You’re going to need a bigger list! Seth brings it.
Worth reading as usual.
Politics
The Smearing of Tulsi Gabbard
So the other night as I was watching CNN I had a revelation. CNN? My excuse was that I was at the gym, working off a cross-country plane flight, and CNN is right next to the NFL Network on the row of TVs.
Not many people watch CNN anymore. However, for those who are the “right” (or I should say “Left”) people, CNN and other media outlets serve as the rear guard protecting the retreating rout of the broken post-election leftist army. As such they are worth watching, though perhaps not as much as the replay of last year’s 49ers-Packers game on the TV next to it.
I have to admit I stopped watching the game, started focusing on CNN, and then ended up applauding a master stroke of intrigue that would have rivaled that of the royal courts of old.
Making Their Mark on the World
I’ve been mulling over the following question: how did each of the modern presidents from Nixon to present impact the world the most?
Richard Nixon: Opening relations with the People’s Republic of China.
Gerald Ford: The Helsinki Accords. The human rights plank encouraged the growing dissident movements in the Eastern Bloc. They took seriously what the Soviets were willing to put on paper in the albeit non-binding resolution.
Jimmy Carter: Enabling the Islamic totalitarian revolution in Iran.
Ronald Reagan: Fomenting the end of the Cold War. “Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal” – Gennady Gerasimov
George H. W. Bush: This may be a controversial choice, but I’m going with the “New World Order” speech, or rather what it represents – encouraging the United Nations to take a more active role in foreign relations. One of the legacies of the UN is the enshrinement of the ethic that wars must never be won, only fought to the point of ceasefire.
Bill Clinton: Granting the People’s Republic of China access to supercomputer technology vital to targeting manned, unmanned, and munitions-bearing rocketry. It’s the one great leap forward in China that actually worked.
George W. Bush: The Iraq War. Aside from altering the geopolitical landscape in the region, it convinced Muhammar Qaddafi to cooperate with the US to end Libya’s WMD program.
Barack Obama: Opening Iran to financial markets, thus magnifying its ability to conduct proxy wars.
Donald Trump (first term): It may be a bit early to gauge the legacy of the Abraham Accords, but opening the door to Israeli cooperation with some of its Arab neighbors is bound to have significant impact on Iran’s regional ascendency. It also breaks from the stupid tradition that any negotiations between Israel and any of its neighbors must include the Palestinians, as if Palestinian and non-Palestinian relations can’t be delt with separately.
Joe Biden: Opening Iran to financial markets, thus magnifying its ability to conduct proxy wars – assuming the Ukraine Missile Crisis does not top this. (Our own Trent Telenko is cited in the linked article.)
Schadenfreudelicious
Two weeks and a bit more after election day, and the meltdown, panic, and dismay among the progs, the establishment media, and the entertainment world continues. I’m taking an unworthy pleasure in reading reports of panic and back-biting among partisans of the Harris/Walz camp and the noisy laments of their cis-gender or bi significant others. I’m also taking a savage pleasure in reading about or viewing evidence of the dismayed realization among the managerial class in certain industries dependent economically on the choices of the general public – that conservatives and Trump voters buy shoes, too. Also movie tickets, newspaper and magazine subscriptions and other consumer goods.
Quote of the Day
…Hopefully DOGE learns: nothing will happen without fast purges, like Twitter in week 1. And government is a SYSTEMS problem: it’s people, ideas, institutions and tools in that order but executed together.
Some places need rebuilding, some places need closing, some things need startups. E.g do not try to ‘reform’ USAF to do drones properly, incentives force the senior people to sabotage intelligent action – set up a new Drone Force outside USAF with new legal authority and totally outside existing procurement, HR, budget etc rules, with incentives to focus on engineering and saving $$, not DEI and cost-plus rackets for Boeing!
The core disaster in western states is the creation of PERMANENT BUREAUCRACIES — as Palmerston said to Queen Victoria in 1830s, this alien European system would be a disaster in England, making responsibility of ministers FAKE.
That’s what we have: FAKE meritocracy, FAKE responsibility, FAKE Cabinet government
But a vibe shift is coming fast across the west – covid & Ukraine & the old system’s pathological failures are pushing people to face fundamental change is needed. SW1 is being forced to confront the Vote Leave agenda coming to DC because the old regime is imploding everywhere…