Palestinians are upset that apparently no one from the Trump administration is returning their phone calls - various PA officials declaim about how Trump is endangering the peace process because only through dialogue etc etc - fill in the blanks with the usual blather. Problem is, these complaints come day after PA officials go nuts because the new UN Secretary General had the nerve to state an unassailable fact regarding a centuries long Jewish connection to the Temple Mount - the Palestinians are talking about peace out one side of the mouths while out the other side denying an undeniable fact the denial of which makes peace an utter and complete impossibility. It’s absurd - and yet they carry on with this absurdity as if fully expecting to be taken seriously because so many useful idiots in the West do take them seriously. It’s time for Israel to move on - if the Palestinians refuse to listen to reason and continue to see more ‘upside’ in playing these ridiculous political games than negotiating in good faith, then what choice does Israel really have but to figure out a way to unilaterally move on?

Apropos of what the incompetently rolled out EO on refugees might say about a Bannon inspired disaster taking root in the Oval Office, this article in Foreign Policy. Now, I read FP regularly, but always with a pinch of salt since it clearly has a left wing slant to it - still, if the picture this article paints is more or less true and cannot be explained away by the ‘growing pains’ of a new administration - then there’s no way I see Mattis putting up with this shit. Possibly a power struggle is coming and Mattis will win it - but I find myself feeling… not optimistic about things. Can’t really draw firm conclusions until more details emerge - and they will emerge - if the situation is as fucked up as this article leads one to believe, leaks will come regardless of how many witch hunts Bannon unleashes.

I’m curious, re what is ‘allowed’ speech in Europe when it comes to Islam - is it hate speech or a subset of any other frowned upon speech in Europe for a follower of Shia Islam to criticise a follower of Sunni Islam? Polls in the Mideast clearly show that there’s strong belief among Sunnis that Shia are not true Muslims - and vice versa. Not true Muslims - that for each the other represents a counterfeit religion - pretty strong language if one is obsessed about offending Muslims - so if in Germany let's say a Sunni follower casts a Shia follower’s faith as being illegitimate, is that hate speech? And since regardless of Shia or Sunni delineations all Muslims must believe that Christ was not the son of God and that therefore the entire Christian religion is bogus, built upon what to a Muslim is an abominable falsehood - if a Muslim talks about Christianity that way, in those terms, as indeed he must if he’s a true Muslim, is that hate speech? Curious.

Allowed speech is a very different thing than free speech - it leads to putting ‘ideas’ into categories that supposedly ‘define’ legitimacy but are really untenable and arbitrary once separated from the adjudicating bias that invented the categories in the first place. Allowed speech is not at all the same as free speech - indeed, is a threat to the very essence of free speech - but the left is fine with that since it’s their agenda being served. For the left, it’s much more ‘legitimate’ for a Muslim to criticise Christianity than for a Christian to criticise Islam because for the left the enemy is ‘white privilege’ or some other incarnation of the evils of the West. Again, false categories once you step away from the bias that made them up.

If the Trump administration, led by a Bannon coup, does go feral, one of the first people outside of the administration who will know of a worrisome dysfunction will be Paul Ryan - and that’s because of his friendship with Priebus. Therefore, how Ryan responds to the various caprices of Trump may prove a leading indicator about what’s going on in the Oval Office. Same goes with Mattis - his hire gave me hope because he seems to me a man not inclined to tolerate bull shit - therefore him taking the job said to me he must have formed some level of trust in how Trump would govern. If that trust falls away due to a malaise created by Bannon acquiring too much power and influence, I don’t expect Mattis to take kindly to that development - therefore he’s another one to watch for leading indicators about what’s going on in that Oval Office. As said before, because of his august reputation Mattis wields much power - if he starts showing signs of being very unhappy that could damage the legitimacy of the Trump presidency in a major way. I assume Bannon and Mattis both understand this - therefore I expect the situation to degrade rapidly should the dynamic clearly become one that favors Bannon over Mattis. Same goes with Tillerson I expect.

About that executive order mess - ahhh - well, it’s a mess. Putting the actual merits of the policy aside for a moment, like others I see three disturbing elements here: the incompetence, that the incompetence has surrendered any hope of a rational ‘Islamist ideology threat’ narrative to the rhetorical predations of the left which is in active irrational denial of such a threat even existing - and that this whole thing is evidence of the Bannon wing of the Trump administration being in control of the Oval Office. All of that is just flat out bad - for Trump sceptics who were regardless willing to give the guy a chance because what the hell choice did you have this mess is a manifestation of their fears: political inexperience and the iffy contours of Trump’s personality leading to bad decisions - and Bannon morphing into the Trump whisperer - him being granted a permanent seat on the NSC would seem to cement that unnerving reality.

As for the policy itself - to me it’s beside the point and if it had been rolled out with anything resembling competence would have had little meaningful impact - it looks like red meat for the anti-Muslim crowd or maybe more accurately grandstanding for the anti-Muslim crowd - and it certainly doesn’t serve the cause of a rationalist approach to the Islamist threat which I see as the only hope [understand, when I say ‘anti-Muslim’ I mean a populist push back against the progressive elite’s agenda - it takes the form in Europe and the US of an ‘anti-Muslim’ appeal because the thinking of the liberal elite seems governed by a pronounced anti-Western animus that drives their agenda and worldview - which brings their agenda and worldview in line with Islamist ideology - so I don’t see the ‘anti-Muslim’ appeal of the populist movements as being racist - I see it rather as the clash of civilizations manifesting itself at street level in the lives of average citizens who quite rightly view the progressive elite as the enemy - quite rightly because the leftist cultural elite has clearly been waging war against the Western/Christian ethos of the white working class for at least a generation now - that it has gotten to the point that merely expressing an opinion, no matter how reasonably argued, that seems opposed to the progressive agenda can cost a person their job or worse is proof of just how advanced this war is - that the left is fine with forcing the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for abortions but wants to throw you in jail if you dare question the ‘settled’ science of climate change or assert gay marriage strictly as a matter of logic to be nonsensical or use actual historical facts and verbatim quotes from the Koran and Sunna to criticise Islam pretty much defines an unbridgeable cultural divide - and it’s the extremist ideological chauvinism of the left that makes it unbridgeable]

Trump is president because the left has moved very far to the left and that move seems to be built upon a foundational desire to impugn, demonise and demean working class, middle class, often christian values associated predominantly with ‘middle America’ and therefore often, with some accuracy, simply referred to as the ‘white working class’. This contempt the coastal liberal elite seems to feel for middle America has incited a counter reaction - Trump was well suited for a variety of reasons to become the ‘spokesperson’ for this discontent - although I think Christie would have done a good job of harnessing this discontent too had not ‘bridgegate’ ruined his political brand. In short, an ideology built almost entirely around identity politics fueled by a contempt for middle class values created, predictably I guess, a counter reactive identity group formed within that reviled working class - essentially, Newton’s third law applied to politics and culture. Key to this disgruntled new identity group’s thinking [and it’s testament to just how far left the left has moved that being a ‘typical American’ is now to have an ‘identity’ under threat] - but key to their discontent is a hatred of ‘political correctness’ which they view - rightly - as the weapon the left wields, through its media and institutional outlets, to beat down dissent, delegitimize debate and impose progressive orthodoxy on all - the political ‘establishment’, cowed by fear of this weapon, were seen as being complicit. Not hard then to see why Trump appealed to these people and why they were not interested at all in someone like Bush.

[as said, Islam becomes a focus for this populist backlash not because of racism but because of culture - cultural agitation and racism are often seen as the same thing but that is true for the most part only in a superficial way - that race enters into cultural differences is generally just an accident of history and geography - the cultural divide between Iowan farmers and the Hollywood elite for instance has nothing to do with race and everything to do with two cultures that do not fit well together - just like Islamist culture and the West - but that the left insists on labelling the latter cultural divide ‘racist’ to the point where if Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant reformation and a man who once called the Pope the devil, were to reappear today in his country of birth and criticize Islam the way he criticized Catholicism he’d be tossed in jail for a hate crime speaks volumes re what's motivating the populist backlash - it’s quite remarkable that in countries whose histories were in many ways defined by religious dissent it is now, in order to appease one specific religion, considered a crime to express religious dissent, which oddly enough aligns the liberal elite with the thinking of the Catholic Church of 500 years ago - I mean, such thinking essentially renders the Anglican Church the product of a hate crime - one can see why anger re the appeasing of Islamist ideology becomes a sort of proxy for pushing back against the anti-Western animus that drives the progressive agenda]

But to get back to the executive order - knowing why Trump won tells us nothing at all about how he’ll do in the job - the troublesome executive order may be the first clear indication that he will not do well. Much will depend on how the administration adjusts to this significant misstep - if the ‘loser’ in this adjustment ain’t Bannon then count me as worried.

Trump and Mexico - China must be paying very close attention to this dustup as they try to figure out how they're gonna deal with Trump and one imagines how they hope to manipulate him. Diplomats fuss over language because a careless phrase here or there can easily escalate into the ‘hardening’ of certain positions that can then lead to who knows what. So one can legitimately argue Trump insisting on Mexico paying for the wall put Nieto in a very tough position - obviously couldn’t agree without doing himself harm but also I guess neither could he simply say nothing and let it pass. So blame Trump for that. On the other hand, Mexico seemed to be acting in a way that was oblivious to the reality that the ascension of Trump has changed everything - for Nieto to be going around mouthing left wing talking points about immigration and border security to a guy who built his brand on getting tough about those very things was not a great idea - especially when we all know Mexico’s love of open borders has absolutely nothing to do with lofty ideals and everything to do with cynical self interest.

So I’d say that Nieto is the first instance of a world leader being wounded by a failure to recognise that with the ascension of Trump the rules have changed - which is why China must be paying very close attention to this.

Interesting interview with ex Mossad chief who was front and center in failed Camp David II negotiations. Said they by and large had a deal with Arafat but he wouldn't relent on control of the Temple Mount and Jewish right to prayer. Several interesting things about that - Barack was willing to go further in appeasing Palestinians on the Temple Mount than I think any Prime Minster, left or right, would be willing to do today - which means if what happens with the Temple Mount is the sticking point re peace negotiations then there is never going to be an agreement that Israel can accept - depending of course on what Arafat’s true objections were re the Temple Mount. Did Arafat use control of the Temple Mount as a pretext to scuttle an agreement he never had any intention of agreeing to? Were his objections a reflection of Palestinians seeing control of the Temple Mount as a source of great power for them within the Muslim world? Or was it all about doctrinaire religious intolerance? Politicised religions are obsessed with purity - Islam is a highly politicised religion, which is what makes it such a problematic religion - thus the thought of Jews or ‘the people of the book’ in general having not only access to the Temple Mount but religious rights therein is utter anathema for Muslims. If Palestinian intransigence is about the first two considerations, then it’s possible if you put enough pressure on them you can get a deal - unlikely I think but possible - but if it’s all about the last point? There will never be a peace deal that israel can accept. Never - and Israel should just unilaterally move on.

So are we already heading down the rabbit hole with the Trump presidency re the supposed voter fraud silliness? His insistence on harping on this issue has backed him into a corner - namely, a fraud this big needs to be investigated so why aren’t you investigating it? And now he is - and from what I can see there’s absolutely no evidence of widespread voter fraud. So he looks like a paranoid narcissist who can easily be manipulated into doing foolish things and is not heeding advice from people who know better. None of that’s good.

As I’ve said, there’s a lot riding on this presidency because if it fails the very worst elements of the left will be invigorated and empowered - and that will be a disaster for the country. We’re a very long way from fail - but saner heads need to get control of the situation in that Oval Office otherwise fail is likely where we’re headed. I mean, there’s no way Priebus thinks fixating on some extremely tentative voter fraud issue is a good idea - so that means Trump isn't listening to his Chief of Staff - so who the fuck is he listening to?

[but then there’s this point of view which ain’t exactly out of bounds crazy - and that’s the thing about Trump - is he a loose cannon? Is there a plan here? Is he being clever or just used to throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks? Who the fuck knows]

Of course, with Israel announcing the building of 2,500 new homes in East Jerusalem a mere two days after Bibi talking to Trump, and 3,000 homes altogether since the inauguration, you don’t necessarily need an embassy move to play hardball with Fatah - saying nothing, which Trump so far has done, as Israel ignores the UN resolution and carries on with settlement building, looks a helluva lot like hardball.

We’ll see. As said before, Israel at this point has two options the way I see it - force the Palestinians to come to the negotiating table in good faith - or create facts on the ground that give Israel the borders that suits its needs regardless of what the Palestinians do - I thought the embassy move would be good leverage to get you to the former - but settlement expansion that the US does not condemn covers you on both counts.

[still, if you’re not going to say anything as settlements expand, eventually you get to the point where you’re admitting the two state solution is dead - when that time comes - quickly one imagines -  you lay it at Abbas’ feet - it’s still within his power to negotiate a fair deal for Palestinians, but the window of opportunity is closing. If it comes to that, though, you’re giving all the leverage to Israel - why would they care about fairness? Because the ultimate leverage is American support - Palestinians can’t afford to have America as an enemy, Israel can’t afford to alienate it as a friend - the key to getting a deal done is convincing the Palestinians that the former is much more likely to happen than the latter under this president]

The debate over sanctuary cities is no doubt soon to escalate - but just a word - sanctuary cities are good for conservatives, no? Yes, withdraw federal funding where and how you can from cities turning themselves into ‘sanctuaries’ for illegals - the coming soon ‘infrastructure build’ will certainly offer a lot of leverage in that regard - but aside from that, as a conservative don’t you sort of want to encourage liberal cities to become sanctuaries? If California is any indication, what comes along with illegals is higher social services costs, higher debt, higher taxes, more crime, more unemployment, more depression on wages, more cultural alienation of the middle class - in short, a lot of bad stuff - the liberal elite in their walled off communities may love the lofty ‘idea’ of sanctuary cities, but the reality on the ground is very different - in other words, sanctuary cities turn into a rather robust indictment of liberal thinking, liberal policy and the shallow, self serving virtue signalling of the liberal elite. If you’re a conservative, that’s a win, no?

Well, that was quick - I thought we might be seeing the start of a walk back re moving the embassy and now looks like that’s the case. Of course, this could mean any number of things, but most likely is it’s a walk back. Too bad if that’s true - think it’s a bad move for various reasons. One thing for sure - if someone like Trump is unwilling to get tough with the Palestinians, then no one who will ever sit in the Oval Office will be - which means, I think, Israel will have to take the matter into their own hands with unilateral action - I’d guess that’s where this is going.

[the problem emerges quickly - on the same day you indicate a walk back of something that just a few weeks ago you were asserting as if it were a sure thing, you talk about denying China’s usurpation of the South China Sea - ie the message being sent, at least in foreign policy terms, is that this administration - so far - is all about rhetorical brashness utterly lacking in substance - the message I’m getting is that no one in the Trump inner circle has really put any serious thought into any of this - to them they're still in campaign mode - it’s all about appearances - thus the fixation on inauguration crowd size and Trump going on today about how when you discount 5 million illegal votes - a statistic no one can prove - he actually won the popular vote - it’s all very worrying - to me it adds up to a rough start - although many presidents have had rough starts so how things look a month from now is still hard to predict]

‘Noise’ re the embassy move has risen quickly since inauguration - Trump has already talked to Bibi, who has already booked a trip to Washington in February - the mayor of Jerusalem has said he’s been in talks with Trump officials about the move - so the intent to make the move looks serious - or, with all parties saying it will involve a ‘long’ process, this could simply be the beginning of what will turn out to be a slow walk that leads nowhere. Certainly, you could never make the move without thoroughly thinking through all the factors - how to do it, how to sell it, how to manage the various consequences - so it taking time is not surprising. And, since it will involve negotiating details with Israel, you have to figure out whether to bring or offer to bring the Palestinians in on the negotiations - hard to continue to express support of the two state solution and not invite them - but if your true goal is an undivided Jerusalem as the Israeli capital why would you invite them - unless you believe Abbas would or could never accept the invitation regardless of terms and that suits your agenda.

To me it simply comes to whether or not you view the Palestinians as serious re negotiations towards a ‘fair’ settlement - if you believe the Palestinians are sincere you’ll obviously oppose the move - if not and think the Palestinians are either incapable of ever accepting the legitimacy of a Jewish homeland in ‘Palestine’ or will only acknowledge the reality of such when forced to, then kinda looks like you must support the move as the logical next step. I clearly think the latter is true.

What to make of Trump and Spicer going after the press on the weekend for unfair reporting on attendance at his inauguration? My instinct is to say boy it’s gonna be a long four years if Trump is getting pissed about something like this - and it sort of confirms the image of Trump as a petulant, vengeful narcissist.  So that’s not good - and it’s just ridiculous regardless - I wouldn't have stood in the rain to listen to the sermon on the mount if I had had the option of watching it on TV - but to listen to a bunch of politicians and other boring types prattle on about whatever? Please. That so many turned up for Obama’s inauguration was just proof of how much of his support was fueled by an irrational exuberance luxuriating in the freedom of not having to make any goddamn sense. No serious minded person should give a shit about how many people show up to an inauguration - which is why it’s not surprising the media decided it did matter - and why it’s possibly a bad sign that Trump became annoyed by that.

Unless of course this is their strategy - to always be going after the media - we know that Obama exploited the media as a sycophantic ally that he could use to push his agenda - indeed, his ability to exploit media bias this way was key to his political rise. Given that, we know [or can legitimately assume] that the media dynamic re Trump will be the exact opposite - and therefore why not always be on the offensive so that the media is always on the defensive? There’s probably something to be said for that - but if that is indeed their strategy my guess is it will wear thin pretty quickly - maybe not with Trump’s core base - but certainly I think with middle of the road fence sitters who are willing to give Trump a chance but will be quick to pull support when [if] things start to go wobbly.

For the first time I took a close look at a detailed map of Jerusalem and the spread of settlements in East Jerusalem - mainly because 500 homes in various settlement neighbourhoods have just been approved by the municipality of Jerusalem [I didn't know the municipality had this kind of autonomy], a decision that had been put off until Trump was in power. I really do wish Israeli newspapers, their english editions anyways, would include maps with articles dealing with settlements - maps give one a much better sense of things.

And the sense I get re settlements? Clearly on the part of some the goal is to make a united Jerusalem as the Israeli capital a fait accompli - at the very least the goal looks to be to render the old city Israeli and leave any future Palestinian control of East Jerusalem ‘tentative’ - ie only attached to any putative Palestinian state in a very fragile way - in many ways, contiguous in name only.

Do I have a problem with this? No - because I interpret this as Israel saying to the Palestinians that things will go better for them if they engage in serious negotiations - but the longer they refuse to do that the worse it’s gonna get for them - and in the end, we’re gonna get what we want regardless. It looks to me that 20, 30 years of Palestinian leadership playing political games to try and demonize Israel and isolate it in the eyes of the ‘world community’ have left them in an extremely vulnerable and weak position. The ‘strategy’ was flawed for one obvious reason - intransigence and continuing violence would push Israel further to the right and make it much less tolerant of compromises - and that only serves Palestinian interests if America is willing to abandon Israel - and even an Israel hating leftist like Obama couldn't make that happen until the very end of his term when it no longer mattered. Now they’re stuck in a weak position and having to deal with Trump - and if the Trump administration recognises this weakness and decides to play hardball? If Abbas is smart he’ll run to that negotiating table as quickly as possible with a serious proposal that he knows Israel would be open to - if they choose intifada? Hard to picture a scenario where it goes well for them - unless of course Trump goes completely soft and at the moment that looks unlikely.

One suspects that all the dire warnings from Obama and Kerry and Abbas etc etc about the violence that will erupt should the embassy be moved is an attempt to keep hidden how weak the Palestinian position is - one could argue that Israel is on the verge of a big win here and the Israel haters are dreading the moment. And it’s not just because you’ve switched out an anti-Israel president with a pro-Israel one - it’s also about the Muslim world being a mess and the rise of Iran - the Arab street may still hate Israel, but one imagines many Arab leaders realise that ‘friendly’ relations with Israel [behind the scenes of course] could be a boon for them - and I’m guessing many of them are sick and tired of the Palestinian question regardless.

[another way to look at it - Palestinians used a feigned belief in a two state solution as a ploy to lure Israel into negotiations that were doomed to fail, at which point they reached out to ‘world opinion’ and painted Israel as the malefactor - Israel was no doubt aware of this all along but couldn’t do anything about it because that would seem to confirm the Palestinian propaganda - instead they played along while slowly creating facts on the ground that would make walking away from a two state solution a real possibility - which is where we are now: Palestinian bluff called, stakes dramatically raised - all that’s required is a backer willing to bankroll the Israeli move - enter Trump]

What drives, as it’s now generally referred to, Trump derangement syndrome? My two cents - leftists are idealists, to put it gently, delusional fantasists to be a bit harsher. Ultimately everything idealists believe is founded upon an illusion and then assumptions built up around that illusion in order to make it seem real. Take the now fallen out of favor attempts to prove the existence of God - for the idea of God to make any sense, he had to be ‘perfect’ - anyone seeking to prove his existence needed to start with that - and therefore start with the illusion that it’s possible to know what perfection is - an illusion fed by a wish - the wish being, I need for there to be a God who is good.

In a sense Obama was a progressive god - he often spoke of himself in those terms, progressives often [always] saw him in those terms - he embodied everything the left wants to believe is true about themselves and the universe they inhabit - he had to be perfect otherwise that god makes no sense - he therefore also had to be an illusion held aloft by assumptions because idealist systems cannot abide imperfection and still function - absolutist systems are dependent on the illusion of perfection absolutely. This is why the left simply cannot get its head around the idea that Obama was not a good president - out of necessity, in order to maintain the illusion, the thought must be inconceivable.

Trump drives the left crazy because he is so unlike Obama - and if Obama for the left is the perfect embodiment of the ‘good’ then Trump necessarily must be evil - has to be otherwise the godhead makes no sense. Which leads naturally to the other reason they hate Trump - hate him as if he represents an existential threat - what if he’s successful? What happens to their belief system, their worldview, the very idea of themselves if somone who they necessarily view as evil succeeds? They treat him as an existential threat because to them he is - if he succeeds the perfect illusion of their idealism and therefore the assumptions that gird it up will turn to dust.

Or something like that. One can come at Trump derangement syndrome from several different angles. One thing for sure though - it’s telling us something about the liberal hive mind that scares the shit out of me a hell of lot more than Trump does.

So… what now? I expect a big show involving pen being wielded against a lot of Obama garbage - expect a lot of talk about ACA but not much action at first - expect Putin will reach out re Syria but imagine that will be a trap of some sort - China? Kinda think they’ll play it cool at first and let Trump make first move - looks like Erdogan is on the verge of successfully establishing his sultanate, so given the way Flynn has talked in the past about that proto-tyranny should be interesting to see how the new administration responds - but the biggy is Jerusalem - Trump has telegraphed an urgency re embassy move, Israel has telegraphed urgency re ‘a new relationship’ with a sympathetic president - can’t now act in a way that isn’t urgent and thus projects weakness right off the bat - so expect within two weeks something definitive re Jerusalem and then we’ll be in a better position to hazard guesses on what the Trump presidency is gonna look like.

Well, it’s that time again - North Korea soon to test a ballistic missile - are we really going to continue to let them test these things until they get it right or are we gonna stop the tests by shooting the things down? Well, pretty much certain I think we won't be shooting it down - unless we were willing to park some Aegis destroyers off the coast of NK [and therefore in range of their various anti-ship toys] don’t think we actually can shoot the thing down, so there’s that. Still, raises again one of my favorite foreign policy conundrums: it’s always easier to predict, to visualize the negative outcome of doing something bold than the negative outcome of not doing something bold when you had the chance - but that doesn’t mean at all that not doing something was the better option - yet it’s very difficult to move past that cognitive void and therefore we fall for the false comfort of the choice whose consequences we can more easily picture - we have a strong tendency to equate that comfort with a solid ‘truth’ even though the certainty promised is an illusion. Shooting the missile down could very easily lead to bad things - but not shooting it down? Very easily lead to much worse.

So, Halley got asked the Russia ‘war crimes’ question - was that Rubio again? - dunno - but regardless she said yes, Russia has committed war crimes in Syria - not sure if she was that clear - but had the good sense not to say Putin was a ‘war criminal’ - am I annoyed with this like I was when the question was put to Tillerson? No - although if it was a Republican who asked the question still think it’s a dumb question to ask. Tillerson will be [?] the chief diplomat and responsible for negotiating with the likes of Putin - he simply can not start out by calling the guy a war criminal - that should be obvious. UN ambassador is a different story - although Halley going there I think could still be problematic - or, since as with Obama and Sam Powers Halley position will be cabinet level, you could see her going there on Russia as a good thing - ie, multiple points of views will be encouraged and tolerated in Trump’s White House - and Putin being aware that there are people in the cabinet who are Russia hawks and being listened to is leverage - so you can see Halley going there, especially if it was planned, as a good thing. Or she went rogue. Again, as with pretty much everything re the new administration, it’s all a big question mark at the moment.

Obama’s pardoning of Bradley Manning… oh, right, Chelsea… wouldn't want to short change the laugh [tear?] inducing idiocy of the world… but this execrable pardoning of Manning pretty much sums up the profound awfulness of Obama and draws a direct line to his soon to be post presidency activism - because that’s what this pardon is all about, firming up his bona fides with the far left so that they’ll be good and excited about backing the second stage of his plan to destroy America - and what better way to get these delusional idiots excited than by putting transgender issues ahead of national security. Just an atrociously bad president. No wonder Putin thinks America is doomed - the guy who’s been president for the last eight years and is still viewed quite favorably by about half the country just put transgender activism ahead of national security in importance - if you’re Putin, how can you not look at that and think ‘well, that country’s fucked’?

It’s becoming vital that Trump succeed - that’s the only way to destroy the noxious Obama legacy - because if Trump’s presidency goes ‘bad’, people who think like Obama will be empowered, the Obama agenda will be redeemed - we all know the media will happily cheerlead such a thing - if Trump fails and that’s the road we go down, well… there be monsters.

This was an interesting series of articles which crunched the numbers and sort of confirmed what I sort of believed already re Trump’s win - he didn’t so much win as Hillary lost - and another Republican, with a higher favorability rating, especially among urban voters and Hispanics, would likely have won too and by a wider margin. Who knows for sure - Trump was such an unusual candidate I don’t know if it’s possible to concretely quantify how that unusualness factored in. You’re looking at the confluence of various conditions and events that cumulatively get you to something that is a bit of a fluke - Hillary lost an election that she should have won even though she should have lost it, which she did - that’s what this amounted to. The left was [and still is] in denial about how bad a president Obama had been, in denial about how weak a candidate Hillary was - therefore the democrats we’re heading for a loss regardless - and then the GOP threw them a lifeline by nominating Trump - and Hillary dropped it - which should have surprised no one since a majority of people in her own party didn't particularly like or trust her. By the end of the campaign her ‘trust’ polling was worse than Trump’s - you’ve got some major problems if you can’t out poll Trump on that. It’s really quite amazing.

My inclination is to believe that historical flukes like this tend to be quite impactful - and I guess we’re sitting around now waiting to find out if that impact is gonna be positive or negative. Already it seems that Trump will be willing to say and do things that no other candidate would even have dreamt of - I mean, questioning the ‘one China’ policy? Can you imagine anyone else coming out of the gate and doing something like that? And indeed simply his win, never mind how his administration plays out, has been quite impactful already - how badly the media is compromised by bias has been completely exposed - and exposed too, by its insane overreaction to Trump’s win, is just how far left the left has swung and how much the Democratic party is increasingly being controlled by unhinged from reality radical elements - that someone like Keith Ellison is even being considered for DNC chair, never mind probably being the frontrunner, is testament aplenty to that disquieting fact. Partisanship is already bad in America - given the near hysterical overreaction to Trump’s win by the left, it looks to get much worse - and if Trump’s presidency does indeed prove ‘bad’, which will encourage the wacko left even more and lead to the mainstreaming of just flat out insane ideas and rhetoric, then watch out in 2020 - the partisan divide could truly get ugly.

In Trump’s defense re NATO - Turkey is now imprisoning journalists and academics at a greater rate than China does - and given how adept China is at throwing people in jail who do not effectively police their thoughts and actions in accordance with Party rules, Erdogan must have really embraced the practice with the zeal I guess you’d expect from a would be Sultan - but of course there was that nasty coup - yes… worst coup ever from a military that in the past has excelled at coup making? Hmmn. Curious. Point being, Turkey is a member of NATO - and NATO ostensibly is about defending Western values and democracy from illiberal regimes like… well… apparently Turkey - and I haven’t really heard any other NATO members stand up to say ‘how the fuck does that make sense?’

So, yeah, walking away from NATO would be stupid - but that doesn’t mean the institution doesn’t have problems when clearly it does. Again, I don't know what Trump is thinking with his NATO jabs because as said before it’s hard to know what the hell he’s really thinking about anything when he says the stuff he does - but it’s not crazy to suggest NATO may need a retooling of sorts. And let’s remember - there are certain countries within the alliance whose leaders were very sympathetic to Obama’s progressive worldview and agenda - which is a nice way of saying they’re naive idiots - which is going to put them at odds one assumes with Trump’s foreign policy - and this fracture may show up right away re Israel - the recent ‘peace conference’ in Paris may be a preview of that. That idiotic gab fest was no doubt originally intended to mark the passing of the progressive worldview torch from Obama to Hillary - and instead perforce became a lecture series on the dangers of Trump. Interestingly, England stayed away - that’s very interesting. Trump’s NATO talk may have something to do with that developing dynamic.

What to make of Trump once again questioning the value of NATO? I’m coming to the conclusion that you can’t put much literal stock in what Trump says - it’s as if he views everything as a negotiation and he wants to always be taking the initiative in order to set the terms - and in setting the terms he cares more about attitude and perceived weaknesses than he does about details. I mean, how could Trump possibly hold a position on NATO that’s in opposition to his entire national security staff? The more reasonable explanation is that Trump wants countries to live up to their defense expenditure obligations under NATO and begins the negotiation re that by going for the jugular: America may need NATO, but Europe needs America more - which is true - weakness exposed, onto the negotiations.

The interesting or frustrating or outright scary thing about this behavior is that it makes it very hard to know exactly what Trump thinks about almost anything - which makes it hard to make predictions about the intent, means and goal of any wouldbe policy - does Trump actually believe an upgraded F-18 can replace an F-35 [ludicrous] or is saying so just a negotiating ploy? Depending on what one believes leads to very different policy outcomes or perceptions. Is Trump really willing to challenge the ‘one China’ status quo or is by focusing in so quickly, before he’s even taken the oath of office, on what is clearly a weakness of China’s just him setting the terms of a coming ‘negotiation’? Dunno - but depending on what you believe leads to very different outcomes and potentialities.

Now, how one manages and manipulates perceptions of ‘uncertainty’ can definitely pay huge dividends for a shrewd negotiator - but when it comes to markets and economies and security commitments etc etc, these things tend to be not so welcoming, in any final sense at least, of uncertainty. The question is, can the effects of uncertainty be leveraged to produce more favorable final results? The answer obviously is yes - the scary unknown is: with what attending risks? So take the embassy move to Jerusalem - if it happens it should scare the shit of Palestinian leadership because what Trump will be telling them is that he’s a rock solid supporter of Israel willing to make bold moves to protect and promote its interests - faced with that reality the Palestinian leadership will have to deal with the uncertainty of not knowing how far Trump is willing to go - and therefore they will have two choices: intifada, which will go very badly for them if Trump does not back down [I mean, how could they know he wouldn’t support annexing Area C?] - or capitulation ie show a willingness to engage in serious, not sham negotiations - meaning, accept Israel as the Jewish homeland, accept that Israel’s security needs must be adequately addressed, accept that the ‘right of return’ is never gonna happen, and accept that the Temple Mount will become a shared space for all religions. Uncertainty can be applied against Palestinian weakness and get you to a just deal - or set off a violent chain of events that leads who knows where.

Funny enough, it’s not dissimilar from what Obama tried - except Israel was the target - he thought he could Isolate Israel, back Netanyahu into a corner, damage him, and open up the door to some nice Israeli leftists willing to buy into his ‘new progressive world order’ nonsense and do his bidding. Failed miserably - ended up pushing Israel further to the right and securing Bibi’s reelection. Obama failed because he saw Israel and the region through the distorting prism of left wing academia - which means he saw Israel and the region in terms utterly detached from reality, terms which sought to flatter the presumed nobility of his illusions. Hopefully Trump and his surrogates will come at the problem with a more clear-eyed interpretation of what’s real and what’s not. [ie the settlements are not a real problem - how do we know this? - because there were no settlements when the PLO was founded or when Arafat embraced terrorism as a means of delegitimizing Israel - there were no settlements when Nasser promised to drive the Jews into the sea or in ‘67 when Muslim nations crowded Israel’s border with the intention of doing precisely that - there were no settlements unless one viewed Israel itself as it existed in 1948 as an illegitimate, nay insulting settlement of kafirun - which brings us to the real problem - Muslims really don’t like the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine]

What am I missing - when someone claims that moving the embassy will ruin the peace process [hard not to laugh at that] and lead [it’s always implied justifiably] to violent protests, I don’t understand why the simple response isn’t: do you support a two state solution? Well, yes, of course. Putting settlements as a whole aside for the moment, do you believe that Israel will insist on at the absolute very least retaining sovereignty over West Jerusalem, however you may choose to define it, given some putative final status two state agreement? Yes, I would expect that. And therefore it follows that Israeli control of West Jerusalem is the the baseline, the irreducible starting point of any future negotiations towards a two state solution? Yes, that follows. And do you think it  fair that Israel insist on that as the absolute very least they can accept? Yes, hard to argue that’s not fair. Then how exactly would moving the embassy to West Jerusalem change anything regarding the two state solution you claim to endorse? Well, uhmmn… the Palestinians wouldn’t like it. Given what you’ve said, that dislike would be based on an irrational denial of reality - what good can possibly come from encouraging the Palestinians to engage in irrational denials of reality? Ahhh… look, it’s understood that any final status regarding Jerusalem must be established by negotiations. But you’ve already said Israeli control of West Jerusalem is the baseline beyond which nothing can go - in other words, Israeli control of West Jerusalem is non-negotiable… there’s nothing to negotiate... assuming of course  one truly believes in a two state solution. Yes, but… but...

What am I missing here? Every time I hear people like Kerry talk about the embassy move what appear to me to be the obvious rebuttal questions are never asked - what am I missing? I gotta be getting something wrong here because it just flat out makes no sense.

[well, the argument would be made that, yes, Israeli control of West Jerusalem is a given per 1967 - but by moving the embassy America would be saying or at the very least implying, in keeping with the thinking of the Israeli right and indeed the Jerusalem law of 1980, that all of Jerusalem is Israel’s indivisible capital. And that’s probably a fair point - the only way you could mitigate the appeal of that point is if you acknowledge that a future Palestinian state would perforce therefore have a ‘right’ to staking its capital in East Jerusalem - and you’d have to also spell out that the Temple Mount and area around it would be designated a separate entity administered by some third party. Don’t believe anybody on the right would agree to something like that - they wouldn’t want to rule out complete control of Jerusalem at some future point, even though any ‘viable’ two state solution could not allow for something like that - and therefore moving the embassy would in essence amount to giving the nod to Jerusalem as Israel's Indivisible capital. So that would appear to be the thing I’m getting wrong.

Still, if one doesn’t believe the Palestinians have any intention of negotiating towards a two state solution that Israel could accept as tolerable - and I certainly believe that to be the case - then what do you do? The status quo is not acceptable - but if the Palestinians believe the status quo slowly but surely serves their agenda, which I think it does given the profound stupidity of the West, then what do you do if you’re Israel? Annexing Area C I think is not a good option - continued settlement building with certain limitations I have no problem with and according to polls neither do most israelis - but eventually that just becomes a slow motion annexing of Area C. To me you have to dramatically change the math - if I’m Trump I say to Netanyahu ‘I'll move the embassy to West Jerusalem but you have to agree that such a move entitles the Palestinians to establish their future capital in East Jerusalem and also agree that the Temple Mount and immediate adjoining lands will be designated a separate, neutral territory administered by a third party that guarantees the rights to religious practice there by the three pertinent religions’. The Israeli right would get something it wants very much, the American embassy in Jerusalem, and lose something it wants very much, an indivisible Jewish capital. And the Palestinians? What the Palestinians would get is notification that they no longer have a friend in the White House and so they better stop with the bull shit and commit to serious negotiations - otherwise annexation of Area C will become the inevitable Israeli reply.

There, I’ve solved it. Let peace ring out. Ha.

The only other option I see is move the embassy without an agreement to reciprocity by Israel - all hell will break loose - the Palestinians will lose that battle - and the math will have been dramatically changed. Like I said, the status quo is not to Israel’s advantage it seems to me - something has to change and the change I think has to be dramatically impactful.

But why would the Israeli right agree to this reciprocity deal re Jerusalem? Because they’ve empowered Trump, they’ve labeled him the President they've been waiting for - if he offers them something that seems reasonable, how can they say no without seriously compromising themselves? I don’t think they can. I get the whole Jerusalem is ours narrative, 2000 years of abuse and persecution, we won it back in a war and we’re not giving it up - I’m very sympathetic to that narrative. But reality gets a vote - you cannot say you believe in a two state solution while clinging to the notion of a unified Jerusalem as your capital - it’s one or the other - if Trump demonstrates he’s really willing to get tough with the Palestinians and push the envelope, how can the Israeli right not play ball?]