Biden is threatening to impose sanctions against Myanmar after coup.

 

File photo of Joe Biden. Reuters. 

The Biden administration is threatening to impose sanctions against Myanmar after a military coup. Reuters. Biden condemned the coup that removed and detained Aung San Suu Kyi and many others in the government. The military of Myanmar claims that the recent election was marred by election fraud. Sanctions are about the only option that Biden has as contacts with Myanmar are limited. Many Republican senators, in an act of rare agreement with Biden, also condemned the coup.

My Comment:

I am far from an expert on Myanmar despite the fact that I work with a lot of Burmese people. I do have to say that I am deeply suspicious of the unity on this issue. When Biden, the media and neocons all agree one something that usually means they are angry that something good happened. 

My question to them would be this. If the military is right and the election was indeed stolen in Myanmar then why is it a bad thing that they took over the country? That's kind of the point of the military, to protect the country and if the elections aren't valid then isn't democracy dead already? 

Of course that hits way too close to home for the Democrats, media and certain Republicans who are opposed to President Trump. If voter fraud can happen in Myanmar and the military was right to overthrow and arrest the government then the same could be true here and that's the kind of hatefact that the media simply can't allow to exist anymore. Which is why nobody is even considering the military's claims that the election was stolen.

That doesn't mean that the military is right about the election being stolen. From what I understand Aung San Suu Kyi is fairly popular in Myanmar and it is certainly possible that she won the election. I've never liked her but some people do and it's possible that this really is an illegal coup.

Too bad I have no reason to believe that. Even if it is true if the media says it, it makes it impossible to believe. They lie about everything, why wouldn't they lie about this.

As for Myanmar I think that the chaos here is going to be a major problem for them. The sanctions that Biden might put into place will hurt them a great deal. The country has had a lot of problems and will be punished for going against the grain. 

They also have the Rohingya issue to deal with. If they piss off people enough they could draw accusations of genocide. From what I understand the Rohingya are just a bunch of Muslim carpetbaggers that are basically invading the country but I guess that doesn't justify killing them. My guess is that this is one of the major ways Myanmar is going to be punished for this coup. 

Anti-Trump Lincoln Project co-founder exposed as a serial sexual harasser.

 

John Weaver. 

The co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project has been exposed as a serial sexual harasser. The Hill. The Lincoln Project is an anti-Trump group that endorsed Joe Biden for president and is made up of supposed Republicans. It was co-founded by John Weaver, who has been accused of sending explicit messages to many young men, including one who was 14. He also offered those men career advice, jobs and money. Weaver is married to a woman and has two kids. The Lincoln Project disavowed Weaver and claimed he had limited involvement with the groups. They also say they had no knowledge of his behavior until the accusations hit social media. 

My Comment:

The Lincoln Project has been around for awhile now but I have never bothered to mention them as they are so obviously astro-turfed. They are a very small group of neoconservatives who have largely been pushed to the wayside. They still claim to be Republicans but they have never even shown once that they are conservative on any issue and the idea that any Republican would endorse Joe Biden, the corrupt, senile and far left candidate over President Trump is just stupid. 

It is not surprising that a group founded on the idea of betraying the voters who put President Trump in office would have such a man as John Weaver founding it. Weaver was a staffer for several political campaigns, including John McCain and John Kasich so he's been around for awhile and I doubt that his behavior was unknown to the Lincoln Project and to the campaigns that he worked for. 

Weaver's actions weren't that uncommon. He was sending messages out to basically anyone who he thought he had a chance with. That alone isn't too bad, it's pretty common in politics, though obviously wrong. But he crossed a line when he sent those messages to boys under the age of 18. His behavior outside of that was sexual harassment at worse but doing it to minors bumps it up in seriousness quite a bit. 

Another of Weaver's victims were his family. He was married with two kids and in addition to founding one of the most hated and ineffective political groups in America, he also betrayed their trust. He looks like he cheated on his wife and now he has embarrassed both his wife and children with his behavior. 

I don't think it matters too much if Weaver is gay. This is not the old Republican Party where being gay got you kicked out. Indeed, President Trump is one of the people that changed that, being more pro-gay than Barack Obama was. Had Weaver came out and told everyone he was gay nobody would have a problem with it. It was the fact that he messaged children sexually that got him into trouble. Not that Weaver counts as a Republican anymore anyways. 

Of course the other major players in the Lincoln Project are just as messed up as Weaver. George Conway is famous for his tabloid homelife along with his pro-Trump wife Kellyanne. Their family is blowing up right now and neither side is without blame. And Rick Wilson is famous for calling Trump fans anime porn watching weirdos while also being caught with anime porn (tentacles specifically) in his browser history. 

To say that I am pleased that the Lincoln Project is dying is an understatement. I always hated them as traitors are a lot more dangerous then even the enemy. They were always completely ineffective and struck everyone I know as the equivalent of Tokyo Rose or Axis Sally, the enemy claiming to be one of us. 

Even more hilarious to me is the fact that the left has turned on the Lincoln Project. The non-Republicans I see tweeting about the Lincoln Project today are condemning them, some for Weaver's behavior but more for George Conway not being anti-Trump enough! Just goes to show that there is no forgiveness on the left and anyone trying to serve two masters is going to get burned by them. 

Finally, I have to say that for a group of people that were ostensibly concerned with President Trump's personal behavior it's pretty clear that they had zero high ground whatsoever. Weaver and Rick Wilson were perverts, George Conway home life is a mess and none of them had any right to complain about Trump's various personal issues when their own lives were a mess. I am very glad that these people are probably done in politics. 

A few thoughts on this blog and tech censorship.

 There isn't much going on in the news tonight so I thought I would write a little about tech censorship and the effect it has had on this blog. As you are almost certainly aware social media has been an absolute mess this month. 

I started this month with accounts at Facebook, Twitter, Gab, Parler and MeWe and I still technically have those accounts. However Parler was nuked, Gab was unusable for several weeks and I lost almost a quarter of my Twitter followers. 

So, how badly did this effect my numbers for this month? Not as much as I would have thought. The numbers are down since last month (which was an outlier regardless) but given I lost hundreds of followers and had difficulty reaching hundreds more, it's pretty amazing that I was able to keep my views and income up. 

However, I do fear that this might not be the case in the future. Facebook has always been the most important source of my views for this blog and if they ever decide to pull the same kind of nonsense that Twitter has done then my views will probably never recover, even if Parler comes back and I get a bunch of new Twitter followers. It's responsible for the vast majority of my views and is why my blog did ok this month despite Parler getting nuked and Twitter banning or driving away a huge number of users.

This leaves me in a precarious position. If Facebook does go full fascist and start banning anyone to the right of Mao then my blog is essentially done. I might get a few views from what is left of Twitter and Gab but it won't be anything near what I have gotten from Facebook. 

Will that happen? I don't know. I tend to not rock the boat on Facebook with my page as, unlike my other accounts, I don't crosspost my tweets there. I basically only posts links to this blog which means they should have little reason to ban me. But I also see the direction the tech companies are going and it is not a good sign at all. 

My Twitter account is probably at a much higher risk to be banned. I have been shadowbanned on their before and was forced to verify my account once. Given how much of a ghost town Twitter is these days and the danger of being doxxed by some dangerhair blue checkmark social justice warrior getting banned would honestly not be that bad since Twitter was never a major source of my views.

Still, if you care enough to be reading this there is something you can do if you only follow me on Twitter or Facebook. I don't think my Gab account is going anywhere. Unlike Parler, they were pretty hardened against attacks from big tech. The main problem with Gab is some of their user base actually is the crazy far-right extremists that the media claims are everywhere, it's not a place for the easily offended. I'm @politicswarblog there if you have an account.

Perhaps though this is just paranoia. Unlike a lot of people that get banned from Twitter, I don't engage when confronted by the Twitter pile on. Just last month I made fun of Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke and it went viral on the left. It didn't effect me at all because I just blocked everyone that tried to bait me into saying something stupid. I also make sure to never violate the terms of service, which are stupid but are fairly easy to follow. I am guessing if I do get banned it will be by the point the service is no longer relevant. And again, all I post on Facebook is links to my blog. 

The peace deal in Afghanistan may be in doubt under Biden...

 

File photo of US troops in Afghanistan. Reuters. 

The Biden administration says that a way forward for the peace deal in Afghanistan may be in doubt due to violence from the Taliban. Reuters. The deal was made last year under President Trump and called for US troops to withdraw in May 2021. The Taliban were to make security concessions and not attack the Afghan army in return but they are reportedly not making those commitments at this time. The Biden administration claims that the Taliban are still close to al-Qaeda. 2500 US troops are currently stationed in Afghanistan, the lowest number since the war began in 2001. It is unclear what the Biden administration will do concerning troop levels. 

My Comment:

One of the less immediately obvious results of Biden stealing the election is that America's forever wars are going to continue. We have been in Afghanistan for 20 years now and under President Trump there was a real hope that we would finally be pulling out. We have lost more than 2000 troops there and spent billions of dollars and have almost nothing to show for it. The Taliban is still strong, the Afghan government still weak and, even worse, ISIS has taken the place of al-Qaeda as the dominant terror group in Afghanistan. 

I am losing hope that we will actually withdraw from Afghanistan in 2021, or ever at this point. The Biden administration is a hawkish and neoconservative when it comes to foreign policy and I don't expect them to be much different than Barack Obama's presidency. Biden will never pull troops out even if he is under massive pressure to do so as he is a servant of interests that demand war. We will be lucky enough if we don't get into a new war, let alone get out of our current ones. 

I don't think voters had any idea how terrible Biden was going to be on foreign policy because the subject never came up. If we had a fair or even competent media they would be hitting Biden hard on this issue as pretty much everyone outside of the elite class wants us out of Afghanistan and they want it done yesterday. But I still think that more than a few people think that the Democrats are still the anti-war party despite there being no evidence that is the case. 

We really have no reason to be in Afghanistan anymore. Al-Qaeda was the main reason we were there and they have been pretty much been utterly destroyed. ISIS is still a major problem but both the Afghan Government and the Taliban consider them mortal enemies and there is little chance of them taking the county over. 

Afghanistan does have massive mineral resources, which remain locked up in their mountains. They do not have any way to extract them though and I have seen no evidence that the Biden administration even cares about that. I could see keeping troops there if we were actually investing on getting these resources but alas, we are not. 

Did the peace deal have a chance even under 2nd Trump term? I have no idea. I don't think the Taliban actually want a settled peace. But that's besides the point. We should withdraw regardless of what happens to the Afghan government. We have helped them for almost 20 years now and if they can't stand on their own without our help then that's on them, not us. 

And what is the worst that happens if the Taliban come into power? Pretty much the status quo. There is a fear that al-Qaeda could regroup but that could happen regardless. Plus we don't need troops on the ground to bomb the hell out of them if that happens. No, the best thing for the United States would be to pull out our troops and it seems pretty likely that won't happen now... 

Stock trading app Robinhood stopped users from trading GameStop and other short stocks.

 

GameStop's stock prices. CNBC.

The stock trading app Robinhood stopped users from trading GameStop and other short stocks. CNBC. GameStop was being shorted by Melvin Capital, a hedge fund, but retail traders from r/wallstreetbet and /biz/ were buying the stocks, leaving Melvin Capital responsible for the shorted stocks. In response Robinhood stopped users from buying GameStop and other short stocks like AMC theaters and Nokia. Some users were only allowed to sell their shares while others were forced to do so with Robinhood arguing they did not have enough collateral. The move called massive bipartisan outrage from both Democrats like AOC and Republicans like Ted Cruz. Robinhood reversed course after trading ended with new trades now being allowed with some restrictions. 

My Comment:

Again, like I said yesterday I am no expert on economics and stocks. I think I understand what is going on but I could be wrong on some things so keep that in mind. I figured that was a necessary disclosure as unlike most of the topics I discuss here I have some expertise in what I am talking about. Not so much in this case. 

I'm fairly disgusted with what Robinhood did here. For an app that launched saying that they would bring investing to the people, they screwed over the little guy. And unlike the mythical Robin Hood, they were stealing from poor to give to the rich. I don't buy any of their excuses, they did this because they were pressured by the hedge funds and gave in almost immediately. 

They weren't the only investing firm to do this as several of the other big players did the same thing or otherwise restricted trading on the short stocks. Robinhood is getting most of the flack but there was a coordinated effort to try and stop people from trading the shorted stocks and it actually worked. GameStop's stocks lost a lot of money before trading closed.

The good news is that investors have found a way around Robinhood. They are using other apps now and overnight trading shows that GameStop is going up again, along with many other stocks. These people will make money as long as they hold out until the mandatory buyout which should make a lot of people rich. 

Despite noise from both the left and the right I don't expect anything to be done about it. Democrats like AOC and Elizabeth Warren are making a lot of noise but they don't actually want to help the little guy. Instead they want to tax hedge funds to pay for their own projects. And the GOP can say whatever they want but the truth is that they aren't in power. If anything is done it will be a new tax on hedge funds and not punishment of Robinhood. 

I also think that this incident shows that the real divide in this country isn't really Republican vs Democrat it's elite vs everyone else. The second the elite's interests are threatened (and what could be more elite then a hedge fund like Melvin Capital) the elites push back so that the little guy gets screwed over. Indeed, the reason this happened in the first place is that the people from r/wallstreetbets were sick and tired of the big hedge funds were doing and decided to beat them at their own game. 

I think this is just the latest incident in a trend where people are sick and tired of the establishment. That was what President Trump was about, that was what Bernie Sanders was about and that was what the Capitol counter-coup was about. People just aren't having it anymore. I think this country is a lot closer to a civil war than people want to admit. 

And this is a good example why that is the case. The normal people of the country, well as normal as reddit and 4chan autists can get, found a way to finally make some money and the powers that be decided to shut them down. Sure, the hedge funds were losing money but they agreed to that risk when they shorted the stocks. 

But the powers that be? They wouldn't have any of it. Nobody can threaten the elite and get away with it. So they pressured Robinhood and then the stock dropped. Just like when the people tried to stop the theft of the election they arrested everyone and claimed that everyone was a "white supremacist" or "conspiracy theorist". Like they didn't have actual complaints that should have been addressed.

So what happens next? I have no idea. In theory the redditors have won, the stock price is going up in overnight trading and in theory if they keep holding onto it they will get their money. But a lot could happen tomorrow that could change that. It's possible that Wall Street itself will move on the redditors and they will end up losing in the end. I hope that is not the case but we will just have to wait and see what happens...