Fire Hydrant of Freedom

http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20170703-terror-attacks-in-u-s-receive-five-times-more-media-coverage-if-perpetrator-is-muslim-study

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/republicans-divided-trump-reverses-obama-cuba-policy-48099973

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/336555-pentagon-cant-square-trump-comments-on-qatar

Of course the counter argument is that continuing to play win-win when the others are playing zero sum is a failing strategy.

The PD game has a specific design, so altering strategy and etc. would be a different game. So, in the context of the game, this is not an effective counterargument.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-special-operations-20170525-story.html

"With special operations forces now posted in more than 80 countries, the ever-increasing set of missions and uptick in casualties give pause even to some military experts and veterans who support the expanding role.

“'You talk about mission creep — this is strategic mission creep all over the world,' said retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, a 37-year Army veteran. 'Special operations just isn’t sized to do that.'”

I am rather busy at the moment, but will try to respond with actual detail this weekend.

In the short term, I think you miss some threats, and overstate one. I would add India's relations with both China and Pakistan, and I think you overlook the domestic threat of the right in your focus on the left.

I agree with your concern about the size of the military budget, but it is not merely the Dems who are at fault (necessarily): http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/05/trump-administration-just-missed-its-best-shot-military-buildup/138254/?oref=d-river but see https://warontherocks.com/2017/05/is-trumps-350-ship-navy-on-the-rocks-the-politics-promise-and-perils-of-shipbuilding/

As this forum itself voluminously attests, I certainly agree with this article that America's geopolitical position is very bad. 

I agree with GM that the author seems to have slept through the Obama era.

Though he regularly trips over his shoelaces with regular unforced errors, in the big picture Trump is getting some very important things right.

A) We are badly overextended and our military badly underfunded.  We are no longer in the bi-polar world of the Cold War, or the uni-polar era of Clinton and Bush.  Putting aside articulating my seething anger at Obama I would say that we are now in a multi-polar world facing, in no particular order:

1) Russia;
2) the Russian-Iranian Axis from the Indian Ocean to the Baltic Sea;
3) Iran going nuke;
4) the Arab middle east circling the drain
5) Afpakia a clusterfuck that we can't leave and in which we can't stay
6) North Korea going nuke;
7) China--including its slow motion seizure of the waters of one third of the world's trade;
Europe imploding demographically, militarily, economically, and psychologically;
9) the Democrats-- who are determined to leave our military underfunded and to bring down Trump by any means necessary

This is more than we can handle.  We need to figure out how to shorten this list.

Any suggestions BD?

The mind boggles at how wide spread this partisan gibbersish posing as judicial interpretation of law is , , ,

I couldn't agree more with this statement.

http://carnegieeurope.eu/2017/05/23/new-transatlantic-security-bargain-pub-70050

"Europe should propose to the United States a new security project of transformative significance. This could come in the shape of a joint Marshall Plan–like effort to shore up the fledgling democracies of North Africa, for example. The idea is to generate a security benefit—such as fewer terrorists with the potential to harm the United States—at a scale that would firmly imprint on American minds that a joint effort with Europe makes America safer."

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nearly-invisible-weapons-of-mass-destruction-spark-new-arms-race-300419052.html

https://warontherocks.com/2017/05/abandon-the-2-percent-obsession-a-new-rating-for-pulling-your-weight-in-nato/

https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawyerly-integrity-trump-administration

https://www.si.com/more-sports/2017/05/03/climbing-mount-everest-jeff-glasbrenner

This is a tremendous story about the will to endure, and then thrive.

http://chargedaffairs.org/on-china-and-russia-strategy-for-the-new-administration/

"...the United States should work to improve relations between Russia and countries adverse to China such as Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam, at least on the economic front."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/revolt-of-the-attorneys-general/2017/03/02/13928c82-ff81-11e6-99b4-9e613afeb09f_story.html?utm_term=.7b276db0060a

"Normally one would expect Congress to be the instrument of resistance to presidential trespass. But Congress has been supine. The Democrats in particular, approving of Obama’s policy preferences, allowed him free rein over Congress’ constitutional prerogatives.

Into that vacuum stepped the states."

http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/viking-age-toy-boat-norway-04678.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/15/neil-gorsuch-could-be-the-most-conservative-justice-on-the-supreme-court/?utm_term=.a10c1b61711a

"*Albright is 20 years out of date...". Yet you cite Kissinger, or articles using Kissinger as a jumping off point, with some frequency. See, for example,  http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2134.msg100161#msg100161

"The group’s statement also calls into doubt any deference that might normally be given to executive branch decision-making. “The ‘considered judgment’ of the President in the prior cases where courts have deferred was based upon administrative records showing that the President’s decision rested on cleared views from expert agencies,” their statement reads. “Here, there is little evidence that the Order underwent a thorough interagency legal and policy processes designed to address current terrorist threats [and] we know of no interagency process underway before January 20, 2017 to change current vetting procedures.”

"To the best of my knowledge as a matter of law this is quite irrelevant.  To the best of my knowledge the relevant law does not require that the Commander in Chief submit his decision making process for the approval of the Judicial Power."

A few things on this. First, presidents do not submit policies to courts for prior approval. That would be an advisory opinion, and is nonjusticiable. But that is not at all what the 10 are saying. They say "the President’s decision rested on cleared views from expert agencies," which in the case of executive orders includes both OMB and OLC.

"To the best of my knowledge as a matter of law this is quite irrelevant." This surprises for several reasons. First, we had a discussion about this very topic last weekend, and I explained the legal procedure for the very specific tool, executive orders, at question with the travel ban. For example, as I discussed with you, "All executive orders and proclamations proposed to be issued by the President are reviewed by the Office of Legal Counsel for form and legality..." (https://www.justice.gov/olc), except the very specific executive order in question. Second, some of the most important SCOTUS cases in constitutional law regarding national security and presidential power involve the very specific tool, executive orders and the limits of presidents to issue them. See, for example, https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/323us214 (Korematsu) and https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/343us579 (Youngstown).

So, it is important not only to understand the US Code that you provide (thank you for that, by the way), but also the legal procedures of the very specific tool the president opted to use for the travel ban, and, in fact, "there is little evidence that the Order underwent a thorough interagency legal and policy processes designed to address current terrorist threats."

https://www.justsecurity.org/37332/bipartisan-group-senior-officials-ninth-circuit-immigration-order-harms-furthers-national-security/

“The ‘considered judgment’ of the President in the prior cases where courts have deferred was based upon administrative records showing that the President’s decision rested on cleared views from expert agencies,” their statement reads. “Here, there is little evidence that the Order underwent a thorough interagency legal and policy processes designed to address current terrorist threats [and] we know of no interagency process underway before January 20, 2017 to change current vetting procedures.”

https://warontherocks.com/2017/02/the-war-among-the-generals/

Yoo is selective about when he supports executive power, but not like the rest of us. He is, in fact, a --if not the--major proponent of the unitary theory of presidential power, so when he suggests that there are limits to presidential action, you need to understand how far he is willing to push those boundaries. Please see any number of his academic works on this point.

ad hominem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

If any one with a brain is to suppose that Yates was not being political and was in her mind trying to uphold some idealist principle will not convince most on the left.
If she refused to carry out executive orders she is weak on enforcement.

If her personal beliefs (political ) were not at the core of what she did then what was?  Soros giving her a check?

If this is all the NYslimes can come up with,  criticizing Trump not because he had every right to fire her but because he made a statement that she is weak on immigration then the socialist NY paper  is reduced to  desperately scraping from the bottom of the barrel anything they can to find a fault with Trump.

You don't know who John Yoo is, do you? He's a far cry from a liberal.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/gorsuch.pdf

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-d-gerber/clarence-thomas-should-be_1_b_14445166.html

https://warontherocks.com/2017/01/hard-men-in-a-hard-environment-indian-special-operators-along-the-border-with-china/

Interesting thread find from years ago.