The View from Right Field

Why Donald Trump Won

I didn't have anything to post today, so let me re-post this from Ann Althouse (I hope it is okay to do so):

"Why Trump Won

Because a man like Steve Martin won't fight for himself in a situation like this:

On Tuesday, the comic wrote in a since-deleted tweet, 'When I was a young man, Carrie Fisher was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.  She turned out to be witty and bright as well.'

What’s More Important? What Russia Does Or What Donald Trump Tweets in Response?

My second post-Christmas post on pre-Christmas things:

On Friday and Saturday of last week, Donald Trump was accused of starting a new nuclear arms race when he tweeted on Thursday:

“The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

Much of the MSM (i.e., mainstream media) went ballistic.¹  The Chicago Tribune’s headline read “‘Arms race’ rings alarms; Trump’s words on nukes, a shift in policy, shakes [sic] globe”.²  The headline in The Wall Street Journal said “Trump Supports Strengthening of Nuclear Arsenal”.²  The articles in both newspapers, as well as The New York Times, included quotes from anti-nuclear weapons groups, accusing Mr. Trump of threatening to start a new nuclear arms race.  (The Tribune story called the group it quoted “non-partisan”.  Yeah, right.)

Barack Obama’s Really Dumb Decision at the United Nations

Several things came up in the last couple of days before Christmas that I wanted to blog about – but I decided to wait because some things (most things?) are more important than politics.  Here’s my first:

President Obama is obviously a big supporter of the United Nations.  That makes me think he made a mistake, even from his own point of view, with his decision to abstain, and not veto, the UN Security Council resolution last Friday censuring Israel for its expansion of settlements in the West Bank.¹  I understand that President Obama agrees with the substance of the resolution.  Many countries do.  (For example, see here.)  On the other hand, others feel the resolution wasn’t balanced and may wind up making it even harder to reach a peace agreement.  (See this Washington Post editorial.)

What Christmas Is All About

My annual Christmas Eve post:

Charlie Brown:  "Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"

Linus: "Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.  Lights, please?

With Donald Trump Following Barack Obama, the U.S. Withdrawal from the World Continues

Talks to end the civil war in Syria are being conducted in Moscow among Russia, Turkey, and Iran.  Foreign ministers of the three countries are meeting in one place of the Russian capital, while defense ministers meet in another.  Meanwhile, while it really doesn’t matter, the United Nations Security Council adopted a French-drafted resolution on the Syrian civil war, calling for UN observers to play a role in supervising the evacuation of refugees from eastern Aleppo.

Missing in action in all of these efforts is the United States.  I assume President Obama is okay with this because, if he wasn’t, he could do something to change it.  But he hasn’t, so this must be fine with him.  It certainly is a good summary of eight years of Obama administration foreign policy: backing off and doing less, while the world becomes a more dangerous place.¹

U.S. Foreign Policy Commitments: Is Taiwan the New Estonia?

Just before the election, I wrote a post entitled “On Election Day, I’ll Be Voting for Estonia.”¹  As I noted in that post, and others before that, Donald Trump has threatened to abandon our NATO allies.²  According to Mr. Trump, NATO is obsolete, and the United States is being taken advantage of.  If a country isn’t spending NATO’s target of 2% of its GDP on defense, Mr. Trump threatened to ignore our commitment under Article 5 of the NATO agreement to defend them if they are attacked.  I don’t know if President Trump would really do that (I hope not), but letting Vladimir Putin think he might is dangerous.  It could encourage Mr. Putin to try things he would not otherwise do. 

The other thing you have to worry is how much Mr. Trump would stick up for Estonia, and other NATO members, if our commitment to them came up in negotiations with Russia.  Mr. Trump sees himself as a dealmaker.  The problem is, if Vladimir Putin said that a deal with Russia had to include weakening support for Estonia, etc., what would Mr. Trump do?  I know what other presidents would have done.  I don’t know what Donald Trump would do.

The 1970 Russian Nuclear Sub Base in Cuba That Could Have Been an Example for President Obama

President Obama held a press conference on Friday before leaving for Hawaii for Christmas.¹  The big topic, of course, was the intelligence reports of Russian election hacking and the CIA conclusion that the Russian hacking was designed to help elect Donald Trump.  As for foreign hacking that could interfere with actual vote counting, I’ve already talked about how we can deal with that.

Trying to sound cool and calm, President Obama said:

“There have been folks out there who suggest somehow if we went out there and made big announcements and thumped our chests about a bunch of stuff, that somehow it would potentially spook the Russians.  I think it doesn’t read the thought process in Russia very well.”

New Zealand: The Lucky Country – In Politics

You can find my most recent post on my other blog, “A Different New Zealand,” here.

Do They Ever Learn Anything in Washington?

Donald Trump.  Bernie Sanders.  Occupy Everywhere.  The Cubs winning the World Series.  So many things have happened that nobody ever expected that the Tea Party has become a distant memory.  An even more distant memory is what started the Tea Party.  It wasn’t Obamacare or the bailout of the Wall Street bankers, though both of those added to the Tea Party’s fury.  Rather, the Tea Party started on February 19, 2009 on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange when CNBC reporter Rick Santelli unleashed a rant, on air, against an Obama administration plan to bailout homeowners facing foreclosure and help them refinance their mortgages”:

“Do we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages?  This is America!  How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills?” 

Ogden Nash: Sexual Predator

The politically correct and terminally sensitive have put out a revision of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” According to the concerned, the 1944 song “sounds hopelessly dated … in an age of informed consent and egalitarian relationships.”  One of the writers of the updated version of the song explained, “It was important to us to open a conversation about consent and make sure people's stories get told and the rhetoric gets changed.”

Apparently, when the current generation hears “say, what’s in this drink”, they think date rape drugs.  And the constant pleading in the song removes the necessary element of mutual constant from the sexual relationship.¹