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Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The elites' toadies, lackeys, shills, sycophants, water-carriers and apologists are desperately hyping the context-free, historically ignorant narrative that "populism leads to autocracy" to protect the existing autocracy of the elites.

There is only one narrative in the mainstream media about populism: it destroys democracy and leads straight to fascism. This is an ignorant and false narrative. Here's a typical example of the mainstream anguish that the elites' preferred narratives are falling apart because they've left the bottom 95% behind: How Democracies Fall Apart: Why Populism Is a Pathway to Autocracy

Granted, this is an international context for populism, but this is no excuse for overlooking America's history of progressive populism. Are the "experts" beating the drum that populism inevitably leads to autocracy so poorly educated about American history that they don't know that populism can be powerfully progressive, or are they being willfully blind to serve their elitist masters?

It's time we recover America's history of progressive populism. It's awfully easy for elites and their toadies (witting or unwitting) to dismiss the citizenry who reject elitst narratives as "deplorables," just as it is easy for them to dismiss populist resistance to their control as being "undemocratic."

This is of course the exact opposite of the truth: populism is the result when the institutions of "democracy"–i.e. the machinery of elite control–have failed to respond to the concerns and opinions of non-elites.

Having been rendered impotent and voiceless in the elite-dominated machinery, the bottom 95% have no alternative but to join a populist movement–a movement that in America often takes the form of a third party or an insurgency in an established political party (for example, Sanders and Trump).

Populism arises as a response to crushing inequality in both wealth and political power. The "free silver" movement arose in the late 1800s as a response of the non-elites to the enormous power and wealth of the Gilded Age financiers and industrialists.

The populist idea was to expand the money supply via minting more silver coins, with the goal being to make it easier for small enterprises and family farmers to borrow the new capital that would enter the economy.

Precisely how does this sort of populism lead to autocracy and fascism? The entire claim is laughably absurd. How can so-called "experts" spew this "populism leads to autocracy" nonsense?

Populism is a response to an elitist dominance in wealth and power that have failed the bottom 95%. Populism is a demand for solutions that work for the bottom 95% rather than just for the top 5%, and progressive populism of the sort that enabled Bernie Sanders to raise immense sums from small donors is alive and well–and would be "democratic" if it hadn't been squelched by the elites of the Democratic Party.

The "economic nationalism" of Trump's brand of populism is potentially progressive for the 95% who have not benefitted from neoliberal, financialized globalism. Bringing jobs and capital home is not fascism; rather, it is a movement of economic justice for the bottom 95% who did not benefit from globalism, offshoring and the free flow of financier capital, i.e. the neoliberal version of globalism that has been pushed for the past 24 years through the Clinton, Bush amd Obama presidencies.

To many people, borrowing money to rebuild America's infrastructure is a more progressive use of the national treasure than squandering trillions of dollars on overseas wars of choice and bailing out banks. Does the progressive populism of "come home, America" lead straight to autocracy? The idea that populism leads to autocracy has it completely backward (on purpose): what we have now is an autocracy of financial and political elites hell-bent on maintaining their death-grip on the nation's throat.

This defense of failed, exploitive elites–as if the elites' control has been "democratic" and has reduced inequality–is truly pathetic. Don't fall for the "populism leads to autocracy" propaganda of the elites who are threatened by progressive populism.

Populism is a response to an elitist dominance in wealth and power that have failed the bottom 95%. Progressive policies arise out of the bottom 95%'s resistance to the failed narratives of the elites and their toadies. The elites' toadies, lackeys, shills, sycophants, water-carriers and apologists are desperately hyping the context-free, historically ignorant narrative that "populism leads to autocracy" to protect the existing autocracy of the elites.

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Via The Daily Bell  

 

Trump Floats Ban on Defense Firms Hiring Military Procurement Officials … US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday said he was considering imposing a lifetime ban on US military procurement officials going to work for defense contractors, a move that could dramatically reshape the defense industry. -Reuters

President-elect Donald Trump has said Boeing & Co. prices are ridiculous and now he wants to ban government military officials from working with private contractors. But if Trump really wants to root out Pentagon corruption he should start with the nation’s nuclear weapons program which is over-hyped and patently false in at least some particulars.

Begin with the development of “atomic bombs” supervised by J. Robert Oppenheimer affiliated with the New York-based Fellowship of the New Life, here, a progressive society that advanced non-religious morality under the slogan “deed not creed.” Offshoots of this sort of progressive philosophy gave rise to the Fabian Society in England.

It is certainly possible that Oppenheimer could have considered his participation in a string of nuclear lies as a moral imperative. In any case, here are facts pertaining casting doubt on the ongoing nuclear narrative:

• The historical development of nuclear weapons was obviously high restricted. In fact, it was reported on by a single New York Times journalist, here, who later, it was revealed, was also on the Pentagon payroll.
• There are considerable questions about the radiation involved with nuclear weapons generally. Nuclear physicist Galen Winsor, here, was a skeptic who claimed nuclear power plants were “essentially just steam plants and nothing but the most expensive and effective way to boil water.” He used to eat “radioactive waste” on camera and said he did so often to prove the exaggerations surrounding uranium radioactivity. He died of Parkinson’s – reportedly at 82. Additionally, it should be pointed out that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are fully populated now, and have been since the initial bombings, though according to prevailing literature they shouldn’t be.
• Crawford Sams who ran the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Japan had this to say about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Transcript here.): “When the bomb went off, about 2 thousand people out of 250 thousand got killed [in Hiroshima] by blast, by thermal radiation, or by intense x-ray, gamma radiation … You see, it wasn’t “Bing” like the publicity here [said]: a bomb went off and a city disappeared. No such thing happened. That was the propaganda for deterrent … When I came back to this country, I was appalled, from a military standpoint, to find that our major planners in the War Department were using their own propaganda, 100 thousand deaths, Bing! … You don’t hear much about the effects of Nagasaki because actually it was pretty ineffective. That was a narrow corridor from the hospital … down to the port, and the effects were very limited as far as the fire spread and all that stuff. So you don’t hear much.
• There was only a single reporter, here, who reported definitively on radioactivity at Hiroshima by breaching the month long security ban affecting both cities after the blasts. He later reported on US “war crimes” from Korea and was shown to falsifying his reporting.
• The available videos of atomic blasts are enhanced (if not entirely falsified) as even the New York Times writes, here.
• At least one video on Youtube shows the Pentagon mimicking an atomic explosion with dynamite in a mid 1960s Hawaii detonation called Sailor Hat, here.

As have others who have examined the issue, we have realized that Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been firebombed before any “atomic bomb” was dropped on them, here and here.

Our conclusions were advanced by information that when atomic bombs were supposedly dropped on Japan, a squadron of 66 bombers was directed to Imabari. in the early morning of August 6 (666), though Imabari. had been bombed already, twice. This bombing squadron might well have fire-bombed Hiroshima instead. here.

As a result of our articles, we received two communications from a man who claimed to have been part of these unacknowledged fire-bombing sorties. An excerpt here from he first:

ALPHAMEG a month ago:

 

Well now!! i was a pilot of a B 29, on the raids of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. i am 96 years old. Yes we firebombed these cities as well as Tokyo. But there were A bombs dropped on the two cities in question…

We responded here and he responded in that article’s feedback section, see below. Apparently the firebombing of Hiroshima was launched from Tinian Island, also said to be the takeoff point for A-bomb attacks.

The Pentagon wants to spend one trillion updating its “nuclear deterrent.” Before the US “congress” approves the entire sum, Trump should approve an investigation of the Pentagon to find out the actual efficacy of nuclear weapons and how much they really cost to build and deploy.

Boeing is apparently attempt to charge the White House some $3 billion, here, for upgraded planes. After Trump complained, Boeing is apparently reconsidering. Chances are if an investigation was launched into the reality of nuclear weapons in the US, nuclear weapons contractors would suddenly reduce their expenses and subsequent charges.

Additionally, the Pentagon should surely be prevailed on to “test” a nuclear weapon publicly and without restrictions. Perhaps nuclear weapons perform exactly as advertised. But not once in the history of nuclear weapons has such a weapon been actually used in warfare though every other kind of hellacious weapon has been applied to the globe’s numerous wars. This makes little sense.

In other words, the same country that drops napalm on children and kills some 500,000 children in Iraq (see Madeline Albright here) has such moral qualms about nuclear weapons that they are not used – ever.

The wars that took place in the 20^th century were accompanied by pervasive and massive falsehoods. World War One was seemingly not an accident, as is related in history books. It only happened after Europe’s most prominent and influential anti-war leaders were targeted for assassination. Rasuputin here was stabbed but did not die. Archduke Ferdinand was shot, here, and his death was a justification to precipitate the war.

World War Two, was supposedly started by Hitler, but his funding, as is now reported in numerous places on the Internet, came from Western and Swiss banks including possibly central banks, here. After both wars, significant advances in global infrastructure were imposed.

Public narratives issued by government should be regarded with caution. Government by necessity must aggrandize both its power and the threats it faces. Its conduct, worldwide, is often in variance with reality.

The Pentagon has officially mislaid some $8 trillion in funds, here, stands accused most recently of hiding an additional $150 billion in “waste,” here. Yet for some reason we are supposed to take the Pentagon at its word when it provides “budgets” for weapons and resources it must have.

Thanks to the Internet, most people harbor more skepticism when it comes to official pronouncement. And the mainstream media is held in lower regard than ever. Given the prevalence of the unbelievable “fake news” meme it is a wonder that so many people still believe in the entire government narrative regarding nuclear weapons.

These weapons are almost never directly examined by the public and their tests,  when conducted, are hidden away from public eyes. Even their workings are shrouded in mystery. And it remains a capital offense to discuss these weapons intimately – or their impact.

Conclusion: Trump is right to criticize the military-industrial complex and to demand changes. He should pay special attention to nuclear weapons and sort through Pentagon claims over the years to determine which are true and which are exaggerated to inflate budgets and military industrial profits.

Editor’s Note: The Daily Bell is a libertarian publication and its articles have often stated that people ought to look out for their own interests first as best they can because politics are unpredictable and usually don’t change much – or just make things worse. Additionally, as a libertarian publication, DB has published articles in the past explaining that RT and Putin himself are part of the larger questionable dialectic being presented by East and West. In no way can DB be considered a proponent of Russian propaganda. 

Editor’s Note: The Daily Bell is giving away a silver coin and a silver “white paper” to subscribers. If you enjoy DB’s articles and want to stay up-to-date for free, please subscribe here. 

More from The Daily Bell: 

Will Rand Paul Fight Fake News With a Filibuster?

Congress Set to Fund ‘McCarthyesque’ Investigation of Alternative Media 

 PropOrNot All-Star Organizers: Koch, Soros, CIA, MI6, Ukraine, All Together Now

 

 

 

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Either the WaPo has pulled off another “fake news” stunt, or Obama may be this close from declaring “cyber war” on Putin.

Moments ago, the Jeff Bezos newspaper, whose main mission over the past month has been to pin Clinton’s presidential failure first on Russia and then on Vladimir Putin, reported that FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. have backed a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the presidency, “according to U.S. officials.”

If accurate, this would represent a U-turn to the FBI’s official position, and would suggest that all three agencies are in agreement on Russian intentions, “contrary to suggestions by some lawmakers that the FBI disagreed with the CIA.” Actually, not just some lawmakers: as Reuters reported earlier this week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), America’s top Spy Agency, sided with the FBI which is why today’s report is surprising.

Still, things may have changed. “Earlier this week, I met separately with (Director) FBI James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election,” CIA Director John Brennan said in a message to the agency’s workforce, according to U.S. officials who have seen the message.

“The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI,” Brennan’s message read. Trump has consistently dismissed the intelligence community’s findings about Russian hacking.

In addition to “helping Trump win”, the CIA and FBI officials believe Moscow’s other goal included undermining confidence in the U.S. electoral system.

If indeed the three agencies are in agreement, it is unclear what the next step may be. In his message to the CIA’s workforce, Brennan said the administration has provided detailed briefings to lawmakers and their aides since the summer.

“In recent days, I have had several conversations with members of Congress, providing an update on the status of the review as well as the considerations that need to be taken into account as we proceed,” Brennan wrote. “Many – but unfortunately not all – members understand and appreciate the importance and the gravity of the issue, and they are very supportive of the process that is underway.”

Perhaps Obama, who is speaking now, will provide some much needed information on what the US’ next steps are.

via http://ift.tt/2hDgyyD Tyler Durden

Submitted by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

Stimulus, in a general sense, is something that causes an action or response.  A ringing alarm clock may prompt someone to exit their slumber.  Or a fist to the gut may force someone to gasp for breath.

Stimulus can come in many forms and varieties.  It can come in the form of a stick; do this and you won’t get whacked over the head.  So, too, it can come in the form of a carrot; do that and you’ll get a reward.

Other forms of stimulus can produce a short, burst like, reaction.  The caffeine in a cup of coffee, for instance, will temporarily reduce drowsiness.  Yet once the caffeine wears off, more coffee is needed to sustain the effect.

Former professional baseball player, and all around dirt bag, Jose Canseco knows a thing or two about stimulus.  Not from what someone has taught him.  But from what he learned through real world experience.  He literally wrote the book on it.

His 2006 memoir, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big, tells the story of how he and other athletes experimented with performance enhancing drugs to stimulate their baseball careers.  If you recall, baseball players in the later 1990s – their necks and baseball statistics puffed up like balloons.  They became caricatures in appearance and performance.

DOW 40,000!

Apparently, Canseco’s experimental research makes him an expert on all things related to stimulus.  Even monetary stimulus.  In fact, Canseco’s lobbying President-elect Donald Trump to make him Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

As of market close on Thursday, the DOW was a horse’s hair away from 20,000.  Make of it what you will.  Every historical metric and inkling we know of informs us that this market is extremely overvalued.

But according to Canseco, if he were Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the DOW would hit 40,000 in four years.  On Monday Canseco directed the following tweet at Trump:

“Hey brother @realDonaldTrump give me control of the Fed and we will make the economy great again.  Dow at 40k in 4 Years. #Yeswecanseco.”

Quite frankly, only an idiot would think DOW 40,000 in four years would somehow make the economy great again.  Monetary stimulus has already puffed up the market to something that has no obvious connection with the economy.  Moreover, the economy ain’t great.  Wall Street’s gone up.  Main Street’s flat lined.

Of course, the only way to achieve a DOW 40,000 target in four years is through massive amounts of monetary stimulus.  Given the radical monetary policy, and subsequent market distortions and economic flailing that has taken place over the last eight years to reach DOW 20,000, there’s no reason to believe DOW 40,000 would make the economy great again.

Has the Fed Turned “Hawkish?”

Canseco, however, isn’t alone in his fantastical thinking and enthusiasm.  Countless intelligent individuals, that have made careers out of economics, have had their minds softened over by theories not too different from Canseco’s.  Namely, that a perpetually higher stock market is good for the economy.

This philosophy is best illustrated by a popular idea of economists called the “wealth effect.”  In a nut shell, the wealth effect is the idea that people spend more as the value of their assets rises.  When investment portfolios increase in value, consumers feel more financially secure and they buy stuff…like cheaply made light up reindeer antlers from China.  The increase in spending, in turn, stimulates the economy.

Yet the experience over the last 8 years tells a different story.  The DOW has gone up 160 percent.  GDP has gone up just 30 percent.

This week we learned the Fed will finally begin to make gradual increases to the federal funds rate.  On Wednesday, Fed Chair Janet Yellen announced the Fed will raise the federal funds rate a quarter percent to somewhere between 0.5 to 0.75 percent.  Following the announcement we came across numerous statements from economists whom are of the opinion that the Fed has somehow turned “hawkish.”

What planet are these fellows from?  If the Fed’s now hawkish, then a canary’s a big fat juicy turkey.

To be clear, despite the slight increase, and the possibility for gradual increases in 2017, a federal funds rate of 0.75 percent is still highly accommodative.  Similarly, the Fed is still a dove.

So in the world we’re entering, where Donald Trump will be pushing hard for new fiscal stimulus, the Federal Reserve will continue to press the monetary stimulus pedal to the metal.  Nonetheless, Jose Canseco’s DOW 40,000 and the Fed’s wealth effect will not come to pass.

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China stealing underwater drones, Russia hacking elections (allegedly), losing Aleppo, business optimism soaring now that he is leaving? President Obama has a lot of ‘splaining to do, but most eyes and ears will be on edge for his apparent “retaliation” against Vladimir Putin for ruining the party (and what many have foreseen, he decides the orderly handover of power to president-elect Trump cannot go forward as planned). Legacy?

President Obama is due to speak at 1415ET…

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On Wednesday, Greek yields surged when it emerged that diplomatic relations between Greece and the Eurogroup had broken down once again, after European finance ministers suspended negotiations over granting short-term debt relief to Greece as a result of pledges by embattled Greek PM Tsipras unexpectedly said he would grant low-income pensioners a pre-Christmas payoff by spending €600 million to the nation’s 1 million low-income pensioners, to replace a Christmas bonus scrapped by the Greek bailout supervisors.

Assuming that the threat of not granting Greece some theoretical debt concession (which would reduce Greek debt by 20% some time in 2060) would be sufficient, the bureaucrats gave the Greek government a few hours to come to their senses and to eliminate the promise to pensioners.

That did not happen and instead on Thursday, Greek lawmakers backed the decision to allocate €617 million – a surplus from savings – in a bonus to pensioners as Greece snubbed its international lenders and legislated plans to give pensioners a one-off Christmas bonus despite the clear warning from creditors in what has become the latest standoff over the country’s third bailout. 

“(Greek) people have to see that sacrifices of now six, seven years are at last starting to pay off,” said Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos in a visit to Brussels.

But jaded by those sacrifices and almost a dozen pension cuts which has pushed almost half of the country’s elderly into poverty, about 5,000 pensioners marched peacefully through the streets of Athens on Thursday night. “We came here to send a message. No more!,” protesting pensioner Efstratios Bozos told Reuters.

“Our pensions have become restaurant tips.” Well, yes, and your economy remains in a depression. But at least you have your Euro, and following the summer of 2015 when Greece was this close to obtaining its independence from the clutches of Brussels, yet choked in the last minute, the international community no longer cares about the Greek plight any more.

Here’s the even worse news: as long as Greece remains part of the Eurozone, it will only keep getting worse. By now we would think that the Greeks would have gotten it; they haven’t, which is why the pain must go on.

Still, there was some good news.

As Reuters reports, the move by Tsipras “infuriated” officials in Germany and several other member states, but French President Francois Hollande and his finance minister came to Tsipras’s defense on Thursday in a sign of European divisions over how to handle Greece.Arriving at an EU summit in Brussels,

Hollande said it was wrong to prevent Greece from taking “sovereign decisions” and suggested that euro zone ministers had not granted Athens sufficient debt relief. Other socialists chimed in: Finance minister Michel Sapin, speaking in Paris, expressed understanding for Tsipras’s decision to spend 617 million euros on pensioners because Greece had exceeded its 2016 primary surplus target.

How generous of the French president with the lowest approval rating in history: allowing Europe’s vassal state of Greece make its own “sovereign decisions.”

On the other hand, one can see why Europe’s unelected bureaucrats would be angry with Greece, which is now their property:  Greece unveiled the pensioner payout and a separate decision to keep lower value-added tax on some islands without consulting euro zone governments, which now own most of Greece’s public debt, although the bailout agreement says it must. The consultation would have given lenders time to assess the fiscal and economic consequences of the two Greek decisions for the bailout reform program and targets. Germany has asked the institutions to check if the Greek decisions are in line with bailout obligations.

In short, the slave dared to think on its own, and now it must be punished.

The differences came amid a deep rift between Athens, its European partners and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the reforms needed to get the Greek economy, in recession since 2009, back on track. The IMF sees the euro zone’s economic targets for Greece as overly ambitious and the assumptions about reform implementation too optimistic. The IMF is also at odds with Germany and some other northern European countries over granting Greece more significant debt relief. Berlin wants to retain leverage over Athens and is reluctant to grant it favors that could anger conservative allies of Chancellor Angela Merkel before a federal election in the autumn.

The IMF, which participated in the first two bailouts for Greece, has so far refused to inject funds this time amid the standoff over economic assumptions and debt relief. Of course, as was made all too clear last summer, Germany will never agree to such a concession, which is why the third Greek bailout may sadly be its last.

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Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

In this world, it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, said Henry Kissinger in 1968, but to be a friend is fatal.

The South Vietnamese would come to appreciate the insight.

So it is today with Aleppo, where savage reprisals against U.S.-backed rebels are taking place in that hellhole of human rights.

Yet, again, the wrong lessons are being drawn from the disaster.

According to The Washington Post, the bloodbath is a result of a U.S. failure to intervene more decisively in Syria’s civil war:

“Aleppo represents a meltdown of the West’s moral and political will — and … a collapse of U.S. leadership.

 

“By refusing to intervene against the Assad regime’s atrocities, or even to enforce the ‘red line’ he declared on the use of chemical weapons, President Obama created a vacuum that was filled by Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.”

But the blunder was not in staying out of Syria’s civil war, but in going in. Aleppo is a bloodbath born of interventionism.

On Aug. 18, 2011, President Obama said, “For the sake of the Syrian people the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” Western leaders echoed the Obama — “Assad must go!”

Assad, however, declined to go, and crushed an Arab Spring uprising of the kind that had ousted Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. When the U.S. began to fund and train rebels to overthrow him, Assad rallied his troops and began bringing in allies — Hezbollah, Iran and Russia.

It was with their indispensable assistance that he recaptured Aleppo in the decisive battle of the war. And now America has lost credibility all over the Arab and Muslim world.

How did this debacle come about?

First, in calling for the overthrow of Bashar Assad, who had not attacked or threatened us, we acted not in our national interests, but out of democratist ideology. Assad is a dictator. Dictators are bad. So Assad must go.

Yet we had no idea who would replace him.

It soon became clear that Assad’s most formidable enemies, and probable successors, would be the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, or ISIS, then carrying out grisly executions in their base camp in Raqqa.

U.S. policy became to back the “good” rebels in Aleppo, bomb the “bad” rebels in Raqqa and demand that Assad depart. An absurd policy.

Nor had the American people been consulted.

After a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they saw no U.S. vital interests at risk in who ruled Damascus, so long as it was not the terrorists of ISIS or al-Qaida.

Then came Obama’s “red line” warning: The U.S. would take military action if chemical weapons were used in Syria’s civil war.

What undercut this ultimatum was that Congress had never authorized the president to take military action against Syria, and the American people wanted to stay out of Syria’s civil war.

When Assad allegedly used chemical weapons and Obama threatened air strikes, the nation rose as one to demand that Congress keep us out of the war. Secretary of State John Kerry was reduced to assuring us that any U.S. strike would be “unbelievably small.”

By 2015, as Assad army’s seemed to be breaking, Vladimir Putin boldly stepped in with air power, alongside Hezbollah and Iran. Why? Because all have vital interests in preserving the Assad regime.

Bashar Assad is Russia’s ally and provides Putin with his sole naval base in the Med. Assad’s regime is the source of Hezbollah’s resupply and weapons to deter, and, if necessary, fight Israel.

To Iran, Assad is an ally against Saudi Arabia and the Sunni awakening and a crucial link in the Shiite Crescent that extends from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus to Beirut.

All have greater stakes in this civil war than do we, and have been willing to invest more time, blood and treasure. Thus they have, so far, prevailed.

The lessons for Trump from the Aleppo disaster?

Do not even consider getting into a new Middle East war — unless Congress votes to authorize it, the American people are united behind it, vital U.S. interests are clearly imperiled, and we know how the war ends and when we can come home.

 

For wars have a habit of destroying presidencies.

Korea broke Truman. Vietnam broke Lyndon Johnson. Iraq broke the Republican Congress in 2006 and gave us Obama in 2008.

And the Iran war now being talked up in the think tanks and on the op-ed pages would be the end of the Trump presidency.

Before starting such a war, Donald Trump might call in Bob Gates and ask him what he meant at West Point in February 2011 when he told the cadets:

“Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”

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