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The Guardians of the Galaxy at National Public Radio were beside themselves Wednesday night reporting that “the lights are blinking red for a 2018 election attack by Russia.” Well, isn’t that an interesting set-up? In effect, NPR is preparing its listeners in advance to reject and dispute the coming midterm election if they’re not happy with the results. Thus continues America’s institutional self-sabotage, with the help of a news media that’s become the errand boy of the Deep State.

What do I mean by the Deep State? The vested permanent bureaucracy of Washington DC, and especially its vastly overgrown and redundant “Intel Community,” which has achieved critical mass to take on a life of its own within the larger government, makes up its own rules of conduct, not necessarily within the rule of law, and devotes too much of its budget and influence defending its own prerogatives rather than the interests of the nation.

Personally, I doubt that President Putin of Russia is dumb enough to allow, let alone direct, his intel services to lift a finger “meddling” in the coming US midterm election, with this American intel behemoth vacuuming every digital electron on earth into the NSA’s bottomless maw of intercepted secrets. Mr. Putin must have also observed by now that the US Intel Community is capable of generating mass public hallucinations, to the beat of war-drums, and determined not to give it anything to work with. That’s my theory about what Russia is up to. If you have a better one, let’s hear it?

Another curious incident played out on CNN earlier this week when Max Boot, senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations (the Deep State faculty lounge) faced off against Russia historian/scholar Stephen F. Cohen of Princeton on Anderson Cooper’s prime-time show. “Russia is attacking us right now according to Trump’s own Director of National Security (Daniel Coates)!” Mr. Boot shrilly declared.

“I’ve been studying Russia for forty-five years,” Mr. Cohen replied, “I’ve lived in Russia and I’ve lived here. If Russia was attacking us, we would know it.”

“You’ve consistently been an apologist for Russia in those last 45 years,” Mr. Boot riposted.

“I don’t do defamation of people; I do serious analysis of serious national security policy,” Mr. Cohen rejoined. “When people like you call people like me ‘apologists for Russia’ because we don’t agree with your analysis, you are criminalizing diplomacy and detante and you are the threat to national security.”

Referee Anderson Cooper stepped in: “So, finally Stephen, you’re saying Russia was not attacking the United States?”

“Yes, I don’t think they attacked the United States,” Cohen said.

“You’re apologizing for Russia as we speak,” Mr. Boot inserted.

“This is low-level stuff that went on,” Mr. Cohen said. “It is not 9/11. It is not Pearl Harbor. It is not Russian paratroopers descending on Washington. This kind of hyperbole, ‘an attack on America,’ suggests that we need to attack Russia….I think Mr. Boot would have been happy if Trump had waterboarded Putin at the summit and made him confess….”

Notice how astonished Mr. Cooper was to hear the view that Russia did not attack the US. It’s inconceivable in the universe-as-known-to-CNN, so potent is the hallucination there that even the water-cooler is bubbling with angst. Oh, and by the way, do any of you readers actually know how the duties of the Director of National Security (Mr. Coates) differ from the Director of the CIA (Gina Haspel) or the Director of the NSA (Paul M. Nakasone)?

In case you are mystified as to why a considerable portion of the public is disgusted with the news media, it is as simple as this: they appear to be an instrument of that permanent government bureaucracy, doing its bidding, defending its criminal mischief, and covering up its dishonesty. Proof of that is the media’s conspicuous inattention to the now well-documented political depravity in another arm of the Intel Community, the FBI — a much more compelling story of villainy than 13 Russian Facebook trolls and the alleged (still unproven) hacking of the DNC.

Donald Trump, aka the Golden Golem of Greatness, may be an unappetizing and embarrassing president. But is the Deep State ready to start a world war just to shove him offstage? Or burn down the constitution? While CNN stands by with Jeri-cans of gasoline?


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James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency and the four-book series of World Made By Hand novels, set in a post economic crash American future. His most recent book is Living in the Long Emergency; Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward. Jim lives on a homestead in Washington County, New. York, where he tends his garden and communes with his chickens.

410 Responses to “Light It Up?”

  1. bibliomaniac August 3, 2018 at 9:38 am #

    “For at least a decade now, those who defend Putin either have something to gain from it or they are dangerously ignorant.”

    Garry Gasparov

    Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must be Stopped

    • FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 9:56 am #

      Ever since Mr. Gasparov lost a chess match to the IBM supercomputer, he has a NSA chip implanted in his skull and anti-Putin bug up his ass.

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 11:10 am #

      “Free World” = “Global Capitalist State.” Garry Gasparpov is obviously just another former Russian recruited by the US Department of Disinformation to follow in the illustrious Ayn Rand’s propagandistic foot steps. Good work, if you can find it. No thought or work involved at all, and reasonably well compensated, I’m sure.

      • Bill7 August 3, 2018 at 1:52 pm #

        It’s almost all been COINTELPRO’d by now, is my impression.

        • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 10:46 pm #

          Strike the “almost,” and I agree.

          • Bill7 August 4, 2018 at 12:12 pm #

            Yeah, I was trying to leave some room for hope. 😉

        • babbat August 4, 2018 at 5:41 am #

          They have , being Russians had a plan , fFom before the fall of their regime .And the deep state is it. The deep state is now ironically Russia’s enemy but KGB sleeper agents armed with marxist ideology have infiltrated the deep state, armed with the principles of psychological subversion and now according to the principles of subversion and entropy the U.S is devouring itself.
          This targeted individual phenomenon exploding on youtube is their program. Essentially neighborhood watch on steroids . Flashmobbing blacklisted individuals. It’s big !

          • Bill7 August 5, 2018 at 8:44 pm #

            Say what?

            et tu, I’m guessing

  2. Neon Vincent August 3, 2018 at 9:40 am #

    Our host mentioned NPR and CNN. He might expand the media outlets involved, as Vox also got into the act as they explained how not to get phished and The Hill reported on how someone, presumably Russia, tried to phish Claire McCaskill’s campaign. I fully expect to read, hear, and see reports like this all the way to November.

    In other news, Wednesday was the earliest ever Earth Overshoot Day. From yesterday until the end of the year, humanity is living off the planet’s reserves, not what it’s currently producing. Think about that as being the background for current events tied to collapse and decline.

  3. robert magill August 3, 2018 at 9:46 am #

    That conversation as reported is so Orwellian I almost started to look it up. America is so unprepared to deal with the current sinister internal events. A century of soap selling and engineering of consent have left us hapless. Maybe we are as former fellow Key Wester Mark Caputo calls us, “toothless…garbage people” !

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 10:42 am #

      It would appear so.

    • Walter B August 3, 2018 at 7:42 pm #

      Does anyone have any idea of what or who Anderson Cooper actually is and why he is so prominently displayed on the Boob Tube anyway? Or even better, why anyone with even the slightest ability to think or reason would give a hot rat’s ass about anything or any opinion he might have and care to express? I know and interact personally with at least a dozen intelligent humans who are far more qualified to be listened to or asked for opinions of value. Turn off the boob tube America, it is crap!

      As far as whether or not Russia is or was interfering with our “elections” or is planning on doing it again in the future, seriously people, what the hell does it matter anyway? It’s not like we are given any real choices anyway. And it’s dollars to donuts that the next presidential election is going to be a rematch of the last one (if both ancients can live long enough that is), so WTF? I suppose that once shooting an “archduke” in a tiny who cares country was cause enough for gazillions to be mass murdered, Anderson Copper popping a boner is not so far a stretch after all.

      I just returned from three days on the battlefield of Gettysburg, and while war was and remains the most vile and evil act that mankind is capable of, if those men in blue and grey had any inkling of what this nation so conceived would degrade into, they probably would have cast their weapons aside and settled their differences over a couple of cold beers.

      • Bill7 August 4, 2018 at 12:11 pm #

        Cooper is the son of heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, and interned at the
        CIA. Starts making sense, doesn’t it?

      • Petro August 4, 2018 at 5:10 pm #

        Does anyone have any idea of what or who Walter B actually is and why he is so prominently displayed on this blog anyway? Or even better, why anyone with even the slightest ability to think or reason would give a hot rat’s ass about anything or any opinion he might have and care to express?

        😀

        • Walter B August 4, 2018 at 6:41 pm #

          Nope, haven’t a clue.

        • Walter B August 4, 2018 at 7:27 pm #

          Giving this a bit more thought Petro, if your point is that I am being overly harsh on Mr. Cooper, or even unfair, perhaps you are right and I should have expressed my opinion in more civilized terms. I have no opinion on him personally and he may very well be a far better person than I am, but as far as his work in the position in which he functions, I feel that he is really sorely lacking. People who put themselves into the public eye accept accountability for how well they do what they do and must deal with the bad along with the good.

          Anderson Copper, as far as I can tell doesn’t really have much of a personality and never comes across as if he cares about the subjects he reports on. I have never found any or his interviews or reports to be well done or informative. He appears to me to be simply another talking head and one who spews the lines of his masters in order to manipulate those who listen to him. Growing up with journalists like David Halberstam and Dan Rather reporting on the Vietnam War spoiled us to be sure. Perhaps our standards are too lofty today for those who we might consider trustworthy for what we call news and information.

          • Bill7 August 4, 2018 at 9:18 pm #

            I think Anderson Cooper comes off as trusted and authoritative to the complacent and comfortable NPR-tote-bag class.

  4. Georges1202 August 3, 2018 at 9:50 am #

    Putin must get down on is hands and knees every day that the US was distracted enough to elevate an ignorant con-man to the White House. Obama was far too smart to be properly pliable, but the dull-normal Trump allows his most base emotions loose for all to see,

    Exciting times ahead in this the most fabulous of all possible times.

    P.S. – How about a giant Atta Boy! to Steve Mucnhkin (the Foreclosure King) coming up with yet another backdoor handout to the rich. These fuckers never rest, do they?

    • ccm989 August 3, 2018 at 10:38 am #

      Nope, their evil is 24/7/365

  5. JMR August 3, 2018 at 9:51 am #

    Trump has initiated peace talks with North Korea, Afghanistan, Russia and has de-escalated Syria. He’s now in the initial phases of negotiating with Iran. Say what you will about the man, but no other president in recent history has made such inroads toward peace. Yes he is still responsible for the mayhem continuing in many countries, especially Yemen, but I believe all of this will end in due time if he has his way. That’s why the deep state and their lapdogs the media are so shrill. No enemies means no purpose and no purpose may, just maybe lead to many of them losing their jobs.

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    • Ishabaka August 3, 2018 at 10:24 am #

      Bingo. As oafish as he may sometimes seem, Trump is the peace president, which is why the military/industrial/espionage complex hates him.

      • Georges1202 August 3, 2018 at 10:34 am #

        The peace president – as if that baboon has any idea how to deal with difficult actors ion the world stage.

        • libertysghost August 3, 2018 at 1:34 pm #

          You really have no ability to be objective…good to know. You would prefer someone “far too smart” like Obama even if he bombed nations for sport it seemed, sacking Libya and attempting the same in Syria causing misery for countless millions. At least he’s “smart”, right?

          Sanctimony and ego such as yours is what created these fires in the first place…and you pretend to understand the “ID” while showing all of us your complete ‘inability’ to self-reflect? Curious how you think these arguments could work.

          • 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 1:52 pm #

            Never mind Sea-dolt, a manic obsessive of Trump.

          • JustSaying August 3, 2018 at 2:28 pm #

            Obama, isn’t he the person who overthrew Libya, Ukraine, and Syria?

            And the person who didn’t jail one single crook who was responsible for the 2008 financial crisis? And the person who transferred all the middle class wealth to the super rich?

            That person? President Drone?

      • RobH August 3, 2018 at 10:36 am #

        Trump’s external behaviour of hatred and fury could cover a ‘softie’ underneath; his shadow personality could be the loving one

        The primary danger of being that way is that someone dangerous believes what you say

        The second danger is that the majority of the employees of the state are – like the working class in factories – just doing their jobs making the country work. It’s quite a select few in power on both sides. So what Trump is doing is setting a large group of honest workers in both sectors against each other. That’s just sowing conflict in society; it’s wrong, and it’s purposeful

        • Georges1202 August 3, 2018 at 10:46 am #

          Never ever can I accept that this putz could engineer anything so subtle. He is pure ID – this horrid American Thing that is devouring the planet.

          • JMR August 3, 2018 at 11:28 am #

            How is he devouring the planet? If you’re paying attention, and not to the MSM, because you’ll never hear a positive thing out of them about Trump, you’ll see that he is undoing the quagmires that the past two presidents have gotten us into. First president to ever sit down and talk to a N Korean leader face to face. He’s negotiating with the Taliban to end the wreck of a war in Afghanistan. He’s cooperating with Russia on ending the conflict in Syria. It’s going to take time, but he’s actually accomplished more in less than 2 years than the past several presidents combined.

            And he’s doing things differently than any president in the past has because it’s pretty obvious that those methods led to nothing but failure and endless wars. And referring to your first comment, he obviously does have an idea how to deal with these “difficult actors” or he wouldn’t be making the inroads he has. It’s his predecessors who had no idea how to deal with them.

          • hmuller August 3, 2018 at 12:03 pm #

            So true, JMR. The chest beating and poo flinging is the endearing part of Trump’s primate diplomacy. But it works; so what the hell. We’re all just monkeys on this bus.

          • Georges1202 August 3, 2018 at 12:34 pm #

            Talk about the age of Diminished Expectations. We’re now in the ‘whatever works’ phase of the decline of the US. Forget about electing leaders with some measure of decorum or background in politics. We’ve inserted an ignorant buffoon on the strength(?) of his failed ‘brand’

            Trump is an insult to serious people with years of dedicated service. But, that is what ‘works’ now. What a fucking nightmare.

          • Tude August 3, 2018 at 12:54 pm #

            Yes Georges1202, heaven forbid we do what actually works when “decorum” isn’t involved. It’s certainly much better to kill and maim and destroy innocent people and countries with style than to have a “thug” create peace.

          • Georges1202 August 3, 2018 at 1:44 pm #

            Here in Europe we are still reeling from this ridiculous Godzilla and his idiotic entourage. Everyone I talk to is simply aghast that America has fallen so far as to allow such an obvious fool to represent their country. I hardly know what to say anymore. What excuses can I make? The inmates have taken over the asylum.

            The Trump administration is like watching a dog get run over by a bus every day. You want to look away – stuff wax in you ears. Every day it gets worse.

            I am so very glad to have gotten out of the US when that shithead was elected.

          • 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 1:56 pm #

            Sea-dolt is a low intellect voter.
            It’s all about charisma and cult of personality for these dimwits of the DNC.

            They need the aura, affectations, the theater.

            They can reconcile the lies better.

            Diminished cognitive dissonance for their easily taxed brains.

          • JustSaying August 3, 2018 at 2:32 pm #

            This started WAY before The Trumpster! He is just the logical conclusion of Pox Americana.

          • JustSaying August 3, 2018 at 2:34 pm #

            I love it when the Europeans lecture us – like their hands are clean.

          • 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 2:51 pm #

            He isn’t European, nor a serious person.

            His current iteration, persona, or role is that of some expat in Switzerland.

            Same non-sequiturs, same nonsense, new nom de plume

          • BornToKillPeace August 5, 2018 at 7:10 pm #

            “Talk about the age of Diminished Expectations. We’re now in the ‘whatever works’ phase of the decline of the US.” Forget about electing leaders with some measure of decorum or background in politics.”

            “Trump is an insult to serious people with years of dedicated service. But, that is what ‘works’ now. What a fucking nightmare.”

            We are now in the “whatever works” phase because the serious people with years of dedicated decorum screwed us into the ground and this is where it led us. How is that so hard to understand? Oh, you up and left for the wealthiest country in the world on some class privilege of one sort of another and are aghast that an epileptic grandma who probably traffics children wasn’t voted in by the quarter of the population she labeled deplorable.

            But…decorum. I heard those Podesta brothers have some fine decorum. Maybe you can meet up with them in the Swiss Confederation and talk aesthetics.

          • BornToKillPeace August 5, 2018 at 7:44 pm #

            Besides, you’re missing the reading of the reason for decorum in society. It serves as a mechanism of functionary dealing between the owner/upper classes and working/lower classes. The owner and upper classes rise the lower classes up by in their etiquette and aristocratic virtues and we attempt to mirror them in our own homelier customs, family traditions, and hard work.

            The upper classes have done the opposite for too long now, berating our homeliness (deplorable = might as well call us savages), putting policies and philosophies forth to destroy the family (our mainline of keeping it together) through globalization and out sourcing,destroying our communities. It all has become to obvious. Yes – and this is the key. We are savages – and we will also become the curse onto yourselves, as we are the canaries in the coal mine. Many of us are aware of this order of things, maybe more so than the upper classes. With great decorum arises great responsibility.

        • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 1:42 pm #

          Yes, he is too soft. His daughter just shat on him publicly when she said the media isn’t the enemy of America when it so obviously is. He needs to get rid of her and Jared and replace them with loyal people. But he won’t.

          • JMR August 3, 2018 at 2:05 pm #

            Georges1202 I suppose everything would have been fine and dandy in Europe if Hillary had been elected. Oh wait, no we’d probably be in a shooting war with Russia and Iran by now, so never mind.

          • 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 3:02 pm #

            Some reason deleted, but it’s because she’s hot.
            The face of the brand.

            She also said the separating of children from their human traffickers was a low point.

            This is why you never hire children. Give them shares, a figurehead role, but not the reins.

            She still needs to make dinner reservations in uptown after all. What’s a gal to do?

      • NRWer August 7, 2018 at 4:16 pm #

        Indeed he is. In terms of policy, we have a new JFK in office.

        One of the reasons I left the US for Europe was to get away from a culture I no longer identified with, but much of it was driven by politics, our imperialistic military adventures, and our ghoulish corporate press.

        We now have a socially compassionate, anti-imperialist, and anti-globalist in office. If successful in bringing down the Uniparty neocon/neolib cabal, Trump will go down as a folk hero.

    • TiredOfTheTreadmill August 4, 2018 at 12:34 am #

      Any chance that it’s the deep state itself making these inroads to peace? Perhaps they know they have an idiot with the emotional maturity of a 15 year old in charge of the country and they want a controlled burn with this dumpster fire administration instead of a flash fry. If we’re going to dream up all this deep state conspiracy stuff, let’s consider all angles.

  6. hmuller August 3, 2018 at 9:52 am #

    The Military Industrial Complex and Intelligence Community is selling “protection”, just as surely as Vito Corleone. Their lackeys in the MSM are there to convince us we really need this “protection” and the world is full of people who want to kill us. (Forget for the moment how many of these terrorists are actually funded by our own deep state.)

    But even if you don’t buy their bogeyman narratives any longer; you’ll buy their “protection” because they know where you live. They know everything about you. Capiche?

    • Wxtwxtr August 3, 2018 at 10:13 am #

      So if “the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their true names”, why don’t we end a Century of Deceit and call it as it is – The Blackmail State? Since most of the Euro and NorthAm “leaders” seem to be making laws and defending positions OPPOSITE of what they were elected for. Kinda makes one wonder. Makes you wanna go “Hmmmmmmmm”.

    • tahoe1780 August 3, 2018 at 10:27 am #

      Its just business.

      “our allies are required to have equipment that meets our specifications”

      Now, if only we could get them to increase their NATO budgets…

      https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/07/24/the-all-pervasive-military-security-complex/

      • ozone August 3, 2018 at 11:35 am #

        tahoe,
        Thanks for re-posting that article, it’s very instructive in outlining how the disease of the war-making industry has insinuated itself into every state in the nation and some surprising enterprises that one would NEVER suspect to be the willing pawns of it. Revealing — and that’s exactly what’s needed to make some of our decisions these darkening days.

        To readers who still retain a smidge of give-a-shit, the article is by Professor Joan Roelofs and the preamble is by PCR. It may be long, but it’s well worth the reading; the valuable research has been done for you.

    • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 10:28 am #

      hmuller

      The gov mafia is not selling you protection, they’re selling selling you distractions from the fact that they sold you to China. The fact that they are still selling anything to anyone is a testament to the idiocy that keeps them and their business alive. These scum were morally bankrupt long ago and their financial bankruptcy should have also followed long ago.

  7. KK August 3, 2018 at 9:53 am #

    A quote attributed to Napoleon, “Never Interfere With an Enemy While He’s in the Process of Destroying Himself.”

    • bibliomaniac August 3, 2018 at 10:28 am #

      Excellent point, KK. but despite the fact that we are gagging on our own hysteria, we can’t afford to be gullible. Whom do we trust? How do we form opinions if we can’t trust ANY of the media? How many of us (me included) can discern fact from fiction, and what does it take to evaluate what you see and hear critically? Are any of us rational, or are we all just blind hogs?

    • Georges1202 August 3, 2018 at 12:38 pm #

      Pogo approved

      • Doc Holliday August 3, 2018 at 2:34 pm #

        Georges1202, you left the U.S. for Europe? How unfortunate for us Americans. Curiously, which country did you move to that is so much better than the U.S.? And, curiously again, how is their economy doing??

        • elysianfield August 3, 2018 at 8:23 pm #

          Doc,
          He is not Cherman…he is Sviss….

        • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 10:40 am #

          ” Curiously, which country did you move to that is so much better than the U.S.? And, curiously again, how is their economy doing?”

          I haven’t moved, apart from within Europe, but the second graph down on this page…

          https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/news/Brexit

          … will show you a comparison of the growth of real disposable household income by decile between the US and the UK, from 1974 to 2010/2013. It’s quite something, isn’t it?

          The rise in the UK, of course, corresponds to the years from when the UK joined the Common Market/EU, so you’ll no doubt be happy to see it go sharply into reverse with Brexit, as even the Brexit leaders now finally concede.

          • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 1:42 pm #

            Not that it changes anything in terms of the coming Long Emergency, of course, but credit where credit’s due in the meantime.

            Although we’ve both got a lot of ‘credit due’ as well 🙂 .

            About £1.78 trillion in our case.

  8. Tooz August 3, 2018 at 10:14 am #

    I’m still a Never Trumper, but it was enormously satisfying to watch Jim Acosta get bitch-slapped by Sarah Sanders yesterday.

  9. FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 10:15 am #

    After looking at American “bright representative” of foreign policy establishment Max Boot (former Russian), I can’t help thinking that the courses of Political Science and Foreign Relationships in premier American universities begin with lobotomy.

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 10:47 am #

      Both the name and the visage – never mind the ideas – are comical. Only in America could such a dipshit be listened to.

      • JustSaying August 3, 2018 at 2:36 pm #

        How true!

        • 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 3:51 pm #

          It’s the comic epoch.

          Have you visited your local cineplexamovieatorium lately?

          Neither have I

          $9 popcorns and Spider-Man Vs. Antwoman Part 19: Annhilation

          • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 5:59 pm #

            The Superhero epidemic is… fascinating, I guess you could say. I guess the little bastards have to believe in something!

          • 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 7:32 pm #

            No Woody Allen film this summer.
            Does anyone else make these kind of films anymore?

            All the arthouse film fare I see promoted these days is somber and brooding.

            Nah, can’t have fun anymore.

            Woodrow is another perv or so they say.
            He was MeTwo’d.

          • elysianfield August 3, 2018 at 8:27 pm #

            “Does anyone else make these kind of films anymore?”

            Avatar,

            If you mean clever and entertaining…try anything by the Cohen Bros.

  10. RobH August 3, 2018 at 10:41 am #

    Computers are a bad way to count votes. Paper is much better

    Like a lot of things, the old robust, traceable systems are dropped for efficiency and economy

    Electronic voter booth is like online gambling; where’s there any evidence it ever pays out apart from that little ‘teaser win’

    Conspiracy is always a deep seam to mine in journalism

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    • tahoe1780 August 3, 2018 at 11:51 am #

      Here in Oregon we vote via mail. Ballots are sent to a registered address. You can mail them in or drop them in a designated mail box at a library. The postal service knows who lives where and delivers ballots only to those on its list. The ballots are paper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by-mail_in_Oregon

    • JustSaying August 3, 2018 at 2:50 pm #

      Optical scanners count paper ballots and can be recounted. The votes are tallied by software which is downloaded to the box prior to an election. The tallies are stored on a usb stick and transported to a county tabulation center. There is potential to manipulate the software during the download, but every district has a single box, so that’s a lot of boxes.

      They are not connected to the internet unlike the direct recording machines that can be easily hacked. Most states are moving to the optical scanners.

      I heard the NPR interview on my way to work and it was hysterical as usual. Their definition of “hacking” is really “phishing” which occurs constantly in the internet age.

      • elysianfield August 3, 2018 at 8:30 pm #

        Just saying,
        Well, we live in Oregon, and my wife is hired by the elections department every election to help hand count ballots, no optical scanners in Coos Bay.

        …Just sayin….

  11. volodya August 3, 2018 at 10:45 am #

    Napoleon via KK: “never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.”

    I suppose that would be good advice for the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, just to name a few. Oh yeah, and the Taliban. Don’t interfere with Americans while they’re in the process of destroying themselves. Sit back, let things play out. Above all, avoid military action, avoid provocation, speak quietly, don’t do anything that would make Americans rally round the flag.

  12. janet August 3, 2018 at 10:45 am #

    “But is the Deep State ready to start a world war just to shove him offstage?” –JHK

    No, not a world war, just simple civil defense. What the “deep state” … aka civil service … is trying to do is prevent Russia from a critical infrastructure attack, prevent Russia from being able to turn off our lights, turn off cooling at nuclear power plants, aviation, manufacturing, etc.

    This is right up apocalypse alley. JHK is defending Putin, distracting by saying it’s no big deal (it was just a few Facebook posts). JHK is enabling Putin to deliver the final blow, making “we will bury you” seem quaint by comparison. Light it up, indeed!

    Meanwhile, fortunately, the “deep state” is ignoring Trump and going about defending the nation. Oh, and Congress chimed in with a 98-0 UNANIMOUS VOTE to defend the nation. The people won’t be far behind when the Democrats take both houses in November.

    “Since at least March 2016, Russian government cyber actors—hereafter referred to as “threat actors”—targeted government entities and multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors.

    Analysis by DHS and FBI, resulted in the identification of distinct indicators and behaviors related to this activity. Of note, the report Dragonfly: Western energy sector targeted by sophisticated attack group, released by Symantec on September 6, 2017, provides additional information about this ongoing campaign.

    This campaign comprises two distinct categories of victims: staging and intended targets. The initial victims are peripheral organizations such as trusted third-party suppliers with less secure networks, referred to as “staging targets” throughout this alert. The threat actors used the staging targets’ networks as pivot points and malware repositories when targeting their final intended victims. NCCIC and FBI judge the ultimate objective of the actors is to compromise organizational networks, also referred to as the “intended target.”

    https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A

    • Petro August 3, 2018 at 10:57 am #

      Janet, you’re wasting your breath here. No one on this site wants to balance their combination of healthy scepticism & paranoid delusions with an honest, detailed look at overwhelming counter evidence. Give Kunstler another month, and he’ll be claiming EVERYONE is part of the “Deep State” except Trump and himself, ha ha.

      • janet August 3, 2018 at 11:25 am #

        “Janet, you’re wasting your breath here.” –Petro

        Thanks, Petro. I am a patriot. I believe in defending the nation.

        No one, not even skeptics and conspiracy theorists… no one wants to lose their phone service, their internet service, their electricity, heat, water, their transportation infrastructure, etc.

        As patriots we are all in this together. Putin is not our friend.

        Kunstler has already jumped the shark… but rational minds still have a chance to provide counterbalance and defend the nation.

        • hmuller August 3, 2018 at 6:42 pm #

          Janet, I retired from Military Intelligence. It may come as a complete surprise to you, but we develop contingency plans to attack, disrupt, and otherwise terrorize every nation on earth. That doesn’t mean we seriously plan to carry out every contingency plan, but it’s always nice to have them ready.

          Of course, the Russians and Chinese have developed elaborate contingency war plans against the US. That’s the nature of the geopolitical game. Maybe defusing tensions rather than whipping up hysteria would be a better way to avoid war.

          But you hate Trump so much, you want a war to blame on him. At least, that’s the impression I get from the primal scream ladies in full sized pink vagina costumes. (Admit it, you own one of those.)

          The fear that the Russians are going to stuff ballot boxes under the nose of forces like the Cook County Democratic machine is ludicrous. You want to stop election interference by foreigners, require voter ID. Oops, there goes the illegal alien vote for your side.

    • James Howard Kunstler August 3, 2018 at 11:50 am #

      It’s inconceivable that we are not making exactly the same plans to disrupt other nations’ infrastructure. This is boilerplate cyberwar that all nations are developing. We are not being singled out. It’s an issue extrinsic to the story of alleged Russian meddling in our election.– JHK

      • JMR August 3, 2018 at 12:20 pm #

        I wouldn’t be surprised if the US does this more than any other country both overtly and covertly. As you have pointed out over and over, this just happens to be a convenient way to attack Trump, all hypocrisy aside.

      • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 12:41 pm #

        Full Spectrum Dominance, as the boys at the five sided spaceship on the Potomac have taken to calling it.

      • JustSaying August 3, 2018 at 3:05 pm #

        The Chinese hacked 4 million OMB accounts in 2015. I think this was a warm-up exercise. The Chinese build most of the motherboards on the planet. It’s so easy to place a monitoring chip on a board.

        Does anybody doubt for one second that the NSA/CIA/DOD/etc. is not doing the same? This is the history of the planet.

      • Paulo August 3, 2018 at 4:11 pm #

        True enough. Add on the Iran ’53, Allende/Chile, and about 58 others. Crooks and dupes on both sides.

        The fact that the US is an evil meddler does not take away the fact that Russia is the same.

        The US is in the process of collapsing. I expect to see Natl Guard deployed to tamp down riots. Hopefully, an economic collapse will usher Trump out the door…..just so we don’t have to see his sneering face, and ugly goofy hair anymore. What a freaking buffoon.

        https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/americas-long-history-of-meddling-in-other-countries-elections

        • 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 7:38 pm #

          Does anyone, anyone read Chomsky anymore?

          He’s been saying this for years.

          The US practices do unto others what you will not allow done to you.

          Hypocrisy of an obscene order.

      • Tate August 3, 2018 at 11:12 pm #

        “It’s inconceivable that we are not making exactly the same plans to disrupt other nations’ infrastructure.” — JHK

        Oh, it’s conceivable. The U.S. is, after all, if not the light of the nations, at least its golem. The U.S. will do as it’s told. If the U.S. so-called IC is infiltrated with those who serve foreign interests, in what sense is it “making plans to disrupt other nations’ infrastructure?”

        Only in the sense that a patsy “makes plans.” And if it, or its string-pullers, also needs to find scapegoats, it can find them in abundant domestic supply, as well as select foreign issues.

  13. ccm989 August 3, 2018 at 10:46 am #

    The US is becoming a strange and radical place. Arthur Jones, a neo-Nazi is running as the 2018 Republican candidate in Illinois. He denies the holocaust ever took place. Alex Jones is taken seriously enough that some idiot goes to a pizza joint with a gun to kill imaginary child molesters. Did this same idiot go to the detention camps to rescue the missing Latino children (my guess, probably no).

    Next we have CODY WILSON, a self-proclaimed ANARCHIST — he want to burn down cities, towns, parks, schools and libraries so anarchy can rule. He wants us to kill each other. No thanks, Cody. Most of us actually DO believe in the Rule of Law. We like having cops and the military and a democratically elected government in the US.

    And lastly we have Donald Trump, the ultimate troll, telling us not to believe what we see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears. I don’t know about anybody else, but I do fact check the media. And I find that news organizations that win Pultizer Prizes for news reporting like the NYT, the WSJ and WaPo are still reliable. Alex Jones continues to spout out crazy crap without repercussion.

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 11:03 am #

      The US media is a closed loop system. “Fact checking” within such a system is inherently problematic, as it’s essentially an echo chamber echoing previously agreed upon “truths.” Alternative voices, although many are crazily wrong (often purposely so, as disinformation / gaslighting is an even more powerful weapon), are thus easily dismissed among the cognitively biased and insecure.

      I’ve found that the only thread of truth running through it all is that whatever comes out of the mainstream, corporately owned, mass media, is either obvious propaganda (America uber alles!), cleverly concealed spin (a mix of truth and lies to disorient the consumer), or gaslighting (posing as the opposition and making outrageous claims to discredit them). Actual “truth” is nowhere to be found these days, assuming the average Joe could even discern it if it was presented.

      The marketing of the “American Nightmare” has been unfolding for well over one hundred years now, and credit where credit is due, it’s proven amazingly effective, although significant numbers of us are now beginning to see through the veneer.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 1:47 pm #

      Yes, in Washington, a young Republican stood up and said White have rights, the same rights as other peoples. The woman who invited him to speak has been destroyed and now operatives are searching for anyone else involved so they can be too.

      Why can’t everyone be good and decent like you?

  14. 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 10:50 am #

    Excellent post today.
    The description of the deep-state is spot on.

    It’s not some conspiratorial talk of Illuminati bogeymen.

    It’s the banality of bureaucracy: the fight for growth, funding, overreach, mission-creep, expansion.

  15. K-Dog August 3, 2018 at 10:59 am #

    Light it up.

    K-Dog loads a dab on the hot nail and takes a deep draw off his bong. Caugh cough, oh yeah, cough, eyah.

    OK, now I have a theory. The deep state does not give two shits about CNN standing by with two Jerry cans of gas. the Deep State does not have to start any world war to shove Tump offstage. They can deal with CNN anytime they want to and CNN won’t even wimper.

    But why would the deep state want to get rid of Trump? He will let them do anything they want. Just not to him.

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    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 11:20 am #

      K-Dog loads a dab on the hot nail and takes a deep draw off his bong. Caugh cough, oh yeah, cough, eyah.

      You’ve been hanging with Finca, I see. Bad dog! It’ll make your fur fall out!

      • K-Dog August 3, 2018 at 11:42 am #

        Ahhhh, so that’s how he gets his long stream of consciousness journey’s going. Something had to be pushing all those disconnected facts from the 15th century together. Caugh cough, Now I know what.

        • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 12:38 pm #

          That’s life down on the Finca!

  16. lbs August 3, 2018 at 11:01 am #

    Stephen Cohen, a rare voice of sanity from the left,debating tho goons who said it was unpatriotic to disagree with the Iraq war, said goons now part of the MSLSD axis of evil. And yes, progressives, the Koch Brothers are now allied with you as well. The stench of the left becomes ever more putrid.

    • chipshot August 3, 2018 at 11:10 am #

      lbs–The Democratic Party is not left. Progressives are, and the Koch Bros are far from allies of them. Although unintentionally w their recent study showing medicare for all to be less expensive than our current healthcare system, they have become an ally w regards to that.

  17. gregor August 3, 2018 at 11:03 am #

    If Americans are fearful of foreign state intervention into US politics and elections, I’d advise them to look toward Israel as the source of the greatest threat to the US. Those bastards have been milking us dry for a long time, getting us to fight proxy wars for them an destabilizing much of the Middle East and Africa. I’d rather see our purchased public officials protect the US from Israel than Russia.

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 11:23 am #

      Whoo doggie! Talk about your can of worms! Better watch out. I hear they recently passed a law to prevent that kind of talk.

    • 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 12:01 pm #

      Gregor, the US is a war state. It’s what they do. They excel at it. As a war state, they get war customers.
      As petro states get customers
      As coffee states get customers
      As manufacturing states get customers

      Don’t hate the customers.
      Hate what you’re selling

      • Tate August 3, 2018 at 5:31 pm #

        As opinion-making states get customers.

        So we should hate those states that sell us our opinions?

        Judged by dollars spent, that wouldn’t be Russia. It would seem, as Gregor informs us, that would be Israel.

  18. PeteAtomic August 3, 2018 at 11:06 am #

    This is such a bizarre time. I wouldn’t have believed, pre Trump, that the Left would become such a forceful champion of the permanent bureaucracy, military generals, and the 17 intelligence agencies. How can you support the neo imperial apparatus (the same people who executed Vietnam & Iraq) but also operate in the sjw sphere of structural racism & ‘ white privilege ‘?

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 11:13 am #

      Votes. They know that most voters are too stupid to appreciate the irony.

    • K-Dog August 3, 2018 at 11:34 am #

      They will fight for the right to p-a-r-t-a-y! What’s to understand?

    • JMR August 3, 2018 at 11:36 am #

      They are now going to support the Mullahs of Iran if there’s any kind of conflict between the Mullahs and Trump. That is until Trump and Iran come to some sort of agreement/deal, then the left will be vilifying Trump as a traitor for talking to “the enemy.”

    • ozone August 3, 2018 at 12:16 pm #

      PeteA,
      That would be the prime indicator that something in the narrative is critically amiss! Siding with serial, professional liars is not in anyone’s best interest — except other serial professional liars. Take the Neo-cons and members of CFR, just for one glaring example.

      Hey, if you can’t blind ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 1:52 pm #

      You mean after Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, etc – you still had illusions? Oh Pete….

      Ozone’s name is Pete too. He was a good kid but fell in with a bad crowd. Add to that bad music, Howard Zinn and voila, the damage is done. In its own way, these are just as dangerous as gay sex and drugs.

      • ozone August 3, 2018 at 7:45 pm #

        Just because vladdie’s a flaming asshole does not mean that he is obliged to prove it -Every -God-damn -Day. (Unless there happens to be something more than just an extreme case of misanthropy and sadism. Ohh, okay then.)

        Enough, he knows only what his masters *are told* (via the intertubes) they know (or manufacture for the sake of inflammatory distraction) about me. Bullshit is as bullshit does. When he gets out in the streets and starts gunning down brown folk, then we’ll know he’s “the genuine article”. Til then, the rifle range will have to suffice… though I think that he’s not very proficient there, thus the present “job”. Well done, Private! Carry on!

        By the way, I’d like some evidence of this “bad music” that I either make or have been personally “influenced” by and the Howard Zinn epics that it’s absolutely known that I have read, listened to, etc. This constant smearing and pitting all against all is part of what has helped to destroy this country, and there will be a fearful reckoning. Mark me.

        • ozone August 3, 2018 at 7:51 pm #

          (This has all gone much farther than a sneering, sniggering comic relief, in case no one had guessed by Kunstler’s bi-weekly missives. There’s a danger unexamined here. I will not be provoked; others will.)

        • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 9:13 pm #

          You constantly smear the character of ordinary Americans – like all Leftists and Anarchists. And you constantly fantasize about me in a negative way. So turnabout is fair play, EH?

          Are you denying that Howard Zinn has had a huge influence?

          Don’t hold you breath, he won’t answer. That would be having a dialogue – and he only does that with people he already agrees with about everything. Or if not (as say with Walter), the conversation is very narrow and to the point, trusting in the politeness of Walter in other words. He hates disagreement and debate – yet it is the American Way. So in what sense is he an American?

  19. darrell dullnig August 3, 2018 at 11:16 am #

    A

  20. chipshot August 3, 2018 at 11:18 am #

    It’s absurd to claim Russia influenced the election, given a handful of billionaires (such as S Adelson, R Mercer, Koch Bros) spent billions and considering the influence of Fox, owned by Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch along w Saudi Arabia (minority owners).

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  21. PeteAtomic August 3, 2018 at 11:20 am #

    The Qanon phenomenon is interesting. I don’t know what to think of it. I don’t know if Q is a hoax, the ravings of an intelligent paranoid schizophrenic, or the real deal. The msm reaction recently however, is the real deal. Dozens of anti Q articles, seemingly published in a concerted effort in major news outlets, were out out within 24 hours of each other. These articles often sound similar to each other. If Q is nonsense, why such a massive, directed effort to paint Q as dangerous? I find it inexplicable, unless Q really is putting some truths out. I don’t know.

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 11:26 am #

      I haven’t read any of it personally so don’t really have an opinion on it one way or the other, but I read an article claiming that it was most likely gaslighting. What’s the gist of it? The stuff I saw quoted seemed pretty esoteric to me.

    • FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 12:43 pm #

      The Qanon phenomenon is quite understandable reaction of American people to rationalize the objective reality given to us in distorted sensations produced by Mainstream Media.

      That’s what people always do – when the things stop making sense, they go to myth-making.

  22. messianicdruid August 3, 2018 at 11:42 am #

    “…and devotes too much of its budget and influence defending its own prerogatives rather than the interests of the nation.”

    I would consider it a public service to begin two lists identifying each of the latter, with specifics.

  23. messianicdruid August 3, 2018 at 11:48 am #

    “If you have a better one, let’s hear it?”

    “The wicked flee when no one pursueth”

    Not necessarily better, but coincidental.

  24. Luhrenloup August 3, 2018 at 11:54 am #

    While watching the clip from Trump’s Florida rally where the crowd is turning on the MSM and CNN’s Acosta, it occurred to me that the crowd, which did not appear to be part of the smart set, that what offends these people more than any of the political statements made by the MSM is the excessive and corrosive disrespect they show to the president, to the presidency.
    It is an affront to the fragile belief system that holds these people locked in to an oppressive order that despises them, that uses and discards them at will. To question the presidency is to expose the falsehood of their lives, the cruelty that deprives them of the dignity of their personhood.

    • ozone August 3, 2018 at 11:59 am #

      Luhrenloup,
      That’s an important factor/perspective to remember.

    • malthuss August 3, 2018 at 12:21 pm #

      expose the falsehood of their lives–

      Me, I d rather see YOU expose the falsehood of YOUR life.

      Im waiting.

      • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 1:54 pm #

        Thank you. The arrogance of these leftist posters as they diagnose others with exactly the disease they are suffering from.

      • Luhrenloup August 3, 2018 at 4:56 pm #

        Good question, Malthus. Glad to oblige.
        You and Janos seem to be of the impression that I place myself above the people I spoke of. I am not, and neither are you, finances and education aside.
        It is no great mystery that many people — disadvantaged, are having a bad time these days. Close to a million people lost their homes in the 2008 recession, went bankrupt, that 40 million people presently live in poverty. These are difficult times for working class Americans.
        I am not looking down at them, I am acknowledging them. It is ok to be poor, to be uneducated, it is even ok to be dumb. Been there, done that.
        Yes, such a class exists, to ignore that is to be truly arrogant. Am I part of that class? No, I am not, but we do share some things in common — “If you prick us,do we not bleed?” I like them am having strong feelings about our country’s upheaval, but we have different values. I am not liberal, conservative, democrat, republican, I don’t even vote. Government and its operation, is a game, sort of like football, that we watch and root for one team or another, one idea or other, but we are not players we are the audience. The anointed players call the shots. Some in the audience, depending on their position in society, their value to it, their ability to contribute to the propagation of the games have a harder time of it than others, especially when they discover they were tricked and they’re screwed.
        I note these things and empathize.

        • hmuller August 3, 2018 at 7:09 pm #

          Good answer, Luhrenloup. I agree it’s not so much that people are head over heels in love with Trump. It’s that they finally found a President who will stand up to the elitist, globalist Oligarchs, the swamp creatures of NY and DC who have f***ed the American people up the ass for too long and in more ways than can be summed up here.

          • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 12:25 pm #

            So when Trump gets his clothing products made in China, Mexico, Honduras, Indonesia, Guatemala or Bangladesh, who is he ‘f***ing up the ass’ other than the American workers who vote for him?

            It’s not as if the margins are tight – these aren’t clothes for the poor – they’re items ordinary American workers mostly couldn’t afford. So we’re just talking about greed. And f***ing American workers. Because no-one in the US is going to work for the 30 cents an hour he pays the Bangladeshis ($1.30 in Honduras was too much, so they moved the contracts).

            At best I could only see him taking on swamp creatures in a ‘takes one to know one’ context.

          • hmuller August 4, 2018 at 8:12 pm #

            Green Alba, have you been in Trump’s underwear and sock drawers, reading clothing labels? How do you know where his briefs are made?

            While I sympathize with the underpaid textile workers of the world, this goes beyond that to many issues where I doubt we’ll agree. Some examples;

            1) The 9-11 attack and other false flag terrorism organized by those-who-may-not-be-named,
            2) Chem-trail spraying,
            3) The deliberate contamination of our food, water, air, and vaccines to decrease fertility,
            4) Promoting pedophilia, sexual perversions and gender confusion,
            5) Propaganda and lies by the MSM to promote the globalist, Marxist cultural agenda,
            6) Oppression of freedoms across the board in the name of Orwellian UN agendas,
            7) Destruction of privacy and 24/7 surveillance of the people by government agencies,
            8) Unending wars promoted by those who profit from them,
            9) A banking and financial system which has become a ‘protected cancer’ sucking the life out of the working and productive sectors,
            10) Silicon valley moguls who want to regulate my free speech on the internet.

            I could go on all day listing things that piss me off. (By the way over here “pissed off” means angry not drunk)

            In short I value freedom. I hate being a slave. You may feel differently, that’s your choice.

          • hmuller August 5, 2018 at 9:44 am #

            Another thing Green Alba, you imply Trump is the textile mogul of the third world, deciding what Bangladeshi workers will be paid. This is news to me. I thought he was a hotel and casino mogul.

            Or perhaps you mean that because Trump is President of the United States that make him responsible for every low wage, no benefits, dirty job on earth. Did you hold Obama to such a standard? Did the Bangladeshi’s earn more when he was President?

            Maybe Trump will turn out to be a disappointment in battling the evil cabal which has long ruled this planet. We who have awoken are not a cult of personality devoted to Trump; our loyalty is to ideas.

          • GreenAlba August 5, 2018 at 11:06 am #

            “Or perhaps you mean that because Trump is President of the United States that make him responsible for every low wage, no benefits, dirty job on earth.”

            No, just the ones in his own factories. For which he is utterly responsible with no get-outs because he’s the master of the deal. Although I’m very used to right-wing people only understanding personal responsibility in very selective areas.

            By the way, talking of your free speech rights, here are some right-wingers protecting free speech in London. It’s not quite 1930s Nazi book burning yet, but I suppose they have to start somewhere.

            https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/05/far-right-protesters-ransack-socialist-bookshop-bookmarks-in-london

          • GreenAlba August 5, 2018 at 11:50 am #

            When I say ‘his own factories’, I mean the businesses in e.g. Bangladesh with which Trump’s business negotiated contracts for his shirts, ties and cufflinks (which you can buy in Macy’s…) whereby the people making those shirts etc. were paid 30 cents an hour.

            No excuses. The buck stops with the boss.

        • GreenAlba August 5, 2018 at 10:56 am #

          hmuller

          You appear to have completely missed my point.

          I am not talking about what’s in Trump’s wardrobe. I’m talking about goods manufactured by Trump’s businesses which he chose to have made by foreign workers rather than by Americans.

          If that kind of hypocrisy and contempt for American workers doesn’t bother you, then it doesn’t bother you.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYoOPgeTMQc

          “Did you hold Obama to such a standard? “

          Well, clearly I would have if he’d been manufacturing goods abroad and telling workers at home that ‘the elite’ had sold them out by outsourcing their jobs. Jeez.

          • hmuller August 5, 2018 at 11:47 am #

            Green Alba, I was not aware Trump was directly involved in the import of foreign made clothing. The YouTube clip is from 2012, is he still doing it? I might point out that there’s nothing illegal about such business dealings, though it is hypocritical of him. He’s also an admitted adulterer.

            We’ve known all along that Trump was no holy man. I wish we could find someone more charismatic and pure to lead the fight for freedom against your beloved globalists!

            I hope you’re not blaming me for radical right wingers sacking a bookstore in London or suggesting that Silicon Valley moguls should have censorship privileges over any political talk they label “right wing” By that logic, the crimes and murders of Pol Pot and every left-wing dictator justify you being silenced.

          • GreenAlba August 5, 2018 at 12:13 pm #

            Of course there’s nothing illegal about outsourcing jobs. Colleagues of mine have had their (publishing) jobs outsourced to India. And what goes around comes around – the Brits trashed the Indian textile industry and took the jobs to the sweatshops of northern England using Indian cotton.

            I’m just saying Trump’s an appalling hypocrite and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could chuck him, let alone find him believable as a swamp drainer or friend of the ‘little guy’ (whom he has famously often neglected to even pay for services rendered).

            But people are also hypocrites who complain about jobs being outsourced when they don’t want to pay the price of the same products being produced in the US. We’re all hypocrites in some way, a lot of the time unintentionally, but we don’t all stand for president on an ‘I’m for the little guy’ ticket when we’ve been screwing the little guy to make our fortune.

            I pay little attention to the Russian electoral collusion nonsense but I don’t believe Trump’s hands are clean with regard to Russian financial deals and I don’t believe Putin has nothing on him, which is far more serious than notional meddling on Facebook or whatever.

            And no, I don’t blame you for some alt-right nutters attacking a book shop. I’m just sick of everyone ‘not right wing’ being blamed on here for all the ills of the earth – and particularly of America – so I gave you a bit of balance on the ‘free speech’ issue. Although I don’t know who, in particular, is limiting your own free speech. If you want to believe in chemtrails and people deliberately decreasing your fertility, no-one seems to be stopping you from saying that.

          • GreenAlba August 5, 2018 at 12:23 pm #

            BTW, what is your evidence for suggesting I’m a fan of the ‘globalists’? Leaving aside nuanced discussion on which aspects of ‘globalism’ you’re referring to…

          • hmuller August 5, 2018 at 8:35 pm #

            Green Alba, pro-globalist positions of yours include 1) being against BREXIT, 2) being in favor of millions of Moslems and Africans inundating Europe and overloading it’s social welfare support systems, 3) being pro-Paris Protocols.

            On the last point, when you excuse China from implementing serious pollution controls until the year 2030, it makes me doubt you’re a sincere environmentalist. The corporatist, globalist party line excuse you gave about China just getting started on industrial development and deserving a pass rings hollow.

            China has well over 3 trillion dollars in foreign currency reserves – mostly dollar and euro treasury bills just sitting there on a shelf earning pitifully little interest. Why can’t they spend just 10% of that money on pollution control. Have you seen the smog in Beijing – it’s lethal.

            2 relevent points
            – The Chinese et al. have the advantage of buying anti-pollution technology off the shelf which the USA & Europe spent much research money, time, and effort to develop in years past. The Chinese are reaping a bargain by not having to develop anything from scratch.
            – Pollution control is a game of diminishing returns. Let’s say you have a plant putting out 100 units of pollution per day. You spend one million dollars to eliminate the first 50%, one million to eliminate the next 20%, one million to eliminate the next 10%.

            While the USA and Europe are at the 80% mark striving at great cost to reach 90%; you excuse the Chinese from spending even the first million dollars to eliminate the first 50%. I’m not saying hold the Chinese to our standards right away, but do hold them to some reasonable standard.

            The international corporations polluting China just love getting a pass to do nothing. You are their globalist devotee if you give it to them. And you’re not doing the Chinese people any favors.

          • GreenAlba August 6, 2018 at 7:18 am #

            Green Alba, pro-globalist positions of yours include 1) being against BREXIT, 2) being in favor of millions of Moslems and Africans inundating Europe and overloading it’s social welfare support systems, 3) being pro-Paris Protocols.

            Americans have a tendency to be naïve about Brexit. Brexit is a globalist agenda, just a different globalist agenda. It’s about freeing businesses (many of which are global) from having to respect workers’ rights, environmental rights or health and safety regulations that are guaranteed while we are in the EU. It’s a race to the bottom. I’ve already explained that the holy grail of Brexit, for its leaders, is a trade deal with the US (Liam Fox and Theresa May have also already been grovelling to Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and India – Fox assuring Duterte that we have ‘shared values’ with his regime [not me, thanks – I prefer the rule of law] and May being told in no uncertain terms by the PM of India that a trade deal with his country will only happen if more visas are offered for Indian citizens to work in the UK.) We are already having to take more doctors from India because EU citizens no long want to work here since the Brexit vote. 10,000 staff from the EU have left the NHS since the vote and the number of nursing applications has decreased by 96%

            I have likewise explained to you that these trade deals will be negotiated in secret – I have signed at least three petitions to demand that they be made available for parliamentary scrutiny, but I can’t see that happening. I have further explained that a trade deal with the US will entail a loss of UK sovereignty – I hope I don’t need to explain the mechanism of this to you again. Multi-millionaire arch-Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg has asked the question ‘if these regulations are good enough for India why aren’t they good enough for the UK?’ Like I said, race to the bottom. And several of the Brexit leaders have interests in private healthcare companies and stand to gain fortunes for facilitating the asset stripping of the NHS by US healthcare corporations.

            I think where we disagree is on our definition of the globalist agenda. Mine is rather less narrow than yours, because I don’t see any of the above as anti-globalist. I see it as very much the opposite.

            I have never at any point defended large-scale immigration – anywhere. I have specifically said that I believe in strong borders (including for the US) and the right of every country to define its own immigration policy. However, I believe that we all have obligations to refugees, especially from regions which WE have destabilised (that would not only include the Middle East, but countries like Yemen where people are being killed by weapons sold by our two countries to the House of Saud). Asylum seekers are NOT all granted refugee status. In the UK, those who are granted such status are granted it for five years, pending a hoped-for improvement in their country of origin, after which their request is revisited. And if you think all asylum seekers arriving in Germany are granted refugee status, you are deceived.

            On the last point, when you excuse China from implementing serious pollution controls until the year 2030, it makes me doubt you’re a sincere environmentalist. The corporatist, globalist party line excuse you gave about China just getting started on industrial development and deserving a pass rings hollow.

            This is just you politicking, I’m afraid, it’s not an argument. And your politicking rings hollow. You are perfectly aware that the historical emissions that are causing most of the current warming have their origin in the countries that industrialised first and some of which now want to pull up the drawbridge. You are also aware, as I am, that a huge proportion of the goods made in China are consumed by the US, so the moral picture is muddied a little. If that industry is repatriated, the US will have to do even more to lower its own emissions (or refuse to bear its responsibility even more, as appropriate –and rather more likely).

            China has well over 3 trillion dollars in foreign currency reserves – mostly dollar and euro treasury bills just sitting there on a shelf earning pitifully little interest. Why can’t they spend just 10% of that money on pollution control. Have you seen the smog in Beijing – it’s lethal.
            https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/how-china-is-leading-the-renewable-energy-revolution
            “How China is leading the renewable energy revolution” .
            I could waste space quoting from the article but it’s clear as day and you can read it yourself, while reminding yourself of the per capita ratio of CO2 emissions in China and the US, which is what matters.

          • GreenAlba August 6, 2018 at 7:30 am #

            By the way, hmuller, there are 19 million Muslims in the EU, out of a population of 512 million. You can call that ‘inundated’ if you like.

            And as I also mentioned more than once, the US, which is 5% of the world’s population, produces 50% of its solid waste.

            Now that’s what I call inundated. In crap. But, like I said, some people’s sense of personal responsibility is very selective.

          • GreenAlba August 6, 2018 at 8:37 am #

            PS I should have mentioned that what you might call the UK’s ‘legacy’ immigration has a specific origin in the fact that my imperial ancestors unfortunately saw fit to traipse around the world with gunboats stripping it of what they wanted (hence our current standard of living). Britain saw itself as the mother country. And some of the empire’s citizens have seen fit over the years to come home to mama – made easier since we made them all speak English. Actions have consequences, as those very Christian imperialists should have known. Ditto slavery.

            But you didn’t answer my question as to whether Americans would be happy to pay 50% more for goods made in the US. Ordinary people have benefited from globalisation as well. Without it they wouldn’t have had so much stuff and helped create that big, big pile of American waste I mentioned.

            I avoid Chinese products myself, when at all possible, as I will avoid most American ones for the same reason. I buy local, and when I can’t buy local I buy regional. I pay a couple of pounds more for French wine, for example, because I don’t want my wine carted across the globe when it can come from nearby. Same with other goods.

            There are different kinds of globalist. And localist. And regionalist. I’ve already said that one of my prime reasons for being anti-Brexit is my view that the best trade to encourage is local, then regional trade. Do you think I’d be doing more good encouraging trade with the US, the Antipodes, the Philippines and India, especially with future energy constraints and the contribution of freight travel to climate change?

          • hmuller August 6, 2018 at 10:05 am #

            Well, you certainly have many thoughts to express, Green Alba. I’ll just leave you with one point. Solid waste is not the cause of global warming according to your side; carbon dioxide emissions are.

            Go to the wikipedia link below to see how much CO2 each country/area of the world emits. Guess what? China leads the pack. Any true environmentalist would want them to clean up their act.

            China 29.51%
            USA 14.34 %
            EU 9.62 %
            India 6.81 %

            See complete list at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

    • Tate August 3, 2018 at 3:55 pm #

      It is an affront to the fragile belief system that holds these people locked in to an oppressive order that despises them, that uses and discards them at will. To question the presidency is to expose the falsehood of their lives, the cruelty that deprives them of the dignity of their personhood.

      The truth, however painful, must be acknowledged. Acknowledging the truth is the first step to recovery, which is healing. Indeed, they, those people gathered around mocking Jim Acosta, are locked into a ‘fragile belief system.’ The polity known as the U.S.A is what Pat Buchanan has called a “proposition nation.” In other words, it’s not a real nation at all, although it contains within it some real nations. It is a synthetic nation held together by the gimcrackery of idealizing a form of government. Such a nation cannot survive the shocks its radical elements have foisted upon it these last fifty-odd years, including unrestricted immigration. Once the people who identify as *American* but nothing else realize the con that’s been played on them all their lives — and they are beginning to awaken to it — the nation that will become formerly known as the U.S.A. is done for.

  25. ozone August 3, 2018 at 11:56 am #

    JHK,
    Excellent outline of this most serious fraud and distraction perpetrated on the public since the early days of the criminal enterprise known as the Cheney administration. Thank you for putting into incisive wording what I’ve been thinking ever since the “attacked” meme was promoted, along with its flimsy “evidence” touted by professional liars. (The only thing not being investigated with much vigor is money laundering and shady loans concerning Trump and certain Russians willing to deal with him. Of course that would reveal a much larger school of financial grifter-fish, and I’m sure that’s not in the interest of our moneyed masters… starting with the Clintons, as you write.)

    My shock and distaste at the Orwellian spin of the whole ball of mendacious scheming has turned to bitterness and case-hardened cynicism. I seriously doubt the strategists and tacticians behind it predicted this would be the outcome, though I believe it to be widespread. The Deep State has convinced me that they are the enemy of the average American schlub (one of whom I happen to be).
    Not smart.

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    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • malthuss August 3, 2018 at 12:48 pm #

      SCHLUB???

      You Jewish?

      • ozone August 3, 2018 at 1:24 pm #

        No.

        You an idiot?

    • Bill7 August 3, 2018 at 1:47 pm #

      “No matter how cynical you become, it’s impossible to keep up.”

      -Lily Tomlin

  26. JohnAZ August 3, 2018 at 12:06 pm #

    Janet, you are concerned about Russia and its attacks on our infrastructure, and rightfully so. However, a couple of points, why just Russia, how about China, NOKO, Iran and a few dozen other countries who do not wish us well. Another thought, what if this is none of the above and is attacks by Spectre like globalist organizations who are just stirring the pot, strutting their stuff. I believe we really don’t know who the bad guys are. Attacks directed from Russia, only one direction, may be from anarchial splinter groups that have nothing to do with the Russian government. Do we believe our vaunted Intel community whose historical record is not the greatest? Janet, you as a unfettered socialist may believe the government does no wrong, but I believe they are the root of most of today’s evil and are not to be believed. Which leads me to my main point!

    IT runs the world. What a bunch of con artists high techers are. They have led the world into a situation where there is no protection from the bad guys. How to protect the voting booth from computer hacking fraud, eliminate computers from the process. How to protect infrastructure from hacking attacks, take control away from the computer. Dr. Stangelove pointed out well the danger of unfettered computer control in national defense. Since then, we have integrated computer control in all levels of our national systems. And act surprised when many folks want to use them against us.

    Old saying. I sought out the enemy and they were us!

    • JohnAZ August 3, 2018 at 12:11 pm #

      Just who are the bad guys here? My vote is the lousy bureaucrats who have allowed the high techers to take over the world. An attack on individual responsibility, instead of shouldering blame for muffs, we just blame it on computer error, or I did not get the email. What a cop out!

  27. shotho August 3, 2018 at 12:25 pm #

    Other than wealth and power, what does the ‘deep state’ want and why can’t they get it under Trump? After all, congress and Trump recently gave the welfare state and the warfare state loads of new money, 70 billions dollars each to be exact. I guess that wasn’t enough.

    • libertysghost August 3, 2018 at 1:41 pm #

      Excellent question really. Go deep into your mind and think what it might be? What could make them so scared? They could sit on their hands and likely ride out 8 years without a sweat if it’s just all relative to “wealth and power” as we commonly think of them. So it must be something else…probably something more sinister. It makes no sense otherwise really. Hmmmm? Maybe if I had a long flight on a private jet to a private island in the Caribbean owned by someone…oh I don’t know…like Epstein or someone…I might have some time to think of some kind of thing beyond the normal “wealth and power” they are either worried about losing access to or worried might get exposed in these chaotic times of institutional destruction.

      Who knows 😉 But you present a great question.

  28. Q. Shtik August 3, 2018 at 12:31 pm #

    This is my fifth (and final) Bike Trip post comprising days July 21, 22, 23 and 24, plus a section titled Further Observations.

    Sat July 21, 2018

    Most of today I was without the voice guidance feature of my cell phone GPS and BlueTooth devices. The phone was mounted in a holder on what I refer to as my dashboard. There are 4 prongs with rubber tips that you can spread open, slip your phone into, and it clamps the phone securely facing you. You can snatch quick glances and see where you are on a continuously moving map. All sorts of other info is also displayed…distance in miles and estimated minutes to your destination, the route number you should stay on, the next exit number you will be using, etc.
    This is all fine and dandy but it is hard to see when it is bright and sunny and you can only divert your attention from the road for a second (unless you have a death wish) and when you’re old your eyes are slow to focus. As a result you (i.e., I) really need the voice turn-by-turn guidance feature. Sooo, here I was this day without voice direction and was unable to activate it on my own or with the help of others. I even spent a half hour with some young tech wizards in a cellular store and they couldn’t make it work either. Using only the phone’s screen display I found my way 346 miles from Duluth to Madison, WI to a place called Extended Stay America.

    I again encounter a “fully booked” situation. The desk girl says “we actually have this one vacant room but we have not been renting it out because of a residual unpleasant odor left by a woman who had stayed here 8 months with her pets” (some motels advertise themselves as “pet friendly” and some do not) and she asks “do you think you might want that room?” (Management’s plan was not to rent this room out until the carpet had been ripped out and replaced and the room repainted.) Well, I’m exhausted and desperate so I say “yes.” The room is huge, has a full kitchen, large leather couch, big flat screen TV, Queen size bed, etc. (This space would be a dream apartment in a place like NYC) but on entry there’s this definite unpleasant funky odor. I inquire “what kind of pets was this woman keeping?” and the girl says in a casual manner, as if it was completely normal, “Oh, snakes and turtles.” I got the room for a negotiated $65 rate. I then dash 2 miles to a T-Mobile store to get my voice guidance GPS issue fixed, only to find the store closed for the day in contradiction of the store hours stated on-line. I awake the next morning wondering if the clothes I was putting on had absorbed the snakes and turtles funk. I go for the free “grab and go breakfast” included in the deal and only coffee and 2 granola bars are left. This is now Sunday AM and I am informed without a shred of contrition that re-supply of their breakfast foods inventory will not arrive until Wednesday………fuckin’ WEDNESDAY!! Where’s it coming from, Timbuktu?? Go to the friggin’ supermarket and buy some shit for Chrissake!! (They had better not send me one of those ubiquitous survey forms by email).

    Sun July 22, 2018

    I depart the funky room in Madison headed for Angola, Indiana. It was cool and rain was forecast at various times and places along my path. After 25-50 miles some raindrops began to hit my windscreen. I pulled a rain lining that came with my breathable mesh cycle jacket from the “top case” (a pod-like storage compartment that I had installed on the back of the bike) and put it on over the jacket. It worked like a charm. Off and on I rode all day thru heavy rains at high speeds in dense traffic trying to avoid the rain-slick oily center of my lane. Since I am here writing this I obviously survived these conditions.

    Sidebar: The digital screen on my bike’s dashboard contains a wealth of pertinent information: time, temperature, gas level, etc. The gas level is presented as a vertical column of dark squares against a light background. Five dark squares = Full and when you get down to two squares you better start thinking seriously about filling up. When you get to one square ominous warnings start blinking at you. And so, somewhere off I-80 in Illinois I spot a sign displaying prices per gallon. I had been getting very worried about running out in no-man’s-land. I gas up and am having a cup of Joe outside this service plaza and I notice I am the only white person there. A late 50ish black man with a huge gap between his 2 front teeth a la Michael Strahan, wearing a suit jacket but no tie, engages me in conversation about my bike. He sees the NJ license plate and is astonished that a person my age is on a bike trip this far from home. I detect an unusual accent and learn he is from Nigeria and has been here 25 years. He works for the Chicago Transit Authority. I get back on my bike and he climbs into his SUV, a white Lexus. He yells “safe trip” to me and I yell back “nice car…the transit authority must pay well.” He gives me a big gap-toothed grin.

    I checked into a rundown Ramada Inn (but the room was big, clean and decent) and got the $99 rate reduced by 10% because I had an AARP card. Checking in right next to me was another old biker (age 67 whose career was as a parole officer) with a 1000 cc BMW, who was on his way home to St Paul, MN from a BMW bike rally in PA. We both had dinner at a restaurant next door and he told me how the influx of immigrants (Hmong and Somali) had basically saved the failing economies of the Minneapolis/St Paul area. The Hmong were hard working, started businesses and quickly became educated. The Somalis were somewhat less of a success.

    Seated a few seats away at the bar is a seemingly happy-go-lucky 59 year old guy named Jack. He is eves-dropping on my conversation with Dave. I am wearing a Rutgers University ball cap. This leads to sports talk and RU having joined the Big 10. One thing leads to another and I mention having been fired from a company at age 37 after 13.5 years, found another job and got fired from it after 5 months. He quickly interjects that he was fired “last week” (he is a chemical engineer) and a few weeks before that his wife filed for divorce. He says that between her lawyer and his their entire life savings will be eaten up. A “late starter,” he has two teenage kids. He is leaving the next day for Boston where he has 2 job interviews lined up. He feels he will get an offer because he “knows somebody” but is not keen on living near Boston since his family is back in Wisconsin. It is interesting but heartbreaking to hear these effed up life stories.

    I returned to my room near midnight, check my cell phone for messages and find my wife and kids are all in a panic because I have not texted yet to assure that I am still alive and not in a ditch somewhere covered with flies with rigor mortis setting in.

    Mon July 23, 2018

    On my way from Angola, IN to New Stanton, PA I pass thru the entire state of Ohio. I stop for gas and coffee at the most gorgeous Service Plaza I have ever seen. I asked the clerk serving up the coffee “where am I?” “What town am I in, or near?” She says “Gen OH’ uh.” I apologize for my impaired hearing and ask her to spell it for me. She spells G-E-N-O-A. I say “ohhh, GEN’ oh uh, like in Italy.” She comes back at me with “whatever, take your pick.” I’m thinking no, it DOES matter. Ask 50 old lifetime residents how their town name is pronounced and I bet all 50 say it the same and would be peeved to hear it pronounced any other way. Take for example Berlin, New Hampshire. It’s pronounced BER’ lin, not Ber LIN’ as in Germany or Berlin, NJ. Such things DO matter. We simply can’t go thru life saying that nothing matters.

    Later, near the eastern border of Ohio was a second Service Plaza nearly identical to the first one. Based on these two locations I declare Ohio the Service Plaza Award Winner of the United States.

    After some difficulty finding my motel because the turn-by-turn voice is not working AGAIN on my GPS, I arrive at the Super 8 Motel with an on-line rate of $58. Motels with names like Days Inn or Super 8 with rates that are suspiciously low worry me. It’s gotta be a dump. There will probably be an unsavory clientele of cigarette smoking ethnics milling about the parking area eyeballing my bike for whatever they can steal.

    The desk girl (in need of dental work) informs me the rate is not $58 but rather $53.95 + tax. And the room was excellent in every respect…even had a tub with numerous safety hand grips catering to the old fart crowd…like me, plus a nice free breakfast spread.

    While checking in I see a notice taped to the counter which reads: “Check out time is 11 AM. Note: There is NO late checkouts” Since I am safely registered and paid up via credit card I feel emboldened to ask the desk clerk with the bad teeth “Would you consider me a pain-in-the-ass if I pointed out that this sign here contains a grammatical error?” She says “Oh, you mean is should be are?” I say “exactly.” She says “I’m always correcting my boyfriend for stuff like that.” A girl after my own heart.

    I have an excellent dinner at one of the Bob Evans chain of restaurants (which I had never heard of) and then before turning in I researched the expected weather all along my route from New Stanton to home: severe rain all the way thru PA, especially near Harrisburg.

    Tue July 24, 2018

    This would be the final day of my road trip and the forecast of heavy rains was right on the money. I passed thru 4 of 7 tunnels on the PA Turnpike (I-76) before my GPS put me on a different highway. Going thru tunnels on a bike is scary. The speed limit is lowered to 55 but nobody pays attention to this. Even I only slowed down to 60.

    I received several good drenchings followed by partial dryings, only to encounter the next squall. Once I reached Allentown, PA on Rt 78 I felt I was almost home…only 71 miles to go. I could do that standing on my head.

    At some point I heard my wife’s voice coming from my BlueTooth speakers inside my helmet. She called on the phone and I had a conversation at 70 mph while 18-wheelers screamed their road noise all around me. I later called her by pressing a button on the BlueTooth and speaking her phone number. I told her to “open the garage door, I’ll be home in 15 minutes.” 15 mins became 45 when I got caught in a ten mile backup. I pulled up the driveway and into the garage. I removed my still soggy motorcycle gloves and my palms, fingers and thumbs were dark purple. My wife kissed me in amazement that I survived a 3080 mile bike trip.

    Further Observations in no particular order and of no particular importance unless you think they are:

    1. Every where I traveled people smoke cigarettes far more than where I live. The poor smoke more than the well off.
    2. Obesity is rampant everywhere. (As if I even need to mention it.) When I left on my trip I weighed 198 lbs. I figured I’d have such shitty meals I might drop a couple of pounds but, nope, I’m back home and still at 198. At motels and Service Plazas I would see some of the most God-awful bodies you could imagine. Not quite as bad as the 900 and 1200 lb people they do documentaries about that have to be removed from their apartments by forklift, but baaad. The sight of these grotesque vacationers would stir up in my mind the meanest of mean-spirited thoughts. I imagined myself approaching one of these appalling figures with my cell phone at the ready and asking “Do you mind if I take your picture? I’m doing a piece for ‘Scientific American’ on obesity in America and (as I gesture with my hand in their general direction I say) well, um……………..” Of course I do no such thing because I like having my two front teeth.
    3. Tattoos are a growing blight, particularly among women. Men can look as stupid as they want but women should be held to a higher standard. My mean-spirited tattoo daydream goes like this: I walk up to a female with especially ugly and artless tattoos (WHAT was she THINKING?) and I say “I’m doing a piece for New York Magazine on (here I make quote gestures with my fingers) ‘the tattooed women of America’ (at this point my target smiles and is pleased to have been selected for this honor…such is the mindset of the generic tattooed woman). Holding a note pad and Bic pen, I begin an interview: “By what contortion of logic or perception do you imagine that these tattoos make you a more beautiful or interesting person?” “Do you own a mirror?” “Do your grandparents know you have these?” Because of a general dumbing-down of our society the target doesn’t know what to make of these questions and is unsure whether I’m being complimentary or contemptuous. And while I think of it, can some fashionista reading this please explain whut’s up wit ripped up jeans?
    4. There is a phenomenon at play, primarily but not exclusively among young adults, that I refer to as “Oh Geez, I’m not very good at that.” After crossing back into the US from Canada at Sault Ste. Marie and heading west, I was traveling for some time and wondering what the actual time was. Surely, I thought, I must be near or have already crossed from the Eastern Time Zone into the Central. I asked a coffee barista “What time zone am I in here?” She replied “Oh Geez, I’m not very good at time zones.” As if the time zone you live in were something difficult to know like quantum mechanics, or an obscure Jeopardy clue, or being skilled at, like juggling. Not to mock the young exclusively, on my trip back eastward to home I was in Indiana and asked a 40ish bartender what time zone I was in. He said “I don’t know from (sic) time zones but (and he looked at his watch) I can tell you it’s 8:35.” This sort of thing makes me worry about the state of our country.
    5. There is a minor little racket being perpetrated by some Canadian gas stations primarily against customers from the US who have only US dollars and coins in their pockets. The station employee will refuse to convert the C$ amt into the US$ amt at something near the current exchange rate. This effectively gains the station between 25 and 33% on such sales. They say “it’s too much hassle.” Procedures could easily be put in place which every station would become accustomed to in under a week but the attitude seems to be “let’s rape the stupid Americans.” The way around the problem is to always use a credit card. The card company, say VISA, does the conversion electronically in a nanosecond and the charge on your next statement will be 20 or 25% less than if you had paid cash.
    6. The filling of your gas tank: As of Jan 1, 2018 NJ is the only place in the nation where the customer does not pump his or her own gas. It used to be that way in Oregon and the town of Huntington, NY as well but they did away with this absurdity in January. So, when we New Jerseyans go anywhere outside our own state we are like idiots. We stare at the pump unsure what to do. The pump has a screen with directions but it seems so complex until you do it often enough that you get the hang of it. But it seems there are no two pumps in all North America that work identically. Some direct you to “go inside and pay before pumping.” I will not bother you with details. Every one in the world but New Jerseyans knows them.
    7. Gone is my Air Base. Gone, the spiffy fresh lieutenants…all old men now if not pushing daisies. “You Can’t Go Home Again” by Thomas Wolfe; The RVs are parked, the 90 horse Mercs are reving. “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Heraclitus.

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 12:36 pm #

      Nice write up, old boy! I once dreamed about tackling a cross country adventure tour by bike. Who knows? Might get to it yet.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 1:37 pm #

      Heard some people talking: Boise is not Boy-Zee. It’s said quickly and strangely, as Boysee with no z sound or pause. Spokane has a long a as in can not cane. No two ways about it. The clerk just didn’t care enough to want to correct you or was sick of dealing with tourists.

      Yes, it’s one sick culture across America. Are Canadians in any better physical shape? Since they’re said to eschew us and cotton to Europe – where the people really are in better condition? Except for the smoking of course.

      Where are you going next year? To the West Coast I assume – across the Deep South and Southwest? Meet the Klan in Mizzou. Maybe go to a rally. Try home fries in a Black shotgun cabin, all the kids shoeless?

      With rue my heart is laden,
      For golden friends I had,
      For many a rose lipped maiden,
      And many a light foot lad.

      By brooks too broad for leaping,
      The light foot lads are laid,
      And the rose lipped girls are sleeping,
      In fields where roses fade.

      Houseman

      • Q. Shtik August 3, 2018 at 1:59 pm #

        Spokane has a long a as in can not cane. – Janos

        ===========

        You’ve got it backward, JS. The a in can is short not long. The a in cane is long.

        Damn, that’s a beautiful poem…never heard it before.

    • Tate August 3, 2018 at 4:11 pm #

      “… and he told me how the influx of immigrants (Hmong and Somali) had basically saved the failing economies of the Minneapolis/St Paul area.” — Q-tip

      Yeah, they saved his economy (parole officer). Ha ha.

      • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 6:08 pm #

        Good one. They both have high crime rates, particularly the Somalis.

        • Q. Shtik August 3, 2018 at 8:08 pm #

          They both have high crime rates, particularly the Somalis. – Janos

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

          Data and sources please.

        • Tate August 3, 2018 at 10:38 pm #

          Speaking of the Somalis, your statement requires no defense.

          As for the Hmong,

          “While authorities do not know why Vang allegedly opened fire, there have been previous clashes between Southeast Asian and white hunters in the region.

          Locals have complained that the Hmong, refugees from Laos, do not understand the concept of private property and hunt wherever they see fit.”

          And the link:

          http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/11/22_kelleherb_huntershooting/

          From personal experience, I know this to be true. There was an incident here in Colorado about a decade ago where a group of Hmong went into a protected fishing area & cleaned out the trout with gill nets, and it took a half dozen State troopers to get them under control.

          Some people just don’t assimilate well.

          • Tate August 3, 2018 at 10:42 pm #

            “and it took a half dozen State troopers to get them under control.”

            And that was in addition to Fish & Game personnel who were already present.

          • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 10:51 am #

            We’ve had the same fishing incidents here, but with Polish people and Lithuanians, who otherwise assimilate perfectly well. They just have a different understanding of fishing culture and this is being explained to them before they drain our waterways of fish.

            https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/britains-rivers-becoming-hotbed-of-crime-as-organised-gangs-steal-fish-on-a-huge-scale-a6752271.html

            And then there’s organised crime, of course, but some of that is home-grown as well as eastern European. Organised criminals are always difficult to ‘assimilate’, even the home-grown British ones.

          • Tate August 5, 2018 at 4:23 pm #

            Another thing I forgot to mention, though anyone clicking on the link can discover it, is that this link describes the infamous incident of the Hmong poacher who shot & killed 5 Wisconsin deer hunters. These people are vicious.

            Why did we bring in these barbaric tribespeople? If anyone needs a refresher, it was because they were our allies in Vietnam. Inhabiting the hill regions between Vietnam & Laos, they were a tough, resilient, & valuable ally in that war. And so, after the war, we allowed numbers of them who had fought with us to immigrate here, they & their families. As Steve Sailer has said, “Invade the world, invite the world.” One of the unfortunate consequences of our forever foreign wars.

      • Q. Shtik August 3, 2018 at 6:15 pm #

        I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with him, just reporting what he said.

        • elysianfield August 3, 2018 at 9:01 pm #

          Q,
          Great travelogue…sorry to see it end. Was particularly interested in the encounter with the Somali gentleman in Illinois. Seemingly decent, educated, employed, friendly…assimilated.

          • Q. Shtik August 3, 2018 at 9:31 pm #

            the Somali gentleman in Illinois. Seemingly decent, educated, employed, friendly…assimilated. – Elysian

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

            Yes, he was all those things except he was from Nigeria. You may be mixing him up with the remark from the parole officer from St Paul who said the Hmong and Somali immigrants had saved the economy of Minneapolis/St Paul. An easy mistake to make ’cause all those black folks look alike 😉

    • ozone August 3, 2018 at 8:10 pm #

      Q.,
      Enjoying your travelogue, bigly!
      Time for you to visit the British Isles and Holland and give us the wha’happen? from those climes. You’ve got the writing skills and observant attitude to make it entertaining and instructive (even if from a strictly personal perspective — which is the only one we’ve been left with).

      I’m serious; leave the scheming luxury-lover to her own luxury-loving devices at home, and git to the observing elsewheres! Life is short but ohhh so rich and surprising. (I’ve tromped around quite a bit on the cheap and dirty, but my writing skills in describing them are dry and chewy. 😉 )

      • Q. Shtik August 3, 2018 at 9:15 pm #

        Enjoying your travelogue, bigly!
        Time for you to visit the British Isles and Holland

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

        Thanks for the Kudos Oz. Why, in particular, the British Isles and Holland? The problem is, there is nothing about them as a driving force to spur me on as there was with Westmeath and Duluth.

        Your writing is anything but dry and chewy. It is unique. I would say very unique except that unique is a word that requires no intensifier.

        • ozone August 3, 2018 at 9:36 pm #

          Q.,
          Why the Brit Isles and Holland? Because they speak-a da English very well and expressively! (And the etymology of the idioms would likely be of immense interest and delight to you.)

          …Speaking of speak-a da English, Iceland and Norway also fit that bill of fluency and ungrudging tolerance for non-speakers of the native tongue. As you’ve seen, you can only get a real feel for a place through the cultured attitudes of those that inhabit it for a lifetime (or a goodly portion thereof anyhoo 😉 ).

          • Q. Shtik August 4, 2018 at 11:34 am #

            …Speaking of speak-a da English, Iceland and Norway also fit that bill – Oz

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

            Funny you should mention…………my daughter and her husband are off for Iceland and Amsterdam in a matter of days.

  29. Anon1970 August 3, 2018 at 12:44 pm #

    Re: point 5: If you are planning a trip abroad, take a credit card with does not charge a 3% conversion fee for foreign currency charges. Many still do, but some don’t. Waht’s in your wallet?

  30. FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 12:52 pm #

    Gingrich: ‘Good Chance’ Manafort Wins at Trial, Making Mueller ‘Look Like a Fool’

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma7Pmpts4MI

    Can’t wait to see when that happens!

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  31. Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 1:17 pm #

    Never waste conditioning. I noticed in pop culture some years ago that the Russkis were being made into the new Nazis. But instead of starting at the beginning (the waste of time and resources), why not associate them with the Nazis – and thus transfer all that juicy stuff onto them? I think it’s called operant conditioning. I’m a bit rusty, but I think my point is clear. And it’s working with those who are educated beyond their abilities or who are paid to be idiots.

    I mean it’s bad enough to be a Jerry or a Hun, but a Nazi? Just kill yourself already like Sara Jeong of the New York Slimes wants you to do. Apparently she dates White Men though – of course! The Media this morning: “Right Wing attacks new writer for the NYT….”

    • Tate August 3, 2018 at 4:24 pm #

      Well, on the bright side, the Slimes can’t be any more anti-white than it already is. So she won’t bring any more hostility to the ‘editorial board’ than is already there.

      And on the brighter side, the brouhaha yields a few more alienated readers.

      )):-]

      Winning.

      • Tate August 3, 2018 at 10:26 pm #

        https://spectator.org/it-wasnt-just-a-few-tweets/

        • Horzabky August 4, 2018 at 9:35 am #

          It seems obvious to me that Ms Jeong has serious mental issues. I would be appalled if I had to work with her. Especially since I am a white heterosexual man, of Catholic heritage and conservative inclinations. But with all this, I probably wouldn’t be hired by the NYT.

          The most appalling thing is that the NYT and her supporters (including senator Schatz from Hawaii) refuse to see that Sarah Jeong is completely crazy, and they also refuse to see the craziness of her tweets. Those people are probably a little bit crazy, too.

          Quos vult perdere Jupiter prius dementat…

          • Q. Shtik August 4, 2018 at 11:43 am #

            (including senator Schatz from Hawaii) – Horz

            ===========

            How would you like to go thru life with a last name that sounds like the plural of the past and past participle of shit? Eh?

          • Tate August 5, 2018 at 4:29 pm #

            She probably does have serious mental issues. She ticks off two of the boxes I use to define the Far Left. 1) unassimilated ethnics 2) sexual deviants & 3) privileged misfits. She is both 1) & 3) (Apparently, she is hetero so she doesn’t fit into category 2). Lots of people within category 3 have mental health issues.

          • GreenAlba August 6, 2018 at 8:58 am #

            Tate

            We’ve been watching the BBC’s production of Versailles – lavish costume drama, not the best quality, apart from the costumes, and I don’t like hearing Louis XIV saying things like ‘get a grip’ but that’s just me. And my other half presumably enjoys the swashbuckling and the hot and sometimes naked courtly ladies.

            But when I’m watching the king’s brother, Philippe, getting nippy with his male lover, just as when I’m considering Edward Longshanks’ homosexual son back in 14th century England, I just can’t help admiring how these hard lefties get absolutely everywhere. Royal palaces, eh – talk about hiding in plain sight.

  32. FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 1:21 pm #

    Another Young but Early: meet Vladimir Nazarov, the brains behind the plan to genocide 10 million would-be Russian pensioners

    http://blog-gazeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DgZRpyAUEAYoYoH1.jpg

    The little boy is only thirty-five. The botanist-misanthrope with shaking hands and a fanatical gleam in his eyes.

    While studying at the Finance Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation on the specialty “State and Municipal Management”, a prospective “effective manager” was invited to the Institute of the Economy in Transition named after Gaidar.

  33. akmofo August 3, 2018 at 1:34 pm #

    The Quran’s Many Problems 08
    – Carbon Dating Early Quranic Manuscripts

    https://youtu.be/bjai2bdt6yQ

    FAKE NEWS is an old business..

  34. bibliomaniac August 3, 2018 at 1:41 pm #

    Funny how we are all gagging on Putin and the Deep State when the real villains in this scenario are the global capitalists who have been ripping us off for decades. Consider Trump’s gang–Steven Mnuchin, Betsy DeVos, Ben Carson, Andrew Wheeler — these guys are more like Deep Shit.

    • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 2:00 pm #

      What exactly were you ripped off on? And for decades? Wow! What is it exactly that you bought from Steven Mnuchin, Betsy DeVos, Ben Carson, Andrew Wheeler, that you now think you got ripped off on? Do tell us, Mr “Deep Shit”.

      • bibliomaniac August 3, 2018 at 2:07 pm #

        Oh, you mean the foreclosure king, and the education queen who can’t read? Maybe you should read Kuttner’s book “Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?’ Or more to the point, can the human species?

        The continuing decline in education and continued expansion of global warming is a way in which YOU are being ripped off as well. Let’s hope you have no grandchildren who are looking at a bleak future on this planet because of people who are deliberately depriving us of habitation based on GREED.

        • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 2:10 pm #

          I asked you a specific question, answer it!

          What did you buy from them?

          • bibliomaniac August 3, 2018 at 2:20 pm #

            I tried to buy my kid an education. He got one, but he’s still $36000.00 in debt. I tried to buy non-toxic food, but most of the stuff on the shelves is Frankenfood. I tried to buy decent health insurance, but it was almost more than I could afford. The list goes on. Are you sure you aren’t buying any of this stuff?

            Our citizens are slaves to a system that has them by the short and curlies. Many of them who voted for Trump, hoping for a better future, are dying from drug addiction, thanks to Big Pharma.. And unless you are living off the grid somewhere you are also buying into it .

            So what are you buying?

          • janet August 3, 2018 at 3:02 pm #

            Thank you, bibliomaniac, for providing specific answers. Akmofo is probably a reincarnation of Asoka, a troll just trying to stir things up. You shut him down with concrete answers.

          • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 3:03 pm #

            Well, whatever you bought, you didn’t buy it from the names you listed above, so let’s start with that. Second, what you really bought and bought into hard, is commie/nazi/fascist propaganda that the gov mafia and its institutions is the solution to anything. For that idiocy I have ZERO sympathy. The gov mafia is not the solution, rather it is the problem. But I’m glad you’re finally getting some buyer’s remorse.

          • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 3:23 pm #

            “Are you sure you aren’t buying any of this stuff?”
            ==

            Well, I certainly pay for it. It being taxes, mandated insurances, mandated services.. But,.. I don’t vote. I don’t shop at the mall. I don’t eat poison phood. I don’t drink poison water. I don’t take poison “medicine”. I don’t subscribe to poison propaganda outlets. I don’t partake in weaponized culture.

            I try to keep those around me tuned to same thinking. When there are enough of us around, and there will be, the poison seas that we are forced to swim in will dry up and disappear.

          • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 6:10 pm #

            That K with a circle around it is the kiss of death. Kosher!

        • Tate August 3, 2018 at 4:29 pm #

          We’re living during a brief interglacial period within a larger ice age. Any man-made induced warming is probably a good thing. But the PTB won’t tell you that.

  35. FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 2:23 pm #

    Germans want to know why Trump hates them so much

    At the Nato summit, US President Donald Trump kicked things off with an outraged rant about Germany.

    Germany is a terrible place, overrun by violent, criminal migrants who molest local ladies; a defenceless nation in thrall to gas-smuggling Russian overlords.

    https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/world/donald-trump-germans-want-to-know-why-hate/

    Well, you would hate them too if you knew that their money and their Nazi Goebbels’ Media technologies are behind 18 months continuing coup in US against the Constitutionally elected President.

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    • FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 3:10 pm #

      What do I mean by the Deep State? The vested permanent bureaucracy of Washington DC, and especially its vastly overgrown and redundant “Intel Community,” which has achieved critical mass to take on a life of its own within the larger government, makes up its own rules of conduct, not necessarily within the rule of law, and devotes too much of its budget and influence defending its own prerogatives rather than the interests of the nation. == JHK

      Like hell its is!

      It’s a Fifth Column of the Fourth Reich of Angela Merkel, and the whole “Russian Meddling” is a cover story to hide that simple and self-obvious fact (not so obvious for historically-challenged Americans, though)

    • janet August 3, 2018 at 3:13 pm #

      “against the Constitutionally elected President” –finca

      Trump did not win the popular vote. Popular means of the people. People means people legally here with documents. Those without documents cannot vote.

      I couldn’t even renew my driver’s license without providing six pieces of ID. They wouldn’t accept copies, everything had to be original, including my birth certificate, social security card, proof of legal residence, etc. Then they offered to allow me to register to vote.

      Trump lost the popular vote and undocumented people did not vote in the election. According to Trump’s own post-election Commission on Election Integrity, no evidence was found. Trump failed. Trump failed to find a single “illegal” voter. Because there weren’t any illegal voters. State and local officials took offense at even the suggestion … because they know their local registered voters and who their neighbors are. It was yet another outrageous Trump lie.

      • Tate August 3, 2018 at 4:35 pm #

        “I couldn’t even renew my driver’s license without providing six pieces of ID. They wouldn’t accept copies, everything had to be original, including my birth certificate, social security card, proof of legal residence, etc. Then they offered to allow me to register to vote.”

        You must live in a state whose citizens take their American citizenship seriously. If only the people in every state did so. Clearly, if there is no voting fraud, as you claim, then there should be no objection to imposing the same stringent requirements to register to vote in all states as your state does.

        • hmuller August 5, 2018 at 9:31 am #

          Janet needs to find a dictionary and look up the term “non sequitur”. It applies to her comments, in that

          1) The procedures for getting a driver’s license are an entirely unrelated matter to the procedures for getting a ballot on election day,
          2) Procedures vary by state for both obtaining a driver’s license and voting. Democrats are always pushing for no ID voting, though they don’t always get what they want.

      • hmuller August 4, 2018 at 5:40 am #

        Janet, whether Trump won the most popular votes or not, he was legally and constitutionally elected. I suggest you research the Presidential election laws of the United States, paying particular attention to a thing called “the electoral college”.

  36. bibliomaniac August 3, 2018 at 3:11 pm #

    akmofo–you clearly misunderstood me. I’m not suggesting that “the government is the solution,” but that the government as it is currently comprised is the problem. This is not to say that it was always the problem–but runaway capitalism is, and that is precisely what has BOUGHT THE GOVERNMENT!

    “Whether voters cast their ballots for Clinton, Bush, Obama, or Trump, they somehow get Goldman Sachs.”—Robert Kuttner

    • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 3:37 pm #

      I didn’t misunderstand you. Your problem is that your “education” is incomplete. Runaway capitalism is a function of runaway government. The one cannot exist without the other.

      • bibliomaniac August 3, 2018 at 3:55 pm #

        akmofo–on that we do agree. Both the government and capitalism are beyond the control of the average citizen, and it is a symbiotic relationship.

        I also agree that my education is incomplete. However, I’ve known very few people whose education is “complete.” Is yours?

        • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 4:21 pm #

          If you read the TaNaKh in Hebrew, you’ll come pretty close.

          • messianicdruid August 4, 2018 at 8:30 am #

            Does the TaNaKH include Jeremiah chapter 31?

      • Q. Shtik August 3, 2018 at 6:05 pm #

        I feel capitalism is a natural phenomenon like breathing or gravity.

        • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 9:19 pm #

          Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedith from the mouth of the Father.

          Somalis are an evil race. You can take that to the bank. Or go up to Lewiston Maine which has been invaded by them and talk to some White Maniacs.

          • messianicdruid August 4, 2018 at 8:27 am #

            Or Faribault, Mn.

          • elysianfield August 4, 2018 at 11:28 am #

            “Somalis are an evil race”

            Janos,
            Well, what of Nigerians? They look a lot alike….

    • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 6:16 pm #

      The two cannot be kept separate in the modern industrial state. The question is: Which is the senior partner? Which one is the Man who will lead in the dance? Will it be the one with elected officials sworn to serve, and theoretically at least, accountable to the citizens? Or the one who serves only Profit, and is accountable only to the Shareholders?

      The right answer is Obvious to those with fundamental goodness, and the clarity which comes with that. Incidently, this is why I admire East Asians. They never had any illusions about the separation, and made the right decision by and large.

      • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 10:15 pm #

        Yes, much to admire. Mass poison your people and land for industrial junk that will all disappear as quickly as they built it:

        https://youtu.be/XopSDJq6w8E

  37. Elrond Hubbard August 3, 2018 at 3:32 pm #

    The NRA Says It’s in Deep Financial Trouble, May Be ‘Unable to Exist’
    A new legal filing by the powerful gun group against the state of New York paints a grim picture

    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/nra-financial-trouble-706371/

    “The National Rifle Association warns that it is in grave financial jeopardy, according to a recent court filing obtained by Rolling Stone, and that it could soon ‘be unable to exist… or pursue its advocacy mission.’ …

    “In … an amended complaint filed in U.S. District Court in late July[,] the NRA says it cannot access financial services essential to its operations and is facing ‘irrecoverable loss and irreparable harm.’

    “Specifically, the NRA warns that it has lost insurance coverage — endangering day-to-day operations. ‘Insurance coverage is necessary for the NRA to continue its existence,’ the complaint reads. Without general liability coverage, it adds, the ‘NRA cannot maintain its physical premises, convene off-site meetings and events, operate educational programs … or hold rallies, conventions and assemblies.’ …

    “The lawsuit stems from actions taken by New York financial regulators to halt the sale of an illegal, NRA-branded insurance policy. The NRA actively marketed ‘Carry Guard,’ a policy to reimburse members for legal costs incurred after firing a legal gun. In May, the state of New York found that Carry Guard ‘unlawfully provided liability insurance to gun owners for certain acts of intentional wrongdoing.’ [Emphasis added – EH.] The NRA’s insurance partners agreed to stop selling the policies and pay a $7 million fine. …

    “The NRA did not respond to a request for more detail about its financial distress, but its most recent financial disclosure also shows it overspent by nearly $46 million in 2016. …

    “In the filing, the NRA reveals that its longtime insurer broke off negotiations this winter and ‘stated that it was unwilling to renew coverage at any price.’ [Emphasis in original.]”

    The Founding Fathers understood that no man can be truly free to murder teenagers and get off scot-free, unless he can also indemnify himself against pesky legal costs at a low monthly premium.

    • elysianfield August 4, 2018 at 11:34 am #

      ““The NRA did not respond to a request for more detail about its financial distress, but its most recent financial disclosure also shows it overspent by nearly $46 million in 2016. …”

      Elrond,
      This is sad and troubling. The purchasing of our politicians have become very expensive, a little understood ramification of the “insensible interest” that is promoted in the US economy.

      I pine for the “good old days”, when they could be bought for a weekend in Vegas and a couple of Canadian Hookers….

      • Elrond Hubbard August 4, 2018 at 8:46 pm #

        You and Chelsea Handler, EF. Great minds think alike, clearly. And not only the comedienne — lots of people are taking the opportunity to offer their thoughts and prayers for the beleaguered organization. It’s become a whole thing on Twitter — aah, schadenfreude.

        More serious minds, too, are paying attention to the power dynamics at work. Even people like me, who view the MSNBC Trump-Russia hysteria with a hefty dose of skepticism, couldn’t help but curl our lips at the sad spectacle of Trump’s dog-like performance in Helsinki. Clearly, however significant or insignificant it may be, any child can see that something is indeed going on there. And seen in that light, credible allegations of the NRA allowing itself to be used to funnel Russian money to POTUS’ 2016 campaign, along with a Russian agent romping through their ranks, really seem to spell bad news for the outfit. America’s increasingly unhinged political establishment is increasingly failing to keep up the pretense that it it’s anything other than bought and paid for, but it can still offer the consolation prize that it’s at least captive to domestic special interests, not foreign ones. With the political winds blowing as they are, someone or something is going to have to be made an example of. So why not the gun manufacturers’ pet lobby? Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.

  38. 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 3:44 pm #

    “In case you are mystified as to why a considerable portion of the public is disgusted with the news media, it is as simple as this: they appear to be an instrument of that permanent government bureaucracy, doing its bidding, defending its criminal mischief, and covering up its dishonesty. Proof of that is the media’s conspicuous inattention to the now well-documented political depravity in another arm of the Intel Community, the FBI — a much more compelling..”

    The majority of media consumers today, at least those coveted by corporate mass media do not remember, or never knew, when the independent media, a relic of the past, served as a check on the burgeoning deep state; its war machines, its nefarious clandestine interlopers, its corporate cronyism.

    This is nostalgia.

    Now corporate infotainment provides sensational click-bait stories that feed a narrative that is enjoyed by their consumers: people who have consumed the left’s packaged infotainment throughout their lives. They don’t expect objectivity nor do appreciate it. If it doesn’t comport with their preprogrammed views and expectations, it is shunned and not consumed.

    The genius of programming your consumers in infancy is that you create a consumer for life. This is standard industry practice. What the old timers and those rather impervious to the mind tricks, or unexposed to the programming, are witnessing is manipulation on a mass scale. So intertwined are the interests that the status quo must be sustained above all else.

  39. janet August 3, 2018 at 3:45 pm #

    “The Quran’s Many Problems 08 – Carbon Dating Early Quranic Manuscripts” –akmofo

    The four laboratories referenced have their dating varying by decades, so carbon dating does not seem to be very reliable.

    Yet, they make a big deal out of 636 being two years off from 638 as if that proves something! Carbon dating cannot be trusted to reliably determine 636 or 638. Therefore, it is proof of nothing about the Prophet (PBUH).

    • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 4:19 pm #

      Janet

      The point of the video was that older Quranic verses predate “Muhmud” by hundreds of years. The Quran itself was compiled in the 8th and 9th century, some 200 years after the supposed death of “Muhmud”. The Quran was continually redacted with the latest redactions made in the 1920s! That means that nothing in the Quran is of “Muhmud”. The Quran was fabricated from borrowed source material dating from the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th centuries and compiled many centuries later in the 8th and 9th century. The whole story of a 7th century figure responsible for any of it is fugazy.

      • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 4:41 pm #

        Btw, archaeology shows that Mecca did not exist during the time “Muhmud” is purported to have lived. All the early mosques face Petra, not Mecca. Furthermore, the botanical and geographical descriptions in the Quran only make sense in relation to Petra, which is some 1,000 km north of Mecca.

        There’s a whole set of videos on this channel that nicely explain this:

        https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zGnPFoN5LjAsxU8ESiBMw/videos

  40. meargen August 3, 2018 at 4:02 pm #

    I enjoyed this week’s post very much. A clue: when I look at the media, I don’t think ‘journalism’, I think ‘courtiers.’ When you see it that way, you save yourself a lot of anguish. We’re Versailles, and the court does things a certain way. Hollywood is our glitzy aristocracy, and yet we need this democratic pretense, much like Rome, now matter how imperial they became, always said anything was done ‘In the name of the Senate and the Roman people.’ SPQR.

    As for Georges1202, I think Europe has little to say. Judging how Merkel has surrendered the country to waves of foreigners, and much of the continent has done little else, how Britain ignores women and girls being kidnapped and raped near Rotherham, but goes all out to denounce Trump, I see them worse. many are examples of the ultimate gated community, free to vent and rant about Trump while their own society is being eaten away.
    In Germany, Urula Haverbeck, a 92 year old woman who denies the Holocaust, is being jailed.Monika Schaefer, a Canadian citizen who said the same thing in Germany, has also been jailed. This isn’t punishing a threat: this is punishment of heresy, something Europe has a great track record of doing, and in most of the continent, if you dare to say you aren’t fond of muzzies, then in the dungeon you go.
    In many causes, if you’re being attacked by one and fight back, you’re arrested.
    I was brought up in a world where, if you disliked someone’s political views, you debated them, not lock them up or sic a mob on them.

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    • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 10:29 am #

      I was brought up in a world where, if you disliked someone’s political views, you debated them, not lock them up…

      The trouble with reading Fox News and its ilk is that you end up believing progaganda and thinking you have discovered the truth.

      Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennox, which is this person’s real name, picked the pseudonym ‘Tommy Robinson’ because it was the name of a prominent member of a football hooligan gang.

      Lennox is a thug and a petty criminal. He lost his job at Luton airport after being convicted of assaulting an off-duty police officer in a drunken argument. He has convictions for mortgage fraud, common assault (for headbutting a fellow EDL member), and entering the US illegally using another person’s passport (he was banned from the US because of a drugs offence).

      His first suspended sentence for contempt of court was for filming inside a court (you will be familiar with the presumption of innocence in the UK and the need to leave the jury unprejudiced). His action could have jeopardised the proper proceeding of the trial and to the necessity and expense of a retrial (many hundreds of thousands of pounds, better spent on public services, I’d say).

      And, given that the trials he tried to disrupt and the convictions he put in danger with his attention-seeking concerned the grooming gangs, it is somewhat disingenuous of you to suggest that ‘Britain ignores women and girls being kidnapped and raped near Rotherham’, since the perpetrators are now in jail, but no thanks to Lennox.

      According to Judge Heather Norton, “this is not about free speech, not about the freedom of the press, nor about legitimate journalism, and not about political correctness. It is about justice and ensuring that a trial can be carried out justly and fairly, it’s about being innocent until proven guilty. It is about preserving the integrity of the jury to continue without people being intimidated or being affected by irresponsible and inaccurate ‘reporting’, if that’s what it was“.

      When he did it again, his suspended sentence was activated. As the attention-seeker that he is, he is now relishing having become a cause célèbre of the American alt-right, which is happy to finance him for its own ends. Nothing new under the sun. And since Stephen has gone down in the world after losing his aircraft engineering job to now running a tanning parlour, I’m sure he’s happy with both the financing and the attention.

      And I shouldn’t need to point out to you that denying the Holocaust isn’t a political view. It is something entirely more sinister. But you know that.

      • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 10:54 am #

        and led to the necessity…

      • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 2:17 pm #

        Does he deny the Holocaust? He’s Jewish – but you already knew that because I told you. How they love their nome de gueres! Always trying to be what they aren’t – namely us. Because they love us? No, because they hate us and want to lead us over a cliff.

        • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 2:26 pm #

          You’re reading too quickly, Mr S, and for the usual reasons.

          I wasn’t referring to Stephen. Read the post I was responding too.

          Teacher’s report: Grade E. Too keen to launch attack without due preparation. Ended up flailing wildly in irrelevance.

          *nom(s) de guerre*

          You’re welcome.

          • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 2:36 pm #

            …responding to

  41. janet August 3, 2018 at 4:12 pm #

    In the late 1970s and early 1980s, an era of stagflation, the Misery Index was calculated as the unemployment rate plus inflation, both of which were running hot.

    Now those numbers are at 50-year lows: both the unemployment rate and inflation are about as low as they can go, reaching levels not seen since the mid-1960s.

    By these measures, the U.S. economy’s Misery Index has never been lower and hence prosperity has never been higher or more widespread.

    But this simply isn’t true: the top 5% are indeed doing better than ever but, as Q’s trip to fly-over country revealed, the bottom 80% are losing ground and the middle 15% are only appearing to do well because asset bubbles have temporarily created illusory wealth.

    Isn’t it obvious that those at the top of the wealth-power pyramid don’t want us to know how much ground we’ve lost while they’ve gorged on immense gains? It is time to REDISTRIBUTE THE WEALTH taking from the top to give to the middle class and lower class.

    Tax the rich!

    (a return to the 94% Eisenhower marginal tax rate would do fine)

    • Tate August 3, 2018 at 5:11 pm #

      Many don’t understand that a 94% marginal tax rate is not the same as taxing your income at 94%.

      I can’t say I disagree with anything you are saying here. It doesn’t even have to be 94%. A return to a more progressive income tax system would be a good thing.

      • JustSaying August 4, 2018 at 1:34 pm #

        Corporations paid 450 billion in taxes in 2015. Today they pay 250 billion. And many pay zero income taxes.

  42. tucsonspur August 3, 2018 at 4:16 pm #

    It’s amazing how quickly and easily you can lose, or almost lose a nation. Change the immigration laws, supposedly with noble intent. Let a few decades roll by, and then tell the people that it’s time. Time to be noble progressives. Time to elect a black president and show our national virtue. And looking to the future, provide a launching pad for Hillary Clinton.

    Right out of Alinsky, Van Jones made it clear in 2008 that “we must drop the radical pose to achieve the radical ends”. In other words, win by deception. Although Obama couldn’t go as far as he might have wished, like Cyril Ramaphosa e. g., his eight years succeeded in establishing a deeply entrenched position throughout the layers of government, providing the Trojan Horse inside fortress Trump.

    As it turned out, all of the PC clubbing and all of the formidable fake news couldn’t stop the Force Majeure. He’s Spartacus in the Obama – Clinton arena.

    I saw Qanon for the first time this morning, with a reporter from CNN trying his best to make them look like foolish conspiracy nuts and dumb deplorables. He didn’t succeed.

    And I just learned that Mueller is now talking to the “Manhattan Madam”, Roger Stone’s friend, as he goes on with his “Russian Collusion” investigation. Really, is he thinking she bed Putin?

    What do Rod Rosenstein, Jeff Sessions, and yes, Sarah Jeung (Harvard) have in common? That’s right, a law degree. Why not just wipe your ass with it!

    • 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 5:03 pm #

      It is amazing, and just as you described.

      What a launchpad indeed.
      The 8 years of Dumbya and his handler, Darth Cheney, tearing up the world and the country was a godsend to the left.

      The string-pullers swooped in and pushed a first term senator out on to center stage. He had been perfecting his act as a fake black Chicagoan for some time, and the country was ready for his minstrel act on the national level. Now a certain woman was also groomed for this moment, but in the end, the brokers knew she was a liability with too much known baggage. Be a good girl, wait your turn. Besides, the national embarrassment and guilt of Bush was bound to exceed Obama’s term. Take a Secretary of State job and burnish that CV.

      Well, not everything on the road to a new global order goes as planned, and occasionally there are setbacks.

      Like Trump

      The question they don’t want you asking is why a nexus to Putin?

      What challenge does Putin represent to the new global order?

      Sovereignty

      Oh that, relic.

      But a dictatorial tyrant as the torch carrier of national sovereignty?

      Well, the small players were toppled.

      Tyrants in the Mideast and North Africa

      Except one, dug in like a tick in Damascus, you see that domino was caught by the Russian tyrant who saw the pattern before him, and how they would fall.

      Losing his man in Ukraine under the guise of democracy was enough of enough.

      So here we are in this absurd time where the last pillars of independent nationalism in the west in the march of the new global order are Putin, by his choice, and Trump by happenstance.

      And again, what a perfect launchpad. Putin and Trump. And again, in short order, we fools will be played.

      • tucsonspur August 3, 2018 at 5:56 pm #

        The Left already thinks of Trump as tyrant. They don’t know tyrant. Let them learn with a capital T. Send them off defeated and murmuring, whispering furtively, “I told you so”.

        Realizing the perils of Democracy, and looking at the state of our current division, the question certainly arises, how far do you go to have and maintain your sense of nation? Here,the meek won’t inherit anything except someone else’s tyranny.

        • messianicdruid August 4, 2018 at 8:13 am #

          The meek shall inherit the earth. Weaponized Autism.

          Omega

  43. Sosodef August 3, 2018 at 4:31 pm #

    So basically at this point, whenever someone “hacks” (reminder: the DNC stooges gave out their password) something official, its assumed to be Russians. I will never vote for a Republican because of their contempt for environmentalism but at this point I can definitely say the Dems are just as reckless, perhaps more so. Wasn’t this supposed to be the party of peace once upon a time? Hate to admit but I can only hope that we go into the midterms with CNN and NYT predicting a 90% chance of dems retaking the House, only to suffer major losses. This will once and for all sweep away the thin veneer of legitimacy around this self-serving party and media. Then we can only hope a new party emerges for ’20.

    Deep State- at this point, I’m not even convinced Trump is the one in their crosshairs. The Deep State’s raison d’etre is to protect and expand the interests of the Empire and a stable Russia gets in the way of that big time- or at least that’s the thinking if you are fighting last century’s war. Of course, they could be in for a big surprise when say Europe collapses or China achieves S Pacific naval hegemony while they are focussed on Facebook trolls.

    • tucsonspur August 3, 2018 at 6:05 pm #

      Trump goes too far with his environmental deregulation. It’s a big strike against him. But you can’t have everything.

  44. akmofo August 3, 2018 at 5:42 pm #

    Judge Andrew Napolitano: How the Courts Killed Natural Law

    https://youtu.be/1uTR3qNW70w

    (How the American Enlightenment was usurped by Vatican/Roman US Federalism).

  45. FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 6:16 pm #

    About Israel, Russia, Putin and Trump

    For the first time I learned about the deal on Friday, April 13, just a few minutes before the bombing of Syria, which changed the geostrategic balance on the planet.

    It was reported that Israel persuaded Russia to force the Iranian troops to leave Syria in exchange for mediation in the deal between Russia and the United States, according to which in the next few hours the US will struck at the empty barracks of the Syrian army, and Russia will receive economic assistance for several hundred billions dollars.

    How is that consistent with the sanctions, I personally do not understand, but Trump once again proved that he does not tweet anything just for the sake of twitting.

    And here is what I wrote on May 15:

    Naturally, in view of these circumstances, the question arises: “And what actually promised Natanahu Putin in exchange for non-interference of the Russian Air Defense in the Iranian-Israeli graters in Syria?”. And I see only one answer: “Salvation Trump in the US from the above-mentioned SS officers.” What I observe with a long forgotten feeling of deep satisfaction and invite you to feel it when reading this post.

    And yesterday and today:

    Israel strike on ‘terrorists’ near fence in Golan kills seven: army
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-strike-terrorists-near-fence-golan-kills-seven-114348082.html

    Israel sees benefits in Assad gains
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-sees-benefits-assad-gains-105509428.html

    Russia to deploy military police on Golan Heights
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-deploy-military-police-golan-heights-ifax-101529184.html

    In the next post I will describe how the fight between Mueller and Trump focused around the trial of the former head of the election campaign of Trump Paul Manafort, since this is the first court on the charges of Mueller.

    And this is very bad news for Ukrainian President Poroshenko, since they sue Manafort on the basis of the so-called barn book of Yanukovych, in which it is described how much money Manafort received and which Poroshenko has given to Clinton to overthrow Trump in the hope that the data presented there will allow him to condemn Manafort and force him to give testimony on Trump.

    So if Manafort is acquitted, this will not only be the end of Muller’s investigation, but the end of Poroshenko. But most importantly, if this happens, then this will best confirm the previously stated hypothesis.

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    • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 6:48 pm #

      The Syrians cannot pay for anything, so anything Russia does in Syria will come out of Russia’s pockets. The Sunnis and Shias were fighting there for a thousand years and will continue to fight for thousands more. Putin is fool to get involved in any of this. Anyway, like many a soccer tycoon, Putin will soon get bored with it all and leave. In the meantime, he’s just wasting Russian money energy and lives on his useless Syrian marioneta.

      • FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 7:58 pm #

        What the hell are you talking about, Mofo?

        Russia controls the airspace of entire Middle East – including Israel – with its S400 systems and the better part of Mediterranean(all of it?) with the Caliber missiles on its ships in Tartus.

        • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 8:51 pm #

          The USSR controlled the entire Middle East, and what came of it? All its Arab clients got free Soviet weapons and free Soviet education while Russian pilots were being shot down by the IAF. Putin is repeating the same idiocy.

      • FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 8:08 pm #

        You better tell us why did they put Moshe Katsav in jail? And why did they put a spell of the Pulsa diNura on Sharon?

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsa_diNura

        In Israel, the same struggle of the Colored Projects as everywhere else. And Israel’s Black Project bets on Clinton and Saudi Arabia.

        • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 9:08 pm #

          Moshe Katsav is in jail because we have foreign agents commie leftists in the Israeli gov mafia bureaucracy. They’ve been playing the “race” card for decades and decades, with Katzav being one of their latest victims. Israelis are on these foreign agents commies, and they are deeply despised and hated. The days of any commie leftists in any position of power in Israel are numbered.

          • elysianfield August 4, 2018 at 11:40 am #

            “Moshe Katsav ”

            Mofo,
            Last week, on a Comedy Central roast one of the comics opined on the name “Moshe”

            “…Moshe…Moshe? If that name were any more Jewish, it could control the weather….”

          • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 12:48 pm #

            Moshe (Heb) = Moses (Eng) = Massey, Misha (Rus)

            And he did control the weather! And parted the Red Sea!

          • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 2:19 pm #

            Israel: Isis+Ra+El

            Got all your bases covered with that.

          • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 3:01 pm #

            All your base are belong to us

          • messianicdruid August 4, 2018 at 3:37 pm #

            “All your base are belong to us“

            “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! And she has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”

            The full extent of Babylon’s “immorality” has yet to be exposed, but, it is soon going to be known. People will be shocked at what their favorite politicians have been doing behind the scenes in secret. This exposure comes only because the mainstream news media has lost control of the narrative. They try desperately to promote the “baseless conspiracy theory” narrative, but I believe that the DOJ’s indictments will soon show how complicit the MSM has been in hiding the “immorality” of the mystery [ hidden ] Babylonian rulers.

  46. 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 7:24 pm #

    Again, Chomsky, a voice of reason. He’ll be labeled a self-hating… again, and so on and so forth, but he makes a point.
    And his point is always universality.

    https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/30/noam_chomsky_us_must_improve_relations

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 10:38 pm #

      Trouble is, Chomsky’s always a day late and several dollars short. He’s hamstrung by the fact that he’s a celebrity. He never once dares to venture into the deeper waters where the real monsters of US foreign policy swim free.

      • 100th Avatar August 3, 2018 at 10:49 pm #

        I don’t know about that.

        He’s been talking about manufactured consent and American hegemony forever.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 2:22 pm #

      And universality is hatred unless it preserves its respective components of which it is comprised. But it does not nor did it ever intend to, despite the propaganda. The Far Right and the Birchers have been proven right a thousand times over.

      True diversity means separation and that means borders. To will the End is to will the Means. Otherwise you’re just wishin’ and hopin’.

  47. Pucker August 3, 2018 at 8:53 pm #

    Hillary Clinton once authored a book entitled “Hard Choices”. It was ghost written by someone else. Hillary’s other book is entitled “What Happened?” Bill and Hillary got into a big argument when Bill told her to rename the book. Hillary told Bill to “Fuck Off”. That was one of Hillary’s “Hard Choices”?

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 10:35 pm #

      I’m guessing Bill did just that. All over her ugly face.

  48. DrGonzo August 3, 2018 at 9:02 pm #

    Kunstler, you moron. It’s not NPR that said “the lights are blinking red”. It was Dan Coats, our Director of National Intelligence. Who likely knows more about what’s actually going on than anyone on this conspiracy blog, and certainly you, who has managed to correctly forecast 27 of the last two recessions.

    NPR just reported the story, doofus. Were they supposed to ignore it, or something? Are we supposed to ignore the Russian hacking of our (non-partisan) electrical grid, as well? I thought that would play into your “systems too big to be stable” meme? Or have you joined the Trump Conspiracy Cult, now?

    In any case, no worries, The Trumpster is too busy fomenting rage against “fake news” to actually read those boring, three-page briefing papers on national security.

    Yeah, I’m sure that the Bloviator in Chief has everything under perfect control, JHK. Perfect control. Stable genius that he is. Nothing to worry about here, he knows more than the generals, right, so certainly more than some pointy-headed Director of National Intelligence, eh?

    What a gathering of crackpots this site has become. At least, JHK, you took down one of your particularly inane interviews, the one with the dude whose “solution” to our problems was to first spread a disease to kill 9/10 of humanity. (Because what could possibly go wrong with that plan?)

    • VCS August 4, 2018 at 12:08 am #

      Well said, Gonzo.

      I used to learn from JHK and this comments section.

      Not so much now. Sad —

    • elysianfield August 4, 2018 at 11:44 am #

      “Kunstler, you moron. It’s not NPR that said “the lights are blinking red”. It was Dan Coats, our Director of National Intelligence. Who likely knows more about what’s actually going on than anyone on this conspiracy blog, and certainly you, who has managed to correctly forecast 27 of the last two recessions.”

      Ahh, Gonzo. Dan Coats probably also knows who killed Kennedy, but he hasn’t whispered names into your ear, has he? Maybe he has an agenda….

  49. Pucker August 3, 2018 at 9:06 pm #

    There’s a retarded kid out on the street corner this morning trying to raise money for the retarded.

    Would you give money to a retarded kid? Are retarded kids “Good-with-Money”?

  50. Remember the Russian cooperation against anti-Assad revolutionaries in Syria?

    Remember whose diesel-smoke spewing carrier chugged into the mediterranean and right into the theater of war?

    Russia is self-evidently a threat to world peace. They still have nukes pointed every which way and are complete and total climate change deniers, relishing the methane bomb about to go off and raising the temperature of their Northern empire.

    Its laudable to call out the media’s abject failures, but Putin’s Russia is every bit the enemy it appears to be.

    Cyberwarfare is a real thing. Describing it in terms of “low intensity” vis-a-vis conventional warfare is a woeful mistake.

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    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 10:33 pm #

      How are the dust bunnies doing tonight under that bed you’re hiding beneath? I’ll bet they’re just terribly threatening, aren’t they?

      • K-Dog August 4, 2018 at 3:24 am #

        Palm trees on the Siberian Traps.

  51. FincaInTheMountains August 3, 2018 at 9:19 pm #

    Russia has taken a firm course to expand the circle of countries where Russian nuclear power plants will be built; already today Russia has taken over 60 percent of the nuclear power generation market, which resulted from the signing of a number of contracts, in particular with India, Turkey, Egypt and Hungary. The terms of the signed agreements imply not only the construction of new stations, but also the building up of technical cooperation.

    Possessing an almost absolute monopoly on the supply of equipment for nuclear power plants, Russia has extended its political influence to the regions of the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

    At the moment, Russia has concluded contracts for the construction of 34 reactors in 13 countries. State Corporation Rosatom conducts an active business in the delivery of nuclear fuel and maintenance of facilities in 20 countries at once.

    AREVA (France) has not won a single tender since 2007. Russia went into a deep gap without the chances for AREVA to catch up with her.

    In fact, we can say that Moscow won an unconditional victory in all countries of the Middle East region, with the exception of the United Arab Emirates, which cooperate with South Korea.

    European and American energy market experts are unanimous in their opinion – Moscow’s success in exporting its nuclear technologies lies in the fact that the Russians offer generous loan financing and low cost for their implementation. Russian nuclear power plants are 20-50% cheaper at the initial stage of design than their western competitors; moreover, Moscow “by default” offers full technical support to all projects implemented by Rosatom.

    As it became clear from the Russian-Indian agreement, any country signing an agreement for the construction of a nuclear power plant a priori agrees to financial and diplomatic cooperation with Moscow. Hanna Toburn, a specialist in Russia from the American Hudson Institute, adds that all such countries also receive significant privileges in the purchase of Russian weapons.

    Foreign orders are estimated at tens of billions of dollars and go into the future for decades. It is Rosatom, and not some Silicon Valley, which is the real Ace in the world of science and technology.

    • akmofo August 3, 2018 at 9:44 pm #

      These Middle East countries that Russia signed up for atomic electricity are sitting on the world’s most major fault line. One has only to look at ancient towns like Alexandria and Caesarea that are now sunk underwater to understand the kind of earthquake force we are dealing with and the kind of catastrophic disaster that awaits the area at any minute. But congrats to Russia for convincing their idiot clients to pay for the most expensive method to produce electricity and at the same time sign on to their own nuclear annihilation. Thank you, Russia!

      (Btw, I hope these projects are not financed on Russian credit. But given previous Russian genius in finance, you can never be too sure).

    • Did you know that in the event of a catastrophe the nuclear cores of these reactors can melt down and spew dangerous clouds of radiation into the air? That they need to be fed continuously a diet of fossil fuel energy to keep them going? That an electromagnetic pulse (from the sun or other source) could effectively cut the power and leave many hundreds of pounds of fissile material into air in an uncontrollable meltdown? What is the point of this again? To sell mined uranium, no matter what the cost, for short term profits, going directly to the Russian government.

      Their maintenance contract will of course be irrelevant in the case of a meltdown. Whereas noble Japanese will make a sacrifice to face incomprehensible danger of Fukushima, you can bet your life Russia will be of no help at all when, not if, these nuclear volcanoes melt down in some far-flung republic.

      The distinction of “safe” and “not-safe” reactors are meaningless in respect to the widely distributed reactors situated at or near sea-level around the world, some 800 of them the last I checked, many built to the highest technical standards of advanced nations, by American companies. Crap happens! And then what? Nuclear power is dangerous, not just because it distributes the highly poisonous raw material for a “dirty bomb”.

      Any country that would partner with Islamic maniacs (Assad, Tehran) are de facto enemies of America, and anyone who truly admires these people is not a patriot.

      • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 10:31 pm #

        Ahhh! The TRUE definition of a “patriot” revealed at last! One who claims the mantle first for themselves and proclaims all self-defined “others” not to be part of the fold!

        Let me break it to you Lil’ Snack Pack: “Patriotism” is the final refuge of fools, scoundrels, and liars. Which one are you?

        • Janos Skorenzy August 3, 2018 at 11:35 pm #

          Thus are you conquered by Nihilism. They have triumphed once you are no longer capable of believing in Human Goodness. Or the Nation State.

        • K-Dog August 4, 2018 at 3:27 am #

          de facto smacto

      • elysianfield August 4, 2018 at 11:55 am #

        “Did you know that in the event of a catastrophe the nuclear cores of these reactors can melt down and spew dangerous clouds of radiation into the air? That they need to be fed continuously a diet of fossil fuel energy to keep them going? That an electromagnetic pulse (from the sun or other source) could effectively cut the power and leave many hundreds of pounds of fissile material into air in an uncontrollable meltdown? What is the point of this again? To sell mined uranium, no matter what the cost, for short term profits, going directly to the Russian government.”

        SnackPak,
        Yes all true. Did you know that, due to the of consumption of massive amounts of Lil’ Debbie snacks, more people will die, eventually than from the results of all the Nuclear accidents heretofore experienced?

        What’s the point? Selling Ho Ho’s and Snowballs for short term profit.

      • Horzabky August 4, 2018 at 2:21 pm #

        Assad is not an islamist. Quite the reverse, and he has the support of the Christians of Syria. His British-educated wife, a former banker, is not veiled, unlike Erdogan’s.

        Whereas the West (and the USA in particular) does support the islamic maniac rulers of Saudi Arabia, who in turn support ISIS.

        America has no problems with islamic maniacs like the Saudis, provided they have oil and buy American weapons.

        You seem to confuse American patriotism with the financial interests of American bankers and weapon-makers. That’s a gross mistake, in my humble opinion.

        • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 2:57 pm #

          “His British-educated wife…”

          He did his post-graduate ophthalmology training at the Western Eye Hospital in London too. Shame he later allowed the torturing to continue at home, though – maybe a few eye treatments needed after that. More ‘hypocritic’ than Hippocratic.

          Totally agree regarding the Saudis and both your country and mine kowtowing to them for oil and selling them weapons to murder Yemenis. And paying them slush money that helped fund the mad madrassas around the world.

          It’s not that long since UK defence contractors were selling leg-irons, manacles and ‘cattle prods’ to dubious regimes, till they were clocked by Amnesty.

        • True, I failed to make a distinction between “Islamic maniacs” and “Islamists”, but I meant just as much “Christianists” or “Buddhistists”…

  52. the camels bell August 3, 2018 at 9:27 pm #

    Why is there no virtue in anything stolen, including a presidency?

    Or why is it: “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

    If you dare:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/this-is-so-much-bigger-than-paul-manafort/566501/

    • DrGonzo August 3, 2018 at 9:49 pm #

      Great article! (Although creepy and depressing as hell). Thanks TCB.

    • ozone August 3, 2018 at 9:59 pm #

      “Why is there no virtue in anything stolen, including a presidency?”

      Because false pretenses will always [eventually] cut through the cloak of legitimacy, no matter how thick and expertly woven. Human history is notorious for short and breathless moments of deception and discovery. The only modifier is the give-a-shit or lack thereof upon such discoveries. It’s amazing how quickly terrible turnings are put out of mind and branded irrelevant to the present zeitgeist.

      (And now……….. off to suggested article.)

      • ozone August 3, 2018 at 10:30 pm #

        From the article:
        “These are not stray villains, but representative figures: American law firms play an essential role in protecting global kleptocracy and helping it relocate money to the United States.”

        Ah, see now? It’s all *perfectly legal*! This is what happens when one appoints a skulk of foxes to guard the hen house (where they co-incidentally keep all the money).

        Gomer Pyle sez: “Surprise, surprise!!”

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 10:20 pm #

      From The Atlantic Monthly no less! I used to read that quasi liberal rag religiously long before the culture wars began. Might be time to give it another look.

      I did notice the continued demonization of Putin sprinkled throughout, however – “In Russia, the KGB steered billions of dollars into offshore accounts during the dying days of the regime, the beginning of a pattern of plunder best described by the late Karen Dawisha in her instant classic, Putin’s Kleptocracy. These funds became the basis for some of the fortunes of those who now appear as characters in the Russiagate scandal. Vladimir Putin himself amassed wealth that totaled more than $40 billion when Dawisha calculated his haul several years ago.” – but I’ll chalk that up to the now routine US oligarchic press lapdog dipshittery.

      Echo chambers!

      • ozone August 3, 2018 at 10:33 pm #

        ” – but I’ll chalk that up to the now routine US oligarchic press lapdog dipshittery.”

        LOL Me too. It’s all-too-familiar weaselry, ain’t it?

        • capt spaulding August 4, 2018 at 10:13 am #

          People completely misunderstand a guy like Putin, After serving his country honorably in the KGB, he went on to further serve in the political arena. You can just look at him and see that he’s a good guy, hell, he can come home with me and fuck my sister. His style of governing may be a little rough,but in general he seems to be a good fit with our current political leaders, as well as with the industrialists who now control the government . It’s a perfect match, and it’s getting better all the time. I can hardly wait to reap the benefits of our romance with the Russians.

      • malthuss August 5, 2018 at 10:38 am #

        They want DT dead. That horrid cover, yikes.

  53. Pucker August 3, 2018 at 10:15 pm #

    CNN pulls everyone around by the nose with their propaganda as some kind of farm animal management technique?

    The Chinese are fascinated that US universities are starting to abandon the SAT/ACT. Without standardized tests and a common denominator most people won’t know what to do.

    I once knew a retired hippie bloke from Virginia teaching in China who was always talking about the Singularity and his wife’s visits to the Chinese gynecologist. He was convinced that after the robots start doing all of the work that one day to keep everybody busy they’ll just organize everybody to march around in circles. I told him that that’s basically the way that it is now.

    https://www.sydneytoday.com/content-101829436727023

    • Ol' Scratch August 3, 2018 at 10:25 pm #

      I have the good fortune to regularly “mentor” many of the young rubes coming up these days in my chosen “profession.” Needless to say, I try to rub the “alternative view” in their precious little noses as often as I can. Reviews so far are mostly positive (I haven’t been fired or reprimanded yet). I think today’s youth are more aware than we oldsters’ give them credit for.

    • K-Dog August 4, 2018 at 3:41 am #

      The same article says:

      In other words, the “hidden rules” enrolled in American elite schools: the era of enrollment by “ethnic quota” is coming to an end. The New Deal will promote non-racial and fair competition, regardless of skin color, and merit-based admission.

      (from the translation)

      Now how can that be, no SAT/ACT leaving the only ‘merit’ to be $$$$$$$$$$, which the Chinese are fine with, since they now have lots of it.

      • K-Dog August 4, 2018 at 12:06 pm #

        The racism in the translation is more direct than colloquial English.
        Racial Admission is the way they describe equal opportunity admission. Their statement is followed by a pic of two black students. There is a certain charm to it, ‘racial admission’, which from the Chinese immigrant point of view is something absolutely to be stopped. Stopped like the annoying drip of a faucet in the middle of the night. The Chinese immigrant pays for quality and expects standards to be maintained.

        I think Janos would enjoy dropping the Chinese article into Google translate and reading it like I did.

        • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 2:27 pm #

          In other words, you’re against merit? I think letting a computer program translate your screeds would be very interesting. Don’t think I don’t have compassion for you though – you are a house divided against yourself, having been wrong about absolutely everything you believed in since your youth. Stay where you are and suffer – or join us in the Light.

          Yes, East Asia now realizes that Liberal Whites are fucking crazy Moonbats. So I agree with you in that respect.

  54. Pucker August 3, 2018 at 10:40 pm #

    I’m not sure that I know how to do it with a Sexbot?

    In the prison, they have a problem with the prisoners always punching the Sexbot in the face.

    • ozone August 3, 2018 at 11:00 pm #

      Pucker,
      If’n you don’t know by now, I don’t think there’s anyone here that can help. 😉 (A caveat: Do NOT, under any circumstances, take counsel on this particular from any “on-shift” opinionators! Loss of ‘parts’ may result!)

      • Pucker August 3, 2018 at 11:44 pm #

        Any logic to trying to get the Sexbot drunk?

    • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 1:21 pm #

      “I’m not sure that I know how to do it with a Sexbot?”

      You could try asking it what it likes? 🙂 I think you can programme them from ‘compliant doormat’ to ‘consent-practising’ so I’m sure there’s all sorts of role-playing fun to be had.

      The important thing is to remember you’re responsible for its post-coital hygiene. You don’t want the place humming with flies. It might put you off ‘her’ for life. Although I’m guessing they come with disposable bags, like vacuum cleaners (I’m sure there’s an ER joke to be had there somewhere). Anything else would be above and beyond for most purchasers, although the odd one might enjoy having a bath with her if her bits are, you know, insulated.

      It must be arousing just thinking about it.

      • malthuss August 4, 2018 at 2:19 pm #

        randy

        • GreenAlba August 4, 2018 at 4:29 pm #

          Hi Randy, I’m Candy. Don’t forget to recharge me or I won’t work. 🙂

  55. Pucker August 3, 2018 at 10:59 pm #

    “Piss & Moan, Piss & Moan!”

    By the way, the Cherokee didn’t ride horses. Those were the “Plains Indians”.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6E98ZRaU1s

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    • malthuss August 4, 2018 at 2:21 pm #

      Indians dont claim ‘half breed’ to be ‘White by law’–
      the song, words and visuals make for a great mishmash of crazy or crazy horse stuff.

  56. tucsonspur August 3, 2018 at 11:40 pm #

    Boats are needed to drain the swamp. Do you think that any DeVos will help?

    “A $40 million boat owned by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was untied from its Ohio dock last week, causing it to drift into a dock and incur up to $10,000 in damages. The vessel, named the Seaquest, ended up with large scratches before the crew was able to get control of it.

    DeVos is unlikely to be too troubled by the damage — the Seaquest is one of 10 vessels owned by the DeVos family”.

    Seems like Mueller is up everybody’s ass, including that of Erik Prince.

  57. Pucker August 4, 2018 at 12:03 am #

    They’re all talking about developing Facebook, Amazon, Google digital “Smart Cities” replete with data gathering cameras and sensors hidden in signs, walls, lamp posts, parking meters, garbage cans, toilet seats, etc. I wonder if Warren Buffet will create “Smart Trailer Parks” to be subsidized via the Universal Basic Income?

    • malthuss August 4, 2018 at 2:22 pm #

      Its is underway. Bit by bit.
      But I think depopulation is the real agenda of the billionaires.
      Why share when you can kill off the lower classes?

  58. Pucker August 4, 2018 at 12:13 am #

    Are you going camping again this Winter with the Donner Party?

    • malthuss August 4, 2018 at 2:23 pm #

      in reference to?

  59. janet August 4, 2018 at 3:26 am #

    “Btw, archaeology shows that Mecca did not exist during the time “Muhmud” is purported to have lived.” –akmofo

    Yeah, entirely too much emphasis is put on non-existent figures, invisible non-existent beings, and their purported scriptures, including the TaNaKh. You do a good job of hitting Islam. The same can be done with Judaism. The existence of Moses as well as the veracity of the Exodus story is disputed amongst archaeologists and Egyptologists, with experts in the field of biblical criticism citing logical inconsistencies, new archaeological evidence, historical evidence and related origin myths in Canaanite culture. There is no historical evidence outside of the Bible, no mention of Moses outside the Bible, and no independent confirmation that Moses ever existed.

    • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 9:14 am #

      Darling Janet, you need to do your homework. The evidence is there. And there’s plenty of it. And it is outrageous because it turns our Vatican propagandized world on its head. That you refuse to entertain it, or even look for it, is not my problem, it is yours darling. You are the loser. Because it is you who is mired in darkness and lies.

    • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 10:12 am #

      Here’s a little teaser for you, darling Janet:

      David Rohl’s book “Exodus: Myth or History?” isn’t solely about dating the Exodus to an earlier time in Egypt’s history; it also concerns itself with other contacts between Israel and Egypt; such as the arrival of Israel in Egypt in the lifetime of Joseph, exciting archaeological discoveries at the ancient Asiatic (Semitic) city of Avaris in northern Egypt’s land of Goshen, and Israel’s conquest of Canaan after the Exodus, as described in the Old Testament.

      Rohl is a perfect fit for this argument; he’s agnostic – neither a believer or disbeliever – but a brilliant, keenly astute, highly degreed Egyptologist, Historian, Scholar, Author, and Lecturer whose professional and academic credentials make Indiana Jones look like a gifted amateur. David Rohl is prominently featured in Tim Mahoney’s film: “Patterns of Evidence: Exodus”.

      Rohl argues Egyptian chronology, regarded by academia as the gold standard of human history, has been misdated in various archaeological periods, and Biblical Archaeology has become a taboo subject in academic circles.

      However, the burning questions about the accuracy, veracity, and precision of biblical chronology is again become one of the hottest topics in the field of Archaeology, Egyptology, and human history today. David Rohl answers many of those questions in “Exodus: Myth or History?”

      Mainstream academia claims the bible is an unreliable compilation of myths and fables. David Rohl asserts the bible has, and still is, proving itself an accurate, reliable resource and record of human civilization. As an archaeology correspondent stated in an issue of the U.K.’s newspaper The Daily Mail: “The bible, it seems, is back in business”.

      In this book, David Rohl reinterprets archaeological discoveries to argue his viewpoint that the events of Israel’s arrival and later slavery in Egypt, the biblical Exodus out of Egypt, and Joshua’s conquest of the cities of Hazor and Jericho in Canaan were actual historic events and Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and Pharaoh Shishak, mentioned in the bible, were genuine, historical, biblical characters.

      Unfortunately, due to the established Egyptian chronology, still rigidly and sacredly held today in academic circles, archaeological evidence is misinterpreted and their historical significance is dismissed. Rohl points out that Archaeologists are looking for evidence in the right places, but they’re looking in the wrong times.

      To loosely paraphrase Rohl: “If you look into Egypt’s past for a total collapse of their civilization, there you will find Moses and the Exodus.” Rohl makes perfect sense if one ponders the devastating impacts of the biblical plagues visited upon Egypt, the sudden departure of northern Egypt’s slave labor, Israel’s looting and plundering of Egypt as they left, the destruction of Pharaoh and his army, and the ensuing social, military, & economic collapse that would have been sure to follow.

      David Rohl posits that the biblical accounts of the Old Testament; particularly Israel’s exodus from Egypt, appear to be dated to the wrong Egyptian chronological timeframe and actually took place much earlier; near the end of Egypt’s 13th dynasty in the Middle Kingdom period.

      Much of the confusion seemingly stems from a mistranslation of an Egyptian Pharaoh’s name by French linguist Jean-Francois Champollion in 1828; subsequently placing the biblical Exodus at a much later period of Egypt’s history.

      David Rohl breaks from the academic status quo when he succinctly points out:
      -Champollion’s mistranslation had been identified and corrected by 1888.
      -Pharaoh Shoshenk is not the Pharaoh Shishak mentioned in the bible.
      -Pharaoh Shishak has been identified as Ramesses II: who plundered Solomon’s Temple during the reign of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. Therefore, Pharaoh Ramesses II couldn’t possibly be the Pharaoh of the Exodus, contemporary with Moses, if one follows biblical chronology.
      -Champollion’s chronology also relied upon a 3rd century B.C. kings list complied by a Ptolemaic Egyptian priest named Manetho, which has been problematic; i.e.:
      A. Some of the Pharaohs names can’t be found in known history.
      B. Manetho lists different names for some of the same pharaohs.
      C. The list doesn’t take into account periods when different pharaohs were co-rulers at the same time.

      I have found this book a comprehensive, informative, sometimes astonishing, and very satisfying read; filled with references, photographs, charts, and illustrations meticulously documented. “Exodus: Myth or History?” is an eye-opening, fact filled, academic powerhouse for all serious students of human history.

      Akin to exercising muscles that haven’t been used in a long time; reading “Exodus: Myth or History?” might hurt a little at first, but the contents of this book are too compelling and makes to much sense to dismiss.

      https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25916262-exodus
      .
      .
      https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSLSjMQu9cBpbnzXkj7dPVAwmA7F579AZ
      .
      .

  60. tucsonspur August 4, 2018 at 4:04 am #

    Who will dare answer this question? You must choose one. Careful, much may be revealed with this simple query.

    Who would you rather have dinner with; LeBron James or Anthony?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-UFsJFVwi0

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  61. tucsonspur August 4, 2018 at 4:19 am #

    Today. Portland. Patriot Prayer rally. Grab a brew. Light ’em up.

  62. FincaInTheMountains August 4, 2018 at 10:06 am #

    But congrats to Russia for convincing their idiot clients to pay for the most expensive method to produce electricity and at the same time sign on to their own nuclear annihilation. == Akmofo

    Obviously, you, Mofo, prefer firewood.

    Putin trolls Germans: You don’t want gas or the nuclear energy, so you will heat on a firewood?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDQDyt0B-1E

    What is worse than a land of unfrightened idiots? The land of jittery idiots.

    • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 10:45 am #

      Actually, yes. It’s a natural limiter on the too many cancerous excesses and resulting disasters for our societies.

  63. volodya August 4, 2018 at 10:15 am #

    Sosodef,

    good-hearted people can honestly and respectfully disagree on which idiocy will prove fatal out of the passel of follies being advocated by the vastly learned and wealthy. But the one you mentioned gets my vote.

    This obsessive focus on Russia serves to obscure who is the REAL global rival to the USA. And you hit the nail on the head. They’re busily sniffing out Russian Facebook trolls while China conducts live-fire exercises at energy choke-points at the Horn of Africa, while the Chinese military builds outposts on waterways that China claims for itself. With one tenth the population and GDP of China, Russia is barely to China what minor powers like Australia or Canada are to the US.

    Russia has nukes? So what, are the Russians going to use them? Against who exactly? For what reason? That is, without inviting an immediate retaliatory strike.

    China’s method is to walk softly, to eat away American hegemony by degrees, to methodically dismantle American credibility, to get Americans to willingly hand over their managerial and technical know-how, to get the US to bleed away its wealth and its industrial and war-making capacity.

    All this while US intel agencies piss away time and money to tell us with a high degree of “certainty” that Russians “interfered” in the last presidential election without offering a filament of credible proof, while making assertions that have been challenged by third parties as being demonstrably wrong and without offering a stitch of plausible rationale as to why one presidential candidate would be preferable to Russia as opposed to any other.

    People are supposed to “trust” American intelligence agencies? Pray tell, WHY? Have they earned trust? Maybe only if you forget monumental lies like Iraqi weapons of mass destruction – which, by the way, many Americans of high education and social connection bought into – and gigantic fuck-ups like not seeing the imminent collapse of the USSR or the Iranian revolution.

    You’d do worse than to trust your own eyes and ears in this. You’d be doing no more than what’s required of any reasonable person, to use your own wits to evaluate a situation, to assess what you’re being told.

    Of course, the irony is that while the raison d’etre of the Deep State may be to protect the interests of the “Empire” as you call it, or the interests of enormously wealthy Americans as I prefer to see it, the reality is that they’re energetically doing the opposite. If there’s a contest at the end of time, American Oligarchs and their Washington errand boys will go down as history’s biggest laughingstock.

    • FincaInTheMountains August 4, 2018 at 11:07 am #

      It is not the Russian nukes they are scared of; it is the threat of competing Orthodox Christian ideology, you dummy.

      China does not pose any threat to Western anti-Christian, Gnostic establishment in that department.

    • “Russia has nukes? So what, are the Russians going to use them? Against who exactly? For what reason? That is, without inviting an immediate retaliatory strike.”

      The problem will be adjudicated hopefully without the retaliatory strike (which would mean global thermonuclear war and human holocaust).

  64. ditrick August 4, 2018 at 10:30 am #

    I’ve read Clusterfuck Nation for the past 6 or more years regularly, rarely missing a post. Kunstler is funny and sheds light of the many ways America is losing its collective mind, politically and culturally.

    For the past year or more, his main theme has been how the mainstream media is propping up the deep state and entrenched politicos who have fabricated the story of Russian involvement in the 2016 election. Jim may turn out to be correct in that viewpoint but I’m not a believer. I distrust the MSM for the usual reasons but I’ve never bought into conspiracy theories involving masses of people and at this point, that is exactly what his viewpoint is – that the vast majority of non-conservative media (which is the vast majority of media in this country) is conspiring by repeating a false and factless narrative of Russian political meddling. Obviously foreign media must either be complicit or just taking our msm stories at face value because they have articles about their own gov’t guarding against Russian election meddling.

    It’s getting to the point where I wonder whether he is playing to his current audience or if he believes what he writes. It’s starting to feel like he’s a voice for the current White House. No, with GGOG comments, he won’t get an invite to visit from Trump, but I imagine most of his blog goes over well with White House staffers who may know of it.

    And yes, I do know from reading comments section east week that most readers. or at least commenting readers, support his views. I’m just getting sick of the almost propaganda like tone of it, week after week.

    • Walter B August 4, 2018 at 10:49 am #

      Those of us that have been through this kind of horse shit from our “government” before are far sicker of having to hear it all once again and may very well be why our host continues to stress the folly in such foolishness. For my entire 64-1/2 years I have had to watch as our nation sought out another bad guy to go after and when new bad guys cannot be found,, they reflate an old one. The Russian gig was done before to almost a disastrous end .

      Those of us who continue to read and re-read history understand. I another great book By David Talbot titled “Brothers” the original Russian scare was documented superbly:

      [Page 68 – In Summer 1961, Kennedy came under increasing pressure from military and intelligence officials to consider launching a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. The president was informed that far from suffering a “missile gap”, the United States the United States actually enjoyed a growing lead in land-based nuclear missiles. According to a National Intelligence Estimate delivered that year, the Soviets had only four intercontinental ballistic missiles in place—all of them on low alert at a test site—while the U.S. had 185 ICBM’s and over 3,400 deliverable nuclear bombs at the time. This clear “window” of nuclear superiority would eventually close as Soviet nuclear weapons production began to catch up. While it remained open, Washington was a hothouse of militaristic fever, which accounts for LeMay’s intemperate remarks about an imminent nuclear war at the July dinner party.

      On July 20, at a National Security Council meeting, Kennedy was presented an official plan for a surprise nuclear attack by the Joint Chiefs chairman, General Lemnitzer, and Allen Dulles, who would remain at the helm of the CIA until the fall. Lemnitzer, whose intellectual abilities the president found wanting, presented the doomsday plan “as though it were for a kindergarten class” according to Schlesinger, and a disgusted Kennedy got up in the middle of the meeting and walked out. “And we call ourselves the human race”, he bitterly remarked to Secretary of State Dean Rusk afterwards.]

      Remember that line from the Who song “We won’t get fooled again”? Bullshit! We always get fooled again and even by the same line of crap. It is getting a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?

      • FincaInTheMountains August 4, 2018 at 11:25 am #

        Not to forget an unbalance threat of a surprise nuclear attack from US Jupiter missiles in Turkey with a flight time of 10 minutes to their targets.

        That was what forced the Soviet leadership to activate the secret operation Anadyr

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anadyr

        Kennedy perfectly knew where the legs were growing from and ordered preparations for evacuation of Jupiters from Turkey before any negotiations took place.

        That is exactly why Kennedy was executed by American Nazies and why he should be added to the List of Christian martyrs.

      • beantownbill. August 4, 2018 at 11:38 am #

        Walter, most humans are programmed to believe whatever “experts” say is true. Fortunately, enough people have the sense to come to their own conclusions. Since we are not privy to back-room policy decisions, we must question every public statement, report and motivation of those who have so-called power (not just elected officials, but also reporters, businessmen, etc.) in order to have the best chance to ascertain the truth.

        This process is very time-consuming and few of us can do the research. That’s why I think comments here are mostly ludicrous – people ought to ask questions rather than make statements. The strength of the CFN community is that many of us have some useful, hard-learned information or insightful questions which can be posted in this forum, and which can help people get closer to learning the “real” reality.

        • malthuss August 4, 2018 at 2:13 pm #

          most humans are programmed to believe whatever “experts” say is true.

          Does that make religion a racket?
          Sending youths to Israel for the ‘star treatment’–all expenses paid?

          • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 2:58 pm #

            What’s the problem, malthuss, afraid they will leave you all alone to rot in your woodshed? That you will have no one to blame your miserable life on the fascist slave plantation.

        • Walter B August 4, 2018 at 3:07 pm #

          Yes btb, I agree that the bulk are easily led to believe what they are told to believe by the so called experts. The disturbing part of it is how the “experts” are qualified to be considered “expert”. Simply appearing on the magic moving picture box on the wall seems to be all it takes doesn’t it? Achieving the status of “celebrity” is another frightening way they seem to become noteworthy as well. In the end, smooth talk and happy lies appears to be the best tools to convince the uneducated (or those successfully programmed to be convinced by such tactics) to believe what they are told. Never give a sucker an even break pretty much says it all.

    • K-Dog August 4, 2018 at 11:43 am #

      Anytime you want to pony up evidence of Russian meddling in the American circle jerk we call elections, nobody will stop you. Perhaps the deep state might; they do that sort of thing from time to time. But hey, you never know if you don’t try.

      Obviously foreign media must either be complicit or just taking our msm stories at face value because they have articles about their own gov’t guarding against Russian election meddling.

      Foreign articles about gov’ts guarding against Russian election meddling. Care to post the URLs of three of those articles for us?

      While you may be getting sick of the almost propaganda like tone here, week after week I have to compliment your own skill at propaganda.

      Clusterfuck Nation for the past 6 or more years regularly – Virtue signaling. Are you going to tell us you have an open mind too?

      For the past year or more, his main theme has been how the mainstream media is propping up the deep state and entrenched politicos who have fabricated the story of Russian involvement in the 2016 election. Then you say Jim might be right but you don’t believe it. Excuse me, but did we not just meet. We have no reason to trust your ‘belief’ over his but you pull the alpha-dog I know better trick and then follow up your claim with a buildup to evidence that never arrives. The buildup instead morphs into a ‘how can so many people be so wrong’ fallacious argument. Which is:

      is conspiring by repeating a false and factless narrative of Russian political meddling. And chesterfield cigarettes were once the choice of doctors. The everybody does it appeal is basic propaganda but hard to do convincingly, good play.

      It’s getting to the point where I wonder whether he is playing to his current audience or if he believes what he writes. That little tidbit of confusion and mental pimple popping you could have kept to yourself but it suggests you have a big brain so nicely. But only ‘suggest’ I have to say, because is that something you would have the balls to ask Jim to his face?

      I’m just getting sick of the almost propaganda like tone of it, week after week. Reminding yourself that you are here of your own free will and that nobody is paying you to be here, might remind your that you have choices.

      It rips to shreds but it was smooth to read. My compliment is genuine.

  65. volodya August 4, 2018 at 11:43 am #

    Walter B, I see things pretty much as you do.

    Sure, it’s repetitive to say the same things in slightly different ways about the same shit – or more or less the same shit – because after a while it all has an obsessive-compulsive feel to it. Or propaganda.

    But human events don’t unfold at the same pace as a Hollywood movie, where you know that resolution is 120 minutes away. Sometimes it’s the same old for decades before the wheels come off, before they start pitching tea into the harbor or the Czar disappears down a mine-shaft.

    In 1962 NOBODY foresaw the end of the USSR. In the 1960s and 1970s communism and the various despotisms that subscribed to it, all looked as solid as the Himalayas. I know because I was there, as you were. At the time, to a lot of people, including those American generals, it looked like it would take nuclear strikes to dislodge it.

    The future was much, much weirder, that the USSR would disappear in a flurry of its own bullshit, that it got flushed down history’s crapper because nobody would any longer give its governing tenets the slightest credibility. It became over the decades, in JHK’s terminology, an arrangement without a future.

    The thing with conspiracies is that they don’t have to be explicit, they can be implicit, unspoken understandings about what is, what isn’t, what has to be done and how to do it. Yeah, it’s a drag reading over and over on blogs like JHK’s about how the msm all has the same take on things, how the campus glitterati are all in accord, that is, when they can spare the time from calling one another and everyone they disagree with racists and sexists.

    You can call this “conspiracy” or you can call it “consensus”. “Consensus” is a much more acceptable word, it implies that there was a rational thought process behind it, that at some point trustworthy people did some fact-gathering and some impartial assessment. But just because there’s consensus doesn’t mean the consensus has reasonable underpinnings, the consensus in this case being that Russians meddled or conspired with Trump, especially if the consensus is among – cough — intellectuals. Or self-serving politicians. Millions of people can be dead wrong, never mind a relatively small group of apex predators.

    I would argue that it behooves everyone to give a listen to people shouting from the rooftops. The outsiders, not being inside the group-think echo-chamber, can often have the clearer take on things.

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    • K-Dog August 4, 2018 at 12:47 pm #

      You know the value of howling at the moon.

      You are saying what is often seen as a conspiracy is really a reaction to the apprehension of illogical social situations which rationality would extinguish where rational thinking allowed to. The expectation of rational behavior must be overridden by overt direction the thinking goes in the head of one imagining a conspiracy.

      Bringing consensus into the discussion is a good descriptor. People are genetically programmed to go along with the crowd. Whatever crowd they call their own that is, their own tribe. Consensus becomes as strong a perpetuating force within groups as an actual conspiracy. In some ways more powerful because the center is everywhere.

      It is also no conspiracy it Homeland Security thinks you need a little extra paper training and bleached bright white dress shirts and shiny black pants follow you around on the government dime. That is just part of the deep state at work. No conspiracy at all if people just don’t want to imagine the possibility.

      Trump’s 2018 Budget requests $44.1 billion for The Department of Homeland Security, a $2.8 billion increase from 2017. Trump thumps the arts, science and the poor with budget cuts.

      Trump is not an enemy of the deep state. Trump becomes the deep state and some of those billions of HS money are earmarked to blow smoke up your ass and say it ain’t so. Some more of it, not much one can rationalize in the greater scheme of things, is earmarked to do some really nasty shit.

      But it is not like this place is Nazi Germany you know.

      • volodya August 4, 2018 at 3:28 pm #

        What I’m saying is that often a pattern of events or actions looks to have been planned. We say this is the result of “conspiracy” which is as loaded a word as there is.

        “Conspiracies” are often thought of as secret plots. But powerful people often don’t bother to make plots secret. Why bother if you can’t be touched by any legal consequence, ie if you have law enforcement agencies in your pocket?

        Sometimes the plans are laid out in public view, with full public discussion, often-times with legislatures giving the imprimature of the law.

        Sometimes there’s no attempt at concealment because people won’t see what’s right under their nose. Sometimes they’ll be told, no, don’t believe what you’re seeing, your eyes are lying. And they’ll disbelieve their own eyes.

        • K-Dog August 4, 2018 at 4:17 pm #

          But powerful people often don’t bother to make plots secret. Why bother if you can’t be touched by any legal consequence, ie if you have law enforcement agencies in your pocket?

          Evidence is showing that to be the case.

        • Walter B August 4, 2018 at 7:50 pm #

          Those that denounce conspiracy volodya have always astounded me. Is it the word that frightens them, or confuses them, or is it an inability to understand that in order to achieve certain goals, people do, in fact, get together covertly and make plans that may not be publically appreciated and sometimes outright illegal? Converting the American form of government is a good example. Who would deny that there are people, probably millions of them, right here in America that are working hard to advance the Communist Party and increase the power of this party in the political arena. Check your last ballot, they often have communist candidates on them, certainly at the national levels. It ain’t illegal people, it is our system. There are many conspiracies in both the public and the private sectors. There are few open book or above board only methods of getting things done these days you know. In fact if you really want to achieve any real goal, covert is the easiest way to do it, and covert requires conspiracy.

          • K-Dog August 5, 2018 at 5:13 am #

            How do you get to trust that many people so much without thinking one is going to spill the beans. The more that know the sooner someone goes hoe.

            Tell me how it works because if a million people have to keep their mouth shut and even with only a one percent chance of any one of them defecting, that is still 10,000 defectors.

            Watching Mr Ed. taught me how to do math with my paw. I of course would never defect. As would you too be true blue. But that other guy?

            Conspiracies by their nature are weak and carry seeds of self destruction.

          • Walter B August 5, 2018 at 5:50 am #

            How it works K-Dog is that as an event unfolds, such as the JFK murder, and many may see the truth as it happens, those with enough power and control act quickly to suppress eyewitnesses such as the 50 or 60 people including a few Dallas PD run to the grassy Knoll. These people came forward and testified to this effect because they saw gunfire coming from this place, but the authorities and the Warren Commission refused to even hear them out. The Congressional investigation of 1976 did in fact take this testimony and later concluded that the assassination was indeed a conspiracy. Suppression by the media, murder of as many loudmouths as required and the repeated denial of any questionable facts eventually put the masses to sleep.

            From “Brothers” by David Talbot:

            “Page 2 – Predictably, the first phone call that Bobby made on November 22 after his initial conversation with Hoover was to Kenny O’Donnell. JFK’s chief of staff had accompanied the president to Dallas and was and was with him at Parkland Memorial Hospital when he was pronounced dead at 2:00 p.m…..Bobby ran upstairs to phone O’Donnell from his bedroom, while Morgenthau and his assistant were led to a TV set in the drawing room At Hickory Hill. Not finding O’Donnell at the hospital, Kennedy spoke instead to Secret Service agent Clint Hill, the only officer who had performed heroically on the president’s behalf that afternoon. Images of Hill rushing to leap onto the back of JFK’s moving limousine would forever become part of the iconography of that eerie day.

            It’s not known precisely what Bobby learned that afternoon from the Secret Service man. But there was a darkness that immediately began growing in Hill and O’Donnell about what they had seen and heard in Dallas. Neither man would ever be the same after November 22.

            O’Donnell was riding immediately behind Kennedy’s limousine in the Dallas motorcade, just ten feet away, along with fellow Boston Irishman Dave Powers, the White House aide and court jester. They were front row witnesses to the assassination. Powers would later say it felt as if they were “riding into an ambush”. O’Donnell and more than one Secret Service man would tell Bobby the same thing that day. They were caught in a crossfire. It was a conspiracy.

            Bobby Kennedy came to the same conclusion that afternoon. It was not a “he” who had killed his brother—it was a “they”. This is how he put it to his friend, Justice Department press spokesman Edwin Guthman.”

            It remains fact that the US Attorney General at the time, the highest legal position in the “Justice” Department immediately knew what really happened and began to investigate to uncover the truth. The fact that he remained quiet due to the political situation afterwards, yet vowed to find and publicize the truth once he could be elected president himself is also fact. The final fact, that Bobby Kennedy was immediately executed as well the moment it looked like he would actually be able to accomplish that is more than enough circumstantial evidence to close the case. Anyone that still refuses to believe, and there are many, well they could never understand anyway. There will always be a large number of the general public that will only believe what they are allowed to believe by some “higher authority” which used to mean some clown in a suit and tie on television. Today I have no idea what authority figure may still count. Sanaa Claus perhaps?

            .

          • K-Dog August 5, 2018 at 2:39 pm #

            I bump that example up a level. I’m not convinced that it was a conspiracy. I’m not convinced that it was not. You can conclude as you wish but I’m not convinced. Either way. Premature conclusions can poison the mind to truth and regarding Kennedy my knowledge will always be insufficient to draw any reasonable conclusion.

            And that is a gray area from which the novitiate flees.

  66. FincaInTheMountains August 4, 2018 at 1:24 pm #

    human events don’t unfold at the same pace as a Hollywood movie

    O Ancient World, before your culture dies,
    Whilst failing life within you breathes and sinks,
    Pause and be wise, as Oedipus was wise,
    And solve the age-old riddle of the Sphinx.

    That Sphinx is Russia. Grieving and exulting,
    And weeping black and bloody tears enough,
    She stares at you, adoring and insulting,
    With love that turns to hate, and hate-to love.

    We shall abandon Europe and her charm.
    We shall resort to Scythian craft and guile.
    Swift to the woods and forests we shall swarm,
    And then look back, and smile our slit-eyed smile.

    Away to the Urals, all! Quick, leave the land,
    And clear the field for trial by blood and sword,
    Where steel machines that have no soul must stand
    And face the fury of the Mongol horde.

    But we ourselves, henceforth, we shall not serve
    As henchmen holding up the trusty shield.
    We’ll keep our distance and, slit-eyed, observe
    The deadly conflict raging on the field.

    We shall not stir, even though the frenzied Huns
    Plunder the corpses of the slain in battle, drive
    Their cattle into shrines, burn cities down,
    And roast our white-skinned brethren alive.

    The Scythians A. Blok, I918
    Full Text English: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-scythians/

    • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 2:36 pm #

      Slit eyed? The Scythians were as White as you or I. Well as White as I at any rate, Khazar.

      • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 2:54 pm #

        Being an American doesn’t make you white, it makes you a red neck and a has been. You keep saying you’re white but you haven’t given us anything to support that. Exactly what makes you white, Yan?

        • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 3:37 pm #

          It’s a genetic thing first and beyond that, cultural. And beyond that, a quality of the Spirit. We are Faustian and Promethean – and that’s not all together good of course. We do foolish things like climbing mountains, building Cathedrals, and going to the Moon. Dangerous sports are a White thing too. Blacks consider Whites who engage is such activities as crazy and dangerous. I don’t know about dangerous, but crazy fits. Other races copy us, but on their own, never would have bothered to climb such mountains or even desire to go to the Moon or other planets.

          In other words, a blonde Muslim isn’t White in our book, although of course he may well be in a genetic sense. A parallel: a Jew who converts to Christianity is no longer a Jew, traditionally at least. That may be changing as Jews appropriate Christianity, distorting it to meet their own needs.

          • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 3:52 pm #

            Right, only we haven’t heard anything about your genetic pedigree. Please, do inform us!

            I’m also interested in your personal “white” achievements. Please inform us of your personal white exceptionalism. For example, how many times have you managed to sweep the factory floor in one day? How many shoes you managed to polish in one day? You know, all the exceptional white achievements that you managed in your white lifetime.

          • messianicdruid August 4, 2018 at 4:33 pm #

            “That may be changing as Jews appropriate Christianity, distorting it to meet their own needs.“

            It’s a done deal.

          • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 6:15 pm #

            And how many Widows have you fleeced? How many White businessmen have you ruined? How many women do you have working for you on the street? Or orphans working for you as pickpockets like Fagin?

          • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 6:28 pm #

            Exactly as I figured. You’re a big fat ZERO. And your nazi pals here are the same. You have ZERO integrity and the only thing you know to do is to project your lies and inequities on others. You are pathetic.

          • malthuss August 5, 2018 at 10:17 am #

            Blond–Masculine.
            BlondE-feminine.

            ak has taken a strong, intense dislike to me. See his comments to or about me, this last few daze.

    • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 3:16 pm #

      The heart that hears:
      https://youtu.be/qvAVf5hI4Vg

  67. JustSaying August 4, 2018 at 1:25 pm #

    No Janet, those are Federal workers, not the Deep State!

  68. Q. Shtik August 4, 2018 at 1:46 pm #

    As a Postface to my Bike Trip travelogue, I kept accurate records of all my gas purchases and summarized them in an Excel spreadsheet once home. I made 21 gas purchases of which 5 were in Canada where gas is more expensive, quantities are denominated in liters, and cost is in Canadian dollars. In my spreadsheet I converted all quantities to gallons and all costs into US dollars. The exchange rate fluctuates constantly but I assumed one Canadian dollar bought 80 US cents. The rate as we speak is 77 cents.

    After all is said and done the numbers (all rounded, which I hate to do as I have a Sheldon Cooper-like obsession with precision to the point of being downright annoying) are as follows:

    Total cost of gas for the trip, $170 (this figure includes the two purchases in Canada where the station would not convert C$ to US$ and thus I over paid. It also includes one purchase at a little trading post that only had premium gas where I bought 3 gals @ $4 per = $12. My bike requires only regular so it was like serving it Tullamore Dew rather than rotgut whiskey.

    Gallons of gas used, 53.

    Avg miles per gallon for the whole trip, 58.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 2:41 pm #

      Yet you shamelessly tried to gyp innkeepers out of their just due, beguiling docents (wrong word) with you old White Guy charms.

      • Q. Shtik August 4, 2018 at 4:41 pm #

        Ha ha ha hahahaha ha ha hahaha etc etc. You are such a character, Janos!

    • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 3:28 pm #

      How many of such excel sheets of your daily ledgers do you have? Hundreds? THOUSANDS? I hope you don’t intend to inter these with you in the Pyramid – they are natural treasures, something for All of us! Like Howard Hughes’ carefully stored feces….

      • Q. Shtik August 4, 2018 at 10:32 pm #

        Like Howard Hughes’ carefully stored feces…. – Janos

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

        So what you’re saying is my spreadsheets are shit.

        • elysianfield August 5, 2018 at 12:28 pm #

          “So what you’re saying is my spreadsheets are shit.”

          Q,
          I think Janos meant “dreck”…we are not savages, sir….

        • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2018 at 5:20 pm #

          So you admit you thousands of them? Prove it! How much did you pay for toilet paper in July of ’87?

          • Q. Shtik August 5, 2018 at 8:46 pm #

            How much did you pay for toilet paper in July of ’87? – Janos

            ===========

            Haha. I’m a little nutty but I’ve never tracked toilet paper purchases.

            Between work and home (especially work) I HAVE probably created thousands of spreadsheets, each one a minor work of art employing centered column headings, color backgrounds, etc.

            But, believe it or not, I am down to just one Excel file that I use and update on an almost daily basis. Although it is just one file it has along its bottom about a dozen tabs called sheets. Three of these sheets contain financial info. The others are for the most part forms containing dates for keeping track of my Testosterone applications, my workout routines, etc.

            On one sheet I created a packing list of almost a hundred items I would need for my Bike Trip. Under the heading of Toiletries, for example, were Q-tips, Tums and blunt nosed scissors (for trimming nose hair) besides the obvious stuff like toothpaste and tooth brush.

            The sheet with the Bike Trip gas data has nifty little formulas in cells to convert liters to gals, C$ to US$, sum formulas to add up columns, etc.

  69. janet August 4, 2018 at 1:57 pm #

    “You know the value of howling at the moon.” –kdog

    Yes, I do. Most people, being ignorant of that value, do not engage in the practice.

  70. FincaInTheMountains August 4, 2018 at 2:37 pm #

    Objective Analysis of the Situation in the United States Apart from the Artistic Truth

    Until recently, Russia was a card in the domestic political game in the US, perhaps a trump card, but a card that was not a subject of that game, and the phrase “Russia is not our friend!”, which was pronounced by Bolton, Pompeo, Trey Gowdy, and even Tillerson had no independent meaning or significance, but meant a password, a way of self-identification of a certain group, a community for which the hostility of Russia is a kind of philosophical conclusion of their guiding theory, and to Russia has no direct relationship.

    It is noteworthy that President Trump, who is at least friendly to Russia, did not pay attention to these words when selecting personnel for his administration, since another hallmark of this group, or if you prefer lodge or sect, is a negative attitude towards Hillary Clinton, and this turned out to be a priority factor for the President.

    And he is very well versed in American lodges and sects.

    By the way, Hillary, unlike this sect, hates Russia for quite understandable, I would even say quasi-religious reasons, and she hated it even when Russia was the Soviet Union.

    And life showed that Donald Trump was generally right when selecting personnel, because having received an order to improve relations with Russia, his assistants, contrary to their own convictions, carried out this order conscientiously – just recall Tillerson’s participation in the organization of the meeting between Putin and Trump in Hamburg and Bolton and Pompeo participation in the organization of a meeting of presidents in Helsinki, as well as their public support for the president.

    And all that criticism, turning into defamation, with which Trump consciously had to go along with, having ordered the organization of these meetings, shows the importance of the issues discussed on them, and the fact that these issues are still unknown to the enemies of Trump shows that he was not mistaken in considering this group an ally in the fight against Hillary Clinton and, accordingly, in the choice of close assistants, since even Tillerson, even after leaving the post of Secretary of State, did not disclose to anyone this information.

    What kind of sect is this and where did it come from, should be answered by the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but of course they are too busy to deal with such applied problems, and I do not have the resources to answer them, so I have to confine myself in this post to the statement of the existence of this sect and note its relative prospects for Russian-American relations.

    I certainly can not reasonably assess the administrative resource of the opposing sides, but if we assume that the public battles at least to some extent reflect it, then the Clintonoids are forced to bring their last reserves into the battle, trying to intercept the strategic initiative, and Trump preserves his reserves, leading the defensive battles, trying to maintain a strategically advantageous position, periodically conducting reconnaissance battles.

    The strategic position that the Trump party defends is the relative decline in the authority of the Mueller Commission, which prevents the latter from interrogating Trump before the November elections and driving him into the perjury trap, or at least an open contradiction with credible testimonies, and the latest reconnaissance battle showed that Trump is preparing for transition to a strategic offensive, and the Clintonoid’s reaction to this reconnaissance battle showed that they are not at all confident in their Blue Wave, which in November should wash away the Republican majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

    Specifically as a reconnaissance battle, Trump on Twitter ordered the Attorney General Sessions to disperse Mueller’s commission, and Trey Gowdy, the day before, exposed the Attorney General as a pathological hypocrite and a closeted Flying Monkey.

    Asked by Gowdy how Sessions is going to restore confidence in the Department of Justice, which is dirty due to the selective application of the law, he replied in the sense that he is very high-moral now, and what was before or after he don’t give a fuck. This statement made a big impression and loosened up the ground for the aforementioned president’s tweet, because Sessions now refuse to interfere in the investigation of Mueller, allegedly in order not to politicize this investigation, and two years ago his department eagerly saluted “Yes, Sir!” when the Obama administration ordered him to ignore the crimes of Hillary Clinton, and the people who saluted two years ago and ignored the crimes of Clinton, these are the very same people who are ready to dig dirt on Trump with their noses.

    The White House speaker, of course, explained the next day that Trump did not order anything to anyone, but on Twitter he expressed his personal point of view, but recent events showed us that those government officials who ignore the president’s Twitter account soon cease to be government officials.

    Of course, Sessions is a separate issue – probably no official in Trump’s administration did him as much harm as Sessions did, and the most desperate Trumpist Judge Pirro declared Sessions the most dangerous enemy of American People – but the dismissal of Sessions can play a big role in November, voting for another Attorney General, who will assume responsibility and stop the shameful investigation of Mueller, will identify Clintonoids in the Republican Party and the voters will be able to rid of them in elections.

    And in combination with the majority in the Supreme Court of the United States, which Trump’s party is about to gain after the resignation of Judge Kennedy, the majority of not just Republicans but Trumpistas in the Senate and Congress may prove to be the power that could defeat the Deep State, and, going back to the beginning of the post, a community of people who do not consider Russia a friend but support Trump will undoubtedly prove to be the decisive factor in the fact that Russia and America, despite this, will become friends.

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    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  71. akmofo August 4, 2018 at 3:08 pm #

    Fake Views: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Soviet Photoshopping:

    Although the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Patriarch Kirill I, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, showed that old habits die hard in Moscow’s corridors of power. In 2012, his office was outed for photoshopping a $30,000 Breguet wristwatch out of a publicity photo.

    https://petapixel.com/2018/07/31/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-soviet-photoshopping/

    (Hmm,.. a $30,000 watch.. Tiz very nice to be friends with Putin).

    • FincaInTheMountains August 4, 2018 at 3:20 pm #

      Mofo, could you, please, instead of appraising a trinkets in someone zipper fly, come up with more serious analysis?

      What’s 30 grand anyway these days? In late 90s, I had friends in Chicago Board of Trade who spent that much for breakfast

      • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 3:31 pm #

        How many Russian pensioners do you know that wear 30,000 watches? That is, those that survived Russian Priests finking on them to the murderous KGB?

        • malthuss August 5, 2018 at 10:24 am #

          Osho has a million dollar watch. And that is a 1980s million dollars.

      • tucsonspur August 4, 2018 at 3:42 pm #

        “What’s 30 grand anyway these days? In late 90s, I had friends in Chicago Board of Trade who spent that much for breakfast”

        Some hyperbole? If not, it’s exactly those muthafuckas we can do without.

        What prices were they rigging?

    • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 3:30 pm #

      Gentiles shouldn’t have luxuries of any kind as all wealth belongs to the “Chosen”, right Mofo?

      • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 3:35 pm #

        This is a professional liar and thief that hasn’t worked a day in his life. All his kind should be hang upside down for being the lowlife criminals that they are.

        • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 6:22 pm #

          Do you even believe in God? Or where all those Old Testament miracles just lucky breaks for the Jews? What are the odds of that if indeed they happened as the Old Testament describes? Or were they gonna happened anyway and God just said to Moses: Look Moshe, I have an eruption coming and the river is going to turn red. Say to Pharaoh that the Nile will turn to blood tomorrow.

          They crucified St Peter upside down.

          • akmofo August 4, 2018 at 8:03 pm #

            I can tell you for sure that this pompous fat ass professional liar and thief that hasn’t worked a day in his life does not believe in god. He knows that EVERYTHING that he and his organization is about is a lie. Thus he has ZERO integrity. When you have ZERO integrity you are no longer in the orbit of god.

            My personal thoughts is that EVERYTHING in the TaNaKh was as recorded. The TaNaKh is very careful with its words and very precise in its descriptions. Moses was a Pharaoh prince, and as such he was schooled in and knew astronomy. But during the Exodus Moses lost his way. He could not navigate by the stars because the stars were off. People seems to completely miss this. Moses knew the exact way to Midian (Saudia). He traveled there from Egypt and back several times. But after the exodus the skies were different and he could no longer navigate the desert.

          • messianicdruid August 4, 2018 at 10:12 pm #

            “My personal thoughts is that EVERYTHING in the TaNaKh was as recorded.”

            Is Jeremiah 31 part of the TaNaKH?

          • akmofo August 5, 2018 at 6:03 am #

            What do you know of the TaNaKh? Do you know Hebrew? No you don’t! So you know NOTHING of that which you profess to know. Go troll someone else.

          • messianicdruid August 5, 2018 at 10:50 am #

            “What do you know of the TaNaKh? Do you know Hebrew? No you don’t! So you know NOTHING of that which you profess to know. Go troll someone else.”

            I just asked a question.

            You claim to know about Hebrew and Hebrew Scriptures, yet you did not seem to know that God promised to make a new covenant with the Nations of Judah and Israel. When I quoted it you attributed it to some ignorant fishermen, as if it originated with them, instead of recognizing it from Jeremiah 31.

            Are you guys still waiting for a “new covenant” or did you not want “You shall not bear false witness” written on your heart?

          • akmofo August 5, 2018 at 12:13 pm #

            Ok, let’s entertain you:

            Jeremiah (Eng) = Yirmeyahu (Heb)

            Yermeyahu = In Hebrew, the name literary means one who will cheat god

            Yerame = he will cheat (future tense)
            YaHu = god (short form for YHVH)

            That is why I keep telling you that if you don’t know and understand Hebrew, you know NOTHING! You have no clue to any subtlety, any play on words and meaning, any warnings, any literary devices, any poetry, any real meaning, any double and triple meaning, nothing. You are completely clueless!

            Simple chronology that the Vatican mafia deliberately misses to promote its anti KaNaKh narrative:

            12th Dynasty Egypt — Joseph — MB 1

            13th Dynasty Egypt — Exodus — MB 2A

            14th Dynasty (Hyksos) — Jericho — MB 2B

            Khaneferre Sobekhotep IV –> Moses’ stepdad

            Dudimose (Tutimaeus) –> Last Pharaoh of the Exodus prior to Hyksos/Amalek invasion

            Akhenaten –> Revolutionary Egyptian monotheist. Contemporary with King David

            Neferneferuaton (Nefertiti) –> Queen Sheeva (Heb: Queen in Siting)

            Ramses II (Heb: Shisha) –> Plunderer of Solomon’s Temple. Contemporary with Rehoboam

          • messianicdruid August 5, 2018 at 12:35 pm #

            Wow, there’s quite a dodge. A parry and a thrust, completely missing the question [ the point ].

          • akmofo August 5, 2018 at 1:08 pm #

            No, it’s telling you something. It’s telling you that you are ignorant and stupid. Something that you don’t recognize and don’t want to recognize. That is why you are stuck on stupid. You can’t comprehend that the Greek-scribed anti-Jewish Roman propaganda that you profess to know (but do not know nor understand) is a cruel and dark satire and a complete allegory to the Flavian Roman war campaign in Judea.

            Compare the campaign of Jesus and that of Titus and you will quickly find out that they are same. The places and stories are the same. And the sequence in which these analogous events occur is the same. That is not coincidence! That’s telling you something!

          • messianicdruid August 5, 2018 at 4:00 pm #

            “That’s telling you something!”

            You are right. It is telling me something. But it is not answering the question. No reason to make it about how stupid I am, unless you just don’t want to answer the question. It is not because you can’t, but won’t.

            If Jeremiah is part of TaNaKH then a new covenant should be expected, according to you.

          • akmofo August 5, 2018 at 5:27 pm #

            If Jeremiah is part of TaNaKH then a new covenant should be expected, according to you.
            ==

            No, that’s according to you and your reasoning.

            The TaNaKH is the historical record of the Hebrews. In this historical record there are deliberate clues for Hebrew speakers to understand the flow of history and discern good from bad.

            For example:

            The first King of Israel was King Saul. In Hebrew, the name is Shaul. Saul (Eng) or Shaul (Heb) was not his real name. It is the title name that the TaNaKh gave him. The literal meaning of the Hebrew word Shaul is “to be asked for”. But, to the Hebrew speaker the name Shaul will also instantly ring with the word, Shual, meaning a fox.

            So, the people asked for a king, a fox, to rule over them. Now, what is the TaNaKh trying to tell you about setting up a Kingship in Israel?

            Same again regards Jeremiah, but even more explicitly:

            The TaNaKh literally calls him a deceiver of god — Yermeyahu. There’s no play on words and no ambiguity here. What do you think the TaNaKh is trying to tell you about a “prophet” who claims the covenant with god is void?

          • akmofo August 5, 2018 at 8:55 pm #

            Btw, the Hebrew word for fox, shual, is the origin for the Russian, shakal, and the English, jackal. Thus, you can trace the origin of the language and the origin of the people.

          • messianicdruid August 6, 2018 at 9:18 am #

            “The TaNaKh literally calls him a deceiver of god — Yermeyahu. There’s no play on words and no ambiguity here. What do you think the TaNaKh is trying to tell you about a “prophet” who claims the covenant with god is void?”

            Well, first of all, if Jeremiah is a liar, why would you include his writings in your TaNaKH? Second, if he is deceiving anyone it would be you instead of God.

            Are you of the opinion that God cannot write a new covenant if he finds fault with the old one?

        • malthuss August 5, 2018 at 10:26 am #

          Yes, the USSR took care of those Christian infidels. Killed like 50-90 million of them.
          Death by bagel.

      • malthuss August 5, 2018 at 10:24 am #

        Is he tribe?

    • Q. Shtik August 5, 2018 at 1:07 am #

      (Hmm,.. a $30,000 watch.. Tiz very nice to be friends with Putin). – akmofo

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

      How ridiculous it is that someone is impressed with a $30K watch, especially the head of a major religion who has probably taken vows of poverty. This would be my b-i-l, Peter who actually walks around with a real Rolex when he hasn’t got a pot to piss in.

      I am wearing a “Joan Rivers” watch that degrades maybe a minute a year. Every now and then I do a reset so I’m never off by more than 10 seconds relative to some atomic clock kept by the government somewhere. The leather band wore out and broke 4 years ago and I had Macy’s install a cheap metal stretch band. I think I changed the battery once or twice in several years.

      This Joan Rivers “Classics” Quartz watch was given to my wife by a girlfriend of hers but she didn’t like it. Too thick and clunky. I thought it looked pretty good and I’m wearing it ever since and it keeps time as well as just about any watch. I Googled and see that you could buy one refurbished for $39.95.

      Joan Rivers took a page from Trump’s book and had her name plastered on a bunch of items. I hope she wasn’t crass enough to sell Joan Rivers steaks.

      People impressed by a $30,000 watch are suffering from an affliction. Would this come under the heading of narcissism?

      • akmofo August 5, 2018 at 10:25 am #

        This is the head of the Orthodox Church, their Pope. Can you imagine the kind of corruption that goes on under his watch (pun intended).

      • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2018 at 5:24 pm #

        Is a picture of Joan’s face on the face of the watch?

        • Q. Shtik August 5, 2018 at 6:03 pm #

          No.

  72. tucsonspur August 4, 2018 at 3:36 pm #

    “You are saying what is often seen as a conspiracy is really a reaction to the apprehension of illogical social situations which rationality would extinguish where rational thinking allowed to. The expectation of rational behavior must be overridden by overt direction the thinking goes in the head of one imagining a conspiracy.”

    Reeks of confusion and paranoia. Even commas can’t untangle that contorted claptrap.

  73. Q. Shtik August 4, 2018 at 4:54 pm #

    What ever happened to Buck Stud? I miss his artistic perspective.

    • tucsonspur August 4, 2018 at 5:17 pm #

      Ditto. Janos would probably joke that he’s off with Susan somewhere.

      • tucsonspur August 4, 2018 at 5:29 pm #

        He admired John Ruskin, and rightly so, and brought him to these pages.

        • janet August 4, 2018 at 6:05 pm #

          Oh … art has a moral purpose.
          Oh … art has a social purpose.
          Oh … art has a spiritual purpose.
          Oh … art should represent nature.

          John Ruskin… boring.

          • tucsonspur August 4, 2018 at 9:36 pm #

            You drop it out there like the fishing lure, after dinner mint for salmon. Your calumny must have Buck careening, wherever he is. Your blasphemy could buckle buttresses.

            But I know that you know better. Kudos to you for withstanding the slings and arrows of the outraged.

            Oh art, “offering a sanctuary of beauty to an ugly world”.

          • janet August 5, 2018 at 1:41 am #

            Tucsonspur, there are two types of art: the art of the technician (John Ruskin) is pseudo art; and the art of the artist. If an artist thinks he is creating a “sanctuary of beauty” in the world, he is not an authentic artist. No artist worth the name has ever claimed that he is the creator.

            An artist allows art to flow through them. Something greater than themselves flows through that connects them with life and love.

            Ruskin was a humourless pedant, who would rather caress the stones of Venice than his young bride’s face.Ruskin ended his days alone in silence in his house, suffering recurrent bouts of madness.

      • Janos Skorenzy August 4, 2018 at 6:24 pm #

        I’m not sure he ever forgave Susan for her doubts about Hillary.

  74. sprawlcapital August 4, 2018 at 6:40 pm #

    Q–

    I missed your travel posts numbers 2,3, and 4, so maybe you have answered the following already: in Duluth, did you get to see the SS William A, Ervin, the ore freighter now a floating museum?

    In Iowa we have a town named Madrid. It’s pronounced MADrid, not madRID, like in Spain.

    As for the Hmong and Somalis saving the Minneapolis/St.Paul economy, I think he was referring to the inner cities, where these new arrivals started numerous businesses. The overall economy of the region has been booming for decades, as evidenced by the land-destroying urban sprawl, laced with freeways.

    I too noticed the long a – short a confusion, but, sure enough, you corrected it . Excellent poem, Janos, It may have been about the Great War. It was 104 years ago today that Britain declared war on the German Empire. This led to what is probably the worst day in British military history: the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

    You are several orders of magnitude more brave than I am, Q. I hesitate to ride my bicycle on city streets.

    • Q. Shtik August 4, 2018 at 11:29 pm #

      I missed your travel posts numbers 2,3, and 4, so maybe you have answered the following already: in Duluth, did you get to see the SS William A, Ervin, the ore freighter now a floating museum? – Sprawl

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

      No, Sprawl, didn’t get to see the Ervin ore freighter. On a bike it’s difficult to do things at a leisurely pace like a normal tourist. I would like to have stopped to smell the roses but was on a tight schedule. A complete list of my travel log posts (excluding responses to readers comments) is as follows:

      Under JHK’s July 30 essay titled On the Beach:
      First post dtd 7/30/18 @ 8:42 pm
      Second post dtd 7/31/18 @ 3:05 pm
      Third post dtd 8/1/18 @ 12:00 pm
      Fourth post dtd 8/2/18 @1:47 pm

      Under JHK’s August 3 essay titled Light it Up:
      Fifth post dtd 8/3/18 @ 12:31 pm
      Postface post dtd 8/4/18 @ 1:46 pm

      You can find these easily using the CTRL F (find) block

      • sprawlcapital August 5, 2018 at 3:20 pm #

        Thanks for the list, Q. I intend to read all of them.

    • Janos Skorenzy August 5, 2018 at 5:27 pm #

      Yes, the English couldn’t believe the casualties: fifty and sixty thousand per day. They said, there must be a mistake. Count again.

      No mistake. Utter slaughter of the flower of British manhood. At least they weren’t hypocrites like our young elite – just fools….

      • malthuss August 5, 2018 at 7:44 pm #

        After what The British did in China, India, to the young USA and Ireland, haha.

  75. tucsonspur August 5, 2018 at 3:41 am #

    “Tucsonspur, there are two types of art: the art of the technician (John Ruskin) is pseudo art; and the art of the artist. If an artist thinks he is creating a “sanctuary of beauty” in the world, he is not an authentic artist. No artist worth the name has ever claimed that he is the creator.

    An artist allows art to flow through them. Something greater than themselves flows through that connects them with life and love.” Janet

    The word was offering, not creating, but creating is okay because that’s what artists do.

    I guess Warhol, Kandinsky, Pollock, etc., let art flow through them and connect with life and love. How about de Kooning’s, Jasper John’s and Mark Rothko’s profound connection with life and love?

    Your most absurd statement is, “if an artist thinks he is creating a sanctuary of beauty in the world, he is not an authentic artist”.
    Should he think that he’s creating an umbrella of ugliness to shelter us from a wonderful world?

    Van Gogh had bouts of madness, as have others, so do you also denounce them as artists?

    Ruskin’s work still stands proudly, not to be lessened by your attacks on his personality.

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    • malthuss August 5, 2018 at 10:31 am #

      I dont like Pollacks work.

      Andy was putting people on and admitted that. ‘Art is whatever you can get away with’–AW.
      I assume workers made his art.

      There was an interesting article by someone who worked for Koons.
      He worked cheap. The art was sold as Koons work, for millions.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/magazine/i-was-jeff-koonss-studio-serf.html

      I dont think Rothko, DeKooning etc had ‘a factory’–And the 2 highest paid living artists are hacks…koons and hirst.

      • malthuss August 5, 2018 at 10:34 am #

        I read a great book on Rothko.
        He was fired from CUNY as he was a very difficult guy.

        Not sure if he felt much love.
        Slashed his wrist or wrists. He was slowly dying from obesity, tobacco and heart failure.

        • tucsonspur August 5, 2018 at 3:54 pm #

          “Some suggested that like others who had died before of an internal struggle, such as Arshile Gorky, Rothko had submitted to the tortured artist’s ritual of self-annihilation”.

          He let the ‘art flow through him’ as Janet says, and the blood flow out.

    • janet August 5, 2018 at 2:01 pm #

      Your most absurd statement is, “if an artist thinks he is creating a sanctuary of beauty in the world, he is not an authentic artist”.

      First-rate poets, artists, painters, musicians, scientists, all know “their” art flows through them, it is not “theirs”; only the second-rate like Ruskin don’t know it. The second-rate is an imitator. He imitates the first-rate people. Then he is the ego: I am creating. No artist worth the name has ever claimed that he is the creator.

  76. FincaInTheMountains August 5, 2018 at 7:11 am #

    phrase “Russia is not our friend!”, which was pronounced by Bolton, Pompeo, Trey Gowdy, and even Tillerson had no independent meaning or significance, but meant a password, a way of self-identification of a certain group, a community for which the hostility of Russia is a kind of philosophical conclusion of their guiding theory

    The most important question is what is Russia for these philosophers? And I really do not know the answer, but these people here they are!

    They do not hide and everyone utters the same phrase in the same wording at the beginning of any speech “Russia is not our friend!” And in my opinion this means that there is another sect that says “Russia is our friend!” and who were once one sect with the first.

    Some even showed up in the second – Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Steven Seagal.

    I have not yet found the information.

    Russia appoints Steven Seagal special envoy for humanitarian work
    https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/aug/04/steven-seagal-russia-special-envoy-humanitarian-work-us

    • tucsonspur August 5, 2018 at 4:05 pm #

      If he becomes Under Siege, he’ll be Out for Justice and Hard to Kill, but not Above the Law. He’s A Dangerous Man, Driven to Kill and will tell you, Today you Die.

    • You could probably balance a laser on the relative C-status celebrity levels of Dennis Rodman and Steven Segal.

  77. FincaInTheMountains August 5, 2018 at 5:18 pm #

    Russian Orthodox Church plans to conduct genetic expertise over remains of Nicholas II

    If Nicholas II had been declared saint in a normal way, then this question would simply not have arisen. First, miracles around the Tsar’s remains would begin to happen, then the canonization commission would gather and consider the evidence of these miracles, and then Nicholas II on the basis of these testimonies would be declared a saint.

    And now the unfortunate Tsar was first declared saint for political reasons, without which the canonization procedure would have gone much longer (and this in itself is an outrage over the very concept of holiness), and now his remains will be declared relics on the basis of genetic expertise, and this is a pure Arianism.

    And now it is already clear that this is the main goal of the first stage of the operation “Nicholas II”, and the next step is the gene of holiness which is inherited through a sexual intercourse. And then they will come up with something else – for example, Hitler will be declared a saint, as an outstanding fighter against the Judeo-Bolshevism.

    Meanwhile, even from a purely scientific point of view, the recognition of any remains as holy relics on the basis of genetic expertise is SA-TA-NISM.

    The next step in this direction is an attempt to clone Christ using the genetic material left on the Shroud of Turin.

    And such proposals are already being discussed and proposed by the very people who suggested 25 years ago to make the question of the holiness of Nicholas II the instrument of the disintegration of the Russian Orthodox Church.

    Hegel, having declared scientific thinking as the pinnacle of the spirit, made the spiritual life an object of study by the scientific method, and precisely this is the antagonistic contradiction of Hegelianism and Orthodoxy that made Hegel the chief ideologue of the Illuminati and his doctrine the basis of Satanism in the 19th century.

  78. I understand the animus for loathing the media.

    But isn’t the New York Times just doing its job in the Russian interference case?

    A spy network infiltrating the American government (through Republican party insiders) is an actual hard news story.

    The public shouldn’t be spared any of the seductive details. They’re all available through her intercepted private communications. And of course, top Republican officials, in the form of Sugar Daddy check-ins and allusions to favor and payoff.

    • FincaInTheMountains August 5, 2018 at 9:58 pm #

      The public shouldn’t be spared any of the seductive details

      Ok, then, here we go:

      “Dumbass f****** white people marking up the internet like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.”

      “Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.”

      “White men are bullshit.”

      Those are some of the quotes from a wonderful new addition to NYT editorial board – Sarah Jeong.

      Personally, I get the impression that Party of War, losing the game, decided to smash the chess board.

  79. FincaInTheMountains August 5, 2018 at 7:36 pm #

    ‘A matter of life & death’: 15,000 white South African farmers seek refuge in Russia

    https://www.rt.com/business/432375-russia-south-africa-farmers/

  80. FincaInTheMountains August 5, 2018 at 7:37 pm #

    Saudi Arabia recalls ambassador in Canada, gives Canadian envoy 24 hours to pack

    https://www.rt.com/news/435177-saudi-canada-ambassador-recall/

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  81. janet August 5, 2018 at 8:18 pm #

    “And of course, top Republican officials, in the form of Sugar Daddy check-ins and allusions to favor and payoff.” –Lil Debbie

    Correct. The public should also not be spared the details about funneling millions of Russian foreign dollars through NRA to the Trump campaign. There you have it: illegal Trump-Russia collusion to undermine democracy in the USA. An impeachable offense by an illegitimate president.

    • FincaInTheMountains August 5, 2018 at 9:47 pm #

      Janet… always happy to fiddle while civilization burns…

      • janet August 5, 2018 at 10:06 pm #

        “Janet… always happy to fiddle while civilization burns…” –finca

        Finca, for once I agree with you. And while I fiddle the Mueller investigation, indictments, searches, seizures, arrests, and trials are going forward. No time is being lost.

        Since taking over the investigation last May, Mueller’s team has charged four Americans once affiliated with Trump’s campaign or administration, 13 Russian nationals, 12 Russian intelligence officers, three Russian companies, and two other people. He has obtained guilty pleas, put people in prison, and is conducting court room trials with plenty of documentary evidence. Judges and juries love paper evidence. The paper trail does not lie.

        Light it up!

  82. janet August 5, 2018 at 11:35 pm #

    Trump’s tweet this morning is a confession of guilt. The President’s Sunday-morning tweet should be seen as a turning point. It doesn’t teach us anything new—most students of the case already understand what Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner knew about that Trump Tower meeting. But it ends any possibility of an alternative explanation. We can all move forward understanding that there is a clear fact pattern about which there is no dispute:

    **The President’s son and top advisers knowingly met with individuals connected to the Russian government, hoping to obtain dirt on their political opponent.

    **Documents stolen from the Democratic National Committee and members of the Clinton campaign were later used in an overt effort to sway the election.

    **When the Trump Tower meeting was uncovered, the President instructed his son and staff to lie about the meeting, and told them precisely which lies to use.

    **The President is attempting to end the investigation into this meeting and other instances of attempted collusion between his campaign staff and representatives of the Russian government.

  83. janet August 6, 2018 at 12:45 am #

    Trump really wants the American people to believe his trade war and tariffs are all working out exactly as planned, but he is lying… and ignoring mounting evidence that the tariffs are not working for America.

    Maybe you noticed farmers needed a $12 billion bailout… that comes out of your taxes.

    Other countries are making trade deals without the US. Other countries now have very strong incentives to do business independent of the US and independent of the dollar. This is not MAGA.

    The tariffs are showing up in consumer prices and business decisions. Harley-Davidson has said Trump’s trade tactics will result in it moving some production overseas altogether.

    The tariffs aren’t making a dent in the United States’ debt. Trump’s claim that the tariffs would allow the US to start paying down “large amounts” of the US’s $21 trillion debt isn’t true. The amount of tariffs the president has imposed so far — about $85-billion worth of foreign goods — isn’t enough to make a dent in the US’s $21 trillion deficit.

    We still don’t know what winning looks like for Trump. MAGA is not happening. But Trump is personally profiting from being president.

    • FincaInTheMountains August 6, 2018 at 5:02 am #

      Grey, dear friend, is all theory,
      And green the golden tree of life.

      Faust, Goethe

      And in this case, Janet, it is a tree of death, specifically aspen, on which Judas hanged himself.

    • “Maybe you noticed farmers needed a $12 billion bailout… that comes out of your taxes.”

      Word to the wise: its been coming out of your taxes for decades.

      Maybe you don’t know, through the wonderful Farm bill, and magnanimous wisdom of the USA’s various administrations, we subsidize every single link in the food chain.

      We bring in illegal workers to run pesticide based industrial feed crops (mining soil and sucking aquifers dry while letting run-off poison everything downstream)

      We subsidize the chemical producers making all the wonderful chemicals, we subsidize the “farmer” (who is more of a manager), we subsidize the processors (who blend, strain, pasteurize, add sugars and corn syrups and put in plastic boxes to feed kids their subsidized lunches), we subsidize the distributors (the roads, the gasoline, the ethanol, etc…), the retailers (the government and the big Ag companies stocking the shelves to bursting with diabetes-inducing, addictive garbage), and finally the consumers (through discounts and of course the food stamp systems)

      And then of course, the fruit pickers, who get to come here illegally while everyone looks the other way.

      Is it a kind of subsidy for liberals to feel big-hearted? The wonderful opportunity to earn eight times doing the same jobs they could do in their own countries… shucking beans and tomatoes, wearing hazmat suits (if they are lucky) spraying pesticides. The business owners, the boss men- all subsidized.

      The “plight” of farmers… oh, boo-hoo. Do ya think they will be hurt by tariffs? Think again. Here comes the insurance companies… federally backed, no interest loan packages. And that land? Well, the banks hoovered that up after 2008. What, do you think they’re going to feel any pain? hell no! All those lobbyists aren’t paid for nothing. Its precisely why they bought the land.

      And the food, oh the food. Well, cheap commodity crops, basically they’re worthless! Our system stores them in giant silos to stabilize prices. When we have a surplus we’ll just dump it on the annual African famine.

      And of course, since these are global commodity crops, tariffs can’t price them, the market will. And that is exactly what is happening.

      So please, Janet. Be satisfied- we’re strip mining the soil and fossil groundwater, for next to zero cost on borrowed money… its way too profitable to ever be damaged by loss of the Chinese market for whatever commodity.

      I am of the opinion that international agriculture is a gigantic mistake and nothing sustains the status quo like a pantry full of subsidized food.

      By the way the Our Children’s Future Trust is open for donations… maybe the dinosaurs of CFN can chip in a little for future generations… ourchildrenstrust.org

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