  In the past the "silent majority" of Muslims who said nothing about extremist terrorism were chastised for that.  Democrat voters  are in that same position now.

They are the ones who need to stand up.

I just can't today

I have no energy today to combat rampant, stupid leftism so instead of an essay, I'll take the day off and you can enjoy more mockery of the deserving left.

Clown show all around

There's not much point in speaking to the SOTU addresses clown shows these days, so let's just enjoy this mockery:

U.S., Mexico, drugs, trade and the future

This morning on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM, I was listening to senator Joni Earnst talk about the border with Mexico and the issues in Mexico in broader.   She was making the point about the flow of drugs such as fentanyl into the United States, but also equally important is the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico particularly the fact that most of those were flowing to the drug cartels.

The United States and Mexico have mutual problems, but equally important is that the two countries have a mutual opportunity. It's readily apparent that Mexico wants to stop the inbound flow of weapons as much as the U.S. wants to stop the inbound flow of drugs.  The Mexican government cannot fight an increasingly armed and impervious ring of cartels without a co-operative effort within the United States, and the same is true for America with respect to the drug flow.  The inertia that prevents doing something about both of these issues (spawned by Democrats' desire for more illegal voters to pad their vote totals) really mostly benefits the drug cartels at the expense of the people of both countries. 

Aside from the obvious notion that a wall would benefit both countries (thank you president Trump for pushing for that), it's less obvious but still true that there is a potential for mutual economic benefit.  

The Background

As Peter Zeihan points out, there is a massive onshoring of manufacturing coming to North America in this decade. The below video provides a good summary of his reasoning as to why it's happening. 

Specifically here, he expounds on the Texas-Mexico manufacturing landscape:

Because of demographics, this cannot be an entirely American effort.  Mexico has the demographics to assist.  Canada doesn't really.  Mexico is also changing it's tune on dealing with the drug cartels. It has to do so and despite the current relations blip, it will inevitably require increased cooperation between the two countries.

Assuming Peter Zeihan is even only partly right (and I believe he's more than just a little bit right), the economic integration of the United States and Mexico is inevitable.  Mutual interest means that co-operation in the short term will aid economic synergy in the medium to longer term.

The Future

With both countries needing to industrialize or re-industrialize rapidly, the need to begin several things in earnest is strong.  Economic and security cooperation must not only start right away, they need to start hand in hand.  They are interlinked and inseparable;  Mexico not be considered a secure place for lower end industrialization if it is overrun with cartels. For its part, the United States, with an emphasis on higher end industrialization and not the best demographic situation, cannot do lower end manufacturing internally, at least not all of it.  It's in both nations' best interest to make Mexico safer and the border more secure so that rapid industrialization and mutual beneficial trade can occur.  For the United States this also helps significantly (though not completely) neuter China economically. Its a win win win.

How this happens depends on a lot of things.  To me the obvious way forward is to not parcel the pieces together and deal with each issue independently. 

(1) Work with Mexico to build the wall as a mutually beneficial exercise as part of a broader effort.

Focus on it as part of holistic plan for controlling the flow of drugs, guns and illegal immigrants; it needs to be more than just a wall.  It requires proper documentation of all travelers (yes sneaking drugs and people and guns is going to be more than just at proper ports of entry), hence the wall. But it will also require enhanced enforcement and surveillance of delivery systems (e.g. FedEx, postal systems, shipping).  This will require additional people (maybe those 86,000 newly hired and armed IRS agents could be appropriated to more serviceable roles). It will require a new and innovative way to allow express trade but still monitor for the illegal transfers.

The slowing of the illegal guns to Mexico as Earnest pointed out this morning will weaken the cartels and help Mexico combat them.  The benefit to the United States from that is that weakened cartels will decrease their ability to smuggle drugs into America AND weaken their ability to impinge on future manufacturing zones thus helping trade.

(2) Work with Mexico to develop a high speed trade corridor.

A high speed trade corridor, dedicated to shipments and not human traffic will expedite not only trade but the mutually beneficial trade.  I would not expect the exports to flow entirely one way.  Firstly as a subcomponent of this, it would b good to establish spheres of specialization among the two countries to enhance trade relations.  Peter Zeihan touched on this. Left out however was the idea that American trade goods need to flow into Mexico as well.  The balance of payments cannot be one-sided.  Replacing a massive trade deficit with China to that of one with Mexico only weakens China; it does not strengthen America except in relative terms with China.  Therefore American goods need to flow into Mexico as well.

With manufacturing jobs developing in Mexico and increased Mexican security against the cartels (hopefully in a snowball effect), Mexicans should have more disposable income and thus be able to purchase more American goods.  A growing and more stable GDP in Mexico should allow Mexico more tax revenue to purchase military equipment and police force equipment as well, to help fight the cartels while at the same time mitigating the potential trade imbalance.

In conjunction with this, both countries could improve trade (particularly exports) with the soon to be struggling European countries.  This would be a further boon to both nations' economies.

Improved domestic economic conditions could also significantly reduce illegal immigration to the United States with more jobs and security becoming available within Mexico. There is a language and cultural advantage for Hispanics to remain in a Hispanic and Spanish-speaking country. Ironically, this may eventually shift the illegal immigration problem to Mexico's southern border. 

(3) Plan for the next stage.

It's possible that as this shift occurs, Mexican birth rates inevitably decline as the nation becomes wealthier.   This has been the inevitable fate of industrialized nations.  To sustain it's economic growth Mexico may be forced to allow increased immigration into its southern border to fill the need.  Alternately it could lead to a further southward migration of low tech manufacturing as Mexico itself upgrades to higher tech industrial manufacturing and outsources the lower end of the scale to Central America, while the United States does the same into ultra-high tech.  This in effect would expand prosperity ever southward.  That of course is only one possible outcome but possible nonetheless.

All of this is hypothetical of course, but the current paradigm offers a massive opportunity for both nations, far greater than allowing the status quo to continue.  For its part the United States should push these ideas where it can but not in such a way as to demand specific actions by Mexico.  Pointing out the mutual benefit (using the carrot) will yield far more than threats (the stick) ever will.

Fake news on Chinese spy balloon during Trump administration

The Let's Go Brandon administration is trying to deflect and claim that Chinese spy balloons existed during the Trump administration.  Well than why was there no plan to deal with it during this administration? Probably because they are lying.  Just as they're lying about Let's Go Brandon demanding they shoot it down a few days before it actually happened.  No.  There was plenty of opportunity to shoot it down over land rather than let it spy across the entire continental United States (and part of Canada) before shooting it down over the Atlantic Ocean and not capturing it to determine what it contained.  That didn't happen.  This administration is full of ships. 

Watch the whole clip below for details.

Sunday verse

 

A Chinese spy balloon?

 This is further proof China is spying on the U.S. outside of using Eric Swalwell.  However, it's also proof that China's spy satellite program is a little lacking.  A spy balloon?  That's great espionage technology for 1885.  Nevertheless, it may have provided them with valuable intel prior to being dealt with.

Coverup!

Tim Pool spends time summing up the latest raid today on Let's Go Brandon's home by the FBI as well as the depth and span of the coverup across media and across time.

Carl Jung's explanation of neurosis in our time

What Carl Jung had to say in the 20th century, explains so much of Western society in the 21st century.  Here's a great explanation of it.