Streetwise Professor

I don’t believe it is an exaggeration to say that Turkey is ruled by a lunatic–Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His increasingly autocratic rule is putting Turkey at serious risk of an economic and geopolitical crisis.

Erdogan dreams of Turkey becoming the dominant power in the Middle East, a modern day version of the Ottoman Empire, including an explicit Islamic orientation–a decisive break with the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who eschewed imperial ambitions, and who was avowedly secularist, and indeed, harshly anti-Islam. (Which is one reason Erdogan despises him.)

These ambitions have led Erdogan into some foreign policy disasters, most notably in Syria. At the outset of the Syrian civil war, Erdogan was supporting the rebels and foursquare behind attempts to overthrow Assad. In this he failed utterly. But in the attempt, he (through his intelligence services) provided support to the most radical Islamist elements in Syria–including ISIS.

The Syrian debacle contributed to a serious breach with Europe which has all but eliminated the prospects for Turkish accession to the EU. In particular, his cynical unleashing of waves of Syrian refugees into Europe, and his threats of sending even more, thereby blackmailing the EU into providing Turkey financial aid, have left Turkey friendless in Europe.

Even worse, from a geopolitical perspective, has been his picking fight after fight with the US. The list is long. The extended standoff over an American minister he had imprisoned. His rapprochement with Iran in Syria (which in effect was a concession of his failure to achieve his objectives there), and generally cooperative relationships with Iran, including most notably helping the Islamic Republic circumvent US sanctions by exchanging Turkish gold for Iranian gas. His strident opposition to Israel. His cooperation with another American pariah–Venezuela–which Turkey is helping evade sanctions by agreeing to refine Venezuelan gold. His burning desire to destroy America’s Kurdish allies who have been the only effective local force in the battles against ISIS, said desire driven by Erdogan’s burning hatred of the Kurds in Turkey. This desire to attack Kurds in Syria has led to standoffs (with the serious risk of escalation) with US troops working with them. And last, but by no means least, an agreement to purchase S-400 surface-to-air missile systems from Russia despite the information this could provide the Russians about US F-35 aircraft–which Turkey wants to purchase.

Some of these things–canoodling with Iran, opposing Israel–were not a problem with the Obama administration. They are a big deal with Trump.

The real lunacy is that Erdogan is risking a confrontation with the US at a time when his economy is teetering–in large part due to his mismanagement. The lira dropped significantly last summer, and although it has recovered (a) it is still substantially below the level of 2017, (b) has been dropping steadily since topping out in December, and (c) is poised for another drop due to Erdogan’s inveterate hostility to higher interest rates–well, to interest rates period, which he calls “the mother and father of all evil.” The Turkish Central Bank has been playing games to conceal how weak its reserve position is. These include borrowing dollars from Turkish banks via swaps, putting the dollars as on-balance sheet assets, but treating the swaps as off-balance sheet.

The Turkish economy is in recession, has heavy external indebtedness (which makes its low reserve position all the more dangerous), and has an economic management team that is universally considered to be greatly out of its depth. Erdogan did not help matters when he declared:

The main issue is interest rates. As interest rates are brought down, inflation will fall. The real problem is interest rates. I’m also an economist.

Not only is he not an economist (as his getting the Fisher effect exactly backwards shows), I don’t even think he’s ever even stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. Combining his economic stupidity with his autocratic behavior is a recipe for disaster.

Given this fraught economic situation, Erdogan courts disaster by continuing to pull Uncle Sam’s beard. He is very likely to need the US’s help to stave off economic crisis, and on the flip side, if sufficiently provoked the US could smash the Turkish economy with a mere flick of its fingers.

Erdogan also has domestic political problems. After prevailing in a surprise national election last summer that cemented his changes to the constitution creating a presidential system, his AKP party suffered some stunning losses in local elections last month, most notably a (narrow) loss in Istanbul. Erdogan is attempting to get a do over in the Istanbul election, claiming systemic voting abuses–in a city his party controlled at the time of the election. It is something akin to the Chicago Democratic machine blaming a loss on nefarious Republican voter fraud.

There are many reasons for Erdogan’s near panic over Istanbul. It will give his CHP opponents a highly visible platform and power base, in a city that is widely viewed as the launching pad for Turkish national leaders. (Erdogan was mayor there before becoming prime minister, then president.) Perhaps even more importantly to Erdogan, CHP control of Istanbul threatens to undermine his vast patronage system there (which will undercut his power), and also threatens to expose equally vast corruption (of which Erdogan has already been very credibly accused in the past).

Erdogan is not the type of man who will trim his sails in the face of such fierce headwinds. He will more likely redouble his confrontational efforts, both internationally and domestically, despite his extremely weak economic situation. This is not wise, and will not end well. A bad end to Erdogan is hardly something that should be rued, but his bad end will also mean serious and extended misery for the Turkish people, and a serious potential for even more instability in the Middle East.

This last prospect may be the only thing that saves Erdogan. The potential for turmoil may be the only reason why the Trump administration does not give Erdogan the brusin’ he has been cruisin’ for, not just recently, but since 2003.

The Mueller Report was released (with redactions) on Thursday. Although the “collusion” portion of the report is framed, as is the case with most decisions not to prosecute, in terms of absence of evidence to meet a burden of proof, the thoroughness of the investigation and the findings come as close to providing evidence of absence as one is ever likely to find. Most telling was the conclusion that although the Russians made numerous attempts at gaining access to Trump and Trump personnel, these attempts were uniformly rebuffed.

Yet like the dog returning to its vomit–again and again and again–the media cannot resist parts of the Mueller report that keep the collusion dream alive. Like this piece in Bloomberg (which has been particularly insane in its post-Mueller coverage). They fail to realize that this story (and others like it) completely demolishes the entire idea of pre-election collusion. If Putin was in cahoots with Trump or his minions before 8 November, he would have had no need to use oligarchs–or anybody else–to try to establish connections with Trump’s people after 8 November. Yet people who were (are!) willing to believe baroque and convoluted theories like the one in which Trump was communicating with the Russians via an Alfa Bank server (to name just one) don’t see how ludicrous these theories are in light of Putin’s obviously desperate attempts to make contact after Trump’s surprising election. So surprising that Putin was clearly caught off-guard and unprepared and completely without connections with the incoming administration.

It is particularly delicious that the Russian billionaire featured prominently in the report (and the Bloomberg article)–Petr Aven–controlled Alfa Bank. So Alfa Bank was supposedly the portal between Putin and Trump which they used to coordinate their dastardly deeds but months later Putin sent the man in charge of Alfa Bank to open communications with Trump–and he fails!

Yeah. Makes total sense!

One wonders when Mueller realized that there was no there there. None whatsoever. I suspect he realized it very early on, but was loath to admit it. If this is so, his extension of the investigation to this late date–and well past the midterm elections–inflicted grave injury on the country, and makes Mueller a figure of infamy deserving severe obloquy.

It is against background that one must evaluate the second portion of Mueller’s report, relating to obstruction. Put aside the Constitutional issues raised by the fact that several of the theories of obstruction involve Trump’s exercise of his presidential powers (firing Comey, requesting that Sessions unrecuse himself, discussing using the pardon power), and others involve the ability of the president to fire an inferior official (which just points out the Constitutional anomalies of special counsels): firing Mueller would have been a blunder, rather than a crime, and Trump was indeed fortunate that he was talked out of it.

No, think of how you would have reacted if you had been subjected to a Kafkaesque investigation into something that you knew was complete and utter bullshit–and bullshit that had been concocted by your political enemies who were dead set on rationalizing–and avenging–their loss to you. I think you would be outraged, and feel completely justified in fighting back by whatever means necessary. I think any normal person would be. And heaven knows, Donald Trump is not normal. If he were, he wouldn’t be president. So of course he said intemperate things and contemplated intemperate actions and no doubt felt perfectly justified in his intemperateness–yet in the end did not take these actions.

Anybody who harrumphs at this–and yeah, I’m looking at you, Mitt–is irredeemably partisan, or not a serious person, or is completely incapable of realistically appraising how he or she would react if in another’s shoes. There are those who attempt to obstruct investigations because they know they are guilty, and there are those who fight investigations that they believe to be unjust. Mueller strained every nerve, tried out every possible legal theory, and left no stone unturned in his attempt to demonstrate illicit dealings, and admitted abject failure. This failure validates Trumps belief that the investigation was a travesty that never should have taken place, and puts his reaction in the second category rather than the first. The excesses are typically Trumpian ones.

That is, the evidence of absence of collusion completely undermines assertions of obstruction, given that obstruction requires mens rea. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Finding Trump innocent (not just not guilty, but innocent) of collusion or conspiracy yet believing that he might have obstructed justice makes Mueller a genius, by the Fitzgerald standard. These are utterly opposed ideas.

Such geniuses the Republic can live without.

I would like to say that Mueller did Trump–and the country–a favor by proving him innocent of illicit dealings with Russia far more convincingly than Trump ever could have himself. To be found not culpable by people who are almost certainly your enemies and who desperately want to hang something on you is as close to vindication as you can get.

But facts don’t matter. Russia was just a pretext, a dog to tree Trump with. If that dog won’t hunt, his enemies will find another. And another. And another.

This is a power struggle, pure and simple. Meaning that Trump has to take that fight to his enemies. And the best way to do that is to attack legally the apparatchiks–the Brennans and Comeys and Clappers and those still in the bureaucracy–who unleashed the Russia collusion hound. And after that, to go after their political masters.

This is war to the knife. Trump has warded off the attacks so far, and almost miraculously survived. He can’t count on such luck continuing, especially since defeat will only spur his enemies to greater efforts. He has to be the attacker now.

This headline in Bloomberg made me chuckle and think of a famous malapropism from Mayor Daley I: “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.”

The Russians (and the Chinese) are not in Venezuela to create (or spread) disorder, the Russians are in Venezuela to preserve disorder. Quite literally. Because they are there to preserve Maduro, and Maduro has created such chaos and misery that “disorder” seems far too mild a word to describe it. So adapting Mayor Daley’s words to the Russians in Venezuela, it wouldn’t be a malapropism–it would be descriptively accurate. An understatement, even.

Yes, I understand that permitting foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere violates just short of 200 years of American policy, and this is not a precedent we want to set. But in comparison to say the French in Mexico in the 1860s, this is truly small beer.

And consider the fate of Maximillian et al. Not a precedent that the Russians or Chinese should want to emulate.

Venezuela is a disaster–the world’s largest tar baby (literally, in some respects, given the physical characteristics of Venezuelan crude oil). The Russians and Chinese are actually fools if they think that propping up this disastrous regime–which is on the verge of overseeing a record setting decline in economic output–will increase their odds of getting paid back the billions they lent. Every day that Maduro continues in power, and the catastrophe metastasizes, makes the prospects of recovering even a few kopecs all the more remote.

If recouping some of their debt is an objective, the Russians and Chinese would actually be far better off killing Maduro, overthrowing his thugs, and making a deal with the opposition. But Putin and Xi are doubling down on a regime that makes the phrase “failed state” seem like a compliment.

Putin also views an outpost in Venezuela as a military provocation to the US. Whatever. At over 5400 miles from Russia (and over 9000 miles from Shanghai), that outpost would be utterly unsustainable if push came to shove with the US. Russia has no ability to sustain it logistically over that distance–nor does China, really, even though its navy and sealift are not as decrepit as Russia’s.

Fools put bases in places they can’t support. Complete fools put bases in places that they can’t support AND which are located in places that are descending into a state that the creators of Mad Max would have found fantastical.

So let Putin add Venezuela to his collection of failed state allies. It will be an ulcer, not an asset.

Attorney General William Barr triggered the greatest mass loosening of bowels in Washington, DC since the cholera outbreak of 1866 when he matter of factly stated that the government had indeed spied on the Trump campaign. According to Barr, the only unresolved issue is the propriety of the predicate for the spying. These comments caused the Democrats and the media to lose their ends-with-it, and the howls of pain are still being heard.

Barr only stated the obvious, and it is clearly welcome news that he plans to investigate, with the clear implication of holding the guilty accountable, not just to mete out their just punishment, but pour encourager les autres. The main difference is that the poor Admiral Byrd Byng who occasioned Voltaire’s quip did not deserve his grim fate, but Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, and most likely Lynch, Yates, Rice and perhaps others are justly deserving of a legal reckoning, on the merits and for the example. Alas, none will be dropping a handkerchief to signal his or her readiness to the firing squad, but hopefully they will be punished to the maximum extent allowable under the law.

Almost two millennia ago Juvenal posed the question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? “Who watches the watchmen?” The CIA, FBI, and the Justice Department are all supposedly our watchmen, protecting us from the depredations of those foreign and domestic who mean us ill. But for decades it has been evident that these watchmen can succumb to the temptations of power. There is a colorable case, based just on the information available to the public, that this official misconduct reached an acme with the 2016 election, and the subsequent inauguration of Trump. These watchmen must be watched, and more than just watched: they must be punished severely when they overstep their bounds.

To the extreme discomfort (gastrointestinal and otherwise) of the denizens of the Beltway, Bill Barr has signaled that he is about to do just that. I sincerely hope that he has the intestinal fortitude to carry it through.

Trump just departed from Ellington Joint Reserve Base here in Houston, ending a quick trip to Texas which included a rally in Houston. The focus of Trump’s visit was the US energy sector (In Texas? Go figure!). As part of that, he announced and signed an executive order limiting the power of states to block or obstruct the construction of interstate oil and gas pipelines.

Overall, I’m not a fan of executive orders, as they tend to be used to override or circumvent normal Constitutional procedures and purposes. There is a strong argument, however, that this order is an exception.

The very genesis of the Constitution traces to commercial disputes between states under the Articles of Confederation. Contention between Virginia and Maryland over navigation of the Potomac and the Chesapeake resulted in the calling of the Annapolis Convention (formally The Meeting of Commissioners to Remedy Defects of the Federal Government) in 1786. Although the Convention itself was something of a damp squid, it did result in the calling of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, which wrote the Constitution that continues to be the law of the land to this day, 232 years later.

Of course, one part of that document is the Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) which grants to the Federal government the power to regulate commerce between the states. This was not an accident, comrades. Preventing protectionism by the states against each other was one of the main reasons for creating a more powerful central government.

State governments always have the temptation and incentive to favor their own constituents at the expense of people in other states. Letting that impulse operate freely would result in a Balkanized country with myriad wasteful restrictions, taxes, tolls, and regulations that would sap wealth. (Consider pre-Revolutionary France, with its oppressive system of local tolls on the movement of goods.) Anticipating that, the Founders expressly sought to limit the protectionist powers of states.

In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) the Marshall court forcefully exerted the Commerce Clause. Things have likely gone too far since: for example, the Commerce Clause’s delegation of authority over navigable waters to the US government has been pushed to the extreme by using it to impose Federal environmental regulation on an intermittent wet spot on your back 40.

But what Trump is ordering is clearly within the four corners of the Clause as originally conceived. Oil and gas are produced in some states, and consumed in others. Interstate movement is necessary to connect producers and consumers. Further, for myriad motives many states have attempted to obstruct that movement. That is not, and has not been since the formation of the Republic, their prerogative.

The case can be made that the Commerce Clause has proved a Trojan Horse that has facilitated an expansion of Federal power beyond that what the Founders envisioned. But what Trump is ordering is squarely within the intent of the Clause, as drafted and intended.

The dramatic growth in US energy production is being hampered by infrastructure constraints. For many, that is a feature, not a bug: the hostility towards fossil fuel energy in particular by many in the US, especially on the left, makes such infrastructure a schwerpunkt for environmentalists. Knock out the transit links between producers and consumers, and energy will be neither produced nor consumed. They often find it easier to focus their efforts on state and local governments because (a) they are often more biddable, and (b) since you only need to prevail in one or two to delay or derail altogether a pipeline moving across many, the odds of success are higher. (If there are N jurisdictions crossed by a pipeline, and the probability of getting a jurisdiction to block it is P, the probability that it will go through is (1-P)^N, which decreases with N.)

Yes, local communities do have concerns. The question is what is the appropriate remedy for them. A properly applied Takings Clause (with payment of true value for taken property) is one: it prevents subsidization through expropriation. Insofar as environmental issues are concerned, the question is whether ex ante restrictions (i.e., imposing high standards to permit construction) are better than ex post penalties for damage imposed (which provide an incentive for infrastructure operators to take precautions against damage).

Since infrastructure operators are well-capitalized, and unlikely to be judgment proof, and since there are armies of class action attorneys waiting in the wings salivating at the opportunity to sue for damages, ex post penalties are likely to be more efficient than ex ante restrictions, especially ex ante restrictions imposed by state and local governments who internalize the benefits they obtain for their constituents, but who do not internalize the costs that they impose on producers upstream or consumers downstream.

And this is not to say that the Federal government is inevitably predisposed to efficient outcomes. Look no further than the previous administration, which largely embraced the environmentalist hostility to domestic energy development, and which as a consequence used its powers to thwart some important infrastructure developments (e.g., Keystone, which would have proven especially valuable in light of the loss of heavy crude production in Venezuela and to a lesser degree Mexico). So Federal power can be exercised for good or ill when it comes to energy infrastructure. Trump’s order is an example of it being exercised for the good of energy consumers and producers.

As something of a coda to the previous post, it’s worth commenting on Sunday’s story that Russia dispatched 100 troops to Venezuela. Within hours of their arrival, the power went out, and the country was plunged into darkness yet again.

This is how deep Russia must dig to find allies, all in a pathetic effort to tweak its bête noire, the US. Yet this is the colossus that has preoccupied the fevered minds of the American governing class since 8 November, 2016.

It is also a rather scathing commentary on Putin’s alleged strategic genius. There’s an old adage: never reinforce failure. Venezuela is a failure–and a failed state–on a grand scale. Yet perhaps thinking of his previous “investments” in the country, Putin reinforces this failure.

Succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy is hardly a sign of strategic genius.

Further, if Trump is in Putin’s thrall, why has Trump ramped up the pressure on the Maduro regime? Maybe Max Boot or Bill Kristol can enlighten us.

The image of Vladimir Putin as an all-powerful mastermind was central to the Russia Collusion Hoax. In this telling, the omnipotent and omnipresent Vova, secure in his lair in Moscow, could manipulate at will the electoral process in the most powerful country in history. His power, devious intelligence, and malign purpose made it especially reprehensible and dangerous for Trump to collude with him, and the image of the Putin evil mastermind made collusion with him a grave threat to the republic, in a way totally different from, say, assorted Chinese boodlers boosting Bill Clinton.

The entire Russian Collusion Hoax was farcical to me from the beginning, and this grotesque exaggeration of Putin’s power and influence was the most farcical part of the charade. It was particularly annoying to hear about it from idiots who hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to Russia since, well, ever, and who when they did weigh in on Russia it was to slam Mitt Romney for calling it a threat, and to chortle at Obama’s snarky response to Romney’s alarums.

Put simply, most of these people who have been running around with their hair on fire about Russia since, come to think of it, the minute that Hillary conceded defeat and needed an excuse, couldn’t find the place on a map, despite the fact it is the biggest country on earth. But all of a sudden they were experts on all things Putin and all things Russia.

Perhaps in a signal to the hysterics that they should back off, the NYT ran an oped titled “How Powerful is Putin Really?” The answer: pretty much the same one I gave 12 plus years ago, and repeatedly–not very. Because Russia is not that powerful, and because Putin’s main role is to be an intermediary in wars between completing clans in the security forces and business, rather than to be a grandmaster moving inanimate chess pieces around the board.

This is comic gold:

The gulf between what Mr. Putin says and what happens in Russia raises a fundamental question about the nature of his rule after more than 18 years at the pinnacle of an authoritarian system: Is Mr. Putin really the omnipotent leader whom his critics attack and his own propagandists promote? Or does he sit atop a state that is, in fact, shockingly ramshackle, a system driven more by the capricious and often venal calculations of competing bureaucracies and interest groups than by Kremlin diktats?

I won’t keep you in suspense as to the answer. Hell, if you have been reading here anytime since around 2007, you know the answer. But then again, if you read me you probably haven’t been drinking the NYT Kool-aid, and won’t need them to tell you the answer 12 years too late.

If you read the rest of the article, you will see a description that echoes exactly the one I first applied to Russia in April, 2007: “a natural state.” As I quoted North, Weingast, and Wallis:

A natural state is a specific way of structuring political and economic systems so that the economic rents created by limited entry are available to secure credible commitments among politically powerful groups. Potential rivals in a natural state stop fighting (or fight less when the economic rents they enjoy depend on continued existence of the sate and of social order. Natural states limit economic entry to create rents and then use those rents to credibly commit powerful groups to support the state. In other words, natural states use the economic system as a tool to solidify the stability of the ruling coalition.

I also quoted Celeste Wallander:

Patrimonial authoritarianism is a political system based on holding power in order to create, access, and distribute rents. It is well known that Russia is deeply corrupt, but corruption in the Russian system of patrimonial authoritarianism is not merely a feature of the system; it is essential to the very functioning of political power. The political system is based on the political control of economic resources in order to enrich those within patron-client clans. The patron remains in power by rewarding clients, and the clients are rewarded by supporting their patron. The patron requires support from his clients, and he must access and distribute rents for that support. Without the creation and control of rents, political power disappears. At the top of the political system, Putin manages relations among competing patron-client clans headed by top government and business figures, such as Development and Trade Minister German Gref, Deputy Prime Minister and Gazprom chairman Dmitry Medvedev, Gazprom president Alexei Miller, and Igor Sechin, deputy head of the presidential administration and chairman of Rosneft. Each of these individuals in turn has his own set of clients, who are in turn patrons of their own clans, and so on, creating a complex web of relationships that sustain political power and distribute patronage rents.

The basic point of the analysis was that of course someone like Putin is powerful within such a system, but he is not all powerful. Further, his power derives from his ability to intermediate between independent sources of power within Russia. The main purpose of the state in Russia is to organize theft, and divide the spoils. The main purpose of Putin is to keep that process from devolving into violent chaos.

Put differently, I’ve often emphasized the deinstitutionalized, highly personalized nature of the Russian state. The personalism is a bug, not a feature, and inherently limits the power of the person at the top. It is a great mistake to confuse the prominence of the public face of a shambolic state with actual power. Institutions are necessary to generate national power, either domestically or abroad. The power of deinstitutionalized state is inherently constrained.

But especially post-8 November, 2016, the left and the media and Hillary needed a figure to personify evil, and to tie him to Trump, so the reality of Russia and Putin and Putinism–which is pretty plain to see if you actually look–was deliberately ignored, and in its place our “elite” became fixated on a cartoonish Dr. Evil figure in a way that would make the most crazed 1950s Bircher blush.

These are people who fell for the scary wizard and his pyrotechnics, and paid no attention to the little man behind the curtain. Some because they were fools. Some–the worst of them, and the most powerful–because it advanced their political agenda.

So I say to the NYT: Bravo! Better 12 years late then never! But this should be a lesson: don’t pay the slightest bit of attention to those Bozos, because their news and editorial “judgments” are driven by a political and ideological bias that is impervious to readily observable realities.

Watching the wailing, moaning, shrieking, rending of garments and gnashing of teeth emanating from people I despise following the release of AG Barr’s summary of the Mueller report brings to mind this epic scene:

I realize that the metaphor extends. Yes, Charlie got smoked here, but this is just one battle. He will be back. He will shift the fight to Congress in particular, and the media will continue its assault. But here I think Trump actually has some advantages. This will be a political battle, with partisans on both sides: it is no longer possible for the left/media/Democrats to hide behind the alleged impartiality of Mueller. (Indeed, I think this is another reason that Mueller’s report is a huge benefit to Trump: given the partisan makeup of his team, if even he can’t find collusion or obstruction of justice, it’s not there to be found.) In fact, this may redound to Trump’s benefit because even on his most unhinged day he will seem normal compared to Schiff, or Swalwell, or AOC, or “impeach the motherfucker” Tlaib, or Maxine Waters, or and on and on and on. He will have a surfeit of fools providing a surfeit of foils.

The left/media/Democrats are also holding out hope that some other authority–the US attorneys in the Southern District of New York (do they know it reports to Trump, which is the whole purpose of special counsels?), the New York AG, or maybe Officer Mcgillicuddy from Queens who saw Donald jaywalking as a youth–will take up the cudgels and find something to indict Trump for. But it won’t be collusion. Because get real, if after all this Mueller can’t find any evidence, the evidence ain’t there to be found:

When I witness these desperate, pathetic clowns pinning all their hopes on somebody, anybody, else in authority, this comes to mind:

I also find it infinitely amusing that they are channeling their inner Donald Rumsfeld, and flogging variants of “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” for all it’s worth. The irony! Which is fitting, because the Russia conspiracy hoax will go down in infamy alongside WMD.

And there must be a reckoning. An incomplete list, but a necessary start:

• The “leadership” of the FBI that started the whole counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign, and once it was elected, continued it against the Trump administration, starting with James Comey. These were the people who were interfering with US elections.
• Key figures in the Obama administration, notably Brennan, Clapper, and Rice . . . and then following wherever that leads.
• The Hillary Clinton, and the Hillary Clinton campaign and its beard, the DNC, which concocted the Russia conspiracy hoax first as a campaign dirty trick, then continued it as an excuse for its loss and as a means of crippling the administration of the man who had the temerity to derail her coronation.
• Hillary’s henchmen, especially the loathsome, beyond execrable Glenn Simpson and his tool, Christopher Steele. (One thing I would really like to know is what the Mueller report says about the farcical dossier.)
• Last, but surely not least, the entire media establishment, not just in the US (the usual suspects, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo and on and on) but their foreign fellow travelers (esp. the FT, the BBC, and other supposedly reputable UK outlets).

There are many institutions in government and the media that deserve to be pulled out, root and branch. But of course they will fight, tooth and nail, hammer and tong.

Meaning that the smell of napalm might be sweet today, but many more strikes will be necessary before the war is over.

One can understand the reason why a slim majority of the British electorate voted to divorce from the EU. They wanted out from under a condescending, arrogant, meddling, progressive, metropolitan, globalist elite that has no appreciation or respect for British (especially) English tradition (as indeed they scorn all national traditions, including not least religious ones).

There is only one problem with that plan: the UK governing class today is dominated by a condescending, arrogant, meddling, progressive, metropolitan, globalist elite that has no appreciation or respect for British (especially) English tradition. These are the people who are in apoplexy over the prospect of the UK departing from their soul brethren in the EU. Britons may be able to escape the grasp of the mandarins in Brussels, but they have little prospect of escaping that of the mandarins in London, who if anything are even more loathsome.

The incompetence of the British ruling class is manifest. The incompetence, oppressiveness, and intolerance of its social elite is plain. They make no attempt to conceal their antipathy for the traditionally, conventionally English. Brexit, in whatever form it takes, will do little to free those who voted for it from the tender mercies of those who hate them. And there will not be the consolation that it’s bloody foreigners doing them wrong: it will be their own fellow Britons.

I really find it hard to find any real difference between the behavior of the British government and ruling classes and that of their peers on the continent. Transnational progressive policies, political correctness, and extreme intolerance of dissent characterize British political and civil society as much, and perhaps more, than continental.

Britain was a pioneer in omnipresent surveillance on the streets and the denial of the right to self-defense, yet crime has become endemic. Speech is under constant threat. British police brag about punishing those who express disapproved thoughts: think of the Twitter censors, only with the power to arrest, fine, and jail, rather than merely shadow ban or suspend. Indeed, to an outsider it appears that British police pursue thought crimes with much greater zeal than they do personal and property crimes–because it’s easier, perhaps, or because it brings the police greater approbation from their social superiors? Regardless, that’s the distinct impression. Speaking ill of some religions–or even speaking unpleasant facts–brings down the full weight of the British state, which at the same time deems Christianity too violent, and hence bars entry by Christian converts from twisted theocracies.

As a consequence, I doubt that Brexit will enhance the freedom or sovereignty of ordinary Britons in any meaningful way, or allow them to restore more traditional British and English ways, institutions, and values. Indeed, not only will they not gain greater freedom, they will lose the psychological comfort of being able to blame Johnny Foreigner for the loss of it. It will end up being a Hotel California experience: they will check out of the EU, but they won’t check out of an establishment run by those with the EU mindset.

I have often written that the UK is like the US’s Ghost of Christmas Future, because it has gone much further down the progressive road than the US, and its increasingly dystopian present should be a warning to the US about proceeding down that road. That future, moreover, may be distressingly close, because virtually the entire Democratic establishment, including virtually every presidential candidate, would fit in quite well in the UK. What I view as dystopian that lot views as utopian, or at least a waypoint on the road to utopia.

Germany announced that because its economy has the sniffles or something, not only can’t it meet its commitment to spend 2 pct of GDP on defense, it won’t meet it’s halfway house commitment of 1.5 percent. (Snicker. I said “Germany” and “commitment” in the same sentence. I’m so funny.)

This was widely reported as another German rebuke to the Bad Orange Man. Because of course expecting someone to live up to commitments made when nobody even dreamed the Bad Orange Man would be president is totally outrageous.

The US ambassador to Germany, the openly gay Richard Grenell (whut? The outrageous homophobe Trump appointed a gay guy to be ambassador?) called out Germany on defense spending, and on Nordstream II too. Which caused a meltdown in Berlin. The deputy chairman of the ostensibly conservative Free Democrats called for Grenell’s recall, harrumphing that “Any US diplomat who acts like a high commissioner of an occupying power must learn that our tolerance also knows its limits.” The caucus manager of the almost-commies (aka the SDP) chimed in: “Mr Grenell is a complete diplomatic failure.”

I say that if they are going to bitch about being occupied, let’s give them something to bitch about, and occupy the bastards for real. They obviously didn’t learn their lesson the last time.

I figure that given the abjectly pathetic state of the German military, the relatively modest US forces there (augmented by this contingent) could wrap up the job in short order. The main problem would be processing all the POWs. After all, this is a country in which 17 percent–17 percent!–of the population says that they would fight to defend their country: this is the lowest rate in Europe, except for the Dutch who weigh in at 15 percent. So resistance is likely to be light. Cheese eating surrender monkeys?–bah! Schnitzel eating surrender monkeys will put them in the shade.

Just to rub it in, I suggest that we invite the Poles to participate. Maybe the Israelis too. See how Fritz likes his own medicine from those he gave it to in years past.

As I’ve said ad nauseum, it’s beyond annoying for the Germans to squeal like stuck pigs at being criticized for failing to live up to their commitments to joint defense, given their pretensions to be leaders of not just Europe, but the free world in the era of the Bad Orange Man. So Grenell should redouble his efforts and make them squeal even more.

And what is the point of providing for the common defense of a nation whose people can’t even be bothered to defend themselves–and admit it (i.e., the 17 percent number cited above)?

Bismarck once said that the Balkans were not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier. Germans now think that Germany is not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier. So why should they be worth the bones of a single American grunt?