The Great Debate

Too painful to watch the whole thing...I gave up trying when Trump was explaining how Sean Hannity could vouch for him about his opposition the Iraq war, or something.  What a dumpster fire! Certainly Trump deserves blame for not offering much substance, but what's Hillary's excuse?   She HAS been at this for 30 years, and that pap was all she could come up with?  

Here's a few interesting takes on the debate, worth reading and which, somewhat, match my impressions.  Who knows how the public will judge it in the end.  Obviously content will not factor into it.   I'm not crazy, you are  and trump reality TV

NJ Terrorist Caught!

Has anything good ever come out of the Elmore section of Elizabeth?   Here's the article:  new-york-explosion/a-family-business-that-aggravated-neighbors/

You can't make up the name of his family business:  

9/11 After Fifteen Years: We are Safer

Don't forget:  a tribute:  Lest we forget

It is worth remembering that, as bad as the 9/11 attack was, it was an anomalous event no terrorist group today could hope to duplicate.  Al Qaeda still exists but as a shadow of what it was.  ISIS, which has picked up its fallen baton, only inspires to deadly but inconsequential attacks against soft targets.

The authors of the 9/11 report are simply wrong when they say terrorism has gotten worse.  See their column in USA Today:  911-commission-kean-hamilton-column/89978558/  Most terrorist events worldwide take place in a handful of war-torn countries.  Terrorism as a threat has not significantly increased in Western countries.  But the serious threat remains:  the French just captured three women who are pledged to ISIS and connected with the Paris attackers.

The "terrorist mastermind" is largely a mythological being.  As John Mueller details in "Chasing Ghosts," terrorists that have hit targets in the US are mainly disturbed and incompetent individuals.  Cold comfort, perhaps, but at least it suggests the damage they do will be limited.  Only in the broadest sense can recent attacks be attributed to international Islamic jihad.  And the FBI has never uncovered a "sleeper cell" in the US.

Even if in some sense we are beating the terrorists, we still must keep working the problem so we can never have a true terrorist conspiracy commit evil against Americans.

Are Drugs Behind "the Summer of Terror"?

The more I look at the terrorism problem, the more convinced I am that we are misdefining the problem.   We are focused on Islamic terrorism, but other examples of mass killing are just as bad. Look at this case in Japanese nursing home recently. Is there a common link?

Peter Hitchens believes a consistent thread in many of the recent cases has been drug use by the perpetrators.  He puts together an impressive list of the types of the drugs, legal and illegal, that many of the attackers have had a history of taking.  The Orlando killer was a steroid user.  The San Bernardino killers were on Xanax and Adderral.  Mental illness medication has been tied to the murderers of the priest in Normandy and to the mall shooter in Munich.  See one-common-link-DRUGS

He asks:  shouldn't we be looking at this issue of drug abuse more closely?  Yes we should.  That doesn't mean that militant Islam isn't a motivation for many, but its significance in this global phenomenon might be overstated.

Trump's Speech--A Political Sea Change

Here's my quick take on Trump's GOP nomination speech last night:

• No soaring rhetoric; just the usual declarative hammer blows.  Trump knows his voice and stuck with it.  Spoke for 75 minutes but wasn't boring.  Tone was, combative, defiant--"this means war!"
• He will be the attack dog in this campaign.  His VP running mate will be there to provide quiet sanity.
• He buried the cultural wars as a campaign theme.  This election is about security and economics.  
• He also buried the idea of small government, which has been on life support for 15 years or more.   Lots of big government programs that could have come from Bernie Sanders's playbook--day care (Ivanka's theme), student loan relief, etc.  Will the feds under Trump be more involved in community police work??
• Also a strong plug for school choice, which Bush advocated and then quickly abandoned. 
• Many Republicans must have been choking when he slammed big business "special interests."   Definitely the "Middle-American Radicalism" was coming through.   In fact, Trump was aiming way beyond Republicans all night.  
• Probably the most comprehensive case for immigration controls I've ever heard from a major candidate.  And he wants to stop immigration from countries that have terrorist issues.  (And don't think we haven't done that before.)
• He has totally reversed himself on Iran.  During the debates he vowed to "enforce the deal."  Now this is the worst deal in history and Iran is on track to get the Bomb. (It is not.)
• He blamed Hillary for everything that has gone wrong in the Middle East over the past five years.  Unfair!   But will it stick?  She does have to answer for our reckless Libya policy. 
• We are going to defeat ISIS quickly.  How?  Stay tuned.  

In the end, Trump got it done:  demonstrated he could make a strong speech that delivered his message clearly and powerfully.  But was it "presidential?"  Not what we are used to seeing. His sheer energy and star power will make him very tough for Hillary to beat him.

Do We Need All These Military Bases?

Here's my book review of "Base Nation" in TAC.  Good book topic; poor execution.  Question for you:  How long do we stay in Turkey now?   Close all the military bases?"

Why We Need an Armed Populace

The story of how the murderous James Gang got their comeuppance by the people of a small Minnesota town.  We don't have to be sheep at the hands of killers.  Fighting against the James Gang