News That's Not News

The Drudge Report has a link today to a piece about hypersonic nuclear missiles and how these new weapons cannot be shot down.  Oh no!  That will mean that cities will be defenseless against nuclear attack by these weapons.

What a silly report.  That's pretty much where we are already.  When ICBMs were first developed about sixty years ago, there were no defenses available.  American and Soviet cities were targeted and both sides knew that any attack would lead to a massive response that would destroy the world.  The military doctrine was called "mutually assured destruction" or "MAD" for short.  Then in the 1980s, President Reagan announced his strategic defense initiative, a plan to create a missile defense system which could shoot down incoming missiles.  The Democrats and their media allies derided the idea as "Starwars", you know, something that could only happen in a sci-fi movie.  But then these anti-missile defense systems were developed and built.  But there's still a major problem:  the systems work well for short range or even medium range slow-moving, low flying missiles, but they perform haphazardly when confronting an ICBM.  Think of the Israeli's Iron Dome system and how well it performed against the thousands of missiles Hamas launched from Gaza in 2014; there was no significant damage in Israel despite all those missile launches.  The Hamas missiles were short range and simplistic, however.  Now consider that the tests on the US anti-ICBM systems are only successful slightly less than half the time.  That would mean that half of the enemy missiles would get through.  Then remember that the tests in question are set up as one missile coming at a time.  Were the Russians or Chinese to launch a nuclear strike against the USA, there would be tens or hundreds times more incoming missiles.  And finally, keep in mind that if just five nuclear missiles got through and hit New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston, there would be catastrophic damage and death.   Millions would die at a minimum.  In other words, there is no meaningful missile defense for ICBMs now.

The article is lamenting the loss of something that we don't really have.  It's news that's not really news.

And On It Goes

I just happened past a TV that was tuned to MSNBC and heard Jennifer Rubin saying "what has Vladimir Putin done to deserve a summit meeting?"

Amazing!  Just Amazing!  Rubin, of course, is commenting on the stories that preliminary negotiations are underway to set up a meeting between President Trump and Putin.  A meeting between the heads of the world two largest nuclear powers is a good thing.  They can discuss areas of mutual interest or disputes that need resolution.  Rubin, however, is a never-Trumper who has to be against the summit if Trump is moving towards it.  The actual reality doesn't matter.  If Trump were to announce that he has no plans ever to meet with Putin, Rubin would, no doubt, denounce Trump for insulting the Russians.

At some point, the anti-Trump forces have to realize that the good of the nation requires that they sometimes refrain from attacking every move made by the White House.  A meeting with Putin could be a good thing.  Similarly, the great jobs report yesterday was good news for the nation, so Nancy Pelosi shouldn't announce that jobs don't matter (as she did, sadly.)  The reality is that we are all Americans.  We will all prosper or falter together.  Success for the USA is a good thing, even if it means Donald Trump can take credit for that success.

Indeed, if there ever were a clear reason why the never-Trump movement cannot succeed, their deranged response to good news is it.  Most Americans still are governed by common sense.

Words For All Occasions

I was buying coffee this morning and the TV in the coffee shop was tuned to the local news channel for the cable system.  They were covering the reinstatement of the USA-North Korea summit meeting on June 12 in Singapore.  Then the newscast broadcast a comment on the development from Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal.  No surprise, Blumenthal had some criticism about the inadequate planning by President Trump and his people for the meeting.  The Blumster also gave his own view about the strategy that ought to be followed to come to a deal.

I didn't listen too closely to Blumenthal's comments.  I just remembered what he said months ago before there was any hint of a meeting between Kim Jung Un and President Trump.  Blumenthal warned repeatedly that the President was going to get America into a war, maybe a nuclear war, with the North Koreans as a result of his strong statements about Kim and the military buildup in and around Korea.  Blumenthal was wrong.

Then I remembered what Blumenthal said when we learned Kim had asked for a meeting with President Trump and the President had agreed to it.  That time Blumenthal said that it was foolish for the American president to meet with Kim Jung Un because it would just be a victory for Kim with nothing obtained in return.  Blumenthal was wrong.  Since that initial agreement, the North Koreans released three American hostages and blew up their main nuclear test site, among other things.

Then I remembered what Blumenthal had said when President Trump sent a letter cancelling the summit.  Blumenthal lamented Trump's lack of diplomatic skills.  He said that we should have not cancelled the meeting when the North Koreans failed to show up to preparatory meetings in Singapore but should have just postponed that summit.  After cancelling the meeting, we would likely never see it happen and the North Koreans would look like they wanted peace and we didn't.  Blumenthal was wrong -- AGAIN.  It took less than 24 hours for Kim to panic and try desperately to get the summit reinstated.  Unlike Obama, Trump wouldn't put up with Kim's BS moves and Kim was shocked by it.

So now Blumenthal is telling us again how the negotiations should be conducted.  That leads to a serious question.  How many times does senator Blumenthal have to get it wrong before the media realizes that he has no idea what he is talking about.  Why broadcast the words of this fool?  The media could just as easily ask my dog what she thinks of the summit preparations. 

Where's The Coverage?

Two days ago, the US military announced that in the previous week it had killed over 70 senior Taliban leaders in strikes in Afghanistan.  The strikes took out nearly the entire top leadership of the Taliban in the southern part of the country, particularly in the area where the terrorists get most of their revenues (from opium production.)  In one week, the US military took out more of the Taliban leadership than at any time during the prior decade.  In fact, the number of Taliban leaders eliminated was more than the total number of such high ranking terrorists taken out during the entire Obama administration.  In short, this was a remarkable victory for America's armed forces.

That leaves a simple question:  where's the coverage?  Prior to reading this post, had you heard about this major success of our forces?  Did you know that the Taliban's ability to raise funds from opium production had taken a major beating?  I don't know of any major media outlet, other than Fox News, that has covered this story with more than a word or two.

What possible excuse could the mainstream media have for ignoring this important success?  Sure, the success makes President Trump and his new rules of engagement in Afghanistan look good, but the media can't admit that they stopped a story because it might help the President.  They need to have another reason why they focused non-stop on a picture tweeted by Ivanka Trump rather than on the success of our brave fighting men and women.  We all heard how Kim Kardashian came to the White House, but the demise of many of the leaders of our adversaries in America's longest war gets ignored.

It's time for the mainstream media to stop with its obsession with trying to bring down President Trump.  They're supposed to report the news, not cover it up if it doesn't help their preferred narrative. 

Not Everything Is An Outrage -- Even If Trump Does It

There's an article today in The Atlantic that is typical of the left's reaction to President Trump.  Here's the headline:  "The Outrage Over Trump’s Market-Shaking Tweet"

Outrage?  Really?  Here's the story in a nutshell:  the jobs report for May was issued at 8:30 this morning.  At 7:21, President Trump tweeted that he was looking forward to seeing the report.  Here's his exact tweet:  "Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning".  It's hardly much of an announcement.  It doesn't give away the results.

So where's the outrage?  According to the always-outraged left, President Trump hinted ahead of the release of the report that the number would be good.  After all, why else would the President be looking forward to seeing the report?  And if the President is telegraphing that the result would be a good one, he could secretly be telling his friends that they should be investing in stock market futures which would surely soar once the news came out.  In other words, Trump was giving advance market information to his friends so that they could make big bucks.  What an outrage!

Of course, this is ridiculous.  Trump's tweet went out to something like fifty million followers; that's hardly giving anyone secret knowledge.  Beyond that, the stock futures didn't move when the tweet went out.  In other words, no one ran to invest heavily in those futures.  The bond market did shift slightly after the tweet, but the markets always are moving, so there no way to say that Trump's tweet had any effect at all.  So, Trump didn't give secrets to a select few, and no one invested to make a killing on this supposed secret information.  So much for the outrage.

The author of the piece in The Atlantic actually realized how silly his article is, so he tried to create some basis for outrage.  He "reports" that if Trump sent out this tweet, then he may have also told friends and family last night and they may have tried to profit on the advance warning.  There's no proof that any such thing happened.  There's no indication of any strange trading in the market overnight.  Even the reporter admits this, but he says that there should be a full investigation to make sure that didn't happen.  In the world of permanent Trump outrage, there doesn't need to be any indication of wrongdoing; if the President does anything, it must be fully investigated.

It's very tiresome to have to see article after article about supposed outrages committed by the President.  Someone should tell the anti-Trump media that not everything is an outrage.  Right now, calling something Trump does an outrage is much like what happened during the Obama years with calling something "racist".  It's been overdone to such a point, that the whole thing has become meaningless.
 

Russia Cooperates Against Iran in Syria

There must be a fair amount of panic in Teheran with regard to Syria.

A short while ago, the Iranian forces in Syria decided to strike at Israel in the hope of inflicting some real damage on the Israelis and perhaps even getting them to stop their periodic attacks on Iranian weapons transfers to Hezbollah.  The Iranians and their allies launched 32 missiles at Israeli positions in the Golan Height, the Israeli controlled region just over the border from Syria.  The Iranians kept the targeting to that small area because they did not want to take the risk of inciting major retaliation from Israel had major population centers been targeted.  It didn't work.  Not a single one of the 32 missiles hit its target.  Five were shot down.  Twenty-seven fell short of the mark and landed inside Syria itself.

On top of the failure of the Iranian missile attack, the response from the Israelis was immediate and severe.  Israeli planes launched attacks on about 60% of all the Iranian installations in Syria with major damage being done to the Iranian military infrastructure.  All Israeli planes returned safely.  The Russians did not use their anti-aircraft systems to interfere with the Israeli strikes.  In one night, Iran's Syrian power was severely curtailed.

Now, things are getting worse for the mullahs in Teheran.  Reports say that Israel, Jordan, Russia and the Assad regime in Syria have agreed that Iranian forces and their Hezbollah terrorist supporters will be pulled back at least about 40 miles from the border with Israel.  The border crossing from Jordan to Syria will be put into the hands of the Assad forces and all Iranians will also be removed from that region.  Russia has given the Israeli air force its consent for the Israelis to continue to strike at the Iranians if necessary provided that Israel does not hit the Assad forces or Russian forces.  Meanwhile the main border crossing between Iraq and Syria will remain in the hands of the Syrian Democratic forces and American troops.  No Iranians will be allowed there either.  The Iranian sphere of influence inside Syria is shrinking rapidly.

There are even reports that the Assad regime has agreed with the Russians that all Iranian and Hezbollah forces must be withdrawn from Syria.  We will have to see that actually happen to believe it, but if it occurs, it will be a major disaster for the Iranians.

Even inside Iraq, there appears to be bad news for the Iranians.  The party that led the recent elections in Iraq is Shiite, like the Iranians, but it is also Arab and nationalistic rather than supportive of the Iranian government.

On top of all this, the Iranians are facing an onslaught from the USA in the form of renewed sanctions with the withdrawal by President Trump of US participation in the Iranian nuke deal.

In other words, it has been a really terrible month or two for the Iranians.

This is a major reversal of where Iran was at the end of the Obama years.  Obama's policy towards Iran was to not confront the mullahs but rather to try to encourage better relations and to remove irritants in the hope of bringing Iran into the peaceful nations of the world.  It was a naïve and fruitless policy, but Obama followed it from start to finish.  As a result, Iran got a major foothold in Iraq and an even stronger base of operations in Syria.  There was talk of an Iranian crescent across the Middle East with the Iranians in charge in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon (through Hezbollah).

In recent days, the Israelis have made clear to the Russians that Israel will not tolerate an Iranian presence on their border.  The Russians don't care much about the Iranians, but they want to preserve their bases and influence inside Syria.  The Russians also want to preserve good relations with Israel.  As a result, Moscow was rather quick to agree that the Iranians have to go.

At the same time, American foreign policy has been to push towards ousting Iran from Syria.  It seems most likely that the USA has told the Russians that so long as the Iranians leave Syria, the USA won't push to get the Russians out of there as well.  That would be a major bonus for the Russians if they cooperate to get the Iranians out.

There's no way to know for certain what the future holds for Syria.  One thing, though, is certain:  there will be a brighter future for Syria and all its people if the Iranians are no longer there inciting violence.

Confirmation that The Nation Really Has Moved

In the last two days there were three new polls released on the generic Congressional ballot question.  That's the poll in which people are asked if the election were today, would they vote for the Republican or the Democrat.  The three poll found the Democrats ahead of the Republicans by an average of 2%.  Because of the way that these polls work, that result would indicate that the GOP would hold the House easily if the numbers remain the same as of the election.  There is always a slight lead for the Democrats in these figures because they usually question registered voters, many of whom do not bother to come to the polls to vote.  The rule of thumb is that it would take a Democrat lead of 5% or more in these polls for the Democrats to have a chance to win the House.

Now it is still a long time until November.  In the next five months, anything could happen, and much will.  The numbers can move all over the place.  One thing is certain, though:  these poll results demonstrate that all that talk last December of a Blue Wave is no longer valid.  At that time, the nation was set against the GOP because it was passing the Tax Cut bill for which the Democrats and media had convinced the average voter the result would be a tax increase.  That blatant lie has been revealed as people have gotten bigger paychecks and robust economic growth has continued.  Add onto that the good developments regarding North Korea, the collapse of the Russia-Trump narrative, the discovery of the Obama FBI/CIA planting a spy in the Trump campaign, and other successes for President Trump, and the movement of the voters has been huge.

We will have to wait and see what happens in November, but if the present movement holds, it won't make the Democrats happy.