[URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/the-white-house-wanted-a-van-gogh-the-guggenheim-offered-a-used-solid-gold-toilet/2018/01/25/38d574fc-0154-11e8-bb03-722769454f82_story.html"]The White House asked to borrow a van Gogh. The Guggenheim offered a gold toilet instead.[/URL]
[QUOTE]The emailed response from the Guggenheim’s chief curator to the White House was polite but firm: The museum could not accommodate a request to borrow a painting by Vincent van Gogh for President and Melania Trump’s private living quarters.

Instead, wrote the curator, Nancy Spector, another piece was available, one that was nothing like “Landscape With Snow,” the 1888 van Gogh rendering of a man in a black hat walking along a path in Arles, France, with his dog.

The curator’s alternative: an 18-karat, fully functioning, solid gold toilet — an interactive work titled “America” that critics have described as pointed satire aimed at the excess of wealth in this country.

For a year, the Guggenheim had exhibited “America” — the creation of contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan — in a public restroom on the museum’s fifth floor for visitors to use.

But the exhibit was over and the toilet was available “should the President and First Lady have any interest in installing it in the White House,” Spector wrote in an email obtained by The Washington Post.

The artist “would like to offer it to the White House for a long-term loan,” wrote Spector, who has been critical of Trump. “It is, of course, extremely valuable and somewhat fragile, but we would provide all the instructions for its installation and care.”

Sarah Eaton, a Guggenheim spokeswoman, confirmed that Spector wrote the email Sept. 15 to Donna Hayashi Smith of the White House’s Office of the Curator. Spector, who has worked in various capacities at the museum for 29 years, was unavailable to talk about her offer, Eaton said.

The White House did not respond to inquiries about the matter.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]“More than one hundred thousand people” had “waited patiently in line for the opportunity to commune with art and with nature,” Spector wrote in a Guggenheim blog post last year. The museum posted a uniformed security guard outside the bathroom. Every 15 minutes or so, a crew would arrive with specially chosen wipes to clean the gold.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=only_human;478489][URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/the-white-house-wanted-a-van-gogh-the-guggenheim-offered-a-used-solid-gold-toilet/2018/01/25/38d574fc-0154-11e8-bb03-722769454f82_story.html"]The White House asked to borrow a van Gogh. The Guggenheim offered a gold toilet instead.[/URL][/QUOTE]
[SIZE=3][B] ROFLMAO!!!!!

[/B][SIZE=2]What an utterly appropriate response. A solid gold toilet sounds like something from the [STRIKE]Needless Markup[/STRIKE] Neiman Marcus catalog. :rolleyes: Just the sort of thing that would appeal to the pResident's tawdry tastes.[/SIZE]
[/SIZE]

Bwaaaa haaa ha haha!
The perfect answer indeed. Can't stop laughing.

We had a guy with gold toilets, gold door knobs, forks, knives, and with a daughter with a solid gold scale to weigh the food for her dog...

A pity we lost him, they shot him in December '89...

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

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

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

Cheers,
-E

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then Trump became president.

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

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

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

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

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

Yes. That is always the answer to this question.

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

1) His lips are moving.

2) He is tweeting.

3) Sarah Huckabee Sanders' lips are moving.

4) Kellyanne Conway's lips are moving.

5) A Republican is talking about him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A couple things that really need to be noted about the memo and FISA warrants in general. The first is that Carter Page was already being monitored by the FBI since he had met with Russians linked to their spy agency in 2013.

Steele started composing the dossier for Republicans connected to Marco Rubio (and funded, [I]I think[/I], by the owner of the Washington Times). Democrats obviously picked up where the Rubio people left off once Trump was chosen as the nominee, but it's not an insignificant detail to mention where the dossier got started. Further, if we're being honest, opposition research is where a lot of factual dirt is found.

Lastly, for the FISA renewals, the FBI had to specifically show not only that they had found new evidence resulting from their wiretaps but that they were likely to obtain still more evidence, and they cannot reuse items to satisfy probable cause. Meaning that the dossier could have been used only for the initial warrant at most. [Note: this comes from my civil liberties loving lawyer wife who detests FISA]

I get that it's a bad look on how the FISA warrant was obtained initially, but I think that goes back more to how shitty FISA is regardless. Furthermore, the Nunes memo is a one-sided conservative wet dream that omits a shitload of information and purportedly relies on other classified information that Nunes and his staff didn't actually read through.

I guess what I'm saying is that FISA sucks, but Nunes's memo isn't worth the paper it's written on.


Edit: Oh, and there's a pretty solid chance Nunes wrote this memo with help from the White House, given that when he was asked (behind closed doors), he purportedly rambled for a bit and then finished by saying he wouldn't answer. Remember that he was also the one who released a memo previously that he got from the White House and pretended was information he had unearthed, leading to his "recusal" from Russia-related House Intelligence Committee matters.

[url]https://lawfareblog.com/dubious-legal-claim-behind-releasethememo[/url]

Speaking to the "informant bias" part of the Nunes memo, here's a nice article from a legal scholar from Univ. of Southern California talking about how informant bias does and does not factor into warrant applications. Figured it would be good reading to go along with the debate.:smile:

It's also worth noting that the Democrats' memo purports to contain information showing that the FISA warrant application did in fact note there was bias on the part of Steele.

Thanks for the link. Good stuff to brush up on.

Thanks for the links and comments, wombatman - while I appreciate the apparent irony in Steele's oppo research originally being funded by Republicans, it simply tells us that there was, at least prior to roughly mid-2016, a ready market for anti-Trump oppo amongst both the GOP and Dems. So Steele is simply an oppo-generator of negotiable affections. I find it deeply troubling that such dodgy sources can be used for what appears to be de facto open-ended surveillance warrants. Based on the known data about the numbers of such warrant applications which get rejected, FISA courts appear to function in little more than rubber-stamps for the surveillance complex. What are the actual standards-in-practice for renewals? You mention 'unearthing new material', but the standards for 'newness', as for source credibility, appear remarkably low, precisely what would expect from the kind of non-adversarial process used in FISA. The entire on-its-face-unconstitutional edifice of a secret court system is an abomination precisely because it invites such abuses, and unlike the regular courts, appears to offer no practical means for real oversight or remedies for individuals unfairly targeted by the process.

Caitlin Johnstone [url=https://steemit.com/politics/@caitlinjohnstone/the-biggest-nunes-memo-revelations-have-little-to-do-with-its-content]weighs in[/url]:
[quote]I’m not saying it’s a bad thing that Americans are starting to look critically at the power dynamics in their country, but the partisan filters they’ve slapped over their eyes are causing mass confusion and delusion. Now everyone who questions the CIA is a Russian agent and the term “deep state” suddenly means “literally anyone who doesn’t like Donald Trump”. Your take on the contents of the Nunes memo will put you in one of two radically different political dimensions depending on which mainstream cult you’ve subscribed to, and it will cause you to completely miss the point of the entire ordeal.

...

...there have been some extremely important revelations as a result of this memo; they just haven't come from the contents of the memo itself. In the same way that cybersecurity analysts observe the metadata underlying hacked files rather than the contents of the files themselves, political analysts have been pointing out that a lot can be learned about the political establishment by looking at its response to the possibility of the memo's release.

"Memo is clearly not a blockbuster. We can tell so by reading it. Which makes Dems' frantic efforts to prevent anyone from reading it seem even more bizarre," observed TYT's Michael Tracey, later adding, "Veracity of memo's claims aside, we were told that its release would undermine the rule of law. So, just checking: is the rule of law still in tact?"

"Now it is clear to all," WikiLeaks' Julian Assange tweeted. "The claims about how the 'Nunes' memo would destroy 'national security' were lies. Classification stickers are used by bureaucrats trying to obtain 'political security' for their cronies."

"One effect of the memo — it’s an example of how extensively we overclassify information," wrote [i]National Review[/i]'s David French. "I’m highly dubious that any information disclosed threatens national security in any way, shape, or form. I’d be willing to bet the Dem response is similarly harmless. Release it."[/quote]
Johnstone has lots of other good stuff, including the bipartisan reauthorization of the FISA surveillance regime just last month, with many of the same GOPers who voted for same now expressing outrage over the 'abuses' alleged by the Nunes memo. She basically suggests not to get sucked into the partisan theater but rather focus on the legal abomination at the heart of it, which both parties midwifed and continue to overwhelmingly support.

Now that chores are done and days news caught up on, time for the weekly Sat. nite creature feature, the made-for-TeeVee 1977 shlockfest [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076214/]Ants![/url], in which an egotistical real-estate developer's (hint, hint) reckless construction activities unleash holy 'antomological' terror upon a bunch of tanned Californian resort runners and guests. Among an arms-length list of 70s TV-schlock regulars it features none other than Myrna Loy, best-known for her portrayals of Nora Charles in the famous 1930s [i]Thin Man[/i] detective films. I hope she did this one simply because she liked to keep busy, not because she needed the (surely quite modest) money. My drinking game for this one is based on spotting words containing 'ant' (either as a literal substring or as homophone) ... gotta go, looks like its almost time for the thrilling 'anty climax'.

An interesting angle from Johnstone:
[QUOTE]In addition to Assange's assertion that government secrecy has far less to do with national security than political security (a claim he [URL="https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/893597432965062656"]has made before[/URL] which seems to be proving correct time and time again), there's the jarring question [URL="https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/959510192240111616"]posed by[/URL] Republican Congressman Thomas Massie: "[U]who made the decision to withhold evidence of FISA abuse until [B]after Congress voted to renew FISA program[/B]?[/U]"[/QUOTE]
So yes, there is abuse, but not [B]of[/B] the system. Rather, abuse of rights [B]BY[/B] the FISC system is the very nature of its existence.

I'm still trying to read up on what rights (if any) people targeted under FISA have, but it looks like there's not much so far: [url]https://www.lawfareblog.com/judge-posner-v-judge-rovner-daoud-fisa-and-franks[/url]

That 7th circuit was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2015 without comment. It looks like the EFF and ACLU are still trying to get this fixed via legislation. To be clear, I don't like FISA or how it is implemented--I just like to make sure underlying facts are also correct so that following discussion is on the proper footing. Thanks for the links you provided. :smile:

[QUOTE=wombatman;478983]There are notable exceptions to this rule, like when Rex Tillerson (I think) allegedly called him a "fucking idiot". That's a true statement.:smile:[/QUOTE]
The statement is true in more ways than one, since he talks about his STDs as if he's some sort of sexual war hero.

Kim Jong Un Taunts Trump With Photo of Hair Withstanding Gale-Force Wind
 

[URL]http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/48376-kim-jong-un-taunts-trump-with-photo-of-hair-withstanding-gale-force-wind[/URL]
[QUOTE]According to KCNA’s news release, “Dear Leader’s mighty wind-resistant raven mane easily overmatches the American dotard’s sparse bleached strands.”[/QUOTE]I will avoid further spoilers.

Had Hillary Won: What Now? by Andrew Levine
 

[URL]https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/16/had-hillary-won-what-now/[/URL]
This is an extensive discussion of the results of a second Clinton administration, versus the current clown car. I think one of the most telling parts is about the effects on feminist, progressive, and anti-war movements, of having Clinton, a woman, as President. I tend to disagree with the author's reluctant choice of Clinton as a lesser evil.

[QUOTE]Hillary, on the other hand, was anything but a beacon of hope – except perhaps to those of her supporters whose highest priority was electing a woman president. Hardly anyone else ever expected much good to come from her calling the shots.

In comparison with Obama, she wasn’t even good at what she did. Despite a constant barrage of public relations babble about how experienced and competent she is, this was widely understood, even if seldom conceded.

She hadn’t been much of a First Lady or Senator; among other things, she helped set the cause of health insurance reform back a generation, and she supported the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.

Then, as Secretary of State, she was at least partly responsible for devastating levels of disorder and mayhem throughout North Africa (Libya especially), the Greater Middle East (not just Syria), and elsewhere (Honduras, for example). But for her tenure at Foggy Bottom, there would be many fewer refugees in the world today.

It is therefore a good bet that were she president now, Obama would be sorely missed – notwithstanding his fondness for terrorizing civilians with weaponized drones, and for deporting Hispanics and others with a zeal exceeding George Bush’s.
[/QUOTE]

NC [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/02/200pm-water-cooler-2162018.html#comment-2925874]reader discussion[/url] on the Mueller "fission expedition" indictments of various deplorable Rooskies.

Perhaps [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/02/200pm-water-cooler-2162018.html#comment-2925945]best comment[/url] is in another comment-thread further down on the page:
[quote]

So Mueller spent 12 months to come up with enough “evidence” to produce one episode of MTV’s [i]Catfish[/i]?

Are they going to indict all those Democratic Party superdelegates who “colluded” to put Trump in the White House by nominating the only person in the world who could lose to him?[/quote]

Also in Friday's news regarding the Special Counsel:

Paul Manafort's efforts to get his bail reduced seem to have hit a snag. (He was the Trump Campaign Chairman of whom Trump said, after the FBI raid on Manafort's home became publicly known, "was with the campaign, as you know, for a very short period of time, relatively short period of time.”)

Mueller's latest filing regarding Manafort's bail is [url=https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000161-a159-d829-a37b-fb7d3c6a0001]Case 1:17-cr-00201-ABJ Document 183-1 Filed 02/16/18[/url]

The following portion, starting at the bottom of Page three, and continuing to Page 4, does not bode well for Mr. Manafort remaining at liberty:

[quote]Further, the proposed package is deficient in the government’s view, in light of additional criminal conduct that we have learned since the Court’s initial bail determination. That criminal conduct includes a series of bank frauds and bank fraud conspiracies, including criminal conduct relating to the mortgage on the Fairfax property, which Manafort seeks to pledge. The government has secured substantial evidence that Manafort secured this mortgage from The Federal Savings Bank through a series of false and fraudulent representations to The Federal Savings Bank. For example, Manafort provided the bank with doctored profit and loss statements for DMP International LLC for both 2015 and 2016, overstating its income by millions of dollars. At the next bail hearing, we can proffer to the Court additional evidence related to this and the other bank frauds and conspiracies, which the Court may find relevant to the bail risk posed by Manafort as well as the risk that the banks may foreclose on the real estate being proposed by Manafort to secure his release.[/quote]

So all that mundane par-for-the-course-for-DC-elites financial funny business is alleged to be Putin's fault, too? I mean, really - how much FBI manpower did Mueller spend digging that up? [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort]Manafort[/url] is a classic DC elite grifter whose affections are clearly highly negotiable, get any halfway decent accountant to look at the financials of just about any of these guys & gals and you're likely to find plenty of [i]Schmutz[/i]. Call me profoundly underwhelmed.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;480336]So all that mundane par-for-the-course-for-DC-elites financial funny business is alleged to be Putin's fault, too?[/QUOTE]
Mundane financial funny business? Really? From Count 1 of the [url=https://www.justice.gov/file/1007271/download]October 27, 2017 indictment[/url]:

[quote]1. Defendants PAUL J. MANAFORT, JR., (MANAFORT) and RICHARD W. GATES III (GATES) served for years as political consultants and lobbyists. Between at least 2006 and 2015, MANAFORT and GATES acted as unregistered agents of the Government of Ukraine, the Party of Regions (a Ukrainian political party whose leader Victor Yanukovych was President from 2010 to 2014), Yanukovych, and the Opposition Bloc (a successor to the Party of Regions that formed in 2014 when Yanukovych fled to Russia). MANAFORT and GATES generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work. In order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016, MANAFORT and GATES laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts.[/quote]

So, the indictment alleges that they worked for Putin's puppet leader of Ukraine and his party, and laundered the proceeds to evade taxes. I don't consider working as unregistered foreign agents to be "routine," or laundering the proceeds to evade taxes.

Even VP Agnew had to resign when the IRS found out he hadn't paid taxes on the bribe money he'd garnered as Governor of Maryland.

The latest thing about Manafort concerns stuff that came to Mueller's attention after the bail hearing. And [i]that[/i] "financial funny business," though more mundane that the matters covered in the indictment, bears directly on the value of assets being offered as security for bail. My guess is, the judge will not be amused.

For elite DC influence peddlers like Manafort, yes, it is mundane, in the sense of being par for the course. How is any of what you cite more eyebrow-raising than the shenanigans in the Uranium One scandal, or any of a number of various Clinton Foundation pay-for-play schemes involving foreign governments? If Team Mueller were charged with investigating this sort of stuff and were indicting lots of the other such lobbyist-grifters who've gotten rich this way, fine - but what does any of the Manafort stuff have to do with the wild claims of Russia "hacking out democracy"? And where are the similar task forces investigating Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc, "hacking out democracy"? Still waiting for actual *evidence* - not evidence-free intelligence-complex 'assessments' (i.e. opinions), or bogus 'digital breadcrumb trails' which pretend that hacking-related cyberattribution is easy and spoofing does not happen - that indicate that all this hysteria is something other than a neo-McCarthyite witch hunt ginned up by the Clintonites and their pals in the DC establishment and the media. I don't know about you, but the thought of giving the folks running the nation's dangerously metastasizing spook complex veto power over election results terrifies me much more than another 3 years of the clusterf*ck that is the Trump white house. Because once you go down that road, you abandon any pretense to living in a constitutional republic and there's no return not involving very high odds of bloody nation-ending catastrophe.

Why ‘Russian Meddling’ is a Trojan Horse -by Rob Urie
 

[URL]https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/09/why-russian-meddling-is-a-trojan-horse/[/URL]

I lean more toward a "Red" Herring descriptor, myself.
[QUOTE]The decision to blame Russian meddling for Hillary Clinton’s electoral loss [URL="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shattered-jonathan-allen/1125489884"]was made[/URL] in the immediate aftermath of the election by her senior campaign staff. Within days the [URL="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/08/donald-trump-illegitimate-president-rebecca-solnit"]received wisdom[/URL] amongst Clinton supporters was that the election had been stolen and that Donald Trump was set to enter the White House as a pawn of the Russian political leadership. Left out was the history of U.S. – Russian relations; that [B]the largest voting bloc in the 2016 election was eligible voters who didn’t vote and that domestic business interests substantially control the American electoral process. [/B](Emphasis added.)

[I]Graph: The Democrats’ choice to blame external forces, e.g. Russian meddling, for their electoral loss in 2016 ignores evidence of that none-of-the-above is the people’s choice. The largest voting bloc in the 2016 election was eligible voters who chose not to vote. In contrast to the received wisdom in political consultant circles, choosing not to vote is a political act. The U.S. has the lowest voter turnout in the ‘developed’ world for a reason. Source: [/I][URL="http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout-data"][I]electproject.org[/I][/URL][I].[/I][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;480394]How is any of what you cite more eyebrow-raising than the shenanigans in the Uranium One scandal, or any of a number of various Clinton Foundation pay-for-play schemes involving foreign governments?[/QUOTE]
Let's see. The sale was approved by The Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, consisting of

the Secretary of the Treasury
the Secretary of State
the Secretary of Defense
the Secretary of Homeland Security
the Secretary of Commerce
the Secretary of Energy
the Attorney General
a representative from the office of the United States Trade Representative
a representative from the Office of Science and Technology Policy

If you have any evidence that HRC interfered with the Committee's deliberations, I suggest you get in touch with the two House committees investigating it. Because AFAIK, no such evidence has come to light or even been claimed to exist.

The sale also had to be approved by, e.g. the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Oh, and the sale could only have been stopped by the President.

If you have any evidence HRC influenced either the Commission or the President, bring it.

What there [i]does[/i] seem to be good evidence for is, investors in Uranium One donated millions to the Clinton Foundation, which the Foundation failed to disclose publicly in a timely manner, which it should have done as per prior agreement with the White House.

Also, after the Rosatom-Uranium One merger was announced, but before the Committee approved it, Bill Clinton spoke on June 29, 2010 at a conference in Moscow organized by the Russian-based company Renaissance Capital Group, for which he received a cool half mil.

None of which comes anywhere close to acting as unregistered agents for a foreign power, let alone laundering the proceeds to evade income taxes.

Oh, and BTW, if there were anything to all this, please explain why the Republicans weren't raising hell about it in time for the 2012 campaign.

Millions of Americans Demand $130,000 for Not Having Sex With Trump
 

[URL]http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/48534-millions-of-americans-demand-130000-for-not-having-sex-with-trump[/URL]
[QUOTE]“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for Stormy Daniels,” Tracy Klugian, a florist in Santa Rosa, California, said. “I just want my check, too.”[/QUOTE][SPOILER]Carol Foyler, of Tallahassee, Florida, took a different view. “Never having sex with Donald Trump should be a reward in itself,” she said.[/SPOILER]

Oh, boy! Using a legal provision enabling the President to impose tariffs in the name of "National Security," [i]Il Duce[/i] seems intent on starting a trade war. But that's OK, because [i]Il Duce[/i] decrees, in this story dated Friday March 2,

[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/03/02/trump-insists-trade-wars-are-good-and-easy-to-win-after-vowing-new-tariffs/]Trump insists ‘trade wars are good, and easy to win’ after vowing new tariffs[/url]
[quote]Over the past 24 hours, Trump has drawn the blueprints for the most protectionist U.S. trade policy in roughly 100 years. The White House has provided no information or details about how these trade practices would go into effect. Instead, they’ve been sketched out in rough terms in off-the-cuff remarks after a meeting with steel and aluminum executives and in a series of social media posts that many trade experts said grossly misrepresented how trade works.[/quote]

And, gee, protectionist trade policies have worked out so well in the past 100 years!

Historically, the Republican party has favored protectionist trade policies. This was true at the party's founding, when they favored a tariff to protect the US railroad industry, still a-borning. Protecting new fledgling industries is a reasonable use of tariffs; a good argument can be made that it is in the national interest for the US to have its own e.g. railroad industry, rather than relying on foreign powers for supplies and equipment, which would initially be cheaper from an already-established industry abroad than from a developing industry at home. It is reasonable to expect that, once our own industry is up and running, it can compete on equal terms, and the protective tariff can be discontinued.

In theory, a tariff can also be used to restrict the import of foreign goods made cheaply by dint of convict labor by political prisoners, or cheap labor due to social stratification, slavery, etc.

Protectionist policies designed to shield domestic industries from the consequences of their own unwise practices, however, are more problematic.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;481547]And, gee, protectionist trade policies have worked out so well in the past 100 years![/QUOTE]

Your quip-line would benefit from some actual data examining its truth, falsity or in-between-ness. For example, China is highly protectionist when it comes to their domestic manufacturing industries, and its mercantilist policies seem to be serving it well in terms of growing its industrial base and attracting overseas capital and offshored-from-elsewhere manufacturing. The all-too-frequent invocation of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs and their connection to the Great Depression is also problematic because the US's balance of trade then (net exporter) was drastically different to now.

Also see a lot of 'experts' trotting out the highly dubious claim that 'free trade benefits everyone' as a kind of unassailable settled-issue shibboleth. First off there is no such thing as 'free trade', there is only 'managed trade' with the attendant issue of 'managed by whom and for whose benefit?' Second, what is now beyond dispute is that while 'free trade' has been fabulous for global GDP[sup]*[/sup] and corporate profits, said profits have been wildly unequally shared. Please explain to us how now-unemployed rust belt manufacturing workers 'benefit' from the (alleged - in many cases the savings are illusory due to quality reductions and the human and environmental costs associated with the rock-bottom low-bidder nature of the places the jobs move to) lower prices of the products they once made? Do you think a raging nationwide epidemic of deaths of despair so extreme that US average lifespan has been *falling* precipitously is unconnected to this?

As far as I can tell, 'free trade' as practiced in recent decades is all about letting the global mobile-capital looter elite enrich themselves in historically nigh-unprecedented fashion by engaging in ruthless environmental and labor-law arbitrage at the cost of global environmental despoliation and the immiseration of millions, both in the countries whose manufacturing bases get gutted and those to which the industries in question get moved. Is 'free trade' a net societal benefit if only a tiny elite sliver of said society actually benefits?

So, please, we could use less sound-bitey MSNBC-echoing snark and more actual reasoned and data-backed discussion. But that sort of stuff doesn't go viral on Twitter nor feed the nightly "two minutes' hate"-style outrage-fest on the MSM, does it?

---------------
[sup]*[/sup] Itself a deeply flawed measure, e.g. if I as CEO of GlobalMegaCorp switch from paying a domestic worker $1 per produced item X to paying a foreign sweatshop laborer $.05, burning another $0.45 in fossil fuels to ship X back to here, and skimming off the $0.50 cost difference as added profit to myself, total GDP is unaffected but its distribution and the environmental and human impacts of production have drastically changed.

Trump apparently said he wishes the USA had a for life president, it's happened before and if my history serves me correct most saw assasinations. [url]https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/trump-says-maybe-u-s-will-have-a-president-for-life-someday-1.3827827[/url]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;481593]Your quip-line would benefit from some actual data examining its truth, falsity or in-between-ness. [/QUOTE]
Although not quite within the 100-year limit, the US tariffs after World War I were awkward. It's been a long, long time since I took US History class in grade school, and I'm afraid my grade-school history texts, being clay tablets, have probably long since crumbled to dust. But as I recall, the cunieform said that, after the war, the good ol' USA was a creditor nation, and the tariffs made it hard for other countries to sell to us. This is mentioned in a page from the Office of the Historian, [url=https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/protectionism]Protectionism in the Interwar Period[/url]. It also gives some figures for the contraction in trade after the enactment of Smoot-Hawley.

Of course, the Great Depression was already in progress; the "Black Tuesday" stock market crash was on October 29, 1929. The Tariff Act of 1930 (Smoot-Hawley) was signed into law on June 17, 1930 by President Herbert Hoover, despite his own personal opposition, and the pleas of Henry Ford, chief executive Thomas W. Lamont of J.P. Morgan, and others. Significantly, though, the new law touched off a trade war:

[quote]It quickly became a symbol of the "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies of the 1930s. Such policies, which were adopted by many countries during this time, contributed to a drastic contraction of international trade. For example, U.S. imports from Europe declined from a 1929 high of $1,334 million to just $390 million in 1932, while U.S. exports to Europe fell from $2,341 million in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade declined by some 66% between 1929 and 1934.[/quote]

So although it obviously didn't [i]cause[/i] the Great Depression, Smoot-Hawley certainly made things worse. I'm not sure who [i]Il Duce[/i] thinks won [i]that[/i] trade war.

In other trade news: According to a February 27 [url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/us/politics/mnuchin-tpp-trans-pacific-partnership-trump.html]NYT story[/url],

[quote]WASHINGTON — More than a year after President Trump abruptly pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying it was a bad deal for the United States, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Tuesday that the United States is discussing rejoining the multilateral trade agreement.[/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;481593]So, please, we could use less sound-bitey MSNBC-echoing snark and more actual reasoned and data-backed discussion.[/QUOTE]

It seems quite clear that your president hasn't read Smith nor Nash.

But, then, this isn't all that surprising considering all evidence suggests he doesn't read anything....

[QUOTE=science_man_88;481594]Trump apparently said he wishes the USA had a for life president, it's happened before and if my history serves me correct most saw assasinations. [url]https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/trump-says-maybe-u-s-will-have-a-president-for-life-someday-1.3827827[/url][/QUOTE]

The current authority on this topic is [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution]The 22[sup]nd[/sup] Amendment to the US Constitution[/url], which was proposed by Congress in 1947, and ratified by enough states to make it effective on February 27, 1951. It was clearly a reaction to FDR's serving three terms, then dropping dead near the start of his fourth term. So [i]Il Duce[/i]'s remarks come pretty near the 71[sup]st[/sup] anniversary of the adoption of a presidential term limit.

The US presidents who died in office so far have been William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy were assassinated; all shot. (In Garfield's case, the gunman had a major assist from the doctors.) Harrison, Taylor, Harding, and Roosevelt died of natural causes.

Zachary Taylor's Vice-President, Millard Fillmore, is the most recent US president who was neither a Democrat nor a Republican (he was a Whig).

The 22[sup]nd[/sup] Amendment reads:

[quote][b]Section 1.[/b] No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

[b]Section 2.[/b] This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.[/quote]

Thomas Jefferson commented on the lack of Constitutional limit at the time:

[quote]"if some termination to the services of the chief Magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally four years, will in fact become for life."[/quote]

Also, there have been

[quote]Attempts at repeal[edit]
According to historian Glenn W. LaFantasie of Western Kentucky University (who was opposed to repealing the amendment), "ever since 1985, when Ronald Reagan was serving in his second term as president, there have been repeated attempts to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution, which limits each president to two terms."[sup][11][/sup] In early 1989, during an exit interview with Tom Brokaw of NBC, President Reagan stated his intention to fight for the amendment's repeal.[sup][12][/sup] However, after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994, his post-presidential ambitions had to be scrapped.

In addition, several congressmen, including Democrats Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. José E. Serrano,[sup][13][/sup] Rep. Howard Berman, and Sen. Harry Reid,[sup][14][/sup] and Republicans Rep. Guy Vander Jagt,[sup][15][/sup] Rep. David Dreier[sup][16][/sup] and Sen. Mitch McConnell[sup][17][/sup] have introduced legislation to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment, but each resolution died before making it out of its respective committee. Other alterations have been proposed, including replacing the absolute two term limit with a limit of no more than two consecutive terms and giving Congress the power to grant an exemption to a current or former president by way of a supermajority vote in both houses.[citation needed]

On January 4, 2013, Rep. José E. Serrano again introduced a resolution proposing an Amendment to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment, as he had done every two years since 1997; he did not do so during the 114th Congress.[sup][18][19][/sup][/quote]

DrS, appreciate your thoughts re. Smoot-Hawley - some more stuff on that at bottom of this post.

[QUOTE=chalsall;481633]It seems quite clear that your president hasn't read Smith nor Nash.

But, then, this isn't all that surprising considering all evidence suggests he doesn't read anything....[/QUOTE]

If you have some specific links/quotes by Smith and Nash re. the issue, preferably ones which address the kind of faux-free-trade pacts underpinning the modern globalization regime, post them here. Or are you just name-dropping, "free trade, comparative advantage, the invisible hand of the free markets, what, what"-style in order to try to look smart?

Whatever Smith may have had to say about genuinely free trade (i.e. not at the point of a gun, British-empire-style, nor corporate-welfare-in-guise-of-free-trade as currently) is irrelevant to what [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/trumping-capitalism.html]currently passes as such[/url]:
[quote]Dani Rodrik, certainly no market fundamentalist, finds reason for hope in Trump’s opposition to “free trade” deals laden with provisions that have nothing to do with trade. As he puts it, “Adam Smith and David Ricardo would turn over in their graves if they read the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” with the special preferences it offers specific industries and vested interests, and other newer trade agreements that Trump has denounced. All of them “incorporate rules on intellectual property, capital flows, and investment protections that are mainly designed to generate and preserve profits for financial institutions and multinational enterprises at the expense of other legitimate policy goals.”[/quote]
(Note there's a lot in that piece with which I disagree, but not the Rodrik quote.)

Another NC piece on the issue from January: [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/01/international-trade-globalization-benefits-truly-mutual.html]International Trade and Globalization: Are Benefits Truly Mutual?[/url]
[quote]The naive economic view that “more open trade is every and always better” is unsound. It’s based on the faulty premise that moving closer to an unattainable ideal state of frictionless, unrestricted trade is preferable.

But that notion was debunked over 60 years ago, in the Lipsey-Lancaser theorem, in their paper, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_second_best]“The Theory of the Second Best”[/url]. It found that moving closer to that unachievable position could make matters worse, not better, and (gasp!) economist and policymakers needed to assess tradeoffs, and not rely on simple-minded beliefs. And the example Lipsey and Lancaster used was in trade, a specific example where the country liberalizing trade would wind up worse off.[/quote]

Wikipedia's entry on [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_deficit]Balance of Trade[/url] mentions none other than John Maynard Keynes, in a section which also notes the various trends preceding and precipitating the Great Depression:
[quote]In the last few years of his life, John Maynard Keynes was much preoccupied with the question of balance in international trade. He was the leader of the British delegation to the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in 1944 that established the Bretton Woods system of international currency management. He was the principal author of a proposal – the so-called Keynes Plan – for an International Clearing Union. The two governing principles of the plan were that the problem of settling outstanding balances should be solved by 'creating' additional 'international money', and that debtor and creditor should be treated almost alike as disturbers of equilibrium. In the event, though, the plans were rejected, in part because "American opinion was naturally reluctant to accept the principle of equality of treatment so novel in debtor-creditor relationships".[27]

The new system is not founded on free-trade (liberalisation[28] of foreign trade[29]) but rather on the regulation of international trade, in order to eliminate trade imbalances: the nations with a surplus would have a powerful incentive to get rid of it, and in doing so they would automatically clear other nations deficits.[30] He proposed a global bank that would issue its own currency – the bancor – which was exchangeable with national currencies at fixed rates of exchange and would become the unit of account between nations, which means it would be used to measure a country's trade deficit or trade surplus. Every country would have an overdraft facility in its bancor account at the International Clearing Union. He pointed out that surpluses lead to weak global aggregate demand – countries running surpluses exert a "negative externality" on trading partners, and posed far more than those in deficit, a threat to global prosperity.[31] In "National Self-Sufficiency" The Yale Review, Vol. 22, no. 4 (June 1933),[32][33] he already highlighted the problems created by free trade .

His view, supported by many economists and commentators at the time, was that creditor nations may be just as responsible as debtor nations for disequilibrium in exchanges and that both should be under an obligation to bring trade back into a state of balance. Failure for them to do so could have serious consequences. In the words of Geoffrey Crowther, then editor of The Economist, "If the economic relationships between nations are not, by one means or another, brought fairly close to balance, then there is no set of financial arrangements that can rescue the world from the impoverishing results of chaos."[34]
[b]
These ideas were informed by events prior to the Great Depression when – in the opinion of Keynes and others – international lending, primarily by the U.S., exceeded the capacity of sound investment and so got diverted into non-productive and speculative uses, which in turn invited default and a sudden stop to the process of lending[/b].[35][/quote]

Note that I never said tariffs are the best way to address chronic trade imbalances. But unlike trade pacts, where even the simplest bilateral variety invariably take years to hammer out, they are something that can be implemented quickly. Is there a real possibility of adverse blowback? Sure there is. But given the dire state of the US manufacturing and non-financial economy, more of the same bogus 'free trade' preached by the globalist financial-parasite class which dominates orthodox economics and the MSFM is absolutely the last thing the nation needs. In a long [url=https://www.alternet.org/economy/free-trade-problem-or-it-something-else]Alternet article this week[/url], Marshall Auerback effectively characterizes tariffs as an ugly solution to a real problem.

(Yeah, I know, a few too many the-globalist-point-of-view quotes by former Enron shill Paul Krugman, ugh. But as one commenter notes, even Krugman "[b]has emphasized that comparative advantage does not work to benefit both nations unless trade is balanced, there is no cross border movement of labor or capital, and there is full employment in both nations. Although the last point would be argued, nobody would suggest that the first three necessary assumptions are remotely true of USA’s foreign trade situation today.[/b]")

Lastly, re. the MSM hysteria over all things Trump, anyone remember the hue and cry from the globalists when St. Obama imposed a 266% duty on Chinese cold-rolled steel? Exactly. (In fact, it is precisely these pre-Trump tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium which explain why the Trump-proposed tariffs [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/03/trumps-steel-aluminum-tariffs-wto-retaliation-typically-works.html]will have a relatively tiny impact on US/China trade flows.[/url])

Well, [i]Il Duce[/i] has proclaimed the tariffs. And, -- surprise surprise -- he's exempted Canada (our biggest steel importer) and Mexico indefinitely -- apparently contingent on their kowtowing to the US regarding NAFTA, which up to now they have shown no interest in doing. I will dare to ask whether this apparent linkage blows the whole "national security" premise for the tariffs clean out of the water. Perhaps the Canadians and the Mexicans will ask the same question of the WTO or the World Court.

If [i]Il Duce[/i] has any facts or figures to justify his assertion that "Trade wars are good, and easy to win," he hasn't seen fit to share them with any of us.

Also in trade news, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which [i]Il Duce[/i] rejected about a year ago, but Treasury Secretary Steve "the foreclosure king" Mnuchin recently expressed renewed interest in, has now gone into effect with 11 signatories, none of them being the good ol' USA.

If [i]Il Duce[/i] wants to address our trade deficit with China, perhaps he should order the closure of MALL[b][SIZE="5"][sub]*[/sub][/SIZE][/b]WART or whatever the name of that big chain is, on national security grounds. You know, the one with the advertising slogan "Support tyranny. Live better." Or something like that.

If he really wants a border wall with Mexico, he shouldn't exempt Mexico from the tariffs then use the money from those tariffs to pay for it.

.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;481911]If you have some specific links/quotes by Smith and Nash re. the issue, preferably ones which address the kind of faux-free-trade pacts underpinning the modern globalization regime, post them here.[/QUOTE]

Having read both Smith and Nash, I'm not "name dropping".

Smith showed that focusing on what one is good at, and letting other do the same, and then trading the products is "more optimal". For example, I don't know how to (or choose not to) produce bread, but I know how to program. So I do the latter, make money, and buy bread.

Nash showed that this can be optimized further, by taking into consideration the actions of other "players in the game", particularly those that you don't have any control over.

All of this can, of course, scale from the individual all the way up to nations.

I will agree with you that the pure economics (read: the maths) become much more complicated when protectionist distortions (read: tariffs, taxes, et al) are introduced.

To be honest, I have no skin in this game. I had personally modelled that the US of A was going to lose its "world leader" status within 20 years. IMO, Trump is simply accelerating this time-line for the short-term gains of protecting a very few jobs in industries which no longer make much sense in the hopes of re-election.

Trump fires top diplomat Tillerson after clashes, taps Pompeo
 

[URL]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tillerson/trump-fires-top-diplomat-tillerson-after-clashes-taps-pompeo-idUSKCN1GP1NJ[/URL]
OMG! No love for Mr. Exxon here, but [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pompeo"]Pompeo[/URL] is a huge step down. He's on the wrong side of just about everything: a pliable, pro-Israel, war-mongering, surveillance freak. He wants Snowden brought back, given "due process" with a pre-determined death penalty.

I see this as a very dangerous development.

Dictator for Life: The Rise of the American Imperial President
 

[URL]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48934.htm[/URL]
[QUOTE][FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]The presidency will survive. [/SIZE][/FONT][SIZE=3][URL="https://newrepublic.com/article/75730/the-imperial-temptation"]The real question is what leads American presidents into the imperial temptation.[/URL][FONT=Times New Roman] When the American presidency conceives itself as the appointed savior of a world in which mortal danger requires rapid and incessant deployment of men, weapons, and decisions behind a wall of secrecy, power rushes from Capitol Hill to the White House.”—Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.[/FONT][/SIZE][/QUOTE]Just in case there is any lingering belief that our political system is in any way democratic, I offer this cheerful assessment.
[QUOTE][FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=5][SIZE=3]China—an economic and political powerhouse that [/SIZE][/SIZE][/FONT][SIZE=3][URL="http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/16/investing/china-us-debt-treasuries/index.html"]owns more of America’s debt[/URL][FONT=Times New Roman] than any other country and is [/FONT][URL="http://fortune.com/2016/03/18/the-biggest-american-companies-now-owned-by-the-chinese/"]buying up American businesses[/URL][FONT=Times New Roman] across the spectrum— now plans to make its president, Xi Jinping, president for life.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]
President Trump thinks that’s a great idea.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]
Trump thinks the idea of having a president for life is so great, in fact, that America might want to move in that direction. “[/SIZE][/FONT][SIZE=3][URL="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/04/trump-praises-chinese-president-extending-tenure-for-life.html"]Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday[/URL][FONT=Times New Roman],” said Trump to a roomful of supporters.[/FONT][/SIZE]
[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]
Here’s the thing: we already have a president for life.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[/QUOTE]

You forgot to mention that US Representative Mike Pompeo was known as "The Congressman from Koch."

Meanwhile, in military-related news...

The new US Air Force's [url=https://partner-mco-archive.s3.amazonaws.com/client_files/1520885388.pdf]Public Affairs Guidance[/url] turns the USAF into a black box. What are they trying to hide? Upon reading the memo, my answer is, [i]Everything![/i] I guess the enemy is the people. For example

[quote]Media embeds, media base visits, and interviews are suspended until further notice.[/quote]

Also,

[quote]Responses to queries regarding human interest, personality feature or other non-operational issues may be approved by the owning MAJCOM/PA[/quote]

In other words, a 4-star general has to OK even puff pieces.

As to the memo itself, it is

[quote]For Official Use Only -- Not for Public Release[/quote]

House Republicans Say Japanese Did Not Meddle in Pearl Harbor
 

[URL]https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/house-republicans-say-japanese-did-not-meddle-in-pearl-harbor[/URL]
[QUOTE]Reaching the opposite conclusion of many of their committee peers, Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee said on Tuesday that the Japanese did not meddle in the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

“After an exhaustive investigation, we have come to the conclusion that there was no attempt by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service to influence the outcome of Pearl Harbor,” Rep. Mike Conaway, a Republican of Texas, said. “Any suggestion to the contrary amounts to nothing more or less than a witch hunt.”
[/QUOTE]While I am sick of the Russiagate distraction campaign, I have hand it to Andy B. once again for the satirical seasoning he adds to every topic he touches.

In the following 13 minute-plus video, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRmt7UQfKEk]Authorities provide updates on Carson Midway Fire at news conference[/url], Colonel Ronald P. Fitch Jr, the garrison commander at Fort Carson, CO explains why they've been conducting live-fire exercises despite extreme fire danger. A combination of drought, tinder-dry dead grass and weeds, very low humidity, warm temperatures, and strong gusty winds mean that any fire that starts will spread extremely fast. This one got off the base and led to a lot of people being evacuated, and at least three homes being burned to the ground. [Col. Fitch isn't on the whole time. He hands off to the local Sheriff after several minutes.]

At around 2:15 and 3:15 of the video, Colonel Fitch gives some interesting information about recent and expected troop deployments. It seems the prospect of frequent deployments is driving a continuous training schedule, despite fire conditions.

Hmmm. Afghanistan and.....
Just the matter-of-fact reference to "heavy deployment" [U]somewhere[/U] in the world is chilling. Gotta keep those arms purchases at a nice [U]healthy[/U] level. Like the Cheeto in Chief said (more or less), What's the use of having (name your weapon) if you aren't going to use them?
Karma can be a harsh mistress, and the US account on the bad side must be overflowing.

My tracking of news stories relating to the ACLU's fight against [i]Il Duce[/i]'s jihad against illegal immigrants has turned up a story out of El Paso County, Colorado, hard on the heels of the story about the fire that spread out of Fort Carson.

It seems that, a few weeks ago, the ACLU had filed suit against the El Paso County Sheriff. He was holding defendants on requests from ICE, even though they had either tied to post bond or had resolved the cases that has led to their detention in the first place. The ACLU's suit claimed that this was a violation of Colorado law. By issuing an [url=https://acluco-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/2018-03-19-Order-Granting-Preliminary-Injunction.pdf]ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION[/url], the judge ordered the affected detainees released, and also indicated the suit was likely to succeed on the merits.

The Sheriff's reaction may be summed up as, [url=https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/crime/el-paso-co-sheriff-will-appeal-ruling-on-immigrant-inmates]Justice has prevailed. Appeal immediately![/url]

[QUOTE=kladner;482883]Hmmm. Afghanistan and.....
Just the matter-of-fact reference to "heavy deployment" [U]somewhere[/U] in the world is chilling. Gotta keep those arms purchases at a nice [U]healthy[/U] level. Like the Cheeto in Chief said (more or less), What's the use of having (name your weapon) if you aren't going to use them?[/QUOTE]

I recall warmongering WJC-era SoS Madeleine Albright as being the one who quoth "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?" - is that the quote you have in mind or did Trump echo similar?

=====================

In other Trump news, I'm deriving wry amusement at the Cambridge Analytica hue and cry. More manufactured hysteria and selective-outrage theater from the Clintontite Dem establishment and their MSM bootlickers desperate to deflect from their own deep culpability in giving us the Trump presidency, by way of the fact that the nakedly elitist, brazenly corrupt warmonger, Big Money stooge and hubby's-coattails-riding political carpetbagger who emerged as the nominee from the party's rigged-six-ways-to-Sunday primary process was a horrible choice in an election year where large swaths of the electorate on both sides of the partisan divide, having seen the 8 years of the "hope and change" Obama presidency exposed as a Big Lie, were desperate for some kind of credibly populist message from a genuine establishment outsider.

Oh look! Our beloved "our users are the product" data-hoovering-and-selling social media are being used for - gasp! - data mining by non-altruistic interests - whodathunkit?

In "nothing new under the sun" news, here are some [url=https://mobile.twitter.com/cld276/status/975568130117459975]shockingly candid admissions[/url] by the director of data analytics for the Obama 2012 campaign, Carol Davidsen (bolds mine):
[quote]An example of how we used that data to append to our email lists. [url=pic.twitter.com/VHhSukvXDY]pic.twitter.com/VHhSukvXDY[/url]
...
Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.
...
They came to office in the days following election recruiting & [b]were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.[/b][/quote]

Longtime Silicon Valley observer Robert X. Cringely weighs in: [url=https://www.cringely.com/2018/03/20/facebook-cambridge-analytica-and-our-personal-data/]Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and our personal data[/url] | I, Cringely
[quote]There are hundreds — possibly thousands — of companies that rely on Facebook data accessed through an Application Programming Interface (API) called the Graph API. These data are poorly protected and even more poorly policed. So the first parts of this story to dispel are the ideas that the personality test data obtained by Cambridge Analytica were in any way unusual or that keeping those data after their sell-by date was, either. That doesn’t necessarily make the original researcher without blame, but the Cambridge folks could have very easily found the same data elsewhere or even generated it themselves. It’s not that hard to do. And Facebook doesn’t have a way to make you throw it away (or even know that you haven’t), either. Facebook never really tried to protect its data in any big way. They have a rate limiter to slow down the number of pulls through the API, but it is (maybe was depending on events of this week) all very lenient. The only trick is getting Facebook members to authorize you. Facebook’s safe harbor, you see, is the fact that you have authorized this specific release of personal data. Often, however, the Facebook member has no idea they have authorized anything.[/quote]

On the GOP side of things, Steve Bannon, Koch[sucker] Inc and such have also been doing this sort of stuff for years. And if team Hill wasn't doing similar, what were all those multimillion-dollar consultants, media-strategists and data-analytics folks getting paid to do?

[QUOTE]I recall warmongering WJC-era SoS Madeleine Albright as being the one who quoth "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?" - is that the quote you have in mind or did Trump echo similar?[/QUOTE]At the point when Trump started receiving Nation Security advice, it got around that he was asking, to the effect of, "Why can't we use nukes, since we got them?"
[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/03/trump-asks-why-us-cant-use-nukes-msnbcs-joe-scarborough-reports.html[/URL]

[QUOTE=kladner;483027]At the point when Trump started receiving Nation Security advice, it got around that he was asking, to the effect of, "Why can't we use nukes, since we got them?"
[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/03/trump-asks-why-us-cant-use-nukes-msnbcs-joe-scarborough-reports.html[/URL][/QUOTE]

I like that "receiving." Because if there's one thing that's well known about [i]Il Duce[/i], it's that he doesn't [i]listen to[/i] or [i]heed[/i] advice -- be it from national security advisors, legal counsel, economists, anybody.

Another thing that he's demonstrated, time and again, is that if he gets blowback about anything he says -- like, say, wanting a tenfold increase in our nuclear arsenal --- he simply denies he ever said it. This is an example of what is called "gaslighting."

I don't think I ever heard the term "gaslighting." I assume there is some kind of metaphor involved, although "gas" alone is suggestive.

[QUOTE=kladner;483085]I don't think I ever heard the term "gaslighting." I assume there is some kind of metaphor involved, although "gas" alone is suggestive.[/QUOTE]

Gaslighting is a common technique used by emotionally and psychologically abusive people that is essentially designed to make you think you're the one who is being crazy/unreasonable.

[url]https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting[/url]

Some good examples in the above link.

[QUOTE=kladner;483085]I don't think I ever heard the term "gaslighting." I assume there is some kind of metaphor involved, although "gas" alone is suggestive.[/QUOTE]

The link provided by [b]wombatman[/b] (I have inserted an IMDB link in the quote) mentions the movie whose name is the origin of the term:

[quote]For example, in the movie [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036855/][i]Gaslight[/i][/url] (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.[/quote]

It's a classic. I recommend watching it. The IMDB summary has the following:

[quote]Named for this film, gaslighting is actually a recognized form of antisocial behavior. It involves an exploitative person manipulating people who suspect him or her, into questioning their own perceptions so that they distrust their own suspicions of the manipulator.[/quote]

The term [i]gaslighting[/i] is, of course, mentioned (though without explaining its origin) in the link [url=https://qz.com/852187/coping-with-chaos-in-the-white-house/]Coping with narcissistic personality disorder in the White House[/url] which I provided in a post last August [url=http://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=466261&postcount=39]here[/url].

Thanks for the link, Wombatman. Some good tips.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;483099][QUOTE=kladner;483085]I don't think I ever heard the term "gaslighting." I assume there is some kind of metaphor involved, although "gas" alone is suggestive.[/QUOTE]

The link provided by [b]wombatman[/b] (I have inserted an IMDB link in the quote) mentions the movie whose name is the origin of the term:

[quote]For example, in the movie [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036855/][i]Gaslight[/i][/url] (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.[/quote][/QUOTE]

Careful - the 1944 version of Gaslight is a big-money Hollywood remake of [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031359]the 1940 British original[/url]. Both are fine films, but there is some interesting history about the 1944 remake, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_%281940_film%29]as detailed in Wikipedia[/url] (bolds mine):
[quote]Encouraged by the success of the play and film, MGM bought the remake rights, [b]but with a clause insisting that all existing prints of Dickinson's version be destroyed,[3] even to the point of trying to destroy the negative, so that it would not compete with their more highly publicised 1944 remake[/b] starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, and Joseph Cotten.[4][5] "Fortunately they failed, and now the British film has been restored by the BFI and issued in the UK on Blu-ray in a pristine print."[6][/quote]
That kind of attempted obliteration of an artistic work for money-grubbing's sake is just evil.

I recently watched a used DVD of the 1940 version (I scored a used DVD for just $2 + $3.99 shipping from an Amazon reseller - currently looks like ~$9 total is cheapest there). I figure if MGM tried so hard to eradicate - literally! - the original when it came out with its 1944 remake-starring-bigger-named-actors, the original must be worth watching. Wonderful performances from the 2 leads, the great Austrian actor Anton Walbrook is thrillingly creepy as the controlling, evil-scheming husband, and Diana Wynyard is equally brilliant in portraying the victim of said psychological machinations.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;483111]Careful - the 1944 version of Gaslight is a big-money Hollywood remake of [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031359]the 1940 British original[/url]. Both are fine films, but there is some interesting history about the 1944 remake, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_%281940_film%29]as detailed in Wikipedia[/url] (bolds mine):
[quote]Encouraged by the success of the play and film, MGM bought the remake rights, [b]but with a clause insisting that all existing prints of Dickinson's version be destroyed,[3] even to the point of trying to destroy the negative, so that it would not compete with their more highly publicised 1944 remake[/b] starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, and Joseph Cotten.[4][5] "Fortunately they failed, and now the British film has been restored by the BFI and issued in the UK on Blu-ray in a pristine print."[6][/quote]

That kind of attempted obliteration of an artistic work for money-grubbing's sake is just evil.
[snip]
[/QUOTE]

Thanks for this -- never knew about it. That [i]is[/i] evil. Worthy of the Gaslighter-in-Chief himself.

Jeez -- a five-year non-compete clause would have served the financial agenda just as well.

Glad the original survived. I'll have to track down a copy...

Another WH staffer bites the dust
 

[i]Il Duce[/i] has tweeted again! H.R McMaster is out. The new national security advisor will be John Bolton.

[url=https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/976948306927607810]3:26 PM - 22 Mar 2018[/url]
[quote]I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9.[/quote]

Bolton proved unconfirmable as UN Ambassador under Dubya, who put him in by recess appointment.

According to a New Years Day item from [url=http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/01/01/john-bolton-trump-us-goal-should-be-regime-change-iran]Insider Fox News[/url],

[quote]He called for Trump to pull out of the Iranian nuclear deal, resume all previous sanctions to put increased economic pressure on the regime, provide material and financial support to the opposition and work with intelligence services from other countries.

"There's a lot we can do to, and we should do it," Bolton said. "Our goal should be regime change in Iran."[/quote]

As recently as February 28, he advocated for a preemptive military strike on North Korea: [url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-legal-case-for-striking-north-korea-first-1519862374]The Legal Case for Striking North Korea First[/url]

With him "mediating" national security dicussions, perhaps the best chance of avoiding war is that, in the manner of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass]Buridan's Ass[/url], Bolton will be so torn between the options of starting wars in Iran or North Korea, he will be unable to do either.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;483124][i]Il Duce[/i] has tweeted again! H.R McMaster is out. The new national security advisor will be John Bolton.[/QUOTE]

Ugh - Bolton is a consummate deep state neocon creep:

[url=www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-a-john-bolton-appointment-is-scarier-than-you-think-mcmaster-trump/]The Untold Story of John Bolton's Campaign for War With Iran[/url] | The American Conservative

Even worse, these kinds of administration-hopping warmongers are fixtures in both parties. W. Bush, and now Trump, have Bolton; Obama, and likely Hillary-had-she-become-president, have the likes of the marital Kagan/Nuland foreign policy axis, just as happily mass-murderous under their ostensibly noble "liberal interventionist" guise. It seems our best hope w.r.to Bolton is that his yuuuge ego will clash with Trump's and get him fired. IOW, humankind should hope for more Trumpian administration-personnel turmoil here.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;483111]
That kind of attempted obliteration of an artistic work for money-grubbing's sake is just evil.
[/QUOTE]
Of course, if said attempt is [i]successful[/i] -- and was done by [i]Il Duce[/i] himself, I suppose that's different. The first Trump Tower stands on the site formerly occupied by [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonwit_Teller]Bonwit Teller[/url], which had acquired the building (whose architect removed the interior decor before Bonwit Teller occupied it) from Stewart & Company. The exterior featured two limestone relief sculptures, which the Metropolitan Museum wanted, and Trump had, apparently, promised them.

[quote]Over time, the 15-foot tall limestone relief panels, depicting nearly nude women dancing, at the top of the Fifth Avenue facade, became a "Bonwit Teller signature".[2] Donald Trump, who purchased the building thanks to Genesco's CEO John L. Hanigan,[4] wanted to begin demolition in 1980. Trump "promised the limestone reliefs" to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When they were "jackhammered" "to bits" the act was condemned.[2] Through a spokesman named "John Baron" - who turned out to be Trump himself[5] - Trump said that his company had obtained three independent appraisals of the sculptures, which he claimed had found them to be "without artistic merit."[6] An official at the Metropolitan Museum of Art disputed the statement, stating: "Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit? Architectural sculpture of this quality is rare and would have made definite sense in our collection."[6] In addition to the relief panels, the huge Art Deco nickel grillwork over the entrance to the store, which had also been promised to the museum, disappeared.[7] Again masquerading as his own spokesman "John Baron," Trump said, "We don't know what happened to it."[7][/quote]

A video clip [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XWoirFToY]here[/url] from a [b]Frontline[/b] program about [i]Il Duce[/i]'s career describes the reaction at the time.

Saving the sculptures would have delayed construction, and so cost money. [i]Il Duce[/i] claimed it wasn't worth the effort. So, he obliterated an artistic work for money-grubbing's sake.

Former US Attorney Joseph DiGenova has gone from denouncing a woman accusing US Senator Brock Adams (D-WA) of sexual assault (see, e.g. this [url=http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-04-14/features/9102030190_1_kari-tupper-sen-brock-adams-league-baseball]April 4, 1991 Chicago Tribune story[/url]) to spouting conspiratorialist whack-jobbery on Faux News. Being a Faux News commentator made him a prime candidate for a job at the White House.

(BTW, after the Seattle Times did its own investigation of Sen. Adams, and found about 20 other women who claimed Sen. Adams had made unwanted sexual advances on them, he dropped out of the race. Patty Murray was elected to that seat in 1992, and has been in the Senate since then.)

But DiGenova's latest gig has ended before it even started. Last Monday, it was announced that he and his wife Victoria Toensing were being hired onto [i]Il Duce[/i]'s Russia probe legal team, three days before John Dowd quit on Thursday. Now, it seems, the couple have -- wait for it -- [i]conflicts of interest[/i] that preclude their representing [i]Il Duce[/i] in Russia-probe-related matters. If only the WH staff [i]checked[/i] on people before [i]Il Duce[/i] hired them... Oh, well, they can still represent him in matters related to [strike]bribery[/strike] "emoluments."

This thread prompted the following post. The Slime was and is a major player in getting us into this hand basket to hell.
[URL]http://mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=483440&postcount=917[/URL]
Linked, instead of embedded, to maintain the solemn decorum of this very serious thread. :smile:

Deplorables II: The Dismal Dems in Stormy Times
 

I'm showing the intro and finale of this article, which, in between, is a bullet list of how the Dems gave us the Orange Menace.
[URL]https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/23/deplorables-ii-the-dismal-dems-in-stormy-times/[/URL]
[QUOTE]Beneath the endless madness of the Today in Tangerine Satan (TITS) show, aided and abetted by the Radically Regressive and Reactionary Republicans (the R4 Party), it’s easy to forget that the [U]Inauthentic Opposition Party (IOP, also known as the Democratic Party)[/U] installed the malignant presidential apprentice in the White House in the first place. The deplorable, dollar-drenched Democrats (the 4D party) seated moronic mogul Donald Trump in the Oval Office in at least ten key ways:[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Maybe instead of running silly old Joe Biden (who recently proclaimed that he would have kicked Trump’s ass in high school – that’s telling-em, Joe-boy!), the Democrats should run Michael Avenatti and Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) in 2020. [U](Avenatti and Daniels could run against the R4 and 4D parties as the leaders of the 36DD Party)[/U]. [U]:devil:
[/U]
These may finally be the folks who have really figured out how to screw Donald Trump in a reality television political culture. They are the Authentic Opposition now, inauthentically speaking. They’re beating David Dennison at his own sordid game.

Rachel Maddow’s RussiaGate timelines and charts are nothing compared to Stormy Daniels’ lascivious revelations in this Huxleyan state.

A final observation on a more serious note. Please observe the habitual “mainstream” media references to the Tangerine Satan (and to right-wing neo-fascist parties in Europe) as “populist.” This is meant, I think, to smear the real and left-leaning thing that is actual economic and political populism.

Yes, some smart left thinkers will remind you that the left has no monopoly on populism – that there’s reactionary white nationalist populism and there’s progressive left working-class populism. I get that. Point taken. But don’t look for that distinction to be made in the “mainstream” media. They just say “populism.” They don’t differential between reactionary populism and egalitarian populism. That’s on purpose and it’s cynical as Hell.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;483505]I'm showing the intro and finale of this article, which, in between, is a bullet list of how the Dems gave us the Orange Menace.
[URL]https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/23/deplorables-ii-the-dismal-dems-in-stormy-times/[/URL][quote]Maybe instead of running silly old Joe Biden (who recently proclaimed that he would have kicked Trump’s ass in high school – that’s telling-em, Joe-boy!), the Democrats should run Michael Avenatti and Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels) in 2020. (Avenatti and Daniels could run against the R4 and 4D parties as the leaders of the 36DD Party).[/quote][/quote]

Recently? Seems to me I saw this [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UilzDRQXES4]during the 2016 campaign[/url]. Oh, well, I guess we're into rerun season...

[quote]These may finally be the folks who have really figured out how to screw Donald Trump in a reality television political culture. They are the Authentic Opposition now, inauthentically speaking. They’re beating David Dennison at his own sordid game.
[/quote]

Well, ain't that dandy. The heck with standing up for what's right, eh?

How many times have we heard Sarah Huckabee Sanders say things like, "People knew X about him and voted for him anyway" (implying that X -- be it sexually assaulting women, being a racist, a narcissist, a liar, a bully, a demagogue, or whatever -- is therefore "all right") -- or, trying to rationalize [i]Il Duce[/i]'s repeated grovelling to Putin, equating a refusal to recognize the legitimacy of a rigged election, or otherwise standing up for American principles, to "dictating" how other countries run their affairs.

In [url=http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/01/18/threat-of-moral-authority-john-lewis-trump/]The Threat of Moral Authority[/url], [b]Masha Gessen[/b] wrote,

[quote]Autocratic power requires the degradation of moral authority—not the capture of moral high ground, not the assertion of the right to judge good and evil, but the defeat of moral principles as such. Once cynicism triumphs, wrote the dissident Václav Havel in a 1975 letter to the Communist leader of Czechoslovakia, “everyone who still tries to resist by, for instance, refusing to adopt the principle of dissimulation as the key to survival, doubting the value of any self-fulfillment purchased at the cost of self-alienation—such a person appears to his ever more indifferent neighbors as an eccentric, a fool, a Don Quixote, and in the end is regarded inevitably with some aversion, like everyone who behaves differently from the rest and in a way which, moreover, threatens to hold up a critical mirror before their eyes.” The majority then stands to applaud his humiliation.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;483533]"People knew X about him and voted for him anyway" (implying that X -- be it sexually assaulting women, being a racist, a narcissist, a liar, a bully, a demagogue, or whatever -- is therefore "all right")[/QUOTE]

This keeps happening to me. With every new "Trump Crisis" my liberal friends are rejoicing that "the end of Trump is near." I say "People knew X about him and voted for him anyway, so this won't make any difference, either." But my liberal friends think I said "is therefore all right" instead of "won't make any difference, either." I've given up trying to have the discussion.

[QUOTE=wblipp;483570]This keeps happening to me. With every new "Trump Crisis" my liberal friends are rejoicing that "the end of Trump is near." I say "People knew X about him and voted for him anyway, so this won't make any difference, either." But my liberal friends think I said "is therefore all right" instead of "won't make any difference, either." I've given up trying to have the discussion.[/QUOTE]
To conclude that "this won't make any difference either" is fair enough. I often make substantially the same observation myself. As a purely political observation, it seems valid. Those in a position to defend America from the man whom that arch-liberal George Will dubs "the most dangerous man in America" are cravenly failing to do so. An illustration of this form of "doesn't matter" idea may be found [url=https://cmgajcluckovich.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/lk032118_color.jpg]here[/url].

But then, you (AFAIK) and I (speaking for myself) aren't trying to defend [i]Il Duce[/i]'s awfulness as a human being, or rationalize his abject failure to stand up for quintessentially American ideals and principles.

Yes, it is true that [i]Il Duce[/i] is not being stopped, let alone held to account for his despoliation of everything that made the good ol' USA [i]good[/i]. But IMO it [i]does[/i] matter, because it is something that we, as a nation, and most of us as individuals, will be paying for dearly.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;483600]But IMO it [i]does[/i] matter, because it is something that we, as a nation, and most of us as individuals, will be paying for dearly.[/QUOTE]

IMO, as an outside observer, this is what you (read: the electorate) asked for.

Perhaps with some outside influence....

Such as Cambridge Analytica? 50,000,000 Facebook [STRIKE]accounts[/STRIKE] profiles. They weren't selling miracle quack cures, either, unless that's what you call the election.

WRT Facebook, and other venues:
It is always good to repeat, "If the product is free, [U]you[/U] are the product."

Il Duce hits the wall...
 

[quote]"I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall."[/quote] -- Donald J. Trump, speech announcing candidacy for President, June 16, 2015

"Very inexpensively" was estimated, last I heard, at around 25 billion dollars. Now, according to [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-privately-presses-for-military-to-pay-for-border-wall/2018/03/27/d79907a2-31c9-11e8-9759-56e51591e250_story.html]this March 27 WAPO story[/url],

[quote]“Build WALL through M!” Trump recently wrote on Twitter. He retweeted those words Tuesday, noting that “our Military is again rich.” Two advisers said “M” stood for “military.”[/quote]

[i][b]What???[/b][/i] It doesn't stand for [i]Mexico???[/i]

[quote]The president has suggested to Mattis that his department, instead of the Department of Homeland Security, could fund the construction, two Trump advisers said. But the military is not likely to fund the wall, according to White House and Defense Department officials.

The Pentagon has plenty of money, but reprogramming it for a wall would require votes in Congress that the president does not seem to have. Taking money from the 2018 budget for the wall would require an act of Congress, a senior Pentagon official said.[/quote]

For all those who believed [i]Il Duce[/i] would (or even could) get Mexico to pay for the wall, I have one word:

[size=6][i][b]SUCKER!!![/b][/i][/size]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;483600]Yes, it is true that [i]Il Duce[/i] is not being stopped, let alone held to account for his despoliation of everything that made the good ol' USA [i]good[/i]. But IMO it [i]does[/i] matter, because it is something that we, as a nation, and most of us as individuals, will be paying for dearly.[/QUOTE]

Re. "good" -- you mean like respect for its own constitution, an economy that works for everyone, a thriving middle class, a government of/by/for the people, and a respect for international law? Yep, it was Trump done destroyed all those! Toxic economic "free market" neoliberalism, mass-murderous imperial regime-change lawlessness in dozens of nations which refused to kiss the ring, a relentless rise in wealth inequality and destruction of hope for the economic bottom 90% - all that began in 2017.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;483723]Re. "good" -- you mean like respect for its own constitution, an economy that works for everyone, a thriving middle class, a government of/by/for the people, and a respect for international law? Yep, it was Trump done destroyed all those! Toxic economic "free market" neoliberalism, mass-murderous imperial regime-change lawlessness in dozens of nations which refused to kiss the ring, a relentless rise in wealth inequality and destruction of hope for the economic bottom 90% - all that began in 2017.[/QUOTE]

It is one thing to fall short of one's ideals, or those of one's country. It is quite another to abandon those ideals altogether. I would argue that, before the election of [i]Il Duce[/i], the good ol' USA was good because, even if it often fell short of its ideals, the country was just as often compelled to correct course, having been reminded that it was acting, as were the writers of the Declaration of Independence, "in the name of the good people of the United States of America." And as long as the good people of the United States of America aspired to this country's ideals, America lived. When they, in an act of despair, elected [i]Il Duce[/i] as president, they abandoned the ideals on which this country was based.

I think you missed Ernst's satire. Trump is just continuing a tradition of "screwing the 90%" that started before he was president. He is just telling the 90% that they are screwed and that he doesn't care. The simple reason is that half of that 90% will support any conservative leader regardless of how corrupt/morally bankrupt they are. The other half of that 90% will support any liberal leader regardless of how corrupt/morally bankrupt they are.

Until the American people decide to choose candidates that are honest and have integrity rather than a questionable political ideology, nothing will change.

[QUOTE=rogue;483762]I think you missed Ernst's satire. Trump is just continuing a tradition of "screwing the 90%" that started before he was president. He is just telling the 90% that they are screwed and that he doesn't care. The simple reason is that half of that 90% will support any conservative leader regardless of how corrupt/morally bankrupt they are. The other half of that 90% will support any liberal leader regardless of how corrupt/morally bankrupt they are.

Until the American people decide to choose candidates that are honest and have integrity rather than a questionable political ideology, nothing will change.[/QUOTE]
No, this is different. Even Nixon wasn't the unmitigated villain his detractors would have him be[sup]*[/sup]. [i]Il Duce[/i], however, being a narcissist, [i]is[/i] an unmitigated villain.

[sup]*[/sup]A moment of RMN's presidency we can all be proud of, is his remarks [url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2848]here[/url].

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;483819]No, this is different. Even Nixon wasn't the unmitigated villain his detractors would have him be[sup]*[/sup]. [i]Il Duce[/i], however, being a narcissist, [i]is[/i] an unmitigated villain.

[sup]*[/sup]A moment of RMN's presidency we can all be proud of, is his remarks [url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2848]here[/url].[/QUOTE]

He was not defending Trump behaviors. I assume that he agrees that Trump is a terrible human being, but his statement was about the policies, not the person.

He was stating that the economic policies of this presidency are just the natural progression of the economic policies of the previous presidents.

[QUOTE=rogue;483826]He was not defending Trump behaviors. I assume that he agrees that Trump is a terrible human being, but his statement was about the policies, not the person.

He was stating that the economic policies of this presidency are just the natural progression of the economic policies of the previous presidents.[/QUOTE]
+1!

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;483819]No, this is different. Even Nixon wasn't the unmitigated villain his detractors would have him be[sup]*[/sup]. [i]Il Duce[/i], however, being a narcissist, [i]is[/i] an unmitigated villain.[/QUOTE]

Oh, I dunno - while Trump is indubitably a disaster on most policy fronts, my point was that, while he fails to bother to disguise his villainy behind high-flown Big Lie verbiage (some folks might even term this a kind of "refreshingly honest villainy", as reflected in the nightly media hysterics and protests over things that were already in full swing under his predecessors), his actual policies are for the most part a direct continuation of those of said predecessors. Let's just look at the state of the big stuff under Obama:

o Neoliberal elite-looter-enriching economics? Check.
o Legal impunity for all the really big crime rackets? Check.
o Mass deportations? Check.
o Ever-expanding War on Terra and drone slaughter? Check.
o Ever-expanding mass domestic surveillance and abrigation of civil liberties? Check.
o Frack-it-till-it-bleeds environmental policies? Check. (Though Trump is undeniably worse in terms of environmental policy.)

And as far as your 'unmitigated' claim - he did refuse to sign the nasty piece of work that is the TPP (and its related fellow 'free trade' agreements TTIP and ISDS), and he's actually agreed to the crazy notion of talking to the North Koreans. While it's impossible to say how hopeful we should be on the latter front, which other recent president or party nominee ever raised that possibility? Trump's [url=http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-donalds-blind-squirrel-nails-an-acorn/]going after government-largesse-grifting owner of the WaPo[/url] also brought a "these two really deserve each other" smile to my face this week.

Your main objection as I see it seems to be one of "lack of decorum". I see decorous, establishment-approved villains like Obama and Hillary as being more dangerous precisely because they are so good at fooling most of the populace with their smiling-faced lies, and because their villainy gets a free pass from the MSM.
[quote]I would argue that, before the election of Il Duce, the good ol' USA was good because, even if it often fell short of its ideals, the country was just as often compelled to correct course, having been reminded that it was acting, as were the writers of the Declaration of Independence, "in the name of the good people of the United States of America." And as long as the good people of the United States of America aspired to this country's ideals, America lived. When they, in an act of despair, elected Il Duce as president, they abandoned the ideals on which this country was based.[/quote]
I would argue that if you believe any that hifalutin claptrap, you are delusional.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;483819]No, this is different. Even Nixon wasn't the unmitigated villain his detractors would have him be[sup]*[/sup]. [/QUOTE]In my experience, having discussed this with a wide variety of people over the decades, is that opinions on Tricky Dicky depend strongly on whether the opinion holder is a US citizen or not.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Nixon was a crook. Having accepted that, what else can be said about him? A good fraction of US citizens seem to believe that he was, if not the worst, in the top three worst ever presidents. (Here we have to discount the then current president and his predecessor because tribal loyalties are too strong for anything like an objective view.)

Of those in the rest of the world who express an opinion, views are more nuanced. For my part, there appears to be rather persuasive evidence that he and the good Doctor K. averted a nuclear war. The story goes that the NSA and CIA found good evidence that Soviet hawks in the military, in the ignorance of the Soviet government, were planning a pre-emptive strike against China while it was still possible for them to destroy the entire Chinese nuclear weapon systems. The CIA arranged for a study to be conducted on the outcome of such an attack, conclusions of which included that very significant amounts of radioactive contamination would occur throughout the northern hemisphere. The dosage that Moscow would receive would be somewhat lower than that of Washington but it would still cause serious consequences to human health. The report was sent to US embassies around the world in a code which the NSA knew that the USSR could read but which they believed that the Soviets didn't know that the US knew that it had been broken. At the same time, a US diplomat attended a formal dinner in Beijing where he accosted a Chinese government representative and said "we must talk". Everything else, including the table tennis games and the visit of RMN to China is widely known.

George Will Confirms Nixon's Vietnam Treason
 

In a move that foreshadowed the Iran hostage dealings of the Reagan campaign, Nixon tried to "monkey wrench" the [STRIKE]peace[/STRIKE] cease fire talks in Vietnam. His minions urged the South Vietnamese government to hold out agreement until after the election.
[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnsons-vietnam-peace-talks-in-68-notes-show.html[/URL]

Common Dreams August 12, 2014
George Will Confirms Nixon's Vietnam Treason
Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman
[URL]https://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/12/george-will-confirms-nixons-vietnam-treason[/URL]
[QUOTE]Richard Nixon was a traitor.
The new release of extended versions of Nixon's papers now confirms this long-standing belief, usually dismissed as a "conspiracy theory" by Republican conservatives. Now it has been substantiated by none other than right-wing columnist George Will.

Nixon's newly revealed records show for certain that in 1968, as a presidential candidate, he ordered Anna Chennault, his liaison to the South Vietnam government, to persuade them to refuse a cease-fire being brokered by President Lyndon Johnson.

Nixon's interference with these negotiations violated President John Adams's 1797 Logan Act, banning private citizens from intruding into official government negotiations with a foreign nation.
[/QUOTE][QUOTE]In the [I]Price of Power[/I] (1983),[B] Seymour Hersh revealed[U] Henry Kissinger[/U]—then Johnson’s adviser on Vietnam peace talks—secretly alerted Nixon’s staff that a truce was imminent. [/B]

According to Hersh, Nixon “was able to get a series of messages to the Thieu government [of South Vietnam] making it clear that a Nixon presidency would have different views on peace negotiations.”[/QUOTE][URL]http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21768668[/URL]
LBJ called it treason, but that was about all he did about it.
[QUOTE]By the time of the election in November 1968, LBJ had evidence Nixon had sabotaged the Vietnam war peace talks - or, as he put it, that Nixon was guilty of treason and had "blood on his hands".

Declassified tapes of President Lyndon Johnson's telephone calls provide a fresh insight into his world. Among the revelations - he planned a dramatic entry into the 1968 Democratic Convention to re-join the presidential race. And he caught Richard Nixon sabotaging the Vietnam peace talks... but said nothing.

After the Watergate scandal taught Richard Nixon the consequences of recording White House conversations none of his successors has dared to do it. But Nixon wasn't the first.

He got the idea from his predecessor Lyndon Johnson, who felt there was an obligation to allow historians to eventually eavesdrop on his presidency.

"They will provide history with the bark off," Johnson told his wife, Lady Bird.

The final batch of tapes released by the LBJ library covers 1968, and allows us to hear Johnson's private conversations as his Democratic Party tore itself apart over the question of Vietnam.
[/QUOTE]

Re: George Will Confirms Nixon's Vietnam Treason
 

[QUOTE=kladner;483890]In a move that foreshadowed the Iran hostage dealings of the Reagan campaign, Nixon tried to "monkey wrench" the [STRIKE]peace[/STRIKE] cease fire talks in Vietnam. His minions urged the South Vietnamese government to hold out agreement until after the election.
[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnsons-vietnam-peace-talks-in-68-notes-show.html[/URL]

Common Dreams August 12, 2014
George Will Confirms Nixon's Vietnam Treason
Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman
[URL]https://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/12/george-will-confirms-nixons-vietnam-treason[/URL]
[URL]http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21768668[/URL]
LBJ called it treason, but that was about all he did about it.[/QUOTE]
This bit of Tricky Dick's trickery was included in Ken Burns' series "The Vietnam War" which aired last fall. Apparently, LBJ didn't reveal that he knew about it, because he didn't want to explain [i]how[/i] he knew about it (namely, from illegal eavesdropping). The episode includes a phone conversation in which Nixon denies to LBJ that he knew anything about how reporters had found out about the prospect of [strike]peace[/strike] ceasefire talks, and LBJ seemingly accepting the denial, even though he knew that Nixon was lying.

[QUOTE=xilman;483886]It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Nixon was a crook. Having accepted that, what else can be said about him? A good fraction of US citizens seem to believe that he was, if not the worst, in the top three worst ever presidents.[/QUOTE]No argument about Nixon being a crook. Anything like his little dodge claiming a half-million dollar tax deduction on his Vice-Presidential papers by way of backdating a deed to circumvent having missed a deadline, would have landed any of us common folks in jail for tax fraud. (As it was, the IRS disallowed the deduction, and he had to pay, with penalties and interest.)

But -- one of the three worst three? Just off the top of my head, I would say that James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Warren G. Harding were worse presidents than Nixon.

In a curious historical coincidence, James Buchanan has to date been our only bachelor president. A much more recent contender for the position who never (thank God!) made it, is also surnamed Buchanan (first name Patrick), and is also a bachelor.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;482988]It seems that, a few weeks ago, the ACLU had filed suit against the El Paso County Sheriff. He was holding defendants on requests from ICE, even though they had either tied [sic] to post bond or had resolved the cases that has led to their detention in the first place. The ACLU's suit claimed that this was a violation of Colorado law. By issuing an [url=https://acluco-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/2018-03-19-Order-Granting-Preliminary-Injunction.pdf]ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION[/url], the judge ordered the affected detainees released, and also indicated the suit was likely to succeed on the merits.

The Sheriff's reaction may be summed up as, [url=https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/crime/el-paso-co-sheriff-will-appeal-ruling-on-immigrant-inmates]Justice has prevailed. Appeal immediately![/url][/QUOTE]

Appeal denied.

[url=https://www.denverpost.com/2018/04/12/colorado-supreme-court-holding-immigrants-appeal-denied/]Colorado Supreme Court denies sheriff’s appeal of immigrant inmate ruling[/url]
[quote]The state Supreme Court has denied an appeal by a Colorado sheriff ordered to release people who are wanted for possible deportation by federal authorities but have paid bond.

The Colorado American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in February on behalf of two men being held in the El Paso County Jail, arguing that the sheriff’s office was improperly holding them after state law required their release.

The sheriff’s office has argued that it is housing immigrants on federal agents’ behalf.

District Court Judge Eric Bentley ruled in March that Sheriff Bill Elder cannot use immigration authorities’ requests to continue holding immigrants after they pay bond. He ordered the men released.

The Supreme Court on Thursday denied an appeal of that ruling by the sheriff’s office.[/quote]

Here we go again...
 

Oh, joy! [i]Il Duce[/i] has lobbed more missiles at Syria. He very considerately told Russia, days in advance, to "get ready" -- and they did, moving military assets out of harm's way. It seems that Britain and France were in on the latest fireworks show. When news of the latest missile strikes came out, some Russian bigwig compared [i]Il Duce[/i] to Hitler, on the grounds that the missile strikes were carried out around 4AM, the same time o'clock [i]Der Fuhrer[/i]'s 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union began. It seems that Russia is claiming that most of the missiles were shot down.

[quote]The President must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria-big mistake if he does not![/quote] -- [url=https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/373581528405905408][i]Il Duce[/i] on Twitter, 4:02 PM - 30 Aug 2013[/url]

Now that [i]Il Duce[/i] is president, it seems that attacking Syria without Congressional approval has been just fine and dandy, since at least a year ago. Unfortunately, we don't know [i]what[/i] their legal rationale is, because the legal memo they claim to be relying on is [i]classified[/i]. The closest anyone has come (as far as I can tell) is a [url=https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4375427/PD-DOJ-Civil-Vaughn-Index.pdf]list[/url] (Vaughn Index) of documents provided in response to a FOIA lawsuit. The WH is still refusing to disclose the memo.

Of course, if things go south, his tools can always blame it on the Democrats, right?

[QUOTE]Of course, if things go south, his tools can always blame it on the Democrats, right? [/QUOTE]
Indeed. To hell with Congress, the UN, the OPCW, and International Law.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;485289]Now that [i]Il Duce[/i] is president, it seems that attacking Syria without Congressional approval has been just fine and dandy[/QUOTE]

Since when did the Exceptional Indispensible Nation need to follow its own laws or anyone else's? Oh, hey, where were you when we destroyed Libya? or started fomenting civil war in Syria by arming the jihadis there? Operation [url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore]Timber Sycamore[/url] ring any kind of bell?

(In fact, Truman's "police action" in Korea seems to have been the start of the era in which congressional war resolutions were seen as entirely optional.)

Anyway, you've already concluded 100% that Assad and Putin done it, so you should be pleased, except insofar as this latest strike appears to have been more "missile strike theater" rather than the real thing. Don't worry, your beloved democratically elected and highly accountable-to-the-people Deep State will make sure we get the real thing soon enough, either under Trump or someone else. The good people of the United States of America™ demand it!

[QUOTE]Oh, hey, where were you when we destroyed Libya? or started fomenting civil war in Syria by arming the jihadis there? Operation [URL="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore"]Timber Sycamore[/URL] ring any kind of bell?[/QUOTE]
I know it's not directed at me, but the answer to the above is, "Fuming, ranting, drinking, and gulping antacids." Also, cringing in fear of what the next Act(s) in the play would bring.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;485393]Since when did the Exceptional Indispensible Nation need to follow its own laws or anyone else's? Oh, hey, where were you when we destroyed Libya? or started fomenting civil war in Syria by arming the jihadis there? Operation [url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore]Timber Sycamore[/url] ring any kind of bell?

(In fact, Truman's "police action" in Korea seems to have been the start of the era in which congressional war resolutions were seen as entirely optional.)

Anyway, you've already concluded 100% that Assad and Putin done it, so you should be pleased, except insofar as this latest strike appears to have been more "missile strike theater" rather than the real thing. Don't worry, your beloved democratically elected and highly accountable-to-the-people Deep State will make sure we get the real thing soon enough, either under Trump or someone else. The good people of the United States of America™ demand it![/QUOTE]

Out of curiosity, what evidence would convince you that Assad and/or Putin did do it? Along the same lines, what would convince you that Russia, say, actively meddled in the 2016 election (or colluded with the Trump campaign or hacked the DNC server)?

[QUOTE=wombatman;485460]Out of curiosity, what evidence would convince you that Assad and/or Putin did do it?[/quote]
Letting the OPCW folks actually do their job would be a good start!

And the thing is, this is not the first time such an attack has taken place and the regime-change-bent Wester powers have immediately blamed the Syria government. Remember Seymour Hersh's now-famous (but "banned in the West" as far as MSM coverage of it went) [url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line]The Red Line and the Rat Line[/url] published in the wake of the Ghouta sarin attack? (If you haven't read it in full, I urge you to do so ... it also mentions an earlier false-flag gas attack by the rebels which failed to provoke the desired response, in the wake of which - per Hersh - the rebels learned to invoke the magic word 'sarin' in order to implicate the government. I note it has also been expanded since its initial publication with the inclusion of multiple letters from readers - some good exchanges in there, including an official-narrative-hewing 'objection' by Jamie Allinson at top, which is thoroughly debunked by MIT expert Ted Postol a few letters further down). Hersh:
[quote]Obama’s change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn’t hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon; the joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria’s infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack.

For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria’s neighbours, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.’

The joint chiefs also knew that the Obama administration’s public claims that only the Syrian army had access to sarin were wrong. The American and British intelligence communities had been aware since the spring of 2013 that some rebel units in Syria were developing chemical weapons. On 20 June analysts for the US Defense Intelligence Agency issued a highly classified five-page ‘talking points’ briefing for the DIA’s deputy director, David Shedd, which stated that al-Nusra maintained a sarin production cell: its programme, the paper said, was ‘the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida’s pre-9/11 effort’.[/quote]

Moreover, one of the productive suggestions by the Deplorable Russians in the wake of that incident was that the Syrian government would sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and agree to the destruction of all of chemical weapons under UN (i.e. OPCW) supervision, something which was done, though US/UK have resumed blaming the regime for more-recent gas attacks in April 2017 (Khan Shaykhun) and now Douma.

Again, the rebels have a very clear motive for carrying out such atrocities and trying to implicate the regime. Why would the regime and the Russians risk giving the U.S. et al a pretext to renew their regime change efforts, when their conventional forces are clearly beating back the rebels and winning the civil war?

The mention of the UK's Porton Down in Hersh's piece also gets us back to the poisoning of the former Russian intel (double) agent and his daughter. That was instantly blamed with claims of great certitude on Russia, only to have the certitude bit debunked by the OPCW folks, once they had been allowed to do their job. And the whole story - including what happened to the Skripal's pet animals - is so bizarre it reeks of wheels-within-wheels intel intrigues. Pinning dastardly deeds on The Other Side is a tried and true strategy when one is trying to gin up a war, and the Brits are absolute experts at it. Remember this bit from the film [i]The Good Shepherd[/i] in which the U.S OSS agent (Matt Damon) is sent to London to learn from the masters?
[i]
Welcome to London. You’re going to have to learn as quickly and thoroughly as possible the English system of intelligence. The black cards, particularly counter intelligence. The uses of information, disinformation and how their use is ultimately … power.

They’ve agreed to open their operations to us. They can’t win the war without us but they don’t really want us here. Intelligence is their mother’s milk and they don’t like sharing the royal tit with people that don’t have titles.[/i]

[quote]Along the same lines, what would convince you that Russia, say, actively meddled in the 2016 election (or colluded with the Trump campaign or hacked the DNC server)?[/QUOTE]
How about actual evidence supporting said claims? There are multiple technical analyses of the DNC server incident which point to "leak, not hack". Further, irrespective of whodunnit, the information about the corruption of the DNC in rigging their primary against the insurgent Sanders was, so far as we know, [b]true[/b]. How can one construe the bringing-to-light of factual evidence of election tampering [b]by one of the 2 establishment parties[/b] as "election meddling"? It is simply absurd. There have also been wild evidence-free claims about Russia hacking voting machines, and "running a disinformation campaign on Facebook" - one whose details, especially the amounts of money involved, were utterly, laughably small once revealed. Again, show us the actual (and not just as easily explained by other means) *evidence*. Not intel "assessments" (a code for "take our word for it - we're the Intel services and you can trust us"), not hack allegations which ignore than in cyberspace, spoofing is easy and attribution is hard, not conflation of "having an interest in the election and its outcome" with "state-sponsored meddling in the election".

And, before starting a war with Russia over alleged meddling, perhaps have the honesty to consider 2 important pieces of the broader context:

1. Other governments 'meddle' in US elections all the time. Israel and Saudi Arabia spring to mind.

2. The US and CIA have a very long history of election meddling, rigging and outright coup-fomenting in countries all over the world, just 2 example being Iran 1953 (leading to the brutally repressive regime of the Shah and ultimately the Islamic Revoution there) and a whole lot of evidence pointing to the US helping to rig the 1996 Russian presidential election for the western-friendly (as in, "let the looting by the oligarchs and the western powers begin!") Yeltsin. The subsequent evisceration of the Russian economy (GDP fell by 1/3, life expectancy crashed) was a key factor in Putin's subsequent rise to power - while he is clearly not a cuddly nice guy and has corruption issues of his own, it is incontrovertible that he reined in the worst excesses of the oligarchs and stopped the downward economic and living-conditions spiral. So Putin may very well be blowback from our own "meddling".

It isn't just the Russians trying to fiddle our election process. The Republicans have long since taken over duties previously in the bailiwick of Southern Democrats (most of whom became Republicans after enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act).

Remember the head of [i]Il Duce[/i]'s Advisory Commission on [strike]disenfrachising all non-Republican voters[/strike] Election Integrity? [url=http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article209268109.html]Federal judge finds Kris Kobach in contempt of court in voting rights case[/url]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;485698]It isn't just the Russians trying to fiddle our election process. The Republicans have long since taken over duties previously in the bailiwick of Southern Democrats (most of whom became Republicans after enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act).

Remember the head of [I]Il Duce[/I]'s Advisory Commission on [strike]disenfrachising all non-Republican voters[/strike] Election Integrity? [URL="http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article209268109.html"]Federal judge finds Kris Kobach in contempt of court in voting rights case[/URL][/QUOTE]
It is good to hear this. I wonder how much Her Honor really expects the creep to comply. I wish she would order his presence in court, and then perp walk him for the cameras. A bit of time in the pokey would make some kind of impression, one hopes.

[QUOTE=kladner;485728]It is good to hear this. I wonder how much Her Honor really expects the creep to comply. I wish she would order his presence in court, and then perp walk him for the cameras. A bit of time in the pokey would make some kind of impression, one hopes.[/QUOTE]
My favorite part:[quote]Instead of a fine in the contempt matter, Robinson ordered Kobach to pay attorneys fees for the plaintiffs in the case.[/quote]
Ouch!

Of course, it's another case of "Justice has prevailed -- appeal immediately!"

One part of the scheme of [i]Il Duce[/i] and company deals with changes that Koback proposed to federal election law. Some of them, shown in a document disclosed in the above-reference court case as 2:16-cv-02105-jar-jpo document 373-2 [Exhibit S] deal with that part of the law known as 52 U.S.C. 20504(c)

[quote](c) Forms and procedures
__(1) Each State shall include a voter registration application form for elections for Federal office as part of an application for a State motor vehicle driver’s license.

__(2) The voter registration application portion of an application for a Statemotor vehicle driver’s license—

____(A) may not require any information that duplicates information required in the driver’s license portion of the form (other than a second signature or other information necessary under subparagraph (C));

____(B) may require only the minimum amount of information necessary to—

______(i) prevent duplicate voter registrations; and

______(ii) enable State election officials to assess the eligibility of the applicant and to administer voter registration and other parts of the election process;

____(C) shall include a statement that—

______(i) states each eligibility requirement (including citizenship);

______(ii) contains an attestation that the applicant meets each such requirement; and

______(iii) requires the signature of the applicant, under penalty of perjury;

____(D) shall include, in print that is identical to that used in the attestation portion of the application—

______(i) the information required in section 20507(a)(5)(A) and (B) of this title;

______(ii) a statement that, if an applicant declines to register to vote, the fact that the applicant has declined to register will remain confidential and will be used only for voter registration purposes; and

______(iii) a statement that if an applicant does register to vote, the office at which the applicant submits a voter registration application will remain confidential and will be used only for voter registration purposes; and

____(E) shall be made available (as submitted by the applicant, or in machine readable or other format) to the appropriate Stateelection official as provided by State law.[/quote]

The proposed changes are as follows (my emphasis):

[quote] Delete 52 U.S.C. 20504(c)(2)(A)

In 52 u.s.c. 20504(c)(2)(B) delete "may require only the minimum amount of information necessary to" and replace with "may require [b]any information[/b] the state deems necessary to"[/quote]

Plus another gem:

[quote]Add new subsection 52 U.S.C. 20504(f) "Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent a state from requiring documentary proof of citizenship from any applicant."[/quote]

Two other proposed amendments were redacted from the published document.

[i]Any[/i] information? How about, say a [url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_rights_and_the_supreme_court_the_impossible_literacy_test_louisiana.html]literacy test[/url]?

Donald Trump’s Unhinged Attack on Jon Tester
 

-John Nichols, The Nation
"The senator has always championed the causes of veterans. Apparently, this enrages the president."
The piece is well salted with links to sources on critical points.
I have plenty of problems with Tester's positions on many issues. However, his opposing the privatization of VA functions gets my respect. The profiteers are circling all federal health programs. I hope Tester has the same concern for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
[QUOTE]Tester has earned this bipartisan praise because, to a far greater extent than many of his colleagues, he has served as a senator is supposed to serve. When President Trump forwarded for Senate consideration the name of an unvetted and ill-prepared candidate to lead an essential agency with a $180 billion budget and almost 400,000 employees, the senator from Montana did not shy away from the duty the Constitution rests with him.

Motivated primarily by his concern for the veterans who rely on the VA for care—and whose continued care is [URL="https://www.tester.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=6119"]threatened [/URL]by the profiteers who seek to privatize major functions of the agency—Tester gathered information and discussed concerns that had arisen regarding a presidential nominee. He called for transparency and a serious review of that nomination. He refused to bend to political pressure, even though he faces what could be a tough reelection race in a state that handed Trump a 20-point advantage in 2016.
[/QUOTE]

It is a shame that presidential candidates are not thoroughly vetted by congress.

:whee:

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;486691]It is a shame that presidential candidates are not thoroughly vetted by congress.[/QUOTE]That was the idea behind the Electoral College.

[url=http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/385942-clinton-being-a-capitalist-probably-hurt-her-2016-election-prospects]Clinton: Being a capitalist ‘probably’ hurt me with Dem voters[/url] | The Hill -- Well, it *would* explain why she lost so much of the Midwest to well-known anti-capitalist crusader Trump, no?

[QUOTE=kladner;486687]I hope Tester has the same concern for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.[/QUOTE]
What if an American citizen doesn't want to participate in Social Security, do you have respect for that person as well? Even if I still had to invest the money that would have gone to social security and wouldn't get it back until age 60 or so, I'd rather do that than participate in social security.

Not all pyramid schemes are illegal, social security is an example of a legal pyramid scheme.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;486892][url=http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/385942-clinton-being-a-capitalist-probably-hurt-her-2016-election-prospects]Clinton: Being a capitalist ‘probably’ hurt me with Dem voters[/url] | The Hill -- Well, it *would* explain why she lost so much of the Midwest to well-known anti-capitalist crusader Trump, no?[/QUOTE]
As I like to say, and I wish it would catch on...You could cut the irony with a knife.