[QUOTE=wombatman;478486]Honestly, I shared it because I found the "hackers hacking hackers" bit to be interesting. The details about the back-and-forth between the NSA and the Russians is fascinating too--very movie-like in description.

And I put a bit more weight on this story b/c it seems to stem from the Dutch hackers being pissed that their ongoing operation was revealed so that the US political parties (Democrats, primarily, obviously) and the FBI/CIA/NSA could go "RUSSIANS!".[/QUOTE]

Dont get me wrong, Wombatman - I appreciated your posting of the article, I just no longer trust any such pieces, especially ones quoting dire threat warnings from intelligence officials, to be political-agenda-free.

Cheers,
-E

Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, American Paths, Chosen and Not (1989-2018)
 

[URL]http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176379/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_american_paths%2C_chosen_and_not_%281989-2018%29/[/URL]
Beginning of Tom Engelhardt's intro:
[QUOTE]If I were to pick a single decision by an American president and his team in this century as our own August 1914, I would choose the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003. Of course, in that era of the “sole superpower,” there were no other great powers (as in the World War I moment) ready to leap into the fray, so the unraveling that followed across a [URL="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176369/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_seeing_our_wars_for_the_first_time"]significant part[/URL] of the planet would prove not to be a world war but a one-power hell on Earth.[/QUOTE]Andrew Bacevich:
[QUOTE]The present arrives out of a past that we are too quick to forget, misremember, or enshroud in myth. Yet like it or not, the present is the product of past choices. Different decisions back then might have yielded very different outcomes in the here-and-now. Donald Trump ascended to the presidency as a consequence of myriad choices that Americans made (or had made for them) over the course of decades. Although few of those were made with Trump in mind, he is the result..........
-----
[B]Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda[/B]
So what follows is a review of roads taken (and not) ultimately leading to the demoralizing presidency of Donald Trump, along with a little speculation on how different choices might have resulted in a decidedly different present.[/QUOTE]

The President's SOTU was pretty good. Have to hand it to his speechwriters.

[QUOTE=LaurV;478612]We had a guy with gold toilets, gold door knobs, forks, knives, and with a daughter with a solid gold scale to weigh the food for her dog...

A pity we lost him, they shot him in December '89...[/QUOTE]
Ah, yes, Romania. [url=http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/27/world/upheaval-east-hidden-wealth-disclosures-ceausescus-riches-appall-many-threadbare.html]Disclosures of the Ceausescus' Riches[/url]

Another manifestation of corruption: [url=https://www.zmescience.com/other/feature-post/geamana-village-romania-toxic/]Geamana – The Romanian Village Flooded by a Toxic Lake[/url]

[url=https://reprieve.org.uk/update/game-changer-trumps-new-attacks-on-human-rights/]Trump’s secret assassinations programme[/url] | Reprieve.org
[quote]The [drone] program requires no clear evidence that an attack will take place, due process is laid to waste and there is no scrutiny or accountability for US actions.

More than 80% of those killed have never even been identified by name. In numerous attempts to kill one individual, the CIA killed 76 children and 29 adults, while totally failing to assassinate their target. To get around the problem of civilian casualties, everyone in a strike zone was classified as a combatant.

Then Trump became president.

In his first year in office, President Trump has overseen a dramatic increase in drone strikes in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia – all countries against which the US is not officially engaged in a war.

The first year of the Trump administration has resulted in more loss of life from drone strikes than all eight years of Obama’s presidency. Trump ripped up the limited safeguards President Obama put in place.This is now industrial-scale executions, hugely expanded in both scale and callousness, conducted with no regard for human life or human rights.[/quote]
So, was Trump always lying about a possible less-neocon/liberal-interventionist foreign policy, or has he been captured by the professional-warmonger class, many of whom - e.g. Mattis and McMaster of the Trump DoD-inner circle - make appearances in [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/01/rewriting-the-history-of-the-vietnam-war-to-the-detriment-of-everyone-save-the-military-industrial-complex.html]this recent NC post[/url] on the toxic rewrite of the history and lessons of Vietnam by the BigMil "democracy-spreaders-by-force", who seem never to change irrespective of which party holds the White House?

[QUOTE].....the BigMil "democracy-spreaders-by-force", who seem never to change irrespective of which party holds the White House? [/QUOTE]
We are decades past what Eisenhower warned us of.

I am again reading Chalmers Johnson's Blowback. It is the first of a trilogy on the American Empire. The part that I have recently been reading says, with good reasons given, that the MIC doesn't give a rat's exhaust pipe about trivial congressional restrictions, especially where Special Forces are involved. Presidents either fear to face up to generals, or prefer kissing their government-funded nether orifices. Presidents also fear to face outraged Congress Critters whose districts might loose weapons manufacturing jobs.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;478935]So, was Trump always lying (snip)[/QUOTE]

Yes. That is always the answer to this question.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;478935][url=https://reprieve.org.uk/update/game-changer-trumps-new-attacks-on-human-rights/]Trump’s secret assassinations programme[/url]
[quote]The first year of the Trump administration has resulted in more loss of life from drone strikes than all eight years of Obama’s presidency. Trump ripped up the limited safeguards President Obama put in place. This is now industrial-scale executions, hugely expanded in both scale and callousness, conducted with no regard for human life or human rights.[/quote][/quote]Trump? Callous? No regard for human life or human rights? And this surprises -- who, exactly?[quote]So, was Trump always lying (snip!)[/QUOTE]As already pointed out -- of course! Here are some ways to tell [i]Il Duce[/i] is lying:

1) His lips are moving.

2) He is tweeting.

3) Sarah Huckabee Sanders' lips are moving.

4) Kellyanne Conway's lips are moving.

5) A Republican is talking about him.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;478982]5) A Republican is talking about him.[/QUOTE]

There are notable exceptions to this rule, like when Rex Tillerson (I think) allegedly called him a "fucking idiot". That's a true statement.:smile:

[QUOTE=wombatman;478983]There are notable exceptions to this rule, like when Rex Tillerson (I think) allegedly called him a "fucking idiot". That's a true statement.:smile:[/QUOTE]Yes, you're right. I think our top diplomat called him a :censored: moron.

Alas, these exceptions are becoming rarer. During the campaign, there were lots of "Never Trump" Republicans. After he took office, there were even a couple of Republican US Senators who would say unflattering things about him. These days, such occurrences are almost entirely properly referred to in the past tense...

[url=https://politics.theonion.com/fbi-warns-republican-memo-could-undermine-faith-in-mass-1822639681]FBI Warns Republican Memo Could Undermine Faith In Massive, Unaccountable Government Secret Agencies[/url] | The Onion

More seriously, a (IMO) good sober-minded [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/02/200pm-water-cooler-222018.html#comment-2919656]take on the memo[/url]:
[quote]Assuming the memo is accurate, what we have is a [url=http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/term-deep-state-examples-definition/]Flexian[/url] from the intelligence community (Steele) developing oppo for a political party (here, the Democrats), that political party feeding that oppo to the executive branch (the Justice Department and the FBI), and then the executive branch (the FBI) using the oppo at the FISA court as justification for further surveillance of the opponents of that political party by the intelligence community, [i]without telling the court it’s oppo[/i]. That stinks.

What if the same process had been applied to the Sanders campaign? Or any campaign? Because if the process described by the Nunes memo is true, and it’s OK, than it’s OK for any administration to do for any campaign.[/quote]