Category: Foreign Affairs

Burning Question

Classic Beauty, Foreign Affairs

Okay, it’s probably just me, but…

Where the hell does Trump find all these beautiful and intelligent women to work for him?  (I know, the Left is all over this, whining that he only appoints these “bimbos” — their word, not mine — as though it’s utterly impossible to be clever and beautiful, the combination of which is conspicuous by its absence on their side of the aisle.)

I mean, probably the ugliest woman working in Trump’s administration is his AG, and Pam Bondi is not at all ugly — especially when compared to leftists like OMG Janet Reno, Rosa de Lauro and that screeching lesbianist on MSNBC/MS NOW(?) with the black glasses.

The latest one to catch my eye was when reading at American Thinker about Trump’s Deputy U.S. Envoy for the Middle East, Morgan Ortagus, whose first name made me think it was a guy.  But nope, Morgan is absolutely no guy:

Now young Morgan is not just a pretty face.  Here’s what the boffins at AmThink have to say about her:

Hezbollah, rattled by her bluntness, staged demonstrations against her remarks in February, when she declared that the group had been defeated militarily and that its role in government was no longer tolerable. Many in Beirut concluded she had been sidelined, replaced by Tom Barrack’s more measured style. By June, her name was shorthand for a missed opportunity—the hawk who had pressed too hard, too fast.

Now, though, President Trump has issued a directive ordering her back, a powerful signal that Washington has not abandoned the line of pressure and accountability she embodied, but is rebalancing it, pairing Tom Barrack’s optimism with her credibility.

In the meetings with President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and Speaker Berri, Ortagus sat quietly through most of the formal sessions, letting Barrack take the lead in public. Lebanon’s political class, however, understands that her silence was because she already knows the playbook. She has studied the system, understands the “political theatre” that governs decision-making in Beirut, and has seen how elites manipulate time and process to stall change.

That knowledge is why her return matters. Lebanese leaders thrive on ambiguity and exhausting new envoys with a maze of committees, statements, and staged “dialogue.” Ortagus, though, has already rattled the system once, and her reappearance signals she will do so again.

And I’ll bet her combination of brains and beauty confuses those Arab assholes beyond words, because they’re likely more accustomed to gargoyles like Obama’s one-time Secretary of State, who combined astounding ugliness and stupidity:

…quite the reverse of Mrs. Ortagus.

As I said, I don’t know where Trump is finding all these smart, attractive women to work for him, but let’s hope he keeps the trend going.

Oh, and by the way?  Morgan Ortagus has a twin sister named Megan.

Have mercy.

Good Question

Foreign Affairs

Over There, Richard Littlejohn asks the question:

Why do Americans care more about Britain than Labour?

On everything from Net Zero and defence to immigration and crime, they make a great deal more sense than most of the Westminster Bubble’s arrogant, out-of-touch political class.

The latest was a report from the US State Department accusing Britain of backsliding on human rights – especially freedom of speech and the frightening rise in anti-Semitism.

First out of the blocks was Vance with his damning speech in February, not just about the erosion of civil liberties but the contempt for popular democracy among the political elite.

Addressing his remarks to Europe as a whole and Britain in particular, he said: ‘No one on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants.

‘But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it.’

As Trump warned on his recent visit to Scotland, if we don’t get a grip on immigration we’re not going to have a country any more. Who, outside of the far-Left and the yuman rites brigade, could argue with that?

The President has also ordered the National Guard to take back control of the streets of Washington, America’s capital city.

In London, the police have withdrawn from the streets, leading to a surge in stabbings, shoplifting and violent phone thefts. How many people in our capital city would object to a few squaddies on the streets if it crushed crime and saved lives?

Trump reserves some of his harshest criticism for Britain’s suicidal Net Zero nosedive. He maintains that our War Of The Worlds windmills, as well as being a hideous blot on the landscape, are the ‘worst form of energy, the most expensive form of energy’.

And he simply can’t fathom why Labour refuses to exploit our vast reserves of oil and gas, which would produce great wealth for the country, support tens of thousands of jobs and slash energy bills.

As for the “why?” part of the question, it’s quite simple.  Despite all the efforts of Leftists on both sides of the Pond to sabotage the Special Relationship between us, I believe that many Murkins still feel some vestiges of affection to the Old Country.

And why not?  We inherited the concepts of parliamentary government and of human rights, to name but two, from Britain.  We share a common language and many cultural ties (once again, despite efforts of the Left to destroy them).  These are not small things;  they are the ties that bind.

But it pains us to see that despite that shared heritage of, say, free speech, we see British police arresting people for posting “anti-social” statements or “hate speech” on the Internet.

Of private ownership of guns, we will not speak — even though that same concept is a key part of why Americans aren’t being arrested for posting “anti-social” statements or “hate speech” on the Internet.

So, as I say so often on these pages, we look on happenings in the UK with something approaching dread, because we ask:  if the famously-tolerant Brits allow this shit to happen to themselves, why could it not happen Over Here too?

Back in the 1940s, Americans supported Britain in their war against tyranny.  Nowadays?  If Russia invaded Western Europe and the UK, I’m not so sure we’d raise a finger to help them.  Why should we, when those shared ties of freedom have been tossed aside unilaterally?

Nope

Conservatism, Foreign Affairs, Politics, Trumpism

Let me make myself crystal clear on this topic:  every single time in the last century and a half that some asshole has tried to create a third political party (e.g. Theodore Roosevelt’s  Bull Moose, Ross Perot’s Reform) the net result has been an electoral victory for the Democrats.

So Elon, buddy, unless you want to see ALL your good works on DOGE and such overturned, quit this bullshit about forming a new “America” party.  You’re acting like a spoiled child who fucks up everyone’s Christmas because you got a green bicycle with 3-speed gears instead of a red one with a 10 speed.   Yeah, the BBB wasn’t everything we wished for.  But it sure as hell was better than anything else on offer.

Because make no mistake:  if Musk’s little exercise ends with the fucking Democrats taking control of the White House and/or Congress (which is what history tells us will happen), they will reverse everything that Trump has managed to get done:  closing the border, ending the USAID boondoggle and hamstringing the loathsome Dept of Education, to mention just three of the domestic wrongs righted.

What this steaming bunch of Communists will inflict on the world with their pathetic attempts at foreign policy of appeasement of shitholes like Iran and China cannot be imagined.

Here’s what I hope, if Musk gets this silliness operational:  that Trump ends all repeat all subsidies for the “alternate energy” industries like wind power and electric car manufacturers — because in the latter case, all that will happen will be that expensive electric cars like Tesla will have to face sky-high retail prices (in a market that is already in a tailspin as ordinary people turn away from the Duracell models), resulting in Tesla pretty much becoming an expensive toy for rich people.

And Tesla isn’t Ferrari, in case nobody’s noticed it before.

Oh, and one last thing.  There’s no need for a third political party in the U.S. because we already have one:  it’s called “MAGA” and it’s not a party but a movement.

One would have thought that a smart guy like Elon Musk would have figured this out.:  politics is the art of the possible, not the display of spite when the possible wasn’t perfection.

If Musk had always let the perfect be the enemy of the good, his rocket program would have ended after the first failed launch.  Why he now wants to embrace that policy ideal makes me wonder if he is as bright as everyone seems to think he is.

And finally, there’s this:

Quit co-opting our patriotic symbol to further your own little ego trip.

A Feature, Not A Bug

Diplomacy, Foreign Affairs, Wars & Other Fun Games

I hadn’t considered this, in the wake of the little Izzy / Muzzie disturbances.  Fortunately, some Big Brains have:

Israeli air and drone strikes during the early hours of June 13th crippled Iran — and severely set back Tehran’s regional ambitions. The Israel Defense Forces hit nuclear weapons development facilities and ballistic missile sites, and killed senior military officers, including Major General Mohammad Bagheri, the armed forces chief of staff, and Major General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Iranian media announced the death of Ali Shamkhani, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s top adviser.

Tehran said that Israel’s action was a “declaration of war.” This war is continuing, and Iran has struck back with ballistic missile and drone attacks.

Narratives will change as the fighting continues, but one conclusion is already evident: China, Iran’s long-time backer, is a victim of the fighting. That is a quick reversal of fortunes. Only last year, the Chinese looked ascendant in the region.

“China is closely following Israel’s attacks on Iran and is deeply concerned about the potential grave consequences of the operations,” the Chinese foreign ministry stated on X a few hours after the initial attacks. “China opposes actions that violate Iran’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity, and opposes moves that escalate tensions or enlarge conflicts.”

“China stands ready to play a constructive role in helping ease the situation,” it added.

Beijing may stand ready, but, apart from the Iranian regime itself, the region is not looking for Chinese assistance.

Yeah;  what the CCP may have forgotten is that nobody in that area — not just the Izzies — likes the idea of a nuked-up Iran, for the same reason one fears a drugged-up ghetto choirboy with a hand grenade.

“There were some very, very relieved people in the Gulf as the sun rose this morning…. The Saudis know that China had armed their enemy Iran with nukes and lesser weapons and fully backed the Houthis, who have been waging war on the Kingdom for years.” — Jonathan Bass, Chief Executive Officer, Argent LNG, to Gatestone Institute, June 13, 2025.

Put more bluntly:  “Oh noes we deplore all this warry bomb-bomb stuff!”  while thinking “Thank fuck for the Izzies.”

So much for that, then.

Tit For Tat

Foreign Affairs, Trumpism

Seems as though there’s a fair amount of angst and anguish about Trump’s BBB proviso that (loosely explained) says:  “If you tax us, we’re gonna tax you right back.”

In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, Bessent said the legislation includes new tools to retaliate against countries that impose what he called “unfair foreign taxes” on American firms — including digital services taxes and top-up levies under the OECD’s (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) global minimum tax framework.

“The U.S. tax system will stand next to what is called Pillar Two, and other countries are welcome to relinquish their fiscal and tax sovereignty to other nations,” Bessent said. “The United States will not. So this bill will allow us to prevent our corporate revenues from being drained into foreign treasuries—and that is in the hundreds of billions of dollars.”

At the heart of the plan is a new measure that would impose escalating surtaxes on income earned in the U.S. by companies, individuals, and even governments from nations that target American firms with extraterritorial taxes. The same countries could also face higher withholding taxes on U.S. investments and tougher rules under the Base Erosion and Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT). Sovereign wealth funds and central banks from those countries would lose long-standing exemptions and become subject to U.S. tax on their holdings.

The provision — found in Section 899 of the bill — is designed to pressure foreign governments to roll back taxes that the administration views as discriminatory and coercive. It would start with a five-percentage-point surtax and escalate annually to a maximum of twenty points above the standard U.S. tax rate unless the targeted country reverses its policy.

And the rightness of this approach can be gauged from the level of opposition from Global Capitalist Bastards Inc.:

Multinational firms, foreign banks, and global trade associations are mounting an aggressive campaign to weaken or eliminate the provision, arguing it could lead to retaliatory measures and complicate international investment.

Yeah, my heart bleeds for all those fat corporations and insanely-wealthy fucks whose international investments will become complicated.  This is aimed at the foreign governments who think that  theft   fleecing   taxation of foreign investment is okay if they do it, but not if we do it.

I know that a lot of what Trump does is just positioning — i.e. laying the battlefield for future negotiation — but this is one initiative where I hope he digs in and goes all the way.  Why should we support foreign governments’ enrichment programs at our own expense when we can’t do exactly the same to them?  Make no mistake:  these assholes are making billions of dollars out of this.

And lastly, anytime I see the words “OECD’s (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) global minimum tax framework” involved in an argument, I want to reach for my AK.  No greater argument against globalization can be raised than when their principles are involved.

Feel free to bring lofty economics arguments to this post, because I will really enjoy shooting them down in flames.