By attacking Assad’s air base, we’ve pressed a real RESET button: Tyrants beware—America is a paper tiger no more.

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Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Ford Williams/U.S. Navy via AP

Love him or hate him, Trump just reasserted America’s lone superpower status. And though I don’t like our president, I’m grateful that we’re off the sidelines and back in the game. Hooyah!

Punching an evil tyrant in the nose is EXACTLY the right response to war crimes. It’s eight years overdue, but better late than never. Our missile attack on Syria’s Shayrat air base sends this vital message to Assad and Putin and others like him:

If you commit acts of barbarity against civilians, expect anything and everything from the world’s greatest military.

By the way, how does Trump’s treatment of Russia and its ally make the howlers of Russia/Trump election collusion look? Silly, that’s what.

Cool as Key lime pie

I have to give it to him: How cool is it to order the strike and then sit down to dinner with a tyrannical leader of another amoral regime? I wonder if Xi Jinping was just beginning to enjoy his Key lime pie when an aid whispered the news in his ear.

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What Trump seems to get and others should, too, is this:

Evil leaders, regimes and terrorists—and this includes Iran, North Korea, ISIS, Al Qaeda, et al—only consider altering behavior in response to brute force and the fear that crossing “red lines” will likely result in violent consequences.

There are those who claim that Assad’s gas attack is somehow a product of Trump’s supposed “hateful” words. Based on Assad’s previous behavior:

This horrendous act would likely have happened had Hillary been elected. It would likely have happened had Trump not even run. It would’ve even more likely have happened if Obama were still in office.

In each scenario, the timing and other factors may have been different, but the salient issue is this—the gassing of civilian men, women and children was not about Trump or his words. Every neophyte president gets smacked in the face with the reality of real-world intelligence. It happened to Obama and now to Trump.

Any self-respecting tyrant

Does any reasonable person truly think Assad is such a two-bit tyrant that he takes his cues from Trump’s “hate” words and acts accordingly? He’s an evil dictator with a weak chin—why would he need motivation from a loose-cannon-mouthed president? To those who blame Trump for this—STOP giving him so much power.

I’ve written time and again that I don’t like Trump. Though he’s petty, thin-skinned and a bit buffoonish, he’s not evil nor is he the devil. That said, I’m glad he just reestablished America as the muscle behind right responses to international war crimes committed by thugs and their minions.

Finally, America is back as the world’s enforcer of international law and order and common, civilized morality. My first shout out was in Navy speak—here’s the Marine Corps version—Oorah!

Being back sure feels good. It’s RESET time, baby.

From Russia with Love: Did Putin help Trump win the election?

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That pesky Putin and his friggin’ Fancy Bear hackers … did they help Trump win? The startlingly shallow exposé that follows uncovers nothing, but answers everything. Enjoy.

Election interference. A KGB connection. An East-Meets-West Bromance of Trumputinian proportions. It reads like a scintillating spy novel and plays in the press like an international crime of the century.

Did the Russkies influence the outcome of the election? Did the press blow it? “Fake news” hurt Hillary?

Here’s the cold, hard truth—it doesn’t matter one whit who did what—Trump is our president, and there’s not a dang thing we can do about it.

But it IS fun to point fingers. And conspiracy theories about Russia haven’t been this juicy since the Cold War.

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Let’s dig deeper

Suppose the Russians DID influence our election. How’d they pull this off and why? Does Putin despise Hillary? If so, perhaps it’s because of that silly RESET button that translated to “overload” in Russian.

Did Putin take this as a subtle snark attack on his manhood? Like maybe he thought Hillary was zinging him for his many manly shirtless horseman photos? Or for his overcharged martial arts machismo?

Granted, Putin and Hillary don’t seem to like each other. But I figured it’s because he’s a man and she’s a woman. Does the hatred run deep enough to sic his Fancy Bear hackers on her?

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What we know and don’t know

The DNC servers got hacked, and WikiLeaks laid bare Hillary’s operatives’ election misdeeds. Did this influence the election? Probably. Should whoever hacked the DNC servers also have hacked the RNC’s? Who says they didn’t?

If they did, but chose not to release Trump’s nefarious election dealings, is it because there was nothing to release? Okay, I know what you’re thinking—are you kidding me? Trump and his Trumplings are as crooked as the day is long. You’re probably right.

But we don’t know they’re crooked based on any hard evidence. We DO know about Hillary’s minions’ odious dealings concerning Bernie Sanders. Everything else is innuendo and blind Trump hatred. You can run with innuendo all you like—it’s a free country.

 

But it isn’t FAIR

What does fairness have to do with anything? The virtue making of fairness is a uniquely American construct. The rest of the world doesn’t play that way. And if we’re honest, neither do we. For sure, Putin’s (former?) KGB operatives don’t trouble themselves with fairness.

How hackers “interfered”

Let’s analyze this election interference stuff.

Hackers hack DNC servers. In doing so, they uncover bad and “unfair” stuff. WikiLeaks publishes it. Hillary takes hits in the form of distractions that slow her momentum. Trump capitalizes by bloviating nonstop about her untrustworthiness.

Seems like politics as usual.

Did the hackers make this stuff up about Hillary’s campaign? Did they create fake emails and disguise them as John Podesta’s or Debbie Wasserman Shultz’s? I haven’t heard or read any denials from either of these schmucks. Have you?

They screwed up and got caught.

Hackers uncovered damaging information, and WikiLeaks simply revealed it to us voters. Is this election interference? Nope. Did it influence voters? Yup. But there’s a big difference between influence and interference.

As voters, we influence each other. The media influences us with their bias. Voter fraud is election interference. So is tinkering with vote counting systems.

If this “interference” is actually influence by information giving, please, Russkies, interfere EVERY time. And make sure you do so with both or all the candidates.

When voting for president, I like raw information. We don’t get it from our media, so why not get it from WikiLeaks? It’s funny how every other scrap of info WikiLeaks has provided—NOT Hillary-related—is praised with none of this handwringing over fairness.

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The BIGLY question answered

Did the Russian (or whoever) hackers help Trump win? Who knows? But here’s what we DO know:

Damning emails helped Trump win. Sleazy Hillary operatives helped Trump win. Hillary’s arrogance, secret server and elitist and dismissive deplorable comments helped Trump win.

Trump’s capitalizing on an eight-year anger build helped Trump win. INFORMATION helped Trump win.

American voters helped Trump win.

 

Does Putin have a bromance with Trump? I don’t know, and I don’t care. 

But I doubt it because Putin is all about Putin. He’ll do or say whatever he thinks will best preserve and expand his power while, secondarily, furthering Russia’s interests. Trump’s probably the same way, except for a niggling streak of patriotism that may counter his power trip.

Perhaps that’s why Putin and Hillary hate each other. They’re more alike than they are different. Maybe it’s a matter of conflicting interests:

Hillary wanted to reign in Putin’s power and Russia’s influence through sanctions and pressure. Putin wants to do the same to us by any means possible.

Trump wants to work with Putin by schmoozing and making deals. At least for now.

Siberian-cold, hard election truths

Those who keep beating this dead horse wouldn’t give a Russian rat’s arse about any election interference, if their candidate had won. Stop whining, and give our electorate a little more credit.

But they don’t and won’t because they can’t accept the idea that Trump voters may not ALL be the caricatures the “resistance” and our media portrays them as: Angry, ignorant, deplorable Bible-clingers and gun toters.

Maybe, just maybe, many are thoughtful, value-driven, high-information voters who carefully consider any and all information about the candidates—no matter how it’s acquired—and then vote accordingly.

Is it possible that some Trump voters voted for the platform and not for the pervert? Should they have voted for his criminal opponent? If they had, there’d still be a pervert in the palace—a prowler of interns with a presidential wife to protect him by destroying even more women.

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Next steps

Hey, Russian hacker/Putin monster makers—Get over it. The election is done and in the books. Instead of chasing Russian ghosts, let’s secure our servers.

Intelligence agencies—Show us what you’ve got on this election interference jazz. Otherwise shut up and stop hassling Americans who don’t deserve your carte blanche surveillance.

Angry protesters—Hack this: Your candidate lost because she sucked a little more than her opponent.

It’s high time to let it go.

Trump’s our president. Like him or not, we’re stuck with him until 2020, at least. Let’s make the best of it.

Putin and the Russians will.