[url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/07/the-kremlin-really-believes-that-hillary-clinton-will-start-a-war-with-russia-donald-trump-vladimir-putin/]The Kremlin Really Believes That Hillary Wants to Start a War With Russia[/url] | Foreign Policy
[quote]Let’s not mince words: Moscow perceives the former secretary of state as an existential threat. The Russian foreign-policy experts I consulted did not harbor even grudging respect for Clinton. The most damaging chapter of her tenure was the NATO intervention in Libya, which Russia could have prevented with its veto in the U.N. Security Council. Moscow allowed the mission to go forward only because Clinton had promised that a no-fly zone would not be used as cover for regime change.

Russia’s leaders were understandably furious when, not only was former Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi ousted, but a cellphone recording of his last moments showed U.S.-backed rebels sodomizing him with a bayonet. They were even more enraged by Clinton’s videotaped response to the same news: “We came, we saw, he died,” the secretary of state quipped before bursting into laughter, cementing her reputation in Moscow as a duplicitous warmonger.

As a candidate, Clinton has given Moscow déjà vu by once again demanding a humanitarian no-fly zone in the Middle East — this time in Syria. Russian analysts universally believe that this is another pretext for regime change. Putin is determined to prevent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from meeting the same fate as Qaddafi — which is why he has deployed Russia’s air force, navy, and special operations forces to eliminate the anti-Assad insurgents, many of whom have received U.S. training and equipment.

Given the ongoing Russian operations, a “no-fly zone” is a polite euphemism for shooting down Russia’s planes unless it agrees to ground them. Clinton is aware of this fact. When asked in a debate whether she would shoot down Russian planes, she responded, “I do not think it would come to that.” In other words, if she backs Putin into a corner, she is confident he will flinch before the United States starts a shooting war with Russia.
...
Her temper became legendary in Moscow when she breached diplomatic protocol by storming out of a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov just moments after exchanging pleasantries. And the perception that she is unstable was exacerbated by reports that Clinton drank heavily while acting as America’s top diplomat — accusations that carry special weight in a country that faults alcoholism for many of Boris Yeltsin’s failures.

Cultural differences in decorum have made the situation worse. In Russia, where it is considered a sign of mental illness to so much as smile at a stranger on the street, leaders are expected to project an image of stern calm. Through that prism, Clinton has shown what looks like disturbing behavior on the campaign trail: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58rLBBpCE2M]barking like a dog[/url], [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd4NH9jKNas]bobbing her head[/url], and [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeZQ5VROfBE]making exaggerated faces[/url]. (To be clear, my point is not that these are real signs of cognitive decay, but that many perceive them that way in Moscow.)

Another factor that disturbs Russian analysts is the fact that, unlike prior hawks such as John McCain, Clinton is a Democrat. This has allowed her to mute the West’s normal anti-interventionist voices, even as Iraq-war architect Robert Kagan boasts that Clinton will pursue a neocon foreign policy by another name. Currently, the only voice for rapprochement with Russia is Clinton’s opponent, Donald Trump. If she vanquishes him, she will have a free hand to take the aggressive action against Russia that Republican hawks have traditionally favored.

Moscow prefers Trump not because it sees him as easily manipulated, but because his “America First” agenda coincides with its view of international relations. Russia seeks a return to classical international law, in which states negotiate with one another based on mutually understood self-interests untainted by ideology. To Moscow, only the predictability of realpolitik can provide the coherence and stability necessary for a durable peace.[/quote]
More on the Lavrov incident: [url=http://www.politico.eu/article/why-putin-hates-hillary/]Why Putin Hates Hillary[/url] | Politico.eu
[quote]In September 2012, Clinton was to meet with Lavrov on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Vladivostok, Russia. Lavrov, a sophisticated member of the Soviet foreign policy aristocracy, took great pleasure in being gentlemanly toward Clinton. He personally picked out the flowers for her hotel room in Vladivostok. But when they met, Lavrov slammed her with some unexpected news: Russia was kicking out USAID and gave the Secretary of State 30 days to pack them up and move them out. Stunned, Clinton stood up and walked out. According to people with knowledge of the meeting, Lavrov tried to get her to stay and talk, but Clinton wasn’t having any of it. She dropped her notes and said he could read those if he wanted to talk, and walked out.[/quote]
Clearly this woman possesses the "temperament to be POTUS" which her opponent is so sorely lacking.

o [url=https://theintercept.com/2016/09/08/hillary-clintons-national-security-advisors-are-a-whos-who-of-the-warfare-state/]Hillary Clinton’s National Security Advisers Are a “Who’s Who” of the Warfare State[/url] | The Intercept
[quote]It includes Gen. David Petraeus, the major architect of the 2007 Iraq War troop surge, which brought 30,000 more troops to Iraq. Picking him indicates at partiality to combative ideology.[/quote]
Former acting CIA director Morell is even more telling in his recent comments, as detailed in the piece. He probably enjoys watching over and over the cellphone video of Gaddafi's gruesome final moments being sodomized with a bayonet and listening to his future boss's chillingly psychotic laughter over it. Neocon regime-change p0rn!

o [url=https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/07/new-york-times-and-the-new-mccarthyism/]New York Times and the New McCarthyism[/url] | Robert Parry, Consortiumnews
[quote]Traditional U.S. journalism and the American people are facing a crisis as the preeminent American newspaper, The New York Times, has fully lost its professional bearings, transforming itself into a neoconservative propaganda sheet eager for a New Cold War with Russia and imposing a New McCarthyism on public debate.

The crisis is particularly acute because another top national newspaper, The Washington Post, is also deeply inside the neocon camp.[/quote]

Chill Ernst. Please.

[QUOTE=only_human;442192]Chill Ernst. Please.[/QUOTE]

24-hour ceasefire?

[QUOTE=ewmayer;442196]24-hour ceasefire?[/QUOTE]
I didn't see myself as attacking you or anyone else but in any case I will endeavor to lower the invective including my own.

edit: Granted. I will refrain from posting in the top 5 soapbox threads for the next day or two.

I do so enjoy when reality stubbornly refuses to obey the MSM-scripted narrative - 2 articles just days apart in Pravda-on-the-Potomac, both by the same author, Chris Cillizza:

[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/06/the-questions-about-hillary-clintons-health-are-absurd/]Can we just stop talking about Hillary Clinton's health now?[/url] - WaPo, 6. Sept
[quote]Here's the thing: This is a totally ridiculous issue — for lots of reasons — and one that if Trump or his Republican surrogates continue to focus on is a surefire loser in the fall.

Let's start here: Clinton has released a detailed letter from her personal physician attesting to her overall good health — and making specific reference to her 2012 fall. Here's the key passage:
Screen Shot 2016-09-06 at 10.59.09 AM

So, to believe that something is seriously wrong with Clinton, you have to a) assume her doctor lied and b) that her coughing, which often happens when someone catches a cold or spends a lot of time speaking publicly, is a symptom of her deeper, hidden illness.

That seems, um, unlikely to me? Beyond the Clinton conspiracy theorists who believe she had something to do with Vince Foster's death and that she was secretly responsible for everything from Y2K to the SpaceX explosion last week, it's hard to plausibly insist, based on the available data, that Clinton is ill. There's the doctor's note, plus she keeps a very rigorous schedule for a 68-year-old — traveling all over the country to raise money and campaign. (For the past month, she's done a lot more raising money than campaigning.)[/quote]
Note the litany of laughable 'evidence' - a note from her personal doctor! - and the contradictions: Hillary cuaghs a lot because of public speaking, despite the fact that she's given virtually no press conferences in the past year, and unfortunately had to pause her rigorous schedule of highly-paid fawning-over-Wall-Street private speeches, as well as much traditional campaigning, in order to make room for all those mega-money private fundraisers noted by Cillizza. And Trump, 2 years older, not exactly shy about speaking publicly, has shown no evidence of poor health or coughing fits. Cillizza mentions The Donald's similar "doctor's note" ploy and takes him to task for "not exactly [being] forthcoming with the details of his own health", while overlooking the elephant-in-the-room fact that Trump has shown no particular signs of ill health. Also no mention from Cillizza of Clinton's having been on the blood thinner Coumadin since a concussion/blot-clot episode during her days as SoS. But that sort of disinformational dissembling is par for the course for outlets like WaPo and the NYT. The piece ends with a helpful political prescription for Trump:
[quote]What Trump cannot — or, at least, should not — do is continue to engage with these wacky theories that emerge out of the fever swamps on the very fringe of the conservative movement. Every single person who believes in the Clinton health conspiracy is already for Trump. What he needs to do is find ways to reach voters who have doubts about him but may carry even graver doubts about Clinton's ability to do the job in an honest and transparent way.

Clinton's botched handling of her private email server, the questions raised by the Clinton Foundation's foreign donors — these are ripe issues for Trump to make a case against Clinton. Every second he or his surrogates spend talking about Clinton's health is a lost moment for his campaign. And with 63 days left until the election, he simply can't afford that.[/quote]
Ah yes, the "botched" (as opposed to illegally privatized and illegally wiped) e-mail server, and the secretive and dubiously-philanthropic Clinton foundation - why some wacky right-wing conspiracy nuts might note the extreme secrecy and bald-faced lies the Clintons shrouded those in and conclude - in laughably nutty fashion! - that secrets and lies are a core part of the Clinton family modus operandi. But, to yesterday:

[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/11/hillary-clintons-health-just-became-a-real-issue-in-the-presidential-campaign]Hillary Clinton's health just became a real issue in the presidential campaign[/url] - WaPo, 11. Sept
[quote]Hillary Clinton falling ill Sunday morning at a memorial service on the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks will catapult questions about her health from the ranks of conservative conspiracy theory to perhaps the central debate in the presidential race over the coming days.

"Secretary Clinton attended the September 11th Commemoration Ceremony for just an hour and thirty minutes this morning to pay her respects and greet some of the families of the fallen," spokesman Nick Merrill said. "During the ceremony, she felt overheated, so departed to go to her daughter's apartment and is feeling much better."

What that statement leaves out is that a) it came 90 minutes after Clinton left the ceremony b) reporters — or even a reporter — were not allowed to follow her and c) the temperature in New York City at the time of Clinton's overheating was in the low 80s. (A heat wave over the eastern United States broke last night/this morning.)
...
But the issue is that Clinton kept reporters totally in the dark for 90 minutes after her abrupt departure from the 9/11 memorial service for a health-related matter. No reporter was allowed to follow her. (Clinton has resisted a protective pool for coverage because Donald Trump refuses to participate in one.) This is, yet again, the Clinton campaign asking everyone to just trust it. She got overheated! But she's fine now!

Clinton may well be totally fine — and I certainly hope she is. But we are 58 days away from choosing the person who will lead the country for the next four years, and she is one of the two candidates with a real chance of winning. Taking the Clinton team's word for it on her health — in light of the episode on Sunday morning — is no longer enough. Reasonable people can — and will — have real questions about her health.[/quote]
To his credit, Cillizza does offer a kinda/sorta mea culpa for his earlier piece in the one from yesterday. One netizen did rather amusingly spot a striking verbiage similarity in Cillizza #2 and a notorious weasel-worder of yore:
[i]
It is great that Cillizza brings back memories of Nixon’s Press Secretary Ron Ziegler when Cillizza states “Well, that is no longer operative.”

Here is a clip from [url]http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/weekinreview/the-nation-the-nondenial-denier.html[/url]

“But on April 17, 1973, Nixon stunned reporters by saying that he had conducted an investigation that raised the prospect of involvement by White House officials.”

“Mr. Ziegler told a puzzled press corps that this was now the ”operative statement,” repeating the word operative six times. Finally, R. W. Apple Jr. of The New York Times asked, ”Would it be fair for us to infer, since what the president said today is now considered the operative statement, to quote you, that the other statement is no longer operative, that it is now inoperative?”[/i]

Even the latest "pneumonia" cover story being peddled by team HRC sounds fishy - especially in the context of the 'one huge lie after another' m.o. - given the rather [url=https://mishtalk.com/2016/09/11/hillarys-doctor-discloses-pneumonia-diagnosis-last-friday-questions-abound/]lengthy history of coughing fits[/url] during the past year. OK, assume it's pneumonia - why was/is she allowed to run around in public while still contagious? One "wacky tinfoil-hat theory" about this involves a possible early-stage-Parkinson's --> difficulty swallowing --> coughing fits and increased risk of pneumonia connection. Such a diagnosis, if made public, would of course disqualify the sufferer from running for public office, especially for as important and physically grueling an office as POTUS.

Getting back to our earlier "it's all Putin's fault!" debate, I didn't think it would be possible for the MSM to blame Hillary's "pulmonary hacking (and coughing, and later collapsing) incident" on the evil Russkies, but apparently I was wrong - breaking in the aforementioned Pravda-on-Potomac, a.k.a. The Bezos Daily:

[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/09/12/the-man-who-discovered-cte-thinks-hillary-clinton-may-have-been-poisoned/]The man who discovered CTE thinks Hillary Clinton may have been poisoned[/url] - WaPo
[quote][Omalu] wasn’t giving up on Twitter, adding that his reasoning is that he does not trust Russian President Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee who has expressed admiration for Putin.

Putin, as The Washington Post reported, was implicated by a British inquiry in January in the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB operative, in London in 2006. The Post’s Griff Witte and Michael Birnbaum wrote at the time:
[i]
Although the inquiry stops short of conclusively blaming Putin — noting the opaque nature of Kremlin politics — it finds that there is “strong circumstantial evidence that the Russian State was responsible for Mr. Litvinenko’s death.” And citing the high-stakes nature of an operation to assassinate a former KGB officer on British soil, it finds that the operation would probably not have gone ahead without Putin’s direct approval.[/i][/quote]
The [i]Moon of Alabama[/i] blog has a [url=http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/09/washington-post-mocking-conspiracy-theories-while-creating-their-own.html]more-thorough takedown[/url] of the above piece. The snip-from/comment-on the associated WaPo op-ed piece is comedy gold:
[quote][Italics are quote from the op-ed:]
[i]The Russians attempt to throw the election. They might try to get Trump elected. Alternatively — and this would, of course, be even more devastating — they might try to rig the election for Clinton, perhaps leaving a trail of evidence designed to connect the rigging operation to Clinton’s campaign.
[/i]
So, according to Anne Applebaum, the Russians want Trump elected. Alternatively they don't want Trump elected. They would therefore take care to elect Clinton. So whatever the outcome: Putin did it.[/quote]
(Note also that Anne Applebaum, naturalized Polish citizen and [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Applebaum]rabid Russophobe[/url], is wife to former Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski. Because journalistic objectivity!)

More the-comedy-simply-writes-itself material [url=http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/200pm-water-cooler-9142016.html]today from team HRC[/url]
[quote]“Democratic National Committee chairwoman [Donna Brazile] said the DNC was the victim of a Russian cyberattack after the infamous hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 — who leaked internal Democratic documents ahead of the party’s convention this summer — released more apparent DNC documents Tuesday” [USA Today]. No denials of the mail content, of course.

From the Guccifer trove (and I hardly know where to file this):
[i]
LOL – The geniuses at DNC realized their emails were hacked, then EMAILED new passwords to everyone… [url=https://t.co/NB3YbZc2CE]#dncleak pic.twitter.com/NB3YbZc2CE[/url]

— Brent Teichman (@BrentTeichman) September 14, 2016[/i][/quote]

o [url=http://nypost.com/2016/09/12/clinton-skips-out-on-emergency-room-during-health-episode/]Clinton team avoided ER to conceal details of her medical treatment[/url] | New York Post - counter to secret service protocol, mind you. Rules are for the little people!

More about those interesting blue-tinted glasses she was wearing when, magically revivified, she emerged from her daughter and hedge-fundie-son-in-law's swanky NYC pad: There is speculation that they are [url=http://www.epilepsy.com/connect/forums/living-epilepsy-adults/finding-zeiss-z1-blue-lenses-treat-photosensitive-epilepsy]this brand from Zeiss[/url] specialized for people with photosensitive epilepsy.

One wonders 'why might she need those'? [url=http://www.medmerits.com/index.php/article/chronic_subdural_hematoma/P9]Here is why[/url]:
[i]
Epileptic complications are common after acute subdural hematoma evacuation and should be suspected in patients with altered sensorium after surgery. Seizures worsen early functional outcome (Rabinstein et al 2010).
[/i]
Of course most of this is mere speculation. Whose rampant-running is the Clintons' own fault. NC reader "Anne" [url=http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/links-9122016.html#comment-2667574]sums it up nicely[/url]:
[quote]If you want to blame anyone for all this armchair medical discussion, look no further than Ms. Clinton and/or whichever member of her staff decided to use The Clinton Rules for Obfuscation and Avoidance as a way to address what was clearly some kind of medical event.

Given that she wasn’t whisked away in an ambulance, and didn’t spend any time in an emergency room, whatever it was that happened must not have been entirely unanticipated or unusual – it may just be that she had the great misfortune of exhibiting these symptoms in public and not in the privacy of her own home.

Whatever this is or was, it is how she chose to handle it that has led to all this discussion.

But let’s recap, shall we? First, she was constructively absent from the campaign trail for the entire month of August. She did few events and not as much traveling. She also was not spending any time with the media, giving no pressers for months. Criticism mounted, so – wonder of wonders – when she got her spiffy new plane, the invites went out to the media to join her on the plane, and she held her first presser in months just this past Thursday.

She looked fine. Her color was good, she looked rested. The next night, she did a high-dollar fundraiser hosted by Barbra Streisand. Again, she looked and sounded fine. Yet, it was that day that her physician says she was diagnosed with pneumonia and given antibiotics.

Then, on Sunday, with temps in the low 80’s and low humidity, she falls ill. She looked okay walking to her car, but she leaned on the post for support and then appeared to collapse getting into the van. Did she lose her footing on the curb?

So, first we heard she wasn’t feeling well. Then we heard she was overheated and dehydrated. Some hours later, we were told of the pneumonia diagnosis, and then – like a miracle – she comes walking out of her daughter’s apartment building looking quite chipper. Did she get IV fluids? Who knows?

She sustained a serious concussion in 2012, when she fainted as a complication of a stomach virus that caused her to be dehydrated. The concussion gave her double vision, for which she wore special lenses for a time. She was not allowed to fly. A follow up visit to the doctor revealed that she had a blood clot in a vein between her brain and her skull so she was put on blood thinners. Her husband says it took every bit of six months for her to recover from the concussion.

She’s also had DVTs in her legs, and has an underactive thyroid for which I presume she takes medication.

Could she be having periodic bouts of vertigo as a result of the concussion? Other effects that linger, or pop up from time to time? Doesn’t seem unreasonable, but here’s the thing: we are never going to know if that’s the case, because unlike pneumonia for which you can take an antibiotic and be done with, ongoing – no matter how infrequent – post-concussion symptoms will call into question her mental abilities, which would be the death knell for her candidacy.

So, she and her people spoon feed us one somewhat-plausible explanation after another, apparently in the hope they will hit on one that makes people stop asking questions about it – but the problem is that this method just adds to the sense people have that she’s still hiding something and so the speculation goes on.

This is how the Clintons – both of them – handle everything, and it’s exactly why Hillary finds herself the topic of conversation and speculation everywhere.[/quote]

I don't have much more to add

[url=www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/16/roaming-charges-americas-political-cat-scan/]Roaming Charges: America's Political CAT Scan[/url] | Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch

Most interesting tidbit for me was the one about the devolution of [i]Mother Jones[/i] into just another establishment PR rag. (#2 for me was the truly massive $38 Bln parting gift by 0bama to Israel. That is enough to pay for half the [url=http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/20/cbo-cost-of-food-stamp-program-increased-135-percent-over-last-4-years/]annual cost of the U.S. food stamp program[/url], which itself has more than doubled in recent years thanks to the greatness of the wonderful economic recovery, now into its 8th year.)

And for some Sunday guffaws: [url=http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/links-91816.html#comment-2671138]The reviews are in on the Clinton/Kaine book, and they are hilarious.[/url]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;442946][URL="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/16/roaming-charges-americas-political-cat-scan/"]Roaming Charges: America's Political CAT Scan[/URL] | Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch

Most interesting tidbit for me was the one about the devolution of [I]Mother Jones[/I] into just another establishment PR rag. (#2 for me was the truly massive $38 Bln parting gift by 0bama to Israel. That is enough to pay for half the [URL="http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/20/cbo-cost-of-food-stamp-program-increased-135-percent-over-last-4-years/"]annual cost of the U.S. food stamp program[/URL], which itself has more than doubled in recent years thanks to the greatness of the wonderful economic recovery, now into its 8th year.)

And for some Sunday guffaws: [URL="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/links-91816.html#comment-2671138"]The reviews are in on the Clinton/Kaine book, and they are hilarious.[/URL][/QUOTE]
The St. Clair piece is a hard slog, even if some of it is familiar to me. The Israeli billions had already infuriated me, but St. Clair missed one point, I think. That is, those billions have to be spent on USian arms, not homegrown weapons, as has happened in the past. This really makes the whole game obvious: another subsidy to the 0.1% via the MIC, aside from the enabling of ongoing crimes against humanity. :furious:

[url]http://www.npr.org/2016/09/20/494700850/taste-the-outrage-donald-trump-jr-s-tweet-compares-refugees-to-skittles[/url]

[QUOTE]It also drew the condemnation from many who viewed the tweet as a flip, dehumanizing way to address a humanitarian catastrophe affecting more than 13 million people.[/QUOTE]