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Personally, I believe that the plodding, implacable Robert Mueller, white knight of the Deep State, will flush the Golden Golem of Greatness out of office, probably on some sort of money-laundering rap having nothing to do with “Russian meddling.” Anderson Cooper will have a multiple orgasm. Rachel Maddow will don a yellow hard-hat and chain-saw a scale model of Mar-a-Lago to the glee of her worshippers. The #Resistance will dance in the streets. And then what?
I doubt that Mr. Trump will go gracefully. Rather he’ll dig in and fight even if it means fomenting a constitutional crisis. He’ll challenge Mr. Mueller on veering into matters unrelated to alleged Russian pranks in the 2016 election. He may well attempt the self-pardoning gambit. He will have a lot of support out in the Deplorable gloaming. But, at some point, I expect a bipartisan consensus to emerge in congress that the guy has got to go. He’s making it impossible to conduct even the routines of bribery and domestic collusion that Washington exists for. Nobody is getting paid — at least not the bonuses they’re accustomed to seeing.
The 25th amendment is still the best tool for the job. Unlike impeachment, it doesn’t require much in the way of standards of evidence or any Mickey Mouse niceties of due process. It doesn’t take months and months of tiresome legal gamesmanship, no committees or reports. You just get a small number of cabinet members and congressional leaders to agree that the President is “unfit” — which can mean anything, really — and he’s chopped. General Kelly may be enlisted to pry Mr. Trump’s smallish fingers from the doorjamb and shove him into the waiting limo in the porte cochère for the long sad ride up the Jersey Turnpike.
Enter Mike Pence, slated to be a kind of combination Millard Fillmore / Herbert Hoover. Who knows what really lurks behind the bland Pencean facade, but on the off-chance that he may be a decent fellow of average intelligence, the fates have a way of casting such accidental leaders into ignominy despite their theoretical virtues. Surely, the Deplorables of Flyover Land will not like the dumping of their Golden champion one bit. I’d stay away from post offices and other parcels of federal property for a while. If a bunch decides to march on the nation’s capital, it will be a messier affair than anything the hippies pulled off back in the day, perhaps the first battle of Civil War 2.
The financial markets wobbled and puked on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, finally mirroring the tremendous stresses in our politics. They’ve been every bit as jacked on unreality as the two major parties for years now. The markets, after all, are not the economy itself, just indexes of the supposed values of things, stocks, bonds, gold, soybeans, etc., and the Federal Reserve has been jamming hallucinogens down their craw since the last little seizure in 2008.
The markets don’t seem to like the new chairman of the Fed, a cipher named Jay Powell. In his first big public performance since stepping into Janet Yellen’s tiny shoes this week, Powell managed to do a complete 180 in 24 hours on whether his outfit will stick to four rate hikes this year… or maybe just ride to the rescue of the floundering markets with their old tricks of lowering interest rates and “printing” shitloads of new “money” to get those animal spirits going again in the S & P. Absolutely nothing Powell’s Fed might try will work. In fact they will only make the cratering indexes fall deeper and harder, along with the value of the US dollar. Interest rates can’t go any higher, anyway, without blowing up half the paper obligations on earth. Businesses will be terrified to transact. You can’t do much with a crippled financial system. The authorities and the news media will call it a “recession” but a sore-beset public will know it is the start of something a whole lot worse.
As a nice side-dish to this banquet of consequences, the Democratic party will be deprived of its only reason to live the past two years: to shove Donald Trump off-stage. And the Republicans will be blamed twice over: once, for not coming to Trump’s defense, and again for getting behind him in the first place. Enjoy the last few weeks of relative normality.
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DJT would have to be dragged kicking and screaming from the White House to be removed from the office. should the Necromancers within the Beltway have their way, and it would be only after the president persuaded rogue (loyal) elements of the military to start “The Big One”.
I can see the crepuscular presidential thought bubble now: “I’ll just show those fucking scumbags who the top dog around here really is!”.
Kicking or screaming or not there are those who want him out and they will be relentless. That nobody has a plan B seems not to matter to those who think paradise will come to Earth once Trump is put on a one way helicopter trip to Florida.
It is all rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. General purpose technologies changed the world in a single lifetime. But that was decades ago now. Electricity, internal combustion and the last wank that also needed fossil fuels to work, computers.
All led to massive improvements in the way we lived. General purpose technologies led to enormous increases in production, the quality of life, as well as overpopulation and delusion. Now the energy to run these technologies will become scarce and we will go medieval. We will be a planet with billions of broken dreams.
In the greater scheme of things Trump is what he has always been, a distraction. Nothing more. That he takes up space does not concern me. I’m not concerned with Trump since there is no plan B. Trump is not getting in the way of anything.
America does not look to the future. America looks at flat screens and the future is not there.
12 hours early. Better than the babble I expected!
All led to massive improvements in the way we lived. General purpose technologies led to enormous increases in production, the quality of life, as well as overpopulation and delusion. Now the energy to run these technologies will become scarce and we will go medieval. We will be a planet with billions of broken dreams.
I’m not so sure, K-Dog. You can look at solar panels, whose EROEI is low (maybe 8-1?) as a way of extending fossil fuels. They take fossil fuels to make but won’t consume them over their lives.
What’s broken is a debt-based economy that had the exponential growth in debt drowned out by the once-exponential growth in BTU’s per capita, which has long gone into global decline, to bail out the growth of debt. The rackets are to try to paper over this fundamental flaw in our economy: usury will wreck a society, and it has wrecked ours.
Now, the fact that we will have no increasing input of energy means that, perhaps, growth is over. We will also be unable to maintain a lot of the high-entropy infrastructure of society, but we shouldn’t have built that in the first place. There’s little reason that, for example, a solar-powered calculator manufactured today cannot last 100years if well cared for and well made.
We lose these things as a society, and we as a species will never have them again. We burned all the fossil fuels and mined all the easy ore that a future humanity might use to overcome Malthusian limits to life. We are on top of a high mountain, with the stars above, but we won’t ever reach them. Our task is to keep from falling down to sea level again.
EROEI.
Why is it when some see slick, i-phone like, solar panels I see a
caterpillars with monster 10 foot dia tires moving about mines ?
Is that normal ?
You might like this version of it, also:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1350728.Direct_Use_of_the_Sun_s_Energy
We won’t have the excess energy in the future to come up with a solar panel industry. And you’re right, we won’t have massive tires on massive trucks. Solar perhaps pushes back the date when we drop off the cliff of fossil use. Wind, more so.
The alternative is start getting 10wooded acres and prepare to live in a world made by hand. I think we will get there as a species at some point. We can delay that point, however.
K-dog,
I think you might agree that some dreams are in desperate need of being broken.
The pursuit of wealth beyond imagining could be one of them.
Though you’d probably disagree, this is why I advocate for Trump and his cadre of millionaires and billionaires, who are supposedly running the joint [into the ground], remain right where they are for another 3 years. It’s going to take a lot of lifestyle degradation for the ‘folks’ to wake the fuck up and Trump and his Boys and Girls will bring it by the truckload while still living large in plain sight. BTW, where are all *our* cronies, co-conspirators and colluders? Oh… that’s right, we have none.
Okay, the likelihood of the populace putting someone in charge who possesses some actual principles, foresight and compassion may be slim, given the corrupt set-up, but going with the type of “leadership” that’s been imposed upon us since Carter’s disgraceful demotion gives us lumpen victims no chance or choice going forward.
I don’t believe Trump has much, if any loyal elements in the military.
He is immensely popular among the men, the Scots-Irish of the South and Center who make up the bulk of the real soldiers. What can one say but Hail Caesar?
Our system has failed and it’s time for a Strong Man. Who better than the nice guy, Trump? He better stop trying to take our guns though….
Indeed. Trump is my total he-man hero after he declared that he personally would have run into that Florida high school and stopped that shooter. What a man! What a stud!
Too bad about that four Vietnam war deferments thing, though. Apparently, though, he’s finally recovered from his bone spurs. Thank god. It sure doesn’t seem to have slowed down his golf weekends.
JHK
Jim, please allow me to state that I am glad I decided to stick around. It would seem, with this piece, that you are back to your old self. I hope that’s not being too “forward.”
You’re absolutely right, it will be a bit of a drag not having GGG to kick around and Herr Pence is really a wild card, but I’m pretty sure he is a Right Wing Nut Case at the very least. Witness how well his “kick-out the gays” campaign from Indiana went over. Business went apeshit.
My real fear with Herr Pence is that he does appear to know his way around Congress and is purported to be a Running Dog of the Koch brothers of Wichita. He could get a lot more of the Hard Right’s fucked-up agenda passed than our GGG will ever be able to.
As for Civil War 2, I believe US regulars would soon set that bunch of rabble to flight. I don’t want to say they are the JV team, but compared to the US military, they are even less than the JV team. Maybe, the 6th-grade intramural squad?
JD
“As for Civil War 2, I believe US regulars would soon set that bunch of rabble to flight”
A goodly chunk of the US regulars hail from flyover dystopia. Do you really think they will fire on that “rabble” ?
I love the hubris of these people. It will be their undoing. They learned nothing from the election because they are incapable of learning.
Hail Trump. Hail Caesar!
JS
Trump = Caesar??? Come on… Please, Trump couldn’t even clean-up Caesar’s sandals! In several hundred years, Trump will be a digital footnote, if there are any digital storage devices still in existence by 2525 (if man’s still alive)!
JD
JP
That is certainly true. Good point. I believe something happens when you’ve been through basic training and bonded with your unit. You get some sort of Esprit de Corps, that causes you to follow orders, even if you don’t really agree with them 100%.
So, it’s an open question and not at all certain, but I stand by my previous statement, bit it is certainly a reasonable observation, however.
JD
One of the fictional scenarios I’ve been mulling over is the shooting to death of a couple of kids of a major in charge of security for a nuclear weapons bunker, for the crime of ‘driving while black’ in a small Southern town. What will their grieving daddy and his mates do about it? Go to court? [insert laugh track]
At some point the soldier boys and their commanders are going to be pissed off enough at drugged-out, psychopathic cops to take a couple of tanks and go blasting police stations.
Or it will come down to gunplay in the Pentagon, when rival factions come up against an impasse. Everyone seems to assume that Americans running the killing machines are meek, law-abiding vassals (= good Germans). Once the Potemkin stage starts to cave in and soldiers get hungry, frightened and plenty angry, ‘chain of command’ won’t be any more reliable than it is in, say, the Democratic Congo. Or Bolivia.
I don’t see the impetus to internal conflict arising among the blimpish sad sacks of Flyoverland; more like those with the guns and the guts, once supermarket shelves start looking lonely.
Remember General ‘I’m in charge here’? And that was only for a minor burble in the chain of command.
JD, I agree! If anyone thinks that an enraged American public is capable of mounting a prolonged civil war against the US government, they better guess again! All those AR15 assault rifles with their 100 bullet clips in the public domain are nothing more than nerf guns compared to the military’s weaponry. Go to an USAF air show, like the one here at Nellis AFB, in Las Vegas, to get an idea of their capabilities. What futuristic, secret weapons they now have in their arsenal is probably beyond our imagination.
Also, contrary to popular belief, the U.S. government has no problem killing their own citizens, for example: Kent State, Branch Davidians in Waco, Ruby Ridge, American citizens killed by drones in Yemen, etc.
Agree, which is worse an incompetent autocrat or a competent theocrat? Pence is a total creation of the Kochs and if he gets in it will be their crowning achievement.
Jim,
By the way, what does the “OD” coral stand for? Maybe a dumb question, I don’t know though.
Thanks,
JD
Over dose?
Outer dimension?
Outside Diameter, e.g. Beyond the DC Beltway?
If DJT was REALLY the “top dog” he would fire Jeff Sessions pronto and appoint a REAL swamp drainer like, oh, maybe Joseph DiGenova or Judge Napolitano or Gregg Jarrett.
Just doing that would scare the Bejesus out of the entire 7th floor of The Hoover Building.
And regarding any “march on Washington” I am reminded of the famous “Bonus Army” march and encampment in D.C. near the White House at the end of WW I where they were demanding the pay they had been promised then denied. Several veterans ended up being murdered by the military called in to stop the demonstration:
http://www.upworthy.com/wwi-vets-got-the-short-end-of-the-stick-in-the-great-depression-this-was-their-answer
The real criminal enterprise, as I see it, is not any “Russia Collusion” but the political machinations of the FBI/Justice Department put in place to find no felonious activities by Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton during the server gate “matter” (it actually WAS an “investigation”) and then to illegally surveil Carter Page by going to the secret FISA court with a bogus warrant which relied on the “Steele Dossier”.
The fact that the FISA court judges were LIED TO in that warrant and the fact that not ONE FISA judge has demanded a hearing as to WHY they were lied to is just the tip of this felonious iceberg.
Trump will prevail on this one. If he plays his cards right.
I’m wondering why Jim has posted 12 hours before his normal schedule. I’ll guess he has to travel to a speaking engagement.
Yo, Jim-Bob you got some inside information? Sometimes I wonder if you do. I must admit, you are quite the scribe and you spin a very fine tale so when you apply it as you did here today (one day early mind you), well you certainly have me a bit wobbly in the cerebral cortex. Taking out a standing US president is always a severe calamity no matter how it is done and I am surprised that those that seek it do not fully understand all that such calamity entails, especially at such a vulnerable point in time as we are at today. Of course that might be part of the plan you know and if this is true then oh boy, hold on to your hats.
In either case I think that just about everybody is tired of nothing happening. Nothing but the slow decay of everything that is. I think that there will come a time when everyone, both sides, will be so desperate for something to happen that someone if not everyone will make damned sure that something does happen. We are getting closer, I do believe, perhaps soon as you infer…….
“tired of nothing happening” Right on. The corruption and the “matrix of rackets” seems endless. Demoralizingly endless.
The explosives are there. The fuse is there. All we need now is for Trump to light it.
Meanwhile, Taleb’s New book, Skin in the Game, came out this week. He really captures why the Trump revolt came about: an elite with asymmetric rewards. The “heads I win, tails the taxpayers pick up the check”corruption is everywhere.
The elites either fix this, or they get French revolutioned.
Or to steal a line from Gangs of New York, “Get Frenchified”. It meant something else, yet the analogy of an incurable and virulent disease still holds.
“The elites either fix this, or they get French revolutioned.”
DT,
Fix this? How? When has this disparity ever been addressed successfully in human history without revolution?
Trump is not the ideal. He is, however, someone you’ve pined for all your adult life…a politician who is doing what he said he would do if elected. On all issues he is thwarted by the banal horror of entrenched bureaucracy…yet he circles around and continues his attempts. Immigration, the wall, Law and Order,DACA, “Unfair Trade Deals”…it ain’t over as long as he is in office. I am not a huge Trump supporter, but give him credit for his (continuing) attempts at honoring his promises.
I’d give the Catholic Counter-Reformation as an example of elites reforming after a revolution, but before that revolution was total, EF. The elites of Italy had to make changes and clean up corruption, and did so.
Maybe the Meiji restoration is another example?
I’m reading some late-19th-Century Russian literature at present. I’m sure the Czarist liberals of 1900 could never have imagined the horrors that would befall that society within 20years. Our own elites simply cannot imagine that they could wind up on the losing end of a struggle (to be fair, with good reason. Since Lincoln, the US Federal Government has not lost a major struggle against any opponent). So they’re going to push things. They may find out that they weren’t part of Calvin’s Elect after all.
Speaking of Trump doing what he said he would do I am reminded of the recent “steel/aluminum tariffs” brouhaha.
Last night on Tucker Carlson he had Peter Navarro, The White House National Trade Council Director on and he explained very clearly why Trump made the decision he made:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/03/01/trade-guru-peter-navarro-interview-with-tucker-carlson/
Ignore the “spin” and pay attention to the “facts” at hand.
Dr. Tom,
“The elites either fix this, or they get French revolutioned.”
Amen! Taleb can be very snarky, but I love him anyway. I also love that old saying from the OWS days that was plastered on the side of a truck running around NYC.
“The French aristocracy didn’t see it coming either!”
Will the mob come, pitchforks in hand and with Tiki torches? Is it time to start “processing” (guillotining) elites in many people’s estimation?
“We are getting closer, I do believe, perhaps [as] soon as you infer…….” Maybe, could be, might could be…..
JD
Yeah, I recall that quote, JD, and I remember seeing similar graffiti.
One great Taleb quote: if you see a fraud and you don’t call it a fraud, then you are a fraud.
Our humble host, like any good New Yorker, has no problem sharing his opinion and calling it like he will. Taleb is also a New Yorker. Frankly, so is Trump, even if he could use better grounding in reality. Maybe that’s why he has backed off on the GGG?
JD
I’m getting my knitting ready and my seat booked. 🙂
The French repeatedly refused to elect Le Pen – a Man who had once led a bayonet charge. Now that’s corruption since that is exactly what is needed. So it’s left to his daughters to try and salvage something, the older one having already kicked the old man in the balls.
Janos, have you heard the latest about Marine. She’s been “charged in criminal court (in France) for posting images to Twitter showing brutal killings by Islamic State fighters.” (Washington Post).
Yeah, it just shows how twisted European Laws have become. Even when they don’t openly favor the Invaders, they would equate the Jihadis and the Patriots who oppose them.
Are there any laws which punish Muslim hatred of European Culture?
Janos
Your knowledge of the Le Pen family tree is a little off kilter.
Le Pen Sr is basically a Nazi (you’ll remember Petain famously acquitted himself well at Verdun – heroes can turn bad).
Marine le Pen is estranged from her father because she’s spent her political career trying to sanitise the party from his toxic effect. All whitewash, obviously, when it comes to reality, but the only way she could attempt to be electable.
Her niece, Marion, is a straightforward vile chip off the original vile old block.
“The French repeatedly refused to elect Le Pen – a Man who had once led a bayonet charge. Now that’s corruption since that is exactly what is needed.”
Are you suggesting that a democratic voting procedure is ‘corruption’ because people don’t vote the way you want them to? I hadn’t picked that up from your views on Trump’s electoral victory.
I’ve checked on Le Pen’s military history – no mention of leading a bayonet charge. There was a mention of his being accused of engaging in torture in Algeria, when sent there as an intelligence officer.
Also, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion and ‘arrived in Indochina *after* the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu’ which brought an end to the war in Indochina.
Then ‘ Le Pen was then sent to Suez in 1956, but arrived only after the cease-fire.’
Hmmm… I wonder where the bayonet charge took place?
Toy soldiers, perhaps?
My best guess is that you’re confusing Le Pen with Petain, who only retained his traitorous head after being convicted of treason at the end of WWII because of his distinguished military record in WWI.
That would be no surprise, given your usual mythomaniacal melange of random factoids to suit your propaganda point of the moment. What more could you need than that their names both start with ‘P’ and end with ‘N’?
You’ll remember Petain, Janos. He’s the one whose government helped deport almost 76,000 Jewish French citizens and refugees to Nazi death camps. His own citizens, Janos.
You really do pick your heroes, don’t you? And heroes there were.
Italy, despite its own anti-Semitic laws, defended and saved thousands of French Jews in south-eastern France, which was occupied by the Italian army.
And 7000 Jews (almost the entire Jewish population of occupied Denmark) were smuggled out of the country practically overnight without the occupying Nazi forces being any the wiser (with the help of the Danish civil service and police, and the backing of the king).
The man who led the bayonet charge(s) ended his life in jail, soiling himself. Not that that mattered – he’d already soiled himself by his own choices.
Walter,
Firstly, thanks for providing some hearty food for thought.
I don’t think there’s much of substance in any supposedly forward-looking plan the elite may have. If they do, it’s probably of the “they’ll think of something” nature. This is what comes of believing one’s own bullshit, and in this area, politicos and corporate magnates seem to be heavily invested. (And we can forget the military; they’re still fighting the last war and making their plans to kill their own people in the streets. That’s what’s called: “Counter-productive”.)
So what does that leave (besides the lack of coherent plans for the future)? As JHK reminds us again and again (although very few are listening or internalizing) events will take charge and bullshit will be tipped into the abyss where it belongs. What will that portend for the unthinking billions? Well, the word “doom” comes to mind. It didn’t have to be like this but greed got in the way despite mountains of rational and reasonable information about the onrushing predicaments. (Too many hairless apes being one of the easiest to spot).
With his twittering and barely comprehensible blurtings, Trump is truly an exemplar of the state of American “thought”. I couldn’t imagine a clearer portent of political, social and economic disaster based on this kind of knee-jerk “thinking”. We must ask ourselves if, in future, hucksters, cheats and liars should be admired. These are Traits of Trump, the man who has always used other people’s money to secure [what turns out to be] a tenuous and temporary grasp of the brass ring. A day-to-day struggle to maintain an illusion of authenticity and gravitas.
Do his followers see him as a glittering, gold-sequin-encrusted stage magician; a miraculous fixer?
“When you believe in things that you don’t understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition ain’t the way…”
If the American populace would rather not think or plan, then it’s irrelevant who leads the mob over the cliff.
The good old USA is a failed state. The collapse will pick up some speed as things unfold. So what? Let it go. The economy is a scam. Just about every aspect of life in the land of the free –cough, cough, cough–is a poor joke. We are inundated with bullshit and we think it smells good. We accept, tolerate any absurd behaviors, ideas, theories, opinions. This is the land of the addicted, the bizarre, the simply dumb. There is no common decency or basic politeness. I fully expect Rev Graham’s funeral to be crashed by some group of freaks that Maddow, Tapper, Cooper will fawn over. Let the whole damn thing collapse. Good riddance. Seventeen school kids are gunned down and we shit ourselves. The medical industry slaughters people by the hundreds of thousands annually and we yawn. We are some kind of fucked up.
Seventeen school kids are gunned down and we shit ourselves. The medical industry slaughters people by the hundreds of thousands annually and we yawn.
Yes, we overreact to the splashy highlights and underreact to the “normal”mayhem. Just as people are afraid to fly because of plane crashes but travel the much more dangerous highways blithely.
Hard cases make bad law. Instead of piling on more laws, imagine if hospitals or judicial systems had to do an NTSB-style plane crash analysis. Ok, we screwed this one up. How do we fix our procedures so we don’t screw up the next one? Instead we shriek and pile on more regulation and bureaucracy while not training to prevent tragedies we already know.
Great point.
So you are against late term abortions? And the selling of baby heads by Planned Parenthood?
Is anyone in favor of it? Except the people who make money off it?
RB
Yes, I’m afraid you are absolutely correct. “We are some kind of fucked up” and fucked. The only remaining question is how does this sucker go down, with a bang or a whimper? It will be interesting, but I hope not TOO interesting for comfort. We will know soon enough I fear…
JD
We’ve been ‘whimpering’ for decades. I’ve given up waiting for the ‘bang.’
The decline will continue. Some future historian might point to some event and call it ‘the end,’ but for those of us living through it, it’s just more of the same carp.
Crap not carp.
Farmed carp is possibly going to be more of a thing, as better fish becomes less affordable and the trawlers have no diesel.
So, ‘more of the same carp’ might become a thing too!
Alba,
Carp, when found in a Ghetto BBQ place, will often be advertised as “Buffalo Fish”. In other venues it is referred to as “Toilet Tuna”.
Yeah there was no definitive collapse of
Rome in the West. A long series of declines. Sack of Rome in 410 didn’t cause but confirmed things.
“a nation is never conquered from without until it has first destroyed itself from within.” Will and Ariel Durant
Many have said previously that the constitution is not a suicide pact. A constitutional crisis may be exactly what this country needs.
Will Trump have the dedication of the military and law enforcement to be confident enough of victory in times of disorder and crisis? He’s Commander-in-Chief so let him command, if he has it in him. But the New York Military Academy is not West Point.
Sooner or later someone, some group is going to wake up to the fact that robotically following our great Constitution and our great Democracy, however noble they may be, will be a futile, self defeating, and naïve “patriotic” act.
The Left has allowed the invasion of the True Deplorables. And we just now had the mayor of Oakland warning illegal immigrant criminals of ICE raids.
If it comes to it, Trump better stand and fight. I’d rather see the nation cleanse itself in the white heat of violence, or at least try to, than wind up with a successful Hillary-Mueller-Obama coup.
Good points. If they manage to impeach Trump, I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t use the opportunity to amplify the “stolen election” charges and go after Pence as well as part of the same transaction. Who does that leave us with? Paul “Eddie Munster” Ryan? Don’t know if there’s a constitutional mechanism for asserting that the election was a fraud, the runner up should have been the rightful winner, and then crowning her, but I’m sure the Dems are exploring all available options to make that happen.
If nothing else, this whole affair has woken everybody up to the truly pernicious influence of the intelligence state, which has always hidden just below the surface of daily affairs. The spooks definitely ain’t hiding in the shadows anymore!
At some point, people gotta wonder why we pay $200 per citizen for $70billion woorth of intelligence. So far as I can tell, most of their activity seems to be spying on the other guy’s spies, who justify their existence by spying on ours.
Certainly having evidence of every phone call and text message will help retroactively prove a crime, but that only works with a populace worried about being caught and going to prison. People with low impulse control, people who WANT notoriety like terrorists, and people with the obsession to avoid the electronic net will be unaffected. And those are the ones that we really want to focus on.
We don’t pay it Doc, they TAKE it because they can and nobody can stop them. The book “The Devil’s Chessboard details the black history of the CIA, the big mistake by Harry Truman and the evil Frankenstein monster of Allen Dulles. The book ends with the demise of a key British operative (one of the original spooks whose name escapes me) as he states in his dying days that it was a blast to do what they did because of the power and the control, but it was no doubt totally evil.
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/02/the-deepest-state-the-safari-club-allen-dulles-and-the-devils-chessboard/
From the article:
Or as a staff member of the 1970s congressional investigation of Kennedy’s murder said in an interview with Talbot: “One CIA official told me, ‘So you’re from Congress — what the hell is that to us? You’ll be packed up and gone in a couple of years, and we’ll still be here.’”
I challenge anyone to come back and tell me that murdering human beings and manipulating populations for profit is acceptable or somehow the best way of living with our neighbors on this planet. These people are evil and even demonic. Nothing they do is right nor is it good. It is a shining example of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. In the end it may even destroy us all and certainly those who accept it as a way to do business.
Great book and great points.
Thanks for the book reference, Walter. I’ve evernoted the article.
A good book in this regard is MartinVanCreveld’s The Transformation Of War, written in 1989. He makes the explicit point that almost all military spending after the atomic bomb (which, while monstrous, has probably saved a lot of lives, at least until some damn fool neocon uses one) was wasted.
We’ve never left the WW2 mobilized status, and it has left us a shell of a country.
Yeah, maybe. It might revolve around the electoral college. I could see an argument that HRC won the popular vote, and the government can retroactively place her in power. Who knows. Trump has thrown DC off script, and the place appears to be losing its mind.
But millions of illegals voted so it’s not clear that she won.
Is there a verifiable way to find out if that’s factual?
If that were to be true, of course those votes are not eligible.
Fake news, Janos.
If the President is removed from power, there’s a clear line of succession and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t remotely include the runner-up candidate in the last election, popular vote or not.
Sure, it’d be Mike Pence unless some unconstitutional strangeness occurs.
There IS a line of succession, and it absolutely does NOT include the election runner-up. It’s a long list, but the first four are: 1. Vice President, 2. Speaker of the House, 3. President Pro-Tem of the Senate, 4. Sec. of State
I kind of threw that out there as a half-serious wild hypothetical, but it really wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Dems at least explore that option. We’ve never had a case where there were serious accusations of a foreign power enabled, stolen election, so I think we’re in totally new territory if that idea ever gets serious legal traction. We’ll see.
“Don’t know if there’s a constitutional mechanism for asserting that the election was a fraud, the runner up should have been the rightful winner, and then crowning her, but I’m sure the Dems are exploring all available options to make that happen.”
That would be ballsy, considering the DNC rigged the primaries for Hillary. Since she wasn’t the legitimate nominee, Ms. “It’s My Turn” doesn’t deserve any crown, unless it’s one made of thorns. I doubt the DNC would challenge the legitimacy of the 2016 election since their shenanigans would come to light.
Probably right. But this bunch has been reliably (insanely!) unpredictable so far, so I wouldn’t put anything past them at this point.
Yeah it may come to what you write there, Tucson.
I’d argue that every peaceable means ought to be pursued first including a constitutional convention if warranted. The trouble with revolutions is is that you too often end up with a Stalin or a Saddam Hussein after the smoke clears.
So any type of revolutionary movement in the country needs a strong dose of John Locke in its principles going forward, if it doesn’t want to unwittingly create a monster at the other end of the rainbow.
Good point and it certainly is a concern. Hundreds of years of Democratic tradition should help realign things, and if it were the Man of the Moment, Trump taking control, I believe we would see somebody a lot more benevolent than a Stalin or Hussein.
I agree that the time is at hand for people, somebody, anybody to wake up and realize that our system is now designed to suck the life out of taxpayers but I dont think that the constitution is the problem. Its the slow erosion of leadership over the last few decades and its replacement by “government-to-the-highest-bidder”, pay-to-play dynamics where the special interests write the laws and the people pay the price. The Patriot Act made it worse (ballooning government size and spending, codifying the M-I-C) and Citizens United has made it worse still. The constitution was intended to guide a republic and we are now a failing and fading empire. All empires die, they always have and we are not exceptional. If we wake up to this soon enough maybe we can do something about it otherwise fracturing, infighting and major rapid contraction are the norm for failed states.
BH
The nine old fools didn’t do us any favor with Citizens United. How blind could they be? Fairly blind I suppose “corporations are people?” By definition, I would argue that they are non-breathers, no?
JD
Please. Citizen’s united was about a MOVIE. What would be the point of the first amendment if the government could prevent the showing of a movie, no matter who paid for it.
The biggest scammers when it comes to electoral politics is the corporate owned, oligarch controlled MSM, not political advertising.
“I’d stay away from post offices and other parcels of federal property for a while. If a bunch decides to march on the nation’s capital, it will be a messier affair than anything the hippies pulled off back in the day, perhaps the first battle of Civil War 2.”
And Americans may finally get some perspective about the real magnitude of the risk to them from Islamist terrorism. Wait till the home-growns get going. A perceived wrong is a perceived wrong, no matter who thinks they’ve been wronged.
Trump the look-at-me martyr could be way more dangerous than Trump the look-at-me president. Which is why I’ve never approved of getting rid of him other than through the ballot box.
Not that I imagine for a minute he’s not guilty of money laundering, but that could have waited for him to get back into his civvies. It would have been fun watching him sweat for another three years knowing that was waiting for him instead of a serene old age.
Berlusconi is still mired in three ongoing trials in his dotage. Trump would have been punished by knowing that it was his hubris in standing for president that would lead to the light being shone on his nefarious business dealings. He might have got away with it otherwise.
Whatever happens, if the US goes down, it will take a lot of the rest of us down with it, Titanic style.
Yeah there are some massive understatements there, for sure. The only way to dispose of Trump is the legal way. Our country can not go down a path similar to a banana republic. Perhaps that’s what it will come to though, I don’t know. Apart from a violent coup, unconstitutionally removing the executive is unacceptable. It could help create a revolutionary milieu in the country that would make the Yugoslav Wars of the early 90s look like child’s play. These are terrible solutions.
The next presidential election is in 2020. People need to wait until then, and vote at that time. I seriously don’t think that Trump is going to be impeached or that there will be a military coup. I know Jim has alluded to these possibilities, but I don’t see that happening.
So, I think its all about how Trump is removed. If it is constitutional, then I don’t see much of an argument from the large anti-government forces in the country. Although, how much corruption would happen on the cabinet level for that to happen? I don’t know. If Trump is removed unconstitutionally, then all bets are off. It would be more than a “perceived wrong.” It would be a threat to the future of democracy in the country.
Islam conquered huge swaths of Europe in the past. The threat is obviously very real since the Jihad is real.
Your equation of Patriots with Jihadis speaks volumes about your errant belief system.
One problem with Islam in the West is, that it is as fully a political movement as it is a religion.
For example, what would any Western Government say if a group of Puritans moved into a low-income district, and petitioned to be allowed to try their own people in Pilgrim Tribunals, according to Pilgrim Law?
Well, they would say ‘no,’ because the courts are a political function of the State.
Suppose they said “yes’ and the Pilgrims started trying aberrant pilgrims in court. A couple of bad Pilgrims get put in the stocks–Who cares? No one cares, until precedent has been set and the Pilgrims start to burn witches–
Sounds farfetched, but in Canada and some other Western Countries, Muslims have been allowed to try their own people by Sharia Law. This is a political act, not a religious one.
It may be time to declare Islam a political movement and treat it as such. It is probably way past time to shut down the SJW tribunals and all other extra-governmental pretensions to political power…
Hey Janos: would there be any meaning to your life if you couldn’t post dozens of times to this website, twice a week?
We’re happy for you, really.
In other words, you can’t stand anyone telling the truth about the Jihad. The Jihad is fine, but talking about its horror is a crime.
What strange sick people you lefties are.
“Your equation of Patriots with Jihadis…”
I referred to ‘perspective’ in relation to ‘magnitude’ and you come out with ‘equation’. You really don’t do detail, do you?
That’s why propagandists are so dangerous. But you know that – it’s why you do it.
Also, I think ‘equation’ should be ‘equating.’
I try to give credit where credit is due, even when that credit it due to Janos:
Equation
1….
2. the process of equating one thing with another.
“the equation of science with objectivity”
synonyms: equating, equalization, identification, association, connection, likening, matching;
And anyway, to err is human; to pretend not to notice is divine. 🙂
If Trump does go down, do you think the network will let him go back to “Celebrity Apprentice?” No doubt the ratings would be fantastic, especially if Alec Baldwin is a contestant.
There’s no evidence of any money-laundering. Trump is a teetotaler. He hasn’t allowed liquor to cloud his judgement so as to permit himself or his subordinates to commit any major misteps, thus it’s unlikely Mueller is going to find any serious skeletons in Trump’s closet. Maybe some petty graft among his associates and the occasional tryst with some Playboy bunny, that’s about it.
But his enemies never tire of their frantic deranged cries of anguish every time CNN breathlessly announces some newly imagined infamy (haha, how many stories have they had to retract so far?)
“There’s no evidence of any money-laundering.”
Well if that’s the way it turns out, that’ll be hunky dory. We’ll just have to wait and see. It’s not keeping me awake either way.
The Mueller investigation was born of sin and it should die of sin. If there was any rule of law in the US this would have been so already. But even the FISC judges are corrupt beyond imagination and likely should be in jail.
The US citizenry is in serious trouble. It allowed the fascist corporations to seduce them and in the process corrupt and thieve everything in the country and the world. I personally do not see there being any chance to remedy the corruption until the fascist corporations the fascist banks and the fascist medusa head of it all — the Vatican — are all repudiated and dissolved. No need for a revolution, a boycott of these fascists will do just fine.
.
?Mark Levin: It’s time for FISA court judges to face scrutiny
— https://youtu.be/jKHVAHPB6KM ?
Mark Levin? Is that whack job still spewing BS? Good g_d. I don’t understand how he and M. Savage (Dr. S?) maintain a big enough audience for an RW talk show. Two real morons. Let’s throw Hannity into that bunch to, could we?
JD
Yes, and I’d rather keep company with these right wing whack job BS spewing patriots than gov mafia CNN commies like you. Is that ok by you.
Have you heard the latest from Dr. Savage. He’s mulling whether to leave his radio show and run for the Senate against 86 year-old Dianne Feinstein. He says the deadline for his decision is March 8, so stay tuned. That might even be more fun than Trump’s presidential run, and Savage is certainly much more intelligent.
AM
If you say so akmofo, but I think they are more trolling for advertising dollars than patriots. What branch of the service did these two patriots serve in, the same as GGG?
I wouldn’t ask you to spend time with me (heavens!), but I’m really more of a Capitalist with some Socialist tendencies, like universal health care, Social Security… stuff like that. I really do like big buck$, it just more convenient. Not that I have enough yet!
CNN, while you may not care for the programming, is just as much into advertising dollars as Fox Noise, Rush Limbo, Matt Sludge and EVEN Rachel Maddow. But whatever, each to his own…
JD
“Enjoy the last few weeks of relative normality.” –JHK
Jim, your craftsmanship in writing is a thing of beauty to behold. Thanks for the last line advising that we only have a “few weeks” of “relative normality” to enjoy.
This sucker is going down on Trump’s watch. Just yesterday Trump unilaterally started a steel and aluminum trade war… causing markets to “wobble and puke.” The blame, ultimately, is squarely on the heads of the fly-over country deplorables who voted in someone so clearly inept.
Trump is going to crash the economy, sooner rather than later… and we only have a “few weeks of relative normality” to enjoy.
The blame, ultimately, is squarely on the heads of the fly-over country deplorables who voted in someone so clearly inept.
Utter bullshit, as usual. Thankfully, we’ve come to expect nothing less from you, L’il J-Bot. The blame belongs on both parties (and ultimately the people who control them) for nominating two so inherently corrupt swine in the first place. Queen Hillary was a known quantity: a known criminal fleeing justice in search of a suitable jail cell, all on the coattails of her zombie husband and the equally Teflon slick war criminal Barry Obama. So the American Sheeple gave Trump the benefit of the doubt and said let’s send a message. Granted, he turned out to be the bumbling idiot we suspected all along, but given the two choices, he was and is still the best option available.
By the way, you’d better hope that Jim is wrong about all this, cause if Trump does go down those same deplorables ain’t going to take it sitting down. Little snowflakes like you are going to have to go underground for awhile to escape the considerable heat they’ll be bringing to bear. It won’t be pretty in the least.
In fact, it is YOU, lil’ Itch-Bot, who is suspiciously on some meddlesome handler’s payroll. Your reliably extreme comments, name-calling, and sophomoric devil avatar have been dead giveaways ever since you were assigned to this blog.
And now we have a new contender in the fray!
“The blame, ultimately, is squarely on the heads of the fly-over country deplorables who voted in someone so clearly inept.”
I think the blame has to be even more ‘ultimate’. I don’t blame the ‘deplorables’ (and can any person, anywhere, ever have so much regretted casually coining a boomerang word she’ll never be able to separate herself from politically?) but those whose lack of interest in the desperation of Flyoverland – and that most certainly doesn’t just mean Democrats – made the ‘deplorables’ choose deplorably in the first place. (I don’t absolve the non-desperates who had other nefarious motives, such as the one that came to happy fruition for them with the truly deplorable tax ‘reform’.)
I will continue to give the genuinely desperate ‘deplorables’ the respect of quotation marks – many of them have been deprived for a long time of any other kind of respect, including from the Republican scoundrels they insist, in Stockholm-syndrome fashion, on voting for. Not that their options are impressive.
There are others, with much more resilient wallets, who don’t deserve the the quotation marks, but then they don’t get called ‘deplorables’ anyway, if they chose their man out of much greedier self-interest.
Trump was truly a desperation vote for many who voted for him and was cast by people who decided his personal baggage was worth the risk if half of what he was saying ever came to fruition. So far very little of it has and I doubt much more will but you can’t blame “flyover deplorables” for ruining the country, the country was ruined well before trump came into the political picture. He branded himself as “your last hope” and it sold. That was bullshit, too, though. The change we need will only come from the bottom-up, directly from the people so Trump or Hillary or Obama or Bernie… kind of moot at this point, especially since its the same resilient-walleted deplorables who find their way into the govt behind the scenes no matter whose in charge.
Trump just levied a “tariff” – something I never expected to see in my lifetime, so complete was the triumph of the Corporate Slave Masters and their paid intellectual whores. Not only did he bring the word back – but the thing itself. America first, not the World and not the Greed mongers.
God bless this man. And a curse on his enemies, both known and unknown, knowing and ignorant.
You don’t explain how so many solidly democratic states went for Trump in 2016. In my own Socialist Republic of Minnesota, HRC won the state by only 1.5% of the vote over Trump.
So, how did so many of your voters become ‘deplorable’ in 4 years from 2012 to 2016?
lack of ideological purity?
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the Democrats had betrayed us. In fact, the government has betrayed most of us. Some, of course have benefited at the expense of the majority of us. I was one of those Minnesotans who voted for Trump. Hillary was unacceptable. I felt at the time that he was a bad deal and that was the point. We sent the government (and the Democrats) a big f-you. If they can’t function, well, that was the intention. They can just suffer him for the next 3 years (maybe 7). If they try to remove him there’ll be trouble of the sort I’m not sure we can survive in our present form. Perhaps that’s for the best. We’ve become a monster.
yeah, I think the democrats have taken advantage of their base for a very long time. If the leadership of the DNC is any indication, I think they are gonna double down on the identity politics in 2020. If they do that it will only continue division and might eventually lead to disaster worse than 2016 for them.
They really have no choice. Identity politics is all they have now. However, if they believe the majority of the country cares deeply about the right of a gay couple to marry or whether a transgendered person can use the public restaurant of their choice is of burning concern I think they’ll be disappointed. I’ve personally had a belly full of Black Lives Matter and taking a knee for the anthem (which I believe is an unfortunate manner of protest, since one kneels to his God, his king or his master – the old Black Panther salute would be much more appropriate). I believe Hillary’s majority in the popular vote had a lot to do with illegal aliens voting when they had no right to do so. I have no doubt those of that persuasion will vote for a Democrat. I never will again.
Dream on.
The markets, if they do crash, will be torn down by forces beyond the control of Washington, DC. Remember all those other factors this blog addresses week after week. Trump has done what a businessman does when his company runs into trouble, set trends to control the revenue expenditure balance and advertise. This time though, as in many businesses, it may be too late and Trump may be piloting a sinking ship.
What scares me more than The future with Trump is the future with any Current Democrat. What will we get with the soulless party in control? The debt will skyrocket much faster as the government tries to take care of the jobless mass of immigrants that jobs will not exist for. Automation attacks manual labor jobs first and will reduce the opportunities for everyone, but especially for those that are unfamiliar with their surroundings. So if California, just voted the lowest quality of living in the US, is where you want to be, vote Democrat.
Like the proverbial frying pan and the fire, think before believing removal of Trump is a good thing. I dread the US being under the control of the drones in DC as it runs off the economic cliff.
We need a third party, one born of the people. I think something analogous to Italy’s 5Star Movement would do very well here, which addresses many issues that are discussed on this blog but as they affect Italy. It would have to address imperial contraction as well (good luck).
Automation attacks blindly at any job that is repetitive and predictable, many manual labor jobs (outside of a controlled setting) are unpredictable, construction for instance and should be safe from automation for some time. Automation has hurt data entry and analysis and wall street traders as well as factory workers and miners. Amazon will take it one step further and continue to destroy service jobs in retail but also well-paying warehouse jobs, forklift operators and the like.
As for removing Trump, if it’s through assassination or a military or congressional coup then we are better off with him. If proof turns up that he has dirty money and/or committed other crimes while campaigning or in office then hes gotta go, but through the legal system.
It’s the coming issue if we ever get immigration curtailed (all of it, both legal and illegal).
Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of the human form or the human mind. Thou shalt not replace any man with a machine unless you are willing to pay him what he would have earned if not replaced.
Tucker Carlson recently had a segment with a car going slowly down a two lane road somewhere in California. The homeless, living in tents and sleeping bags, goes on and on for miles. He said this is repeated in many other locales. Yet the democrats want more and more to come into our land of squalor. Hopefully, at some point, Mexico and points south will get the memo that our shithole is worse than their shithole.
“The blame, ultimately, is squarely on the heads of the fly-over country deplorables who voted in someone so clearly inept.”
Janet, how can I put this succinctly? Oh right. Go fuck yourself.
Deplorable Midwesterners have watched more or less helplessly for decades as pseudo-educated dipshits like you have fucked us and then blamed us for not being in the mood for a good rogering.
I suspect the deplorables in the space between the nation’s ears would vote for Xenu himself if it meant we got to watch idiots like you squirm.
“and the fascist medusa head of it all — the Vatican”
For those of us not temperamentally drawn to over-arching conspiracy theories (we’re fine with actual evidence), it’s fascinating to watch one bunch of people in the 21st century ascribe all evils to ‘the Vatican’ while another bunch of people ascribe them equally earnestly to ‘the Jews’.
It’s almost as if yet another bunch of people want to distract you with your archaic jousting while they quietly pick the pockets of the present and the future. But maybe that would be a conspiracy theory too.
One of the most popular delusions on the psych floor I worked on in our local hospital were “government implants” that recorded what patients diagnosed with schizophrenia were thinking.
You can put that on the list, too.
Although yes, the US gov’t is monitoring its own population, but not with implants. These are federal workers we are talking about. That’s wayyyyy too much work 🙂
Well, quite, PA. A Buy-One-Get-One-Free conspiracy theory, to save the brain cells from overworking. 🙂
BOGOF(F) sounds just like something the powers that be might be saying sotto voce to the hoi polloi.
And maybe the House of Saud is in there too – a truly triangular Abrahamic conspiracy!
Your original response has gone. PA (possibly because of Scratch’s less sarcastic subcomment?), so now my two responses make no sense and should probably go too. 🙂
What did I say O’Greeny?
From memory, Scratch (and we’re going back some time here!) you said something like ‘it is possible’, but without due irony.
There, I’ve said it without giving anything away, as it’s hopefully pretty meaningless without the context. Should the context come back to you, perhaps, in the circumstances, you should keep it to yourself. 🙂
I would have replied sooner, but the website crashed momentarily – for me anyway. I swear I saw a couple of Cardinals smirking wickedly in the corner of my screen as the ‘Submit’ button refused to ‘submit’, eventually leading to a reboot, which was lengthened by Windows Updates deciding to configure themselves at a most inopportune moment.
Microsoft are obviously partners in conspiracy as well!
Mrs Green, why not examine the itinerary to the Vatican by world leaders (even before they become world leaders), examine the accords the Vatican signs with others (eg Hitler’s Germany), examine the criminals the Vatican sponsored and honours, some with nazi crosses of special orders, examine the tax exempt status of their organization and world properties, examine their finances and what possible streams of revenue can they account for to maintain the opulent condition of their organization, examine why they have not been audited, examine what the Vatican says and does not say on specific topics, what issues it promotes and which it doesn’t, examine the history and political purpose of the Vatican, examine what learned critics of the Vatican (of which I am not) have to say about the Vatican, and ponder why everything concerning the Vatican is hidden by our media, away from public view and scrutiny. Then explain to me why my suspicions and focus on the Vatican is a “distraction”.
With all the gold, silver, precious stones, marble, carved wood, art, etc., why hasn’t the mafia cleaned off that loot? There are trillions of dollars sitting in the churches cathedrals and other palatial spaces guarded by fat ass pederast bishops and cardinals in their silk robes, while ordinary people watch their wealth stolen by these con man. Why?
“why hasn’t the mafia cleaned off that loot? ”
Vestigial superstition?
Why has the gov mafia not cleaned off that loot? It too is superstitious? They’re always in search of money. What’s the problem here?
Why have ordinary people not taken their gold and silver back from these palatial storehouses? What the hell is going on here. Why is this not discussed?!
Who the hell is the Vatican that we all have to be silent about it?!
I don’t disagree with any of that, akmofo. I just consider it one of many scams in the world, even though it may be a big one.
“Vestigial superstition?”
Excellent!
Perhaps we could ask Janos to help us out with his expertise, akmofo, since mine is clearly lacking.
He appears to have done a lot of research on his own competing conspiracy theory, so I’m sure intellectual integrity will have impelled him to apply equivalent research to his own cultural back yard first, lest he be accused of a very primitive bias.
Yan is a Vatican apologist. Which should tell you all you need to know about the Vatican.
I have no doubt at all of the existence – particularly historically – of Vatican intrigues of various kinds. What I very much doubt is the ‘over-arching’ quality beloved of the conspiracy theorists. Just as I have no doubt groups of people sharing other persuasions engage in similar intrigues, but again it is the ‘over-arching’ nature of the conspiracies that I reject.
The groups that all these dodgy people belong to are ‘greedy’ and ‘power hungry’, which trumps all their other cultural attributes to my mind, and is why they recognise one another easily, without even the benefit of dodgy handshakes.
“Which should tell you all you need to know about the Vatican.”
Insufficient, and not admissible in court, I think. 🙂
Insufficient? Oh c’mon, we can get a few large pouched vermin from Australia and get the show rolling. It was good enough for the Inquisition, it should be good enough for us.
I’ve condemned the Gobalist Novus Ordo Church may times. Each of the Novus Ordo Popes had a “personal rabbi”.
AM
“a few large pouched vermin from Australia…” That is actually very funny! A very nice reference to a “stacked deck” court.
You raise some very interesting points concerning the Vatican. There probably is a great deal of skullduggery going on in the Papal capital that could do with some sunshine and of course, they are responsible for a host of unsavory episodes throughout history, but I believe all religions, that have been around for 5 centuries plus, fall into that category.
JD
Hello GA,
Didn’t you forget about the world’s fastest growing religion – Islam? Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are all monotheistic Abrahamic religions. As I recently read, since Judaism is the oldest, the other two are just offshoots. Needless to say, that notion would not make the other two religions very happy. But those three run the world today, all vying for power in endless war. A POX on all their Houses.
Hello outsider
I did throw in the House of Saud further up, since their particular combination of religious extremism, along with financial corruption and greed, makes them the among the most dangerous of their creed, especially since their money seems to have spread the seed of their particular extremism around the world.
However, I still don’t see any of these religions, separately or in combination, ‘running the world’, although they may each contribute their own – sometimes very significant – problems to it.
Mega-money, which does rule the world (along with stupidity, perhaps?), has no religion, except its own. And even mega-money is not a monolith.
Sometimes a clusterfuck is just a clusterfuck.
Even mega-money prefers a sound philosophical/religious basis to justify its actions, O’Greeny, if only to bamboozle the outsiders they need to help them carry out their plans. Whether or not they actually believe any of it is certainly debatable – my guess is mostly not – but it’s still very valuable as a focusing tool. Of course money is merely a means to an end – attaining and exercising power – but the two are pretty much synonymous these days.
Green Alba: ‘…especially since their money seems to have spread the seed of their particular extremism around the world.’
This is spectacularly evident here in Indonesia, and they don’t even try to hide it. Bedsheet-bearded goons waving cudgels and smashing up Chinese establishments (alcohol is evil). Brand-new pickup trucks that cost well over $50000 carrying the leaders – free scholarships to go study terrorism in Sandi Arabia.
The Indonesians, God bless them, are so weak for free money that they’ll even follow these medieval pied pipers into hell.
And to think that this archipelago of 300 ethnic groups used to be known for its tolerance…
SpeedyBB
This is the thing that really gets me. We know the Saudis have been funding madrassas all over the place to spread their vile mission. And yet the US and the UK do nothing but grovel to them.
And Trump does his dad dance with them, as if they were everybody’s chums. You couldn’t make it up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=runYPf4Q2g8
And we all sell them the best weapons money can buy, generously lubricated with multi-million dollar bribes.
Yes, that may be his intention: destroy true Conspiracy Theory with fake Conspiracy Theory. Bad drives out good as in Gresham’s Law.
Disinformation. By far the most effective tool in the kit for propagandists and intelligence agencies alike.
I think this is an important question. What happens after Trump? From what I see and read, not much. I don’t see any good leadership in the Establishment out there.
I continue voting and supporting “the others” in the election cycle. However, “the others” are up against a structure designed to keep them away from DC.
So, depending on how the financial markets impact the economy and the government, it may end up like Wiley E. Coyote running off the cliff– legs pumping furiously, before nose diving.
PA
I’ve just about come to the conclusion that voting and civic involvement generally is just a plain waste of time. We can vote for dumb or dumber, really bad or awful, etc., but, increasingly I think it’s a fool’s errand as the system is FUBAR and can only be begun anew after the final collapse, much like the drunk who can only begin rehabilitation after he/she has hit the very bottom. Am I wrong?
JD
I tend to agree that you are correct in that belief.
The one thing we can all do, and do today, and is to become involved locally. Get to know your neighbors. Get involved in local organizations and politics. Because when the shit hits the fan, then you have your “go-to” militia/power group/etc right there.
Very emotional and very wrong analysis of the current situation on Jim’s part.
Do you think it was a coincidence that Trump announced the start of the trade wars at the same time Putin was reading a eulogy to United States nuclear ambitions?
Trump was warned about Putin’s speech about 2 weeks in advance – appearance of Megyn Kelly just in time to take interview with Putin is the best prove of that.
Putin to Megyn Kelly: ICBMs are battle ready
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/03/02/putin-megyn-kelly-russia-nuclear-weapons-sot-ctn.cnn
In other words, new Russian powerful, invincible to American ABM, nuclear missiles are not just animation on YouTube, it is a battle-ready reality.
Under such circumstances, any illegal – and under that term I do include 25th Amendment – removal of Trump from office due to self-obvious reasons would mean a collective suicide of the American elite.
And while certain part of it is definitely suicidal – I wonder how they are passing their annual physical – the majority is not.
Finca’s guide to Winning a Nuclear War
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/now-schiff-memo/#comment-340951
Those two posts were actually damn nice Finca. Thanks. The madness runs strong in the US NeoLib elite these days. There’s really no way to explain it rationally, other than to chalk it up to decades of indoctrination and the firm belief in their own ultra-exceptionalism. Is that based on some esoteric secret society, pseudo religious beliefs? It’s hard to say, although, like you, I personally think probably so. Either way, these rats need to be eradicated before they do us all in, although no rescue appears to be in sight at this time.
Where I do differ from you significantly, however, is the idea that Trump might be a genuinely viable alternative, Granted, he’s not aligned with Hillary (apparently, at least), but he doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what he’s doing either. At the very least, he seems to be waging an unwinnable war within the beltway at the moment, such that now even his short term prospects appear dim. Whether the Dems ever remove him or not is mostly irrelevant. He’s been politically neutered, even with his conservative base, so he’s mostly a dead fish in the water now, waiting to be ate.
Thanks for the discursive ruminations Jim and early to boot! Weeks now…. Surely some Revelation is at hand. My life, the people I know, placid as the Titanic heading for its iceberg. My community, flush, with money everywhere. There are 4 things that will be a 2×4 upside the head and it is NOT the removal of DJT: ATMs with no money, Gas stations with no gas, Electric outlets with no power, or the internet “down”. It has been a long time since 60’s level violence, Ferguson withstanding, but that would not be a good sign either….
Too true, RocketDoc. Currently we’ve got a lot of snow here, courtesy of a weather event christened ‘The Beast from the East’. Not ‘a lot’ on the level that you guys and the Canadians get, but when it’s not regular, it makes no economic sense to have the same levels of logistical preparedness. Also I’m old enough to remember winters from pre-climate-change days when starving sheep had to be airlifted off the Yorkshire Moors and Dales by helicopter (a rarity even then, though, thankfully).
However, nothing has moved in my minor street all week. The cars are covered in snow, and kids and their parents have been noisily playing there instead (the schools are all shut – we truly are not into real preparedness in these matters!).
The downside, besides the inevitable hit to the economy and parents frantically finding ways of getting days off to be home for the kids, is that many supermarket shelves are empty. We know it’s not going to last many more days, but it always amazes me that these short incidences don’t make people extrapolate to the general vulnerability of our just-in-time lives. It takes so little to disturb them.
How Putin has cancelled the Nuclear War
Putin’s message is a kind of political fire extinguisher with which the Russian president has cooled the hotheads of the American political and military elite. The hysteria of Western media, politicians and the expert community, which will inevitably follow in the coming days, will be the best confirmation that the message has reached its goal.
Although Western media and politicians will accuse Vladimir Putin of militarizing foreign policy and launching a new arms race, a presidential message that listed new types of Russian weapons is a pledge that the next world war is postponed indefinitely.
As always, not a single good deed goes unpunished. So the president will be predictably scorned with naphthalene-smelling theses of the Cold War.
Those who saw bellicose or aggressive imperialism in Putin’s speech and are now in a hurry to tell the world about it in the media or social networks are either deaf or stupid, or are working out salaries from the psychological operations units that are dime a dozen in American and European structures specializing in anti-Russian propaganda.
It is easy to predict that Putin will be accused of the fact that because of his militaristic ambitions and exorbitant spending on the army in Russia, the social sphere suffers and will suffer. The president will be accused of repeating the mistakes of the late USSR and dragging the country into the arms race with the US, which by definition Russia can not win. We will also be told from every steam iron that due to Putin’s “aggressive militarism” and the endless Russian “arms clanking” all civilized humanity will turn away and Russia will be left alone in its cold Mordor embracing the samovar, matryoshka doll and the missile “Sarmat”.
But the fact of the matter is that Russia does not need to win the arms race.
Russia has already won it.
Thanks for this point. I had missed the significance of it before.
Don’t know about “canceled it,” but he’s no doubt sent a shiver down a few spines in DC. We’ll see how it all plays out. The DC hotheads have always been reliably determined to have this war, so I’m not sure they have the good sense to back down – whether it’s suicidal to do so or not.
“Russia has already won it.”
Finc,
You seem to take comfort in that fact.
The US Military was working on nuclear jet engines in…the late 50’s. Why do you think they shelved the program? We had tactical nukes (artillery shells)…also in the late 50’s. We had terrain-guided missiles and aircraft in the mid 60’s. The US is years ahead of Mother Russia in drone subs….
Putin was saber rattling…pumping the nationalistic spirit of his electorate prior to his 4th successful election as Czar of all the Russias.
Potemkin?
Potemkin? No, his name is Putin.
The US Military was working on nuclear jet engines in…the late 50’s
US had fine rocket engines that put man on the Moon in 1969. What happened to them and why are you buying Russian rocket engines?
Putin was saber rattling…pumping the nationalistic spirit of his electorate prior to his 4th successful election as Czar of all the Russias.
Yes, exactly as I said Putin will be accused of. Vodka, Samovar, Matryoshka doll. Believe what you want, but US has a strategic military intelligence, no matter how funny that sounds.
US had fine rocket engines that put man on the Moon in 1969. What happened to them and why are you buying Russian rocket engines?”
Probaby a political/economic issue. Russia was on its ass in the early 90’s…might have been a fire sale. Russia did always have rockets with exceptional throw-weight.
Thank god for Putin!
There is a significant portion of the population that will view the removal of Trump as a coup. The smartest thing the “resistance” could do is let him serve the next three years while doing nothing but finding a candidate to run in 2020, but the resistance isn’t very smart.
Business as usual and Nature got us into this mess. Trump cannot undo what others and Nature have done because he cannot reduce the population or bring back a more robust, distributed economy.
People will not accept their fate so they will thrash about like fish in a net being drawn in around them. Obama one cycle, Trump the next, yeah, it’s a rational process.
“The Purse Seine”
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-purse-seine/
Thanks for that poem. It reads like it was written within the past 5 years.
The poets and the preachers do know our future.
Over 50 years ago I took a course on “Major American Writers”. None of Jeffers’ poems made the textbook, but they did quote a few lines:
“The world’s God is treacherous and full of unreason; a torturer, but also
The only foundation and the only fountain.
Who fights him eats his own flesh and perishes of hunger; …”
I immediately bought a collection of his poems and have made sure my children have a copy.
Eating our own flesh, indeed.
Not very epicurean to eat one’s own flesh! We’ve been consuming our children as a society for over 40 years now. It makes for a delicious meal until there’s no one left to cook.
The US lurches forward because of the balance between the Left and Right that comes from changing who is in control of Washington. The real culprits of the past thirty years is two Rightist administration who forgot that they are Conservative and did everything the Left wanted them to. Thirty years of one philosophy has distorted things so much and loaded the bureaucracy so thoroughly that any Conservative movement now does not stand a chance. If Trump is not hardheaded and forceful enough to water down the opposition, say goodbye to the USA. And he is on his own!
“Conservatism” at this point simply means real by the Corporations and selling off our National Parks to foreign investors.
The real way forward is the Third Way above both the Left and the Right. Nationalism. Fascism. National Socialism – which respects private property and enterprise. Big Companies? Fine, but they play ball with the Nation or they get out.
Nice!
*********
I thought, We have geared the machines and locked all together
into inter-dependence; we have built the great cities; now
There is no escape. We have gathered vast populations incapable
of free survival, insulated
From the strong earth, each person in himself helpless, on all
dependent. The circle is closed, and the net
Is being hauled in. They hardly feel the cords drawing, yet
they shine already. The inevitable mass-disasters
Will not come in our time nor in our children’s, but we
and our children
Must watch the net draw narrower, government take all
powers–or revolution, and the new government
Take more than all, add to kept bodies kept souls–or anarchy,
the mass-disasters.
**********
Tariffs going into place on metals.
Trump won supporting the workers in the rust belt. To them, all this debate is baloney. To them, Trump represents jobs, period. Here is an individual whose aims are to transfer economic power from the intelligentsia in the Deep State to the American people. What an appalling idea. All the previous administrations have kowtowed to the PTB running D.C. Income inequality has progressed regardless of who was running the government. Jim, your call for localization of the economy to me begs for the reduction of power in Wall Street and the return of power to Main Street. Only one guy in DC seems to understand this, Trump. This justification for the advance of moving of our economy overseas has been the poor consumer having to pay more for goods. All in the light of lower inflation. Bull, lower prices come from competition which needs to happen here in the USA. Why is it with all the talk of automation taking jobs and allowing companies to be more efficient, we continue to pay more each year for goods and services?
Who do you want to listen to for economic advice, a group of professors who have never runs a business in their lives, or a group of businessmen who have prospered in spite of what the PTB have done to them over the years. Just think what Trump’s main motivation might be here, REVENGE.
If trump understands the need to return power to main street from wall street he has a funny way of showing it. his rhetoric suggests that he thinks it would be a good idea but his cabinet is loaded with wall street and banking execs so I wouldn’t bet on it brother.
Yeah, why should our industry be here in America? Saving a few pennies at Walmart is more important than jobs. Everyone know that.
Well, Trump’s the man to keep jobs in America, isn’t he?
He’s had his clothing lines made in China, Mexico, Honduras, Indonesia, Bangladesh…
And when the shirts that were made for him in Honduras entailed labour costs of $1.30/hour, that wasn’t cheap enough for him, so the contract was moved to Bangladesh, where he could get people to work for him for $0.30/hour. (At least one supposes they were paid – he has a record of not paying them at all when they’re in the US and require proper wages, but I suppose for £0.30/hour he thought ‘hey, what the heck, let them have it…’.)
Then he blamed the Chinese for manipulating their currency against the dollar, even when they’d actually strengthened it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkO-aj2nnb4
Coup! Collapse! Revolution! Vatican controlled world! (That last one is especially rich)
Seems the chicken-littles have lost their heads. Go to your local chemist to get some Imodium to settle your turbulent bowels before Mr. Magoo bans it!
I’ll put my faith in the monied elites. After all it only took about $4 trillion to backstop the last convoluted money crisis and there’s plenty more where that came from.
As for Fearless Leader, the steady-state condition of investigations is healthy for a country ruled by laws. After all there is plenty of precedence for this, Whitewater went on for four years, and how many and how long did the Benghazi investigations go on?
Trump should stay in “power”, the US deserves to be mocked and dismissed. Remember the foolish, wasteful, and destructive response to the 9-11 attacks by the last fools of State? A debt is still owed for that monumental blunder and humiliation is a good start. Trump is the perfect clown to usher in that lowering of esteem.
@marcus1,
“The steady-state condition of investigations is healthy for a country ruled by laws.” Say What?
To spend millions of OUR tax dollars to investigate Russian election interference, when there is not a scintilla of evidence that a crime had been committed, shows how desperate politics in the once-great USofA has become. It brings the machinery of government, when it is most needed by the people, to a halt. We’ll never know if Trump would have made good on his campaign promise to seek rapprochement with Russia – his many enemies in the Deep State would not let him.
And I’m not being partisan here. I didn’t follow Whitewater, but it was stone-cold nuts to impeach Bill over stains on Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress. (OTOH, with the #metoo hysteria today, he would probably have been forced to resign). And to investigate Hillary’s role, ad infinitum, in Benghazi was ludicrous. Four dead Americans (one being the hardly-innocent US Ambassador), was pretty insignificant compared to the tens of thousands of Libyans that were needlessly killed by US bombs.
Outsider said “…when there is not a scintilla of evidence that a crime had been committed.”
That’s a laugher. How many indictments and plea agreements does it take before you admit there’s evidence of crimes?
Here’s how these investigations work: you start out investigating one crime and voila you find a whole nest of rats doing all sorts of crimes right under our noses with very close connections to the His Nibs. Ain’t looking good for the Orange Sunshine Gang.
The only crimes that Torquemada Mueller has unearthed are those committed by Paul Manafort, which occurred years before Trump even announced for the Presidency, and have nothing to do with his original mandate. The others are just so-called “process crimes,” where General Flynn, for example, was tricked by the FBI into lying to them. Just goes to show, never talk to cops without a lawyer present.
These endless investigations are a sign of American sickness, not any sign that it is a “healthy…country ruled by laws.”
So Flynn was “tricked” into lying to the FBI? And pleaded guilty to criminal charges after he was “tricked”? Please tell it to one of the ignoramuses you apparently run with.
What about Rick Gates? You know a top advisor to the Prez. Was he tricked into financial fraud and lying to investigators also? Was he barely an acquaintance of His Nibs?
Horseshit.
Everyone is guilty of something, even you. Should Mueller be sicced on you? He has clearly exceeded his mandate and is on a general fishing expedition – while the big criminals like Hillary and Obama get away free.
An ominous post by our distinguished host… How this conflates with the seemingly attempt by Mr. Trump to “defuse” and steer away his potentially most worrisome supporters – the people from the NRA?
Trumps a gungrabber! LOL “due process? no thanks, let’s just take their guns”
bhnj13,
He pulled the same ploy during his bi-partisan DACA meetings…did you not notice?
didnt see it or a transcript. what was the context?
Republicans and Democrats at a roundtable meeting searching for bi-partisan solution to the DACA issue…he made superficial statements in support of the Democrats’ positions…the MSM had a mini-orgasm…two days later he was speaking as if the meeting had not existed. He did the same thing with the “Gun Controllers”…told them what they wanted to hear. Today? …crickets.
It might be explained in “The Art Of The Deal”…if not, it is above my pay grade….
“Last few weeks of relative normality” – we’ll see. The more screwed up things get, the more I’m beginning to believe things will have to get a lot worse before anything breaks loose. I think the can will continue to be successfully kicked for a long time to come.
Agreed. Our road to perdition is a long one, especially in terms of our current time-compressed consciousness.
there are multiple crises playing out that could spiral out of control at any time –
Decaying and damaged infrastructure: if one of the rail tunnels leading into NYC is shut down indefinitely rail travel in BosWash will grind to a crawl affecting all transportation in Northeast. People, resilient-walletted people, will be calling for politicians heads. This also applies to any number of structurally deficient bridges across the country, but one at a major bottleneck would be a true disaster.
Water and housing crisis: playing out in CA, either one of which could easily lead to pitchforked citizenry crying out for politicians heads, water especially. Water in some rural areas of this country has been undrinkable for many years but there is no critical mass of population for any progress.
Climate and weather: its only a matter of time before its one disaster too many and dc says sorry youre on youre own (they tried during sandy) due to budget constraints.
The road to perdition may not be so long, after all. If you can’t move people, goods and water across regions then what we do we have?
Well, you’d still have the Wall St casino operation, for one. And that’s the primary, if not only, consideration for the elite these days.
…”Through years of clouded evenings, I plied a killer’s trade;
But sharing deadly secrets, makes even hardened men afraid.
The wheel it spins back on my sins,
I didn’t see the turning tide;
Dark promise made, I am betrayed;
Two bullets in my side.
And the night falls… And the rain comes down…”
(In the spirit of “The Road to Perdition”)
I want to thank Capn. Spaulding for the tip on Rise of the Robots. It has hit me as much as The Long Emergency. The scariest part is that how things are running out of control seemingly on their own. Or the counter idea, that a group of folks are in control and making all the bad thing happen. I wonder which is worse.
You’re welcome JohnAZ. I would appreciate any suggestions you may have as far as books worth reading.
“A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
We’ll be clean when their work is done
We’ll be eternally free yes and eternally young”
“Absolutely nothing Powell’s Fed might try will work. In fact they will only make the cratering indexes fall deeper and harder, along with the value of the US dollar.”
It’s deja vu all over again! The same thing was said about Ben Bernanke, oh, about 300% ago on the S&P.
Professor K, please explain why, after all the irresponsible horrible no-good ‘money printing’ … the dollar is actually marginally stronger than in the aftermath of the crisis, and trending higher (but for the recent decline strongly associated with the current Clown in Chief)?
And remember, I’m not making a forecast either – just calling you out for not even being as right as a stopped clock lately.
Cheers!
“Professor K, please explain why, after all the irresponsible horrible no-good ‘money printing’ … the dollar is actually marginally stronger than in the aftermath of the crisis, and trending higher (but for the recent decline strongly associated with the current Clown in Chief)?”
SF,
You don’t have to be faster than the bear, just faster than the guy running next to you….
Once Mr. Trump starts losing his “deplorables” it’s Game Over for him. That process may have started yesterday. I only heard bits and pieces from talk radio, but apparently Trump folded on Second Amendment rights, and the NRA is outraged. To wit: he agreed that the age to purchase a long gun should be changed from 18 to 21; he concurred with Dianne Feinstein’s wet dream to ban, not just AR-15’s, but many other, so-called assault weapons; and, perhaps most importantly, he went even further on his own by saying that the police should confiscate the guns of the “mentally ill” (whatever that means) before they have even committed a crime. Get the guns first, ask questions later! Let that sink in a little. Per the new Trump, I guess we no longer need Due Process and the courts when we have psychiatrists to rule, subjectively, over what constitutes mental illness. Perhaps Pence now sees the opening he has been waiting for.
I wonder about some of these stores like Dicks Sporting goods and LL Bean saying they will no longer sell guns to 18 year olds. Isn’t that age discrimination?. The aw says they are of legal age. What if they said they would not sell to Gays or Black Americans, wouldn’t that be the same thing? A guy said he wouldn’t bake a cake for a gay couple and it is still in court. I hope some 19 or 20 year old challenges them. What if they said my 85 year old father was to old to buy a gun, what then?
To take it a step further, if the government is to ban the sale of rifles to anyone under 21, then why not increase the minimum age of enlistment into the military to that age also? Something tells me that the generals would not go for that one.
No they wouldn’t. Trouble is, even the military is rapidly getting out of the people business due to automation and outsourcing/privatization. Pretty soon even the military won’t be a viable jobs program worth its salt.
“Pretty soon even the military won’t be a viable jobs program worth its salt.”
Get jailed,
Jump bail,
Join the Army if you fail….Robert Zimmerman
Subterranean Homesick Blues…circa 1964
That was then, definitely not now.
very true
Trump is simply trying to position himself on the right side of history. In fact, the “gun rights” battle is over and the NRA/Gun Lobby has lost.
Why do I write that? Well, does anybody believe that the last shooting will be the last murderous AR-15 rampage?
Of course not, but the tide/sentiment has turned and “gun nuts” are now officially “bad for business”.
Game over.
Once again you betray your complete lack of understanding of America and the American spirit. We need more guns in the hands of more people. “Gun Free Zones” are just killing fields.
Welcome back Buck. Where ya been?
Agree. Guns are one of the few areas where the righteous and real Right has held its own. What a shame if Trump is the instrument of our enslavement.
I don’t get the concept of ‘concealed carry’. Why not ‘open carry’ for all legal gun owners?
Yeah, that is the original right as I understand it – or it wasn’t specified. This seems to be some strange concession to the women of both genders who are terrified of weapons – perhaps a precursor to outright banning. Make them invisible and then make them go away altogether except for those who can explain why they want one.
Enjoy the last few weeks of relative normality.
Well, I will be dining at my first ever Irish restaurant on St. Patty’s Day. I have indeed been thinking if I’m ever going to observe the holiday in such a manner, this is probably the year to do that.
They don’t have any real cuisine. They have some good bar furniture though – if you like that kind of thing.
If Mueller follows the money he could find something stinky in Trump’s bank accounts.
But Mueller’s marching orders have nothing to do with how Trump earned his crust. Nobody really gives a damn about that. The reason is that Trump, with his crazy campaign talk, and now with these tariffs, threatens some very large fortunes.
Once again, Trump is giving his Deplorable political base the idea that their interests have validity, that there may be other possible economic and trade arrangements. This really lights a fire under Mueller’s ass.
If you listen to the Great Thinkers along the coasts, the talking point is that the Deplorables declined to elect Hillary out of misogyny and racism. The Great Thinkers never tell you that hundreds of counties twice voted for Obama before they voted for Trump. This is because the Great Thinkers will never concede any legitimacy to the Deplorable vote. The Deplorable vote was not legitimate because it was racist and misogynist. End of discussion. Hence Trump is an illegitimate President.
To concede legitimacy to the Deplorable vote would throw into doubt the basis for the economic re-arrangements of the past two generations that greatly enriched the top tiers of American society and greatly impoverished the bottom.
Given the time and money and effort it took to put in place treaty and trade arrangements and to physically move US factories overseas, we simply cannot have this presidential interloper fucking it all up.
The long and the short of it is that Trump has to go. Trump’s tariffs started the time-bomb ticking.
So I’m with JHK. My bet is they’re all sharpening their knives because Mueller is taking too damn long. One way or another, maybe with Pence being the front-man, Trump will get a visit. There will be a delegation telling him time’s up, take a permanent vacation, bye-bye.
i don’t think these tariffs on their own will be enough to do him in yet, especially since he promised to do it on the campaign trail, theres been plenty of warning. The sticker shock in coming months wont help him but if it does bring production back home its a win. Him casually mentioning “let’s just go take their guns” as a policy initiative… that’s gonna cost him. That might go down as his “he’s not one of us” moment with his base.
yeah, these trade agreements are serious business. It’s more than just money too, obviously. These multinational corporations often can sue countries that are signatories of these trade agreements, even though the local populations don’t want or agree with corporate actions.
True, PA. That’s one of the points I’ve made about Brexit. Currently the UK does 60% of its trade with the EU, with no suing of anyone because regulations are aligned throughout the community.
The Brexiters are putting a huge amount of their faith in a trade deal with the US, now the protectionist US. How well is that going to work out for them?
And corporate American has our NHS in its sights. It also wants to sell us food produced in conditions that wouldn’t be acceptable within the EU. Like this:
https://www.theguardian.com/animals-farmed/2018/feb/21/dirty-meat-shocking-hygiene-failings-discovered-in-us-pig-and-chicken-plants
If we don’t accept their lower standards there will be no trade deal. And if we pass any domestic legislation that corporate America doesn’t like, post-trade deal, we will be sued (that means I will pay through my taxes). And they call that taking back control from the ‘neo-liberal EU’ as if the rest of the world were in some way not neo-liberal in its trading practices.
yeah, cook that meat thoroughly!
I’ve seen Pilgrim’s pride chicken in stores. It’s normally found in Walmart, and I’d say its a lower end meat product. I think they operate large, factory style farms. Apparently they supply KFC as well.
Tariffs going into place on metals == JohnAZ
I wouldn’t argue – as in any move, there will be good and bad consequences.
But think about it from the following angle: there is so much money to be made on a steel supplying business in a year. (You probably could look up total steel consumption in US during a year).
The question is – who makes that money?
It is either going to be the steel importers – ardent Clinton supporters who monopolized that business since Clintons started to send US production oversees in the 90s, or it is going to be local US manufactures – surprise, surprise, ardent Trump supporters, who also have a potential of creating lots of middle-class income jobs.
If you were in the Trump shoes, which side would you choose?
Cutting the money flow to Clinton’s supporters – the Flying Monkeys and their Flying Monkey Media is definitely on the high priorities on Trump to do list.
Steel production returning to the US? Sorry Finc, it ain’t gonna happen and you know it. If it does, it will be robotics based.
Even better. US needs ONLY hi-tech production. But money will be still made by the Trump’s supporters.
Unfortunately for most Trump supporters of average means, if they have any spare change at all, it’s not likely to be in the markets. Americans need actual jobs, not more Wall St gambling opportunities.
Ol’ Scatch
One thing that never seems to enter the debate, national security. I don’t remember the details but during the Cold War, the US had a great advantage over the Russians on the sound levels of our submarines being much quieter that theirs. So what happened, we sold the prop grinding technology to a foreign power who promised to keep it secure. Ha! Almost immediately the Russians got the technology and our advantage evaporated.
We need to maintain a base of operations for every commodity to avoid anyone having a stranglehold on us. On this blog, oil is another perfect example. Globalization is a real threat to the integrity of the US and everyone here. Remember 1973 for all of us who can!
Good point.
I totally agree with you on the need, but the overriding consideration these days is who profits and how much. That’s what drove production overseas in the first place.
Geez what do you ‘know’?
First off, look at the figures in today’s papers. While the steel industry is hurting domestic production is still over 50% of sales. Also, it is already highly automated since the 70s – you think there are guys standing around ladles with molten steel skimming dross like in the “Deer Hunter” movie?
One automation system I worked on for power plants was also the main system used to automate steel mills. I spoke to an application engineer and he told me how he used to generate proposals for plants automation systems with great ROIs – sometimes less than three years. When presented with the facts, management would hem and haw and come up with all kinds of lame excuses to not proceed. One of their favorites was “the union wouldn’t stand for it”. With in three years those plants were shut down.
V
Everyone seems to have condemned Trump to the scrap heap. Not so fast. His base backs him. The Everyman component backs him. The Elite is just that 1% of the population, and you are right, they have been running the show. Until 2016. And yes, they will do anything in their power to get rid of the “burr under their blanket”. The 1% will try every trick in their book to get rid of him. But one things stands in their way, he is wiser and craftier than the whole bunch of them. The latest is Mueller looking at his finances, now they will find something to get him. Ha! A shrewd business man with layers of accountants and lawyers will be caught by a bunch of shills on the Potomac, fat chance. Like his taxes, every year of returns were reviewed by whatever means D.C. Uses to audit them. Notice it has not even been brought up. I laugh at the 25th admendment pitch, it would take a coup by the core of his group to get it done. And if you look at his accomplishment agenda, what has he done to get that many people to put their careers on the line to try to oust him. Washington is a collection point for a large group of cowards that will back off as soon as something really happens. Just look at what is happening right now with the gun issues.
By the way, another shooting underway at Central Michigan University. Just another day!
John, in a fair world of due process it could actually be that Trump’s lawyers and accountants could outsmart Mueller’s sniffers.
And you’re no doubt right, someone of Trump’s prominence and big mouth would be audited by the IRS every fifteen minutes. And, to date, no big tax issues came to public knowledge.
But this ain’t a fair world. Especially when a usurper wins the presidency. And when you look at what the Deep State has shown itself to be capable of ie two bloody whacks, one of them of a sitting president, in full public view, the murder of the patsy-purported gun-man right in a police station right in front of rolling TV cameras and then the death of his shooter in prison, you don’t put much past these guys. And oh yeah, the second whack was of the president’s bro.
I know this is getting into conspiracy territory but sometimes, in fact most times, things are exactly as they appear. And also the all-seeing surveillance state. Against all this does Trump the Chump stand a chance? He might, he might get through his full term in office. But I wouldn’t under-estimate either what he’s up against.
V
Appreciate your comeback. Agree with you with the exception that Trump is this big dummy that is just lucky to still be there. I disagree with that, he has outsmarted, out shouted, out BSed the entire polity of the United States over the past two years. That is not the characteristics of a big oaf that it seems like everyone thinks he is, not by a long shot. It seems like you think someone may use assassination as a tool, you may be right on that one. It would fit the Deep State’s way of doing business. I despise the corruption and rottenous of the Deep State of this country and we need someone belligerent enough to stop the takeover.
Example of the Deep State, watch the globalists go bonkers over the new tariffs.
One wrong move will finish him. And gun control is the wrongest move he could make.
Pence is an extension of the Ryan – Cantor (ex) – Sessions – McConnell group who want to dismantle federal programs all the way down to the park service and turn it over to private corporations – or abandon them completely. They will sell their souls to keep even one dollar of federal money from going to any program designed to preserve the nation’s heritage or help those who are less fortunate, elderly or disabled.
These are dark days championed by the cruel and ignorant.
“These are dark days championed by the cruel and ignorant.” Dumbedup
All I would add is arrogant, fatuous, feckless and scummy to your well-phrased description.
“JHK wrote: …at some point, I expect a bipartisan consensus to emerge in congress that the guy has got to go….”
That point gets closer. There are 49 DEM Senators already there.
Exit doors at the White House are slamming faster than port-a-potty doors at a rock concert. Congress is running out of patience with the musical chairs on PA Avenue and bilious at the ugly press on Ben Carson for his $31k dinette set.
I would offer Mr. Carson some fine pieces by American Standard that showcase American Exceptionalism. These sturdy craft pieces have glowing patinas, sturdy backrests, and prices that won’t have HUD flushing taxpayer dollars down the tubes….but I digress.
What will push our masters of legislative legerdemain to roll up their sleeves and oust the moron will come from reddest of flyover states. Nations will retaliate to Trump’s trade tariffs by jacking up tariffs on American farm products to cause a large decline in farm exports. The pain will be felt at grain elevators in the entire heartland.
Grieving farmers will drive up Constitution Avenue in clamoring combines like the tractor-cade from Jimmy Carter’s era. Once the GOP sees their farm boys pissing bile in the reflecting pool and voting for DEMs their only recourse will be to say: “Donald, you’re fired.”
Excellent word picture!
Got news for Jim, Trump ain’t going nowhere . Also note that brilliant PR move on Trumps part to announce his candidacy for 2020. He caught those finger pointing disorganized democrats with their pants down….. well, slick willie already had his pants down
Trump must truly be a masochist to invite even more pummeling in a second term. Why not retire to the golf course like millions of other rich old men? I guess no matter the adversity, nothing is stronger than the Will to Power. Even if Trump is not really powerful, at least he thinks he is.
Don’t fear everyone! The Negros are going to build nuclear fusion reactors! The Muslims are going to build spaceships to Mars! Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates will make us all rich and immortal!
It’s all in your imagination. Everything is perfect in the U.S.A., the empire to end all empires, the great multiracial multicultural melting pot experiment, the most successful experiment of all time.
You are all doing great. You are all healthy, fit, rich, have rewarding jobs, and have lives filled with meaning and purpose. Everything is infinite, and is yours. You will be a 300 year old trillionaire sipping wine relaxing in a space colony.
Glad to hear it. I was getting worried and all… what did you mean, it’s all in our imagination!? You mean vibranium’s not real n’ shit?
What a glorious thing to rid of that whoremongering orangutan once and for all. What do you want to bet he would bill the public for the gas to get his fat ass down to Florida?
And he can take that shithead cabal that was stuffed into the White House clown car with him.
No one contemplated the 25th as a remedy for clowning-while-President. It’s true that a cabal of schemers could scheme behind the President’s back to take over using incompetence as a pretext and the 25th as a mechanism but it goes without saying that such a ‘soft-coup’ would be anything but soft in its consequences.
For one thing, no one could any longer entertain the quaint notion that the chief executive is anything more than a puppet of Deep State operatives. This would destroy the moderate middle-ground in public opinion, thus setting the stage for what is to come down the pike. But hey! may as well get this party started; the longer our present system festers in its rottenness, the greater the harm.
In all likelihood, in the aftermath of the thing, Mike Pence would become the chief executive. The generals and the neocons are undoubtedly creaming their pants at the prospect. But this would be good news for ‘defense’ stocks so be alert for opportunities, SA groupies!
There might actually be a nostalgia movement post-Trump for the Trump ‘era’. I know, hard to believe, but what a ride, the entertainment value alone! And on a more serious note, think of it this way: like Obama, he’s not an unremitting warmonger, despite the random gaseous effusion (Obama: “Hey, I’m really good at this killing people!”) No, we’d be back to the Bush full-spectrum dominance with a vengeance with Pence as the new ‘Decider-in-Chief’. Is Dick Cheney still available for the VP job? Oh that’s right, he can’t travel abroad any more, warrants for his arrest and all. But not to worry, he can keep the old ticker going til doomsday here within the borders of the U.S. of A. (assuming we still have borders.) That’s problematic.
Come to think of it, it’s all kinda ‘problematic’ this American thingie. I mean, if all 7.5 billion people on this planet are Americans, then doesn’t that make us “you-essians” merely gun-owners?
For one thing, no one could any longer entertain the quaint notion that the chief executive is anything more than a puppet of Deep State operatives. – Tate
I wonder if your prediction would come to pass. As it is now a LOT of people think exactly that the Chief Exec gives the orders. Maybe these same people really are convinced that the Mueller investigation is really truly all about Russian interference and collusion.
Personally I have great faith in the ability of people to not see what’s right under their nose, in fact spending entire lifetimes not seeing the abundantly obvious.
As for the consequences of the soft coup not being soft in its consequences, I agree. But count on the – cough – intelligentsia to not foresee this, to not map out possible deleterious effects. Too bad that collectively the American intelligentsia aren’t the thinkin’ types.
As for the consequences of the soft coup not being soft in its consequences, I agree. – blecchhh
Should be “As for the consequences of the soft coup not being soft, I agree.”
Better fix it before Q catches it.
Good catch.
Oh I see I didn’t actually write that, never mind.
On Wednesday, I finished watching the engrossing six-part miniseries about Waco (shown on Paramount). Interestingly, it showed the incompetent AFT and FBI (minus their lead negotiator) to be the bad guys, with the David Koresh Branch Davidian cult (but not Koresh himself) being sympathetic figures. The immolation of all those innocent women and children by some FBI hotshot cowboys was a tragic law enforcement overreach, not sufficiently punished, which led directly to Oklahoma City and Timothy McVeigh. I see all these school shootings today as mini-Oklahoma City’s, with the shooters all full of blind hatred. When will the next Big One occur?
u forgot ruby ridge. my hats off to the cliven bundy clan – federal overreach actually G-checked for once.
I didn’t forget Ruby Ridge, bhnj 13, just didn’t mention it. The 6-episode drama actually started off with the Randy Weaver saga. My hat is also off to Bundy for standing up to THE MAN.
I just noticed that I meant to say ATF not AFT. Sorry.
Is there proof the Feds started the fire? The show I watched said the Branch Davidians did, on Koresh’s order.
Everyone seems to agree that they could have taken him when he went jogging or went into town – so none of this was necessary.
Janos,
Who started the fire is a question that, at this point, will never be answered. Few adult Davidians survived the inferno to tell the tale. But there is no question that the illegal CS gas that the FBI used in their tanks has been known to start fires. Army tanks, for god’s sake, using poison gas against innocent women and children by some friggin’ FBI commandos who had lost patience and just wanted to go home. Wrap your head around that one.
Yeah, Janet “for the kids” Reno purposely stayed away from work at first in order not to create the impression of a crisis even though it was a crisis. So she said at least. She may well have been quarterbacking from home.
Orrin Hatch today:
“(We) finally did away with the individual mandate tax that was established under that wonderful bill called Obamacare,” Hatch said. “Now, if you didn’t catch on, I was being very sarcastic. that was the stupidest, dumbass bill that I’ve ever seen.”
“Some of you may have loved it. If you do, you are one of the stupidest, dumbass people I’ve ever met,” Hatch added. “There are a lot of them up there on Capitol Hill from time to time.”
Well, yeah, it was straight out of the Right Wing Heritage Foundation, what else would you expect from those dipshits? Why Obama decided to ever use their nitwit idea is a mystery to be solved by the ages.
JD
Actually “Obamacare” although not perfect helped a lot of people to get affordable insurance. In fact, one large group, ironically enough, were the ‘by-thy-own-bootstraps’ self -employed/sole proprietors who did not qualify for affordable medical insurance do to pre-existing conditions etc.
One of the tragic manifestations of right-wing propaganda is the dumb and stupid believing that well meaning legislation was actually meant to help them. And yet, they soldier on like dump foot soldiers at the tip of a spear, regurgitating the bullshit right-wing propaganda of their puppet masters.
correction: “harm them”rather.
I think ObamaCare was a wonderful Obama achievement, despite the fact that it was sabotaged by the Flying Monkeys, and Trump intends to keep it and improve on it.
It should take a lot of money away from the friends of Hillary and into US Treasury.
Buck
Indeed!
JD
Good news in South Africa, eh? Whites are going to have their property taken without compensation. If only the Left could do that here!
Janos,
While Trump remains in office, which may not be long, I’d like to see him offer at least temporary asylum to all South African whites who want to come here. The white-hating leftists like senile Nancy Pelosi, though, would go ballistic, even as they want all current illegal aliens to be awarded immediate citizenship. Antifa and BLM, not to mention a large chunk of democrats, would much rather see the Afrikaners slaughtered.
Yes, even the Netherlands won’t let them in – despite the Dutch ancestry of most of the Boers. Australia allows them in, but they have high financial standards for immigrants. I don’t know if they are given refugee status or not.
Who is going to march on D.C.– those virulent anti-socialists who can barely waddle out to the mail box to claim their monthly SS “entitlement” checks?
Nah, the real March Of All Marches will occur when Mainstreet wakes up and discovere that tax cuts for the one percent has royally fucked them in the ass.
Hello Buck,
The tax cuts are helping the corporate buybacks, helping to prop up stock prices, while the trickle down to Main Street and the side streets has been barely perceptible, a case where the token gesture
becomes a terrible insult.
Agree, but the dumbasses keep voting for the very party that is screwing them. All any GOP politician has to do is say that he’ll put black or brown people in their place and voila, instant winner.
The Great Depression was preceded by tax cuts in 1921, 1924 and 1926.
The Great Recession was preceded by tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 which were done with red ink.
The Great Disaster is rooted in tax cuts in 2018 which are being done with massive red ink. Doing tax cuts with red ink and/or not balancing the budget is an affront to any one calling themselves a conservative. When Trump’s Great Disaster arrives it will be a doozy.
PV
Your analysis seems spot on to me. I don’t know why the view isn’t more prevalent. Is it all about the fear that the black & brown folks are somehow to blame for something? It seems like the party that screws everyone except the rich and big business is fairly easy to identify, right? No mystery there – hard to fathom what posses people to act against their own interests so readily. Maybe the GOP supporters really do see the rich as their betters? Well, GOP voters, are they your betters?
JD
Yeah, only massive poverty, crime, and treason. California, the brownest and most diverse state has the lowest quality of life.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/01/california-has-worst-quality-life-in-us-study-says.html
Can we at least agree that the Mayor of Oakland is a criminal who needs to be locked up for a few decades?
The quote below doesn’t mention the Dems always playing the race card, their stifling devotion to political correctness, their “let them all in approach” or headlines like “white lady gets 650K for telling blacks she’s down with their struggle”. Guess who?
–“The main reason that I’m not going to vote for Hillary Clinton is the same exact main reason that I’m not going to vote for Donald Trump: I don’t vote Republican. Being age 53, Nixon was the first president I remember. Hillary Clinton’s politics (and her paranoia and insularity) remind me of Richard Nixon’s. I can’t bring myself to think of a Democrat as someone who solicits millions of dollars from Wall Street or votes with crazy Republicans (like George W. Bush, whose stupid wars she aggressively supported) to invade foreign countries just for fun. She plays a Democrat on TV, but we know the truth: she’s a Republican.
–I’m anti-political dynasty. There should be a constitutional amendment banning anyone related by blood or marriage to a former president from running for the presidency.
–There’s a big difference between an impressive resume and a list of accomplishments. Clinton has the former, not the latter. I hold her resume against her: she has held tremendous power, yet has never reached out to grab the brass ring. As senator, her record was undistinguished. As Secretary of State, she barely lifted a finger on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, contributed to the expansion of the Syrian civil war, and is more responsible than almost anyone else for destroying Libya. What she did well she did small; when she went big she performed badly.
–#MuslimLivesMatter. More than a million people died in Iraq. She voted for that. So she isn’t, as the current Clinton campaign meme goes, merely a “flawed” candidate. Voting for the violent deaths of over a million people, and the maiming of God knows how many more — when there was no reason whatsoever to think Iraq had WMDs — is not an “oops, my bad” screw-up. Those were real people, real human beings, and they’re dead because of her. You don’t get to soak your hands in that much blood and just walk away, much less into the White House.
–She still hasn’t made an affirmative case for herself. By clinging to President Obama, she’s running as his third term. The standard way to pull this off is to present yourself as new and improved: the old product was great, the new one will be even better. Her campaign boils down to “I’m not Donald Trump.” No matter how bad he is, and he is awful, that’s not enough. Watching her in the first presidential debate, at the beginning when Trump was besting her over trade, I kept asking myself: why doesn’t she admit that the recovery is good but has left too many Americans behind? Why hasn’t she proposed a welfare and retraining program for people who lose their jobs to globalization? A week later, the only answer I can come up with is that she has no imagination, no vision thing.
–She has made no significant concessions to the political left. Frankly, this makes me wonder about her intelligence. Current polling shows that the biggest threat to her candidacy is losing millennial, working class and Bernie Sanders supporters to the Green Party’s Jill Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson. She would not have this problem if she’d picked Sanders as her vice presidential running mate. Even now, she could bag the millennial vote by promising the Vermont senator a cabinet post. Why doesn’t she? For the same reason that she won’t embrace the $15-an-hour minimum wage (she gets $225,000 for an hour-long speech but wants you to settle for $12) — she’s a creature of the corporations and therefore the political right. She’s not one of us. She doesn’t care about us.
–My vote is worth no less than the vote of someone who supports a major party nominee. So what if the polls say that Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be elected president? Why, based on those polls, should I strategically vote for someone whose politics and personality I deplore? By that logic, why shouldn’t they change their votes to conform to mine? I have my vote, you have your vote.
I don’t have a problem with you if you plan to vote for Clinton. This year is the best argument ever for lesser evilism. But the fact that we are selecting between two equally unpopular major party presidential standard-bearers indicates that the two-party system is in crisis, if not broken. We need and deserve more and better options. The only way to get them is to start building viable third parties — voting for them, contributing money to them. What better time to start than now?”
Even her friend Colin Powell was found to say that she ruins everything with a strange kind of utter arrogance.
The saddest thing about the past week from my point of view, is that the Dems chose to “never let a crisis go to waste”, in the words of St. Rahm, and make the Parkland shooting all about gun control, instead of school security. I’ve lived in Canada, and Japan, and their sort of very strict gun control can be appealing, but with 300,000,000+ guns in private hands in the USA, most with no record, gun control can’t do much.
I
You are correct that the cat is most likely out of the bag as far as gun control is concerned. That nasty cat is not going back into that bag very easily. I like the school hardening idea, but who is going to pay for it? Real estate taxes are already high and they can barely pay for what they need now, at least that’s what the school board would have you believe. It seems like the arms manufacturers are causing some of these “externalities” and maybe securing schools should be part of their cost burden? What do you think? e.g A factory pollutes a river and big brother sues them for the bucks to clean it up. Something like that.
JD
Clearly the Democrats have been keeping our school disarmed in order to take advantages of atrocities like this.
I think the current democratic plan is to flip Congress, and then use the Mueller investigation to get Trump under oath, and since Trump is an inveterate liar, to get Trump on perjury & try to impeach him that way.
Kind of the “Bill Clinton method” of impeachment, lol
That approach would make sense.
I like what Lionel Nation said about Trump bleating to the press that he would voluntarily sit down and talk to Mueller. Lionel, heretofore mostly a Trump supporter, said that if Trump did that then he, Lionel, would be the first to call for his removal via the 25th Amendment, because that would mean that Trump is senile. Those with serious constitutional creds, like democrat Alan Dershowitz for example, say that the President does not HAVE to talk to Mueller, and shouldn’t. Personally, I don’t understand why Trump did not fire this old, demented HRC political hack months ago.
PA
It would be a lot easier to accomplish it with the 25th Amendment. The way things are going with Trump’s daily meltdowns, it wouldn’t even be too hard to “prove” or at least get the public to understand. I am starting to feel a bit bad for the big lout, not that bad, but a bit. He is so clearly alone and deteriorating!
JD
OS
“I don’t understand why Trump did not fire this old, demented HRC political hack months ago.”
I thought Mueller was an avowed Repuglican ‘Nam vet, Bronze Star patriot and all? And Dershowitz, isn’t he a serious lefty?
I’m just saying, the world is getting weirder and weirder….
JD
Indeed, jdhines, Dershowitz remains on the political left, but he describes himself as a defender of civil liberties regardless of party. As such, he defends the Constitutional institution of the Presidency (not just Trump) against the several HRC inspired witch hunts, and says that Trump had every right to fire former FBI director James Comey or even Mueller if he so chooses. Per Dershowitz, a Special Prosecutor should not have even been appointed.
yeah, Trump is such a narcissist however that I he could be baited to speak to Mueller pretty easily if he were called out by his political opponents.
however.. “that I think he could be baited”…
LOL, site needs an edit button.
Second highest ranking Flying Monkey Condoleezza Rice calls the dogs off
“The American people are ready to move on,” she said on “Fox & Friends.”
Rice told Sen. Schiff that she “appreciates” Schiff’s work, but, “I really hope that you can wrap it up.”
“The country needs to get back to business so that’s my greatest hope,” she said Thursday.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/03/02/condoleezza-rice-mocks-putin-over-absurd-missile-threats.html
Wrap it up boy or you will sleep with the fishes…
Unfortunately, Condi Rice doesn’t wield much influence these days for either side of the aisle. But since when did she take up with Hillary bunch?
Condoleezza Rice is the Speaker of the US Black Project.
She speaks rarely, but when she does, you all must listen.
We lock it up in 2020, if only she would run with Trump. We could turn the tables and play the Rice card.
Remember that after the Trump groping scandal Pence supposedly wanted to be the presidential candidate with Rice as his running mate.
She speaks rarely, but when she does, you all must listen.
Well shiver me timbers! I never listened to her when she was supposedly “somebody.” Read a great book on her and the Bush coterie a few years back. Turns out, a great many of them were originally disaffected Jimmy Carter era Dems who crossed over to embrace the Reagan magical mystery tour during the 80’s.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002DYMB4Y/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
“She speaks rarely, but when she does, you all must listen.”
Yes, listen and watch…she is a feast for the eyes…hot, hot hot!
Who among us would not like to see/be a little “white on rice”?
Anybody? Anybody? Thwack…?
just fantasizin’
Perhaps you misunderstand, Scratch. On “The View” Rice nicely told Representative (not Senator) Schiff that it’s time to shit or get off the pot. Personally, I’ve thought that Schiff was a sniveling snake ever since, a year ago, he told Tucker Carlson that he must be working for Putin.
OS
Isn’t that for Mueller to decide at least at DOJ? Maybe Nunes can shit can it in the Congress, if he dares? He should go for it if he thinks it will work. Trump would love to fire Mueller, now that would be something to see. A REAL LIVE Constitutional Crisis. Trump would love it because he just plain positively thrives on chaos. A good show indeed!
JD
She told a great story about her Dad using a shotgun to scare of the Klan. The girls and the audience didn’t know how tor react. Guns are supposed to be just something bad White people like.
The View is ground zero for Female Stupidity.
World history is replete with examples, we know them from the books and living memory, but they remain alien to our traditional Democracy. Examples of government upheaval and forceful transference or maintenance of power.
I think it was Pence who said that Trump “has broad shoulders”, but are they broad enough to carry the weight of what should be done, if necessary? I hope so, but I I doubt it.
Our Constitution should not be a shield for lawbreakers. It should not be a restraining order against law enforcement trying to enforce the law. It should not be used as a rug to provide cover for political subversion, especially when used to overthrow an elected president.
The crimes of the Left have been exposed. The evidence is prima facie. It’s corruption is embedded in the nation’s judges, Congress, and throughout the Party hierarchy. We have seen it, and yet it is Trump who is seen as punishable, being guilty of an intolerable defiance.
The nation’s demise is quicker with the Left. With Trump we last longer with our traditional American greatness, last at least until the great cataclysms arrive and demand payment.
MAGA not MAKA
I haven’t read any comments here about it yet, but some of the TV talking heads are saying that the sudden resignation of the beautiful Hope Hicks as WH Communications Director puts another nail in Trump’s coffin. Coming as it did, the day after her nine hour grilling by the House Intelligence Committee, the timing is more than suspicious. If, as has been rumored, she was planning to leave anyway, why not just hold off a few weeks? The job at Fox News is waiting for her if she wants it.
In addition, Trump continues to pound on the feckless Jeff Sessions, undoubtedly hoping that he will resign, and perhaps incredulous that he won’t take the hint. On another show, I don’t recall if it was Hannity or Ingraham, a guest was saying that Sessions is now out of the loop at Justice and is not being told what is going on there. With his failure to go after any indictments of the Clinton Crime Cartel, that says a lot. Why did Trump pick this little man? He has the vacant stare of those battered by senility, which includes half of Congress, where he should have stayed.
In addendum to my prior comment about Jeff Sessions, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett told Judge Jeanine Pirro tonight that Sessions is only pretending to be AG. OUCH! Jarrett added that Rod Rosenstein and his staff really run the show, with over-his-head Sessions constantly deferring to them when asked a question. How much longer can the AG remains the country’s top cop when even Fox News is now mocking him?
Well, that’s good, since Trump is only pretending to be president.
The craziness of the entire Deep State and the elite that it is incorporated into is really showing right now. A 810 billion dollar trade deficit was announced today. This has been going on since the 1980’s. How can we ship out that much cash every year and not feel the effects on our population. If nothing else, it is an indicator of how many jobs show be here and not overseas. The Elite and corporate globalists love it. The middle class of the country get the shaft as usual. Trump told the middle class that he would work for them, and we should not be surprised when he does it. Protecting American companies and workers cannot be a bad thing. We have been having a trade war with other countries for a long time. All Trump wants is equality in trade. The Elite is going to fight this as there little global empire might be impacted in favor of America. I guess if your aim is to tear down the US then this protection of us versus them seems like a bad deal. If one believes in America first, not so much. It is amazing to me how anti-American the Deep State has become.
Thing is, Trump (or any elected body, for that matter) has limited ability to affect the actions of private sector capitalists. And of course other countries still have the ability to respond in kind with tariffs of their own. The bottom line is profitability. When it becomes unprofitable to business with the USA, imports will definitely drop. Whether or not that spurs domestic production to make up the difference for a people who largely no longer have the ability to consume (especially once credit dries up or becomes completely unaffordable) remains to be seen. We’ll see what the net effect is in due course, but I wouldn’t bet on it being favorable. It does, however, make for excellent PR to Trump’s base, which is more than likely its true overriding purpose.
Yes, he promised his base that he would do this. So he has. I cannot believe the response his opponents have generated, the market goes down, all the Conservatives are incensed by interference in their globalistic monopoly. He has not even ID’ed the countries affected, or the details of the tariffs. Nuts! I will see what is said this week. And the opinions of the elite in the Deep State can suck an egg.
It flies in the face of global capitalist hegemony, which is good, especially if he follows through on it with more initiatives in the same vein. But it will almost certainly be extremely painful for the working classes in the interim, with Wall St likely to conjure up some sort of tit for tat strategy. Wall St does not like to be dictated to one bit, and like any good shakedown organization worth its salt, they have multitudinous ways to enforce their hegemony. Such as forcing another meltdown and government bailout (which we’re due for), among many others.
I want to note that the first victim of the Putin ultimatum became the American press – there is not a single reasonable word in response to the rather serious news.
Some fake news only – according to Donald Trump. Only the removal from the White House of Ivanka Trump and her husband, grandson of the Belarusian anti-Nazi resistance fighter, are discussed.
This reminds me of how ten-year old black eye of the former wife of the White House secretary was discussed after the Deep State proved that it could start Third World War without the president’s sanction, killing several hundred Russian citizens in the vicinity of the Syrian city of Khasham.
That is, how many of those citizens were killed is still not known, but for their killing military forces were assembled that corresponded to the battle and the destruction of at least a division. At least! And the black eye was discussed, and the possible beginning of the Third World War was of no interest to the American press.
But just as Hillary Clinton herself sent Trump to participate in the 2016 election campaign as Ross Perot 2.0, and in 2018, apparently, she also organized a terrorist attack in Domodedovo, Moscow which gave Trump the opportunity without giving a damn about accusations of working for Russia to call Putin in order to express his condolences.
I do not know how they agreed on the prevention of the nuclear war that Bastinda was undertaking, but I have no doubt that after this conversation Trump knew about the impending announcement of an ultimatum by Putin.
Objectively, with this ultimatum, Putin rolled ball into the Trump’s penalty zone, giving him the opportunity to wash his hands, and to Congress to find out from the CIA why they did not say anything about that possibility.
Moreover, Trump can now settle scores with Congressmen by refusing to enter into negotiations with Putin on the grounds that in violation of the US Constitution, they legislatively deprived him of the authority to abolish anti-Russian sanctions, and the US Senate voted on the law on Trump’s birthday, which began with the shooting of his closest friend and the Republican Party’s whip in the Congress Scalia.
But in fact, on the eve of yesterday’s message from Putin, including to US Congress and the US Senate, the Russian Air Force in response to the Khasham incident was killing the Blackwater/Academy in East Ghouta, and the world media was outraged by Trump’s refusal to undertake a military action to save the civilian population of East Ghouta.
And Israel this time in fact acted on the side of Russia, publish radio intercepts of howls from the East Ghouta with the request to resque and the responses of the command in the sense that they can not now put the corresponding request before Trump, so then it turns out that it was the Americans who did not allow the refugees to leave the Eastern Ghouta along the security corridors.
And now, after Putin’s ultimatum, it’s funny to recall how the American press tried to neutralize these intercepts, telling about “a short but terrible war in Syria between Israel, Russia and Iran, which allegedly took place in February 2018 “.
In this connection, I want to note that Putin yesterday, with an ultimatum celebrated the merry Jewish holiday of Purim, in advance, having dated his message to Urbi et orbi.
Mountain Finc, we may all be more closely related than anyone could ever imagine:
“The Serpent’s Trail” — The Mysterious Tribe of Dan
— http://www.hope-of-israel.org/i000035a.htm
A really fascinating account of historical bread crumbs..
I just want to point out that Hillary left office over five years ago. The statue of limitations has already run out.
LOL! They actually made a statue out of it? No offense, just funnin’.
Watergate — Near as I can tell , it has been unending investigations that really go nowhere for 40 years.
I guess it has paid the grocery bill for a lot of lawyers and clerks.
Arguably , Richard Nixon , and Oliver North for example , were better off AFTER , rather than before the investigative hoopla.
Actually remove a sitting president ?
The precedent that would set would transform the presidency from a throne to an electric chair.
Ben Bernanke has stated that the Fed Reserve could actually keep their balance sheet the way it is right now, and then turn into an oversight lender to the Bank Holding Companies which would allow the benchmark Interest Rate incremental increases to continue. Rate normalization and Fed Balance Sheet normalization are not compatible. Almost everyone is fully expecting a crash if the rate normalization proceeds to historical sound money rates. The Fed Reserve can’t normalize their balance sheet either so Bernanke has a point, and a potentially good idea to just throw the towel in on the false notion of free market capitalism and go Communist China with the Federal Reserve as the overarching money lender overseeing the entire Western Banking monopoly as a Communist overlord. This would allow the government to kick the can down the road just like Dr. Bernanke theoretically wants it kicked down so that his own involvement in this matter appears to be less disruptive historically.
Whatever buys America time on normalization should be explored because time is indeed running out on the theoretical side of the falsehoods on econometrics.
Mandelbrot’s markets are still misbehaving. They were never resolved, and if Bernanke’s idea is not adopted quick we will see QE Infinity back again rendering central banking planners rate & balance sheet normalization a rookie move by an incompetent finance bureaucracy.
GGG will be the sideshow entertainment for Snowflakes, and Deplorables will retreat to their underground bunkers to discuss finding another swamp drainer mechanism other than a narcissist with a microphone and a two bit Vaudeville act of personal enrichment at a cost to those in the home of the slave and land of the indentured into servitude.
RW
” Maybe the GOP supporters really do see the rich as their betters? Well, GOP voters, are they your betters? ”
Well , I’m an avowed Monarchist , and the sycophancy of the average American , regardless of party , never ceases to shock and embarrass me.
‘ Even her friend Colin Powell was found to say that she ruins everything with a strange kind of utter arrogance. ”
Ever notice the posters here , most presumably not right -wingers ( ? ) who trot out their resumes predictably ( and we aren’t psychic ) every five minutes , and who absolutely reek of condescension ?
Bad day for a black’s Bock:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/01b79981-2ea2-3902-a9cf-6a7fe6e71010/ss_liquor-store-robber-triggered.html
These two weren’t Calamity Jane or Annie Oakley, but they got the job done.
Nice video TS, I see in the article he was not charged with possession of the sawed off shotgun which is a federal crime. I am sure he passed a background check to purchase it legally (snickers). See gun laws do work! He suffers from schizophrenia so he will probably say he was off his meds and get probation.
No, Mr Lee survived.
And the door maker should be sued or checked.
“Because with no sense of shame, there is no sense of honor. There is no mercy. There is no charity. There is no forgiveness. There is no loyalty. There is no courage. There is no service. There are no ties that bind us as citizens, as fellow pack members seeking to achieve something bigger and more important than our ability to graze on as much grass as we can. Something bigger like, you know, liberty and justice for all.”
Excerpted from an essay entitled SHEEP LOGIC
written by W. Ben Hunt, PH.D. @ epsilontheory.com
America is now all about grazing on as much grass as we can while never reaching satiation.
To hell with future! We want it all now! Live for today! The more green stuff I got, the happier I’ll be! – modern American mantras
Hell, we don’t even know what the truth is anymore! When truth becomes subjective, what else is left?
“Hell, we don’t even know what the truth is anymore! When truth becomes subjective, what else is left?”
Buck,
You could make a case that the “truth” has always been subjective.
Rashomon anyone? Humans are gifted/damned with…perspective. Ten people can see the same event on video and see ten different “truths”. At one time, there were people of respect on the Tee Vee whom we might listen to that would give us the “truth”…Uncle Walter, for example. Who do we respect now? We are fully Balkanized, thanks to the wonder of the Internets.
The truth has become subjective.
For me, at 12 years of age, the truth died when the bastards killed JFK. The hitman brain is a truth organ. If bombarded by lies and deceit, it goes crazy like our present day society.
I meant “human” brain instead of hitman! Damn cell phones!
The truth is absolute. It is an individual’s interpretation of it that is subjective.
The truth is absolute. It is an individual’s interpretation of it that is subjective.
Bean,
I disagree, hence the subjectivity. Who or what, other than the empirical method, defines your “absolute”?
All the solutions people put forward require “social capital” – and diversity destroy social capital as renowned social scientist Robert Putnam found:
But even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend to “distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.”
“People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’ — that is, to pull in like a turtle,” Putnam writes.
In documenting that hunkering down, Putnam challenged the two dominant schools of thought on ethnic and racial diversity, the “contact” theory and the “conflict” theory. Under the contact theory, more time spent with those of other backgrounds leads to greater understanding and harmony between groups. Under the conflict theory, that proximity produces tension and discord.
Putnam’s findings reject both theories. In more diverse communities, he says, there were neither great bonds formed across group lines nor heightened ethnic tensions, but a general civic malaise. And in perhaps the most surprising result of all, levels of trust were not only lower between groups in more diverse settings, but even among members of the same group.
JS: He actually withheld is own finding for years in fear of strengthening the anti-immigration argument. He still is in favor of diversity – even though he knows its destructive. In other words, he doesn’t care about reality – at least not for America. He married into Judaism and converted, and no doubt his new people wouldn’t be too pleased if he let his findings get in the way of the Ideology of Tikkun Olam or destroying the White Man and his Civilization.
http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/
California is the most diverse state and therefore the worst. The most peaceful states with the best quality of life are the homogenous ones, the White ones.
Examples?
North Dakota
Vermont. State officials are freaked out by the percentage of crime committed by the tiny Black population. But this nodding, passing acknowledgement with Reality is dwarfed by their passion to destroy themselves. They need more Blacks! Whites can’t live by themselves. That would be evil. The White Liberals are consumed with guilt and will not feel good until they are getting mugged and raped. It’s an initiation…..
How many murders..answer me in tomorrows column.
You might as well start with Vermont, Maine, Wyoming, and New Hampshire the top 4 safest. Sorry E, ND is no. 14 probably from the huge influx of roughnecks looking for work in the Bakken oil fields.
https://lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/crime/slideshow-americas-safest-dangerous-states-2016/36/
Good stuff! On the other hand, There simply are no homogenous black or Hispanic states yet to compare to. It’s also notable that all of those examples have relatively minimal population pressures and likewise few or no big cities. Might those be the more relevant factors instead?
Ireland forced to take black ‘refugees.’
” It’s not my view that surrendering *one iota* of parental authority to the state is a really bad idea – I think, for instance that there are some parents who aren’t great parents – not necessarily bad people, maybe just not that good at parenting – and I think the wellbeing of the child is more important than the philosophical question of who has the greater authority over the child and its parenting, although clearly the nature of that wellbeing is also going to be the subject of contention).
Some parents might think, for example, that severe corporal punishment is acceptable and productive. I have no objection to the state interfering, through social workers, the judiciary system or whatever, to make sure such parents don’t have absolute power over their children, who are, after all, separate human beings, not chattels. In cases of serious harm which could be described as child abuse, I’d absolutely support the child being removed from the parents for its own safety (as I’m sure would most people). ”
For lack of a better term I would call this sort of thing the myth that strangers at a distance who have no personal stake in the outcome will somehow know better than those who aren’t strangers , aren’t at a distance , and may very well be neck-deep in the outcome.
For 5,000 years government was pretty much the guys with the guns , and that’s pretty much all it was.
clearly it was not what kept societies together for 30,000 years .
And for the most part the government only became any significant power in the individual household in the 20th century .
If the state was really any better at household management — by “better ” I mean even , say , 40 – 51 % better than the previous scheme of things , lets keep our statistics conservative , then cheap oil or no cheap oil , some sort of long emergency shouldn’t even be under discussion.
logically , we should be much , much , much better off.
But i really don’t think that’s what I see , Janet types not withstanding.
” Another example would be education, which is a minefield once you take state ‘interference’ into account. Let’s say the state takes no part in insisting that the child even goes to school. Again, I couldn’t countenance the idea of a child losing out compared to other children because its parents preferred it to work from a very early age (obviously this does actually happen in ‘developing’ countries – I’m talking about advanced ones where people have real choices and universal education is routinely available). ”
It would be another example of this mythology.
governments didn’t start getting involved in education in a big way until the 19th century , and the world-wide average , not until the 20th century.
In my own lifetime , when I was a child , two-thirds or even three -fourths of the workforce never went beyond a high school diploma , and i can think of at least a dozen colleges that were then tiny , only three or four buildings at most , but have now become cities in their own right.
Yet, the single -income family that can pay its grocery bill is the exception , not the norm.
And the last thing we should be worried about is being overrun by idiots and savages , if what i call a myth , is not a myth.
” What I’d like to see is ….. who do actually have useful information at their disposal about what works and what doesn’t work ”
THE reason I wound up here was because in an interview once Kunstler got a bit miffed and called this idea mythological. that if we can measure things , we can control them .
Sadly though , even he apparently believes we can cook up some scheme that will magically divorce us from what did work for 30,000 years , but , ah , which we don’t like.
We want power , which , it should be abundantly clear , we can never have , and do not in fact have now.
“” It’s not my view that surrendering *one iota* of parental authority to the state is a really bad idea – I think, for instance that there are some parents who aren’t great parents – not necessarily bad people, maybe just not that good at parenting – and I think the wellbeing of the child is more important than the philosophical question of who has the greater authority over the child and its parenting, although clearly the nature of that wellbeing is also going to be the subject of contention).”
Kesa,
How or when does a parent know that he/she is not “good” at parenting? By who’s metric? The State must pass laws that, although good intentioned are, when applied, arbitrary. Corporal punishment, in our lifetimes, was a fact. Our parents, and their parents, learned hard truths, often at the end of a piece of leather. In retrospect, we could only wish for their wisdom.
Humans become indolent if not motivated.
elysianfield
The quote (in inverted commas) that you’re questioning is mine – Kesa is responding.
If a child comes to school covered in bruises inflicted by his/her parents, those parents are bad parents. If the child is withdrawn and unable to learn properly, but eventually breaks down and confides in his/her teacher that s/he is afraid of going home because this so often means beatings, then that child has appalling parents.
I can only give you my view, obviously, but there seems to be an overwhelming societal consensus around it at the moment. You my say ‘pah, feckin’ soft liberals’. Fine.
That child will learn ‘at the end of a leather belt’ that big people can force smaller, weaker people to do what they want by beating them. Great, it might be a useful life lesson, but it is unlikely to help them grow up into confident, responsible, happy and caring individuals. Do feel free to teach your grandchildren that way, but don’t come near mine with your leather belt.
We will just have to agree to disagree on this one (as on a few other things!).
Incidentally, I also think that if parents haven’t taught their child that when you’re in a classroom you’re there to learn and not to mess about and help make the classroom a place where the teacher can’t get on with teaching the class, those are poor parents too, but not as bad as the first ones.
I suppose I’ve used classrooms in my examples because I also taught in them. I did secondary supply teaching, which can be awful anyway, but I eventually got fed up teaching children who had two parents, often with infinitely more money than I had, yet hadn’t been taught how to behave in a classroom as well as I expected mine to. They weren’t all like that, obviously, but when there’s a critical mass (which can be quite small) you might just decide you could be doing something else with less daily aggro, given your life is hard enough already.
My kids were brought up relatively strictly, by me. They knew how to behave in school and that other people mattered just as much as they did. They still know that now. They are both responsible, productive, hard-working people. I take some credit for that, although the exact amount is a moot point. There were no leather belts. They got shouted at a bit, though – my life wasn’t the easiest but it wasn’t ‘hard’ either. I think they think I did OK in the circumstances.
I did secondary supply teaching
============
Pardon my minimal knowledge of Brit culture and terminology but what on earth is the subject known as “secondary supply?”
‘Secondary’ teaching means kids of 12 to 18 (11-18 in England). As opposed to primary teaching (in a primary school).
‘Supply’ teaching means you don’t have a permanent job – you work for however long they offer you in whatever school they offer you. Might be a year, might be a day. Insecure, you might say. So you get to see the inside of a lot of schools, for a short time. Having a permanent job, is, as you’d imagine, generally held to be a better deal.
What I actually taught them was French. 🙂
It didn’t occur to me that secondary supply could be construed as a subject – sounds a bit military!
“That child will learn ‘at the end of a leather belt’ that big people can force smaller, weaker people to do what they want by beating them. Great, it might be a useful life lesson, but it is unlikely to help them grow up into confident, responsible, happy and caring individuals. Do feel free to teach your grandchildren that way, but don’t come near mine with your leather belt.”
Alba,
Yes, we can agree to disagree. Your parents, and theirs came from a different culture…how did they turn out? No one condones beatings to the degree you suggest by your example…but the pendulum has swung too far to the left, and to our societies detriment. I do not think that “New Age Parenting” has benefitted us, nor do I think those enlightened parents who practice that particular art form necessarily “enlightened”.
“that big people can force smaller, weaker people to do what they want by beating them. Great, it might be a useful life lesson”
It is a lesson learned by every child on his first day at school. Consider your statement in light of our Gun Control argument.
Please.
“It is a lesson learned by every child on his first day at school. ”
I was never beaten at school. The lack of beating is not something I regret.Neither were my brothers. My grandson hasn’t been beaten at school either. What kind of schools do you have, for goodness sake?
And my parents weren’t beaten by their parents either. They turned out fine. I got smacked a few times – it didn’t make me respect my parents. I respected them despite it, since it wasn’t that regular.
I’m not suggesting most kids are beaten to the degree I mentioned. The point was made to argue that parents can’t be allowed to have unlimited authority to beat their kids however they want. Kids are not chattels.
Sorry, I don’t get the analogy with gun control.
Alba,
I am beginning to think you disingenuous. The comment at the end of the post had nothing to do with being beaten by adults, but rather the understanding of the anarchy amongst children. You were never “picked-on” in the school yard? For men, that anarchy extends into adult hood.
elysianfield
That would make the point about parents applying corporal punishment to their children, beyond the odd light smack, even less relevant. That has no connection with the ‘anarchy of children’.
We’ve all read Lord of the Flies. School is something else. And they’ve already had two years of nursery (kindergarten) to start teaching them to get along with other children.
My schooling was a long time ago, but any joshing in the school yard was verbal. What I remember was ‘playing’ (that’s why we call ours ‘school playgrounds’!)
I don’t recall either of my brothers being involved in physical skirmishes beyond a bit of light messing around (and I’m only assuming that would have happened, as they never mentioned it).
And school yards are supervised by teachers, who don’t stand by and watch fights develop. One of the points of socialisation in a school is to teach kids that your fists are not the way to resolve differences.
I do recall a boy in a class I was teaching hitting the boy next to him, who was exasperating him with his annoying behaviour. He hit him back. I gave them both detentions – again, the life lesson was that whacking people is not the way to resolve issues.
My daughter who isn’t as bright as her sister tells me she was bullied at school. Her sister, who went to the same school, tells me that’s quite likely, but they were separated by four years. She didn’t tell me at the time, because most kids think parents getting involved just makes things worse. However, it wasn’t physical bullying, just verbal nastiness. There’s no shortage of it. It has no connection whatever with parents disciplining children (well not in connection with the child being bullied – you might well create a school bully by beating your kids at home).
Kesa
“In my own lifetime , when I was a child , two-thirds or even three -fourths of the workforce never went beyond a high school diploma , and i can think of at least a dozen colleges that were then tiny , only three or four buildings at most , but have now become cities in their own right. Yet, the single -income family that can pay its grocery bill is the exception , not the norm.”
I’d agree with that. My parents had to leave school at 14. My father worked a few years, then went to night school and eventually ended up with a technical qualification. By the time my older brother and I were teenagers and our younger brother about 6, it was already not really possible live on one wage, and even with the addition of my mother’s part-time wage, we lived fairly frugally, although we were not poor.
Even when I went to university, in the early 70s, 90% of school-leavers didn’t, but there were decent jobs for them to go to and many of them will have done just as well as me, if not better.
One of the problems that we have now is that ‘middle-class’ jobs haven’t continued to increase in line with the aspirations of middle-class parents, which has led to qualification inflation, as the recruiters have to sort the kids some way or other and bits of paper help them with that – or at least they think they do. Jobs you could have done at 18, straight out of school, when I was young, now require a degree, which may have nothing whatever do with the work.
“THE reason I wound up here was because in an interview once Kunstler got a bit miffed and called this idea mythological. that if we can measure things , we can control them .”
I think that’s too much of a generalisation. If you take 100 people suffering from the same thing and treat 50 of them with leeches and 50 of them with antibiotics (for instance), you can observe the results and come to the conclusion that the leeches don’t work. That’s measuring things and controlling them. And I’ll stick with the things that have been reliably proven to work because of all the measurements that have been patiently done over the years. For as long as we have them.
I agree it doesn’t work with everything. You can tell people (from years of observation and measuring) that if they eat too much food, the wrong kind of food, or both, they’ll get fat. But that won’t stop some people from getting fat, because it’s not the misunderstanding of the measurements that’s the problem it’s how good that steak pie still smells sitting in the middle of the dinner table when you’ve already had ‘enough’.
Jewish banks were big supporters of Germany during WWI.
“The less circumspect Henry Goldman of Goldman, Sachs espoused pro-German views, spouting Nietzsche and glorifying Prussian culture—much to the dismay of his partners.”
“Still more damaging was the controversy at Goldman, Sachs, where partners exercised vetoes in important matters. Loyal to Germany, Henry Goldman refused to share in the Morgan-sponsored issue, provoking a crisis at the firm and causing its voluntary exile from wartime finance on Wall Street. According to Stephen Birmingham, when the “Kleinwort bank in London cabled to New York to say that Goldman, Sachs was in danger of being blacklisted in England,” Henry Goldman was forced to resign from the family firm. 39 Feelings ran so high that Goldman and Philip Lehman, dubbed Wall Street’s “hottest underwriting team,” stopped speaking to each other. For a generation, Jewish banks on Wall Street were handicapped by their affiliation with Germany.”
Ron Chernow
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
Hitler’s primary sin for the American capitalists was that he went off the rails and started generating bad PR – sort of the Bernie Madoff of his day if you will. But his techniques were studied, copied, and then of course greatly improved on, so Nazi Germany provided a fine service as the test lab for all that techniques and practices that would follow in its wake. Even his vilification was tremendously valuable, as “Nazi Germany” became forever valuable as a template for what the masses should be afraid of. The US is currently identical to Nazi Germany in many ways, and yet the techniques (A totally unquestioned and unlimited “War on Terror,” massive militarism and wholesale population eliminations and/or subjugations, insane worship of the flag and other national symbols, self-imposed censorship, the encouragement of citizens to rat each other out, the adoption of economic and/or propagandistic “war by other means” techniques, etc.) are just enough different to escape the feeble mental grasp of a populace that’s been systematically dumbed down and propagandized over the past 3 or 4 generations. Say what you will about the intelligence complex, but their techniques have proven exceedingly effective in the real world over the past 70+ years, with no apparent truly effective counter movement yet in sight, although the currently unfolding recognition is a valuable first step.
Ol’ Scratch
Good analysis! Want to add on one thing, you say that the populace has been dumbed down and propagandized by the PTB over the last 3-4 generations. My input is that denial is a big part of the apparent complacency that exists. People are stopping the “good fight” when things get tough. Apathy is healthy when it provides a method to smooth out differences, but not when it is slanted one way. Continuous “loading up” everything, the Congress, intelligence, the judiciary, local governments by one philosophy is deadly to the spirit of our Constitution. The last thirty years of complacency by the GOP, and I blame the Bushes mostly, has allowed the government to be weighted to one side to the point of non functionality.
Laughed at your comments on the changes in the populace. When I was in grade school, a long time ago, a teacher pointed out the differences between the Evil USSR and America. Child care for the youth because mothers had to work, people ratting on each other to the government even inside families, May Day military celebrations, state sponsored control of the education of the youth, Socialistic control of the economy, preferential funding of the military, etc. He also projected then, (1950’s) that eventually the two areas would move toward each other and meet in the middle. Interesting forecast! Smart man!
Thanks, and agreed all, JAZ. In defense of the masses, they’ve learned the hard way that resistance to such a system is largely futile, especially considering most of them are living hand to mouth due to the intentional emasculation (pun intended) of labor in favor of big capital.
Noam Chomsky has a video on Netflix you might want to check out called Requiem for the American Dream, where he reviews all of this. I say reviews because all of these techniques have been known for quite some time, and yet American liberals have been either unwilling or unable to stop any of them. And that’s giving them the benefit of the doubt that they actually were ever aligned against it in the first place, which they demonstrably are not these days.
Yes, the US and the Soviet Union were locked in a mutual suicide pact. The Soviets were lucky to be the first to collapse and realize the error of their ways. The US is still awaiting its collapse without the faintest glimmer of recognition even remotely in sight. The coming collapse will be terrible, and as Putin already knows, will likely involve the US’s ace in the hole: nuclear weapons. He’s extremely wise to recognize that fact and prepare for it accordingly. Oh, that we should be blessed with such leaders.
His economic policies created amazing prosperity in a short time for Germany and the German people. Thus he has to be stopped before his model was copied by others. He saw the Banker Parasites as Parasites and threw them out.
This is actually true. Although he was also extremely cunning and devious with friends and foes alike, as well. Just ask the Russians about that. Had he not opened the Eastern front when he did, the world would almost certainly look very different today.
Pretty Sweet…..
JP Morgan (the bank) got a 1% commission from US arms and war material sales to European allies during WW1.
Ron Chernow
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
War. The grift that keeps on grifting.
Of course. BTW they get 2.5% on all ETB sales.
And if you believe that….
“By 1917, British credit was practically exhausted. Their salvation was German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against American shipping. When the United States entered the war, on April 6, 1917, Washington immediately granted the Allies $ 1 billion in credit, lifting the onus from J. P. Morgan and Company.”
Ron Chernow
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
As I have already written many times, today any historical analogies of the relations between Russia and the US, drawn from the post-war history, will certainly not be adequate, and not because Russia and the United States today do not have ideological differences – their role was greatly exaggerated before, but because today Russia and the United States in reality simply have nothing to argue about.
Both countries are vitally interested in maintaining, if not the status quo, the current development trends. Moreover, the governments of both countries, by virtue of their mentality, believe that peaceful development will best ensure a global dominance to their respective countries.
Moreover, as will be shown later, the only thing that directly threatens Russia today is purely internal problems, and time is working in its favor, since, after the terrible rout in the Cold War, Russia for the first time in many centuries managed to achieve absolute military-technical superiority over all its opponents.
And in the short term, this superiority will only increase.
Unfortunately, both Russia and the United States got caught in their own propaganda and can not get rid of the ghosts of the Cold War, and trying to resist these ghosts, they let in more and more monsters that exist only in their imagination.
Until recently, the most terrible of these monsters was the European Missile Defense, but now it is undoubtedly the “Magnitsky Law”, which has recently become the “Browder Law”.
It must be said that only the six feet Hexameter and the Epic combined with the Stalin Great Style can adequately describe how Russia frightens itself with the Anglo-Saxon Anaconda, the horde of bourgeois Maoists from the Celestial Chinese Empire, the Fifth Column of sold-out intellectuals, the Judeo-Masons of the Türkic origin from Tmutarakan and permanent perestroika under the wise leadership of the totalitarian liberalism.
This goes beyond my poetic abilities and certainly does not correspond to the style of this post.
But the story of how the Yankees spring up a trap called “We are the only superpower in the world” and caught the US in it together with their NATO allies may not be entirely prose either, but the artistic form of the Broadway musical, rock opera, that would be quite consistent with this content.
And although the process of building the “Empire of Pride”, in which something teenage was from the start, finally reached full puberty, but I strongly doubt that the former US ambassador in Russia, McFaul, in his secret letters to Obama was be able to find an adequate translation of the idiomatic expression the “Empire of Goodness”.
And the Euro ABM and the “Magnitsky law” strongly resemble combed youthful acne on the ground of irresistible desire to have a sex with anybody at all.
Which, as a matter of rule, will safely pass after the first kick in the balls.
All bad calls. None of this will happen. Trump will finish his term. And, maybe another. There will be no financial collapse/depression. How do people who have been espousing all of these catastrophes that never occur maintain any credibility at all?
“How do people who have been espousing all of these catastrophes that never occur maintain any credibility at all?’
Uhhh, they read history, as do other like-minded people?
“Perhaps history wouldn’t have to repeat itself if we learned to listen occasionally”. Don’t remember who said that, but I always liked it.
How do people who have been espousing all of these catastrophes that never occur maintain any credibility at all?
The fact that the American economy crashes like clockwork probably has something to do with it.
This scabies is connected with the fact that the US foreign policy has become a hostage to the policy internal, and the need to somehow react to the strengthening of Russia creates insurmountable propaganda difficulties for the American journalists of Cloak and Dagger.
In particular, it raises an indigestible question: “Who lost Russia?”
And indeed, on the one hand, then they need to unleash anti-Russian hysteria and shout about the “communist-feudal threat and terrible Russians” preparing to seize the US, strike a nuclear blow against the Free World and take away something from the American people – whether their Free Enterprise, whether it is their Bill of Rights, or their social guarantees.
On the other hand, the Americans have not forgotten how they were explained in the Clinton era that Russia has ended and its opinion on international issues, such as the bombing of Belgrade, simply of no interest to anyone.
And Republicans do not do this at all, since, before Trump, they did not have charismatic leaders who, like George W. Bush, could compete with Democratic leaders on equal terms, and Romney’s sad experience has shown that he will be a Republican leader who will begin building his authority with the denial of the achievements of the last Republican President – George W. Bush (or Donald Trump)
And one of the main achievements of Bush Jr. was the discovery of the soul in the eyes of Putin and, as a consequence, the end of the Cold War and a good personal relationship with the owner of this soul.
Bush Dynasty….
George P. Bush is a “Beaner”. Is his dad, Jeb Bush, also a “Beaner”? Jeb looks like a “Beaner”.
Democrats also can not do this, because they told the Americans in the 90s that Russia would inevitably disintegrate, and the nuclear missiles at the “Upper Volta” by 2010 will exhaust its resource and by 2015 will be out of order.
And officially the question “Who lost Russia?” In its expanded form reads: “Who has not sufficiently supported the processes of democratization in Russia, so that instead of thanking America for Bush’s chicken legs, getting rid of the communist dictatorship and helping build democratic institutions, puts sticks in American wheels all over the globe and, soon again will place nuclear missiles in Cuba?”
The answer to this question is obvious to the democrats – George Bush the Elder, since it was he who, in the 90s, did not sufficiently support Gorby and allowed Yeltsin, Shushkevich and Kravchuk to pull power over the USSR out from under him.
And rumors of a catastrophic fall in the standard of living in Russia, when it was rushing into the world free-enterprising community, and America was controlled by the Clintons (it’s still unclear which one of them), have nothing to do with today’s anti-American sentiments in Russia.
On the other hand, the unofficial question “Who lost Russia?” is formulated as follows: “Who allowed the Russian fuckers to slip out of the trap into which they were led by Gorbachev?” And the answer to this question among the Democrats is also only one – George Bush the Younger, since it was he who in 2000s dared to see the soul in Putin’s eyes, invited him to the ranch and gave him the opportunity to express his sympathy after September 11.
And that after General Clark ordered the Russian troops to be attacked in Pristina airport, submarine Kursk “drowned”, Yeltsin from China reminded Clinton of Russia’s nuclear triad, and the President of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, who came to the Bush inauguration at his invitation, was arrested at the New York airport.
And in 2008 Bush exacerbated his guilt by refusing to help a small but proud Georgian nation arranging for its salvation a small victorious end of the world.
For many children/students the end times at the OK Corral come at the end of an AR-15 barrel. Here is an excerpt on the physics and physiology of the AR-15 and its wounds:
“The kinetic energy (and therefore destructive potential) of a bullet is equal to one-half of the mass of the bullet, times its velocity squared. Bullets come of out of an AR-15 at 3,300 feet per second, three times the velocity of the average Glock pistol, producing kinetic energy 10 times greater than bullets from a handgun. Furthermore, AR-15 bullets “tumble” as they penetrate flesh, widening the area of tissue damage. Peter Rhee, a trauma surgeon at the University of Arizona, compares the damage from a handgun bullet to the AR-15 this way: “One looks like a grenade went off in there. The other looks like a bad knife cut.”
Because of the destructive potential of the AR-15, accuracy is not particularly important for a shooter to wreak massive damage to the body. There’s no recoil “kick” to an AR-15. It is light and easy to hold, making it extremely easy to pull the trigger, rapidly and endlessly. With a standard magazine that holds 30 bullets and is designed for quick change out, a shooter can get off hundreds of rounds within a few minutes, especially if it’s equipped with a bump stock that makes it fully automatic, requiring only one pull of the trigger to deliver all the bullets in the magazine. Every feature of the AR-15 is part of an overall package designed to kill many human beings as coldly and efficiently as possible. It is a weapon of mass destruction if there ever was one.
Unless it hits the heart or a major blood vessel, a bullet from a handgun creates tissue damage confined to roughly the diameter of the bullet. The injuries are usually non-fatal, and the bullets are often stopped by bones or lodged in tissue. But the high-velocity, high-energy bullets from an AR-15 are specifically designed to cause massive collateral damage in the human body, leaving a much wider path of destruction, utterly destroying organs rather than simply putting a hole through them. Despite its rather small size, an AR-15 bullet can literally obliterate three inches of the largest bone in your body, the femur. Likewise, it can shred a major artery several inches away from the point of impact. One bullet can turn the largest organs in your body, your liver and your brain, into mush. The exit wound can be as large as an orange. Most victims that die from AR-15 bullet wounds bleed to death on the spot, with no chance for survival.
Trump and every politician that takes money from the NRA should be forced to come into the operating room with me and look at what is left of an innocent child or teenager when their body has been riddled with bullets from an assault rifle. If a victim is “lucky” and survives, removing the dead tissue created by an AR-15 bullet will require a series of multiple, sequential operations. Survivors are often left debilitated, with impaired organ function, and require more surgeries throughout their lifetime. They are often relegated to a life of chronic pain and permanent disfigurement.
Stoner, the AR-15 inventor, didn’t have an AR-15 for sport, hunting or for self-defense. In fact, he did not own one at all. Although Stoner has long since passed away, his family says he would be horrified that civilians have access to this weapon of war. He would undoubtedly be horrified that “tough guy” teachers would be expected to engage in gun battles against them.”
Teachers With Handguns Are No Match for Assault Rifles: Why the Trump-NRA Plan Doesn’t Work by Brian Moench
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/43689-teachers-with-handguns-are-no-match-for-assault-rifles-why-the-trump-nra-plan-doesn-t-work
So Jan-Bot, How about we put a few AR’s in wall safes around the school with Knox box entry systems. Heck you might as well throw a ballistic vest in there also. Keys could be issued to the trained individuals at the beginning of the school day and turned in at dismissal at which time someone could collect the weapons although the AR’s would be more than secure in the safes. Believe me these boxes are virtually impossible to get into without the “special” key. With this key I had entry into hundreds of apartments and buildings in my city.
https://www.knoxbox.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knox_Box
OD is Okay, not OK
The Earps and Doc Holliday are rolling over in their graves.
Mentioning ARs and the OK corral in the same breath defames the great gunfight, the most famous shootout in the American West in Tombstone, AZ, not all that far from Tucson.
How far we’ve come from those wild, rough times.
“Of 156 mass shootings between 2009 and 2016, only 10 percent occurred in “gun-free” zones. Moreover, many mass shooters intend to commit suicide or go down in a blaze of glory. Armed math teachers would provide no deterrence whatsoever, as handgun-wielding teachers would be badly overmatched by assault rifles.
Of course, all guns can kill, but they are not created equal in their lethal potential. The NRA calls the AR-15 “America’s rifle.” And that label speaks volumes about the US and about the NRA. It is the weapon of choice for mass shooters, and you can buy one for as little as $500.”
I just want to point out that Hillary left office over five years ago. The statue of limitations has already run out == hms888
I just don’t know, hms. Regarding the crimes of that magnitude you should consult the Officers of the Ultimate Court of the Universe, located at the Last Judgment Nebula.
So the supporters of Hillary are left only with a psychological warfare and attempts to provoke some outrage, in the hope that in horror everyone will forget about who supported Al-Qaeda in Syria, Libya, Serbia, Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan and that nobody will link this issue with the catastrophic destruction of the life support systems and the corresponding drop in the standard of living in Russia and in the post-Soviet republics, with interethnic conflicts that periodically turned into outright slaughters, with memory of how the Serbs tried to protect themselves from Al Qaeda in Kosovo and Bosnia, and the Russians in Budenovsk, Beslan and Moscow, at the Dubrovka Theater Center.
But if these details become widely known in the US, then Americans can start digging in the past, and the need to confront Russia today will cast doubt on the ideological motives for confronting the USSR after World War II.
But the most important thing is that the question of who lost Russia will started to be asked in combination with the question of what the US has won as a result of the collapse of the USSR, and not in universities, but in closed smoke clubs of the upper elites. And in such circumstances, playing on the difference between official and non-official wordings will prove to be obviously a losing game, and I do not see an answer that could satisfy the questioners.
Brzezinski’s reference to eliminating the nuclear missile threat no longer works, since the Islamic bomb became a reality, and Russia, unlike the USSR, in its military doctrine demonstratively declared the right to a preemptive strike, which technically is no different from the first, disarming strike. A confronting this threat is much more difficult and expensive. And Russia today has a greater potential for such a strike than the USSR, and its recent military-technical achievements make it impossible to repeat the scenario of the Cold War that brought the West a victory in 1990.
I honestly don’t believe the American political or intellectual classes have the ability to even ask such questions anymore. Such is the depth of their delusion. And they will openly deny them, as they are now, to anyone below them who does.
First Responses to Putin’s Ultimatum
In general, at first glance my forecasts in the previous post were already confirmed:
The former ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, who has flown to Moscow as a representative of Obama to carry out the policy of “RESET”, but literally changed himself in flight and landed in Moscow as a representative of Hillary Clinton to carry out the policy of “OVERLOAD” in full accordance with the button handed by her to the minister Lavrov.
By the way, McFaul was originally a theoretician of color revolutions, and he was sent to Russia to activate the “sleepers” and check the new Russian military doctrine, known as Medvedev’s ultimatum, for lousiness, when it became clear that this was not a bluff, but a purely concrete warning: We are not going to think long about using nuclear weapons, if you try to do to us what you did to the USSR.
So this time McFaul, who is undoubtedly a prominent figure in the Deep State, is most outraged by President Trump’s lack of reaction to this really serious threat to the United States.
He screams so loud that I had the impression that the Deep State not without justification took the ultimatum to its own account as a warning:
Overthrow Trump – get the nuclear war.
http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/putin-makes-announcement-and-trump-has-no-response-1175055427756?v=b
I would even say that, under the impression of McFaul’s speeches, I thought that Putin’s proposal to send those who still think in Cold War categories to well-deserved retirement (to sleep with the fishes?) is one of the requirements of the ultimatum and refers to the figures of the Deep State, and that it is addressed to them, and not to Trump’s administration.
But the most interesting thing is that the Trump’s camp in a very subtle way, so this requires considerable efforts and attention of the reader, but answered if not to Putin’s speech, but to the statements of the representatives of the Deep State, publishing an article recognizing that the United States used nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to stop the offensive of the USSR in Europe and in East Asia.
https://nypost.com/2018/03/02/putin-says-he-would-fire-off-nukes-in-these-scenarios/
Well, the Pentagon and the CIA were obviously so rattled that they completely lost their marbles.
The Pentagon in all seriousness claims that it can not respond symmetrically to Russia’s hypersonic weapons because they did not have enough money, and the CIA claims that Russia’s hypersonic weapons will not affect the military-strategic balance of power.
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2016/11/video-did-obama-just-tell-illegals-its-okay-for-them-to-vote/
Yes, yes he did. He said, Yes, yes you can.
Why wasn’t he arrested?
Whoever hates Hope Hicks hates hope. Say it over and over until it becomes something else – something just for you. Tell no one, except perhaps me. I will interpret.
Janos,
Per Michael Savage, the 9 hours grilling that Hope Hicks received from the House Intelligence Committee broke her, thus her immediate resignation. The same is true of General Flynn, whose legal fees have bankrupted his family. His wife couldn’t take anymore and asked him to throw in the towel. It appears that the goal of the Dems, when all else fails, is to drive as many conservatives as possible into insolvency with their endless probes. The question many who defy the Globalist agenda might be asking themselves is thus: Do I Need This Shit? Answer: Hell NO!
As WB Yeats said: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” (The Second Coming).
Man-hating feminist women hate Hope because she’s beautiful and a Republican. The same goes for Melania and Ivanka. Reminds me of that old cosmetics commercial: “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/trump-is-right-millions-of-illegals-probably-did-vote-in-2016/
Oh shit. It’s worse than even I, the most morbid (but not morose) man thought. Maybe three million. Is it joy I feel? Poor Grendel had an accident. So may you all.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/26/hillary-clinton-received-800000-votes-from-nonciti/
Another number from an orthodox site. Let’s take this as the lowball estimate and 3 million as the highball. And let’s admit that the Deniers don’t know what they’re talking about.
Let’s say a cool Million. It Miller time. The Revolution will be televised.
FactCheck.org says fake news.
“We should also note that on Jan. 24, the bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of State released a statement saying that its members are “not aware of any evidence that supports the voter fraud claims made by President Trump.”
“We also note that Trump’s lawyers in December opposed the recount efforts of Green Party candidate Jill Stein on the grounds that there was no voter fraud. “All available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in filing an official protest with Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers on Dec. 1, 2016.”
Do you think maybe Trump’s lawyers deliberately said the opposite of what Trump claimed? Just for a laugh?
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/01/trumps-bogus-voter-fraud-claims-revisited/
A sore loser is one thing, but a sore winner is something else.
And what about Obama? If he said it was Ok, (and he did despite what “Snopes” says) why would they abstain? Leftists want to change society and they aren’t particular about the methods they use, be they fair or foul. From that pov, everything that contributes to the Change is good so there is no foul. So if it works, it’s good. And since that jibes well with the primitive viewpoint or regular people and of course non-Western Cultures, the Negative Force that accrued against Western Man is considerable. A dirty snowball accelerating downhill getting bigger and dirtier every second.
Trump formed the Commission on Election Integrity to investigate voter fraud. When no voter fraud was found Trump dissolved the Commission. Take it from your leader, Trump: no illegal immigrants voted. It would have been headline news if it had happened. Instead Trump quietly dissolved the Commission.
“And what about Obama?”
Not even trying to hide your whataboutery.
My position isn’t that it’s OK for non-citizens to vote – my position is that it’s quite clearly for the citizens of the US, through their government of the time (and therefore the decision is flexible) to decide if and when non-citizens might vote.
I’m only interested in the truth of the matter, in terms of numbers. And if it’s proven that almost a million non-citizens illegally voted, then I agree that’s not the way things should be and you need to tighten up your registration procedures. I think I read on FactCheck or something similar that about 31 cases of voter fraud had been detected. That would be 31 too many but it’s not something a sane person should be getting their knickers in a twist about.
I get a letter from the Electoral Registration Officer prior to an election inviting me to confirm if the people listed as living at my address are still as they were last time. I can go to jail if I fill that in fraudulently. I presume it’s the same in the US. I think the US election authorities agreed that *the potential* for fraud was fairly significant (in terms of e.g. dead people being left on the electoral roll) but that actual verified fraud was vanishingly rare.
“And since that jibes well with the primitive viewpoint or regular people and of course non-Western Cultures, the Negative Force that accrued against Western Man is considerable. A dirty snowball accelerating downhill getting bigger and dirtier every second.”
And when you’re simply arguing from verifiable numbers, you don’t need to make your case ridiculous with all that unnecessarily capitalised, paranoid waffle.
And if what Janet says above is true about the Commission, that’s one pretty cut and dried non-story – the absolute poster child for fake news.
Although it’ll never beat the crassness of comparing the size of crowds we could all see, but that was too silly to matter, except in setting the standard for what we could expect from Trump’s Twitter brain-farts.
“The Government of the time”? In other words, pure Democracy. A Government not of Laws, but of Men. Sorry, our Founders rejected that completely. As did Plato – it only leads to disaster, the rule of the Mob and those who control them. It’s inherent instability and stupidity make it of short duration – leading directly to the rise of a Tyrant.
I’m not sure what is confusing you about ‘the government of the time’. I just mean the one that’s governing today, as opposed to the one that governed a year or so ago, or the one that will govern in another three years.
All of those governments are able to make laws and all of them should abide by them.
You accept the election of Trump, as do I. That’s democracy, which you seem to be happy with in that instance.
So one regime allows illegals to vote and the next disallows them? One regime imposes the strictest global warming protocols and the next undoes them? And you call ME full of shite? What mindless arrogance!
And I don’t believe you believe what you are saying. Once the Left gets power, they do everything they can to keep it. Democracy is allowed as a FACADE. Get it? I think you do or at least I hope so for your sake.
So if Trump is going to be impeached, you will fight for him? Oh rubbish.
“So one regime allows illegals to vote and the next disallows them? One regime imposes the strictest global warming protocols and the next undoes them? And you call ME full of shite? What mindless arrogance!”
Janos, I’m just telling you how democracy works. So, yes, one government signed up to the Paris agreement on climate change, and your man, who is in hock to the fossil lobby, said he’d take you out again. Mindless arrogance, indeed, but what can you do?
I’m presuming that if one government takes a tolerant view of illegals, you’re quite happy for the next government to decide that enough is enough, so you seem to be as full of that old democratic shite as the next person, according to your own evaluation (but obviously only when it suits you).
One government (a Tory one) took us into the predecessor of the EU. Another Tory government is shambolically and destructively taking us out. That’s life under democracy (and 40 years of the Daily Mail doing its work).
Not-democracy would have other bad consequences and they would be worse (as Churchill famously pointed out). At least we can choose to rejoin the EU 10 years down the line on worse conditions than the cherry-picked ones we are about to lose.
“Mindless arrogance, indeed, but what can you do?”
Well, you (the rest of the world that is) could put tariffs on high-carbon US exports, I suppose. 🙂
Seems that’s a fashion your fella wants to start. Sadly trade wars have been known to lead to real wars, though, so we’ll see how good his judgement turns out to be.
And anyway, he can’t get out of the Paris agreement quite yet. So far it’s just red meat thrown to his base. It would be a bad business decision for the US, so it may not happen.
“Once the Left gets power, they do everything they can to keep it.”
It wasn’t the frightful Hillary who said she’d only accept the election result if she won. Give it time. And your statement means nothing anyway. I didn’t notice Obama refusing to leave the White House.
Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow, an elegant New York Queer and a North Hampton lesbian, both subversives, intriguing and scheming to bring down the Republic. And then we’ll hate these filthy corrupted sons of bitches even more than we do now.
Good news for gun control afficiondos! Hartford, Emerald City, where welfare checks are minted and distributed en masse, a multiple stabbing at a street level dice game. I mean these distinguished citizens were throwing dice right on the sidewalk! Somebody must’ve threw snakes eyes, I’m not sure of the details. But excitement was high and tempers were boiling because one of the esteemed gamblers began to stab averybody around him, ended up stabbing 4 fellow dice throwers. I’m not sure who won the pot.
One correction. I stated last week that in SAfrica white owned farms would soon be confiscated without compensating the owners (some of which have been in their families since the 17th century) and turned over to blacks. That’s only partially correct. The correct statement would be All Property owned by whites is to be confiscated. It will be total dispossession.
That didn’t take too long, only 25 short years.
brh
Know Blacks, no peace.
No Blacks, know peace.
In the end times at the OK Corral, if there is no justice, there will be no peace.
“It will be total dispossession.” –brh
brh, if someone steals something from you, and you take it back it was your right to enforce the “total dispossession” of what they stole from you. It is simple justice.
You say, “only 25 short years”. How long should “reconciliation” go on? The time for reconciliation is over. Now is the time for justice. Blacks must ensure that they restore the dignity of their people… without compensating the white criminals who stole their land.
According to Bloomberg, a 2017 government audit found the white minority owned 72 per cent of farmland in South Africa. Simple justice called for land reform to benefit the Black majority. In my opinion, whites should be forced to pay reparations for their apartheid crimes, but it seems the South African Blacks are merciful and are not calling for reparations.
They will flub it just like they did in Rhodesia. They don’t know how to do modern or large scale farming. The Big Men in the ANC (which are just the Big Men in Xhosa tribe) will grab everything. We should let them starve this time – karmic justice for their savagery. Blacks never learn. Nor do there pathetic White enablers.
Well in our country BRH, we have different ethnic mixes & pressures. So, for example, I think (and I think this would be backed up by the data) that the US will look much more like the rest of Hispanic America. I think Black Americans only make up around 12% of the population, and that’s been pretty stable for a long time.
I don’t think Mexicans want to confiscate anybody’s property. Maybe annex it, but who really wants to manage southern California at this point? I think that would be the last thing the Mexican government would want to do. What a mess.
Just one more step for these Boers and Afrikaners after being dispossessed of their land and property. Do I have to spell it out? These people would be a credit to any country with their rural skills and work ethic. New Zealand and Australia have already taken in quite a few. About 4 million people will need to be evacuated. Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Israel (a former ally of the South african republic)?
Don’t expect much help from Canada, the US, western or northern Europe; wrong race, wrong religion, many already speak English, and so on. Application rejected. Automatically disqualified.
brh
brh
There are apparently about half a million South Africans in the UK.
Wiki tells me that 90% of South Africans in the UK are White (mainly of British and Afrikaner origin).
It appears that many of them live in the place you refer to as ‘Londonistan’. They must like it there. They appear to be generally wealthy, so could presumably move if they didn’t.
The 90% figure came from the official UK census.
I’d wager many of them are living in white majority neighborhoods. Voluntary racial segregation is an acknowledged fact in large urban areas.
I watched Trevor Phillips documentary on youtube about race in the UK recently. It was quite good.
I’m sure they are, PA. But it’s all part of the big picture that brh likes to call ‘Londonistan’. Those areas are also part of the city whose mayor is referred to, again by brh, as ‘the muzzie mayor’.
I’d give good money (I really, really would) to witness a dialogue between brh and Sadiq Khan about actual facts.
But I was also simply making the point that a huge number of white South Africans live in the UK. Brh and Janos like to put forward the view that the UK and Europe preferentially accept ‘brown and black’ immigrants and refugees in preference to ‘their own people’, which is nonsense.
You don’t think Brown people favor their own? You really are green and haven’t gotten around much. And of course guilt ridden, and virtue displaying Liberals do as well – not their own people. Whites are getting from both sides. And Conservatives don’t care either. Conservation of their portfolios, not their Race, Culture, and Nation.
I had to look up on Wikipedia there how many white south Africans there actually were according to their last census. Out of a population of about 55 million, only 9 percent are white. So, that’s hardly 5 1/2 million. If there are 500,000 of them in London right now, that’s a lot of that particular ethnicity.
PA
Indeed. But some of them will have been here for some time. Young South Africans come over to the UK the way young Australians do, on short-term visas. If they have a British grandparent (or some such criterion) they can get citizenship, I believe. I have a friend/colleague in that situation – she’s been her for about 15 years, but the rest of her family, apart from one sister, are still in SA.
Janos
God only knows what point you are trying to make. You have previously claimed that the UK and Europe CHOOSE to wipe out their culture by favouring the immigration of brown and black people. Given the ratio of white to black in South Africa, I’m merely pointing out that the preponderance of white South Africans in the UK would seem to go against your theory.
Howdy Marlin, the way I see it, if the Blacks want the land back the farmers should be polite and return the land the way they found it, barren veldtland with no infrastructure, water, or buildings. Let the “natives” have a go at it on their own. They’ll all starve to death. Good luck widdat!
This is what happens when you surrender. I hope Israel and Taiwan are taking note and paying attention.
brh
Official new guidance on “equal treatment” instructs judges to favour non-white defendants in order to “redress inequality”, despite recent research having found young white men to be the most derided group in Britain.
Produced by the Judicial College, the organisation responsible for training judges in Britain, the Equal Treatment Guide’s latest edition says: “True equal treatment may not … always mean treating everyone in the same way.”
Quoting former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Blackmun, the equality guidance, which was first produced in 1999 under Tony Blair’s Labour government, states: “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race.
“There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.”
JS: It seems Orwell’s allegorical dystopia “Animal Farm” is coming true before our eyes. Evidently, some animals are more equal than others and Blacks have been declared the Pigs or topmost beast. Soon they will be walking on their hind legs and then the chant will change (like global warming becoming climate change and now climate disruption) from Four legs good, two legs bad to Four legs good, two legs better and finally full circle back to Two legs good, four legs bad.
Marxism was always about overthrowing the White West and installing a new group in power. Nothing else. And it won’t be Blacks, needless to say.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/03/02/judges-told-equality-favouring-minorities/
Equality means inequality you see. Fighting racism means you have to favor one race over another. Thus the Civic Nationalists, both Conservative and traditional Liberals are tricked into sacrificing their vision on pyre of Racial redress – which obviously will be never ending story, much like a Mueller investigation. Thus their future is sacrificed to the past and the infinite reservoir of Black grievance is unleashed on the hapless Whites. Utterly defeated and cowed, the remaining Whites will accept their new Masters, knowing that minority rage could be unleashed again at any time.
Civic Nationalism is thus a trap. White Nationalism is the only way forward for Whites and Western Civilization.
Russian influence!
https://youtu.be/9UEIfPT3Wo4
Profile of a WV pol who might be the model for what a real politician would look like:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/02/richard-ojeda-west-virginia-blue-army-one-217217
Ojeda sounds like a latter day Eugene Debs. But I would have liked to see some Smedley Butler (“War is a Racket”) mixed in. And Debs went to jail for talking smack about Woodrow Wilson and WWI. Seems like Ojeda still loves the military. I love his populism, but wonder if he still supports the NWO Globalist mission?
Good questions. I’ll look into it. You’re right, if he supports the MICC he’d just be another flavor of the same old crap.
Nothing definitive on his MICC position, but his funding profile at least looks clean (so far). He’s obviously proud of his military service, which he should be. I like the fact that he’s intentionally rough around the edges. Enough so to get seriously assaulted while campaigning no less.
https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/147777/richard-ojeda-ii#.WpwizOj4-Cg
yeah absolutely there.
In the article he states how much he loathes lobbyists yet, we’ll see how much he secretly loves them after they wave big money in his face.
Why do I get the feeling, more and more with each passing, soul-destroying day, that the white man’s victory in electing Trump changed nothing? The Left still controls all the levers of power. Even his clueless Party does not have the sense to support him. Many were secretly, or not so secretly for Ryan and Romney, pining for an HRC victory. Below replacement level white birth rates throughout the world spells their demographic doom, with tens of millions of whites cheering their own demise. The long term victory of the NWO Cultural Marxists is inexorable.
I know it is worse than you think it will be.
Pollution, depopulation, war.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/world/europe/sweden-crime-immigration-hand-grenades.html
Immediate and near global disitribution of real time events has been made possible by cell phones. Chaos on the streets of the United States would, I fear, open the flood gates of vengeance. Even a perceived moment of weakness would surely be seen as a moment of opportunity.
A decision to put the cell system offline would be a real dilemna. I wonder which would be more damning, too allow the situation to be broadcast or to admit failure and go dark. Whatever our fate, it will not be played out in a vacuum.
Manpads and one and a half mile kill shots are a reality. “He who hesitates is lost” would surely be a prime directive on our little blue marble.
On the tariff issue. Those who provide the raw materials are not often the producers of the product. A tariiff on the products of one extremely large Asian nation would certainly bite Australia rather viciously. Let us consider aluminum. Has anyone seen or heard an advertisement for ALCOA recently?
mea culpa – tariff
Can multi-culturalistic societies survive intact? Look at history and is leaves a pessimistic taste in your mouth. Many empire building societies that try to integrate many cultures are on the ash heap of history with almost no exceptions. The early biblical societies, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia and even Israel each came and went. Greece through Alexander, Rome, European Empires, Britain being the last have expanded then shrunk. The latest attempt, the USSR, met its demise casting off its Muslim and Eastern European states and becoming the Russian Federation. Something seems to unite these failures of assimilation. Ethnocentrism!
People do not like people who are different. It is built in to our psyche. When a power tries to absorb other cultures, what do you do with them. Leave them alone? Why did you conquer them in the first place? Convert them to your “better way”. That does not work as attested to in the above examples. There is always a Ghandi around to muck up the works. Assimilation can work if the cultures are close enough together to “work out compromises”. Otherwise, NOT!
The USA was a legitimate economic compromise for the outcasts of Europe for most of its history with much smaller groups from elsewhere assimilating into the European based general culture. Blacks were different as they were forced into compliance and their resistance to their subjugation continues to today. But they are a part of the general European culture because they are too separated by time from the African from which they came. Everything seemed to mesh until recently.
The dissolution process started when immigration became peoples that waned to convert the general culture to what they left behind. Latino groups want the SW US back into Mexico, Middle Easterners want Islamic conversion and Sharia control (also in Europe). “Defenders” of the general European culture are watching their world be dissolved by diversity.
What can be done? Nothing! History shows all multi cultural powers eventually come unglued and component parts go their own way, but modified by their exposure to the general culture of the time. What the USA will be in a hundred years is a mystery today. The Long Emergency predicted a schism of the US based on economic necessity, but social changes may just force these changes in conjunction with the economic ones. Hold on, it will be interesting!
What about China? Waves of conquerors invaded China down through the millenniums and even though contoured, the Chinese managed to absorb them into their own culture.
OTOH, today, China has issues with the Uighurs and the Tibetans, and who knows who else. Does this mean China will ultimately be torn asunder? IMO, diversity is very complicated, and we don’t really know
how that works out. What’s the criterion for a failed diverse culture? Less than 200 years? Less than 500 years? Everything changes with time. Maybe these cultures faded because they got old and tired, or maybe because their system of government didn’t work (like the USSR). Blaming a diverse population is too simplistic.
It’s the most basic thing of all – like water for a fish. One simply assumes some basic homogeneity and then talks about issues. To dismiss its necessity as “simplistic” is simply an absolute error. You don’t pass Go with that. You can’t do Calculus if you can’t add and subtract.
Jews always boast about how they don’t change while Empires crumbled. Of course they have, but they’ve kept some basics. Likewise, Japan and China have lasted for thousands of years because of their homogeneity. One Dynasty falls and another rises. Culture changes but the People remain. One million Blacks would end Japan. Full stop.
As for China, the Han are 95% or so of the population. They are in fine shape. Their minorities are frightened of them. That’s the ticket. Full spectrum dominance. When America was healthy, Blacks and Brown were afraid. And yes, the Jews hated and plotted, but they also feared. Now their plots have come to fruition and Whites are the ones who are afraid. Progress? From your perspective, not ours. You may smash this country into smithereens but putting it back together will be a whole nother thing. We’re not going to cooperate.
Yan, you’re confusing homogeneity with brotherhood and love. “Homogeneity” will not help you if you don’t have brotherhood and love. Brotherhood and love turns “diversity” into “homogeneity”, conflict into cooperation.
Israel/Judaism works, not because there is any kind of “homogeneity” — there isn’t, and never was. Israel/Judaism works, because we see each other as brothers and sisters, even our “Arab” cousins. We are all family.
If you visit Israel, you will instantly feel this feeling of family and love.
What many don’t know is, when Alexander of MaceDONia entered Israel, he entered Israel as family and a patron of Israel. Same with the Romans. Jews knew who the Greeks were and who the Romans were. Ambassadorial greetings exchanged between them indicate this clearly. They were the family of the tribe of DAN, who was family of Israel. Unfortunately, the will to power, greed, vanity, arrogance, and supreme ignorance prevailed over our Greek and Roman brothers, such that they have thoroughly disgraced themselves.
The Tribe of DAN
— http://www.hope-of-israel.org/i000035a.htm
Fascinating. Now you’re trying to appropriate Christian Identity, the religious ideology of Aryan Nations, for Judaism.
Are you willing to go all the way? Admit that the Aryan Jews are the good ones, and the Edomites are the usurpers, the ones who crucified Christ and wrote the Talmud?
As Christ said, I can see by your face you are not an Israelite.
Cicero the famous Roman man of letters, was amazed at the hatred of the Jews against all other races and peoples. And the Jews hate the Roman Church to this day because of the Roman connection. Rome crushed the Jewish Rebellion and burned Jerusalem and the Temple to the ground.
Again, the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, are BLOOD BROTHERS, and in antiquity they all knew this!
Christianity is Roman PSYOP fiction. The Talmud is Roman subversion. I don’t care for either. The vast majority of Jews share this sentiment.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO EDEN
— http://isaacmozeson.blogspot.ca/2018/02/all-roads-lead-to-eden.html
Yes, the Jews did well in the commercial culture of Rome – and acted as the Christian Hunters of the Empire for centuries. The Blood of the Saints cries to me from the ground and accuses you. Did you not slay righteous Abel, Cain?
Bill, look overseas. No, really, there’s an exuberant abundance of evidence on this very topic, a veritable flourishing of facts, a list of case studies as long as your arm, longer even.
It’s one thing to learn from your mistakes, it’s the mark of genius to learn from the mistakes of others. These lessons come free of charge to you, the observer, because it’s other folks that paid the price.
All you need are open eyes and an open mind and intellectual flexibility untethered to ideological dogma and a willingness to learn. That’s all you need.
Good post there Bill.
I think a nation can survive if it can create a homogenous story for itself. Or at least, create institutions that tie enough people together which provide for the most benefit for the most people.
The big problem arising in the US are these struggles over identity politics which are coming to being with weakening societal institutions. Communities are under too much stress from drugs, weak families, declining churches, bad economics. So, when traditional institutions in a society weaken and collapse, it creates a power vacuum in which the more extreme factions can thrive in. I think that is in part what is happening.
the USSR, met its demise casting off its Muslim and Eastern European states and becoming the Russian Federation.
JohnAZ, if you intend to rule the world, do yourself a favor and buy a decent size globe.
Russian Federation 20% consist of Muslim population.
Besides, it is not going to be too long now when the rest of former Muslim and not so Muslim republics will crawl back and ask Mama Bear for protection.
https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/mother-bear-cubs-animal-parenting-21-57e3a2161d7f7__880.jpg
Should be conquered. Sigh.
Just finished reading a recently posted article by Daisy Luther via Zero Hedge about more store closings. She referenced an article by Dave Kunstler backing up her comments. I never knew JHK had a brother who also regularly blogged.
https://www.amren.com/news/2018/03/commission-for-racial-equality-britain-ray-honeyford/
Commission for Racial Equality: Doesn’t that just send chills up your spine? Imagine having an Elrond on your case – or determining libraries aren’t “diverse” enough.
Robert Frost defined a Liberal as one who can’t take his own side in an argument. But when it comes to race, Whites act as if they don’t even have a side. (from the beginning of the article).
When America was healthy, Blacks and Brown were afraid.
1965, USA was 92%? White.
Not too many ‘browns.’
Then PR, Mexico and CA over populated and dumped ‘them’ on us- the US.
And Russia today has a greater potential for such a strike than the USSR, and its recent military-technical achievements make it impossible to repeat the scenario of the Cold War that brought the West a victory in 1990.
The fact is that although the Cold War is officially considered declared in response to the Soviet threat by Churchill speech in Fulton, but in fact its cause was the appearance of the US atomic bomb and the death of Roosevelt, that devalued the Yalta agreements. And the pretext for abandoning the Yalta agreements was the refusal of the Polish Government in London to recognize the Yalta borders of Poland, one must think from the pitch of Churchill.
And after Stalin’s death and the concentration of Soviet troops in Kamchatka near Alaska ceased, the Soviet Union never aspired to inflict a military defeat on the US and NATO, while Churchill ordered the preparation of Operation Unthinkable almost the day after Roosevelt’s death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable
The only exception was the war in Afghanistan, but it was stopped at the very beginning by the death of Suslov, and its initial attack potential was more a gesture of desperation on the part of the leaders of the Soviet Union, who understood that they were losing the ideological war and, consequently, the scientific and technical competition.
Most likely, Afghanistan was an adventure, the purpose of which was to gain time necessary for the modernization of nuclear weapons, but it is possible that some of them decided in this way, to just brush off the pieces from the Big Chessboard.
But they themselves were swept away by younger and more cynical generation of the party nomenklatura under the wise guidance of KGB Chairman Andropov.
Realizing the precariousness of their situation within the country, these young but early ones, having seized power, simply cowed to take on the US and rushed to save their skins, by selling their country and people right and left.
I must say that besides the internal, class-psychological predisposition to betrayal, the late-Soviet nomenklatura had serious reasons for fearing a loss in the military conflict, since the Americans had the potential of the first, disarming strike associated with the MIRV technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle
The Soviet Union could not counter this threat in any way, except for repeatedly increasing the weight of its counter-strike, that is, the strike that is being dealt after the US warheads of the first strike exploded on the starting positions of the Soviet missiles.
If we consider that each Trident-2 missile could carry 14 warheads, and only every tenth Soviet missile survived after the strike, then for one Trident-2 the USSR had to respond by putting 12 UR-100 on combat duty, which was really an unbearable burden for the economy.
Moreover, the flight time of the Trident-2 missiles to the launch sites in the European part of the USSR was about 6-7 minutes, and the Soviet missiles needed at least 15 minutes to launch.
This was due to the fact that the quality of the bearings in Soviet gyroscopes did not allow them to be constantly spanned, and the spinning up required time, and in the absence of seismic shocks from the explosion of atomic bombs at a distance of at least 200 km. Those missiles that did not have time to spin up their gyroscopes flew almost blind, and as a result, only the missiles located in Siberia were guaranteed to strike back.
But the appearance of the American missiles in Afghanistan with flying time to these sites of 10 minutes or less destroyed the last advantage of the USSR and set the military-strategic balance back to the times before the Caribbean crisis, when the American missiles in Turkey created the unbalanced potential of the first nuclear strike.
The CIA finally acquired a 100% chance of getting even with the USSR for the Vietnam War and, in the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski, luring the USSR into Afghanistan.
About this multiculturalism (yet again): e pluribus unum worked well so why oh why go fuck things up?
To be clear, there were TWO main founding peoples of the USA, the one that founded the South being the other, giving rise to TWO present-day ethnicities with every immigrant assimilating into one ethnic group or the other.
The point is that the USA can barely accommodate two ethnicities within its borders never mind multitudes. In case we’ve forgotten, 1861 to 1865 were exceedingly shitty and, even today, the two can scarcely tolerate one another in national legislative bodies.
So why the fuck would anyone contemplate making the polity MORE fractious with the addition of more competing groups? Makes no sense to me but what do I know, I’m just a simple mule-skinner. The ones touting multi-cultures and multi-languages are the most educated among us. And they say it’s all good. But at the risk of being called uncharitable, it’s still my contention that it takes an intellectual to be convinced of the most full of shit ideas. Normal people know better.
Homogeneity has kept civilization together for millennia. China has been predominatly Han and close relatives. Japan is Japanese, Korea is Koreans, etc. Diversity breeds conflict. To expand, empires must subjugate their new subjects. Works for a few hundred years, then kapow.
Yes, Russia did breakup due to the peoples in the diverse areas wanting to be separate. Eastern Europe, with the possible exception of Ukraine, is joining NATO to avoid having to deal with Russia again. Afghanistan showed Russia how much Central Asia with its Muslim peoples do not want Russia in control. Very wise people in Russia wanted nothing to do with continuous problems and said goodbye.
One day, European Russia will figure out that they are closer to Europe than Asia in culture and make peace with the West. Especially with respect to the Middle East.
The main point of my last input is that the USA is facing an historical decision point where it’s cohesiveness is being challenged by its divisiveness. It has happened before and the politicos have usually found us a war to get into to meld everyone back together. History is not our ally today.
Sunday potpourri:
He has run and won the big race. But not against time, undefeated time. Roger is gone.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/roger-bannister-first-run-mile-under-4-minutes-114952951–spt.html
Want to get ready for tonight’s Oscar’s? Then give a look. Get the Left and Right of it:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/04/academy-awards-oscars-politics-partisan-hack-217219
Will the posters make the ten most wanted list?
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/04/stop-blaming-white-people-sign-at-post-office-draws-ire-prompts-investigation.html
“Homogeneity has kept civilization together for millennia. China has been predominatly Han and close relatives.” –John AZ
Diversity is strength. China is religiously and racially diverse. As a result of the strength such diversity brings China has become a world super power.
China’s diversity is represented by its major minority ethnic groups: Zhuang, Hui, Manchu, Uyghur, Miao, Yi, Tujia, Tibetan, Mongol, Dong, Buyei, Yao, Bai, Korean, Hani, Li, Kazakh, and Dai.
The religions of China include Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese shamanic traditions, Chinese Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism, Shin Buddhism, Nichiren Buddhism, Benzhuism (Bai), Bimoism (Yi), Bon (Tibetans), Dongbaism (Nakhi), Manchu folk religion, Miao folk religion, Mongolian folk religion, Qiang folk religion, Yao folk religion, Zhuang folk religion, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Bahá’í Faith, Hinduism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, Japanese Shinto.
It wasn’t homogeneity that allowed China to become strong. It was its diversity.
A single stick can easily be broken. Bundle sticks together and you get strength.
Another upcoming world superpower is India. I won’t bore you with a lists of its languages, religions, cultures: the reason for India’s strength is its diversity. Ditto USA. Ditto Russia. Ditto European Union. Diversity is strength.
India is at present ranked tenth economically in the world, and is projected to take the fifth spot by 2030. It will be an economic super-power… thanks to its linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity.
“They will flub it just like they did in Rhodesia.” –Janos
The Chinese are taking advantage of an economic opportunity to invest in Africa’s human capital. Africa and Asia will both benefit by their mutual cooperation. Trump will be seen as having lost Africa and empowering China.
They will replace the Black Africans, for whom they have utter contempt.
Such a sober information coming from East Ghuta …
So. As of 24 February. According to various sources, the loss of Western mercenaries and instructors (only the KIAs):
1. Americans: about 400 people. About 300 people from Blackwater PMC, up to 100 people from the Greystone PMC.
2. Israel: about 50 instructors. Given that such a respected expert as Yakov Kedmi stubbornly remains silent on this topic, it is most likely that there is also some kind of private initiative.
3. There is a 2nd Parachute Regiment of the French Foreign Legion (formally subordinated to the Eleventh Airborne Division of France). It is based on the island of Corsica. Specialization of the first company of the regiment – attention! – fighting in the city, fighting tanks, night operations. Apparently, it is necessary to announce a new draft: the losses of French instructors are estimated at about 100 people;
4. There is a 22nd Regiment of the Special Airborne Service (SAS) of Great Britain. Of their last “adventures” I will single out Kosovo, Libya (when Gaddafi was killed – by the way, losses in that operation – up to 40 people). It is considered the only one in SAS combat-ready; the other two regiments (21st and 23rd) are not.
Losses in East Ghuta – up to 150 people.
And now – attention! – slightly differently angled calls to Putin from Merkel, Macron and the sudden hysteria of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
Because – despite all the fuss through diplomatic channels, the bodies of the dead, and quite talkative survivors, are still not returned.
Now you may see in a different light the Russian president’s message to the Federal Assembly.
The presence of Western mercenaries who were not working for US DOD and not answering to US President was known for a very long time, but Russians avoided touching them in hope of reaching a settlement.
After the meat-grinder in Khasham, were hundreds of Russian PMCs were killed, the bets were off.
Hillary once again flopped on her fat ass, failing to start little victorious End Of the World and set up the remaining guys for slaughter.
Green Alba, if you’re looking in …
This ‘Londonistan’ meme I mention every so often, its not something I came up with on my own. No, about a decade ago a book came out titled ‘Londonistan’ by author Melanie Phillips, describing the Islamization of London and all of England. I believe Ms Phillips herself was from London.
Some of the things she wrote in there were hair raising.
brh
BRH
Just looking in briefly – work to do.
Ms Philips famously writes for the Daily Mail (or Daily Wail, or Daily Heil, as it is variously known). I know her well. She’s a climate denier and has various other credentials too.
The Islamisation of England is quite a feat with a population of 2.8 million out of 64 million.
She’s good a raising hairs. That’s what they do over at the old DM.
Which doesn’t mean there are no problems, but these people make their living out of making you believe that 2.8 million of 64 million is an ‘-isation’.
Still an’ all, she manages to refer to Sadiq Khan as the ‘Mayor of London’, so she’s still not up there (down there, rather) with your good self. Even she would be able to hold a rational, respectful conversation with Mr Khan.
During the Civil War did the South ever consider going to England and France and offering to end slavery in exchange for diplomatic recognition and material support?
They could have cut Lincoln’s Emancipation off at the knees?
Thwack
The problem with the South giving up its slaves was that slaves were the “wealth” of the Elites of the South. Analogies today would be to ask our Elites to give up their gold and silver, or their stocks and bonds. People will sell their souls for material goods! The loss of slaves capital sank the South into economic ruin for a hundred years, because they could not get past their loss. And the ex-slaves paid the price! Hopefully, this will soon be repaired.
The loss of slaves capital sank the South into economic ruin for a hundred years, because they could not get past their loss.
******************
OK, but if they freed the slaves, they wouldn’t be slaves anymore, but they would still be black?
Are you saying they could not figure out a way to exploit black people unless they were slaves?
Ive had enough shitty jobs to suspect otherwise?
the south indeed did try to gain support from Great Britain and France, and their was sizable support from those two nation. But it was never official, and not enough to turn the tide.
In 1809 the US and British navies shut down the African slave trade in the Atlantic. Out of the 12.1 million Africans brought to the Americas, 1620- 810, about 355,000 came to what is now the United States. Brazil got most of them.
The real slavers were the Arabs working the east coast of africa, out of Zanzibar, from at least the 4th century AD all the way to 1890, when a British expitionary force along with the British navy finally ended it.
brh
Barbary pirates once lifted an entire Irish coastal village, whose people were never seen again. No one ever said bad things were only ever done to black people by white people.
White people were pretty good at doing bad things to their own too. It’s a class thing, so they didn’t consider them ‘their own’.
In fact there’s a book called ‘White Cargo’ that might appeal to you, about Brits taken to labour in America, pre-independence.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Cargo-Forgotten-History-Britains/dp/1845961951/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520243810&sr=8-1&keywords=white+cargo+book
“In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 300,000 or more people became slaves there in all but name. Urchins were swept up from London’s streets to labour in the tobacco fields, where life expectancy was no more than two years. Brothels were raided to provide ‘breeders’ for Virginia. Hopeful migrants were duped into signing as indentured servants, unaware they’d become chattels who could be bought, sold and even gambled away.”
British elites of the time were no better than any other elites of the time and arguably worse than a whole lot of others. Power corrupts, as we don’t need to be reminded.
And I’m sure you’ve heard about the British children who were shipped to Australia in the 40s and 50s, many still living today and trying to come to terms with various types of physical, mental and sexual abuse they suffered in homes, farms and orphanages.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/eastmidlands/series9/week_nine.shtml
“Those who suffered the harshest treatment were the boys sent to Bindoon, an isolated institution north of Perth.
“The Catholic Christian Brothers ran it. Children built it.
“British children were forced to do hard labour until they were 16-years-old. Some of them had unimaginable abuse inflicted on them. The practice continued until 1967 when it was stopped.
It was a Nottinghamshire Social Worker, Margaret Humphreys who uncovered the scandal and the scale of Britain’s child migration.”
She wrote a book about it in 2011 – Empty Cradles (Oranges and Sunshine).
You may have seen the film made of it, with Emily Watson as Margaret Humphreys.
A story showed up on Fox News this morning saying that Mueller is looking at election meddling by United Arab Emirates with Trump’s group. Huh?
As voters we are bombarded with candidate propaganda. My question is, who is legally entitled to try to influence us to vote one way or the other? Why is any one barred from feeding me information on how to vote? Trump, HRC, UAE, Canada, England or even Russia should be entitled to feed any voter information. Isn’t that what a free election is?
Anyway, good news from South Africa to close out the week.
“We are not calling for the slaughter of white people, at least for now”-
Julius Malema, member of Parlimament, CP, South Africa
That’s reassuring, to say the least.
Settling in for the Oscars, the big LA circle jerk where Hollywood elite express their utmost contempt for the audience out here in flyover country, the dirt people, lecturing us deplorables about guns (the political theme tonite) while standing behind their armed security details. I for one will be admiring the fab dresses the ladies are wearing and the snarky comments made about the President. Its gonna be great!
brh
He said that awhile ago….
Anyway, good news from South Africa to close out the week.
****************
I have a friend who has traveled to South Africa 3 times in the last two years.
I asked her, and she told me without hesitation or equivocation:
White people are still in charge and doing fine.
The black elite talks about seizing white farms the same way Trump talks about building the wall.
In other words, it sounds good and solidifies the base.
The new president is from the Nelson Mandela camp; sophisticated, cosmopolitan…
so you can file these new threats under shit that will never happen.
It might be different this time, Thwack.
An actual change in the constitution has been passed, with the new president supporting it.
Also this character Julius Malema from the Revolutionary Marxist party appears to be more prominent than he was just a few years ago.
Hopefully what you say is correct. Lessons should have been learned from events in Zimbabwe over the past two decades.
brh
There are no Blacks in the movie Dunkirk because there were no Blacks at Dunkirk. Some people believe that 19th Century England was swarming with Blacks. They also fell for the Cheddar Man scam.
WW2 was a Brother’s War that destroyed Western Europe. And American Bozos still think they did somethin’ good over there.
Janos, I think you are forgetting about all the black people left over from World War One?
When General Pershing refused to place U.S troops under French command, as a compromise, he handed them U.S black soldiers, and they were very grateful.
Search Youtube for a series called “Apocalypse World War One”; its a five part series, lots of new footage thats been colorized and cleaned up.
As the slaughter got worse, all the white people brought in their non white “auxiliaries”
Yes, there was an extraordinary amount of rape resulting from the use of Colored Troops. What a tragedy – not only to the women but in terms of the destruction of our genotype. If Whites go extinct, who will you blame for your racial failure?
The Jews?
Yes, there was an extraordinary amount of rape resulting from the use of Colored Troops.
**********************************
If that kind of rationalization makes you feel better, go for it.
But the truth is, the black American man has always “done very well” with European women because we are a unique creation.
They also appreciate a nice “cut” cock.
Mike Pence? Somebody might want to tell the Lefties. I think most of them think it goes to The Vagina.
There is enough grist for the mill in this Fred Reed essay to keep Janos, janet, and others busy until Jim posts again tomorrow morning.
https://fredoneverything.org/
Fred lays up in that taco gap every night; then gets up in the morning screaming about white genocide and race mixing…
this comedy writes itself
… the taco gap.”
that’s pretty funny in itself.
Dane Schippers; AKA “white chocolate”
scroll to 5:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLmTcSup57E
Dafne!
fuck you spell check
So the question still remains, what is the force of cohesion that will overcome the forces of division that present themselves in the US? Fred Reed presents a very one sided viewpoint, where are the counter arguments?
“We are aware that Feinstein is Jewish” –Fred, in a link provided by Q.
Feinstein is about as Jewish as Qshtik. Feinstein graduated from Convent of the Sacred Heart High School, San Francisco in 1951.
Lest anyone be deceived by janet’s disingenuous post, please Google Dianne Feinstein and read a few of the bios.
My parents were Christians. I am not. Feinstein having Jewish parents does not mean she is Jewish.