Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Media Bias, Politics, Progressivism, Regulation, Statism, The Constitution | Tags: Federal Bureaucrats, Or Designers of Policy?, Public Servants?
It is becoming increasingly clear that the “Deep State” has some significant problems. Career Civil Servants seem to frequently forget the “servant” part. Kimberly Strassel of the Opinion Page in the Wall Street Journal takes it on:
The “deep state”—if we are to use the term—is better defined as consisting of career civil servants, who have growing power in the administrative state but work in the shadows. As government grows, so do the challenges of supervising a bureaucracy swelling in both size and power. Emboldened by employment rules that make it all but impossible to fire career employees, this internal civil “resistance” has proved willing to take ever more outrageous actions against the president and his policies, using the tools of both traditional and social media.
So are they a problem? Do they understand that they work for us, not for what they think would be good? Highly paid, a “swelling bureaucracy.” Interesting essay, do read the whole thing. Are they our public servants or do they have more elaborate self images?
Filed under: Foreign Policy, National Security, Politics, The United States | Tags: Middle East, President Donald Trump, The Kurds
The Outcry about President Donald Trump abandoning the Kurds in Syria has been loud and accusatory. How dare he? He’s removing U.S. special forces from the Syrian border with Turkey, thereby enabling a Turkish invasion by the Syrian dictator Erdogan. He’s double crossing the Syrian Kurds who have fought with Americans for five years against ISIS. It seems to be almost unanimous.
Fortunately there is Caroline Glick, American born Israeli journalist, writing from Israel:
There are several problems with this narrative. The first is that it assumes that until this week, the US had power and influence in Syria when in fact, by design, the US went to great lengths to limit its ability to influence events in Syria.
The war in Syria broke out in 2011 as a popular insurrection by Syrian Sunnis against the Iranian-sponsored regime of President Bashar al Assad. The Obama administration responded by declaring US support for Assad’s overthrow. But the declaration was empty. The administration sat on its thumbs as the regime’s atrocities mounted. They supported a feckless Turkish effort to raise a resistance army dominated by jihadist elements aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Obama infamously issued his “redline” regarding the use of chemical weapons against civilians by Assad, which he repudiated the moment it was crossed.
As ISIS forces gathered in Iraq and Syria, Obama shrugged them off as a “jayvee squad.” When the jayvees in ISIS took over a third of Iraqi and Syrian territory, Obama did nothing.
As Lee Smith recalled in January in the New York Post, Obama only decided to do something about ISIS in late 2014 after the group beheaded a number of American journalists and posted their decapitations on social media.
Do read the whole thing. I have always found Caroline Glick to be an outstanding journalist, and given the local temper, an account of action in Syria fairly unavailable elsewhere. Too much partisanship out there, too little careful investigation. Whether you agree with her or not, you will understand the situation a lot better.
ADDENDUM: Here’s another view of the Kurds and Syria from National Review’s Andy McCarthy: “Turkey and the Kurds: It’s More Complicated Than You Think”
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Junk Science, Media Bias, Science/Technology | Tags: Greta Thunberg, No Nobel, Swedish Climate Activist
The highly acclaimed child climate leader, Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old leader of the youth climate movement about skipping school to protest can return home to Sweden, with the success of addressing the Congress and the United Nations. Her sponsors have suggested that she was denied the Nobel Peace Prize (which is awarded by Norwegians) because Norway is one of the world’s largest oil and gas exporters. Improbable.
The earth has been warming and cooling for millions of years. The current warming is nothing out of the ordinary. There have been far warmer years in the past and far cooler years as well. Please note the long list of climate panics in my previous post. There is no planet emergency, it’s all hype, intended as an attack on capitalism, as the Secretary of the IPCC has admitted.
The Nobel Peace Prize went to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for his substantial efforts in brokering peace between his country and neighboring Eritrea. For decades Ethiopia and Eritrea were one country, Eritrea seceded in 1991. Families separated, unable to reunite, violent conflict at the borders cost more than 80,000 lives in the span of just two years. That would seem to be more of an accomplishment than getting kids to skip school to march for saving the Earth from a non-existent climate threat.
American Elephants 