Gun Free Zone

Tucker Carlson has spent the last two nights giving his opinion that Iran is the victim and the US is the belligerent party and both Democrats and Republicans want to send Americans off to die so they can get campaign contributions from the military-industrial complex.*  He has had other guests who have reiterated that same talking point.

*By the way, I liken this to the blood libel.  As someone who works in the MIC – which hires a lot of veterans – we don’t think of our military as disposable cannon fodder just so we can get a supply contract to the DOD.  Absolutely no one at Sikorsky or Boeing cheers when a Blackhawk or Chinook gets shot down saying “that’s another sale for us.”  To even imply that is disgusting.

The Republican “challenger” to Trump, Joe Walsh, told Lindsey Graham about Iran, “Unless you want to put on a uniform and go fight, shut up Lindsey.”

In fact, I’ve seen a lot of people who are not typical Leftists going nuts over this.

Let me say, that I absolutely do not want to put American boots on the ground in Iran.  I do not want to give the Iranians the Jihadist pleasure of trying to kill Americans.

But I am also reminded of a poem by one of the greatest authors in the English Language, Rudyard Kipling.

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: —
“We invaded you last night–we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: —
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: —

“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!”

Obama paid Iran the Dane geld, $1.7 Billion in cash to be specific.

Guess what, we didn’t get rid of the Dane, or the Iranians to be specific.

Trump is having to reverse the course of Obama leading us into oppression and shame.

Why are there so many who claim to be Conservatives who want to pay the Dane geld to Iran?

With Tucker, after all of his castigation of Washington for not addressing the huge number of American casualties from overdoses from the illicit drug trade, why is he so content to ignore Iran’s support of Hezbollah’s trafficking drugs into the US?

I cannot accept ignoring or appeasing evil that attacks us and has consistently been a thorn in our side since 1979, as the moral position.

Do not put one of these up in your facility at work:

ISO auditors do not have a sense of humor.

If you don’t get it, here is an explanation.

“Jews own everything.”

“Jews are taking over.”

“Jews are kicking us out.”

“They are making all more expensive.” (Greedy Jews!)

Jews are rich.

“They (Jews) control all the jobs, economic growth and community”

“They (Jews) are trying to change our country.”

You read these comments and you swear they came out some Klan meeting in the Old Deep South. A bunch of White people with funky accents chugging on moonshine and spewing hate around a burning cross.

Sadly, it is not.

That deep level of hate will not be eliminated anytime soon, specially when there are political groups interested in continuing with the “Trump is the reason for the Hate” movement.

This much hate has consequences. It would be a particularly disgusting mark in the history of New York City if they were to have their own Kristallnacht. I pray it does not, but I won’t be surprised if it happens.

Another day has passed since the Trump administration decided to encourage Iran to send their Number Two home in box in coach.

The Democrats have not lightened up, in fact, Democratic Primary Candidates have walked back their condemnations of Soleimani and doubled down on their condemnation of Trump.

So, I am going to double down on why turning Soleimani in chum was a damn good idea.

Here is a little bit of Obama legacy that needs to get talked about right now, but won’t.

Obama ‘blocked’ Hezbollah drugs trafficking investigation to secure Iran nuclear deal

That is an interesting headline.  Hezbollah is a Lebanese terrorist group turned quasi-political entity formed in 1985 to fight Israel.

Why should Hezbollah have anything to do with the Iran deal?  Lebanon is 900 miles from Iran.

It’s because Hezbollah is backed almost entirely by Iran, serving as Iran’s anti-Israel proxies in the region.

So what drug trafficking are we talking about?

The former US president’s team was said to have put “roadblocks” in place to slow the investigation amid fears it would undermine negotiations with the regime.

The allegations are linked to Project Cassandra, a campaign launched in 2008 by the Drug Enforcement Administration against Hezbollah.

It was said to have detailed how the Iranian-backed terror group morphed from a political and military organisation into an “international crime syndicate”.

In particular agents were said to be investigating an alleged $1 billion-a-year funding stream from drugs, weapons trafficking, money laundering and other crimes.

Interviews with dozens of people linked to the case revealed concerns that the allegations were not pursued as robustly as deserved for political reasons, according to Politico.

David Asher, who helped establish Project Cassandra, is quoted as saying: “This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision.

“They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

How bad could that be?

HEZBOLLAH SMUGGLED TONS OF COCAINE INTO THE U.S. DURING OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, REPORT REVEALS

The Islamist militant group Hezbollah exploded into a major cocaine trafficker for the United States over the past decade—and it happened under former President Barack Obama’s watch to help score a nuclear deal with Iran, a report revealed Monday.

Project Cassandra, a campaign launched by the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2008, found that the Iran-backed military and political organization collected $1 billion a year from money laundering, criminal activities, and drug and weapons trade, according to Politico. Over the following eight years, the agency found that Hezbollah was involved in cocaine shipments from Latin America to West Africa, as well as through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States.

The Obama administration halted Project Cassandra as it was approaching the upper echelons of Hezbollah’s conspiracy in order to seal a nuclear deal with Iran, even though Hezbollah was still funneling cocaine into America.

Let me see if I get this right.

The sitting United States President allowed an Iranian backed Lebanese terrorist group to sell cocaine in the United States, by way of Mexico – presumably with the help of the cartels – to raise money to attack Israel, so that Iran would sign a deal that only delayed their development of a nuclear weapon until Obama was out of office long enough not to get the blame for a nuclear Iran.

That’s pretty fucking awful.  For all those who said what Trump did in Ukraine was treason, what do you call this fuckery by Obama?

So why am I bringing up Hezbollah?

Well, Iran has provided advanced weapons to Hezbollah.  They have used longer-range missiles against Israel that can get around the Iron Dome batteries and have given the EFPs I wrote about yesterday to terrorist forces in Syria to kill US and allied troops there.

This is an article published on October 19, 2019.

What the U.S. Can Learn From Iranian Warfare
The Iranian approach to proxy warfare offers a surprising lesson.

Seriously, that is The Atlantic for you.

In July 2006 in south Beirut, Qassem Soleimani was facing death. In a rare interview published earlier this month, the shadowy commander of Iran’s Qods Force, the elite paramilitary arm of the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, revealed for the first time that he was in Lebanon during the 33-day war between Israel and Hezbollah to direct Iran’s support to its decades-long Shia proxy-turned-ally in Lebanon. Soleimani recounted a harrowing (aren’t they all) escape from swarming Israeli drones, targeting him and Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. As the Israeli campaign intensified, Soleimani shuttled between Lebanon and Iran to relay battlefield updates to Tehran and rally support to the group. Asked if anyone in Tehran questioned Iran’s commitment to Hezbollah at the risk of a direct war with Israel, particularly if the commander of the vaunted Qods Force was killed, Soleimani said “No one hesitated,” starting with the supreme leader.

Those motherfuckers are lionizing Soleimani 14 months before his death for being a brave, hands-on general in support of terrorists fighting a war against Israel.

Seriously, this is a fucking sentence The Atlantic published.

As backers of butcherous regimes, perpetrators of wars, and oppressors of its own people, about 99 percent of what the Iranian Qods Force does, the United States should never emulate. But the Iranian approach to proxy warfare and how they cultivate binding partnerships with local actors offers lessons the United States can learn from.

So we know, from a very Leftist source, that Soleimani had a very tight relationship with Hezbollah.

From the middle of last year:

Hezbollah Isn’t Just in Beirut. It’s in New York, Too.
The trial of a senior operative reveals the extent of the terrorist organization’s reach in the United States and Canada.

In recent years, Hezbollah has stepped up its activities beyond Lebanon’s borders. This uptick has been clearest in the Middle East—in Iraq, Yemen, and especially Syria—but plots have also been thwarted in South America, Asia, Europe, and now, possibly, the United States.

Reports of Hezbollah activity in North America are not new, though such reporting tends to focus on the group’s fundraising, money laundering, procurement, or other logistical activities from Vancouver to Miami. But last month, the criminal prosecution and conviction in New York of the Hezbollah operative Ali Kourani revealed disturbing new information about the extent of Hezbollah’s operations and activities in the United States and Canada.

Taken together, the arrests in 2017 of Kourani and another Hezbollah operative, Samer el-Debek, led the U.S. intelligence community to revisit its longstanding assessment that Hezbollah would be unlikely to attack the U.S. homeland unless the group perceived Washington to be taking action threatening its existence or that of its patron—Iran. Following Kourani and Debek’s arrests, the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center said in October 2017, “It’s our assessment that Hezbollah is determined to give itself a potential homeland option as a critical component of its terrorism playbook.”

So the potential exists to have Hezbollah attack in the USA.

We know that Hezbollah has used EFP and other advanced Iranian weapons in the Middle East.

We know that Hezbollah has been smuggling drugs and contraband into the US.

If they can get drugs into the US they can get EFPs and surface-to-air missiles into the US.

Now consider what would happen if Hezbollah camped outside a US airport and shot down a 747 at takeoff or landing.  It would shut down all commercial aviation in the US.

What would happen if they mined a highway in a major US city?  They could grind ground transportation in our metropolitan areas to a halt.

They have weapons that defeated some of the best equipment our military had.  Police bomb squads are not likely to be up to the task of handling that threat.

This is from the Daily Mail:

‘We are at a state of war’: NYC mayor’s Iran warning as Homeland Security braces for attacks on U.S. soil – and sleeper terror cells could already be here

The story being told in the media is that if terrorism happens, it’s our fault for antagonizing Hezbollah.

This is an ass-backward way of looking at it.  Not attacking Iran because they have placed sleeper cells in the US is allowing Iran to hold the US hostage.

Killing Soleimani accomplished ending an Iranian general who has been very hands-on in support of training, arming, and planning missions for Hezbollah.

Trump took a critical step in severing the line of support between Iran and potential Hezbollah US sleeper cells.

Sleeper cells that came into the US carrying drugs that the Obama administration let in to appease Iran.

Considering all of this, it seems even more clear that the killing of Soleimani was a step to prevent terrorism directly against the US.

Not just the one Saint Greta want us to believe in.

Two dozen people in the Australian state of New South Wales have been charged with starting brushfires in the past two months, the New South Wales Police said in a statement Monday. In addition, the state said had taken legal action against 183 people for brushfire-related charges.
The police announcement comes as Australia deals with devastating wildfires that have killed 24 people, killed hundreds of thousands of animals and have burnt millions of acres of forest.
According to the New South Wales police, 24 people have been arrested for deliberately starting brushfires since Nov. 8 — a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison should the suspect be proven to be “reckless about its spread.”

24 people have been arrested for intentionally setting brushfires in New South Wales since November

24 dead. There is a reason why in some states of our fair country,Arson is considered a crime big enough to use Deadly Force against the criminal firebugs.

I understand the very stupid concept of Slash and Burn farming done in South America, but burning forests for the hell of it is just plain dangerous evildoing. But these arsonists at least did a favor to the alarmists Global Warming groups and help them with their revenue income.

But Mr. Buttigieg’s stint in the Navy isn’t as impressive as he makes it out to be. His 2019 memoir is called “Shortest Way Home,” an apt description of his military service. He entered the military through a little-used shortcut: direct commission in the reserves. The usual route to an officer’s commission includes four years at Annapolis or another military academy or months of intense training at Officer Candidate School. ROTC programs send prospective officers to far-flung summer training programs and require military drills during the academic year. Mr. Buttigieg skipped all that—no obstacle courses, no weapons training, no evaluation of his ability or willingness to lead. Paperwork, a health exam and a background check were all it took to make him a naval officer.

Buttigieg’s War and ‘The Shortest Way Home’

I am on a limb here and with all probability somebody will correct me, but the Direct Commission path was a way the military has to get a civilian with special skills that a branch may not have to work within the military establishment and get the respect they deserve. I remember reading that in WWII, the famous United States Naval Construction Battalions known as the Navy Seabees used direct commission with a lot of success and brought into the Navy years of experience and knowledge on construction, demolition and problem solving overnight.

At the same time, we can see how such a great program has been abused to curry favors with the politicians and the powerful looking for DC street creds. It is sad that was built to defend the country and watered with the blood of many ends up being used as merit badge for political nominations.

But these are politicians we are talking about.

Hat Tip Paul K

The gun-control group responsible for a 2018 march on Washington, D.C., raised the vast majority of its funds from undisclosed donations over six figures, a recently released tax document shows.

The March For Our Lives Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization launched in the aftermath of the deadly 2018 shootings at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is bankrolled almost entirely by large donations in excess of $100,000. The group reported $17,879,150 in contributions and grants over the course of 2018, its first year of operations. Ninety-five percent of those contributions came from 36 donations between $100,000 and $3,504,717—a grand total of $16,922,331.

March For Our Lives Raised Nearly All Funding from Secret Six-Figure Donations

We suspected this to be the case. No way in hell that High Schoolers had the money and the knowledge to practically overnight have luxury buses leased to go protest in Tallahassee plus giving free lodging and meals to those attending right after the shooting. The “Grassroot Rallies in DC and other cities organized out of thin air? Yeah right! And somebody had to be paying for David Hogg’s trips to NYC with bodyguards and all plus the Get The Vote-type Bus Tours all over the country?

$956,819 was the amount they collected with donation of five figures or less. That means they never did have a real support for the people (other than the posts in Social media which cost nothing). Not even a million bucks would have covered one rally, less all the orchestration across the country and that is including the hundreds of millions in free advertising given by the Media.

Here is the tax document in case you want to read it and make sense of it.

And at least we know that the initial price tags for the Red Flag laws in Florida and other states was almost $18 million with other miscellaneous local expenses added.

So nice to have such a deep wallet available. Lord know I could use some donations myself. I’ll settle for low 5 figures!

Hat Tip Roger C.