The Maritime Executive reports breaking news on the wrath of Vladimir Putin:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sacked 50 of his Baltic Sea naval fleet’s officers amid concerns about failure to follow orders, incompetence and corruption.
The Baltic Sea fleet is less well-equipped than Russia’s Black Sea and Northern fleets. It consists of 128 surface ships and 71 landing craft.
The significance of the Baltic region has surged in recent years with the defection from the former Soviet Union of the Baltic States, including Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Not since Joseph Stalin’s purges in the 1930s have so many officers been sacked at once.
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Evidently Hillary Clinton cannot run as her unlikable self and a slogan of “at least I wasn’t indicted” is not all that inspirational. Instead, Mrs. Clinton is doing her best to morph into Bernie Sanders, writes Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute. Here are a few Sanders-like proposals from “Hillary Sanders:”
- A so-called “public option” for ObamaCare, which would essentially establish a government-run single-payer system to compete with private insurance in every state. The government system—subsidized by taxpayers—would artificially hold down prices until it drives private insurance out of business.
- Reduce the age for Medicare eligibility to 55. To date, Hillary has not put a price tag on this proposal, but adding more people to Medicare will certainly not help the program’s expected $55.6 trillion shortfall.
Mr. Tanner: Together, these proposals mean “the slow, painful death of private health insurance in this country,”
- Public colleges for free for all families earning less than $85,000 per year as of now. This would rise to $125,000 in 2021, which would eventually make roughly 83% of U.S. college students eligible for “free” college. Cost to taxpayers? $450 billion over 10 years. And don’t forget, a three-month moratorium on student-loan payments.
Mr. Tanner: Free tuition “despite the fact that nearly everyone agrees that such subsidies simply inflate the cost of a college education.”
- A $15 per hour minimum wage has not yet been endorsed by Hillary, but “her delegates joined with Sanders’s to insert support for a $15 per hour minimum wage into the party platform. … Even economists who support an increase in the minimum wage, like Alan Krueger, understand that $15 an hour would be a job-killer.”
Mr. Tanner: Given the problems facing young blacks, there’s “a particular irony” about a $15 per hour wage “Black teen unemployment exceeds 31 percent. Eliminating low-wage, entry-level jobs is unlikely to improve that.”
Hillary Clinton is running to the left of Barack Obama and has “largely embraced Sanders-like positions on issues ranging from expanding Social Security and increasing taxes on high-earners to further tightening gun control.” Read more from Michael Tanner here.
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You have plenty of opportunities to get your survival training now. Don’t let inertia slow you down. Here’s what I’ve learned for you. A client told me this week he’s thinking about attending a pistol course through the Surefire Institute. They will be in his town for about ten days offering a variety of coursework such as General Shotgun and General Handgun. I’ve taken similar courses through Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, New Hampshire and I highly recommend both for you and your loved ones.
What’s cool about the Surefire Institute is that it has locations in Las Vegas (a nice activity if you’re there) and Southern California. They also have training teams that can be sent to your location, which is the case for my client. Also, the NRA has a real helpful education and training course locator that you can use to find training close to home. The key is, get your survival training now, not later. Don’t let time pass you by. Believe me, you’ll be thankful once you have the training you and your family deserve.
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  The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher writes here about J.D. Vance’s new book
Hillbilly Elegy. Rod tells his followers, “I devoured the thing in a single gulp. If you want to understand America in 2016 Hillbilly Elegy is a must read.”
Dreher writes about Donald Trump’s enormous popularity with the white working class and how the elites hate Trump:
Hence the enormous popularity of Donald Trump among the white working class. Here’s a guy who will believe and say anything, and who blames Mexicans, Chinese, and Muslims for America’s problems. The elites hate him, so he’s made the right enemies, as far as the white working class is concerned. And his “Make America Great Again” slogan speaks to the deep patriotism that Vance says is virtually a religion among hillbillies.
Trump doesn’t come up in Vance’s narrative, but in truth, he’s all over it. Vance is telling his personal story, not analyzing US politics and culture broadly. It’s also true, however, that the GOP elites set themselves up for their current disaster, by listening to theories that absolved themselves of any responsibility for problems in this country from immigration and free trade (Trump is not all wrong about this).
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Inflicting major disruptions to the electrical grid, whether by humans or natural causes, is not that difficult to imagine. It has already happened which you’ll learn more about in this excellent article, and series, by Rebecca Smith in The WSJ titled, “How America Could Go Dark.”
I spent time this week speaking with an engineer at our local utility company. The impression he gave me is the same as in the article: The money is simply not there. It’s not there to protect substations with proper security, and it’s certainly not there to upgrade the grid to bring it into the 21st Century.
As Smith reports, Keith Cloud, head of security for the Western Area Power Administration, said “he has received about $300,000 for security upgrades at a handful of WAPA’s 328 substations, including Liberty. To protect the system’s 40 most important substations and control centers, he said, he needs $90 million: ‘I don’t have the authority or budget to protect my substations.’”
Read more here on The Imminent Threat to America’s Infrastructure Systems
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As early as Friday morning, long-hidden details of the Congressional investigation into the causes of the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks will be released for the first time. The details were redacted in what became known as the “28-pages.” Through the years, it has been learned that the pages may outline Saudi involvement in the terrorist attacks.
Former Senator Bob Graham calls the pages the “cork in the wine bottle,” that once shared will allow more information to “pour out.”
CNN reports:
Rep. Adam Schiff, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the report will be posted on line soon.
“The House Intelligence Committee will get the redacted report today or tomorrow,” the California Democrat said. “The Senate and House intel committees should then give the formal go ahead to release the report since they originally produced it.”
Under pressure from the victims’ families and lawmakers, President Barack Obama said in April his administration would declassify the pages.
Sources told CNN that intelligence agencies, law enforcement and the State Department have all reviewed and approved the release of the pages with “minimal redactions.”
One of those who wants to read the pages is Terry Strada, who has been pushing for the right to sue Saudi Arabia over its alleged involvement in the attack. Her husband, Tom, was working on the 104th floor of the North Tower when the planes struck. The couple’s third child had been born just four days eariler.
“All of this could be settled if we would just release the 28 pages and let everyone see what’s in there,” Strada said.
“If it was just this low-level … government officials in the Saudi Arabian government, then they have nothing to worry about,” she added. “The American people deserve this just as much as the 9/11 families deserve it, but we’re the ones that are suffering by not having them released.”
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As France was gathering its dead, dying, and maimed from the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, where last week Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel careened over victims in his white lorry, Hillary tweeted the concern foremost in her mind:
On social media, supporters of Islamic State cheered the truck attack.
From NRO’s Andrew McCarthy:
I know, I know: you’re just relieved that she didn’t find a video to blame this time. Still, Clinton’s remarks are criminally stupid. So much so, they overwhelm even the criminal recklessness for which the FBI has just given her a pass on felony charges. She clearly mishandled mounds of classified information, but it appears doubtful that she read much of it. Or maybe she did read it but learned nothing from it, since politicizing intelligence and purging the Islam from Islamic terrorism is strict Obama-Clinton policy.
Contrary to White House blather, people do not commit mass-murder attacks because of economic privation or over trifling slights. They commit it because they are seized by commands that they take to be divine injunctions rooted in scripture, their devotion to which will determine whether paradise or eternal damnation awaits.
… we don’t believe in much of anything anymore, we discount the pull of ideology. But everything about this enemy, from the pecking order of its leaders to its ruthless methods, from the targets it chooses to the ends it seeks, is all about ideology — fiercely held by its adherents because it is scripturally based. If we don’t face up to the fact that ideology is the core of the challenge we face — that we do not have the luxury of ignoring ideology until after it catalyzes murderous action — we cannot defend ourselves.
July 16 marked the one-year anniversary of the terror attacks in Chattanooga, Tenn. David French in NRO points out:
In the year since Chattanooga, America has suffered more than double the number of domestic-terror casualties it suffered in the previous fourteen years going back to 9/11. In the last 18 months in France alone, terrorists have killed 236 innocent civilians and wounded 588. And these numbers don’t include the casualties suffered by fellow NATO allies Belgium and Turkey.
So expect the terror attacks to continue, if not escalate. So long as jihadist safe havens remain abroad and large numbers of extremists live in the West, we’re only a half-step away from seeing actual urban guerilla warfare in Europe’s great cities. Weak horses don’t win wars.
On social media, supporters of Islamic State cheered the truck attack.
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A friend of mine recently opined on the state of the elite vs. the regular folks.
I never post anything political. I like putting up my nature pics etc. I never have a serious horse in the race in the presidential election etc. because I’m a libertarian at heart, I just want government to let me make my own decisions. If I’m a guy that wants to marry another guy, my choice. If I’m a girl that wants to marry another girl, again my choice. If I decide that I want to defend myself and family with as much firepower as any bad guy could have, I don’t want to be told by some politician that his or her lives and their families lives are worth more than mine as those politicians are surrounded with armed guards. So what I’m about to say isn’t a left or right thing in my mind. Just an observation about the huge disconnect in this country.
I (or you) can be arrested for unintentionally feeding a bear in New York state. “Unintentionally.” That means if I (or you) put your garbage out by the curb and a bear gets in it before it’s picked up, we could be charged. But at the same time, someone of stature in the top of Washington government ‘can’t or won’t’ be charged with “unintentionally” but recklessly putting our entire nation in danger by knowingly and willingly using an unsecured private email server.
The small get smaller, the big get bigger…….
The same friend recently told me the story of a friend of his who fought in three armies. First for his homeland of Hungary. He was then conscripted into the Russian army. Finally, after escaping the Russians and making his way to America, he went to war for Uncle Sam fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. This man has confronted the perils of socialism/communism face to face and, remarking on the current state of America and what he sees as an inevitable march toward socialism says “Didn’t America learn anything from watching Europe?”
The unfortunate answer appears to be no.
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To the chagrin of foreign policy wonks, U.S. presidential elections are almost never about foreign policy. This one is no exception. The American people, quite reasonably, care more intensely about things that impact them more directly than U.S. foreign policy. America’s size, power, and remoteness insulate voters from grave danger.
The think-tankers churn out reams of white papers and op-eds, about What Trump Should Do About Iraq or some such, and no one reads them. Candidates and their staffs have better things to do. The political people tell candidates what they need to say on TV in the unlikely event they get asked a tough question about foreign policy.
Even within foreign policy, small-ball topics that have inexplicable political cachet, like Benghazi, dominate the scene. Big, lumbering subjects that enjoy consensus among elites get ignored.
So as the Trump nomination unfolds amid telenovela-level drama, let’s dig in to U.S. China policy.
It’s both a cliche and true that the relationship between the United States and China is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. If it goes sideways, pretty much every facet of international life would be affected, from security to economics to the environment.
Together, the two countries comprise nearly 40 percent of the world economy and more than 45 percent of the world’s military expenditures. Although China’s growth rate has slowed considerably, its rate is still high enough and its economy is now large enough that when combined, promise a relatively stronger China if present trends continue.
When confronted with a rapidly rising power, the question facing a dominant state is how much to worry. Some scholars have argued that the United States should work to contain China, since it’s unlikely China will rise in a way that doesn’t threaten the United States. Others have argued that more of the same will likely ensnare China in a “rules-based international order” that will prevent the worst visions of a future China from coming to be.
But the central problem of U.S. China policy is that it makes the future American policymakers fear more likely. What U.S. policymakers want is a China they can trade with, but that remains militarily weak and feeble. The problem is that as trade persists, China becomes relatively more strong, which makes it less likely Beijing will pursue a humble foreign policy.
Trade with China helps narrow the gap in relative economic power between the two countries. As it does, China has more resources to put toward contesting U.S. dominance in East Asia. The question then becomes: Do you believe China will resist U.S. power or shrug at it?
Ask yourself: If China dominated the Western Hemisphere the way the United States dominates East Asia, would the United States tolerate it or work to unwind it? (Or, ask the same question with the British Empire in place of China.)
Of course the U.S. would work to push back China, just as it worked to push back the British Empire. Then ask yourself, as John Mearsheimer asks his students at the University of Chicago, whether you think China is that much more trusting and magnanimous than the United States, or whether the United States is somehow unique in its distrust of other states and belligerent in confronting them.
It isn’t. What that means for U.S.-China policy is that as China grows relatively wealthier, it is likely to convert that wealth into power, and as it grows more powerful, it is likely to resist U.S. prerogatives more forcefully. U.S. policymakers seem to have given little thought to this prospect.
Chinese growth could collapse totally. In that case, it’s an academic question. But if Chinese growth continues, and if U.S. growth remains sluggish, the question will become an important policy problem afflicting the most important relationship in the world.
For now, however, politicians will continue to debate whether the president has said “radical Islamist terrorism” enough and continue to ignore an important contradiction at the center of U.S.-China policy.
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Pat Buchanan explains to Americans that voters have caught on to the free-trade globalism of the Washington elites. A policy that has closed American factories and sent tens of thousands of good American jobs off to low wage countries is a totally failed policy that, as Mr. Trump explains, will change in a Trump administration.
Neither George W. Bush, the Republican Party nominee in 2000 and 2004, nor Jeb, the dethroned Prince of Wales, will be in Cleveland. Nor will John McCain or Mitt Romney, the last two nominees.
These former leaders would like it thought that high principle keeps them away from a GOP convention that would nominate Donald Trump. Petulance, however, must surely play a part. Bush Republicans feel unappreciated, and understandably so.
For Trump’s nomination represents not only a rejection of their legacy but a repudiation of much of post-Cold War party dogma.
America crossed a historic divide and entered a new era. Even should Trump lose, there is likely no going back.
Trump has attacked NAFTA, MFN for China and the South Korea trade deal as badly negotiated. But the problem lies not just in the treaties but in the economic philosophy upon which they were based.
Free-trade globalism was a crucial component of the New World Order, whose creation George H. W. Bush called the new great goal of U.S. foreign policy at the United Nations in October of 1991.
Bush II and Jeb are also free-trade zealots.
But when the American people discovered that the export of their factories and jobs to low-wage countries, and sinking salaries, were the going price of globalism, they rebelled, turned to Trump, and voted for him to put America first again.
Donald Trump: “’America first’ will be the major and overriding theme of my administration”
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