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Our title for today’s post, War is Politics, but With Honor tweaks a phrase by Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian general, in his 1832 book On War. Here’s how he wrote in the book. “We see, therefore, that war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse carried on with other means.” Here’s the variant translation that is most commonly used; “War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.”
So the long version of our title could be; “war is merely the continuation of politics, but conducted by honorable means.” An example of war making’s honorable means might be The Geneva Conventions. And conversely, it is obvious there is no Geneva Convention in our presently poisoned politics.
Of course, what we want to explore today is the dishonorable conduct of America’s political left. Salon provides the first example of the left’s deplorable dishonorable acts reporting the Senate vote confirming Rex Tillerson’s appointment as Secretary of State.
… The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, on a largely party-line vote of 56-43. Three Democrats — Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Mark Warner of Virginia — and independent Angus King of Maine joined Republicans in backing the choice. …
… The Senate confirmed President Barack Obama’s choice of John Kerry 94-3 and Hillary Clinton 94-2. President George W. Bush’s nominee Condoleezza Rice easily won confirmation 85-13. Colin Powell was confirmed for the job by voice vote.
From Townhall we get the back story for another outrage; this time by the media.
They say that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has the chance to put its shoes on. In this case, a lie went viral, was one of the top stories on Reddit, and was used to slander a president before the truth came out.
The backstory: Mike Hager, a U.S. citizen, said that his mother was stuck in Iraq due to President Trump’s executive order restricting immigration and visa holders from certain countries. Hager claimed his mother, Naimma, who was very sick, was not allowed to travel to the U.S. on Friday despite having a green card. She then passed away in Iraq the next day. …
… As it turns out, the real reason why Hager’s mother wasn’t permitted to fly to the United States on Friday was because she had been dead for five days.
Hager’s Imam confirmed on Wednesday that the original story was not accurate and that Naimma had passed away on January 22. Fox 2 was able to confirm the date of death as well. …
From the Hill, Asra Nomani writes on the dishonorable events at UC Berkeley.
On Wednesday night, an Afghan-American software engineer and self-described “global geek girl” videotaped her friend Kiara Robles as a local TV reporter interviewed Robles about the raucous protests at University of California Berkeley that canceled a speech by controversial Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos. Robles wore the trademark red hat of the Trump presidential campaign, only with the message, “Make BitCoin Great Again,” her straight, long blond hair sweeping out from under the cap.
Suddenly, a masked attacker in a leather jacket lunged at Robles and doused her face in stinging pepper spray. “My friend was giving an interview when some coward peppersprayed her,” Robles’s friend wrote on Twitter, posting the video. She was maced, too. (She said the attacker was a woman.) …
… protesters slammed Robles and her friends against a barricade. Unable to breathe or see from the pepper spray, rioters surrounded her, some of her friends getting stomped on. “I thought I was going to die,” Robles, who is gay, told me. …
… In fact, while the Trump administration must of, course, lead from a place of compassion and moderation, intolerant tolerance-loving people are threatening the very safety of Americans, fomented by irresponsible Democratic Party leaders who refuse to accept the election results of 2016, (and) fear-mongering “social justice warriors” who behave as if they are on the set of the “Hunger Games,” …
From Twitchy we learn the pepper spray trick was used at NYU too.
It wasn’t quite a repeat of the UC Berkeley riots Wednesday night, but so-called anti-fascist protesters clashed with police outside New YorkUniversity, where Gavin McInnes was invited to speak by the NYU College Republicans. McInnes confirmed other reports that he was pepper-sprayed at the event.
Thanks for asking if I’m OK guys. I was sprayed with pepper spray but being called a Nazi burned way more.
— Gavin McInnes (@Gavin_McInnes) February 3, 2017
There were reports of punches thrown by both protesters and supporters as well, but police were out in force.
A calmer look comes from Matthew Continetti.
“What happened to the honeymoon?” Charles Krauthammer asked last month. The opposition has long granted presidents time to form their administrations, to announce their signature initiatives. Donald Trump’s honeymoon lasted all of 10 days—from his surprise November 8 election to the rude treatment of his vice president at a performance of Hamilton on November 18. After that, divorce.
The same forces that opposed Trump during the Republican primary and general election are trying to break his presidency before it is a month old. At issue is the philosophy of nation-state populism that drove his insurgent campaign. It is so at variance with the ideologies of conservatism and liberalism predominant in the capital that Washington is experiencing something like an allergic reaction. Nation-state populism diverges from Beltway conservatism on trade, immigration, entitlements, and infrastructure, and from liberalism on sovereignty, nationalism, identity politics, and political correctness. Its combative style and heightened rhetoric offend the sensibilities of career-minded Washingtonians of both parties, who are schooled in deference, diplomacy, being nice to teacher, and the ancient arts of CYA.
The message this establishment is sending to Trump? Conform or be destroyed. …
… So unlikely did the election of Donald Trump seem to Washington and its denizens that the reality of it still has not sunk in. All of the city’s worst traits—the self-regard, the group think, the obsessions with trivia, the worship of credentials, the virtue signaling, the imperiousness, the ignorance of perspectives and people from outside major metropolitan centers and college towns—not only persist. They have been magnified with Trump’s arrival. There is so much negative energy coursing through the city that circuits are overloaded. That the president still draws support from the coalition that brought him to office, that a fair number of people see his policies as commonsensical, seems not to affect any of Trump’s critics in the least. They will press on until Trump behaves like they want him to behave.
Which means the war between the president and the Washington establishment may last a very, very long time.
The women marching after the inaugural had some strange bedmaidens.
On “The First 100 Days” tonight, women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali reacted to a recently resurfaced tweet written by an organizer for last month’s Women’s March, which disparaged Ali and another activist.
Linda Sarsour, of the Arab American Association of New York, tweeted in 2011 that Ali and Brigitte Gabriel should be assaulted and that she wished she could remove their private parts because they “don’t deserve to be women.”
Ali, a victim of genital mutilation while living in Somalia, blasted Sarsour as a “fake feminist” who is not interested in universal human rights.
“She is a defender of Sharia law,” Ali said, “No principle degrades and dehumanizes women more than Sharia law.”
Ali said Sarsour hates her and Gabriel because they speak out against Sharia.
She suggested that instead of protesting in Washington, Sarsour should have organized a march for Yazidi women kidnapped by ISIS, “mass rape” incidents in Europe, or Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman sentenced to death for “blasphemy.”
Piers Morgan, no friend of the GOP, has some interesting views of Trump in The Daily Mail, UK.
… The popular global narrative just ten days into Donald Trump’s tenure as President of the United States of America is that he is a monster. But a new poll has revealed that 49% of Americans support Trump’s travel ban, as opposed to 41% who are against it
For example, there’s one video that’s gone viral of a large rally in Brighton, on the UK’s south coast, where thousands of people simply chant ‘Donald Trump, you’re a c**t!’ at the top of their voices.
This just about sums up the ridiculous Trump-bashing hysteria that has enveloped the world since his inauguration.
People are literally losing their minds over the mere thought of him sitting in the Oval Office.
A mental faculty failure that is driven, I fear, by sore loser syndrome. …
… A Reuters poll last night revealed that 49% of Americans support Trump’s travel ban, as opposed to 41% who are against it.
And in the UK, a YouGov poll today revealed 49% of Britons are in favour of President Trump’s state visit going ahead, compared to just 36% who are against it.
So despite all the howling, marches, social media onslaughts and foul-mouthed chants, more people in America and Britain appear to be behind Trump than against him.
And as we saw with the US election and Brexit, these polls are probably understating that support.
Perhaps the reason for this is that the further away you get from the hysterical liberal elite conclaves of places like New York, Los Angeles and London, the more calmer common sense prevails.
Those people see a travel ban portrayed as a ‘racist Muslim ban’, then work out for themselves that 85% of the world’s Muslims aren’t actually banned, and shrug their shoulders.
They know President Obama had a shockingly poor record on admitting Syrian refugees, and let many of them die by not engaging with Assad when he crossed the fabled ‘red line’, so can’t get too worked up about Trump not letting any in.
They remember Bill Clinton had ‘sexual relations’ with interns inside the Oval Office, so can’t get too wildly outraged by Trump saying women throw themselves at celebrities either.
Just as they know Bill’s wife Hillary voted for war with anything that moved, so they rather like Trump not instantly nuking Russia but instead making friendly overtures to Putin.
And so on.
In short, they don’t over-react. …
Don Surber posts on Orrin Hatch becoming a Trumpster. How come? Because the Dems dishonorable deplorables disgust him.
… Hatch heads the finance committee which needed to vote on Steve Mnuchin before the Senate can vote to confirm him as Secretary of Treasury, and on Tom Price as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Cheered on by a complacently liberal media, Democrats boycotted the meeting, in an effort to avoid confirmation. Committee rules require at least one Democrat be present before a vote occurs.
Hatch had his committee waive the rule.
“This is all approved by the Parliamentarian,” Hatch said. “I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been.”
He could have sent the Senate’s sergeant at arms to force Democrats to attend the hearing. He did not.
Hatch chuckled when confronted by questions from reporters about the little notice that the public received about Wednesday’s meeting. “You were scrambling? Well, you know, that’s neither here nor there,” he said.
The chairman also said that he had not yet spoken with the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden, Wednesday morning. “I don’t feel a bit sorry for them,” Hatch said.
This is a refreshing new attitude, long overdue. …