The transcript of the Tuesday, October 2, 2018 "Fresh Air" interview with Michael Lewis about his new book, [u]The Fifth Risk[/u], is [url=https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=653607732]here[/url]. There's also a link to download (automatically) the (almost 40 MB) sound file of the interview.

Owen Jones talks with him on YouTube (almost 80 minutes) [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvQhKw-GbtQ]here[/url].

If you want an idea of just how destructive [i]Il Duce[/i]'s administration is to the good ol' USA, you could do worse...

"Narcissism absolutely does not come that way. A narcissist can't even [i]appear[/i] to respect norms. Il Duce, for example, has said publicly that the rules don't apply to him, and that he could go out onto Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and not lose any support. Other types of sociopath or psychopath can appear normal, at least superficially. But only appear, and only superficially."

So now you're a psychiatric expert? Please provide citations supporting your claim that among the various disorders mentioned, narcissism is unique in being absolutely undisguisable. Also, "appear" and "only superficially" are redundant. Re. Trump's claim, that certainly fits with his well-known habit of braggadocio in speech, which certainly fits the 'grandiosity' portion of NPD - but OTOH, given the level of negative press coverage he received in the run-up to the 2016 election, and the sheer number of scandals (e.g. pussygate) which would have sunk any other candidate in recent memory, one can argue that his claim, while exaggerated in typical Trumpian fashion, proved true.

In order to provide a bit of context, [url=http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/11/14/the-most-narcissistic-u-s-presidents/]here[/url] is a 2013 article using standardized personality tests filled in by "expert raters" as described in the article. Of course "expert" is fraught since the people in question will have biases ... e.g. the historians' biases were confirmed by the article Paul recently posted, describing "hostile historians". However, this overall conclusion seems sound:
[quote]These researchers also found that, on average, presidents are more narcissistic than the average American. Moreover, the level of grandiose narcissism in presidents has increased in recent decades.[/quote]
Obama, president at time of the article's appearance, was not rated, but given that he is busily working to destroy a significant chunk of Chicago public parkland in order to construct a [url=https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/02/barack-obamas-great-tower-of-nothing-gentrification-on-a-presidential-level/]grandiose hollow monument to himself[/url], it seems safe to conclude that the man is quite markedly narcissistic. But he is well-spoken and not-a-boor, so one never hears about such stuff in the MSM.

"The most dangerous form of evil is that which disguises itself well.
I question this. In the first place, if it disguises itself well enough, you would never know."

You certainly might know it by its effects, albeit only long after said effects become so plain as to be un-ignorable - therein lies the danger. To cite an example: the toxic socioeconomic effects of neoliberalism took the better part of 4 decades to reach global widespread awareness, because for all of that time the overwhelming majority of credentialed well-spoken experts and the politicians they (dis)served were telling us soothing lies about 'free' market efficiencies, rising tides lifting all boats, etc. Similar unisonic establishment Big Lies were used to promote the global wars on drugs and terror, with disastrous effects. Propaganda works.

"In the second place, it doesn't hold a candle to undisguised or recognized evil met with either indifference or support."

Another unsupported claim. If a leader leads the nation into a war costing $trillions and leading to a million civilian deaths, does it matter whether said leader was of the "recognized evil" or the decorous well-spoken variety? Also, an extremely blinkered-partisan version of "recognizing evil" can lead to truly perverse outcomes, such as the post-2016-election flip-flop in the warmongering/hawkish tendencies among Dems and Repubs in the U.S. If it takes a narcissistic boor to ask what national interests were served by turning Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc, into failed states and jihadist hellholes, or why hundreds of thousands of recently-middle-class Americans are now dying deaths of despair (cf. Case-Deaton study) annually, dismissing the question because of the unlikable messenger is the height of folly and/or hubris. Hubris being a form of narcissism, btw.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;506664]Another unsupported claim. If a leader leads the nation into a war costing $trillions and leading to a million civilian deaths, does it matter whether said leader was of the "recognized evil" or the decorous well-spoken variety?[/QUOTE]

Wow! Seriously?

A skilled leader would find a path out of confrontation.

An idiot would play a game of Go straight against the wall....

[QUOTE=ewmayer;506664]"In the second place, it doesn't hold a candle to undisguised or recognized evil met with either indifference or support."

Another unsupported claim. If a leader leads the nation into a war costing $trillions and leading to a million civilian deaths, does it matter whether said leader was of the "recognized evil" or the decorous well-spoken variety? [/QUOTE]
In the first place, what one [i]proposes to do[/i] can be recognized as evil, whether they're "well-spoken and decorous" or not. Hitler wrote [u]Mein Kampf[/u] long before he attained power. He didn't become dictator, wage war, or conduct the Holocaust all by his lonesome. When the concentration camps were liberated, and the residents of nearby towns were forced to take the nickel tour, they said they "didn't know." Yeah, right.

A million civilian deaths? Stalin had that under his belt before the war -- all in the name of eliminating "anti-Soviet" elements. The Great Leap Forward caused a famine that killed anywhere from 30 million to 55 million civilians. The Cultural Revolution thinned a few million more from the ranks. All for the greater good...

I'm so inexpert in matters psychological, I thought personality profile tests were supposed to be taken by the person whose personality was being determined -- not filled in by "experts," especially after the person is long dead.

In the case of TR, we do have a contemporary assessment from his daughter:

[quote]My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.
-- Alice Roosevelt Longworth[/quote]

Speaking of regime change...
 

[url=https://www.apnews.com/8befe1fb4fd24631bac9f0fda501dace]The Latest: Maduro fires back at US after criticism by Pence[/url]
[quote]U.S. Vice President Mike Pence says Venezuelans have the “unwavering support” of the United States in their effort to restore democracy to their country.

In a video message released Tuesday, Pence called Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro a “dictator with no legitimate claim to power.”

The vice president says the U.S. joins other “freedom-loving” nations in recognizing the popularly elected National Assembly as the “last vestige of democracy” in Venezuela. He says he supports the decision by National Assembly president and opposition leader Juan Guaido to declare Maduro a “usurper” and call for the creation of a transitional government.

Anti-Maduro demonstrations are expected nationwide on Wednesday.

Pence says the American people will be with Venezuelans until democracy is restored.[/quote]

For some strange reason, the story brought to mind the Tom Lehrer song [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvxqQTh3m4]Send the Marines[/url].

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;506695][URL="https://www.apnews.com/8befe1fb4fd24631bac9f0fda501dace"]The Latest: Maduro fires back at US after criticism by Pence[/URL]

For some strange reason, the story brought to mind the Tom Lehrer song [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvxqQTh3m4"]Send the Marines[/URL].[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]When the concentration camps were liberated, and the residents of nearby towns were forced to take the nickel tour, they said they "didn't know."[/QUOTE]There's a song for this quotation, too. [B]Caution: contains n-word.[/B]
We Didn't Know
-Tom Paxton
[YOUTUBE]rbKF7NY7114[/YOUTUBE]

[QUOTE=kladner;506703]There's a song for this quotation, too. [B]Caution: contains n-word.[/B]
We Didn't Know
-Tom Paxton
[YOUTUBE]rbKF7NY7114[/YOUTUBE][/QUOTE]
Hmm. Reminds me of a song I heard on a Pete Seeger album when I was a kid. [i]Who killed Davey Moore?[/i]

[b]EDIT (Update on earlier news about Venezuela:[/b] Hard upon Juan Guaido declaring himself interim President of Venezuela, [i]Il Duce[/i] issued the following statement:
[quote]Today, I am officially recognizing the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the Interim President of Venezuela. In its role as the only legitimate branch of government duly elected by the Venezuelan people, the National Assembly invoked the country’s constitution to declare Nicolas Maduro illegitimate, and the office of the presidency therefore vacant. The people of Venezuela have courageously spoken out against Maduro and his regime and demanded freedom and the rule of law.
I will continue to use the full weight of United States economic and diplomatic power to press for the restoration of Venezuelan democracy. We encourage other Western Hemisphere governments to recognize National Assembly President Guaido as the Interim President of Venezuela, and we will work constructively with them in support of his efforts to restore constitutional legitimacy. We continue to hold the illegitimate Maduro regime directly responsible for any threats it may pose to the safety of the Venezuelan people. As Interim President Guaido noted yesterday: 'Violence is the usurper’s weapon; we only have one clear action: to remain united and firm for a democratic and free Venezuela.'[/quote]
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (whose recent election the OAS refused to recognize on the 10th) responded by announcing the breaking of diplomatic relations with the United States, and giving our diplomats 72 hours to leave the country. This will be somewhat simplified by the fact that the US and Venezuela haven't exchanged Ambassadors since 2010.

Between caving on [i]Die Mauer[/i] and the inane Venezuela regime-change initiative, not a good week for the orange-haired one, even by his low standards.

The big problem w.r.to Venezuela is that there is no effective opposition in DC, thanks to the "spirit of bipartisanship" which attends most of our imperial misdeeds these days - you'll note Trump was excoriated in the MSM by the ubiquitous security-establishment flacks and talking heads when he announced he wanted to pull US troops out of Syria, contrast with the initiative to 'meddle bigly' in VZ:

[url=https://ghionjournal.com/trump-incites-turmoil-venezuela/]Trump Incites Turmoil in Venezuela Amid a Bipartisan Clamor for Regime Change[/url] | Ghion Journal

[QUOTE=ewmayer;506852]Between caving on [i]Die Mauer[/i] and the inane Venezuela regime-change initiative, not a good week for the orange-haired one, even by his low standards.[/quote]Nonsense! It's been a [i]great[/i] week! Many of the Federal workers have been [i]thanking[/i] him for giving them a 5-week break from getting paid. He said in his capitulation announcement,

[i]In many cases you encouraged me to keep going because you care so much about our country and our border security.[/i]

And another cow flew by...
[quote]The big problem w.r.to Venezuela is that there is no effective opposition in DC, thanks to the "spirit of bipartisanship" which attends most of our imperial misdeeds these days - <snip>[/QUOTE]
With all due respect, the big problem WRT Venezuela is the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_in_Venezuela]Crisis in Venezuela[/url]:
[quote]A socioeconomic and political crisis began in Venezuela in 2010 under the presidency of Hugo Chávez and has continued into the current presidency of Nicolás Maduro. The current situation is the worst economic crisis in Venezuela's history and among the worst crises experienced in the Americas, with hyperinflation, soaring hunger, disease, crime and death rates, and massive emigration from the country. Observers and economists have stated that the crisis is not the result of a conflict or natural disaster but the consequences of populist policies that began under the Chávez administration's Bolivarian Revolution, with the Brookings Institution stating that "Venezuela has really become the poster child for how the combination of corruption, economic mismanagement, and undemocratic governance can lead to widespread suffering".
<snip>
Due to high oil reserves, lack of policies on private property and low remittances, by 2012, of every 100 dollars, more than 90 came from oil and its derivatives. With the fall in oil prices in early 2015 the country faced a drastic fall in revenues of the US currency along with commodities.

In addition, the government has not made policy changes to adapt to the low petroleum price. In early 2016, The Washington Post reported the official price of state-retailed petrol was below US $.01 per gallon, and the official state currency exchange rate valued the US dollar at 1/150 what the black market did.[/quote]Of course, all of this is entirely the fault of the United States

:rolleyes:

So now, [i]Il Duce[/i] has made a bogus(*) "National Emergency" declaration so he can raid the defense budget to build his stupid wall.

(*) How bogus? He said himself, "I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster."

Unfortunately, Ann Coulter is incorrect in saying the [i]only[/i] national emergency is that the president is an idiot. We've got the likes of Mitch McConnell, who recently advised [i]Il Duce[/i] not to make this declaration, saying he'd support it. This is important, because, as Senate Majority Leader, he can block the Senate from voting on a joint resolution to rescind it.

Of course, in practice it would take veto-proof majorities (greater than 2/3) in both Houses of Congress to make such a resolution stick, and the Republicans are so craven and unprincipled, my guess is, it ain't gonna happen.

The whole system of checks and balances written into the Constitution is collapsing in front of our eyes. And precious few of us give a goddam. If [i]that's[/i] not a national emergency, I don't know what is.

Ann Coulter has vowed that she is "going to spend the rest of my columns denouncing the president, for the rest of my life."

Well, at least she's is satisfied that [i]Il Duce[/i] is packing the Federal judiciary with right-wing morons. Otherwise, she'd be screeching like a banshee. So at least that's [i]one[/i] national emergency averted.

If she chooses to denounce him, then I wonder how she will do that without looking like a hypocrite.

I would expect the Republicans to change the rules (again) so that a simple majority is needed instead of a super majority.

[QUOTE=rogue;508701]If she chooses to denounce him, then I wonder how she will do that without [U]looking like a hypocrite[/U]......[/QUOTE]
Hypocrisy is a null concept to such as Coulter, especially if trashing someone is involved. In the case of Il Douche, it would be trash trashing trash, anyway.

[QUOTE=rogue;508701]<snip>
I would expect the Republicans to change the rules (again) so that a simple majority is needed instead of a super majority.[/QUOTE]
Not in this case. [i]This[/i] rule is written into the Constitution. It requires a 2/3 majority vote in both houses of Congress to override a Presidential veto.

[YOUTUBE]066WAeG5muE[/YOUTUBE]

[i]Il Duce[/i] has pretty well insured that "Saint" Nicolas Maduro will stay in power, at least for the time being, by presuming to order the Venezuelan military around:

[url=http://time.com/5532143/donald-trump-miami-venezuela/]'You'll Lose Everything.' President Trump Warns Venezuelan Military to Abandon Nicolas Maduro[/url]

I'm sure some, if not most of the generals have been seriously thinking of giving Maduro the boot, but now, they simply can't. They would be seen as acting at [i]Il Duce[/i]'s and the US's behest. Well, maybe [i]Il Duce[/i] is simply indulging his desire to see people suffer.

Meanwhile, Nicaragua's Once and Present Supreme Commander -- the one Ronnie Ray-gun tried to remove from power -- has his own vanity project that, like [i]Il Duce[/i]'s border wall, has led to a bit of popular discontent.

[url=https://www.apnews.com/28099049175a4468860480a054cfa181]Nicaragua: Hefty prison terms for farm leaders in protests[/url][quote]MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — A judge on Monday gave lengthy prison terms to three farmers’ leaders who participated in protests against President Daniel Ortega’s government, citing them for terrorism and other alleged crimes that their defenders consider political and trumped-up.

Julio Montenegro, defense lawyer for Medardo Mairena, said his client, who represented the opposition Civic Alliance in failed peace talks last year, received 216 years while Pedro Mena got 210 and Luis Orlando Pineda 159.
<snip>
Nicaraguan law caps prison time actually served at 30 years, however.

The three men are leaders of a rural movement opposed to an inter-oceanic canal that the Ortega government proposed to build with Chinese help as a rival to the Panama Canal, a project that has gone nowhere four years after a symbolic ground-breaking.
<snip>
Authorities accused them and others of promoting a “failed coup” against the government of Ortega, a 73-year-old former guerrilla leader who was first in power from 1985 to 1990 and returned to the presidency in 2007.

Since then, critics say, he has consolidated a vice-like grip on power and governed in an increasingly authoritarian manner, including a crackdown on the 2018 protests by security forces and armed pro-government civilian militias in which more than 300 people were killed.[/quote][i]Il Duce[/i] must be green with envy.

Meanwhile, as described [url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nobel-prize-peace/no-need-for-shinzo-abe-trump-already-nominated-for-nobel-peace-prize-idUSKCN1Q71IS]here[/url], Japan's [strike]Honest[/strike] Shinzo Abe is busily non-denying that he has put forward [i]Il Duce[/i]'s name for the Nobel Peace Prize, for his efforts to [strike]surrender to[/strike] improve relations with North Korea. However, as the story points out, whether he has or not, a couple of Norwegian politicians have said that they have done so. Imagine [i]Il Duce[/i] giving his acceptance speech...

Well, there are people who want Russia's Ivan IV, known as "The Formidable," "The Dread," and "The Terrible," made a [i]saint.[/i]

“Sir, I’m sorry,” said Cohen. “Are you referring to me or the president?”
 

[URL]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/27/loyalty-trump-cost-michael-cohen-republicans[/URL]
[QUOTE]To be clear, the House [URL="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/republicans"]Republicans[/URL] thought they were doing a fine job for their Great Leader by trashing his former lawyer at every turn. Cohen is undoubtedly a proven liar who lied to Congress: we know this because he confessed to doing just that in his guilty plea last year.

Trump’s loyalists in the House seemed to think that was the end of the story. Who could believe a proven liar like Michael Cohen? The only snag is that he was lying on behalf of his client, one Donald Trump. So the more they talked about his lies, the more he talked about his lying client.

Like so many things in Trumpworld, this line of questioning is several diopters worse than shortsighted. It is the kind of brilliant argument dreamed up after several beers: a bar-room brawl masquerading as political strategy.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;509672][URL]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/27/loyalty-trump-cost-michael-cohen-republicans[/URL][/QUOTE]

I have already commented on the Theater of the Absurd hearings [url=https://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=509621&postcount=350]here[/url]. The use of Lynn Patton as a prop is being derided in the media, e.g. [url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/to-smear-cohens-claim-that-trump-is-a-racist-republican-mark-meadows-used-lynne-patton-as-a-silent-prop]here[/url]. The part I found especially disgusting was, Mr. Meadows pointing to the woman and -- quite literally -- putting words in her mouth, while she stood mutely. It occurred to me to wonder whether she might have been under some form of compulsion. She does, after all, have a government job, which could summarily be taken away. Then, prospective employers could be pressed not to hire her.

She could also have been threatened with being made the object of public vilification. However, in the opinion of your humble servant, any prospective vilification by others pales in comparison to the self-imposed degradation from allowing herself to be used as she was at the hearing. In my estimation, the woman has already publicly forfeited her own dignity absolutely, without remedy.

As to [i]Il Duce[/i] being a racist, every racist/anti-Jewish group from the KKK, to the National Policy Institute, to all the "fine people" who carried tiki torches at the "Unite the Right" rally, enthusiastically embrace [i]Il Duce[/i] as one of their own. That's good enough for me!

[b]EDIT:[/b] As to the warning about the possible fate of [i]Il Duce[/i]'s enablers, a historical example comes to mind: Stalin.

Re. the Cohen hearings: My, what a lot of MSM kerfuffle, moaning and groaning to please-let-this-time-be-the-real-deal-and-not-another-tease-ing over a giant nothingburger. So, let’s recap: (allegedly) knowing in advance about Wikileaks filedump? Not a crime. Continuing to pursue business ventures in Russia while campaigning? Not a crime. Paying hush money to p0rn actress? Possible violation of campaign finance laws, not exactly an impeachable offense, historically speaking. Being an all-around unlikable narcissist? DC, NYC and the oligarchy in general are full of them. Cohen “having his suspicions” re. collusion with Teh EvilPutin? Utterly meaningless PR-whoring. I see a lot of hueing and crying and oodles of FBI resources spent on what amounts to “we got nothing.” Possible title for future movie-fication of the drama: “Ferris Mueller’s Way Off”. Would have to be an indie film, clearly, as Hollywood is much too wedded the heroic-CIA-and-FBI-agent-hagiography meme.

Tangential: Anyone here been watching the special A&E Biography series on the "Trump Dynasty"? Some interesting stuff amidst the silly gradstanding by various interviewees. Watching the shmoozing between the Big Money oligarchy, politicians and MSM figures brings to mind the saying "it's a small club, and you ain't in it."

Cohen did mention one thing that would be a serious crime, though not campaign- or official actions-related: He alleged that [i]Il Duce[/i] had inflated his worth on, IIRC, loan applications. Lying about his net worth publicly, not a crime. But on financial statements like a loan application -- that would be bank fraud.

Apart from that, though, not much that could be called even potentially probative from a criminal, or "high crimes and misdemeanors" standpoint. The histrionics of the Republicans -- [i]that[/i] was the [i]real[/i] crime
:-D

[b]EDIT:[/b] Oops, I forgot:[QUOTE=ewmayer;509699]Tangential: Anyone here been watching the special A&E Biography series on the "Trump Dynasty"?[/quote]Not I. I suspect the viewership may be a small club, and I ain't in it.

Mueller Says He Has Obtained Trump's SAT Scores
 

[URL]https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55246-mueller-says-he-has-obtained-trumps-sat-scores[/URL]
[QUOTE]The special counsel’s office has obtained Donald J. Trump’s long-suppressed SAT scores, Robert Mueller confirmed on Thursday.

After the SAT results were retrieved, a forensics lab examined the microscopic scores and positively identified them as Trump’s, the special counsel explained.[/QUOTE]
I had to add the picture of Mueller, even though it is at the head of the article. I have never seen any representation of this guy smiling, and it's scary!

[QUOTE=kladner;509746][URL]https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55246-mueller-says-he-has-obtained-trumps-sat-scores[/URL]

I had to add the picture of Mueller, even though it is at the head of the article. I have never seen any representation of this guy smiling, and it's scary![/QUOTE]

Prepare to be frightened out of your wits! The picture you posted is the one with the caption [i]Mueller prepares to face questions from the House Judiciary Committee during a hearing Sept. 16, 2008[/i] in the slide show [url=https://www.politico.com/gallery/2018/08/07/robert-mueller-fbi-photos-birthday-002952?slide=0]here[/url] (change the slide=0 to slide=8 in the URL).

The one [url=https://www.politico.com/gallery/2018/08/07/robert-mueller-fbi-photos-birthday-002952?slide=12]here[/url], captioned [i]Mueller smiles before the start of a briefing with reporters at FBI headquarters on July 26, 2006.[/i], makes him look positively angelic, thanks to a photographic oopsadaisy
:-D

Trump Storms Out of McDonald's After Failing to Close Six-Dollar Meal Deal
 

[URL]https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55300-trump-storms-out-of-mcdonalds-after-failing-to-close-six-dollar-meal-deal[/URL]
[QUOTE]At approximately 12:30 P.M., Trump took a break from his designated “executive time” to travel to the nearby McDonald’s, where he placed an order for a Meal Deal consisting of a Quarter Pounder with cheese, fries, Coke, and an apple pie.

Tracy Klugian, the McDonald’s employee who took Trump’s order, said that he was aware of Trump’s difficulty in closing deals and therefore hiked the price of the Meal Deal to twelve dollars.
[/QUOTE]

March 4 is the anniversary of most US presidential inaugurations before 1937. Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural was the one mentioned in the "On this day" feature today.

One reason is almost certainly Lincoln's second inaugural address, which may be found [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_second_inaugural_address]here[/url].

I've seen bumper stickers bearing his likeness with the caption, "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to." The line comes from a 1960's popular song.

God Offers People of Alabama New Bibles to Replace Ones Trump Signed
 

[URL]https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55439-god-offers-people-of-alabama-new-bibles-to-replace-ones-trump-signed[/URL]
[QUOTE]God has offered to give the people of Alabama brand new Bibles to replace the ones that Donald J. Trump signed during his visit to the state on Friday.

In a rare public statement from the famously mysterious deity, God said that He was furious at Trump “for defacing My book,” calling Trump’s signature “a wanton act of vandalism.”
[/QUOTE]

Locked in a Cold War Time Warp
 

This post is just intended to show how many deranged and deluded folks there are who ever even suspect that the "Saintly" NYT ever even shaded the truth, even a little bit. Poor fools.

[QUOTE]Burns and Ember [of the NYT] editorialized that Sanders often “walked a line between fostering kinship with a foreign people and admiring aspects of a repressive system.”

If Sanders walked a fine line, however, what about the frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination, Joe Biden whom [I]The Times[/I] has never questioned for supporting repressive systems?

During the Arab Spring protests in Egypt, even National Public Radio (NPR) considered Biden to be on the “wrong side of history” when he rejected the term “dictator” to describe Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak who had at that point been in power for over 31 years.

When asked by PBS Newshour anchor Jim Lehrer whether the time had come for Mubarak, who mercilessly attacked demonstrators, to step aside, Biden said “no,” adding only that he hoped Mubarak would “be more responsive to some of the needs of the people out there.”
[/QUOTE]

A Stain on the Honor of the Navy
 

[URL]https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/uss-john-s-mccain-scandal-stains-navy/590575/[/URL]
I thought I would give Electile Dysfunction a rest, though this post might have fit there, as well. I will leave aside arguments about the honor of professional killers, in an organization, the US military, which bleeds the country white even in "peace" times.
[QUOTE]One prays to the “[URL="https://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=172"]Eternal Father, strong to save / Whose arm hath bound the restless wave[/URL]” that [I]The Wall Street Journal[/I] has got it horribly wrong. The newspaper [URL="https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-wanted-uss-john-mccain-out-of-sight-during-trump-japan-visit-11559173470?emailToken=ca887c08f025f5a5b7a01dbde32c838etBzq0FwbTXJrUQ8MUigaUjoAwWzGVOHT66U4wF7JggEVN49VMPJcywDwL4QIC90yIeTde53bioBxoijKFGMKce+lggzjkFmquqfBI+eoiwkN6qJGKPyIRwCj2ZtjqkkRe2VMQFp9bRWUdJs0k7z4QA%3D%3D&reflink=article_imessage_share"]reports[/URL] that the United States Navy, under orders from the White House and with the approval of the acting secretary of defense and the compliance of a chain of naval officers in the Seventh Fleet, did its efficient best to conceal the name John McCain from President Donald Trump’s sight when he recently visited Yokosuka Naval Base.

The ship is under repair, so it could not be moved. But sailors hung a tarp over the ship’s name, and other measures (a strategically positioned barge) helped obscure the offending words. Sailors were told to remove all coverings that might indicate that the ship is the USS John S. McCain. They were, according to the article, given the day off, lest the name John McCain, embroidered on their caps, give offense. On the day of the presidential visit, some of the sailors present wore “Make Aircrew Great Again” patches, with something that resembled Trump’s profile on them. Subsequent stories in [I][URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/politics/uss-mccain-navy-ship.html"]The New York Times[/URL] [/I]and [I][URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/meghan-mccain-hits-out-at-trump-over-report-white-house-wanted-uss-john-s-mccain-covered-up/2019/05/29/3ad314b2-8272-11e9-933d-7501070ee669_story.html"]The Washington Post[/URL] [/I]amended the [I]Journal[/I]’s story somewhat, to include the assertion that naval leadership intervened at the last minute to have the tarp removed. But the basic account remained intact.

[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;518123][URL]https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/uss-john-s-mccain-scandal-stains-navy/590575/[/URL]
[/QUOTE]The action of obscuring the ship's name was craven bootlicking.

I doubt the name emblazoned on the ship would have given [i]Il Duce[/i] offense anyway, because I doubt he can read.

I have mixed feelings on [i]Il Duce[/i]'s five draft deferments (including one based on a diagnosis of bone spurs on his heels) getting him out of serving in Vietnam. On the one hand, they make him look like a coward using his family's economic privilege to avoid serving his country. On the other hand, keeping him out of the military was likely in the best interest of good order and discipline.

Trump’s Charges Against Julian Assange Would Effectively Criminalize Investigative Journalism
 

"Ever since the Pentagon Papers case, an Espionage Act loophole has been waiting for [U]a president thuggish enough to make use of it[/U]."
[QUOTE]Isolated in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison, Julian Assange was too ill to attend his own extradition hearing this week—a hearing now postponed to mid-June. This pause in the action is also an opportunity to contemplate the dangerous new path on which the Trump administration has embarked in its pursuit of the WikiLeaks founder, with the 17 new counts of violating the Espionage Act filed by the Justice Department last week. Those new counts make the real targets of the Assange prosecution clear: journalists worldwide.

The new charges against Assange—far broader than the narrow password-hacking charge on which he was first detained for extradition—are unprecedented, politically charged, and consequential. Like the earlier charge, they focus on his 2010 publication of the “Iraq War Logs” document cache and the “Collateral Murder” video showing airstrikes targeting two Reuters correspondents. These new charges accuse Assange of trying to persuade his source, Chelsea Manning, to leak; of helping to protect that source’s identity; and of publishing information that, in government officials’ opinion, could harm national security. All of these charges may well describe how intelligence officials view the leaks in question. But they also describe the routine tradecraft of investigative and national-security journalists—and they would effectively criminalize a wide range of essential reporting practices in the United States.
[/QUOTE]

hehe

What Two Crucial Words in the Constitution Actually Mean
 

"I reviewed more than a thousand publications from the founding era, and discovered that “[U]executive power[/U]” doesn’t imply what most scholars thought."
[URL]https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/executive-power-doesnt-mean-much/590461/[/URL]
[QUOTE]After years of research into an enormous array of colonial, revolutionary, and founding-era sources, I’m here to tell you that—as a historical matter—this president-as-king claim is utterly and totally wrong. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand publications from the 17th and 18th centuries for each instance of the word root [I]exec-[/I], and have read most of those texts from cover to cover with the topic of presidential power squarely in mind. I’ve read every discussion of executive power and presidential authority that appears in the gigantic compilation of archival materials known as the [I]Documentary History of the Ratification of the United States Constitution[/I]. And with the help of a team of research assistants, I’m most of the way through flyspecking the full records of the Continental Congress—including committee reports, floor debates, and delegate correspondence—with the same question in mind.

All this work has left me with both the confidence to share this conclusion and the sense of obligation to do so as bluntly as possible. It’s just not a close call: The historical record categorically refutes the idea that the American revolutionaries gave their new president an unspecified array of royal prerogatives. To the contrary, the presidency that leaps off the pages of the Founders’ debates, diaries, speeches, letters, poems, and essays was an [I]instrument[/I] of the law of the land, [I]subject[/I] to the law of the land, and both morally and legally obliged to [I]obey[/I] the law of the land.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;518513]"I reviewed more than a thousand publications from the founding era, and discovered that “[U]executive power[/U]” doesn’t imply what most scholars thought."
[URL]https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/executive-power-doesnt-mean-much/590461/[/URL][quote]The historical record categorically refutes the idea that the American revolutionaries gave their new president an unspecified array of royal prerogatives. To the contrary, the presidency that leaps off the pages of the Founders’ debates, diaries, speeches, letters, poems, and essays was an [i]instrument[/i] of the law of the land, [i]subject[/i] to the law of the land, and both morally and legally obliged to [i]obey[/i] the law of the land.[/quote][/QUOTE]

And this is supposed to be news to whom, exactly? It is one of the ideals on which this country was founded, and that they teach -- or [i]used[/i] to teach -- in grade school Social Studies or Civics. Perhaps not in Texas, though
:-D

When Nixon's subversions of the rule of law became publicly known, people got mad and he had to leave office. Now, it seems that all too many people don't know or don't care how our government is supposed to work. The following excerpt from a [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWcVtWennr0]September 17, 2012 interview with David Souter[/url] is chillingly prescient.

Since you're living in Chicago, I will recommend you read (if you haven't already) a book about the regime of mayor Richard J. Daley entitled [u]Clout[/u] by Len O'Connor. (He wrote a sequel entitled [u]Requiem[/u] IIRC.) One point he makes is that people have to get involved in the political process -- not just vote, but attend public meetings, write their elected representatives, etc for politicians to do their jobs properly.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;518211]On the one hand, they make [POTUS] look like a coward using his family's economic privilege to avoid serving his country.[/QUOTE]"Serving his country"? The military of any country don't serve, they murder. Calling it war, or "serving", doesn't make it not murder.

The same goes for any religion that proposes killing as a means to perpetuate itself. Like the crusades, and jihadists, etc.

[QUOTE=retina;518535]"Serving his country"? The military of any country don't serve, they murder. Calling it war, or "serving", doesn't make it not murder.

The same goes for any religion that proposes killing as a means to perpetuate itself. Like the crusades, and jihadists, etc.[/QUOTE]
There is a large range, within homicide, from self defense or defense of others that produces or may credibly produce a substantial net reduction in expected lives lost, or court ordered execution, negligent homicide, to completely unjustified murder. Had someone timely interfered with Adam Lanza's health, near or in his objective, most of 20 children and 6 staff would have lived, at Sandy Hook, that did not. I wonder where you would place abortion, with its US toll of over 60 million direct intended fatalities since 1973, on the spectrum of definitions of homicide. The killing fields of Cambodia were stopped by the intervention of its neighbor, Vietnam. When genocide or other madness is already afoot, would you have all others stand idly by or look away? There is sometimes a moral duty to act to oppose evil. As a last resort, that involves deadly force. “The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.”
― Jeff Cooper, [URL="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/353702"]Art of the Rifle[/URL]
[URL="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/353702"]https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/tyranny[/URL]

Two of my uncles served in WWII, and I'll not have you libeling them.
Shooting someone charging your foxhole with deadly intent in the middle of the night is not murder, it is self defense. (Of course, the fellows charging the foxhole on Iwo Jima and elsewhere were serving their emperor and following orders.)
"A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself" John Stuart Mill, [URL="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/15114353"]Principles of Political Economy[/URL]

[QUOTE=retina;518535]"Serving his country"? The military of any country don't serve, they murder. Calling it war, or "serving", doesn't make it not murder.

The same goes for any religion that proposes killing as a means to perpetuate itself. Like the crusades, and jihadists, etc.[/QUOTE]I'm a realist (aka pragmatist or cynic). As an example: fewer Germans died in WW2 than the size of the continental population of Jews, Roma, niggers, queers, etc. A strictly utilitarian analysis concludes that murdering a few million Germans was cost-effective.

Extremely plausible arguments, made by respected military historians of several nationalities, conclude that the incineration of about a hundred kilo-Japanese almost certainly resulted in a net reduction in Japanese fatalities --- let alone those of other nationalities.

[QUOTE=retina;518535]"Serving his country"? The military of any country don't serve, they murder. Calling it war, or "serving", doesn't make it not murder.

The same goes for any religion that proposes killing as a means to perpetuate itself. Like the crusades, and jihadists, etc.[/QUOTE]
One of the saddest aspects of Japan's war effort was its propaganda to its civilian populace, to the effect that being captured by the Americans would mean rape, torture, and death. As a result, a number of US victories -- Saipan and Okinawa come to mind -- were followed by civilians committing mass suicide by jumping off oceanside cliffs. To my mind, these unfortunate people were murdered by their own government.

Besides the nuclear bombings, Japan's surrender was impelled by the Soviet Union's declaration of war, and the invasion and occupation of the Kuril Islands. Japan's leaders knew that Stalin didn't care [i]how[/i] many of his soldiers died (unless "the more the better" is caring), and probably feared -- rightly -- what the Red Army would do to Japan's civilian population.

The last-ditch plans for defending the home islands involved civilians being suicide soldiers, and fighting armed soldiers with swords and bamboo spears. The military part of the home defense plan was well done -- they had pretty much figured out the landing zones that would be used, and Allied casualties would have been appalling. The supply of Purple Hearts (awarded to soldiers wounded in combat) made in preparation for the final invasion is still being used to this day.

"Murder" may be properly used to describe some of Japan's operations in WWII -- the "Rape of Nanking" -- which Japan still refuses to acknowledge even occurred -- or the "three alls" policy, or mass retaliations, like leveling whole villages if they thought anyone there helped Doolittle's Raiders escape.

It is well to remember that the US tried to rein in Japan's campaign of military conquest (notably in Manchuria) with economic sanctions, rather than by force of arms. Japan responded with a military offensive throughout the Pacific, which included the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Up until that point, the US was largely isolationist. The next day, my dad, who had been contemplating becoming a conscientious objector, went to enlist, even though he was underage. A lot of his friends also went down to enlist. He wound up serving in Europe for a few months, before he was seriously wounded and shipped home. He killed enemy soldiers in combat, but if you want to call him a murderer, at least have the decency to do it personally. I hope you're not in a hurry, though.

The culpability of a soldier in wartime -- particularly in furtherance of a bad policy -- is an issue that has been around for a long long time. I quote The Bard (The Life of King Henry the Fifth, Act 4, Scene 1)
[quote]KING HENRY V: I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's minds: methinks I could not die any where so contented as in the king's company; his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.

WILLIAMS: That's more than we know.

BATES: Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMS: But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.[/quote]

Very interesting discussion.
I would blame the politicians instead of the soldiers...

[QUOTE=kriesel;518540]There is a large range, within homicide, from self defense or defense of others that produces or may credibly produce a substantial net reduction in expected lives lost, or court ordered execution, negligent homicide, to completely unjustified murder. Had someone timely interfered with Adam Lanza's health, near or in his objective, most of 20 children and 6 staff would have lived, at Sandy Hook, that did not. I wonder where you would place abortion, with its US toll of over 60 million direct intended fatalities since 1973, on the spectrum of definitions of homicide. The killing fields of Cambodia were stopped by the intervention of its neighbor, Vietnam. When genocide or other madness is already afoot, would you have all others stand idly by or look away? There is sometimes a moral duty to act to oppose evil. As a last resort, that involves deadly force. “The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.”
― Jeff Cooper, [URL="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/353702"]Art of the Rifle[/URL]
[URL="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/353702"]https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/tyranny[/URL]

Two of my uncles served in WWII, and I'll not have you libeling them.
Shooting someone charging your foxhole with deadly intent in the middle of the night is not murder, it is self defense. (Of course, the fellows charging the foxhole on Iwo Jima and elsewhere were serving their emperor and following orders.)
"A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself" John Stuart Mill, [URL="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/15114353"]Principles of Political Economy[/URL][/QUOTE][QUOTE=xilman;518547]I'm a realist (aka pragmatist or cynic). As an example: fewer Germans died in WW2 than the size of the continental population of Jews, Roma, niggers, queers, etc. A strictly utilitarian analysis concludes that murdering a few million Germans was cost-effective.

Extremely plausible arguments, made by respected military historians of several nationalities, conclude that the incineration of about a hundred kilo-Japanese almost certainly resulted in a net reduction in Japanese fatalities --- let alone those of other nationalities.[/QUOTE][QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;518558]One of the saddest aspects of Japan's war effort was its propaganda to its civilian populace, to the effect that being captured by the Americans would mean rape, torture, and death. As a result, a number of US victories -- Saipan and Okinawa come to mind -- were followed by civilians committing mass suicide by jumping off oceanside cliffs. To my mind, these unfortunate people were murdered by their own government.

Besides the nuclear bombings, Japan's surrender was impelled by the Soviet Union's declaration of war, and the invasion and occupation of the Kuril Islands. Japan's leaders knew that Stalin didn't care [i]how[/i] many of his soldiers died (unless "the more the better" is caring), and probably feared -- rightly -- what the Red Army would do to Japan's civilian population.

The last-ditch plans for defending the home islands involved civilians being suicide soldiers, and fighting armed soldiers with swords and bamboo spears. The military part of the home defense plan was well done -- they had pretty much figured out the landing zones that would be used, and Allied casualties would have been appalling. The supply of Purple Hearts (awarded to soldiers wounded in combat) made in preparation for the final invasion is still being used to this day.

"Murder" may be properly used to describe some of Japan's operations in WWII -- the "Rape of Nanking" -- which Japan still refuses to acknowledge even occurred -- or the "three alls" policy, or mass retaliations, like leveling whole villages if they thought anyone there helped Doolittle's Raiders escape.

It is well to remember that the US tried to rein in Japan's campaign of military conquest (notably in Manchuria) with economic sanctions, rather than by force of arms. Japan responded with a military offensive throughout the Pacific, which included the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Up until that point, the US was largely isolationist. The next day, my dad, who had been contemplating becoming a conscientious objector, went to enlist, even though he was underage. A lot of his friends also went down to enlist. He wound up serving in Europe for a few months, before he was seriously wounded and shipped home. He killed enemy soldiers in combat, but if you want to call him a murderer, at least have the decency to do it personally. I hope you're not in a hurry, though.

The culpability of a soldier in wartime -- particularly in furtherance of a bad policy -- is an issue that has been around for a long long time. I quote The Bard (The Life of King Henry the Fifth, Act 4, Scene 1)[/QUOTE]Well, a lot of defending war there. But so far no one has said what they did/do isn't murder.

The primary purpose of the military is to kill the other guys, right? If it isn't then why do they have so many weapons? And if you were born on [i]this[/i] side of that arbitrary line then you should be supporting [i]us[/i]! Else if you were born on the other side of that arbitrary line then we will kill you because we don't like you. Oh, unless your birth was beyond another line on the other end of this piece of dirt, then you are a "good guy" because our government says so. Rah, rah, rah! Be a patriot. It's all good, nothing bad could ever come from it. :razz:

[QUOTE=retina;518623]The primary purpose of the military is to kill the other guys, right? If it isn't then why do they have so many weapons?[/QUOTE]Not really. It is to take possession and control of land (with maybe the government thrown in as well and sometimes just particular individuals). If they can do this without shooting, they do it. The raid that got OBL did not have as the goal to slaughter everyone, it was to get the big cat. Sgt York did not get recognition for mowing down a bunch of folks, he got it by capturing them. Weapons (small arms in particular) are used when people resist the takeover (and generally are hostile back.)

[QUOTE=retina;518623]Well, a lot of defending war there. But so far no one has said what they did/do isn't murder.

The primary purpose of the military is to kill the other guys, right?
<snip>
[/QUOTE]
People killing other people is homicide. Not all homicide is murder. Killing in defense of self or others is "justifiable homicide" and not a crime. Soldiers killing other soldiers in combat is generally not considered murder. Soldiers shooting captives or those trying to surrender (as in "taking no prisoners") [i]is[/i] murder.

But on to the primary purpose of the military. With the Mongols or the Roman legions, yes, killing the other guy was the primary tactic for gaining objectives -- tribute, land, plunder, slaves, what have you. Both the Mongols and the Romans were [i]very[/i] good at killing people. So, for that matter, were the samurai in feudal Japan.

In more recent times, shows of force and military tactics geared to put the enemy in an indefensible position have been used, to deter adversaries from a course of action, or force them to retreat or surrender in furtherance of some other objective.

Border Patrol Is Confiscating Migrant Kids' Medicine, US Doctors Say
 

[URL]https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/56942-border-patrol-is-confiscating-migrant-kids-medicine-us-doctors-say[/URL]
Actually, it is adults, as well. Notably, insulin and blood pressure, as well as anti-seizure medications are being taken and not returned or replaced. The Border Patrol [QUOTEFor the past year and a half, Dr. Eric Russell has been traveling from Houston to McAllen, Texas, every three months or so to volunteer at the Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center, a first stop for many asylum-seeking migrants who’ve been released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the Rio Grande Valley.

During his most recent visit to the clinic in April, when he saw more than 150 migrants, he noted a troubling new trend: a number of people reported that their medication had been taken from them by U.S. border officials.

“I had a few adults that came who had high blood pressure, who had their blood pressure medications taken from them and, not surprisingly, their blood pressure was elevated,” Russell told Yahoo News. “There was a couple of adults that had diabetes that had their diabetes medicines taken from them, and wanted to come in because they were worried about their blood sugar. And, not surprisingly, their blood sugar was elevated.”

For Russell, a pediatric emergency medicine physician, the patient who stood out the most during that visit was a boy of 8 or 9 with a history of seizures. According to his mother, the child had been on a long-term seizure medicine in their home country, but the medication had been taken from him upon entering the Border Patrol custody in McAllen and never returned.[/QUOTE]

Checks and balances? WHAT checks and balances?
 

[i]Il Duce[/i]'s use of "acting" cabinet secretaries reminds me of Mayor Richard J. Daley's use of "temporary" appointments to get around the Shakman decree and fill positions with political loyalists. Of course, Daley had a mighty political club to wield over City Council -- in addition to being Mayor, he was also head of the Cook County Democratic Party organization -- meaning that he controlled [i]all[/i] the patronage jobs. [i]Il Duce[/i] has no similar hold over the US Senate.

[url=https://www.apnews.com/002bb07f6b8245d8abcfbac3322f4ede]GOP mutters, gently, as Trump sidesteps Senate for top aides[/url][quote]
By ALAN FRAM
June 17, 2019

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s latest anointment of an acting head of a major federal agency has prompted muttering, but no more than that, from Republican senators whose job description includes confirming top administration aides.

Their reluctance to confront Trump comes as veterans of the confirmation process and analysts say he’s placed acting officials in key posts in significantly higher numbers than his recent predecessors. The practice lets him quickly, if temporarily, install allies in important positions while circumventing the Senate confirmation process , which can be risky with Republicans running the chamber by a slim 53-47 margin.

The latest example is Ken Cuccinelli, who last week was named acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He is an outspoken supporter of hard-line immigration policies and his appointment was opposed by some key Senate Republicans.[/quote]

WP columnist and former Dubya speech writer Michael Gerson used part of the following quotation, which I think is especially apt here, in an October 2017 column. I found the source of the quotation [url=http://www.coreorum.pl/upload/eng/10_Chesterton_Tremendous_Trifles.pdf]here[/url].

[quote]Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle. But these modern cowards are all crustaceans; their hardness is all on the cover and their softness is inside. But the softness is there; everything in this twilight temple is soft.[/quote]-- G. K. Chesterton, [u]Tremendous Trifles[/u]

If there is an 'immigrant' who has failed to integrate in America, it's Donald Trump
 

-by Richard Wolffe

[URL]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/15/donald-trump-immigrant-failed-integrate[/URL]
[QUOTE]“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done,” Trump tweeted on Sunday, apparently talking about a group of American members of Congress, including those who were born in the Bronx, Detroit and Cincinnati.

That’s the problem with immigrant families like the Trumps. They have no respect for our traditions and our elected representatives.

They hate our freedoms so much that they want to turn us into some kind of European dictatorship like they used to have back home. When they talk about our God-given constitution, they sound like they haven’t even bothered to read the Cliff’s Notes version.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;521742]-by Richard Wolffe

[URL]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/15/donald-trump-immigrant-failed-integrate[/URL][/QUOTE]
I offer another angle. I invite readers to pile on by adding to my small list of examples of [i]Il Duce[/i] whining about how unfair the world is to him and his enablers. There is no shortage of examples.

"The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment." -- tweet, 8:37 AM - 5 Jul 2016

"Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!" -- tweet, 6:19 PM - 10 Nov 2016

"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" -- tweet, 3:35 AM - 4 Mar 2017

"No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly" -- May 17, 2017 (speech at Coast Guard Academy)

[....]

"A lot of people love it but if you are not happy in the U.S. [b]if you are complaining all of the time[/b] very simply you can leave. You can leave right now. Come back if you want, don’t come back, that’s okay, too. But if you are not happy you can leave." -- remarks at White House, July 15, 2019 (my emphasis)

Great idea, Doc! I'm not sure I have the intestinal fortitude to go digging through the pResident's fecal outpourings :ick:, but I will heartily cheer the less-easily nauseated amongst us in their efforts. :devil:

[QUOTE=kladner;521769]Great idea, Doc! I'm not sure I have the intestinal fortitude to go digging through the pResident's fecal outpourings :ick:, but I will heartily cheer the less-easily nauseated amongst us in their efforts. :devil:[/QUOTE]
I'm glad you like the idea. I did find a [url=http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/archive/]site[/url] that lets you search [i]Il Duce[/i]'s tweets, but, alas, it failed to function properly on my old system.

Anyhow, [i]Il Duce[/i] has indisputably earned the title "Complainer-in-Chief," so by his recent statement, he should leave the [strike]planet[/strike] country.

Presidential news quiz
 

Multiple choice. Don't worry. In keeping with the nature of the current holder of the office, there are no correct answers.

Question 1: The president has addressed the shooting in El Paso by

a) Suggesting he would pardon the shooter of any federal charges, for his good work on the immigration issue

b) Threatening to sue the shooter over his "manifesto" -- for plagiarism

c) Both (a) and (b)

Question 2: The president's statement on the shootings included the declaration that "In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy. Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart and devours the soul." He was declaring that

a) He is going to give another statement apologizing for his demagoguery, and resign

b) The House should immediately vote unanimously to impeach him, and the Senate should then immediately vote unanimously to remove him from office.

[url=https://www.apnews.com/095ceba3eac8471681a3fa920ab80304]Danish royal palace ‘surprised’ by Trump canceling trip[/url][quote]Trump announced his decision by tweet after the Danish prime minister dismissed the notion of selling the semi-autonomous territory to the U.S. as "an absurd discussion."

Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time," Trump said.[/quote]:tantrum:

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;524134][URL="https://www.apnews.com/095ceba3eac8471681a3fa920ab80304"]Danish royal palace ‘surprised’ by Trump canceling trip[/URL][/QUOTE]
Petty little twit, ain't he?
Can't find the photo at the moment. It is of a guy carrying a sign saying:[INDENT]Super
Callous
Fragile
Racist
Sexist
Nazi
POTUS

[/INDENT]

[QUOTE=kladner;524235]Petty little twit, ain't he?
Can't find the photo at the moment. It is of a guy carrying a sign saying:[INDENT]Super
Callous
Fragile
Racist
Sexist
Nazi
POTUS

[/INDENT][/QUOTE]I've seen one of an advisor speaking quietly into Trumps ear and a caption very similar to "You will be pleased to know that your IQ test has come back negative".

I'll see if I can dig up either or both.

Super Callous Fragile Racist Sexist Nazi POTUS
 

Sites with merchandise bearing this slogan are many. There are also coffee mugs.

Amazon has some T's pictured [url=https://www.amazon.com/resist-callous-fragile-racist-sexist/dp/B07N24G8SH]here[/url]. Also, with "nazi" replaced by "not my" [url=https://www.amazon.com/Super-Callous-Fragile-Racist-Sexist/dp/B07NYYK1SD]here[/url]. Also, "Super Callous Fragile Racist Extra Braggadocious" T's [url=https://www.amazon.com/Super-Callous-Fragile-Racist-Braggadocious/dp/B07N1M8ZCH]here[/url].

I didn't find the one of the advisor speaking into [i]Il Duce[/i]'s ear, but "your IQ test has come back negative" is all over the Internet, like a rash.

Methink the first one should have been "stupid" or similar. There is nothing "super" about "it". There are also versions where "nazi" is replaced by "orange", which is easier to "sing" and fits better to him (honestly, I don't like him much, but I would not call him "nazi" either).

[QUOTE=LaurV;524267]Methink the first one should have been "stupid" or similar. There is nothing "super" about "it".[/QUOTE]
I noticed that too. I think the intended meaning was to have "super" modifying "callous," and would have been better conveyed with the two words on one line, like

SUPER CALLOUS

or

SUPER-CALLOUS

Need I say that this is modeled on a single invented word? Does it really matter if words are run together or not? It's a sound play, anyway.

supercalifragilisticexpealidocious (pardon any misspelling :crazy:)

And despite all the daily outrages, Team D and their pals in the MSM are hard at work lining up a second term for Trump, by way of eliminating from contention and gross-lying-about the positions of the few progressive pols running for the Dem nomination. Latest examples:

o Veteran and antiwar candidate Tulsi Gabbard eliminated from next round of D debates by way of dubious, whimsical and subject-to-change-without-notice [url=https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/08/21/gabbard_victimized_by_dncs_dubious_debate_criteria_141055.html]DNC debate eligibility criteria[/url]. This is why the DNC, rather than the nonpartisan League of Women Voters as in past years, now controls the show - one more way to rig the process.

o WaPo [url=https://t.co/ueeAxXFDFB]lying about Sanders' Medicare For All proposal[/url].

See also my link to Matt Taibbi's latest "be very afraid" article over in the Electile Dysfunction thread.

Yes, I am entitled to my own facts!
 

[url=https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/map-flap-trump-displays-altered-weather-map-showing/story?id=65384094]If you don't like the forecast, use a Sharpie on the weather map[/url]
[quote]"That map that you showed us today, looked like it almost had, like, a Sharpie written on it," a reporter said during a second White House event on Wednesday.

Trump cut off the reporter and said, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know." He also said the map had been from three or four days before, when it had actually been issued six days earlier.

White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley tweeted Wednesday night that the line was, in fact, from a black Sharpie, and he criticized the media for focusing on it.[/quote]This method should work just as well on climate forecasts...

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;525224][url=https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/map-flap-trump-displays-altered-weather-map-showing/story?id=65384094]If you don't like the forecast, use a Sharpie on the weather map[/url]
This method should work just as well on climate forecasts...[/QUOTE]This is why an owner/ceo of a company is not a good choice for the is type of job. "I say our earnings projections will be 'this' ".

[i]Il Duce[/i]'s stunt with the weather map fired some synapses in my long-term memory.

I have a collection of Gahan Wilson's cartoons entitled, "... And then we'll get him!" which I received as a gift 40 years ago.

At the bottom of page 84 is a cartoon featuring a chart showing a downward trend. Two men are looking at it. One is standing and frowning. The other is sitting, with a crazed grin on his face, his hand on a switch. A bit beyond the end of the line on the chart, a wire leading from the switch is taped to the chart. The smiling man is saying,[indent]... and when it gets there I'm going to give it a little electric shock and that will send it straight back up again![/indent]
Sometimes life imitates art. Sometimes the art is better.

Especially in this case, since the art is fantasy, and in real life our Twit(ler)-in-Chief is likely to be re-elected.

Talk about a double standard: When Bill Clinton was president, one thing that drove Republicans into a foaming-at-the-mouth, thrashing-on-the-floor, biting-the-carpet frenzy was, the guy would [i]never[/i] admit his peccadillos. He was like the kid in [i]Life in Hell[/i], caught in the middle of the kitchen floor right next to the broken cookie jar, saying "I swear to God I didn't do it."

And yet, here is [i]Il Duce[/i], carrying this same inclination to the n-plus-1[sup]th[/sup] degree in all matters great and small, and they have no problem with it.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;525228]This is why an owner/ceo of a company is not a good choice for the is [sic] type of job. "I say our earnings projections will be 'this' ".[/QUOTE]
Just to emphasize the point:

On September 6, some unnamed(*) bureaucrat at NOAA issued a [url=https://www.noaa.gov/news/statement-from-noaa]statement[/url], hung on the very flimsy pretext that some predictions indicated that Alabama [i]might possibly[/i] feel some [i]tropical storm force[/i] winds from Dorian, chastising the Birmingham office's tweet contradicting [i]Il Duce[/i]:[quote]The Birmingham National Weather Service's Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time[/quote](*) I think it's safe to say the bureaucrat's name is Ben Dover.

Re. the latest manufactured ImpeachImpeachImpeach hysteria gripping DC, I predicted when the story first broke that this would turn into the latest huge own-goal by the Dems, because, having cultivated non-MSM news sources for the past decade-plus, I was well-acquainted with the underlying sordid story about crooked Joe Biden, the one where he publicly bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about threatening the Ukrainian government with withholding of a huge aid package if said government did not get a certain state prosecutor fired, a prosecutor who just happened to be looking into curruption involving a very cushy financial deal Biden's son had just happened to land with a Ukrainian firm in the wake of the US-sponsored Maidan Spring coup in Ukraine, a story which was roundly ignored as non-newsworthy by the western MSM at the time. MofA has a nice summing-up of the whole sordid affair:

[url=https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/the-democrats-impeachment-attempt-against-trump-is-a-huge-mistake.html]The Democrats' Impeachment Attempt Against Trump Is A Huge Mistake[/url] | Moon of Alabama

MofA adds: "Trump should be impeached for his crimes against Syria, Venezuela and Yemen," a view echoed by some other well-kown voices in the political blogosphere, along with the accompanying why-that-will-never-happen commentary:
[i]
They’d never dream of impeaching based on illegal wars, illegal mass surveillance, or a thousand other genuine abuses of state power. So when the entire liberal mainstream coalesces around the conclusion that impeachment is suddenly mandatory — yeah, I’m skeptical

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) [url=https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1176662713977790465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]September 25, 2019[/url]
[/i]
Matt Stoller sees the hand of recently fired [strike]mass-murderous neocon nut[/strike]hero of democracy John Bolton behind the whistleblower complaint:
[i]
John Bolton’s revenge of having Trump impeached over Trump’s abuse of power regarding the Biden family’s soft influence peddling is a turducken of corruption.

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) [url=https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1176685952695242752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]September 25, 2019[/url]
[/i]
['Turducken' is a portmanteau for deboned chicken stuffed into a deboned duck, further stuffed into a deboned turkey.]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;526610]I was well-acquainted with the underlying sordid story about crooked Joe Biden, the one where he publicly bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about threatening the Ukrainian government with withholding of a huge aid package if said government did not get a certain state prosecutor fired,[/QUOTE]I'm sure your masters in Moscow will be pleased
;-)

I hardly need point out that in addition to there being no evidence that Prosecutor-General Shokin was even investigating Hunter Biden, that, as VP, Joe Biden was hardly in a position to [i]order[/i] withholding of a billion dollars in loan guarantees. There was plenty of pressure from other quarters at getting Shokin out. There were some folks, for example, who were chagrined at his refusal to go after Russian operatives who had been using Ukrainian protesters as practice in keeping up their marksmanship as snipers. Biden, as VP, was merely [i]delivering[/i] the threat to withhold the funds.

Meanwhile, in the here and now...

Of course, besides stopping the DNI from delivering a "credible and urgent" whistleblower complaint to Congress, the apparent [i]subject[/i] of the complaint -- coercing a foreign power to help out with an election campaign -- is also illegal. But it is puzzling. Why would [strike]CREEP[/strike] the Admin even bother? Maybe the complaint is not that serious, and withholding the report is merely a ploy to yank the Dems' chains. If so, it's working beautifully. It's got their eyes off the prize -- getting [i]Il Duce[/i] voted out of office.

OTOH, [i]Il Duce[/i] is certainly a dim enough bulb actually to try bullying a foreign leader to go after a domestic political rival, as reports indicate.

But, as I said, it is puzzling. This sort of hamfisted nonsense is really unnecessary. The R's could make an ad that works in a clip of the original [b]Star Trek[/b] series, fading in with a voiceover saying, [i]Think of what could happen if Joe Biden became president...[/i]
[indent]SPOCK: Do you wish to call any witnesses, Captain Kirk?

KIRK: I am perfectly capable of speaking in my own defence, Mister Spock.

SPOCK: Captain, I would suggest

KIRK: No, no, no. It's all right, Spock. It's all right. There's only one reason, and one reason alone, for having this, hearing. I refused to leave Gamma Hydra Two

SPOCK: Gamma Hydra Four, Captain.

KIRK: Yes. A slip of the tongue.

SPOCK: Your inability to remember having given commands, reading and signing important orders and then forgetting them, your physical analysis as compiled by our own chief surgeon. All these things would appear to be irrefutable proof of failing physical and mental conditions.

KIRK: So I'm a little confused. Who wouldn't be at a time like this? My ship's in trouble, my senior officers are ill. And this nonsense about a competency hearing is enough to mix up any man. Trying to relieve a captain of his command is, well, that's, that's. Spock, I wouldn't have believed it of you. Go ahead. Ask me questions. I'll show you what I'm capable of. There's nothing wrong with my memory. Go ahead! Ask me anything! We're in orbit around Gamma Hydra Two, right? Anyhow, it doesn't matter. There's a lot more to running a starship than answering a lot of fool questions. A lot more. Go ahead. Ask me questions.

SPOCK: We have no more questions, Captain.

KIRK: Ask me anything. Anything. [/indent]
Then, the clip fades out, and a printed message appears: [b]JOE BIDEN -- HE'S PAST IT[/B]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;524264]Sites with merchandise bearing this slogan are many. There are also coffee mugs.

Amazon has some T's pictured [URL="https://www.amazon.com/resist-callous-fragile-racist-sexist/dp/B07N24G8SH"]here[/URL]. Also, with "nazi" replaced by "not my" [URL="https://www.amazon.com/Super-Callous-Fragile-Racist-Sexist/dp/B07NYYK1SD"]here[/URL]. Also, "Super Callous Fragile Racist Extra Braggadocious" T's [URL="https://www.amazon.com/Super-Callous-Fragile-Racist-Braggadocious/dp/B07N1M8ZCH"]here[/URL].

I didn't find the one of the advisor speaking into [I]Il Duce[/I]'s ear, but "your IQ test has come back negative" is all over the Internet, like a rash.[/QUOTE]
The alternate versions are really funny, too. :smile:

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;526635]I hardly need point out that in addition to there being no evidence that Prosecutor-General Shokin was even investigating Hunter Biden, that, as VP, Joe Biden was hardly in a position to [i]order[/i] withholding of a billion dollars in loan guarantees.[/QUOTE]

Au contraire, says [i]The Hill's[/i] John Solomon:

[url=https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/463307-solomon-these-once-secret-memos-cast-doubt-on-joe-bidens-ukraine-story]Solomon: These once-secret memos cast doubt on Joe Biden's Ukraine story[/url] | TheHill
[quote]Former Vice President Joe Biden, now a 2020 Democratic presidential contender, has locked into a specific story about the controversy in Ukraine.

He insists that, in spring 2016, he strong-armed Ukraine to fire its chief prosecutor solely because Biden believed that official was corrupt and inept, not because the Ukrainian was investigating a natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, that hired Biden's son, Hunter, into a lucrative job.

There’s just one problem.

Hundreds of pages of never-released memos and documents — many from inside the American team helping Burisma to stave off its legal troubles — conflict with Biden’s narrative.

And they raise the troubling prospect that U.S. officials may have painted a false picture in Ukraine that helped ease Burisma’s legal troubles and stop prosecutors’ plans to interview Hunter Biden during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

For instance, Burisma’s American legal representatives met with Ukrainian officials just days after Biden forced the firing of the country’s chief prosecutor and offered “an apology for dissemination of false information by U.S. representatives and public figures” about the Ukrainian prosecutors, according to the Ukrainian government’s official memo of the meeting. The effort to secure that meeting began the same day the prosecutor's firing was announced.

In addition, Burisma’s American team offered to introduce Ukrainian prosecutors to Obama administration officials to make amends, according to that memo and the American legal team’s internal emails.

The memos raise troubling questions:

1.) If the Ukraine prosecutor’s firing involved only his alleged corruption and ineptitude, why did Burisma's American legal team refer to those allegations as “false information?"

2.) If the firing had nothing to do with the Burisma case, as Biden has adamantly claimed, why would Burisma’s American lawyers contact the replacement prosecutor within hours of the termination and urgently seek a meeting in Ukraine to discuss the case?

Ukrainian prosecutors say they have tried to get this information to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) since the summer of 2018, fearing it might be evidence of possible violations of U.S. ethics laws. First, they hired a former federal prosecutor to bring the information to the U.S. attorney in New York, who, they say, showed no interest. Then, the Ukrainians reached out to President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, told Trump in July that he plans to launch his own wide-ranging investigation into what happened with the Bidens and Burisma.

“I’m knowledgeable about the situation,” Zelensky told Trump, asking the American president to forward any evidence he might know about. "The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case.”

Biden has faced scrutiny since December 2015, when the New York Times published a story noting that Burisma hired Hunter Biden just weeks after the vice president was asked by President Obama to oversee U.S.-Ukraine relations. That story also alerted Biden’s office that Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin had an active investigation of Burisma and its founder.

Documents I obtained this year detail an effort to change the narrative after the Times story about Hunter Biden, with the help of the Obama State Department.

Hunter Biden’s American business partner in Burisma, Devon Archer, texted a colleague two days after the Times story about a strategy to counter the “new wave of scrutiny” and stated that he and Hunter Biden had just met at the State Department. The text suggested there was about to be a new “USAID project the embassy is announcing with us” and that it was “perfect for us to move forward now with momentum.”

I have sued the State Department for any records related to that meeting. The reason is simple: There is both a public interest and an ethics question to knowing if Hunter Biden and his team sought State’s assistance while his father was vice president.

The controversy ignited anew earlier this year [url=https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived]when I disclosed[/url] that Joe Biden admitted during a 2018 videotaped speech that, as vice president in March 2016, he threatened to cancel $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, to pressure Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko to fire Shokin.

At the time, Shokin’s office was investigating Burisma. Shokin told me he was making plans to question Hunter Biden about $3 million in fees that Biden and his partner, Archer, collected from Burisma through their American firm. Documents seized by the FBI in an unrelated case confirm the payments, which in many months totaled more than $166,000.

Some media outlets have reported that, at the time Joe Biden forced the firing in March 2016, there were no open investigations. Those reports are wrong. A British-based investigation of Burisma's owner was closed down in early 2015 on a technicality when a deadline for documents was not met. But the Ukraine Prosecutor General's office still had two open inquiries in March 2016, according to the official case file provided me. One of those cases involved taxes; the other, allegations of corruption. Burisma announced the cases against it were not closed and settled until January 2017. ...
[rest of article at above link][/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;526763]Au contraire, says [i]The Hill's[/i] John Solomon:

[url=https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/463307-solomon-these-once-secret-memos-cast-doubt-on-joe-bidens-ukraine-story]Solomon: These once-secret memos cast doubt on Joe Biden's Ukraine story[/url] | TheHill[quote]The controversy ignited anew earlier this year when I disclosed that Joe Biden admitted during a 2018 videotaped speech that, as vice president in March 2016, he threatened to cancel $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, to pressure Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko to fire Shokin.[/quote][/QUOTE]
I am no doubt very stupid, but when in March 2016 did Biden meet Poroshenko?

Besides the factually suspect premise of Biden having met with Poroshenko in March 2016, there is also the [i]fact[/i] that, as VP, he simply did not have the authority to make good on a threat to withhold funds. Hard to get around that one.

And what is the nature of the allegations against him? That he was trying to protect his son. And, based on his braggadocio, we know that he was making no secret of -- indeed, most likely exaggerated -- his role in getting Prosecutor-General Shokin fired.

In the here and now, [i]Il Duce[/i], as President, [i]does[/i] have the authority to withhold funds. And the allegations about him WRT Ukraine are, that he threatened to do so to coerce the President of Ukraine to order an investigation into a domestic political opponent and potential campaign rival.

Also in the here and now, we know that, long before news of the whistleblower complaint became public, WH minions moved heaven and earth to bury it. Now why would they do that? :whistle:

Curiously, one of the WH and R's lines about the complaint is that, [i]even though they don't know who filed the complaint[/i], that it was someone motivated by political bias. Neat trick, knowing the motives of an unknown person. Also, totally irrelevant as to the [i]merits[/i] of the complaint.

But, of course, we are in the post-truth era. Facts don't matter anymore.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;526896]I am no doubt very stupid, but when in March 2016 did Biden meet Poroshenko?[/QUOTE]
Why would an actual meeting be necessary?

[QUOTE=kladner;526982]Why would an actual meeting be necessary?[/QUOTE]Given what Biden said about it in 2018 I'd say yes. It wouldn't make much sense if he were describing a phone conversation. Like relating that he said he was "leaving here in six hours."

I believe he either misremembered the date of the "showdown," or was deliberately embellishing his role in the affair.

[b]EDIT:[/b] And if Biden did [i]not[/i] meet Poroshenko in March 2016, it indicates that the folks flogging -- or simply passing on -- stories indicating that he did, are not checking their facts.

Fantastical embellishment (and outright lying) are stock in trade for Biden. I don't know the true circumstances of this event. I wonder if Joe does, now. :huh:

[QUOTE=kladner;526988]Fantastical embellishment (and outright lying) are stock in trade for Biden. I don't know the true circumstances of this event. I wonder if Joe does, now. :huh:[/QUOTE]Of course, embellishment of one's importance are stock in trade for a lot of folks. It's certainly not a crime.

Whether Biden actually remembers exactly when he relayed the threat to Poroshenko, or buys his own embellishments, may be pertinent to his fitness for the office of President.

OTOH, the current holder of that office has given several conflicting accounts of where he was and what he saw when the 9/11 attacks occurred, which seems more than passing strange. He also habitually gives counterfactual statements about darn near everything, without caring that he's lying or fantasizing. And nobody seems to give a rat's patootie.

[b]Oh, yes, and...[/b][quote]This man is a pathological liar, he doesn't know the difference between truth and lies ... in a pattern that is straight out of a psychology text book, he accuses everyone of lying ...
Whatever lie he's telling, at that minute he believes it ... the man is utterly amoral...[/quote] -- Ted Cruz (May 3, 2016)

Not that it matters, but...
 

Biden [i]did[/i] meet with Poroshenko in March 2016 -- on March 31, in DC. But by then, Shokin's dismissal had already been announced (March 29).

The closest date [i]before[/i] Shokin's dismissal I could find when Biden met Poroshenko was February 19, in Ukraine.

I was unfair to Ol' Joe. Lies are stock-in-trade to just about all politicians.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;527013]Biden [i]did[/i] meet with Poroshenko in March 2016 -- on March 31, in DC. But by then, Shokin's dismissal had already been announced (March 29).

The closest date [i]before[/i] Shokin's dismissal I could find when Biden met Poroshenko was February 19, in Ukraine.[/QUOTE]

Solomon's related "nightmare" article - linked to in his latest one above - explains the seeming discrepancy in terms of Biden embellishing the events in his recollection and/or his telling thereof:

"Interviews with a half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials confirm Biden’s account, though they claim the pressure was applied over several months in late 2015 and early 2016, not just six hours of one dramatic day."

Also, whether Biden *had* the authority to get the funds withheld or not is less important than whether he could convince top Ukrainian officialdom that he had such authority. For Biden, actual #2 in U.S. officialdom at the time, flying around the world on his own dedicated Boeing 7-series jetliner, a shameless me-and-Obama-are-besties "Barack"-by-his-first-name-dropper and a well-practiced bullshitter, doing such convincing seems not very much of a stretch. In fact, Biden has stated that Obama both knew about the squeeze play and was on board with it, though again, whether that is true or Biden telling another résumé-inflating lie is unclear.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;527114]Also, whether Biden *had* the authority to get the funds withheld or not is less important than whether he could convince top Ukrainian officialdom that he had such authority.[/QUOTE]
Oh, please. The Ukrainians aren't idiots. Even in Biden's account, he had them telling him that as VP he didn't have the authority, and he told them to call the president. This just shows that he was merely relaying threats from other quarters, which had the president's backing.

The interval of five and a half weeks between Biden's February 19 meeting with Poroshenko and Shokin's March 29 dismissal indicates that the Ukrainians didn't take his secondhand threats all that seriously.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;527116]Oh, please. The Ukrainians aren't idiots. Even in Biden's account, he had them telling him that as VP he didn't have the authority, and he told them to call the president. This just shows that he was merely relaying threats from other quarters, which had the president's backing.[/QUOTE]
Well, Biden's recollections clearly convinced *you* that he had the authority by way of the president - sounds like a distinction without a difference to me.

[QUOTE]The interval of five and a half weeks between Biden's February 19 meeting with Poroshenko and Shokin's March 29 dismissal indicates that the Ukrainians didn't take his secondhand threats all that seriously.[/QUOTE]
As I just quoted, per Solomon the pressure was applied over months leading up to the Biden I'm-flying-out-in-6-hours meeting with Uk. officials - not necessarily including Poroschenko - in March. Without knowing what kinds of internal discussions were going on amongst Poroschenko and his top officials, you are leaping to an unwarranted conclusion. Per Shokin:

“On several occasions President Poroshenko asked me to have a look at the case against Burisma and consider the possibility of winding down the investigative actions in respect of this company but I refused to close this investigation"

which matches a "pressure applied over several months" narrative - and quite possibly, firing a top legal official like the Prosecutor General is a nontrivial matter even in a place like Ukraine.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;527116]Oh, please. The Ukrainians aren't idiots. Even in Biden's account, he had them telling him that as VP he didn't have the authority, and he told them to call the president. [/QUOTE]

Whether the Ukrainians believed Biden or not is *completely* irrelevant. If he attempted to get a prosecutor fired for the benefit of his son, then he is guilty of the crime the Democrats want to impeach Trump for.

I despise the Democrats for placing me in the position of agreeing with the wretched Trump. My read of the transcript is this is a giant nothing-burger. Horrors, a leader asks another leader for a favor that would make his life easier -- I'll bet that has *never* happened before. Trump, perhaps clumsily, asks for help in a possible corruption investigation, that does not sound illegal to me. He did not ask to have evidence planted or invented. Compare that to Watergate where Nixon's crew actually commit a crime, then go to great lengths to cover it up. My view is it is up to the Attorney General to tell Trump (after all the A.G. is the adult in the room) either there is no case against Biden or decide to pursue one.

Just curious: apparently there is a transcript kept of all presidential calls. Is the same true of Vice Presidential calls? If so, why doesn't the President simply find Biden's guilty calls and declassify the transcripts or hand them off to the Attorney General.

[QUOTE=Prime95;527120]Whether the Ukrainians believed Biden or not is *completely* irrelevant. If he attempted to get a prosecutor fired for the benefit of his son, then he is guilty of the crime the Democrats want to impeach Trump for.[/quote][i]If[/i] that's why he was doing it. That's a big if. There were [i]lots[/i] of people who wanted Shokin out.

[quote]Just curious: apparently there is a transcript kept of all presidential calls. Is the same true of Vice Presidential calls? If so, why doesn't the President simply find Biden's guilty calls and declassify the transcripts or hand them off to the Attorney General.[/QUOTE]
I would extend the first question to face-to-face meetings between Biden and Poroshenko.

And I'm pretty sure there are usually people taking notes at such meetings. However, most governments are quite reluctant to make the contents of high-level discussions with other countries public.

Q: So... what is Hunter Biden supposed to have done wrong when he was on the board of directors at Burisma?

A: Who cares? We doan need no stinkin' accusations of any actual wrongdoing, let alone any [i]evidence[/i]. The company Burisma and its owner were under investigation for some pretty blatant corrupt practices. Whence, [i]ipso facto[/i], ex [i]post[/i] facto, [i]ex officio[/i], etcetera etcetera etcetera, Hunter Biden, by dint of his having accepted an easy payday as a member of the board of directors, [i]must[/i] have done something wrong, right?

Hunter Biden was hired to the board of a company that, along with its owner, was under investigation. The owner had skedaddled, and has made himself hard to find ever since. The company hired Hunter Biden and others to try to burnish its reputation. God knows its reputation needs burnishing. So they offered 50 grand a month to folks whose mere presence on the board of directors might make the company look good. If he had turned the job down, the same people who are screaming about his having [i]accepted[/i] the position, would probably be questioning his sanity for turning down such easy money.)

Q: Why -- why in the [i]world[/i] -- was Joe Biden, as VP, point man for Ukrainian diplomacy at the time?

A: This is what is known as a Damn Good Question. The mere fact that his son was on the board of directors of a major Ukrainian company, was enough to have people talking about a conflict of interest. Besides -- why the VP? Why not the Secretary of State? (This question would be even better if there had been even a hint of a whisper of a suggestion at the time that either Biden was even suspected of wrongdoing.)

Q: If Prosecutor-General Shokin had actually been investigating either of the Bidens at the time that Joe Biden was carrying the Admin's water to get him out, he could have made, or threatened to make things very, [i]very[/i] ugly. Why didn't he? (He could, for example, have leaked or threatened to leak, the fact that his office was investigating one or both of the Bidens to the media, or, say, Mitch McConnell.)

A: Thoughtcrime!

Q: Why did the Ukrainians hesitate as long as they did to fire Shokin?

A: I can only guess. My guess is, he had dirt on the folks who were in a position to fire him. It's a tried and true technique for achieving job security.

[url=https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/whistleblower-ukraine-trump-impeach-cia-spying-895529/]The Ukrainegate "Whisteblower" Isn't a Real Whistleblower[/url] | Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

[url=https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/04/impeachment-brought-to-you-by-the-cia/]Impeachment, Brought to You by the CIA[/url] | Rob Urie, CounterPunch

[url=https://www.thenation.com/article/unasked-questions-about-us-ukrainian-relations/]Unasked Questions about US-Ukrainian Relations[/url] | Stephen Cohen, [i]The Nation[/i]

MSM Defends CIA’s ‘Whistleblower,’ Ignores Actual Whistleblower -By Caitlin Johnstone
 

From 9/27/19:
[URL]https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/27/msm-defends-cias-whistleblower-ignores-actual-whistleblower/[/URL]
The word “whistleblower” has been trending in news headlines lately, but not for the reasons that any sane person might hope for.

“Read the whistleblower complaint regarding President Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,” says The Washington Post. “Trump responds to hearing on whistleblower complaint,” says MSNBC. “Trump-Ukraine scandal: what did the whistleblower say and how serious is it?,” writes The Guardian. “Whistleblower complaint says White House tried to ‘lock down’ Ukraine call records” announces CBS. “Whistleblower’s complaint is a devastating report from a savvy official,” declares CNN.

So who is this “savvy official”? Who is this courageous whistleblower who boldly shone the light of truth upon the mechanisms of power in the interests of the common man? Who is this brave, selfless individual who set off an impeachment inquiry by taking a stand and revealing that the U.S. president made a phone call in July urging Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to help investigate corruption allegations against Joe Biden and his son?

Well believe it or not, according to The New York Times this brave, noble whistleblower who the mainstream media are currently championing is an officer for the Central Intelligence Agency.

“The whistle-blower who revealed that President Trump sought foreign help for his re-election and that the White House sought to cover it up is a CIA officer who was detailed to work at the White House at one point, according to three people familiar with his identity,” The New York Times reports. “The man has since returned to the CIA, the people said. Little else is known about him.”

So there you have it. A mysterious stranger from the lying, torturing, propagandizing, drug trafficking, assassinating, coup-staging, warmongering, psychopathic CIA was working in the White House, heroically provided the political/media class with politically powerful information out of the goodness of his heart, and then vanished off into the Langley sunset. Clearly there is nothing suspicious about this story at all.

I guess that, since so far everything about the complaint has checked out [i]factually[/i], the only recourse is [i]ad hominem[/i] attacks on the source. Just imagine how this would have worked back in the day when Tricky Dick was president, if only more had been discovered about a famous [strike]traitor[/strike] source: "The Washington Post's source `Deep Throat' is clearly working with the [evidence-fabricating, politically repressive, yadda yadda yadda] FBI."

Deep Throat's identity wasn't learned until much later, of course, but the basic approach these days falls under the heading, "I've seen this movie before."

Back then, it was VP Spiro Agnew who was point man in bashing the media. After J. Edgar Hoover died, acting FBI head L. Patrick Gray, Nixon's choice to succeed Hoover, had to quit when it was learned he had burned a bunch of incriminating documents from Howard Hunt's WH safe.

Meanwhile, back in the here and now, it turns out that (as my old friend Huda Thunkit predicted) [i]Il Duce[/i] was [i]projecting[/i] when he said he was talking about corruption WRT ol' Joe & Son. The CIC's buddies in DC have been trying to get their friends installed on the Board of Directors of Naftogaz, with an eye to steering big contracts to [i]other[/i] friends, as described [url=https://www.apnews.com/d7440cffba4940f5b85cd3dfa3500fb2]here[/url].

[i]Money makes the world go 'round...[/i]

I don't think it is really "ad hominem" when the Agency is involved. Also, given the source of the complaint, many "facts" could be made to comply with the official story.

[QUOTE=kladner;527553]I don't think it is really "ad hominem" when the Agency is involved. Also, given the source of the complaint, many "facts" could be made to comply with the official story.[/QUOTE]Sure it is. It's attacking the person, rather than the merits of what that person is saying. In this case, it's compounded by the fact that you don't even know the person's identity, and the mode of attack is guilt by association -- "He works for the CIA, therefore he must be lying."

Despite the fact that, so far, everything known about the complaint has checked out. Including [i]Il Duce[/i] himself admitting -- nay, [i]proclaiming[/i] -- that he did what the complaint says he did -- tried to coerce (by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid) the head of state of a foreign power (the president of Ukraine) into ordering an investigation of a domestic political rival who may be running against him in the 2020 election.

As I have said before, a classic plot device in stories about good versus evil is that the good guys will always try to garner support by arguing the justice of their cause, while that bad guys will simply make threats to coerce support, or at least acquiescence. There's little choice when one's demands lack legitimacy.

Of course, in the stories, moral suasion is successful. In real life, it often isn't, and then other means come to the fore. Our country fought a bloody civil war due to the failure of moral suasion on the issue of slavery.

As I have also said before, I consider Joe Biden to be a poor candidate. I wish to heck he hadn't decided to run, but that ship has sailed.

o [url=https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/11/democrats-impeach-joe-biden-fiddle-as-the-planet-burns/]Democrats Impeach Joe Biden, Fiddle as the Planet Burns[/url] - Rob Urie, CounterPunch.org

o [url=https://taibbi.substack.com/p/were-in-a-permanent-coup]We're in a permanent coup[/url] | Matt Taibbi, Substack.com: [i]Americans might soon wish they just waited to vote their way out of the Trump era.[/i]
[See full article for embedded links, which are numerous]
[quote]My discomfort in the last few years, first with Russiagate and now with Ukrainegate and impeachment, stems from the belief that the people pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal are more dangerous than Trump. Many Americans don’t see this because they’re not used to waking up in a country where you’re not sure who the president will be by nightfall. They don’t understand that this predicament is worse than having a bad president.

The Trump presidency is the first to reveal a full-blown schism between the intelligence community and the White House. Senior figures in the CIA, NSA, FBI and other agencies made an open break from their would-be boss before Trump’s inauguration, commencing a public war of leaks that has not stopped.
...
Leaks from the intelligence community most often pertain to foreign policy. The leak of the January, 2017 “meeting” between the four chiefs and Trump – which without question damaged both the presidency and America’s standing abroad – was an unprecedented act of insubordination.

It was also a bold new foray into domestic politics by intelligence agencies that in recent decades began asserting all sorts of frightening new authority. They were kidnapping foreigners, assassinating by drone, conducting paramilitary operations without congressional notice, building an international archipelago of secret prisons, and engaging in mass warrantless surveillance of Americans. We found out in a court case just last week how extensive the illegal domestic surveillance has been, with the FBI engaging in tens of thousands of warrantless searches involving American emails and phone numbers under the guise of combating foreign subversion.

The agencies’ new trick is inserting themselves into domestic politics using leaks and media pressure. The “intel chiefs” meeting was just the first in a series of similar stories, many following the pattern in which a document was created, passed from department from department, and leaked. A sample:

o February 14, 2017: “four current and former officials” tell the [i]New York Times[/i] the Trump campaign had “repeated contacts” with Russian intelligence.

o March 1, 2017: “Justice Department officials” tell the [i]Washington Post[/i] Attorney General Jeff Sessions “spoke twice with Russia’s ambassador” and did not disclose the contacts ahead of his confirmation hearing.

o March 18, 2017: “people familiar with the matter” tell the [i]Wall Street Journal[/i] that former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn failed to disclose a “contact” with a Russian at Cambridge University, an episode that “came to the notice of U.S. intelligence.”

o April 8, 2017, 2017: “law enforcement and other U.S. officials” tell the [i]Washington Post[/i] the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge had ruled there was “probable cause” to believe former Trump aide Carter Page was an “agent of a foreign power.”

o April 13, 2017: a “source close to UK intelligence” tells Luke Harding at [i]The Guardian[/i] that the British analog to the NSA, the GCHQ, passed knowledge of “suspicious interactions” between “figures connected to Trump and “known or suspected Russian agents” to Americans as part of a “routine exchange of information.”

o December 17, 2017: “four current and former American and foreign officials” tell the [i]New York Times[/i] that during the 2016 campaign, an Australian diplomat named Alexander Downer told “American counterparts” that former Trump aide George Papadopoulos revealed “Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.

o April 13, 2018: “two sources familiar with the matter” tell [i]McClatchy[/i] that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office has evidence Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was in Prague in 2016, “confirming part of [Steele] dossier.”

o November 27, 2018: a “well-placed source” tells Harding at [i]The Guardian[/i] that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

o January 19, 2019: “former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation” tell the [i]New York Times[/i] the FBI opened an inquiry into the “explosive implications” of whether or not Donald Trump was working on behalf of the Russians.

To be sure, “people familiar with the matter” leaked a lot of true stories in the last few years, but many were clearly problematic even at the time of release. Moreover, all took place in the context of constant, hounding pressure from media figures, congressional allies like Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, as well as ex-officials who could make use of their own personal public platforms in addition to being unnamed sources in straight news reports. They used commercial news platforms to argue that Trump had committed treason, needed to be removed from office, and preferably also indicted as soon as possible.

A shocking number of these voices were former intelligence officers who joined Clapper in becoming paid news contributors. Op-ed pages and news networks are packed now with ex-spooks editorializing about stories in which they had personal involvement: Michael Morell, Michael Hayden, Asha Rangappa, and Andrew McCabe among many others, including especially [i]all four[/i] of the original “intel chiefs”: Clapper, Rogers, Comey, and MSNBC headliner John Brennan.
...
I don’t believe most Americans have thought through what a successful campaign to oust Donald Trump would look like. Most casual news consumers can only think of it in terms of Mike Pence becoming president. The real problem would be the precedent of a de facto intelligence community veto over elections, using the lunatic spookworld brand of politics that has dominated the last three years of anti-Trump agitation.

CIA/FBI-backed impeachment could also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Donald Trump thinks he’s going to be jailed upon leaving office, he’ll sooner or later figure out that his only real move is to start acting like the “dictator” MSNBC and CNN keep insisting he is. Why give up the White House and wait to be arrested, when he still has theoretical authority to send Special Forces troops rappelling through the windows of every last Russiagate/Ukrainegate leaker? That would be the endgame in a third world country, and it’s where we’re headed, unless someone calls off this craziness. Welcome to the Permanent Power Struggle.[/quote]

In other words, the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. have "hacked" our own elections more than the Russians.

I am adding to the discussion that arose with [url=https://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=528082&postcount=170]this post[/url] over in the [b]'All Your Data ❝Я❞ Belong To Us' Thread[/b]. It seems more appropriate in this thread, so that's where I'm posting it.

[url=https://www.apnews.com/2111540011b045428e5fac0b15bcb741]Parents of killed teen reject Trump’s attempted introduction[/url][quote]WASHINGTON (AP) — The grieving parents of a British teenager who was killed in a car crash involving an American diplomat’s wife felt ambushed when President Donald Trump tried to get them to meet with the woman in front of the press, attorneys for the couple said Wednesday.

Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn traveled to Washington on Tuesday seeking to have the woman’s diplomatic immunity lifted. Instead, Trump and national security adviser Robert O’Brien surprised the family by inviting Anne Sacoolas to the White House and suggesting Dunn’s parents meet with her in front of the White House press corps.

Attorney Mark Stephens told The Associated Press the couple had no idea Sacoolas would be in the building when they were there Tuesday and were stunned by the proposition. He said the couple wants to meet with Sacoolas at some point, but not in a surprise meeting staged for reporters.

“If there’s going to be a meeting like that, it should not involve a surprise, a jack-in-the-box, pop-out-of-a-circus-tent meeting seven weeks after the loss,” said Radd Seiger, a retired lawyer who is a neighbor of the family and accompanied them to the White House. “For this to happen, you would want some heavy-duty therapy and you want to meet in a neutral environment.”

Trump told reporters Wednesday that he thought the family had wanted to meet with Sacoolas, but that “they weren’t ready for it” Tuesday.
“It was very sad, to be honest,” he said of their conversation. “They lost their son.”

Trump said he had spoken with Sacoolas and that she had been waiting in a room just off the Oval Office when he made the offer to Dunn’s family.

“They weren’t ready for it,” Trump said. “But I did offer. I spoke with Boris. He asked me if I’d do that. And I did it,” Trump said, referring to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “Unfortunately, when we had everybody together, they decided not to meet. Perhaps they had lawyers involved by that time. I don’t know exactly.”

Pressed on why he thought that was something they would welcome, Trump said that, “based on what I saw they wanted to meet. But now they say they only want to meet if they’re in the U.K. And that’ll be up to them. But I did meet the family, and I expressed condolences on behalf of our country.”[/quote]
Wow. Perhaps I'm just being [strike]disloyal[/strike] hypersensitive, but to me this bespeaks an extreme lack of empathy. With a narcissist like [i]Il Duce[/i], this is not really surprising. The following quote notwithstanding, IMO not only does he not understand why the grieving family balked, he isn't [i]capable[/i] of understanding. I don't know whether "Boris" shares [i]Il Duce[/i]'s befuddlement, or whether the WH arrangements were the sort of thing he had in mind, but I would imagine a lot of ordinary folks back in the UK are not real happy about the little surprise party the WH had planned.
[quote]Seiger said the family is still emotionally vulnerable and that they were taken aback. While Trump appeared to understand their reluctance, he said O’Brien continued to insist, even after they made clear that any meeting would have to happen back in Britain.

“Finally, I said ‘Mr. President, this meeting is not happening today. If it happens, it will be back in the U.K.’ That’s when O’Brien erupted, his face went all red, and I thought he was going to lunge at me,” Seiger recounted. “He was sitting about three feet away from Charlotte and said angrily, ‘She is never going back. Never.’”[/quote]

Yeah, deja vu (hint: google Teo Peter, contrary of what's [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teo_Peter"]said on wikipedia[/URL], that moron was so drunk it could not walk, how can you imagine you can "drink three beers" and there is no trace of alcohol in your blood in few hours? - he ran away, left the accident place without getting out of the car, and drove into the Embassy fenced yard, where he had to be carried to the building, so drunk he was, and next day(s?) he flew out of the country, where he could not be reached. He is still free).

[i]Il Duce[/i], having abruptly ordered US troops out of northern Syria, thereby abandoning the Syrian Kurds to the tender mercies of the Turks, and subsequently saying the Kurds, our allies against IS (if you want to make their heads explode, call them [i]khawarij[/i]) are more of a terror threat than IS, has now sent two guys named Mike to tell Turkey's [strike]dictator[/strike] president Erdogan to cease fire. I can see it now...

[b]TWO GUYS NAMED MIKE:[/b] We hereby order you to cease fire!

[b]Erdogan:[/b] You and what army?

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;528219][b]Erdogan:[/b] You and what army?[/QUOTE]:smile:

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;528219]... to the tender mercies of the Turks...[/QUOTE]

:davar55:

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;528219][i]Il Duce[/i], having abruptly ordered US troops out of northern Syria, thereby abandoning the Syrian Kurds to the tender mercies of the Turks, and subsequently saying the Kurds, our allies against IS (if you want to make their heads explode, call them [i]khawarij[/i]) are more of a terror threat than IS, has now sent two guys named Mike to tell Turkey's [strike]dictator[/strike] president Erdogan to cease fire. I can see it now...

[b]TWO GUYS NAMED MIKE:[/b] We hereby order you to cease fire!

[b]Erdogan:[/b] You and what army?[/QUOTE]

I suggest turning off CNN for a few days ... the above 'analysis' completely ignores the fact there is a ready answer to 'what army?', in the form of the presence of the actual Syrian military and its allied Russian forces, who most definitely are insisting on a say on the matter. Some links for readers interested in getting beyond the DOD/MSM propaganda:

[url]https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/10/brief-update-on-the-border-situation-ttg.html[/url]

[url]https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/10/media-and-pundits-misread-the-everyone-wins-plan-for-syria.html[/url]
[quote]The New York Times falsely headlines: In ‘Cave-In,’ Trump Cease-Fire Cements Turkey’s Gains in Syria
[i]
The cease-fire agreement reached with Turkey by Vice President Mike Pence amounts to a near-total victory for Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who gains territory, pays little in penalties and appears to have outmaneuvered President Trump.

The best that can be said for the agreement is that it may stop the killing in the Kurdish enclave in northern Syria. But the cost for Kurds, longtime American allies in the fight against the Islamic State, is severe: Even Pentagon officials were mystified about where tens of thousands of displaced Kurds would go, as they moved south from the Turkey-Syria border as required by the deal — if they agree to go at all.
...
Military officials said they were stunned that the agreement essentially allowed Turkey to annex a portion of Syria, displace tens of thousands of Kurdish residents and wipe away years of counterterrorism gains against the Islamic State.
[/i]
The U.S. can not "allow Turkey to annex a portion of Syria". The U.S. does not own Syria. It is completely bollocks to think that it has the power to allow Turkey to annex parts of it.

Turkey will not "gain territory". There will be no Turkish "security corridor". The Kurdish civilians in Kobani, Ras al Ain and Qamishli areas will not go anywhere. The Turks will not touch those Kurdish majority areas because they are, or soon will be, under control of the Syrian government and its army.

[image]

The picture, taken yesterday, shows the Syrian-Turkish border crossing north of Kobani. The Syrian army took control of it and raised the Syrian flag. There are no longer any Kurdish forces there that could threaten Turkey.

The Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu confirmed that Turkey agrees with the Syrian government moves:
[i]
Russia "promised that the PKK or YPG will not be on the other side of the border," Cavusoglu said in an interview with the BBC. "If Russia, accompanied by the Syrian army, removes YPG elements from the region, we will not oppose this."
[/i]
Even partisan Syrians opposed to its government recognize the ploy:
[i]
Rami Jarrah @RamiJarrah - 12:53 UTC · Oct 17, 2019
Turkey’s foreign minister once again reiterates that if Russia and the Syrian regime take over border areas they will not object, as long as the PYD are expelled.
This has to be the easiest land grab opportunity Assad has had since the war started.
[/i]
These moves have been planned all along. The Turkish invasion in northeast Syria was designed to give Trump a reason to withdraw U.S. troops. It was designed to push the Kurdish forces to finally submit to the Syrian government. Behind the scene Russia had already organized the replacement of the Kurdish forces with Syrian government troops. It has coordinated the Syrian army moves with the U.S. military. Turkey had agreed that Syrian government control would be sufficient to alleviate its concern about a Kurdish guerilla and a Kurdish proto-state at its border. Any further Turkish invasion of Syria is thereby unnecessary.

The plan has everyone winning. Turkey will be free of a Kurdish threat. Syria regains its territory. The U.S. can leave without further trouble. Russia and Iran gain standing. The Kurds get taken care of.

The 'ceasefire' and the retreat of the armed Kurdish groups from the border, which is claimed to have been negotiated yesterday between Pence and Erdogan, had already been decided on before the U.S. announced its withdrawal from Syria...[/quote]
(See original MofA article for embedded story links.)

[QUOTE=ewmayer;528324]I suggest turning off CNN for a few days ... [/quote]
I don't know what you're talking about. That means we're even on this point.

[quote]Behind the scene Russia had already organized the replacement of the Kurdish forces with Syrian government troops. It has coordinated the Syrian army moves with the U.S. military. Turkey had agreed that Syrian government control would be sufficient to alleviate its concern about a Kurdish guerilla and a Kurdish proto-state at its border. Any further Turkish invasion of Syria is thereby unnecessary.
[/QUOTE]
So, you're saying that the US Admin is merely following a script written by the Russians.

And what about the Kurds, whom the Turks have given 4 days to bug out of 2700 square miles where they've been living since who knows when or they start shooting again, assuming they have actually stopped shooting?

[quote=Darth Vader] The Kurds get taken care of.[/quote]

You can say that again -- in Armenian!

o [url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/democrats-want-out-afghanistan-so-why-not-syria/600253/]Democrats Are Hypocrites for Condemning Trump Over Syria[/url] | Peter Beinart, The Atlantic: [i]Presidential hopefuls blasted Trump for abandoning the Kurds—but want the U.S. to pull out of Afghanistan under similar conditions.[/i]
[quote]The parallels between Afghanistan and northern Syria aren’t merely humanitarian. In condemning Trump’s actions in Syria, Warren accused him of having “helped ISIS get another foothold, a new lease on life.” But experts forecast a similar terrorist resurgence if Warren carries out her proposed Afghan withdrawal. Following a unilateral American departure, the Rand report predicts, “extremist groups, including Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, [will] gain additional scope to organize, recruit, and initiate terrorist attacks against U.S. regional and homeland targets.” In their joint statement, the nine former American diplomats envision “an Afghan civil war in which the Islamic State (IS) presence could expand its already strong foothold” and “the Taliban would maintain their alliance with al-Qaeda. All of this could prove catastrophic for US national security as it relates to our fight against both al-Qaeda and IS.”[/quote]
Erm, yes, well, about that noble U.S. fight against Islamist extremism, that deserves a closer look, again using Syria and the jihadi proxies Turkey is using there as a lens:

o [url=https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/18/us-has-backed-21-of-the-28-crazy-militias-leading-turkeys-brutal-invasion-of-northern-syria/]US Has Backed 21 of the 28 ‘Crazy’ Militias Leading Turkey’s Brutal Invasion of Northern Syria[/url] | Consortium News: [i]New data from Turkey reveals almost all the mercenary force of “Arab militias” getting slammed by former and current U.S. officials were armed and trained in the past by the CIA and Pentagon, reports Max Blumenthal.[/i]
[quote]Footage showing members of Turkey’s mercenary “national army” executing Kurdish captives as they led the Turkish invasion of northern Syria touched off a national outrage, provoking U.S. government officials, pundits and major politicians to rage against their brutality.

In The Washington Post, a U.S. official condemned the militias as a “crazy and unreliable.” Another official called them “thugs and bandits and pirates that should be wiped off the face of the earth.” Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the scene as a “sickening horror,” blaming President Donald Trump exclusively for the atrocities.

But the fighters involved in the atrocities in northern Syria were not just random tribesmen assembled into an ad hoc army. In fact, many were former members of the Free Syrian Army, the force once armed by the CIA and Pentagon and branded as “moderate rebels.” This disturbing context was conveniently omitted from the breathless denunciations made by U.S. officials and Western pundits.

According to a research paper published this October by the pro-government Turkish think tank, SETA, “Out of the 28 factions [in the Turkish mercenary force], 21 were previously supported by the United States, three of them via the Pentagon’s program to combat DAESH. Eighteen of these factions were supplied by the CIA via the MOM Operations Room in Turkey, a joint intelligence operation room of the ‘Friends of Syria’ to support the armed opposition. Fourteen factions of the 28 were also recipients of the U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank guided missiles.” (A graph by SETA naming the various militias and the type of U.S. support they received is at the end of this article).

In other words, virtually the entire apparatus of insurgents arrayed against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime — and armed and equipped under the Obama administration — has been repurposed by the Turkish military to serve as the spearhead of its brutal invasion of northern Syria. The leader of this force is Salim Idriss, now the “defense minister” of Syria’s Turkish-backed “interim government.” He’s the same figure who hosted John McCain when the late senator made his infamous 2013 incursion into Syria.

The “sickening horror” this collection of extremists is carrying out against Kurds is, in fact, the same one it imposed on Syrians across the country for the past seven years. Before, when their goal was regime change in Damascus, they had the blessing and wholehearted support of official Washington. But now that they are slaughtering members of a much more loyal U.S. proxy force, their former patrons and enablers are rushing to denounce them as “bandits and pirates.”[/quote]

o [url=https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/10/19/russian-asset-is-a-meaningless-noise-war-pigs-make-with-their-face-holes/]“Russian Asset” Is A Meaningless Noise War Pigs Make With Their Face Holes[/url] | Caitlin Johnstone
[quote]Both Tulsi Gabbard and the Green Party of the United States have issued scorching rebukes of Hillary Clinton for baseless accusations the former Secretary of State made during a recent interview claiming that both Gabbard and former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein are aligned with the Russian government.

“I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” Clinton said in a transparent reference to Gabbard. “She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. And that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she’s also a Russian asset.”

Clinton provided no evidence for her outlandish claims, because she does not have any. Gabbard has repeatedly denied centrist conspiracy theories that she intends to run as a third-party candidate, a claim which establishment pundits have been making more and more often because they know there will never be any consequences when their claims are disproven. There is no evidence of any kind connecting either Jill Stein or Tulsi Gabbard to the Russian government.

Of course, this total lack of evidence hasn’t dissuaded Clintonites from falling all over themselves trying to justify Mommy’s claims anyway.[/quote]
Gabbard - who unlike HRH HRC has actually seen the Imperium's wars firsthand, rather than just dispatching legions of nameless, faceless Deplorables to fight and die in them - had a [url=https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1185289626409406464]wonderfully tart reply[/url]:

[i]
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a ...
... concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and ...
... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.

It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.[/i]

[url=https://www.apnews.com/333a646911a34ae2889ed4ae71e8111d]Trump drops plan to host G-7 at his Doral golf resort[/url]

That man is corruption itself.

He blamed his reversal on "Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility," but was actually faced with a revolt by usually supine R's, who were perhaps frightened by the prospect of hundreds of thousands of trick-or-treaters showing up in DC shouting "Cleanse with Fire!" and intent on burning both the White House and the US Capitol Building to the ground.

Secret Service spent $137K on golf carts to protect Trump at New Jersey, Florida clubs
 

"At cost" can have highly flexible meanings when Trump is involved.
[URL]https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/10/05/secret-service-spent-137-k-golf-carts-protect-trump-new-jersey-florida-clubs/736618001/[/URL]
Golf carts are not the only "costs" either.
[QUOTE]In August, [URL="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/21/secret-service-cant-pay-agents-because-trumps-frequent-travel-large-family/529075001/"]USA TODAY first reported[/URL] that the Secret Service can no longer pay the overtime for hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission – in large part due to the sheer size of Trump's family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast. Secret Service Director Randolph "Tex" Alles said more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandated caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year. [/QUOTE][QUOTE]The service's luxury portable restroom spending for the clubs has also increased since [URL="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/08/24/secret-service-spent-7-100-renting-luxury-portable-toilets-trumps-bedminster-trip/598649001/"]August.[/URL]
A recent switch in restroom providers also appears to have cost the agency extra. The agency signed a contract with Sanitary Solutions Inc. for $5,365 on Sept. 21. The previous contract with Imperial Restrooms was $3,300 from Aug. 21.
The total the agency has spent on portable bathrooms, a mobile office and ballistic glass at Trump’s New Jersey golf course rings in at $53,316.
[/QUOTE]

Wait -- NEW Mexico's a STATE???
 

[i]Il Duce[/i] told an energy summit in Pittsburgh that [url=https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/were-building-a-wall-in-colorado-trump-claims-at-energy-summit-in-pennsylvania]we’re building a wall in Colorado[/url]. Everyone applauded.

We will now read from the Book of Matthew, Chapter 15, verse 14...

Folks in Colorado are having a field day ridiculing the statement.

His attempts to say he was "kidding" or otherwise to explain it away are pathetic. The man is incapable of admitting he simply screwed up.

Got him!
 

[url=https://www.apnews.com/2c2c48e64f934d329c72a7af3dc284b1]Trump says Islamic State leader dead after US raid in Syria[/url][quote]Trump said he watched the operation from the White House Situation room as it played out live "as though you were watching a movie." He suggested he may order the release of the video so that the world knows al-Baghdadi did not die of a hero and spent his final moments "crying, "whimpering" and "screaming."[/quote]IMO this guy badly needed killing. Apparently he detonated an explosive vest and took his kids with him. May he rest in pieces.

Some free advice, Mr. President: Before you decide to release the video of his last moments, you might want to get a translation of exactly [i]what[/i] he was "crying, "whimpering" and "screaming" before he blew himself up.

[url=https://www.apnews.com/311114283662457caba4c531ee708828]Trump draws boos when introduced to crowd at World Series[/url][quote]At the end of the third inning, ballpark video screens carried a salute to U.S. service members that drew cheers throughout the stadium. When the video cut to Trump and his entourage and the loudspeakers announced the Trumps, cheers abruptly turned into a torrent of boos and heckling. Chants of “Lock him up!” broke out in some sections.

Trump appeared unfazed and continued waving. Later, some fans behind home plate held a sign reading “VETERANS FOR IMPEACHMENT”. Another banner appeared during the game: “IMPEACH TRUMP!”

The president was on hand for seven innings before heading back to the White House. The Astros took a 3-2 series lead with a 7-1 victory in Game 5.[/quote]The President complained that the booing fans had committed "treason," and that the "disloyal" Nationals had thrown the game just to spite him.

Attorney-General William Barr announced a criminal investigation.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;529099][url=https://www.apnews.com/311114283662457caba4c531ee708828]Trump draws boos when introduced to crowd at World Series[/url]The President complained that the booing fans had committed "treason," and that the "disloyal" Nationals had thrown the game just to spite him.

Attorney-General William Barr announced a criminal investigation.[/QUOTE]Wow, you can't make this stuff up. So now (pretending) to like the pres is a requirement for remaining out of prison. Reminds me of some other countries where at least they don't even try to pretend they are a democracy with freedom.