The Acid Test

President Trump and President Xi of China are now engaged in a hot trade war ... after, apparently, a cordial start at Mar-a-Largo soon after Trump was inaugurated and Xi was elevated to president for life. The back and forth escalation of tariffs and broken commitments is complicated ... so, if you need a reprise, please visit: US-China Tariff Timeline.

As seen in the above, China’s obvious strategy in defeating the United States in this trade war is to trump Trump in the 2020 election  ... hoping for a more pliant Democrat to replace him ... Biden, for instance, who it has already greased with a $1.5 billion “investment” in his son, Hunter’s “hedge fund.” Most people suspected this slow-walk strategy when the mutual trade talks leading to a tentative pact was abrogated by China this past May. This complicated deal had been arduously hammered out over the many previous months. And this slap was followed by a Chinese agricultural purchasing agreement that was also shortly reneged on.

Needless to say, this trade war is now getting hotter and the back-and-forth quicker. Trump has even just labeled Xi his “enemy” which seems appropriate ... given the duplicity China has engaged in since May. So, a thinking person has to conclude that no good will possibly come of this tariff pissing contest until after November, 2020. And this then is the acid test.

The American voter quite likely will be given a choice in the next general election ... overcome any distaste for Trump’s reality-TV personality and vote for him ... or vote for the Democrat and signal capitulation to China ... in this extremely consequential trade war ... so consequential that it might well mean the beginning of the end of American hegemony in the world. I realize that this all sounds melodramatic ... but this contrast and it’s consequence is bound to be drawn more sharply in the months ahead.

So, kind reader, study up.

Afterward: Me thinks that China is banking on a substantial portion of the American public voting to have us step back from center stage and let someone else take over ... after all we voted twice for the man who clearly had this as an objective ... and the world cheered ... they even gave him the Nobel Peace Prize ... his name of course: Barack Hussein Obama.

Deep State

The louder the Deep State has called for impeachment, the more obvious has become their duplicity. — Anon.

A Soap Opera

I know it is silly of me to write a blog calling out Hillary Clinton.  She, in the majority of Americans’s minds, can do no wrong.  (This is an enigma that continually has me baffled.)  But this woman’s performance surrounding the Benghazi affair has me tied in knots.  I don’t even think I have to recite her duplicity surrounding this matter.  I think that most Americans drawing in oxygen and expelling CO2, if they are willing to give it a few moments thought, know the game she is playing.  Yet they (you) are too wont to excuse her her transgressions whatever they may be.  The thing that causes my paroxysms is why the American public is so gullible?

She was more than willing to let Susan Wright take one fall for her … by sending her out in her stead on the talk show circuit that Sunday after the Benghazi attack.  And she has also concocted multiple excuses for her not testifying to Congress on this matter … including her busy schedule … her exhaustion dealing with these Middle East matters  … the need for her travel to Australia (to attend a wine tasting) … and her latest “concussion” excuse.  I have to believe that all her shenanigans in this matter are due to a transgression on her part so large that it might eliminate her from Presidential contention in 2016 … otherwise why would she be throwing up so much gorilla dust?

I can also conclude that another reason she is dragging things out until she is no longer Secretary of State is for obscure but vital legal reasons.  And, when she finally does appear before the House and the Senate to tell her side of things (probably well after the public has tired of this matter), her concussion will then be called on to performed double duty … in that many of the details of this matter will have been erased from her memory.  (She did play much this same trump card in the Whitewater hearings almost twenty years ago.)  This is a soap opera playing out in front of a very gullible American public … and many of those of you who are, in fact, smart enough to see through her charades will, nevertheless, admire her for her cunning … and still stand by her.

But not this commentator ... like a soap opera, I have experienced this script too many times before.

Tums for the Tummy

Democracy … that was the byword when the United States (read Hillary and Barack) backed the notion of the “Arab Spring” … which so far has brought them nothing but headaches – the four murders in Benghazi, the storming of the U.S.’s Cairo embassy, the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, the al Qaeda resurgence in Mali, and now Egypt’s President, Mohammed Morsi, assuming the role of a dictator (see: CBS News Story). Yes, there were “democratic” elections in Egypt after Hosni Mubarak was tossed out  … which the Muslim Brotherhood won. But, since then, there has been a steady deterioration of Egypt’s democratic governance and cooperation with the United States … to the point were our President can’t even call Egypt an ally.

Yes, there has been something of a détente recently when Egypt interceded in the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza. But any clear-thinking person knows that this will be a short-lived truce. Even Obama’s former Special Envoy to the Mid East, George Mitchell, has said that the U.S. should not be rewarding bad behavior on the part of the extremists.  However, rewarding them we are (by negotiating with and thus recognizing Hamas).  But Hillary Clinton has seized on this moment, I believe, to try to change the subject away from her problems in Libya. And it will take months, if not years, before we know the full extent of what she has promised them in exchange for what I’m sure will be more Morsi duplicity. Hillary clearly does not believe that old adage that “when you lie down with dogs, you end up with fleas” … but rumor has it that Bubba Clinton has just ordered a gross of “Frontline” ampules.

Now the Egyptians are again demonstrating for the freedoms that they thought they were getting when Morsi was elected … but, alas, it is not to be … probably not for many years to come ... if ever. It appears that the one of the world’s oldest civilizations, the Egyptians, have traded a headache for an upset stomach. As part of the deal, could Hillary have promised them a shipload of Tums?

Afterward:  I got the following list of powers that Morsi granted himself from an AP story:

"— All laws and decisions by the president are final, cannot be appealed, overturned or halted by the courts or other bodies. This applies to decisions he has made since taking office in June and any he makes until a new constitution is approved and a new parliament is elected, expected in the spring at the earliest.


— No judicial body can dissolve the upper house of parliament or the assembly writing the new constitution. Both are dominated by the Brotherhood and other Islamists and several cases demanding their disbanding were before the courts, which previously dissolved the lower house of parliament.

— The president can take any steps or measures necessary to prevent threats to "the revolution, the life of the nation or national unity and security" or to the functioning of state institutions.

— A new judiciary body of "protection of the revolution" is created to reopen investigations, prosecutions and trials of former regime officials, including ousted President Hosni Mubarak, for the killing of protesters during last year's uprising. Other police officers accused of killings, however, will not be retried.

— The controversial prosecutor general, a Mubarak appointee seen by many as lax in pursuing former regime figures, was removed from his post."

Does anyone hear the sound of crickets coming from our White House?