Troubling Revelation from the Yemen Raid

It's been over a week now since the Yemen raid that was, while successful in its objective, so troubled that is being largely labeled as a botched raid. In my first post on the subject I fell just short of condemning the operation because it does not seem to be in line with Trump's stated foreign policy or even the policy that has been in place. At this point we're still in the honeymoon phase with Trump and I'm willing to throw him some benefit-of-the-doubt while he establishes patterns of behavior. However in the past week the most troubling aspect of the whole incident has come to light: the media has largely left it alone.

That's not to say he hasn't be criticized and ridiculed for it. He certainly has. But nothing of the co-ordinated media blitzes we're used to seeing used against him. This operation opened a huge to flank to attack Trump on both foreign policy and military judgment. It could easily be spun to fit the media's depiction of him as brash and careless. But it was hardly even the biggest story of the week. Much more effort was spent on the narrative that Trump's teams is "in chaos." An even bigger story was the nonsense of Trump having belligerent phone with multiple foreign heads of state. The most viral thing I've seen out of the left this week is their ridicule of Kellyanne Conway for stating that it was a massacre in Bowling Green that led the Obama administration to impose travel restriction to some countries, rather than an averted massacre. It was primarily an exercise in pedantry, certainly no where near the magnitude of the Yemen raid in importance.

Why is the media laying off Trump when they have an actual legitimate reason to blast him? Clearly they must support his actions there. Or more like, the people driving the propaganda agenda support it. It is very troubling that the first action of the candidate with the anti-establishment foreign policy seems to be an establishment-approved operation. Is he being turned so soon? Or is this the learning curve at play? Certainly the same institutional forces that almost completely bent Obama to their will have been heavily lobbying Trump. If that is the case, then the silver lining of the botched raid may be to drive Trump to reject this kind of advice in the future, in the way that John F. Kennedy was said to have lost faith in CIA counsel after the botched Bay of Pigs operation.

Border Walls: Recently Racist

In the past election cycle we've learned a lot that we didn't know before. For instance, we've learned that border walls are racist. I'm not sure that this means all border walls are racist. Would a wall between white countries like the US and Canada be racist? It seems the wall would only be racist if it divided countries of generally different ethnicities. America has a fairly strong white majority, and Mexico is almost entirely Latino. So that wall is racist.

I have to wonder, when did such walls become racist? Has it always been racist for one nation to keep outsiders, well, outside. For instance was it racist for the Chinese to build a wall to keep out the Mongolians, or the Romans to keep out the Scots? Now maybe that's going back a bit to far. We live in modern times, so that is not a good comparison. Let's not count those. So when would be a good cutoff. Should we count the 1900s? Well then you have to consider the Berlin Wall and all that. Let's cut that off too. We will only consider the context of the 21^st century.

So if I'm understanding liberals correctly, walls that separate nations (in the ethnic sense) are racist in the 21^st century. So wouldn't it be awkward if those same liberals have actually themselves built such border walls, in the 21^st century? Well they did, in 2006. Notable liberal heroes on the list include but are not limited to:

• Barrack Obama
• Joe Biden
• Hillary Clinton
• Chuck Schumer
• Barbara Boxer
• Diane Feinstein

What is shocking is that these people who run the Democratic party were openly racist as recently as a decade ago. Surely the liberals don't realize. We must tell them immediately so they know to start attacking them for the walls they built with that legislation in the same manner they are attacking Donald Trump for building a wall using the same legislation.

The Power of the Presidency

It's weird that since I've been so supportive of Trump everyone assumes I'm a lifelong Republican, with some sort of tribal attachment to the party. It's especially weird with all the liberals who unfriended me on facebook when I started posting pro-Trump material, just a very short time after I had been supportive of Bernie Sanders. Those people surely saw both sets of posts, they would have had to. But when they started seeing Trump on my timeline, they just assumed I was on "the other side" and away I went.

I'm sure they naturally assume I was a Bush supporter. The truth is I never supported Bush, I never voted for him, and in fact I spent most of the Bush era as a fervent 9/11 conspiracy theorist. I got real turned on to Alex Jones at that time, and I did believe we were seeing a mass power grab by the government (and we were), but even to the point of fearing martial law was a real possibility. Needless to say, I did not support the expansion of executive power under Bush.

At the time I heard Democrats saying, "You guys support the empowered president now, but one day there'll be a Democrat in charge and you won't like it." I agree. And lo it was soon true. When Obama came to power I was sure he would be a disappointment. I never supported him. I never voted for him. I suspected that Obama would actually curtail the excessive executive power he had inherited. I believe the standard narrative about him. That he was intelligent, thoughtful, peaceful, a Constitutional scholar. If anyone would re-balance the government it was him. I was sure he would at least not increase the excesses of his office.

So I was somewhat surprised, but not shocked, when the scope of the executive continued to explode under his watch. To the point he was making drone assassination strikes on an American citizen and unilaterally negotiating a nuclear treaty with a power labeled as a state sponsor of terrorism. And I found myself saying to Democrats: "You guys support the empowered president now, but one day there'll be a Republican in charge and you won't like it."

And here we are. Three business days in to Trump. Frankly I'm taken back at what he has already been able to do by presidential decree.

• Ordered the completion of the controversial pipeline Obama left hanging for him.
• Effectively crippled the individual mandate, the key aspect of the Affordable Care Act.
• Withdrew from TPP, the most significant foreign trade project during Obama's term.
• Froze federal hiring, suspended numerous programs, especially in the EPA.
• Is poised to end the Syrian refugee program.
• Will halt immigration from nation's with significant Islamic terrorism.
• Will begin construction of the border wall.
• Has begun motion to renegotiate NAFTA.
• Has rallied numerous jobs and investments to return to America.

These are huge shifts in national policy. Immigration, trade, healthcare, jobs. In three days he has done this. I honestly underestimated the power of the presidency. And so did a lot of people. Think of all the people who scoffed that he could never do the things he promised. But also look at how the establishment became totally unhinged at the prospect of a President Trump. They must have known the true power he was assuming. They allowed it during Bush. They allowed it during Obama. And now Trump has it.

At this point Trump is using that power to undo the mistakes of his predecessors. Eventually he will have to start dismantling the power, and we will have to pressure him to do so.

Nickelbarrack

Today President Elect Trump gave a television interview and President Obama gave his final press conference. I caught a few minutes of each, and by luck I caught them each talking about the other, after having spent some time together in the transition process. Trump gave an almost glowing review of the proceedings, calling the Obamas very gracious and helpful. Obama wasn't quite as generous, but clearly his tone has changed regarding Trump. He spoke of the challenges Trump would face, and that he might end up coming to the same conclusions when finally met with the true complexities of the problem. This was a Obama being empathetic towards Trump. This is a long way from his typical speech where he depicts Trump as a buffoon or an inhumane oppressor. After months of seriously heated political battles that got quite personal and ugly, you'd almost suspect they're getting sweet on each other.

At the gym yesterday I heard an old Nickelback song, the one that was their first hit. And I got to thinking about it, since I don't have good mental focus in the gym. Nickelback got much more popular than they ever should have. They were a decent band, and a legitimate one too, as they spent 10 years as a bar band in Alberta before breaking out. They were a band that everyone could listen to. They were rock, but with simple and catchy melodies that pops fans could enjoy. They also sang about partying like rock starts so hip-hop fans might enjoy it too. The band had general appeal. Many different radio station played Nickelback because it wasn't going to drive anyone away. They soon got very big even though they weren't that good.

Soon people were hearing Nickelback everywhere. In all the bars, on many radio stations, it was all over. People started getting tired of it. They asked, what's the big deal with Nickelback anyway? There's way better music in [my favorite genre]. Hating Nickelback started to become a fad. People were shitting all over them even though maybe they weren't that bad.

Perhaps we see a similar trend with Obama who, with no real track record of success or executive leadership, became the center of a national swell of support, largely due to his promises to break from the Bush legacy and his fortune to be the first black/mulatto Presidential candidate. He was massively overhyped, and strolled into office with a large mandate and big promises. He got very big even though he wasn't that good.

Many who would naturally oppose his politics witnessed his unearned accolades and became even more irate. I have commented at length here at how frustrating it is that Obama got passes from the left to do the very things he was popular for promising he wouldn't do. Like extend the Bush Doctrine. In fact, I find myself much more angry at the establishment response than I do to Obama himself. Sure, he shouldn't have been elected, but who's going to turn the job down? He seemed to mean well, he was just largely in over his head. Obama is an idealist and a wimp, and politics is a dirty and vicious business. Maybe he fought the good side on battles that we'll never even know about. The stakes are much higher for a president than a Canadian rock band. They might put out a couple crappy albums; he might cause a couple refugee crises. So we developed a hatred for him and shit all over him, even though maybe he wasn't that bad.