Wednesday, 31 July 2024

“Autocracy Inc: Dictators Who Want to Run the World” | Anne Applebaum

Once again, it’s choice. 

Vladimir Putin chose to jettison democracy, loot his country and repress his people.

Ian Birrell reviews Anne Applebaum’s eye-opening new book, “Autocracy Inc: Dictators Who Want to Run the World”. 

Applebaum, we recall, is a figure of the Left, not at all on the Right. She looks at the gaggle of countries, Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, with dictators making choices to attack democracy and democracies, in the service of accumulating their own individual power and wealth. 

/Snip: 

After staging a failed coup and going to prison, the Venezuelan army officer Hugo Chavez ran to be president in 1998, campaigning against corruption and offering revolutionary change. His nation was seen as a prosperous beacon of stability, built on its great oil wealth, envied by many people elsewhere in the region. He won by promising to tackle the inequality that scarred it so badly and take on the oligarchs enriching themselves through favours and nepotism. Western celebrities, journalists and politicians, from Sean Penn through to Jeremy Corbyn, started flocking to South America to hail their new progressive hero supposedly fighting for social justice. Read on…

I remember the silliness of Penn and Corbyn at the time. I wondered, when it all fell to hell, were they going to admit they’d been wrong? Not a bit of it. Silence on Venezuela and Maduro, as on Russia, Iran and the rest of them… silence is their stern response.

Birrell’s review of Applebaum’s “Autocracy Inc” is in The Spectator as Conspiracy of Thieves.

Tuesday, 30 July 2024

Woe is dog!

Kamala Harris being truthful.

As of posting 131 MILLION views. Click above for the video. 

It's an AI parody. But also the truth about herself. And why Biden picked her. 

“Leaving Las Vegas” | How the “Big Three” Dems ditched Biden

Seymour Hersh on his Substack, with thanks to him:

In late 1967, as the Vietnam War was raging and President Lyndon B. Johnson was becoming increasingly unpopular, I was recruited to handle the press and write speeches for Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, the only Democrat gutsy enough to run against the Democratic president. 

Months later, working round the clock in a cluttered suite in a New Hampshire motel, I was curious about a courier from New York City who flew up most nights on the last Eastern Airlines flight. The courier would dash to the suite with a canvas bag attached to his wrist and turn it over to one of the campaign’s richest and most enthusiastic benefactors. The guy was a multi-millionaire who ran a major stock market fund but was happy to sit in the suite I was then sharing with Richard Goodwin, a real political pro—unlike me and the college brats on the campaign—and just watch and do the various errands that needed doing.

Monday, 29 July 2024

Kamala is our DEI hire (Biden). You say she’s a DEI hire?! Bigot!

Weird. 

The Dems, mainly in the shape of Joe Biden, made the point that Kamala Harris was appointed because she was a Woman and because she was "Of Colour". That is, she is a Woman of Colour. Joe Biden said it. It was, he said, a part of the program of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. DEI. Everyone cheered. 

But then, if today the GOP points out that Kamala was a DEI hire, and it’s “You’re a racist” from the Left. It’s “like you’re using the N-word” said Rep Maxwell Frost (D) Florida

It’s fine -- indeed laudable -- for the Left to say Kamala is a DEI hire. It’s not at all fine -- indeed racist -- for the Right to say she’s a DEI hire. 

Crazy. 

Greg Foreman rips it apart, as usual. It’s grossest hypocrisy. To constantly attack the Reps on various “racist’  grounds and then to cry “racist” when similar attacks come to them. The woman from CNN, above, seem genuinely puzzled at this simple point. 

There’s another thing I came across on X. Scott Adams asking people what happened when they told their Democrat friends and family about the “fine people" hoax.

The “fine people hoax” is the belief on the Left, promoted by Joe Biden, that Donald Trump said -- at a rally in Charlottesville, arguing over the fate of statues, at which some neo-Nazis marched --  “there are fine people on both sides” and that what he meant was that the neo-Nazis were also “fine people”. 

Trump did say there are “fine people on both sides”, but what he was referring to was on one side the people who wanted to topple statues of Confederate generals, and on the other side, people who wanted to keep them for historical reasons. He then went on to say, to clarify: “... I’m not talking about White Supremacists or neo-Nazis who must be condemned totally”. 

He did say that, and it’s on record. However, the Left clipped that clarifying bit from every quote since. 

To this day Democrats believe that Trump was referring to Nazis when he said there are “fine people on both sides”. 

The answers to Scott Adams’ X post are amazing. In no single case did one of their friends or family say something like “Oh... I didn’t know that. That’s interesting. I get it. I was wrong”. Not a single case. In all cases they found ways to deny the fact. Or to get angry. Or to slink away and come back later with their original hoax belief intact. 

So how can we hope that there’s going to be understanding between the Left and the Right? There can’t be. Everything else is way more complicated than the simple thing that Trump was deliberately misquoted about the “fine people”. Yet, even that, easily provably false, clearly a hoax, was not and is not, enough to change minds. 

The Truth does not change minds. 

Sunday, 28 July 2024

What is “Woke”?


My simpler version: “Woke is an extreme focus on race and gender -- as determining everything. At the expense of individual qualities”. 

The Olympics Opening Ceremony (the “OOC”)

Dear Roy and H.G.,

I feel you're going a bit soft on the shocker of this Paris OOC. At least, H.G. Nelson said he was, in today's opening pod of the Olympics, your excellent "People, Medals and Cheese".

Would I be wrong to surmise that it was perhaps under pressure from the ABC? (Who I'm guessing just *loooved* the "edginess" of the OOC).

Whatever. 

For us it remains the case that the OOC was in poor taste, tawdry, anti -Christian. Perhaps most damningly it was deeply hypocritical. I'm atheist, but agree with the many who have said: "try doing a "Drag Queen Last Supper" equivalent for Islam". They wouldn't dare.

The OOC was also in breach of the IOC Mission StatementSpecifically articles 5, 6 and 11 which require neutrality, non-discrimination and oppose any political abuse. This OOC breached all of these.

We maintain our feeling of distaste for it and blame it on Monsieur Macron….

Apart from your excellent pod, we won't be watching or following this Olympics (or even eating Brie).

Our own little Boycott, Divestment and Sanction. 

Peter & Jing 
Hong Kong 

PS: we do note the fun news that Australia is at the top of the medals table as of Day One! 
And that Hong Kong has already bagged a Gold in fencing. Way to go Oz and Hongkers!

ADDED: here’s just one report on the Drag Queens in the Last Supper tableu. There are many others. 

Most say that it’s Christians or conservatives who are upset. As in “just” Christians and conservatives. Why should we worry about them?

I’m neither, neither Christian (I’m atheist) nor conservative (I’m left libertarian), and I’m not so much upset by the tableau, but by the hypocrisy: of the tableau itself and of its creators. 

I do care that they mock the beliefs of nearly 2 billion humans. But I wouldn’t mind at all if they treated other religions, and specifically Islam exactly the same and with the same mockery. Again, it’s the hypocrisy that gets me. 

I note too that the organisers of the OOC are now trying to say that it had nothing to do with mocking the Last Supper but that it was something to do with an ancient Greek myth. Pull the other one. That just shows that they’re not just hypocrites for doing this only to Christians, but they’re liars too. 

They try and play it all off as French edginess. As French culture. As French fashion. As French, you know, joie de vivre. The certain je ne sais quoi. Nonsense. It’s anti-capitalist, anti-Christian and anti-west. That’s what the whole of this OOC show was about. 

The Islamists would be happy with this year’s OOC. The decline and imminent death of western civilisation is celebrated at the Olympics. Hurrah! Don’t worry. We’ll come and fix up that LGBTQ thing for you. We’ll fix up that Christian thing for you. We’ll fix up your society for you. We’ll sort out your legal system for you. Shariah, here we come. 

Friday, 26 July 2024

Dangers for western civilisation | Zuby

Click above, or here
I put this here because I admire Zuby and I agree that “modern Western civilisation is... in the process of undermining every pillar that made it so successful and prosperous.” 

Put another way: our western civilisation is being attacked. And we -- the people living in that western civilisation -- are sitting by, making excuses, or ignoring it. 
 
The West is being attacked at universities throughout the west. It’s not just hatred or Israel, or Zionism, or love of the Freedom for Palestinians. It’s outright hatred of the west. And all it stands for. Because they don’t understand, have no knowledge or feeling for, what the alternatives are. Which are awful. Socialism or fascism. Both lead to penury and servitude. 

Hamas, for example. It is a thoroughly fascistic Nazi outfit. It admires Hitler. Their leaders say “Hitler was great but should have finished the job”. They call, specifically and repeatedly, for murdering of all Jews in the world. Not just of Israel, but of all Jews. That’s what “genocide” means. 

Then there’s Hamas’ other horrid views: their homophobia, their misogyny, their sectarianism, their hatred of minorities, their hatred of free speech, their hatred of free assembly, their hatred of other religions and beliefs, their hatred of elections (“once we’ve won one, we’re done"). A thoroughly horrid organisation, bent on destroying our hard-won freedoms and tolerance. 

And yet... a shockingly, a disturbingly large number of people in the west -- at first at universities and now more widely -- openly praise Hamas, openly worship this group of genocidal islamists, who are prime haters of the west.  At which we, the rest of the west, just look on, or explain, or excuse, or even praise.

What on earth is wrong with us? What is wrong with the West?  

Zuby puts it down to “hubris, complacency, malice and folly.” A decent start. 
  • Is it our hubris? Maybe so, maybe we feel we’re invulnerable. But no civilisation is invulnerable. 
  • Is it our complacency? Most assuredly. We are constantly told that “you’re exaggerating the problem”. 
  • Is is our malice? Well, not ours. But certainly it’s the malice of our enemies. Who now live in large numbers in our borders. 
  • Is it our folly? Most assuredly. And I think that’s the worst one. Our folly. That is our wilful ignorance. We turn away our faces, because the problem is too big. At first it was too small, and we could ignore it. Then it was too big to handle. 
It’s a all bit like the question “how do companies go bankrupt?”, to which the answer is: at first slowly then all of a sudden. 

How do civilisations fall? At first slowly, then all of a sudden. 

"The institution of the welfare state can't survive this..."


Thoughts from Barcelona. See the tears in his eyes. His beautiful city. Being taken over by barbarians. 

Says he, the man above: "Adapt, contribute or leave the hell out.If they do, as they did in the past, he says: "The ones who came, start studying, working, respecting the new country they were welcomed in are …always welcome."

Europe doesnt want to go back in time, to welcome medievalism. But its being foisted on them by a new, an aggressive, a passionate, a supremely confident, a turgid, tumescent ideology.

If people like the man above complain, they’re labelled bigots.

Thursday, 25 July 2024

“There are no clean wars, or orderly wars” | Hussain Abdul-Hussein

Feel the enthusiasm for Kamala!

Chuck Schumer above, being weird.
They're saying this putsch was "the Party represents the will of the people", which is exactly communist speak. The Communist party represents the broader masses of the proletariat. 
It's also false on every level, as it's clear from inside leaks that the coup against Biden was orchestrated by Nancy Pelosi and Barak Obama, with Chuck in supporting roles.
In the process that parry that says this ele is about "our democracy" casually ignores the 14 million Democrats who voted for Biden. Wile Kamala got none. 
Right. Got it.
Sent from my iPad

Yes, she was “Border Czar” Part 2

There may be this technicality behind this brazen has,igniting. That the term "Border Czar" is colloquial and not an official title. But they all, the Left media, knew what it meant when they used it, before Biden stepped down.
Sent from my iPad

Yes, Kamal Harris really WAS named “Border Czar” in 2021


Sent from my iPad

Beijing Robot Girl

Click above for the Short

“Do not fall for this bull” | Greg Foreman

Click above for the video
One of the things about the posts by Greg Foreman is that he shows extended clips from the Left. He doesn’t cherry pick or cut them off. So much so that sometimes it seems that his vids are pro-Left vids. 

But then he does tear them apart. And he does so with wit and wisdom. I’ve followed him for years now and find him an astute commenter. 

Have a look, here

Wednesday, 24 July 2024

“Can Kamala Harris win the election?” | Australian ABC radio question

“Can Kamala Harris win the election?”

This was the poll question on the Aussie ABC radio station, Canberra AM666, today 24 July. 

And of course the answer was a resounding “yes”. 82% Yes and 18% no.

That included my texted answer which was “Yes” she could but “No” she shouldn’t. 

ABC Radio rang and asked me if I would like to be “Texter of the Day”(more below). 

Here’s my texts. Text ONE: 

Of course America CAN elect a woman president. The question is should America elect THIS woman.

Hillary Clinton didn't lose because she was a woman. She lost because she was a terrible candidate.

So is Kamala Harris. She was the worst performer in the 2020 primaries. She didn't gain a single delegate vote and pulled out before Ohio.

Her vice presidency has hardly be crowned with glory. But rather beclowned by silliness.

She is deeply ensnared with all of Biden's policies, including the disastrous Afghan withdrawal, Gaza, Ukraine, inflation etc...

PF, Hong Kong

Text TWO:

In answer to the anchor, James Vyver, who said that “of course the Veep in the US has limited opportunity to be out of the President’s shadow”:

"The VP is in a shadow"
Kamala Harris was named by Biden as his Border Czar.

She famously (infamously!) lied about having visited the border when she hadn't and was failed to make any inroads into the vast numbers entering the southern border illegally.

Her times as DA of San Francisco and AG of CA were also overall a failure. She's famous at failing upwards.

So, again, woman YES, this woman NO...
PF Hong Kong

Text THREE:  

"Can Kamala Harris win the election?"

I've already said yes she can, but no she shouldn't. 

Because of her policies. 

I'm sat here in Hong Kong listening all afternoon to the topic being discussed on ABC 666, including by the "thoughtful women" and am amazed that there's been no mention of the most important thing: her policies. Which is to say, the policies of Joe Biden. 

All you've discussed is the fact that she's a woman and a WOC. Nothing about what she would do as president. 

There are more people than you imagine, in the US, who care about this. And who find marked differences between the GOP and the Dems. And who choose those of the GOP. 

You should surely cover the Policy issues at least a bit. No?

PF, Hong Kong

The reason for 3 whole texts was that the show was on for hours and I happened to listen to it for hours. Not that I usually listen to Australian radio, but sometimes, for a change of pace. 

The ABC people in Canberra rang me and asked me if I’d be the “Texter of the Day”. Which is what, I asked. It’s where I get phoned up by the host of the show, asked for a song to play and to answer his questions. I declined. I was sure my own views were very counter to his, and I didn’t feel like being slammed, as anyone can be, no matter who, if the host of the show is against you. Maybe too paranoid, but that’s it.

Overall, the fact remains this: that the thing the ABC thought most important about Kamala Harris were her sex and colour. Not anything to do with her ideas, her policies, or her performance to date. About as relevant as saying that having ginger hair or brown eyes is relevant. (“The first POC who is also ginger, Yippee!”). 

ABC and most of the phone-ins seemed to think that Kamala is new on the scene. Which to them she probably was. And thus the whole panoply of the world lay in front of her. They had no idea of how bad she’d been as the DA of San Francisco or during her time as AG of California, or as a short-term Senator for CA, or as Veep. 

There’s a 3-part series on the life and jobs of Kamala Harris, by the Daily Wire. Of course it’s critical. But a counter to the encomia served up by mainstream media.  And as far as I’ve fact-checked it, it’s correct. Part 1 here

In the DA and AG jobs she began the progressive policies that have ruined the city and the state. 

San Francisco (and others, like LA, Seattle, Portland, San Diego) are now ghost town in their CBDs: shops and businesses have fled the rampant crime, a direct result of the policies of Kamala and her coterie. Over 800,000 people have left California in the last three years, because of the waste and destruction of the progressive policies of Kamala and her male doppelgänger, Gavin Newsome.  

None of this factored in to the ABC Radio Canberra afternoon talk subject. It was all about her sex and colour. Her immutable characteristics. Like her brown eyes. And about as important. 

“Kamala hype machine revs up”

Usually it’s:

Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.

But with this election and with Kamala Harris it’s:

Republicans fall in love, Democrats fall in line. 

And boy! have they fallen in line, those Dems and the mainstream media. Snap! Kamala was hated by both Left and Right until five minutes ago. Now she’s a natural wonder, a national treasure. Snap in line. To a line set by the New York Times daily pod, The Show.

This deification of Kamala was the easiest thing to predict, given the behavior of the mainstream media. She was horrible until five minutes ago and now she’s wonderful. 

Here’s a take. Common on the conservative side. Unseen on the liberal media side. 

And an another take from a Black conservative. The Black vote being critical in this election. 

And lthe Left media lying outright that Kamala was never appointed “Border Czar” (she was). Relevant because she screwed it up. If she hadn’t been appointed how could she have screwed it up, right? But she was so appointed and we all have the receipts  

I know - we know - many liberal friends who only watch CNN, or the Australian ABC, or BBC, or only read the Guardian headlines, who will believe the new narrative about Kamala. That she’s wonderful, smart, strong…. And believe that her failure as Border Czar is just a “right wing talking point, a lie”.

You can only know the truth — or at least something closer to the truth — if you read from both left and right. Which is part of my aim here. To give another side to liberals. 

Hong Kong is more democratic than the United States

 Hong Kong is more democratic than the United States.

That’s my claim for today. 

Consider: here in Hong Kong, the leader of the city is the Chief Executive currently John Lee. The way he was chosen was by an Election Committee, which took soundings in the community, before putting candidates to the vote. Not universal suffrage, to be sure. But a kind of democracy because the views of the people, the broad masses of the lumpen proletariat, are taken into account. 

Now, consider the current ruling party of the United States, aka The Democratic Party. They installed their candidate Joe Biden after a rigged “Primary” vote -- in which nearly all the States he was the only candidate -- but then he trailed in the polls, so a small cabal in the Dem party decided to remove him and install his deputy in his place. No will of the people. No say by the people. Not even an “Election Committee. That’s crazy, and at the very least not democratic. Whatever it is -- plutocracy, autarchy, fascism, a putsch, an insurrection -- one thing it most assuredly is not is “Democratic”. 

Therefore: I think it’s objectively true to say that, as of today, and as of how the Democratic Party has trashed the will of the people -- aka “Democracy" -- that Hong Kong is more democratic than the United States. 

I would like that to change back to the norms we had, before the Dems trashed the norms. Little hope of that, for now. 

Look at how commenter Stephen A. Smith talks of the way Biden was ditched. With no shame. It was simply because Biden wasn’t polling well. That’s not the way this is supposed to work. Biden was the Dem candidate because of a process, which included a (kind of) primary system. He went through that and was duly appointed. Until he was un-appointed. 

Of course, it could always be that the excuse given is that Biden is cognitively impaired, and that’s why he was ditched. Fine, I get that. So do many, including Dems and Reps. But then if that’s the case, how can he continue to be president? Yet there he is, being president. (At least we assume so, as we’ve seen nothing of Biden, neither hide nor hair, for five days, since he caught Covid. Hmmm....). 

All of this is over and above the rampant Lawfare that the Biden administration has indulged in. Or the student loan forgiveness, that goes against the Constitution. Or the vaccine mandates which were also unconstitutional. Or bringing in tens of millions of illegal migrants and then giving them the vote -- in the hope they’ll vote Dem, natch. Or inviting Putin to make just a “minor incursion” into Ukraine, and see how well that went. 

Many questions to answer. And the most pressing: What’s happened to “Democracy” under the “Democrats”??

Tuesday, 23 July 2024

"These Were Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle's Toughest Lines Of Questioning"

There are so many videos out there on the Congress questioning of the Secret Service Director, Kimberley Cheatle. Some tough stuff. 

This is just one

Today's [22 July] House Oversight Committee hearing, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle experienced almost universally difficult lines of questioning, with these lawmakers serving up the toughest interrogations.

The attacks on Cheatle are bipartisan. They really want her out. The reason the Dems are onside to fire her, is that they are also in the cross-hairs of some random 20year old with an AR15.

The failures of the Secret Service are so egregious. They currently stand, in my view, as 50/50 as between (1) it was a cock-up and (2) it was a deliberate oversight (to allow the rando to get on the roof). 

Megyn Kelly has her take here

Monday, 22 July 2024

"Biden Staff Break Silence On His Mental Decline” | Cenk Uyghur and Ana Kasparian

I put this video here because The Young Turks are a super-leftie outfit, crazy anti-Trump and anti-MAGA, but here they are saying that the White House and the media have been lying about Joe Biden’s mental acuity problems for at least five years. And they are really dumping on the mainstream Dem party operatives, staff and left-media. 

So this is the White House and the legacy media that’s lied all these years. And now we should believe them when they tell us how ayyy-mayyy-zzzing Kamal Harris is going to be? And what a “threat to democracy” Donald Trump is? 

History: Biden quits the race!

Let’s hear from Greg Foreman in two recent vids.Above before the Biden quit announcement and below just after. Click in each for the video. Greg is a conservative blogger, to be clear. 
These CNN anchors breaking down blubbing is the grossest self-indulgence. Hysterical, in all senses. 

Joe becomes, to the legacy media: “a selfless man who did this to help the country. What a patriot! What a hero! We’ll help you build your presidential library, Joe”.

The alternative, spelled out to him by Nancy Pelosi was: “if you insist on staying on, Joe, and you fail, we’ll never forgive you, we’ll savage you, no presidential library for you.”

Blacks for Trump

Click above for the video

  • “3 baby mamas
  • mug shot
  • 34 felonies
  • got shot
  • Trump is the first black president"

And the ‘hood got his back. 

Funny stuff from the educated lads at The Lotus Eaters. And some funny vids about the Trump shooting, from the Black community. 

Sunday, 21 July 2024

Australian Greens Senator rides with the Terrorist Bunch

 

Australian independent and Greens-caucusing Senator, Lidia Thorpe, wearing the headband of Hamas, proscribed terrorist organisation. Which, if I’m not mistaken, is illegal. 

But, worse, it’s an Australian Senator. Supporting Hamas, which is a real-deal Nazi organisation. Because it says it is, and because it acts like it is. Including the genocide bit. 

How can people support such loonies? And yet they do. I know, I have friends, ex colleagues, who are along with the Lidia Thorpe ride. To ride along with the most brutal jew-hating outfit in the world. Along for the ride. 

Shame on the lot a yez. ..

Saturday, 20 July 2024

Who is ethnically cleansing whom?

My CO2 levels way below global average

My CO2 meter reading 400 parts per million of Carbon dioxide

Mr Google tells me the global average is 421 ppm.

My CO2 Meter tells me that it’s only 400 ppm in my room right now.

I wonder: how can this be?

Is it a problem with the meter? I doubt it as it’s been more than that mostly over the years. And the battery is fine. 

So my actual room is keeping my carbon dioxide down?

I mean, it is true that I have solar panels on the roof. Maybe god gives you better CO2 for virtue points. Then again, we also have nuclear powering a third of our lights. Isn’t that supposed to be bad?

Mystery. 

No, Biden is not a “good man"

Click above for the video 
I was going to post something about this myself, but Glenn Greenwald beats me to it. 

Reason for saying it is: that everyone that’s out to stop Joe Biden from running, is saying something like “I love Joe Biden, but it’s time for him to step down”, or “Joe Biden is a good and decent man, who has been a great president, but he must call a halt to his candidacy”. Or similar. 

And I’ve been thinking: “What’s great or good about Joe Biden?” Because I can remember when he lied about his law degree, when he lied about his son’s death, and lied about the driver of the truck that crashed and killed his wife way back. And that he lied about Trump and the “fine people” hoax. And that he pulled out of Afghanistan, precipitously, leaving dead Americans and American supporters behind, and then lied about that, that he misled the Russians on Ukraine by encouraging them to invade the east, that he slow-walked the support for Israel, so that they couldn’t finish the job of killing Hamas, that he pumped money into the economy during Covid, setting the scene for inflation. 

That he’s had racist leangings going way back to his friendship with the Grand Wizard of the KKK. That he betrayed Clarence Thomas at his Senate confirmation hearings, when he, Biden, was chair of the committee. A story told in detail by Thomas in his memoirs. 

And on and on and on. Not to mention his deliberate ignoring of his 7th grand-child because she was incovenient. 

But there’s more and the more is covered by Greenwald in the video above. 

Biden is, in short, a vile man. Not just not “a good man”, but an actual full-on vile man. 

When Biden goes -- and it’s now more “when” than “if” -- it’ll be unlamented by most. And certainly unlamented by me. 

He’ll only be lamented, with crocodile tears, one imagines, by those in the Dem party who feel obliged to be nice to him. He, himself, has never been nice, except to people in his own family. 

He will have lived up to the judgements of Barack Obama and Robert Gates (Defence sec under Clinton and Bush):

Obama said “Never underestimate Joe’s capacity to fuck things up.”

Gates said: “Joe Biden has been wrong about every foreign policy issue in the last 40 years”.