The Huessy Report
Memo for Our Montgomery County and Maryland Citizens, Prepared by Peter Huessy, President of Geo-Strategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland
Labor Day Weekend Report
California Dreamin’
Nothing California Democrats do makes any sense unless we understand their primary motive. In short, as woke liberals, they will do nearly anything to feel morally superior. And that feeling has fueled their otherwise inexplicable defense of the indefensible. The latest example of this terrible woke pathology occurred Tuesday in California, where, according to KCRA-TV in Sacramento, the State Senate voted to include illegal immigrants in California’s first-time homebuyer’s program, and it did so despite the fact that the program has no money.
The Harris Cackle Report
VP Harris says her values haven’t changed although her policy stances have. This is shorthand for “democrat party values” which are: Do and say anything that as Rush would say “fools the people as much as you can as long as you can.” She says her time in the White House gave her new perspective. Great—she should send to Congress immediately opening up fracking everywhere and propose funding to finish the Wall. Why wait until next January 2925? Why not get a head start?
By Jeff Mordock - The Washington Times - Thursday, August 29, 2024
In her first interview since becoming the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that her recent reversals on critical policies resulted from her time in the White House, giving her a new perspective on the issues.
During her failed 2020 presidential bid, Ms. Harris advocated for a national ban on fracking, the decriminalization of illegal border crossings and the elimination of private health insurance.
Her campaign staff has walked back all those stances and others through statements over the past few weeks, though Ms. Harris herself has been silent on them.
Tom Moore of the Heritage Foundation writes in the New York Post the following:
Freedom is about liberty, the absence of government oppression, and about giving Americans the right to choose how to live their lives. We like Kamala's own definition when she told union workers in Michigan last week: "Americans don't want their government telling them what to do." Amen to that. But the entire Kamala-Walz playbook is about taking away our right to make our own decisions:
• Harris is a staunch opponent of school choice and allowing families to select the school best for their children. Doesn't freedom mean that everyone, of all incomes and races, has access to great schools?
• Harris favors outlawing gas-powered cars. Isn't the right to drive the car of your choice a basic freedom?
• Harris backs climate change bans or restrictions on a handful of common household conveniences from lightbulbs to air conditioners to gas stoves. Doesn't freedom mean keeping the government out of the bedroom and the kitchen?
• Harris supports the "PRO Act," which would force workers to join unions against their will or lose their jobs. What next? Forcing voters to be Democrats before they can vote?
• Harris has advocated Medicare for All, which means you lose the right to choose and keep your own health-care plan.
• Harris and Tim Walz were among the strongest advocates of militant lockdowns of schools, businesses, and churches during the COVID pandemic. Isn't freedom the right to keep your business open, to attend religious services, to earn a paycheck, and for kids to go to school?
• Harris is in favor of much higher tax rates on businesses and estates – and even a tax on unrealized capital gains on farms, ranches, and family-owned business. Doesn't freedom mean reasonable taxation and the right to pass your life savings to your children and grandchildren? (Remember: confiscatory estate taxes were a key plank of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.)
FAUCI UPDATE
The Fauci led panic that led to the shut down of the United States in 2020 also led to the severe underutilization of hospitals during that period as people were too frightened to get even routine care. A new study is here:
Think the Middle East Doesn’t Matter?
There is now a 40% premium on shipping costs because of the attacks by the terror group Houthis that are busy interdicting ocean-going commerce through the Red Sea and the Suez (40% of Europe’s ocean going trade goes through Suez including a significant percentage of the world’s crude oil supplies. I am hosting a virtual seminar on the 13th of September from 10-11am (Eastern) to which you are invited featuring John Holmes of the US Navy War College who will talk on this subject—and the role of China in helping the Iranians and Houthis.
Here is the link to register: James Holmes RSVP
"Who's Deterring Whom in the Red Sea?" with James Holmes
Gaza and Israel: Who’s Winning?
My friend and colleague Shoshana Bryen explains things. and make sure to note that the current administration has worked against Israel’s objectives.
Defining Victory in Gaza – Key Objectives
Shoshana Bryen • August 30, 2024 • Jewish News Syndicate
Not long ago, I wrote an article titled, “Hostage Talks Won’t Work; Winning the War Will.” A retired American military officer wrote to ask, “What is the definition of winning? What does winning look like?” He wasn’t questioning Israel’s capability; he added, “I am quite sure the IDF can deliver whatever is directed or defined.”
To be clear, an American military officer knows what winning looks like; he was checking on me. That made me nervous, but I also realized that people are projecting different end games on Israel. The Biden-Harris administration, for example, is pushing for a ceasefire and “de-escalation.” (President Joe Biden told Israel in mid-April to “pocket the win” after Iran fired 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and more than 120 ballistic missiles at Israel and succeeded in killing only one person. Odd definition of a win.)
So, I took a shot.
“Winning” is achieving your war objectives. Israel had three clear objectives announced in October.
Secure the border and the people of Israel.
Previous ground and rocket attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah resulted in “ceasefires” that left the timing and scope of the next attack up to Israel’s enemies. There was a ceasefire in place on Oct. 6, and Hamas broke it in the most horrific manner on 10/7. The Israeli government said, “We don’t want another ceasefire, or a better ceasefire, or a longer ceasefire.”
The goal is to secure the border.
The United States settled for a ceasefire in Korea. And when the minuses outweighed the plusses in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, we went home. We put 6,000 or 10,000 miles between us and them. We ignored the mess, the refugees, the killings we left in our wake. For Israel, there is no going home; Israelis are home. If a secure border means a buffer along the Negev and Israeli forces in the Philadelphi Corridor, so be it.
Take away Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.
It doesn’t mean “kill them all” or “get a formal surrender.” It means removing the weapons and tunnels already inside Gaza, along with securing the borders so Hamas can’t import more. The tunnels at Rafah tell you that Egypt was a smuggling partner of Hamas. Israel, perhaps naively, assumed Egypt would live up to the agreements it signed in 1982 when Israel withdrew from Sinai and 2005 when Israel withdrew from Gaza. But no, so now Israel has to be in control.
Without military power, Hamas’s governing power wanes. If you believe, as some people do, that the Palestinians aren’t all Hamas themselves or that they don’t support Hamas, but they know Hamas will kill them if they rebel (Hamas has killed many Palestinian civilians since Israel’s invasion, including people trying to get to the “safe zones”), then you have to want the Hamas boot off their necks. The only way to do that for them is by removing the weapons Hamas uses to enforce its will, i.e., to kill them. Or, if you believe, as some people do, that Palestinian civilians do, in fact, support the genocidal program of Hamas, then Israel has to remove as much of the weaponry as possible from that space.
What comes next in governance is unclear. “Winning the peace,” wrote the general, is difficult.
He is right. We occupied Germany and Japan for years; we wrote their constitution and their textbooks, we told them what they could and couldn’t do, we told them who could and who couldn’t run for office and teach school. We outlawed Naziism, that’s a bit phony because, like the Muslim Brotherhood, outlawing doesn’t make it go away. But we succeeded in making it impolitic, impolite, costly, painful, and societally unacceptable to be an overt Nazi or perform Nazi acts.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have had the experience of working to marginalize and kill the Muslim Brotherhood ideology. Sometimes, it works. That’s why the Abraham Accords countries, plus Saudi Arabia, have not broken the agreement and have not stopped talking to Israel. They get it.
Release the hostages.
This is tricky. It might have been possible to get a “deal” for about 145 Israeli hostages at a cost of about 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails. Maybe.
But a trade has a massive downside. Trading security prisoners for civilians ensures that more hostages will be taken in the future.
Israel traded 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli captive named Gilad Shalit. People were happy for a while, but among those released prisoners was Yahya Sinwar (today running around in women’s clothing to avoid capture, it seems) and a woman named Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro pizza bombing in Jerusalem that killed 16 civilians. Tamimi now lives protected in Jordan, though U.S. and Jewish leaders have pushed to seek her extradition.
Many other released prisoners have returned to terrorism, including some released in the first hostage trade from this war.
On the first two goals, Israel is clearly winning. On the third, the answer is more mixed, but perhaps the rescue of hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi, the Bedouin Muslim Israeli father of 11, is a harbinger of a positive outcome.
How to Discuss/Debate Things With Your Woke Friends?
The Hoover Institute’s Victor Davis Hanson will occasionally respond to some of his “angry readers” that take issue with his explanation of things. This is a recent VDH response comparing the Trump vs The Obama/Biden administrations on a host of issues.
However, he first starts with the US Supreme Court and the tendency of judges appointed by Republican President’s move to the left but not vice versa in response to the charge that all R appointed judges are crazy right wingers! !
Hanson: “Yes, when Democrats controlled the White House and the Senate, the nation between 1960 and 1990 experienced the most leftwing court in memory. I don’t recall any serious conservative effort to pack or change the court. Almost every conservative justice in that era after being appointed drifted leftward; again, I don’t recall any such trending centrism on the part of Democratic/liberal justices.
“Or to put it another way, can you think of Democratic appointments who are disinterested and vote in ways opposite to those who appointed them—in the fashion of past Republican-appointed justices who ruled liberally such as Harry Blackmun, William Brennan, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, and Earl Warren, or even on occasion Warren Burger, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and John Roberts? Please cite 4-5 Democrat-appointed justices that ruled in a fashion contrary to those who appointed them.
Hanson: On the question of racism, which current Justice (and who nominated her?) said the following:
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
On the question of abortion, which recent Justice (and who nominated her?) said the following:
“Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.”
Hanson: In other words, when you like the court’s expansive creation of new laws, then you like the court system. But when you disagree with its rulings, you emotionally and childishly call it “Christian” and demonize it (note who went to the outside doors of the Court and threatened the justices by name, who mobbed their homes to influence their decisions, who threatened to kill a justice outside his home, and who constantly level threats to remove them by mandatory retirement).
Hanson: But it is on NATO and Russia where you display your most egregious and arrogant ignorance. NATO radically upped its defense expenditures—but only after Trump pressured them, and currently that up-armament has paid dividends in arming Ukraine.
On Russia: Who authored “reset” appeasement”?
Who in a hot mic moment in Seoul was willing to sell out US/NATO missile defense systems if Putin would “give” Obama “space” for his last election (e.g., Obama dismantled a key U.S. security agenda on promises Putin would not invade until Obama was safely reelected; both kept their promises)?
Who was president when Putin invaded Georgia/Ossetia in 2008?
Who was president (and vice president) when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014?
Who was president (and vice president) when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022?
And who was president in 2017–2021 when for the only time in four consecutive administrations he did not invade any of his neighbors?
Who sold Javelins to Ukraine and who forbid their sale?
Who liquidated Putin’s Wagner Group mercenaries in Syria?
Who got out of a long-standing asymmetrical missile deal with Putin?
Who upped sanctions on Russian oligarchs?
Who flooded the world with cheap oil, impoverishing for a time Putin?
Who warned Putin not to invade Ukraine under his tenure?
Who warned Germany not to enter into any natural gas pipeline deal with Putin and who did not?
Who ensured that Putin did not ally with China and North Korea?
But when you turn to anti-Semitism and Israel, you exhibit your greatest ignorance and bias.
Who moved the embassy to Jerusalem and who would not?
Who declared the Golan Heights rightfully Israel’s, and who was afraid to do that?
Who defunded Hamas and who gave them millions?
Who declared the Houthis terrorists and who removed that designation?
Who got out of the odious Iran Deal and who begged to reenter it?
Who embargoed Iranian oil and who green-lighted the end of such embargoes?
Who warned Iran not to threaten Israel but who warned Israel not to strike back at Iran?
Why was there no Middle East war during Trump’s term and why did Bidenite Jake Sullivan claim his Middle East portfolio that he inherited was quiet?
Who killed the Iranian terrorist Soleimani?
Who destroyed ISIS?
Who killed Baghdadi?
Who warned Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah not to attack Israel?
Which party is plagued with anti-Semitic demonstrations and whose base hates Israel?
What is the ideology of campus hate groups that openly harass Jews and call for their destruction and the end of Israel?
And who dares not to speak out against these bigots but instead courts their votes in Michigan?
I apologize for the length of this letter, but you are unfortunately representative of ossified partisans who are completely ignorant of the current dangers that the radical Left and its capture of the old Democratic Party pose to America and to the world abroad.
The final irony?
Your own leftwing allies likely would treat your views far more harshly as a veritable useful idiot than the readers of this website—a fact you must know but are intellectually and morally unable to concede.
Victor Hanson