Check out this video with Joe Scarborough, starting at 4:47:

Here's the key quote,

"It's hard for me to imagine any  presidential candidate not getting politically ripped to shreds in the next political campaign for turning a region back over to ISIS, to Iran, to Putin and to Assad. But that's what he would be doing."

Notice that? By not going to war with Assad, we would be turning the country over to both Assad and ISIS. Wait a minute... Assad is fighting ISIS, and Al Qaeda and all of the other Jihadist groups that the neocons and their sycophants like Joe Scarborough support. 

Congressman Roger Wicker went on Tucker Carlson and tried basically imply this same thing. He stammered around saying Assad gassed those kids and we should do something about Assad and then there was this exchange.

Wicker: "But defeating ISIS in Iraq and Syria is still our goal..."

Carlson: "But wasn't defeating ISIS one of the goals of the Assad government. Of course ISIS was a radical Sunni group. Assad is an Alawite aligned with the Shiites. He was fighting ISIS as well, so why wouldn't we, if we believe ISIS is the main enemy, functionally find ourselves on the side of Assad."

Wicker: "Well, you're correct in this sense and you're correct in many ways. It's complicated in Syria, there's no question about it. There's not a bunch of white hats and a bunch of black hats, so I'll give you that. And we're not in the business of regime change, so I would challenge that [ed. note: yeah right!], but it is in our national interest to make sure ISIS is defeated and we've almost got the job done. I just think it would be a mistake to pull away at this point."

It sounded like Wicker was very upset because you're not supposed to say that. ISIS and Assad are on the same side I tell you! It's very rare that the warhawks will cut out the sophistry and cheap parlor tricks and just admit that attacking Assad is aligning our aims with Al Qaeda and ISIS. Occasionally, you'll get like ISIS-sympathizer (and yeah, if they're going to call us "Assadists" I'm going to call them ISIS-sympathizers) Thomas Friedman, when he unironically asked "why is Trump fighting ISIS in Syria?" 

We've played this game before. In September of 2003, almost six months after we invaded Iraq on false pretenses, a Washington Post poll found that "Sixty-nine percent of Americans said they thought it at least likely that Hussein was involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon." 

This was deliberate. The Christian Science Monitor describes how it was done,

"In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11.
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"Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was "personally involved" in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago."

Don't be fooled again. Any war in Syria is a war for Al Qaeda no matter how many horrifying videos of dying children these chickenhawk pundits show you.

So the Syrian government is winning the civil war on all fronts and the United States decided to pull out. What is the obvious thing for Assad to do next? Well obviously it's to gas children.

Indeed, to think Assad would do this is not to think he's evil. It's to think he bathes in his own feces. Tucker Carlson cuts threw the fog here about as well as I've seen anyone do it:

Also important to remember:

- According to The New York Times, the rebels have used chemical weapons at least 52 times.

- Secretary of Defense James Mattis admits there is "no evidence" Assad was behind chemical weapons attack in 2017.

- Legendary journalist Seymour Hersh shows the rebels were also probably behind the 2013 chemical weapons attack in Ghouta.

- A 2015 study from the Centre on Religion and Geopolitics found that "Some 60% of Syria's major rebel groups are Islamist extremists" More than half sympathize with ISIS, you know the guys who crucify Christians, chop the heads off apostates and Shia "heretics," keep sex slaves and throw homosexuals off roofs... those guys.

- And remember, that was three years ago. The rebels have been losing since then and who stays on a losing side, the moderates or the fanatics? Also, Islamist extremists are ridiculously extreme. Are the other 40% really "moderate?" And finally, some of those non-extremists are the Kurds, who basically want to set up a Marxist ethnostate. And the PKK, which is a Marxist terrorist group, is fighting in Syria too. I.e. another group that cannot be called "moderate."

- In 2016, the US State Department noted that "an excess of 40,000 total foreign fighters [that] have gone to the conflict [in Syria] from over 100 countries." Can it even be called a civil war? Sounds more like an invasion.

- Do I have to remind you of the catastrophes that resulted from the invasions of Iraq and Libya? ISIS started in the vacuum of power left in the wake of Iraq's destruction and Libya now has bustling slave markets.

- Who is going to take over if Assad falls? Honestly who? Will it be a Jeffersonian democrat who will install a constitutional republic? Give me a break. It will be never-ending civil war, another strong man like Assad or, more likely, a bunch of head-chopping Jihadists. If we go to war in Syria, we're fighting for Al Qaeda. If we bomb Assad, we're acting as Al Qaeda's air force.

- Trump decided to end what I call the CIA's "Adopt a Jihadi" program in 2017 when he saw a video by several fighters for Nour al-Din al-Zenki, a group of moderate terrorists the CIA was supporting, cutting off a boy's head and laughing about it. Those are your moderates, folks.

- We shouldn't forget our insane policy under Obama (and Trump to a lesser degree) was best highlighted by this LA Times headline; "In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA." 

There are two not-insane policies in Syria. 1) Go home, this is not our fight. And 2) Smash ISIS into the dirt and then come home. Trump did the second and now we're basically done. ISIS is all but defeated. It's time to come home Donald.

Everything else is cuckoo for cocoa puffs... which is why the Washington establishment that dreamt up "weapons of mass destruction" lie is so universally in favor of it. But one man wasn't. Let's hope he doesn't get dupped by the neocons:

In my last post, I mentioned the term "Tumblr Blog University" which I didn't explain. (Although it's somewhat self-evident.) Anyways, I though I might describe the term in more depth.

This has been a thought that's brewing in my mind for a while. Basically, all of these Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies and other fake degrees that people rightfully make fun of, can exert enormous influence both in public policy and university policy. No chemistry department is going to put pressure on the entire university to change some major admissions policy. But the Gender Studies department would (and does) eagerly put pressure on them for all sorts of changes that everyone else has to get behind or they will be accused of hating women (or blacks or gays or Hispanics or whomever). 

In this way, these departments have a cancerous effect, where they basically take over a university's admissions and other policies. De facto if not outright affirmative action is put in place, due process is eliminated for men and only men, speech codes are enforced and on and on and on.

But what's worth remembering is not a single one of these institutions became prestituous or noteworthy because of their Medieval Chicano Women's Military History Studies program. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT and the rest of them became famous and prestigious because of their hard science, philosophy, business and technology departments.

In other words, these new postermodernist departments parasitically leach off of the reputation of a university that was built upon the works of other departments. Then once entrenched, they act as a cancer with which to take over the university and dominate it.

The garbage you read from various professors of Gender Studies (like why we should all hate men) is what you'll find on your typical demented leftist's Tumblr blog. Honestly, just check out New Real Peer Review's Twitter feed for proof. One example (amongst many):

Saying someone is a Harvard professor or graduate is a tremendous boost to ones reputation. This needs to end. The degree is more important. And those who have these bogus degrees should be referred to as what they are: Reputational leaches in Tumblr Blog Departments.

So I previously wrote that perhaps tariffs aren't that bad because, if you have to have a tax, what better to have it on than imports. Of course, that leaves open the possibility for a devastating "trade war," right? 

But that's assuming that if the United States and China had a "trade war" that it would be a war. It wouldn't. It would be a massacre, a trade massacre.

With regards to trade, the side that is "losing" actually has all the leverage. The United States has a $566 billion trade deficit, and $375 billion of that is with China. What this means is that China trades a lot more to us than we do to them. While this may mean cheaper goods for us (and more expensive assets as China gets dollars for buying American goods, so often turns around and buys American stocks, bonds and real estate) but it also means they need us and we don't need them. We can all afford to pay and extra $1.25 for a hammer or whatever if need be.

If we shut all trade, our industry would remain pretty much the same. Of course our export sector would be hurt and yes, some companies that rely on imports would be hurt and retail would have to raise prices, but indeed, manufacturing would improve as we would have to buy from local firms rather than foreign ones. On the other hand, China relies very heavily on exporting goods. They would be devastated.

In other words, the United States has all the leverage. So why not play hardball for a better deal? 

The only real risk is that China could flip the board over and fire sell our treasury bonds, which of course, they got so many of because the United States ran up so much debt and had such a high trade deficit that gave China the dollars to buy US assets with in the first place. This is a risky play on their part though, as they would be taking a hit by firing selling those bonds and unless the market collapsed, investors seeking to make a buck on the arbitrage would buy those bonds up and cause the price to return to previous levels. I think they'll threaten this, but I don't think they'll pull the trigger.

So in the end, the punditry has it wrong (again) and if the US wants a better trade deal with China, it holds all the cards in a negotiation.

Well, at least we won't have to hear about "toxic masculinity" for this mass shooting,

"A suspected female shooter is dead and three others are injured after a mass shooting at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, Calif., Tuesday afternoon, according to San Bruno police.

"San Bruno police officials identified the shooter as 39-year-old Nasim Aghdam of San Diego, California.

"Aghdam was found dead inside the building with what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. There is no evidence that she was acquainted with the victims of the shooting, according to police, and there is little information available yet about her possible motive. Law enforcement had previously said the incident was being investigated as a possible domestic dispute."

Oh but there is, apparently she was upset about Youtube's censorship policies, which is interesting because this isn't coming from some "Alt Right Neo-Nazi troll" but a very, very weird Iranian vegan girl. And when I mean weird, I mean nutjob weird:

I don't think we need any grand conspiracies here, just a very disturbed individual who, once again, the authorities were warned about and did nothing.

From News.com.au,

"The founder of the world’s most popular social platform outlined his ambitions for Facebook to act as a democratic system, with an independent “Supreme Court”, which people will be able to petition for their content to be restored.

"'I think in any kind of good-functioning democratic system, there needs to be a way to appeal,' said the 33-year-old, positioning the social media network almost as its own state, although staff are not elected. 'I think we can build that internally as a first step.'

"'What I’d really like to get to is an independent appeal. So maybe folks at Facebook make the first decision based on the community standards that are outlined, and then people can get a second opinion. You can imagine some sort of structure, almost like a Supreme Court, that is made up of independent folks who don’t work for Facebook, who ultimately make the final judgment call on what should be acceptable speech in a community that reflects the social norms and values of people all around the world.'"

A Supreme Court for Facebook? Would this be national and presumably ran by rabid, free speech-hating SJWs? Or would it be international and ran by the Chinese given their sheer numbers? Who knows?

But using words like "supreme court" makes these ostensible companies sound more and more like governments. Indeed, something like 90 percent of search engine traffic goes through Google, so they effectively regulate Internet search results. Their algorithms decide what gets to the first page and what gets buried in obscurity. 

This isn't like a normal market. With these large social media you have to have an enormous number of users before your product can even function. And it seems to be similar with Google, which has social media platforms (Youtube, Google+) within it. You can't just open up a competing shop down the road or sell a competing product in your online store. Indeed, Apple and Google pretty much have a duopoly in the online apps market.

And the far-left leanings of these companies is well known, highlighted by the James Damore debacle. Facebook's recent algorithm change seems to have boosted liberal sites' traffic by 2 percent and reduced conservative sites' traffic by 14 percent. And research report by mathematician Leo Goldstein alleges that Google "Is found to be biased in favor of left/liberal domains," and "against conservative domains" with a confidence of 95 percent. 

Honestly, try it yourself. Search some topic on Google and the first results you'll get are The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post. The only conservative site that usually makes it to the first page, usually the bottom, is Fox News. 

The question we need to ask ourselves is simple: Do we really want these tech companies governing the Internet?

I've discussed Allen Carr's great book many times before (here, here and here for example) but I would be remiss not to do it again as this book has been more important to me than any other. Having tried to quit smoking for years on my own using what Carr would refer to as "the willpower method" I finally read his book and quit easily.

Right now, the book has almost 3000 reviews on Amazon.com with a 4 and half star rating. Their seminars offer a money-back guarantee and less than 10 percent cash in on it. And a study by the Internal Archives of Occupational Environmental Health showed Allen Carr's method had a 51.4 percent 12-month cessation success rate, which blew out every other kind (usually around 5 percent). So the method works.

Basically, what Carr does is flip the script. Instead of talking about all of the reasons you shouldn't smoke like most methods do, Carr investigates the reasons people actually do. Yes, we all know that smoking is expensive and gross and terrible for your health and all the rest. Every smoker knows all of that and still smokes. So highlighting those issues obviously doesn't help.

But why do we smoke? Well, we've all come up with a bunch of excuses. Carr takes time to destroy each one. "Smoking cures boredom." Umm, no, smoking is about the most boring thing you can do. "Smoking relaxes me." No, nicotine is a stimulant. "Smoking helps me concentrate." Wait, I thought you said smoking relaxes you? What magic drug has two completely opposite effects?

Of course, it doesn't. All nicotine does is relieve nicotine withdrawal, nothing more. But here's the kicker, nicotine withdrawal is almost all in the mind. The actual physical effects are incredibly mild,

"There is no physical pain in the withdrawal from nicotine. It is merely a slightly empty, restless feeling, the feeling that something isn’t quite right, or that something is missing… 
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"…Most smokers go all night without a cigarette. The withdrawal “pangs” do not even wake them up. Many smokers will leave the bedroom before they light that first cigarette; many will have breakfast first. Increasingly people don’t smoke in their homes and won’t have that first cigarette until they are in the car on the way to work… These smokers have eight or maybe ten hours without a cigarette—going through withdrawal all the while, but t doesn’t seem to bother them."

It's all a trick, and once you see it for what it is, quitting is quite easy indeed. Please, if you are a smoker, give Allen Carr's method a try!