2020 Follies
Washington State passed a bill through their lower legislative house that would require any candidate running for president in that state to release five years of tax returns prior to appearing on the ballot. It’s clearly aimed at keeping President Trump off the ballot. If it passes the Washington State Senate, and becomes law, everyone expects that the matter will end up in the US Supreme Court. There is Article 2 language that is ambiguous and the Supremes will have to sort it out.
To me, the real question is not whether a career businessman who became a billionaire should release tax returns, but whether a career politician who became a billionaire while in office should release tax returns.
Yellow Vests
The French Administration wants a confrontation on the matters of taxation (for the sake of the “Global Community”) for the benefit of people outside of France. On 18 March, French Prime Minister Philippe said Paris’ police chief had been sacked and that the government would shut down “yellow vest” protests if violent groups were identified among the ranks of “yellow vest” protesters.
“From next Saturday, we will ban ‘yellow vest’ protests in neighborhoods that have been the worst hit as soon as we see signs of the presence of radical groups and their intent to cause damage,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced in an interview.
Yes, THAT always works to bring the population into line. The French problem includes the inclination of the police to side with the protestors in many situations…
This announcement is guaranteed to be understood by the yellow vests as a challenge and an invitation to test the government. Next Saturday, there will be clashes specially prepared for the Champs Elysee. The Ministry of Interior reported that some 32,300 protesters demonstrated in French cities on the 18th weekend of Yellow Vest protests. Up to 10,000 were in Paris. That makes the 18th protest about 4,000 larger than the 17th. Predictions that the protests were winding down proved premature.
Many French people are tired of socialism and would like their excessive taxes used in France for the benefit of the nation – what an un-progressive thought.
Pakistan vs India vs China
The Indians and Pakistanis view nuclear weapons as a type of heavy artillery, available and on-call. It’s that sort of outdated strategic thought that creates the sort of problem that we are seeing in the Subcontinent.
The Pakistanis and Indians are sparring over military escalation (sort of a dick-measuring contest). India has a superior nuclear arsenal in terms of weapons and launch platforms, but Pakistan has China, and China vowed not to allow Pakistan to lose a war. Now how you define ‘winning and losing’ in a nuclear exchange is a more of a challenge. India is larger and would likely come out on top in the end (even with China intervening) but in no sense could you call that a ‘win’.
For at least the fifth time since the 1971 war, US and UK mediation persuaded the potential belligerents to de-escalate. In 1999, international mediation failed to prevent the Kargil War, but it was instrumental in stopping it.
Detals
Both Indian and Pakistani leaderships remain stuck in outdated thinking about the practical use of missiles and nuclear warheads in minor crises.
Each leadership boasts that its side would win a general war that included launches of nuclear missiles. Retired General Musharraf, however, told the press during the height of the latest conflict that Pakistan should be careful because 16 Indian missiles would destroy the country.
If a war began conventional, Pakistani forces could not prevent the Indian Army from occupying large swaths of Pakistani territory. That scenario was played out twice in the two near-war crises of 2001-2002. In both episodes, Pakistan had to activate its nuclear missiles to deter a conventional Indian attack.
The implication is that the next crisis that threatens a conventional war between India and Pakistan also threatens the world’s first nuclear war. There is no conventional war option that leaders on either side could risk because they do not trust each other.
There was an Indian threat to launch a couple of weeks ago. It didn’t happen, but once Pakistan detected in-bound Indian missiles, Pakistani leaders would have no choice but to assume the worst about what warheads they were carrying and order a counter attack.
Owing to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the closeness of the strategic partnership, we doubt China would watch Pakistan be destroyed by Indian missiles and do nothing to deter India or to aid Pakistan.
China’s steadfast commitment to aid Pakistan in wartime was illustrated in the 1971 India-Pakistan War. Chinese ammunition and supply truck convoys stretched from Xinjiang through the Kunjerab Pass to Rawalpindi in deep winter to prevent Pakistan from running out of ammunition. That route is the upper end of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor today.
India’s willingness to escalate to general war over a terrorist attack and to use ballistic missiles as the instrument of escalation is inflexible strategic thinking. Pakistan’s willingness to allow a proxy terrorist attack to drag it onto an escalatory staircase including the use ballistic missiles as the instrument of retaliation also is rigid strategic thinking. In both cases, the tail wags the dog.
One open source study by three US universities in 2007 estimated that in an exchange of 100 15-kiloton weapons (50 Hiroshima bombs each), India and Pakistan would kill 21 million people in a week from the blast, burns and radiation. Half the world’s ozone lay would be destroyed, resulting in a nuclear winter that would lead to the starvation of 2 billion people… all potentially triggered by a teenager who conducted a terrorist attack in Kashmir. (Think of the Serbian who assassinated Arch Duke Ferdinand and started the First World War – that sort of thing can still happen, because the world is made of dominoes)
The next general war in South Asia will be nuclear and will involve China. The difference with past wars and border crises is that now a lone suicide bomber in Kashmir can be the trigger for a nuclear exchange that damages the world., not just South Asia.
I know it's weird but the French seem kind of fed up with the Rothschild globalist overlords. Banning the protests is a great way to stop that.
Didn't someone say "these people are stupid"? Maybe blinded by Satan would be more accurate?
What other entanglements might there be?
Would India launch, and have time or resources to launch, on China?
Don't those yellow vests know that they are irking their betters? Those yellow vests don't know how to properly spend their own money, and accordingly their betters stepped up and helped them with this problem. Now these ingrate yellow vests are thinking otherwise?
Just listen to your betters, yellow vests. They know how things should go, just ask them, they will tell you.
"The world is made of dominos" indeed.
Some reports have AntiFa "joining" Yellow Vests over the weekend and participating in the most violent and destructive clashes. Wonder who is holding their leash and what would be the profit? Possibly to make the movement repugnant enough they lose sympathy/support?
"….threatens the world’s first nuclear war" Second, actually.
The French elites feel that simply by outlawing demonstrations, people will return to their content lives as they are milked for taxes that in part support the globalist aspirations.
Because we only have 12 more years before we all die.
China and India have had a shooting war ongoing in the Himalayas for a couple of decades now. Every year there are a few dozen Chinese and Indians killed. nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/why-war-between-china-india-not-unthinkable-would-be-total-26238
India could launch on China and China would launch on India. There's no way to win that sort of exchange.
People need to understand that their leaders are naturally smarter than they are. When it comes to the EU puppet masters who run the show, it should be called 'tribute' rather than taxation. The greasy French peasants stormed the Bastille on July 14… what did they know?
Fredd, today, I listen to our nation's brain trust: The Fake Indian, The Fake Mexican, AOC and Spartacus if I have a question.
Sometimes they fall.
Antifa wants to push the next French Govt. left (naturally). They want a piece of the anarchy so they can come out ahead. The yellow vest movement want nationalism and a French-first government who worries more about the French people than they do a million military age Muslim males.
Actually, yes. But it wasn't a nuclear exchange in '45, just a couple bombs. And they were war enders. This time with India and Pakistan, they may be openers.
Well, I suppose the good news is that I strongly doubt that the US college study is accurate. The Russians, French, and US all detonated a crapload of nukes in tests over the years… I'm pretty sure a hell of a lot more kaboom than 100 measley 15KT weapons. Many of these were surface or atmospheric tests. No nuclear winter, no atmosphere being stripped off, no worldwide disaster.
China, India, and Pakistan will pretty well ruined, with certainly many millions of dead people (at least millions).
But unless it goes general with us and the Russians going heavily in, I strongly doubt that it would generate a new dark age, much less end world civilization.
I tend to find that essentially all "nuclear war studies" by colleges and similar are little more than exaggerated lies to push a political agenda, much as the original Sagan "nuclear winter" publicity was.
I would rather avoid it though. Here's hoping.
-Kle.
P.S. – yes, I was right. 100 15KT bombs is only 1.5MT. Tsar Bomba alone was 50MT, and a surface test.
Nuclear bombs are very dangerous things, but not nearly so much as they are made out to be.
Fingers still crossed though.
That's true but, the protests are Yellow Vests. AntiFa shows up, doubles down on the violence, particularly against the police, then fade away (you've really got to look to find MSM acknowledging their participation). The Yellow Vests own the mayhem. Who profits? Not the 'Vests', they get the blame for the violence, all of it. Like the Brown Shirts, AntiFa is a targeted violence organization. Who holds the leash, who profits, and why?
The USA and USSR detonated hundreds and hundreds of warheads in testing with almost ALL larger than the one at Hiroshima. Nuclear winter did not happen and the ozone later stuck around. There is likely a point in megatonnage where the ecologic damage goes from serious ataa local level to untenable for humanity….but it's probably a higher number than most people believe. Don't want to do real world testing if avoidable but it's likely India and Pakistan don't have enough warheads to pass the tipping point. The problem being more one of uncorking the bottle and letting the nuclear genie out. Once open it's hard to close up again.
The testing didn't happen with fifty or sixty nuclear weapons going off in one place and at roughly the same time, above ground. I think that the effect tends to become more pronounced when that happens. If China throws into the mix, it could be a hundred nukes – potentially. All of them dirty (as opposed to thermonuclear, which is somewhat cleaner).
My response to Dan (below) was that you could have a LOT of nukes going off above ground in one place at one time. Nobody really knows what the result would be. Studies lack real-world context. But nobody wants that context to study.
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