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T he just-released movie Spotlight is about a Boston Globe investigative reporting team circa 2001-02 that uncovered and documented a vast network of child sex abuse by priests in the Catholic Church that had been on-going for decades. More to the point, Spotlight revealed the institutional rot at the very top of the Boston Catholic Church hierarchy, led by then-Cardinal Bernard Law — which marinated church personnel in a code of secret atrocious behavior enabled by systematic lying and deception. In effect, the church gave permission to its foot-soldiers, the parish priests, to engage in whatever sexual antics they wished to, with a tacit promise to shield them from the reach of the courts. The civil authorities of Boston, heavily Catholic due to Boston’s demographics, assisted the church by throwing up every legal obstacle they could to deter the victims and their advocates in the search for justice — and to put an end to the predation of children by priests.

That was the story that Spotlight told, and it did that very economically, without grandstanding. But the movie had another message for me, as someone who has been involved in the media going back more than forty years when I was an investigative newspaper reporter myself. The message was that the institutional support for great journalism that allowed the Globe’s Spotlight reporting team to do its job is now gone-baby-gone. All the newspapers in the USA, and even the TV and radio news networks, are running these days on skeleton crews. At least that is true of the old flagship organizations such as the Boston Globe and CNN. They just don’t have the reporters out in the field. The front-page or flatscreen interface that the public sees conceals ghost organizations that barely have the reporting resources and the reach to discover what is actually going on in the world.

The dying newspapers — and they really are on life-support at this point, including the Globe and The New York Times — can’t pay teams of reporters like the Spotlight crew to work through years-long investigations. But what the movie also ought to remind us is that the hierarchical competence at such an enterprise, the layers of editors who know what they are doing and understand the boundaries and conventions of their own society, is also disastrously AWOL in the new Wowee-Zowie era of instant cell-phone networking, Facebook, and Instagram. In a word, leadership has been made to seem dispensable.

What gets left out of the story, as usual, are the diminishing returns of technology. In the news business — that is, the business of informing society what is actually going on — that blowback is leaving the public not just uninformed or misinformed, but additionally clueless about what they have lost. The result is a society increasingly shaped by delusion and paralysis. For example, The New York Times has gone from being the “newspaper of record” to being the leading dispenser of wishful thinking by a feminized political Left preoccupied with feelings over truth. (This, by the way, helps to account for the remnant media’s hatred of Vladimir Putin, a leader who doesn’t apologize for acting one like one. And, of course, a man.) The Old Gray Lady is also reduced to overt cheerleading for its avatar (Monday’s lead op-ed: HILLARY CLINTON — How I’d Rein In Wall Street Ha!), and making excuses for our grift-and rackets-based polity (Paul Krugman: The Not-So-Bad Economy Ha Ha Ha!).

At the local level, the news situation is simply pathetic. The surviving local newspapers are little more than bulletin boards for news releases from interested parties. They’ve fired all their reporters. Soon the papers will all be gone and the vaunted wondrous Internet will be little more than a grapevine and a rumor mill. The “cloud” that everybody thinks is so marvelous will look more and more like an epochal fog — and we’ll be lost in it. These are the wages of our techno-narcissism, a society now marinating in cluelessness the way the Catholic church, as depicted in Spotlight, marinates in pederasty and deceit. It is frankly hard to see a way out of the cultural predicament. Two things, at least, are necessary to break out of this hall of mirrors: men acting like honorable men, and hierarchies of leadership with the integrity to actually lead. For now, the USA is not interested in those things.

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

731 Responses to “Shining a Light”

  1. PeteAtomic December 7, 2015 at 9:22 am #

    Much of what passes as journalism today, particularly online, is simply advertisement disguised as entertainments.

    There really is no deep analysis today of any major problem or issue contemporary in US policy or society. Issues are zapped through TV and online like MTV styled montage– with zero context.

    The “buy” button on the bottom of Amazon could also be replaced with the word “laugh” and get the same results.

    • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 6:17 pm #

      South Park warned us all

    • ejhr December 8, 2015 at 5:13 am #

      The operative word here is “Cowardice” We have no statesmen, only paid mouthpieces for vested interests, too fearful of offending their paymasters but good at bullying the downtrodden, the unemployed the minorities where these people are almost powerless to resist.

      Daily Kos has a cartoon I cannot open here called “profiles in cowardice” which everyone should see. It’s aimed at Republicans but it applies across all the parties and everywhere in the West.

      The only solution to this irrelevant journalism is the blogosphere, which allows voices not subject to censorship to be seen.

    • Stardust December 10, 2015 at 12:30 pm #

      What started off as another great blog left me again wondering why the superfluous plug for ole Vlad, especially as you bemoan the lack of and need for “honorable men” in the same breath.

  2. Neon Vincent December 7, 2015 at 10:12 am #

    “Much of what passes as journalism today, particularly online, is simply advertisement disguised as entertainments.”

    I found a good example of that this weekend, when I blogged about the Detroit Free Press reporting on how Fiat Chrysler uses the power of The Force to sell cars. It was big news in the paper’s business section that the former number three car company in the U.S. has partnered with LucasFilm to cross-promote both their automobiles and the movie. That reverses your formulation, making it entertainment disguised as advertising. As for how the paper justifies it, well, what’s good for General Motors, or in this case, Fiat Chrysler, is good for the country.

    Another example came the week before that, when WXYZ and MLive reported on a man named Tony who was biking to work in a snowstorm. A car salesman saw him and offered him and his bike a ride, first to work, then to look at a van. The salesman then set up an online fundraiser himself to get money for the van. It worked and Tony now has a lightly used van. The car salesman also made a sale for his dealership and got it in the news. The media spun the events as a heartwarming human-interest story–advertising disguised as entertainment, indeed!

    • Neon Vincent December 7, 2015 at 10:29 am #

      As for our host’s musings on “Spotlight,” a Wall Street Journal critic ended his review of the James Bond flick “SPECTRE” by praising “Spotlight,” saying it was a much better movie. That didn’t stop “SPECTRE” from becoming number one at the U.S. box office, staying there until “The Hunger Games” Mockingjay-Part 2″ dethroned it. Oh, well, no accounting for the taste of the movie-going public. Maybe the voters for the awards shows will give “Spotlight” its due.

      • Beryl of Oyl December 7, 2015 at 2:53 pm #

        Spectre appeals to the people who still go to movies. Movies are aimed almost exclusively at young adult men today.
        There was a good article in Vanity Fair a while back about what the ‘franchise’ system is doing to Hollywood.

        • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 6:24 pm #

          You mean yet another comic book film? The celibate (not by choice) dweebs that read silly comic book magazines and played roll playing games have seen their dorky underpants clad heroes from ant man (f-ing seriously?) to Thor brought to film by hollywood. Batman is in it’s 7th or so iteration and Spiderman is not far behind.

          The elite steal our money, our country, and our futures and pacify us with men chasing inflated balls and juvenile lowbrow entertainment.

  3. K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 10:30 am #

    I lament the passing of quality reporting but there is another movie that has a parallel message to the state of newspapers in America.

    A Few Good Men

    You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said ‘thank you’ and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

    As America now moves from one code red to another all the big string pulling daddies know best and they will shield America from the truths America has no interest in knowing about anyway.

    • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 11:46 am #

      I watched it last night. Coupled with “Full Metal Jacket,” you understand why Code Red’s are so corrosive. This is the fundamental issue confronting America today. To what length are we to go in the defense of our nation? People like Colonel Jessup are poster boys for torture and pre-emptive invasion. We are sold the notion that death and destruction in other parts somehow makes us safe, just like we’re sold the notion that people like Colonel Jessup are required for the job.

    • MikefromNY December 7, 2015 at 2:56 pm #

      The requirement to have people like Col. Jessup, is solely a figment of somebody’s imagination. I my military career, I never once met an officer or a senior enlisted, who acted out or harbored such feelings. I think this is due to the fact that those types of people are weeded out by the training and education process. Just like non cuts get weeded out in boot camp and sent to retread company.

      The problem of the current feminized version of our government and military and institutions, is that in the name of political correctness and non-offensiveness, is that we can’t get anything done in a timely manner. That IS a national security problem no matter who is standing on the wall.

      • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 4:30 pm #

        I disagree. Most veterans who experience combat are just like that. They view a Code Red as miniscule compared to combat and they are right. They may be weeded out in today’s military, but back in the day the bloodthirsty ruthless types were in charge. But I have no military experience other than friends. So what do I really know. Today’s military is like pre World War 1. They are more corporate policemen. Smedley Butler types. It’s the difference between a peace time army and a army on war footing.

        • MikefromNY December 8, 2015 at 1:22 pm #

          Those of us who have been in combat know that it’s not about the mission or your country or any code you saw in a movie. The ruthless guys are the training types who weed out those who aren’t physically or mentally cut out for it. Private Santiago would have never been in that situation, because he never would have graduated basic. Calm and smarts are the only things that get you home. Watching out for your unit and making sure that you have done all you can to bring each one home alive is what it’s about. Anybody who tells you different is either a liar, or a fool.

          • seawolf77 December 11, 2015 at 9:29 am #

            Interesting. I think the premise of the movie is Santiago developed a coronary condition i.e. became sick and that is the reason why he could not function at a Marine level. He went to the doctor and the doctor gave him a clean bill of health. He was trapped. He could have passed basic and then gotten sick.

    • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 6:27 pm #

      Yes, primarily the truth that the US id the greatest force of instability in the world. Imagine that, all these years we’ve been the bogeymen.

  4. DrGonzo December 7, 2015 at 10:30 am #

    This is why I support ProPublica, NPR, and my local listener-supported independent radio stations.

    • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 10:45 am #

      NPR is National Plutocratic Radio. The pabulum they put out is baby food. Once they were a shining star of quality reporting but they became national propaganda years ago when the NSA sphincter tightened up and the smells of embarrassing truths were stopped from leaking out.

      • Jeremy December 7, 2015 at 11:20 am #

        Some of us prefer National Petroleum Radio.

        They bring us nature programs sponsored by Chevron and Monsanto .

        • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 11:25 am #

          National Petroleum Radio

          Another good moniker for their ‘slick’ programming.

          Yes, environmental news from the global warmers because ‘you have a right to be informed’.

          Add music here.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 2:51 pm #

            Still want “Syrian” “Refugees” brought into the United States? Since the vetting process guarantees our safety, right?

          • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 10:22 pm #

            Pulling things out of your ass are you Janos. I never said I wanted Syrian refugees brought into the United States.

            I would like the deep state to stop staging false flags and trying to make Americans hate Moslems though!

        • DrGonzo December 8, 2015 at 9:23 am #

          I get that NPR leaves much to be desired. It’s cool that those of us in the know can tune into Democracy Now or Noam Chomsky to find out what’s “really” going on.

          But if you’ve ever driven through Idaho or Nebraska or Oklahoma and tried to find a radio station that isn’t either Rish Limbaugh or country music or The Jesus Revival Hour, you begin to appreciate NPR affiliates for at least bringing some modicum of responsible reporting and reasoned perspective to the paranoid and theocratic heartland.

          I value NPR not so much for my own sake, but for the sake of providing heartland America with some semblance of a reality check between Limbaugh’s diatribes about socialists taking our guns and Hal Lindsey’s diatribes about The End Times. Interrupted by sports news, of course. They ain’t reading The Economist in Kearney, Nebraska.

          Local independent community radio is better that NPR’s homogenized product, for sure, but they’ll never have the resources to do the in-depth investigative journalism that JHK longs for.

          Support ProPublica.

      • marcyincny December 7, 2015 at 11:24 am #

        …and they all sound like they’re talking to kindergarteners.

        • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 11:26 am #

          And using their ‘happy voice’.

          • Lawfish December 7, 2015 at 11:49 am #

            National Pathetic Radio. I listen to it just to make my blood boil. Utter garbage, totally devoid of content and made to make everyone feel good.

      • Florida Power December 7, 2015 at 12:20 pm #

        Inter-generational wealth radio.

        Locally-supported stations (there’s one down here in Hickville) invariably tilt way Left. I guess this is to balance Clear Channel and the others who find that tilting Right sells more stuff.

        It’s all about selling stuff.

        At least NPR/PBS is not so unabashedly pro-Big Pharma like the major networks. At least last time I checked in. The only time I watch TV is in hotel rooms. Once as a test I checked in at evening news time on ABC and then switched at the Big Pharma ad (Talk To Your Doctor!) to CBS thence to NBC. They were all running Big Pharma ads.

        • Beryl of Oyl December 7, 2015 at 2:59 pm #

          They even manage to run the same ads concurrently if you want to switch the channel.
          That lengthy voice-over detailing all the product information was allegedly what they agreed on in turn for permission to advertise prescription drugs. I’ve come to realize that the real purpose is to be able to run an extra, extra long commercial to fit all the narrative in.

          • K-Dog December 8, 2015 at 12:42 am #

            I had an NPR experience during the Paris madness and posted about it in the Doomstead Diner. I’m going to go get it.

            ……

            Quote from: K-Dog on November 16, 2015, 01:16:02 PM

            Seattle over the weekend had a rally at a French Bakery as if Bagetts were among the victims. I doubt any of those present even know about the Beirut bombings. On the way in to work today I had unfortunately had my radio dial set to NPR which was all about France France France. National anthem, cultural connections with America, our oldest ally, the whole works. I switched stations before my eyes could get misty.

            Quote from: Guest on November 16, 2015, 05:39:48 PM

            National Petroleum Radio. NPR Newz now a CIA asset.
            End of story.

            Quote from: K-Dog on November 16, 2015, 08:23:18 PM

            I know; many years ago I was an avid fan of their refreshing open and diverse points of view. I realized right away when they switched to the dark side and immediately stopped listening. This morning was a total fluke because I was getting sick of a local oldies station that has been playing altogether too much Michael Jackson last week and had turned the dial on my way home Friday. That is the last day I used the radio. It is an old radio; nothing digital about it.

            It has happened before, tuning into NPR by mistake. I usually get very upset very quickly and this morning was no exception. I really can’t think of anything that upsets me more. It must be because once NPR was golden and now it is shit.

            I have to say, meeting at a French bakery to express solidarity seems very strange to me. Don’t croissants just get eaten anyway? Who cares if a few of them were blown up at that restaurant in Paris. I’m just glad my loaf was not there!

            Maybe it is because meeting at a French bakery to ‘feel’ France just ‘feels’ stupid.

    • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 6:38 pm #

      NPR is a crock. So long as you can detect their more, ahem, nuanced bias (it’s not Michael Savage obvious) you can survive it. Every story comes from the angle of the left. They didn’t question why Hungarians should want refugees, they instinctively questioned why they didn’t (the angle being that accepting refugees is good). David Green shamelessly trying to get Chrissie Hynde to explain her out of context quotes regarding her sexual assault to Steve Inskeep apologizing before asking, and explaining why he was, for stating that the San Berdoo terrorists were muslim. Try listening to Diane Rehme croak away with a stacked liberal coterie that might as well be giving her cunnilingus as opposed to discussing a topic objectively.
      Their marketing is geared to making joe-sixpack think of himself as an intellectual just for listening. This is the pseudo-intellectualism that Woody warned us about.

    • FrY10cK December 8, 2015 at 10:48 am #

      opednews
      consortiumnews
      fair.org and
      nakedcapitalism are pretty good options.

  5. Ishabaka December 7, 2015 at 10:35 am #

    Much of what passes as journalism today is blogging.

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  6. Cold N. Holefield December 7, 2015 at 10:36 am #

    Spotlight? Thanks for the movie suggestion. I’ll have to see this one. I had not even heard about it until you mentioned it just now.

    However, it sounds like a conspiracy to me, and I thought conspiracy theories were for lunatics. Did you sneeze a lot to the dismay of the other patrons, or did you take a Benadryl or Zyrtec beforehand?

    • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 10:40 am #

      Probably two Benadryls and a noserag for a few snezzes that could not be stopped. Good point.

      • Beryl of Oyl December 7, 2015 at 3:04 pm #

        O/T, what’s with people who attend public functions and never heard of cough drops?

        • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 10:28 pm #

          Our hosts allergy to conspiracy is quite severe and cough drops can’t provide enough relief.

    • Farmer McGregor December 7, 2015 at 1:03 pm #

      Many of us that grew up during the last fifty to seventy years under the dark shadow of the ‘Holy Roman’ church know about the kinds of shenanigans that go on inside such a tightly controlled, secretive organization. Conspiracy? Damn right it is — all the way to the top where the ‘holy father’ is often guilty of abuses as well as aiding in cover-ups.

      Wanna see lots of evidence? Check these out.

      I have a sibling that is a multi-degreed theologian and historian (and outspoken critic) of the Vatican in a religious order of the organization under discussion here. This sibling recommended that I watch an old Sean Connery film called The Name Of The Rose for an alarmingly accurate depiction of conditions inside the organization during the story’s time period.

      The filth goes back many hundreds of years. Conspiracy? More like an ancient, well-entrenched culture.

      p.s. Dog, ‘snezzes’ ?

      • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 9:36 pm #

        It is the ultimate evil. The Catholic Church is a bastardization of the child sacrifice cult out of Carthage and Canaan. This whole Jesus willingly allowed himself to be sacrificed to please his father is pure evil.

        • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 10:31 pm #

          I think the Catholic church should definitely stop staffing brothels with teenage prostitutes. I don’t abide that nonsense.

  7. hmuller December 7, 2015 at 10:37 am #

    You seem to suggest that investigative journalism has died because of budgets, skeleton crews, and new technology. I think it died because the 6 mega-corporations which control the mainstream media today act as the propaganda arm of the globalist oligarchy. They won’t permit anything damaging to themselves to be brought to light.
    As Noam Chomsky noted, vigorous debate in our society is permitted within prescribed channels, e.g. FOX vs MSNBC. But it’s as real as Wrestle-mania and bears some resemblance. The presstitutes feed us bullshit and delusions; while a hand puppet named Obama reads from a teleprompter. May it all crash and burn.

    • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 10:53 am #

      Noam also points out that genuine debate on Television is impossible. The medium is perfect for entertainment and spectacle but it does not support critical thinking skills or the cultivation of sharp memories. It dumbs us down an lowers the bar which is already sitting on the ground.

      Good you shined the spotlight on our monopoly of the affluent and well connected who have no interest in vigorous American debate.

      The last thing they want is a well informed public and as usual they are getting what they want.

      • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 12:16 pm #

        There’s a book called “The 4 reasons TV should be Outlawed.” It describes just what you are saying. Television was sold as an entertainment medium, but in the end it can have only one use and that is a political medium and propaganda device. Fitting this all came out of Nazi Germany.

        • Graham Giles December 7, 2015 at 2:51 pm #

          There’s this one, by Jerry Mander;

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

          • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 10:50 pm #

            Thanks, I’m going to buy it. Plenty of copies are available on Amazon, cheap.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 2:59 pm #

          The Nazis couldn’t get on the radio nor in the newspapers. So they took their message to the streets – where they were attacked by Leftist savages. They fought back and won.

          Your idea that all this comes from Nazi Germany is just obsessive silliness. Hitler admitted allied propaganda was superior to Germany’s. After he saw the movie “The Battleship Potemkin”, he said that was great and he felt like becoming a Russian Communist. He urged Germany to catch up and of course they began to do just that.

          • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 12:23 pm #

            Where do you get this dribble. Hitler was the first politician to use the airplane. He was the first rock star. His poster can be seen everywhere in Germany prior to his election. He fine tuned the PA. His spectacles at Nuremberg have never been duplicated. Are you trying to tell me he didn’t use the radio and newspaper when he was a pioneer at everything else? Do you listen to yourself ever?

          • FourFootSnake December 8, 2015 at 9:09 pm #

            Have you no medical insurance? Is there no CBT in your area?

            Have you considered actually really reading a history book, instead of relying on what you catch sight of as you use one’s pages to wipe your metaphorical backside?

      • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 2:54 pm #

        No, they could have hours long political debates, with searching questions by the moderators and/or audience. But such things don’t get the ratings. But let’s be clear: “real” life is no better. You’ll have the same experience if you’re actually in the audience. In other words, it’s not the technology per se, but the human consciousness using it.

  8. AKlein December 7, 2015 at 10:39 am #

    JHK identifies the problem: “Two things, at least, are necessary to break out of this hall of mirrors: men acting like honorable men, and hierarchies of leadership with the integrity to actually lead. For now, the USA is not interested in those things.”
    This pretty much sums it up. More verbiage will not add much value to the discussion, sorry to say.

  9. daytrip December 7, 2015 at 10:41 am #

    We used to have a cool cable access channel in Boulder, CATV54. Think Wayne’s World, but alas, it was discarded.

  10. bobinboiseid December 7, 2015 at 10:48 am #

    In Boise, ID, it seems the news is mainly a laundry list of every arrested person, weather, and an obsession with the local college football team. That accounts for 95% of ‘the news’. Investigative reporting happens very rarely, even if you spoon feed them a story.

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    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:00 pm #

      Any coverage of the rancher who was gunned down for nothing?

  11. Greg Knepp December 7, 2015 at 10:55 am #

    Objectivity has always been an iffy proposition. But it can hold its own in a society that enjoys a baseline of agreement on what is and what ain’t factual. America is losing that baseline as it fractures into various so-called communities – self-interest groups organized around ideological, ethnic, racial, sexual and economic priorities. ‘Truth’ is often manufactured regardless of fact, and disseminated on the web, influencing whomever might be a vulnerable target.

    National consensus is gone and it’s not coming back…no matter how many Muslims we bomb or how many witches we burn.

    • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 11:03 am #

      It was called divide and conquer but has been renamed ‘identity politics’.

      It is an old concept and has been with us for a long time.

      I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” – Jay Gould (US robber baron 1836 – 1892)

    • ozone December 7, 2015 at 11:33 am #

      I believe these to be germane observations, youses.
      I’m bound to be excoriated for this… but here goes:

      “At the local level, the news situation is simply pathetic. The surviving local newspapers are little more than bulletin boards for news releases from interested parties.” — JHK

      Well, let’s take a little peek at the ‘interested parties’ whose influence is reflected in The Big Nationals (print and talking-head), shall we? The vacuum left by a lack of skilled reporters and the staffs of overseas bureaus has been filled by misdirection, propaganda and outright lies. IOW, a veritable golden age for the manufacture of consent. (Don’t look too closely or ‘things’ could be made very uncomfortable.)

      As to the vast cover-up of an entrenched cadre of predatory fudge-packers and pederasts, it’s the very definition of a wide-spread Conspiracy by very powerful and influential ‘folks’ with the highest cover of moral rectitude. Conspiracy Fact; no theory. “This could not possibly be kept hidden because too many people are required to keep their mouths shut about it.” Really? Seems to me, it was kept successfully hidden for a looooong time (in human life-span terms). hmuller above nails it down for the incurious.

      • Farmer McGregor December 7, 2015 at 1:09 pm #

        Amen, Ozone.

        Check out my response to C.N.H. a few paragraphs above.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:02 pm #

        Yes, the networks are owned by a few Jewish Billionaires who deeply dislike the United States – so of course they’re allowed to control the nervous system of the nation.

        Was there ever a greater need for some Anti-Trust legislation?

  12. goat1001 December 7, 2015 at 10:59 am #

    All the radio stations in my area used to have independent ownership and had great local, regional, national and international news clips. Right before the news clip, they played a neat sequence of tones so you knew the news was coming on. The local news and community events coverage was most helpful and the overall programming quality was very good. They had a reasonable number of commercials and played a lot of good jams. There were no political talk stations then, in the 1960’s in my area.

    Boy how things have changed. None of the radio stations in the area are fit to listen to unless you like hearing the wall to wall propaganda and delusion Jim is referring to. One or two mega corporations own all the stations, every one of them. They call themselves “sister stations”, these conglomerates of stations. Mostly the AM stations have a FOX news leaning and are totally biased and never play music or offer local news except from some satellite feed that was probably taken off of the internet. I’m quite certain there are no longer any local reporters for these “satellite feeds” going around the community reporting on actual events. The FM stations are more interested in replaying commercials over and over than playing music. You hear the same commercial twice in a row and other times you have a goofball mumbling off a whole paragraph of disclaimers for an advertisement that is essentially a bag of lies. How annoying!

    Radio programming quality has really gone to the dogs. And with the event of HD programming, you get to hear all the crap in high definition – high definition crap all day!!!

    • K-Dog December 7, 2015 at 11:08 am #

      And coming soon: VR crap.

      Techno-narcissism on steroids. Because virtual reality is much better than the real thing to those with the full infection.

    • zekesdad December 7, 2015 at 11:30 am #

      I’m 65 years old, and I like classic rock. In the large city I live in there are at least 2 stations that play that format, but their playlist is for the most part terrible. Our local NPR station used to have great music shows where I discovered many alternative / indie artists. They went to an all talk format a few years ago, and a couple of years ago started a sister station that just plays music, but I can’t relate to most of it. I have pretty much given up on radio and just plug in my Ipod when I’m driving around. I have over 2,000 rock, folk, jazz, bluegrass, etc.songs. I may eventually get satellite radio. There are also some good independent stations you can access on the internet. One of the best I’ve heard is the one in Aspen, CO. It’s KTND. They call themselves “Thunder 95”, and play all kinds of classic rock, some of which is so obscure I’ve either never heard it, or haven’t heard it, or last heard it decades ago.

      • hineshammer December 7, 2015 at 4:16 pm #

        What’s the difference between “never heard it” and “haven’t heard it”?

    • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 10:20 am #

      So true. It was like … interesting. You never knew what you would get. That’s because it was actually news and entertainment. Today it’s all a load of homogenized crap.

  13. Joe Niederberger December 7, 2015 at 11:02 am #

    The great forgetting that ushers in the new dark age! Epochal fog – love it!

  14. FincaInTheMountains December 7, 2015 at 11:13 am #

    Economist cover for 2016. The first forecast estimates by Chipstone

    https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GRZY_BWmao4/maxresdefault.jpg

    Stylistically collage is divided into two parts; the right is describing the world in the last thirty years. And almost all the figures shown in this section have an article in the issue of the magazine.

    Location of figures on the collage is significantly different from last year. This is not the straight rows, but a double wedge. The right side is headed by Bill Clinton that in some way may be the recognition that he and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” (the Rockefeller group”) behind him were the creators of the observable reality today. And just around those same thirty years since the beginning of “perestroika” in the Soviet Union.

    Left “wedge” is represented by current politicians and public figures. It is headed by Angela Merkel, which according to the authors of collage will play a key role next year. The future of Europe and entire world will depend on how Germany will behave, particularly with regard to the “refugees”.

    Standing behind Merkel is Hillary Clinton, clearly indicating that she is assigned the role of the future president of the United States by the authors of the collage. And this forecast may, unfortunately, cause only regret because such a choice by the Americans will bring our crazy world close to nuclear Armageddon.

    Curiously, all the figures for the second year in a row are divided into four types. Colored (B.Clinton, Putin, Xi, Pope, Tony Blair), Black-and-white in color clothes (Merkel, Modi et al.), Black-and-white. It’s like graduation: Figure (on the chess-board), pawn, spectators and extras. Interestingly Clinton is a cross between B/W and B/W with some color on lips and ear clip (She is not quite dead, but not fully living creature)

    Among the painted symbols the euro soaring on the balloon in the background, and the dollar, gradually gliding down on the parachute.

    • Beryl of Oyl December 7, 2015 at 3:13 pm #

      Hillary just had a slip of the tongue in public, when she stated we would consider the nuclear option instead of saying military option; but the interesting thing is she didn’t notice her mistake and it had to be pointed out by a member of her audience.

    • 439 December 8, 2015 at 3:18 pm #

      Merkel is being pumped up by foreign media because she is weak and pliable and does not represent German interests.
      But she made a fatal mistake with the refugee crisis.
      Her time is coming to a close.

  15. Smoky Joe December 7, 2015 at 11:13 am #

    It’s sad to see real reporting go extinct. I wish we’d had an honest look, and not Dan Rather’s faked-records disaster, into the military career of George W. Bush or, even more critically, his party’s antics in Florida in the 2000 election. Or Dick Cheney’s lies that led us into the quagmire in Iraq, three years later. Or, for that matter, why Obama flip-flopped on his “red line” in Syria after Assad used chemical weapons.

    As much as I hate the US Far Right, I must credit them with one thing: they understand how to play to paranoia and untruth, denying facts that do not fit until the disenfranchised in our “Ideas” economy all line up behind the latest no-nothing leading the pack.

    The Far Left, as in the Academic Left that currently is feeling JHK’s wrath, does the same but not nearly so well. The disenfranchised on the Left just do not vote. Game over.

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    • vengeur December 7, 2015 at 11:26 am #

      As much as I hate the US Far Left, I must credit them with one thing: they understand how to play to paranoia and untruth, denying facts that do not fit until the disenfranchised in our “Ideas” economy all line up behind the latest no-nothing leading the pack.

    • Florida Power December 7, 2015 at 12:36 pm #

      Ummm, any comment on The National Media not reporting on this Obama guy? We instantly knew the details of Palin’s menstrual cycle — talk about investigative journalism — while the details of Obama’s past remained “sealed”.

      I heard Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw being rebroadcast from 2008 pontificating to one another that they really didn’t know anything about Obama.

      Not that any of it matters at this point, to quote our next president.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:08 pm #

        Yes, it’s extraordinary that all our Leftist Seekers of Truth have no problem with this. And they did the same thing with Martin Luther King. As his widow said, people would lose all their respect for him if they knew the truth.

      • Beryl of Oyl December 7, 2015 at 3:21 pm #

        It rankles that Sarah’s equivalent, John Edwards, didn’t get the same ‘takedown’ as she. The media didn’t even think the fact that he had started as second family needed mentioning, the second time around.

    • Sean Coleman December 7, 2015 at 4:27 pm #

      I know little about the American media but I would be very surprised if this is true. In Britain the BBC regards itself as the epitome of impartiality but it is very much biased, like all the media, towards the liberal consensus, which is a narrow spread of fashionable opinion and which believes it has a monopoly of the truth.

      Here the ‘Academic Left’ is at the heart of the intellectual and cultural problem. We have our rich and vested interests of course but socially they largely subscribe to the same beliefs as the liberals, who in turn a blind eye towards them (except from the usual windy rhetoric) while concentrating their energies on inherited faith, tradition and authority.

      The hip rebels of the 1960s are now in power but they still fondly see themselves as rebelling against established authority (which has long vanished from the scene) and (that other cliché) speaking truth to power. It is sickening. Of course, for all their open minds and free thinking, they didn’t come up with any of this themselves but borrowed it (here in Ireland) from its American source, via the academic and media luvvies of London. (I can’t remember who I was reading about recently who said, on getting a lecturing job at Oxford University, that the only two there who weren’t left wing were himself and the Sicilian cleaning woman.)

      Over here it is fashionable to object to the Daily Mail. A couple of years ago, while visiting my sister in England, here son said that it wasn’t allowed in the house. It’s actually pretty standard liberal like all the other papers (which Hitchens describes as the unpopular press) but does report crime and other stories in a more honest manner than its respectable competition.

      In short, the picture you give is a cliché.

    • goat1001 December 8, 2015 at 10:13 am #

      “And now you know the rest of the story” – Paul Harvey. Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end….

  16. Rodster December 7, 2015 at 11:14 am #

    My opinion is that the Newspapers and News Channels have brought this upon themselves. The Nightly News and News cable channels have become nothing more than “Infotainment” as i’ve been referring to it the last 8 years. Why is it that Fox News every so many minutes has to interrupt the news with “This Is A Fox News Alert”? When it’s no real alert at all. Why is it that 99% of the so called on air anchors are pretty people? It’s all for show and so is the news they put out.

    The Newspapers for years have served their own agendas especially when it comes to causes and politics. Maybe just maybe people have waken up and started to figure it all out. I know I have.

    • daytrip December 7, 2015 at 4:30 pm #

      I think that documentary filmmakers have taken over the role of in-depth reporters.

      • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 6:52 pm #

        When ‘Vice’, a Canadian skateboard magazine most famous for its obnoxiously vulgar ‘Do’s & Don’ts’ columns is delivering cutting edge investigative reporting (well, no longer) something’s not right in journalism.

      • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 1:27 pm #

        I think you’re right.

  17. zekesdad December 7, 2015 at 11:16 am #

    I have definitely seen my local paper (a major metropolitan daily) shrink in size and content. Most of the international and national news stories are cut and paste jobs from the internet or day old abridged stories from the New York Times. They still do a pretty good job of reporting and commenting on local and regional issues. I try to keep up with the news, and it is still possible to access good reporting and commentary if you know to look.
    I think The New York Times is still an excellent paper if you disregard the op-ed section. Almost all of those stories seem to be written by former Pravda hacks. The business, arts, travel sections are still IMO very good. I find good journalism in such places as, The Wall St. Journal, The (British) Financial Times, especially FT Weekend. The Economist, and such websites such as National Review Online, and some of the British newspapers. A lot of the above mentioned financial publications write about a lot more than business and finance. Anyone care to add to this list?

    • Jeremy December 7, 2015 at 11:26 am #

      Try websites like:

      InformationClearinhouse
      Counterpunch
      Commondreams
      Zerohedge
      Seemorerocks
      Robertscribbler
      TheGuardian

      • Jeremy December 7, 2015 at 11:28 am #

        Corr.

        Informationclearinghouse

      • abbybwood December 7, 2015 at 2:09 pm #

        I will add:

        Consortiumnews.com

        Whatreallyhappened.com

        Voltairenet.org

        Truthdig.com

        Truthout.com

        Crooksandliars.com

  18. vengeur December 7, 2015 at 11:23 am #

    America finally died with Bush jr.’s illegal war on Iraq. The press did nothing to expose the huge fraud of the fictional WMD’s that were the justification for the deaths of thousands of civilians, and became unabashed cheerleaders of death, loving their “embedded” status which allowed them to experience and report on the glories of “a shooting war”. The absence of any truthful reporting on the NATO led Libya and now Syrian fiascos show that the American press is still quite dead. RIP .

    • Florida Power December 7, 2015 at 12:42 pm #

      Some have dated it back to “Remember the Maine!”

      Some point to the assassination of Kennedy and the ascendancy of the National Security State.

      Perhaps instead the die was cast at Appomattox, where the United “States” of America became The “Irrelevant States” of America.

    • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 9:45 pm #

      Good choices. I think it was the Civil War that did it. The Maine launched the imperial USA. JFK launched the Evil Empire. But really when you think about it, with slavery rampant at our independence, this bitch was bad from the beginning.

    • goat1001 December 8, 2015 at 12:25 pm #

      “Murder and Mayhem in the Middle East” :: https://shar.es/1cSfcC

  19. Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 11:28 am #

    We live in the era of “native advertising”–articles and television reports, funded by advertisers, such as pharmaceutical companies, to look like legitimate, objective news stories. Media organizations, operating with the “skeleton crews” described by JHK, hungry for revenue as well as content, are eager, willing participants in the subterfuge. “Product placement” in movies and television shows is another dimension of the effort. Enormous dollars are paid to advertising and public relations agencies to plant the stories and the products. The line between truth and propaganda has moved beyond blurring to blindness. The noble fourth estate of yesteryear, guardians of freedom and advocates for justice and the people, have morphed into “ethics free zones” grubbing for a buck, in a single lifetime (mine).

    Thanks again JHK for another thoughtful and provocative Monday morning essay…and thank you for your servitude!

    -Sticks

  20. RocketDoc December 7, 2015 at 11:37 am #

    The movie is crisp and taut and gripping. My wife and I loved it. I likened it to All the Presidents Men. As Syria watches their infrastructure destroyed we get to watch our institutions blown up. I’m WASP and old and glad to uncover wrongdoing wherever it hides. The dysfunctional part of the church needs to be excised (or is that exorcised?) The Catholic church is not my battle. America is my focus. Are we melting pot or a multicultural coalition? Hispanic Americans want to cheer for Mexico in the World Cup. Blacks are not sure about the type of policing that works for them. Asians are content with a meritocracy. I have no idea where Muslims fit in this mix. I think the Jews and Mormons have the best game plan…Can I go play golf at the Club now? Leadership–surely that is sorely missed.

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  21. LeoH December 7, 2015 at 11:40 am #

    If you only have one viewpoint you devalue the price of the alternative so you no longer need to hire people who think differently. “you are either for us or against us”…. MSM is the new religion that supports the status quo. Who wants to lose their job if they say the wrong thing about the bowl we live in?

  22. FincaInTheMountains December 7, 2015 at 11:42 am #

    The “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Rockefeller’s” wing of the financial oligarchy did in the 90s what they always wanted to do: to conduct a humongous dollar emission without causing inflation. That is a pretty neat trick.

    With ascending of Bill Clinton to US Presidency in 1993 after breakout of the Soviet Block they finally got their spectacular opportunity: the Informational Superhighway Project, or dot-com business.

    The mega-mergers of the Financial Institutions, Media holdings, the takedown of Roosevelt-created banking safety-net regulations, the first “humanitarian bombings” of Yugoslavia and finally, the preparation of the 911-scenery that largely determined the course of George W. Bush Presidency.

  23. lsjogren December 7, 2015 at 11:43 am #

    I’m not sure the death of investigative reporting makes any difference since the Old Media such as the New York Times clearly would rather based their opinions on a fictitious world than the real world anyway.

  24. Kevvia Knack December 7, 2015 at 11:44 am #

    The Sunday NY Times is occasionally interesting to read….if you don’t mind getting an aggravating case of cognitive dissonance. The magazine and front section feature hard hitting exposes on terrorism, income inequality, and climate change, but the remaining 80% of the paper does nothing but encourage people to engage in behavior (shopping, traveling, glorifying the 1%) that exacerbates all of the problems. There’s no connecting the dots. It’s very annoying. It’s got a swell crossword puzzle though…

    • vengeur December 7, 2015 at 11:51 am #

      NYT is losing money hand over fist. The definition of insanity is to keep doing… crossword puzzles.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:12 pm #

        In which case, they’re just part of the Government now, their Pravda wing. The illusion of independence is useful. Brand loyalty. Same thing with nations: the Globalists will keep the names long after they mean anything. Like the “fighting Irish” of Notre Dame – just a bunch of Blacks.

    • malthuss December 7, 2015 at 2:25 pm #

      climate change–bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

      Nature is always in flux, nitwit.

      • hineshammer December 7, 2015 at 4:24 pm #

        Well, there you have it. Malthuss has it all figured out and wrapped up in five tiny words.

        • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 6:55 pm #

          Everything is always in flux… ’til the coming heat death, then perhaps a shrinking and another big bang… despite knowing this, and that it’s all for naught, we can’t help complaining about the heat while we have it.

      • daytrip December 7, 2015 at 4:36 pm #

        Have you heard the new study about the oceans losing the ability to produce oxygen with a 6 degree rise in temperature in the next hundred years? (normal temp fluctuation, right?). By 2100, oxygen amount at sea level to be the same as current oxygen amount at the top of Mt. Everest? Nature does have a way of taking care of herself.

        • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 11:37 am #

          All the plankton will die. They produce twice the oxygen trees do.

      • baird December 7, 2015 at 7:21 pm #

        More humans, a lot more flux, you of all people should know that. Check out the ratio of carbon isotopes related to fossil fuel burning and it will become very clear.

  25. vengeur December 7, 2015 at 11:48 am #

    American News Broadcasts are the Rap Music of journalism. And other than a few People like Kunstler, journalism is quite dead.

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  26. FincaInTheMountains December 7, 2015 at 11:55 am #

    It was the Mega Swindle of the Nineties that robbed the rest of the world of their State savings, paved the way to American suppression of the descent (real and imaginary) in the 2000s and finally, the anti-American revolt of the 2010s. The Political Correctness also has its roots in the Nineties as well as the end of American Journalism.

  27. sauerkraut December 7, 2015 at 11:55 am #

    If I understand the situation correctly, the world changed when the laws changed under Reagan.

    First, laws requiring equal time for an opposing opinion were scrapped. Second, if I remember correctly, it was no longer required to report the truth – it was enough to report that which could be defended as “thought to be true”. Since anything can be thought to be true, reporters became largely irrelevant.

    Of course, none of this would have been possible without a profound anti-intellectualism, combined with a reverence for “practical men”; i.e. any dolt with a torque wrench and a credit card. This would appear to extend into modern universities, where freedom of speech is sacrificed to freedom from offence, turning the Constitution on its head.

    As a society, we now seem to be criminalizing bad manners of a certain type, and excusing certain types of criminality as bad manners. This reversal is serious in itself, but it may be symptomatic of a broader confusion: a measure of disconnect between reality and mentality, or even a denial of objective reality.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:38 pm #

      Yes we need a return to Aristocracy, with voting limited to the qualified – those with a record of service, solvency, and education. The practical men, those who despise anyone who can’t “drive stick”, need to be put back into their place.

  28. vengeur December 7, 2015 at 12:00 pm #

    I would like to see a poll: who do you despise more, politicians or media people?

    • ozone December 7, 2015 at 12:25 pm #

      vengeur,
      My answer to your poll: Yes.

  29. Zoltar December 7, 2015 at 12:01 pm #

    If I might add the perspective of a former NPR listener who once worked for fifteen years at a network affiliate: there was a time when NPR reporters understood their honorable role to be acting as bullshit detectors for society. Several things happened to destroy NPR’s niche in the news ecosystem.

    They always depended, of course, upon a government subsidy, and those in Washington who defended their annual line item from their natural enemies inside the Beltway eventually got ground down. So NPR stopped going after bad guys.

    In 2007 they featured – it wasn’t really an interview – former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, who is arguably a war criminal for contriving the bogus rationale that enabled W to invade Iraq. Rather than even question Feith about his part in that disaster they simply rolled over and let him justify himself on their airtime. NPR’s only response to the outrage that I and many other listeners expressed about their failure to confront Feith was to follow up with a “clarification” that Feith’s intelligence report was only officially found to be “inappropriate,” rather than falsified.

    NPR also got addicted to underwriters and their agendas. One year they accepted a fat grant “for coverage of Chad.” Prior to the grant there was never any news from Chad but, by golly, for the next twelve months there were all sorts of newsworthy things being reported from Chad. Then the grant ended and, evidently, nothing has happened in Chad since. NPR dreadnaught Cokie Roberts flew into a rage when I pointed out that the network’s news assignments really shouldn’t have a one-to-one correspondence with the agendas of underwriters.

    The coup de grace for NPR news was twofold: Operation Desert Storm convinced public radio that news coverage must resemble an action movie for the entertainment of its male listeners; the O. J. Simpson trial then became a template for a long-running soap opera for female listeners.

    The result of all of this: a succession of interchangeable “news” programs in which news “experts” talk with each other for a while, and then open the microphone so the national audience can have the benefit of the insight of the next idiot who happens to call. No, it isn’t any sort of news, much less analysis, but this business model is a whole lot less expense and effort than putting veteran reporters in locations all over the world so they can figure out what’s going down and share their investigations with us.

    • vengeur December 7, 2015 at 12:09 pm #

      And don’t forget, it’s all delivered with NPR’s nauseating pretentiousness.

      • malthuss December 7, 2015 at 2:28 pm #

        NPR has or had not one but TWO, ‘Ari Shapiros.’

        Occidental Observer did a story on them.

    • ozone December 7, 2015 at 12:32 pm #

      Zoltar,
      Thanks for the helpful insider perspective. My “local” station has also succumbed to the Empire of Delusion. It’s amazing what the commentators believe without any credible evidence or research to support their views! It’s become all about sifting through symptoms and no concern for identifying the diseases…. I guess that might make contributors uncomfortable and less likely to tithe.

    • piltdownman December 7, 2015 at 1:00 pm #

      Well said. I have listened with dismay at the long, slow decay of NPR. After the recent Paris attacks I had to laugh when I heard that David Green was doing reports from the City of Lights. Just like sending Brokaw or some other chair-sitter to the latest disaster scene. Doesn’t NPR have a full-time correspondent in Paris?

      Finally, for a news source that purports such lofty standards, when was the last time they actually broke a story???

      • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 7:00 pm #

        yes, if you listened you’d know that it’s Eleanor Beardsley, a native South Carolinian with a strange modified accent and unique delivery. Their most biased correspondent by far is the Texan, Wade Goodwyn, who can’t resist straight-shooting snark. Then again, he had to deal with Rick (now smarter with glasses) Perry.

    • malthuss December 7, 2015 at 2:27 pm #

      I get a kick form their fund raising and asking for unpaid volunteers.

      How much does the gal in DC make? The one who is their
      ‘chief leftist?’

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:43 pm #

      Is Cokie on coke or is that really her name? And if the latter, where does such a name come from?

      The corruption of WASP names may well be a barometer of the fall of America.

      • malthuss December 7, 2015 at 11:31 pm #

        Cokie is tribe [no surprise] and her hubby wrote a book about how wonderful immigrants are.

    • Poet December 8, 2015 at 2:16 am #

      The only survivor from the proud tradition of the early NPR is Daniel Zwerdling whose investigative reporting has exposed the hypocrisy of the government policies on Gulf war syndrome (liked agent orange contamination it didn’t exist) to PTSD (dope them up, then discharge them for drug dependency, or dump them into the VA system as quickly as possible).
      Daniel, when allowed to do so, does his homework, anticipates the government line of propaganda and effectively shows it for the load of BS that it is which is why you don’t hear him very much on NPR any more.

  30. Q. Shtik December 7, 2015 at 12:01 pm #

    Hey Pogo

    Thanks for the great tales from Duluth AFB (at the tail end of last week’s thread). I will get back to you in more detail when time permits. And, yes, I do have a scheme in mind for how we can communicate outside this CFN forum without totally blowing our anonymity.

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    • Pogo December 7, 2015 at 4:59 pm #

      Great, I’m looking forward to it.

  31. Poet December 7, 2015 at 12:04 pm #

    To get an idea of how bad the stenographer-journalists in the US look, try tuning in RT (stands for Russia Today) on the internet. They run a live feed of their US, British, and Moscow feeds in English 24/7/365 at:

    https://www.rt.com/on-air/

    While reminding yourself that they are owned and operated by the government of the Russian Federation and therefore presenting the
    Russian point of view on the world notice:

    They have correspondents everywhere unlike US public broadcasting which relies on BBC and other stringers to provide them with reports.

    Their US correspondents not only speak English, they speak American English. Their British correspondents speak the UK version of the language. Many of their correspondents are multi-lingual and therefore do not require translators in the countries from which they report.

    Their reporters have exposed both lies and exaggerations of official US/NATO and EU spokespersons regarding the Ukrainian, European refugee, and ISIS (or is it ISIL or is it Daesh?) crises.

    As a septuagenarian I can remember listening to Radio Moscow and the other communist shortwave services in my youth. Besides the excitement of being able to hear voices from afar, the content of their news and commentary was good for laughs because it was so lacking in credibility.

    US networks on the other hand (radio and TV) had their own correspondents everywhere and typically they would gather at the year’s end to discuss the year in review as well as the prospects for the next year. Of course it was not perfect back in the 50’s, 60’s, and early 70’s but they tackled such issues as Joe McCarthy, civil rights, the Vietnam war, and that odious political toad, Richard Nixon.

    Now it is the US media that engages in mindless mimicry and the Russians who are doing the hard work of investigative reporting. It’s a shame, but that’s what happens when journalism’s bottom line is the bottom line. Information transforms into infotainment.

    • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 12:19 pm #

      The USSA. The United Socialist States of America.

      • Zoltar December 7, 2015 at 1:04 pm #

        Thanks for your brilliant insight.

    • Newton Finn December 7, 2015 at 12:31 pm #

      I’ll second the suggestion that readers of Mr. Kunstler’s blog check out RT for “the other side of the story.” I find that filtering out the Russian slant is fairly easy, and there is a wealth of information provided on this website that NEVER appears in the MSM. It’s also very professionally done.

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 2:46 pm #

      I agree with most of which you wrote. I do find it curious that so many are quick to remind us of the sins of Richard Nixon, yet always seem to overlook mentioning the equally, if not more, “odious” Lyndon Johnson of the same era.

      -Sticks

      • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 9:40 pm #

        Lyndon Johnson was probably the only insane president we ever had. Truly off his rocker. An absolute sadist.

      • Poet December 8, 2015 at 12:59 pm #

        Lyndon’s downfall was not the murders of the Kennedy brothers and MLK Jr. and Malcolm X which he either arranged or certainly helped to cover up along with neighbor J Edgar Hoover of the FBI.

        LBJ’s downfall was giving the military whatever it wanted to prosecute the senseless Vietnam war. This led to the election of the equally loony but at least more intelligent Nixon. Cutty Sark probably flew their flags at half mast at his death since he was a major consumer of their scotch whiskey.

    • Pogo December 8, 2015 at 12:38 am #

      “As a septuagenarian I can remember listening to Radio Moscow and the other communist shortwave services in my youth. Besides the excitement of being able to hear voices from afar, the content of their news and commentary was good for laughs because it was so lacking in credibility.” – Poet

      Maybe folks in East Europe and USSR had similar feelings when listening to the Voice of America?

      I have also limped into the ranks of the “septuagenarians” and wonder if you remember some old TV show from the 1950’s (black and white of course) about newspaper reporters?

      If I recall (and if the memory is not entirely imaginary) each weekly episode was based on some actual event and reporter.

  32. davidreese2 December 7, 2015 at 12:07 pm #

    Agree completely, Jim.

    There was another expose by the Spotlight series in the Boston Globe that you might be interested in.

    This had to do with double booking surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. That is, surgeons scheduling two cases at the same time, and rotating between rooms while other less qualified surgeons continued the surgery in the absence of the surgeon in charge. Dr. Dennis Burke, a highly respected orthopedic surgeon, blew the whistle on that practice and was rewarded by the hospital for exposing this practice by summary dismissal. Patients of course were completely unaware that their surgeon was not performing all of the surgery and was in fact operating on another patient during the time allotted for their own surgery.

    Dr. Burke had this to say about the practice of double booking surgeries: When they tell you it isn’t about the money . . . it is always about the money!

    David Reese, MD

    • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 12:47 pm #

      Exactly. Whatever they say, it’s the exact opposite.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:47 pm #

        Yeah, if they say we went to the moon, we didn’t. If they say it’s snowing, it’s raining or sunning. If they say the world is round, it’s flat.

  33. Ken Hall December 7, 2015 at 12:08 pm #

    Can it be that JHK and the many of of the CFN commenters are slowly making the turn toward recognizing that religions, governments, politicians, and corporations at the beck and call of the obscenely wealthy compose a plethora of conspiratorial unions with but a single purpose; to maintain economic domination over the proletariat as well as the upper middle, middle and lower class bourgeoisie by the upper class bourgeoisie minority?

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:49 pm #

      That was always the goal of Marxism. The idea that the state would wither away was a ruse for the dummies – always the vocal majority. No, the economic order would become the State. A Plutocracy, with Capitalism for the few, and a wretched third world level Socialism for the many.

    • Sean Coleman December 7, 2015 at 5:16 pm #

      Thanks for removing the scales from my eyes, O Enlightened One.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 5:58 pm #

        No charge, grass huffer. Hope I didn’t hurt your Neo-Marxist feels too much, bruv.

        • Sean Coleman December 8, 2015 at 7:13 am #

          Put your glasses on, Janos. I was replying to Ken’s post.

          Where do you get the Neo-Marxist bit from? Probably from Raymond Crotty’s theories which I was talking about recently. He was no Marxist, of course, but I think you could call him an economic determinist. As for myself, I thought Marx was clever and had some penetrating insights but I could never suspend disbelief, even when it was intellectually more respectable to do so.

  34. seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 12:13 pm #

    How can the Catholic Church continue to exist? It boggles the mind. A religion that at its core is the human sacrifice of Jesus Christ, at its core is the mass which is mock human sacrifice and mock cannibalism, at its core is the indoctrination of children before they have a chance to think for themselves i.e. it is woven into the fabric of society and the family, at its core is the accumulation of wealth.

    • vengeur December 7, 2015 at 12:20 pm #

      Yes. It must be destroyed. Iraq was destroyed. Libya was destroyed. Syria must be destroyed. Russia must be…

      • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:50 pm #

        Well said. The savagery of the Left on display.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:54 pm #

      God incarnated with the intention of being sacrificed is the idea. It was His Idea. In Malachai, the last book of the Old Testament, God says He doesn’t want anymore rams or sheep. He wants the human heart. Of course you would interpret that literally like the Aztec priests did.

      • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 4:19 pm #

        That is a very unsophisticated way of looking at human sacrifice. If you study the literature like the Book of Enoch it describes the progeny of Fallen Angels and mortal women as Giants. Those giants built the pyramids and were destroyed in Noah’s Flood. Their souls were called evil spirits by God himself i.e. demons. These demons are who Satanist/Occultist try to contact. They didn’t exist until after the flood. These demons are why humans believe they have a soul. These demons are the foundation of every religion. They require a blood sacrifice, preferably human. Today it is called “Selling your soul to the devil.” A thousand years ago it was called religion, specifically Mystery Babylon the Great, the religion of human sacrifice to contact demons. Satanism or Saturnism. The Romans obliterated it and it went underground and into Secret Societies.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 5:57 pm #

          You think demons are why human beings believe they have a soul? Talk about a dark or demonic way of looking at life! You believe in demonic spirits but don’t believe in the human spirit. What the hell?

          • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 9:26 pm #

            I’m not the one who pretends to eat the flesh and drink the blood of God every Sunday. That would be the dark, demonic Christians.

          • seawolf77 December 7, 2015 at 10:25 pm #

            The Book of Enoch traveled across time, on Noah’s Ark, was hidden for nearly 2,000 years and was rediscovered when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. I believe it before your dumbass. Any book banned from the Bible is on my reading list.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 12:46 am #

            So do you believe in actual demons or not? And if you do, since they can exist beyond the body, they are superior to humans. If you believe this, you are an implicit Satanist.

            Many religions have some version of communion or “eating the god”. You show your shallow knowledge of comparative religions here. And in Christianity, Christ wants us to consume Him – so that we can be assimilated into Him. As mere created beings (creatures or “accidents” in Thomism since we need not exist and He need not have created us) we cannot assimilate Him.

          • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 10:09 am #

            No I am an explicit Satanist. I am aware of the deception. You are unaware, and that makes you the implicit Satanist, along with other 1.4 billion Christians. Your attempts to validate the eating of God are no better than transubstantiation. Of course demons are superior to humans. They are the 1/2 progeny of the Gods.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 2:37 pm #

            How can you be a Satanist and a materialist? Real Satanism (not the LaVey psychodrama) believe in the human spirit and life after death.

            If you believe the demons are half divine, why not just worship God or the gods? See how perverse you are?

          • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 3:30 pm #

            Real Satanism is Magick ala Aleister Crowley the Great Beast 666, the wickedest man in the world, the father of modern Satanism. It is the art of conjuring evil spirits or demons. It is done to obtain their aid. Anton LaVey was the original Ghostbuster; the movie is based on his life, and his Bible is basically a hedonist guide to the universe. These statements demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter. Your posts demonstrate knowledge of flatulent emissions.

      • Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 5:18 pm #

        Janos, good job countering this post (and many others today).

    • shotho December 7, 2015 at 6:11 pm #

      It’s doing a good job of destroying itself – Bergoglio and his crew.

  35. newworld December 7, 2015 at 12:45 pm #

    Its obvious NPR reporters effete pretentious non-entities are stupid, maybe they do reporting somewhere but my guess it is a jobs program for true believers.

    One day listening to a North Shore limo liberal supported station a lady reporter recounted her stay in India and its maddening incompetent bureaucracy regarding a few Rupees mistake on her electrical bill which the shakedown crooks threatened to shut her off for overpaying of all things. The crooks had her traveling across New Dehli to have her fill out a new piece of paperwork and then invalidating it when she took it to another office. I will type slow, they were looking for bribes, good liberals.

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  36. piltdownman December 7, 2015 at 12:50 pm #

    Jim –

    Agree completely about “Spotlight.” Honestly, I’m amazed that it even got made. There were no explosions. No shattering glass in slo mo. No comic book characters. What there was was an actual script! And scenes in which people talked to each other!

    And I had the same response after seeing it; what happens when this sort of reporting no longer exists? We are just about there now — and it seems quite hopeless…

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 3:58 pm #

      Surprised? Why? The Elite hate Catholicism, or at least the old pre-Vatican Two Church. The truly amazing thing would be a movie about Rabbis abusing kids. Think it doesn’t happen?

      Btw, Pope Francis has put known pedophiles into high positions. Not much has changed inwardly, in regards to this problem at least.

      • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 11:44 am #

        John Paul II loved pedophiles. That’s why they made him a saint. This all started big time with Cardinal Francis Spellman, or “Frannie,” as he was known. The epitome of the mean, gay priest.

  37. sooty December 7, 2015 at 12:51 pm #

    What’s with all the Manly Man stuff? We’re in trouble because men aren’t manly like Putin? I think we’ve had enough of that kind of manliness, thanks.

    • vengeur December 7, 2015 at 1:17 pm #

      Yes let’s dismiss Manly Men. They can’t be manly and intelligent at the same time, now can they?

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 4:00 pm #

      They must be persecuted, made into fags or women. Destroyed as men. Right Soot?

      • Pogo December 7, 2015 at 10:19 pm #

        Tonight on the “Decades” TV program, there was a short segment about the great basketball player Larry Bird and I am fairly sure there was a picture of him making a jump shot where his arm pit hair had been PhotoShoped out!

        We can’t take a chance on disturbing some small segment of population can we?

        No more Manly Men allowed in basketball.

        • pequiste December 8, 2015 at 1:02 pm #

          Except if they are the 90% of the NBA’s players: negro men.

          Then they can be so manly they will have their tats, armpit hair and uvulas showing when they shout with joy over a basket; when they get a big fat contract to pimp some consumer bullshit; or when they squire some fetching white woman around in a Bentley or wed them cause miscegenation is so very cool.

          (Psst -but you do know it is only agit-prop from the Masters of the Universe, right?)

          • Pogo December 8, 2015 at 7:04 pm #

            Good comments and I agree. Same with pro football.
            I had to look up “agit-prop” and here’s what Britannica.com says:

            “Agitprop, abbreviated from Russian agitatsiya propaganda (agitation propaganda), political strategy in which the techniques of agitation and propaganda are used to influence and mobilize public opinion. Although the strategy is common, both the label and an obsession with it were specific to the Marxism practiced by communists in the Soviet Union.”

    • shotho December 7, 2015 at 6:15 pm #

      I think he’s referring to men who actually lead followers to a better world. I suppose these leaders could be women, but that is not the historic norm.

      • Pogo December 7, 2015 at 10:40 pm #

        Yes, in the context of journalism, I think JHK’s essay might might be in reference to gruff old codgers in the newsrooms, shirtsleeves rolled up, cigar perpetually jutting from corner of the mouth and riding heard on all the reporters and editors.

        Someone that looks like Lou Grant comes to mind, but coarser and much more profane.

  38. FincaInTheMountains December 7, 2015 at 12:51 pm #

    “And, yes, I do have a scheme in mind for how we can communicate outside this CFN forum without totally blowing our anonymity.” — Q

    Would be interesting to find out how Mr. Q is planning to solve that non-trivial logical problem – even with a temporary, throw-away email account – it would still have to appear on this public site first and be prone to intercepting by unscrupulous third party.

    • Pogo December 7, 2015 at 10:27 pm #

      Yes, which just proves how deluded we are in thinking we are “connected” and informed with the internet, social networks, discussion forms and so on…but how we are more disconnected than ever.

      Whatever degree of social cohesiveness we once had is rapidly eroding.

  39. Being There December 7, 2015 at 12:58 pm #

    You might want to also bring up that there were many corporate takeovers of news media and that many who own newspapers were never in the business of journalism and thus are only interested in the promotion on an advertizing level of maintaining the illusion of journalism in favor of public relations and selling to the lowest common denominator.

    The other issue is the built-in corporatism that this bring about.
    We get the news from the point of view of corporate giants and the war machine that keeps the economy singing.
    Status quo is what it’s all about.

    We lost the Fourth Estate, which is why we’re here, Jim.

  40. MikefromNY December 7, 2015 at 1:32 pm #

    “Two things, at least, are necessary to break out of this hall of mirrors: men acting like honorable men, and hierarchies of leadership with the integrity to actually lead. For now, the USA is not interested in those things.”

    I agree with your analysis, but these solutions are a fantasy at best. The reasons you have outlined, “wishful thinking by a feminized political Left preoccupied with feelings over truth” and “reduced to overt cheer leading” and “making excuses for our grift-and rackets-based polity”, all of which are only in their middling stages and will advance as the Right’s forces try to assert their “Masculinity”.

    At the large left leaning papers, this issue has been settled and they will fight to the last to defend the causes they hold as sacred, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, minority rights, children’s rights, etc. All the rights that have made this country the laughing stock of even the most liberal western societies. Has led to extensive litigation, polarization among the races and religious groups and an inability to do anything with out that touchy feely don’t hurt anybodies feelings mentality. That includes our military and it’s policies. Trophies for everybody!, we’re all winners!, you can do it!

    This road to ruin is paved with the best of intentions, of course, so enjoy the ride.

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    • Pogo December 7, 2015 at 11:02 pm #

      Good points, Mike. A story on local news tonight left me feeling the direction we are being pushed by those obsessed with “micro aggression” is not a place we want to end up.

      The story was about the state capitol in St. Paul, where these beautiful paintings depicting the battles of the Minnesota soldiers in the Civil War were commissioned in late 1890’s (I believe). Minnesota sent 25,000 men to fight this war, more than any other state. It would be equivalent to 750,000 today. They fought in all the big battles, like Shiloh and Gettysburg. These paintings have been there…like forever, and have been seen by many generations of school kids.

      Now, it seems that some people are afraid the scenes depicted might be disturbing to the little school kiddies who troop through the state capitol building. So they are demanding that these famous old paintings be removed. Are these the same kids playing Halo and Grand Theft Auto? Go figure!

  41. wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 1:47 pm #

    I have listened with dismay at the long, slow decay of NPR. –piltmandown

    In my community we created a non-profit terrestrial broadcast community radio station that is NOT directly affiliated, owned, controlled by any radio network, school, company, or government.

    NPR is not your only option for radio that provides in-depth objective journalistic reporting. If you don’t have a community-owned radio station, organize and create one.

  42. Langrila December 7, 2015 at 1:49 pm #

    Who controls the script? The “propaganda machine” at the local TV level spotlighted in this disturbing clip from Conan O’Brien:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 5:24 pm #

      That was great…and disturbing, but perhaps not too surprising in light of today’s discussion.

      -Sticks

      • Pogo December 7, 2015 at 11:14 pm #

        Wow! I agree Sticks, that was disturbing. In fact, the last words in the clip from Conan are “scary…that’s disturbing”.

        What should we expect when a few corporations own and control the “infotainment”? Were all those TV stations part of the same corporation? It’s like a script was passed around.

        Is this the type of crap that Howard Beal (actually, Paddy Chayefsky) and Marshall McLuhan tried to warn us about?

  43. Zoltar December 7, 2015 at 1:55 pm #

    As far as we can tell, are there are female persons who participate in this forum, or is this a de facto men’s club?

    • Beryl of Oyl December 7, 2015 at 2:22 pm #

      I’m female.
      One of the things that concerns me most in our society today, is the way that Americans are divided and attacking each other on every level.
      I’d hardly say the NYT is “feminized” as they support the whole “Bruce Jenner is female” and “boys who feel like they are girls have a right to shower in the girls’ locker room” agenda, which to me is as anti-female as it gets. Lena Dunham is not a feminist.
      A friend of mine said, at the time we first started hearing of these Catholic Church scandals, “What did they think they were going to get?”
      Pat Buchanan just had a very interesting column, in which he ties the support for Donald Trump in with the state of the press today. He does a nice job of it. Some people will reject it out of hand because it comes from Pat Buchanan, and we are preoccupied with phony ‘sides’.

      • malthuss December 7, 2015 at 2:33 pm #

        Hello Beryl.
        There is a hierarchy.

        I guess women are not at top.
        Feel free to disagree.

        From top to lower;

        Muslims [esp ‘refugees’]
        Illegals
        Trannies
        Gays
        Blacks
        Non White Women

        down to what or who?

        • Beryl of Oyl December 7, 2015 at 3:29 pm #

          One of my relatives has a friend, a black man, who recently started raging about how tough he has it being a black man in America (although she really can’t see where he has it any worse than her white male friends), “Who do you think had the right to vote first, black men or white women?” I must admit I am the one who instigated the question. Guess what his answer was? I don’t really mean you should guess. You know the answer already, without even being there.

          • Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 6:03 pm #

            Hi Beryl,

            Thanks for outting yourself as female. It’s nice to know there’s more gender diversity here than it often seems…with perspective diverging from that expressed ad nauseam by wpa_ccc.

            Over the weekend I read the opinion piece by Pat Buchanan you referenced in your preceding post. It was excellent and relevant to today’s discussion. I invite CFN slaves (“shitizens”) who are interested, including those who normally recoil at the mere mention of Buchanan’s name, to read the article* at:

            https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/12/patrick-j-buchanan/hate-trump/

            Thank you for your servitude!

            Sticks-of-TNT

            *It begins;

            “In the feudal era there were the “three estates” — the clergy, the nobility and the commons. The first and second were eradicated in Robespierre’s Revolution. But in the 18th and 19th century, Edmund Burke and Thomas Carlyle identified what the latter called a “stupendous Fourth Estate.”

      • Zoltar December 7, 2015 at 2:48 pm #

        Thanks for your perspective, Beryl.

        • Zoltar December 7, 2015 at 7:13 pm #

          Ah, Pat – that’s the first time I’ve seen someone write respectfully about Spiro Agnew in about forty years.

          And that’s as much as you need to know.

          • Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 9:16 pm #

            Despite your snark directed at Buchanan, I did appreciate your lengthy post earlier today with your perspective on NPR. Quite enlightening. Thanks! -Sticks

      • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 4:17 pm #

        What is Feminism? A Marxism. And to answer Sartre’s question, Is Marxism a Humanism? No. So since Feminism is a Marxism, it isn’t a Humanism either. Thus that helps to answer why they say nothing as Muslims conduct the mass rape of women in Europe.

        What doesn’t Environmentalists speak out against the horrendous effects of mass 3rd World immigration? Because they are now Marxists and not really Environmentalists anymore. Of course they may still think they are and still be concerned. But when the agendas clash, they will go with the Leftist agenda.

        I’d agree Lena Dunham is nothing good. But she may well be a real Feminist in terms of what Feminism has become. You’re the one on the outside, not her. And that’s a good thing.

      • MikefromNY December 9, 2015 at 12:14 pm #

        Beryl, It’s one opinion.

        http://buchanan.org/blog/why-liberal-media-hate-trump-124373

      • Frankiti December 9, 2015 at 10:29 pm #

        It’s emasculation not feminization.

    • nsa December 7, 2015 at 2:29 pm #

      WPAsoka, a hectoring chick with a dick, is what passes for female at CFN……

    • shotho December 7, 2015 at 6:17 pm #

      Why would the editors of this blog restrict comments to only men?

  44. daytrip December 7, 2015 at 2:22 pm #

    What about Bill Moyers, didn’t he piss off enough people to get fired for awhile?

    • Beryl of Oyl December 7, 2015 at 3:33 pm #

      Did he? He must have said something not corporate approved.
      Remember when Andy Rooney got suspended from 60 Minutes for allegedly saying something which couldn’t be proved, and which he DENIED saying? He got suspended for someone saying he said something ‘bad’, not for saying it.

      • daytrip December 7, 2015 at 4:05 pm #

        I thought his PBS program got cancelled for awhile due to some controversy, but I don’t remember the details. After a quick google search, I found a couple quotes from Moyers:

        Meanwhile, the public has failed to react because it is, in his words, “distracted by the media circus and news has been neutered or politicized for partisan purposes.” In support of this, he referred to “the paradox of Rush Limbaugh, ensconced in a Palm Beach mansion massaging the resentments across the country of white-knuckled wage earners, who are barely making ends meet in no small part because of the corporate and ideological forces for whom Rush has been a hero. … As Eric Alterman reports in his recent book—a book that I’m proud to have helped make happen—part of the red-meat strategy is to attack mainstream media relentlessly, knowing that if the press is effectively intimidated, either by the accusation of liberal bias or by a reporter’s own mistaken belief in the charge’s validity, the institutions that conservatives revere—corporate America, the military, organized religion, and their own ideological bastions of influence—will be able to escape scrutiny and increase their influence over American public life with relatively no challenge.”[52] Wikipedia

        There’s another article on billmoyers.com that mentions Phil Donohue getting fired and Mr. Moyers getting much pressure:

        http://billmoyers.com/2013/03/25/the-day-that-tv-news-died/

        Anyway, I just wanted to mention Bill Moyers as a great journalist who did some in-depth reporting with PBS, back in the day.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 6:22 pm #

        Don’t forget Lara Logan who told too much truth about Benghazi and got suspended for six months or so.

        • daytrip December 7, 2015 at 7:21 pm #

          I did a little (ok, wikipedia) research on Ms. Logan, impressive. Another intense female journalist worth mentioning would be Amy Goodman. I met Amy at a local radio station in the Colorado mountains. She had a book out called “Breaking the Sound Barrier” which she was signing during a quick tour of locally-run radio stations. She told a story about getting beaten while in East Timor. I’m not a big “Democracy Now” watcher, or any television for that matter, but it seems to be pretty non-mainstream.

          • Pogo December 7, 2015 at 11:22 pm #

            You might also mention the late, great Molly Ivins from Texas. She warned us about “W” before 2001.

          • Sticks-of-TNT December 8, 2015 at 1:57 am #

            “shrub”

          • Pogo December 8, 2015 at 7:09 pm #

            Thanks for the reminder ~Sticks
            I had forgotten that Molly may have been the first to use that moniker.

  45. Buck Stud December 7, 2015 at 2:46 pm #

    Speaking of Noam mentioned above: You want investigative reporting? Try this on for size:

    http://mileswmathis.com/chom.pdf

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  46. FincaInTheMountains December 7, 2015 at 3:03 pm #

    When you were buying that special IPO of “CatsAndPets.com” for $20 a share to sell it at the close for $70, did you ever wonder where that $50 came from?

    Did you need some ass-wise investigative journalist to tell you that quite possibly that $50 was stolen through complex financial shenanigans from African, Haitian or Russian kids and spoil that fabulous celebration of the “American Dream”?

    • Beryl of Oyl December 7, 2015 at 3:35 pm #

      How did that smirking punk who likes to threaten to raise prices of life-saving medicines out of the reach of anyone’s ability to pay, come into possession of a pharmaceutical giant? He doesn’t appear to be someone able to earn a living at anything real, does he?

      • FincaInTheMountains December 7, 2015 at 4:09 pm #

        I don’t really know – most likely a figurehead working for some “real money” and hired for excellent job qualifications – total lack of consciousnesses and shrewdness.

        • Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 9:28 pm #

          total lack of “conscience”, maybe? -Sticks

  47. alphie December 7, 2015 at 3:57 pm #

    “….the vaunted wondrous Internet will be little more than a grapevine and a rumor mill.”
    I’m not sure I agree with your prognosis Jim since the idea of not having sites like yours to provoke thought and discussion (along with much dissing and cussing) would, I believe, make us more vulnerable. I’m reading a book by Neil Postman entitled “Amusing Ourselves To Death” which I learned of from someone on this very site. Could it be that ‘news organizations ‘(I use the term loosely) are just giving people only what their harried lives can handle? So which came first the chicken or the egg?

    • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 11:22 am #

      The internet as the last bastion of truth. Imagine that?

      • alphie December 8, 2015 at 5:11 pm #

        I don’t know if I’d go that far but as a means of communication it has no rival.

  48. Sean Coleman December 7, 2015 at 4:55 pm #

    I agree with JHK’s analysis as regards the social media and the undermining of authority but I am not at all so sure about the contribution made by the traditional press. As for the social media, I joined Facebook in August, just in time to see at first hand the hysteria generated by the picture of the drowned Syrian toddler. I’m reading Le Bon’s classic (1895) The Psychology of Crowds and a lot of what is happening now is described in it so just because the knowledge is there doesn’t mean that anyone notices it.

    I am a Catholic myself, but even if I wasn’t I still would be very sceptical about this film. It should be put in the context of the witch hunts of the past few decades. Usually there is an undeniable core of truth to them, a very small core indeed generally. Here’s a reasonable article from the sceptical on-line journal, Spiked:

    http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/9548#.VmX53zYnznM

    They are a left-wing crowd by their own admission but they do have the saving grace (and it’s a big one) of defending free speech and questioning the more sensational parts of received opinion. For example, I have read one or two good articles there about the need to discuss the immigration issue honestly (it has in fact never, ever, ever been seriously discussed to my knowledge) although the authors would favour open borders themselves (an idiotic view in my opinion).

    I want to link later (maybe tomorrow) to an excellent two-part essay by the late Richard Webster (Sceptical Essays) which he wrote in response to Guardian journalist Nick Davies’s best seller ‘Flat Earth News’, which purported to shine a light on (or as Mary Riddell wrote in the Guardian ‘turns the spotlight on’) ‘falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media’ (from the book’s own blurb).

    In this essay Webster traces the rise in the 19th C of investigative, sensationalist and moralizing journalism (centring on the figure of WJ Stead and the crusading role of the Guardian itself).

    ;As we read Flat Earth News, we are reassured endlessly (with a kind of mechanical prayerfulness), that the main function of journalists is to establish the truth.,, Only because these statements appear in a book from which all history and all culture have been eliminated is it possible for Davies to make them without their shallowness and their absurdity being immediately apparent.’

    • Sean Coleman December 7, 2015 at 5:07 pm #

      Here’s a more interesting article than Spiked’s from a one-man Catholic writer in Ireland:

      http://irishsalem.com/international-controversies/usa/index.php

      I haven’t thought much about the abuse scandals in the Church as it isn’t the kind of thing you would naturally want to think about. Leaving aside the witch hunt aspect (a very big part of the overall package) one wonders what happened. The trite reply is that it was always abusive, just that they could keep it quiet without anyone ‘shining a spotlight on it’ in a remote, barbaric past. I think this writer may have ‘shone his own spotlight’ on it by suggesting that the liberalizing movements of the 60s and 70s played a big role. Some may remember the brief-ish period back in the 80s or whenever where elements of the Left took up the ‘liberating’ cause of paedophilia. In England there was an organization openly campaigning to legalize it, called the Paedophile Exchange. Nobody wants to remember this nowadays of course.

      This is hard for extraverts to accept because it challenges conventional wisdom. This is the huge psychological dimension that nobody is aware of. Today the extravert is drawn towards the simple human story, the cliché and stark black and white moralizing. What will he be drawn towards in the future, and will he even remember how he got there?

      • Sean Coleman December 7, 2015 at 5:12 pm #

        It will presumably be simple, clichéd and moralizing, but we won’t know about *what* until we arrive. Remember, they are now bombing what is purportedly the opposite side in Syria to the one they wanted to bomb in September 2013 although it isn’t clear if many have noticed.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 5:42 pm #

      Well that’s very strange as the Church abuse of the young was monumental in Ireland – in the schools, parishes, and orphan schools. It lead to the end of faith of millions and the end of Ireland as a Catholic country.

      The doubts about you continue to grow.

      • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 6:46 pm #

        Best thing to happen to those drunken louts since Cesar said “it ain’t f*cking worth it”.

        When the latinized britons finally did come to Ireland, it was after the empire was toppled by a virulent middle eastern religion… and the infection spread.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 12:39 am #

          Are all Middle Eastern religions “virulent”? Or just Christianity and Islam?

          Is Coleman a Jewish name? Old Sean is saying some strange things for an Irishman.

          • Sean Coleman December 8, 2015 at 7:54 am #

            Janos, why do you think the church abuse in Ireland was monumental? There was some and nobody argues about that, but you have to put it in the context of modern witch hunts, which Richard Webster wrote about but few seem to have understood. I suspect that most of that ‘some’ can be attributed to the liberalization of the Church in the 60s and 70s and (although this is guesswork on my part) gay elements within the priesthood.

            I very much doubt that it was a big issue in the past as people probably had more pressing concerns, such as saving their souls or keeping said souls together with the body, than indulge in this.

            I do know that there have been some ‘monumental’ outbreaks of hysteria in Ireland in recent times. Here are three examples.

            1 The Nora Wall case. She was a Catholic nun convicted of abuse. For once, Wiki tells the story well (or it did the last time I read her link some months ago):

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

            2 There were lurid reports of mass graves of babies in Co. Galway in the grounds of a Church run institution for unmarried mothers. The usual figure given is 800 but this is really a guess. You can look it up online but this story has made a mountain out of a molehill.

            3 A Mission To Prey. This documentary was made a few years ago by RTE, the Irish state broadcaster. It accused a Catholic priest, Fr Kevin Reynolds, of raping a teenage girl in Africa and fathering her child when he was a missionary. He offered to do a paternity test but the moralizers who made the programme knew he was guilty (you see, they are enlightened and sophisticated) and broadcast it anyway. The journalist said that she was sickened by the thought of Fr Reynolds moralizing from the pulpit in his Galway parish. Of course it was all a load of rubbish based on fantasy (the evidence) and gullibility (RTE).

            That’s just three cases that spring to mind.

            As I keep saying, it’s a psychological thing. Extraverts are the ones who get caught up in it and extraverts form the big majority of those who blog. They have difficulty in understanding that sometimes what ‘everyone knows’ isn’t in fact true.

            Coleman is either an English name or comes from the Irish, which isn’t telling you much, but it’s not Jewish. However, my first cousin in America has got deeply involved in religion and is interested in the Jewish faith and such like. She got a DNA test done 15 years ago and told my mother about it. The letter began: ‘Dear Margaret, It’s true. The Irish really are the lost tribe of Israel.’

          • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 2:45 pm #

            So mass movement are always bad or mistaken? Your introvert superiority complex is showing. The Great Awakening help lead to the American Revolution. George Whitfield, a diminutive man, could project his voice for half a mile. Ben Franklin measured and was amazed. A skeptic, he ended up befriending Whitfield and even contributing. How can you not love a man who went to remote mines and preached to those abandoned by everyone?

            The Germans rose up and threw out the occupying forces and the International Bankers. Something the West no longer has the wisdom or vitality to do. Of course you don’t like that – because other people don’t. Are you really as independently minded as you believe?

            The Church crisis in Ireland was massive. You didn’t pay any attention because you rejected the Church early on and only associate with fellow travelers who did the same. You don’t know because you don’t care. People like you rule the West and they haven’t the remotest interest in the needs or desires of the people.

          • Frankiti December 8, 2015 at 8:52 pm #

            They’re all idiotic, certainly. I’m not sure if a religion that’s not searching for members and is not advocating for the death or reeducation of the ‘non-chosen’ is virulent. Again, they’re nuts all the same, but they’re fine with the small club.

          • Frankiti December 8, 2015 at 9:03 pm #

            Janos is the type of guy who if a DNA test proposed that he was .5% Jewish, he’d be in the West Bank building settlements raising 7 kids with a portrait of Golda over the hearth. He wants it so bad…

          • Sean Coleman December 9, 2015 at 11:34 am #

            Janos

            You are not making full sense here. I don’t agree with a lot of what you write but it is usually logical and consistent.

            Introvert superiority: this is an interesting and astute observation one. On the one hand, extraverts (and I assume, as I always have, that you are one, largely because most bloggers are) simply have great difficulty distancing themselves from ‘what everyone knows’. This is just my opinion, but it’s valid in so far as no-one else seems to have one about this. On the other hand extraverts are so much much better at so many things, and as I said early on here, it will be extraverts who will turn this around if anyone will, as they are the ones who usually *do* everything.

            Mass movements always being mistaken. Gustave Le Bon (Psychology of Crowds 1895) said that they are always inferiro to individuals. A superior individual loses his advantage in a crowd (or a mass of scattered yet connected people). Yet he also pointed out that sometimes crowds are capable of heroism and other virtues that would be beyond the capability of the individuals in them.

            You rejected the Church early on. No, I didn’t. I always stuck with what I was brought up with. The modern church is interesting from my psych. theory point of view in that there is an extraverted-dominant wing (or perhaps consisting solely of extraverts) who consider themselves liberals. They won’t be happy until the Church steps into line with everyone else’s beliefs. It is extraordinary that nobody has noticed this. Fr Roltheiser, an excellent syndicated columnist in the Catholic press (though I haven’t read him in a good while now, and I know he was seriously ill) often alludes to the split between the liberals and the traditionalists.

            Janos, I don’t try to belittle extraverts. They feel the pain moreo than my kind do. We have the luxury of being able to step back and distance ourselves from events. Someone has to do it.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 7:21 pm #

            I am an INTP – the rarest of the human types. My friend think I traded my P for a J though. Probably. I had little interest in politics until well into my 30’s.

        • Sean Coleman December 8, 2015 at 8:01 am #

          Frankiti, have you been reading Wikipedia again without being accompanied by a responsible adult?

          • Frankiti December 8, 2015 at 8:59 pm #

            Sean, have you been drinking from granny’s “water glass” again?

            Your county priest fondled your pecker. Stop making excuses, and get over it.

          • Sean Coleman December 9, 2015 at 11:42 am #

            I went to a Catholic grammar school in England, on the outskirts of London; that means a selected school as selection on the basis of academic talent was allowed in those days. It was run by the Marist order and there were a number of priests there. I have to say that I never heard of any of the ‘abuse’ that it is so fashionable to talk about nowadays.

            By the way, although I have lived in Ireland for 28 years I still keep my Sarf Lahndan accent.

            The evidence I have looked at shows that most of this stuff is mass delusion. I have made a coherent case and supplied a few links which you would rather not read. So what’s *your* excuse?

      • Sean Coleman December 8, 2015 at 8:00 am #

        ‘It led to the end of faith of millions.’

        Of course not. It was an excuse for not having to get up with a hangover on Sunday mornings. It was also an excuse for indulging in witless moralizing at the expense of much that was good and selfless and of the facts of history. Clearly, many or most people accept the dismal claims of scientific materialism because of the clever people on the telly. They also manage to convince themselves that this is evidence of intelligence and (gales of laughter) and open and independent mind.

    • ozone December 7, 2015 at 6:34 pm #

      Erm, Sean,
      So, what are you impugning here? That it’s the fault of some ass-lovin’ pederast leftist swine that wanted to make legal what a gaggle of priesthood pederast swine were happily (and without the least constraint) engaging in, under the thick cloak of the Church’s moral rectitude? …Careful, don’t get any on ya.

      If so, you go too far in defending your chosen institution of superstitious rot and Death-cult nonsense. (As with all ‘investments’, know when to GTFO and call it “a lesson learned”.)

      Please correct/explain if I’ve misconstrued your ‘argument’.

      • Sean Coleman December 8, 2015 at 7:31 am #

        Ozone

        Who am I impugning, or what am I implying?

        I’ll take the first one first and the second one second. I am impugning those who follow conventional wisdom in the matter of paedophile witch hunts. I don’t deny that there was child abuse in the Catholic Church but it certainly wasn’t on anything like the scale assumed. The Spiked article I linked to makes this point well, if a little dully.

        What am I implying? Nothing. I am saying out straight that this belief is a delusion, just as much as the one about man-made global warming. I’d go easy on the splutter and rhetoric for a bit till you understand my case as there’ll be less for you to mop up after. Trust me, I (think) I know what I’m talking about.

        • ozone December 8, 2015 at 9:11 am #

          SC,
          (Yes, that would be who/whom; I can never get those straight.)

          Well, we can see which road your beliefs are merrily leading you down, with a whistle and a jaunty stride, but I’m very curious as to your defense of the Wholly Roman Order. Actually, I’m curious as to whether you’re defending the Church, or vilifying the Church’s accusers with this dismissive relativity. Kind of, “Oh there’s really not *too* much child abuse by priestly pederasts, so it’s not a big deal.” …That’s the impression I’m getting anyway. Further enlighten as to your beliefs and what you “know”. (Forgive me Father, for I am deluded; I have questioned the status quo and the priestly privilege of buggering children without fear of punishment.)

          • Sean Coleman December 8, 2015 at 12:36 pm #

            Ozone

            “Oh there’s really not *too* much child abuse by priestly pederasts, so it’s not a big deal.”

            Well, actually this is what I am saying. I imagine you didn’t read the Spiked link. Spiked is a left-wing organization from what I can see. Their editor, Brendan O’Neill, says that the confident reports of thousands of abuse cases are completely misleading. The number of serious accusations is small. I would add that a proportion of all such accusations are motivated by mendacity and fantasy. What proportion? What’s your own guess? I have known a few people who lie so freely that they don’t know what day of the week it is.

            By the way, doesn’t pederastry involve under age teenagers rather than small children? You might remember the recent accusation made against Prince Andrew that he had indulged in child abuse, the ‘child’ being 17 years old at the time, which made her a minor in whatever state she was in. The only small problem with the charge apart from that is that there was no evidence and the complainant had serious issues with the concept of truth.

            It is related to man-made global warming, although in the case of the Church there is a small core of truth whereas with AGW the delusion appears to be total.

          • Sean Coleman December 8, 2015 at 12:38 pm #

            My reference to AGW is that the delusion is of the same kind, basically people believing things which aren’t true.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 2:49 pm #

            In terms of loss of faith, the complicity of the Bishops was worse than the abuse itself. Only a small minority of priests actually abused, but the complicity and cover up was and is massive, reaching to the highest levels.

            You redeem yourself by your dismissal of the Global Warming Cult.

          • sauerkraut December 8, 2015 at 7:39 pm #

            So, Sean, you are still denying global warming. Please do tell us, when you have time, what is wrong with it.

            Specifically.

          • Sean Coleman December 9, 2015 at 11:58 am #

            Janos

            As I said, I haven’t looked into the clerical abuse in detail, and I doubt anyone else here has either. There is no doubt there was some and I am inclined not believe the confident claims of the ill-educated that ‘it was always there’. So, there must have been something in the air in the 60s, 70s and 80s where priests gave into temptation. This was before easy access to on-line pornography but my own memories of growing up in the 60s and 70s were of a great increase in sexual permissiveness. (In the England of the 50s, across all or most classes (except I suppose the very top and bottom layers) there was very little allowed if you weren’t married.)

            I imagine that there was a strong connection here with loss of faith in general. Was it the Bishop of York or Durham who, back as far as the 80s or 90s (nothing would surprise me nowadays), amazed me by saying that he didn’t believe in the Resurrection? Well, if there is no absolute truth or belief then everything is relative and anything goes, or potentially goes. Hence the Paedophile Exchange I referred to earlier, just to take one example.

            As for the Church’s cover up it doesn’t seem that strange or sinister. All organizations cover up. People make excuses for one another all the time, provided it’s for one of their own. Older bishops probably couldn’t believe it was happening or thought it was exaggerated. (Certainly many people of my parents’ generation found it difficult to take in.) They probably didn’t understand it and thought that by moving a wayward priest to another parish he’d get out of it.

            I wouldn’t feel safe in many hospitals in England or Ireland. I would hate to be a child in state care. I wouldn’t feel at ease, or even physically safe, in many modern, progressive and caring state schools. I would expect any organization, including medical, police, armed forces, professional (you name it) to be strongly inclined to cover up for individual misconduct in their ranks.

            Here’s another thought: what about the arguments that those who abuse children were often or usually abused themselves as children? Where’s the compassion there when the outrage is being pumped out?

          • Sean Coleman December 9, 2015 at 12:07 pm #

            Now, here’s someone on Wiki setting the record straight about the (Anglican) Bishop of Durham, who apparently really said that he didn’t deny the reality of the Resurrection.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Jenkins_(bishop)

            See how easy inaccurate reports circulate.

            However, to support my earlier comment, I did read of the Irish Redemptorist priest (I have a cutting from the Irish Catholic from about 3 years ago) who went further than this and claimed that Jesus never existed historically. This shows the strength of intellectual conformity: it even in some cases overrides the hard evidence (Josephus etc). He wrote a book about it, which I really should read from a psychological point of view. I have read, though, John Cornwell’s Breaking Faith which you could call an extravert’s bible: isn’t it terrible how the Church makes good people feel guilty and outrageous how it marginalizes women, homosexuals, etc.

          • Sean Coleman December 9, 2015 at 12:31 pm #

            Sauerkraut

            Thanks for calling me an AGW denier. That’s the first time I’ve been given the award.

            The broad reason (which you haven’t asked for) is simply that it fits into what some might call the psychological profile of similar episodes of mass hysteria, another of which I have just been discussing. Yet another, refugees/ mass immigration, passed by briefly at the start of September and did a huge deal of damage before passing on (for the time being).

            The narrow, specific, reason is what I have read about the IPCC. There have been many reports (which I have read about mainly, if not exclusively, in Christopher Booker’s book and Donna Laframboise’s blog) of its systematic rigging of its evidence to fit its political agenda. I gave you a couple of specific bits of evidence a few weeks ago. In Booker’s book I have jsut got to 2007 or 8 and the announcement by 400 respectable scientists that they didn’t believe in it either (sorry, that they were *denying* it). The infamous hockey stick graph of global warming is a very good example: two or three likely sources of data were used while the others (like the fish that John West rejects) were ignored, just like the Medieval Warm period was also ignored.

            I am grateful to AGW for making me revisit Al Gore, who had always puzzled me in that he is widely regarded (including by himself apparently) as an introvert yet acts like an extravert. That was a sweet moment. I am worried by it in that EU, and Britain in particular, are wrecking their energy policies on the strength of it. Britain is closing down its remaining efficient coal power stations while the more realistic (perhaps they are less susceptible to western hysteria?) Chinese and Indians ignore AGW – China is building coal power stations at a very fast rate.

            While I’m here I just read a 2009 blog post from Laframboise:

            ‘Bill McKibben: Extravagant Emotional Excess

            ‘A few weeks ago I read Bill McKibben’s 1989 book, The End of Nature. It’s considered the first mainstream book on global warming and is, one presumes, part of the reason McKibben is a revered environmental guru.

            ‘… What surprised me , as a newcomer to McKibben’s work, is how utterly *emotional* his arguments are…’

            Now that doesn’t surprise *me*.

          • sauerkraut December 9, 2015 at 4:30 pm #

            Sean, you talk about psychology. AWG is not a matter of psychology. This is a matter of reality.

            It does not matter who tells you a truth, so long as he gives you the opportunity to check it. That is what the publication process is all about: so that you can check the work. So, check the work, and see if it is wrong. Go ahead.

            Since the thread is structured in such a way that it appears that I am responding to Ozone, let’s do this down thread where it is unambiguous that we are the two who disagree.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 7:25 pm #

            Well the whole point is that the Church isn’t supposed to be just another organization, but rather divinely guided and full of moral men in authority. How could a devout Catholic like you miss that? You must be a Vatican Two Catholic lite kind of guy. Or as the Trads say, a Novus Ordo Kathy.

  49. snarkmatic9000 December 7, 2015 at 5:28 pm #

    The Catholic church has much to answer for, far beyond their recent intentional ignorance of priestly ravaging of the innocent young, just the latest revelation in a long line of abuses of power and corruption going back at least 1700 years, and just one of countless examples of the folly of organized religion, an affliction too long infecting mankind and “civilization”, a misnomer if ever there was one.

    • Sean Coleman December 8, 2015 at 8:12 am #

      J’acccuse!

      Speaking of ‘intentional ignorance’ are you writing as an evangelical atheist

      http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/03/what-scares-the-new-atheists

      or are you a biblical fundamentalist?

      I bet you consider yourself educated and intelligent, though, free of prejudice and with an open, enquiring mind!

      ‘the innocent young’

      Out of interest how would you define this in this day and age?

      • malthuss December 9, 2015 at 11:28 pm #

        Bill McKibben: is an idiot.

        here,
        progressivesforimmigrationreform.org/an-open-letter-to-bill-mckibben/

        LA Times: Illegal Immigration Can Reduce Global Warming …
        The Los Angeles Times ran a Thursday editorial by Middlebury College Professor Bill McKibben arguing … will reduce global warming. … immigration reform, allowing …
        [Search domain http://www.breitbart.com] breitbart.com/big-journalism/2013/03/14/lat-increased-i…

  50. wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 5:36 pm #

    “….the vaunted wondrous Internet will be little more than a grapevine and a rumor mill.” –alphie

    The TPP will affect the internet and will create new threats for journalists and whistleblowers:

    “Dangerously vague text on the misuse of trade secrets, which could be used to enact harsh criminal punishments against anyone who reveals or even accesses information through a “computer system” that is allegedly confidential.”

    Adopt criminal sanctions for copyright infringement that is done without commercial motivation. Users could be jailed or hit with debilitating fines over file sharing, and may have their property or domains seized or destroyed even without a formal complaint from the copyright holder.”

    Good-bye “fair use” … sure was good to know ya. ™ Tim McGraw, “Mexicoma”

    https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

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    • Sean Coleman December 8, 2015 at 8:12 am #

      Working down the page here.

      Hi!

    • alphie December 8, 2015 at 9:04 pm #

      yeah wpa the quote you ascribed to me was from JHK’s above piece

  51. Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 5:43 pm #

    Trump call for the end of all Muslim immigration. At last a Man stands up in pubic and speaks the Truth.

    http://www.dailystormer.com/glorious-leader-calls-for-complete-ban-on-all-moslems/

  52. fodase December 7, 2015 at 5:46 pm #

    epublican presidential candidate Donald Trump called Monday for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
    The proposed ban would stand “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” his campaign said in a statement.
    The statement added that Trump’s proposal comes in response to the level of hatred among “large segments of the Muslim population” toward Americans.

    such refreshing honesty

    so simple and understandable

    only a liberal couldn’t grasp this

    it’s what everyone who’s law abiding knows in their heart

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 6:08 pm #

      Compare this to “Tom” Brokaw and “Charlie” (don’t you love this intimacy! It reminds of the Old Boston Herald referring to Hinckley as Hink) Rose, both fanatical Obama supporters, admitting they knew nothing about Obama. Did that dampen their faith? By no means!

      These two old queens are just cheerleaders with tattered and ratty pom poms, too old to jump they just dish instead – no doubt feeling thrills up their leg all the while.

  53. Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 6:14 pm #

    What is with this country and the idea because a “movie” was made about something it brings import?

    This is precisely the problem! We can’t digest or bother to read the news story, most likely because news has lost all objectivity and/or people are too beaten down to care. “What’s that another phony institution that demands legitimacy is involved in an unsavory scandal?”

    Documentary films only appeal to a small percentage of people.

    So we have fictionalized hollywood versions that dramatize the news story. People can only digest the medicine, the reality, with sugar-coated film.

    The stupidity of this vehicle for “news” escapes attention.

    Can’y wait for the film version of Benghazi, San Berdoo massacre, the debt implosion. When it’s fictionalized we’ll believe it!!! Always after the fact.

    Nation of dummies.

    • daytrip December 7, 2015 at 7:28 pm #

      http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/08/rise-documentary-film

      …a new breed of theatrically-minded, more commercially viable documentaries that are contributing to the genre’s increasing success. Recent British Film Institute data show that the number of documentaries released in British cinemas has grown steadily every year over the last decade, from a measly four in 2001 to 86 last year. Documentaries now also account for about 16% of the Cannes film market according to its director, Jerome Paillard, compared with 8% five years ago. Netflix, an online streaming service that also makes television series, recently announced that it will soon be producing documentaries for the next wave of its original content drive.

      http://www.janson.com/focus/documentary-films-rising-in-popularity/

      While the blockbuster feature films with huge budgets get lots of attention, the demand for factual content and documentaries are growing rapidly. Part of this burst in popularity is due to the Internet and the increasing number of platforms that stream documentaries. In 2013, documentaries account for 16% of the films being marketed at Cannes, while only 5 years ago that percentage was half, at 8%. Another driving factor in the increase is the advancement in technology of editing software and camcorders. Documentary films can be made with very small budgets with many being crowd funded and crowd sourced.

      • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 7:44 pm #

        That is reassuring, but is it flocking to this media by those unable to get investigative news from print (my suspicion) or is incredulity with mainstream corporate media now in fashion (my doubt)?

        Now, if we can only put an end to the endless stream of comic book movies

  54. wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 6:18 pm #

    Trump’s proposal comes in response to the level of hatred among “large segments of the Muslim population” toward Americans.

    “large segments of the Muslim population” Janos? I don’t think so, given there are 1.6 Billion Muslims and millions of Muslim-Americans. But I guess it depends on how you define “large” Do you have any evidence?

    Regardless, the barbarians have been the westerners, not the Muslims. In 2009, Stephen M. Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard, wrote in Foreign Policy:

    “How many Muslims has the United States killed in the past thirty years, and how many Americans have been killed by Muslims? Coming up with a precise answer to this question is probably impossible, but it is also not necessary, because the rough numbers are so clearly lopsided.”

    Do The Math: Global War On Terror Has Killed 4 Million Muslims Or More

    I don’t think a “large segment” of Muslims hate us. But I understand the reasons for those few who do feel some level of resentment. We are imperialistic occupiers.

    “Nasser, Saddam and Gaddafi – dictators as they certainly were – were engaged in efforts to create a modern, progressive and self-sufficient society and to uplift their peoples. However unsavory they were politically, they did bring education, better health and security. We didn’t like them. We tried to kill Nasser and did kill Saddam and Gaddafi.” –William R. Polk

    We should open our borders to Muslims, especially to refugees. We should embrace Muslim-Americans, many of whom are serving in our armed forces. Antipathy toward Muslims and discrimination against Muslims is playing right into the hands of Daesh.

    http://www.mintpressnews.com/do-the-math-global-war-on-terror-has-killed-4-million-muslims-or-more/

    • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 6:42 pm #

      We should embrace the reality that all religion, particularly the middle eastern strains are batsh*t crazy.

      Humanity needs to have an honest talk with the dummies that still believe in the tooth fairy and who are hellbent on ruining this world.

      • wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 7:32 pm #

        Secular materialist scientists made it possible to destroy the entire world with nukes, not the religious.

        • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 7:46 pm #

          Of course dummy, religion gives them the will and not the way, never the way…

        • sauerkraut December 9, 2015 at 12:42 am #

          Not just the secular materialist scientists. Compton was one of the major leaders of that project, and he was as religious as a Chautauqua tent.

          When the secular materialist scientists got uppity and wanted to have some influence with bomb policy, Compton read from the Bible to call them back to their duty. In 1942.

    • alphie December 9, 2015 at 6:35 pm #

      Thanks, excellent article

  55. saharasergei December 7, 2015 at 6:18 pm #

    How Hillary would rein in Wall Street – she’d essentially say, “Cut it out!” :-p

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  56. Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 6:19 pm #

    http://www.yatedo.com/s/Smoki+Bacon

    How does one get a name like Smoki Bacon? And why? What’s your favorite weird upper class Protestant name?

    My favorite is Stringfellow Barr, associated with great books movement. At least he tried did something positive by trying to get America to stay Western.

  57. BeerBarrel December 7, 2015 at 6:54 pm #

    I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. Great reporting by well educated writers. True, it’s a right-wing propaganda rag but its not a liberal spin with local politicization which is much worse. It’s a new day when Karl Rove, or Dick Cheney write an opinion.

    Iraq was a quagmire of sorts, but it’s the liberals including Obama is who gave the soldier’s hard won collateral away to a bunch of desert clowns.

    We had it in our hands, our 51st State, and gave it away. Stupid of Obama to give up a strategic vantage point just a cruise-missile’s throw from Tehran!

    Clearly Obama never played RISK! when he was young. He is, indeed, as Rumsfeld said it, a FECKLESS President.

    • S M Tenneshaw December 7, 2015 at 8:45 pm #

      That’s what Moochelle called him too. no wonder she’s always in such a bad mood.

  58. Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 7:09 pm #

    “Two things, at least, are necessary to break out of this hall of mirrors: men acting like honorable men, and hierarchies of leadership with the integrity to actually lead. For now, the USA is not interested in those things.”

    There’s talk of bringing back the Victorians… well, their dress, ornamentation, and drinking habits… we are a nation that appreciates the veneer more than anything. Skin-deep change in a president and a round of gin-slings for everyone.

  59. rapier December 7, 2015 at 7:18 pm #

    I know it must be difficult to get a rant going every week but it’s pretty lame when stale rhetoric like “the leading dispenser of wishful thinking by a feminized political Left preoccupied with feelings over truth.” gets thrown in.

    What passes for Left in the US is better called LIberal. the very Liberal defined by the right which surely has been reduced to an obsession with gender issues, then other very specific issues appealing to particular interest groups and then maybe fiddling with the tax code. The former isn’t “feminized” in any way that’s relevant historically, and the latter are as out of date as the dial phone.

    The increasing school marm/old conservative Yankee sentiments in JHK’s work that belittles the little at the expanse of the big issues is rapidly diminishing his message.

    • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 7:28 pm #

      You are absolutely correct. The left is not feminized. The left is emasculated, and these days, they prefer it that way.

      • wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 8:35 pm #

        Men have not made a humane world. It’s time to give control to women.

        The men (Germans, Russians, Brits, Americans, etc.) of the “greatest generation” really messed things up during WW2. Years of war, millions dead, and at the end millions remained under Stalin’s oppressive communism. Complete failure… leading to Cold War.

        Time for women to take over. Giving women full access to all combat positions in all branches of the armed forces is a start. Requiring that more than half the congress be women representatives. Hell, we may even have a woman elected president next year. It is time for 200 years of rule by women (40 or so women presidencies).

        • alphie December 7, 2015 at 9:20 pm #

          I don’t know, some years ago Hillary was quoted as saying that with the polar ice caps melting we will have greater access to the oil there. Say what?? What happened to climate change? And women have become as aggressive as men behind the wheel. Power corrupts…(any gender)

      • S M Tenneshaw December 7, 2015 at 8:54 pm #

        The left is fake. It’s role is to replace real issues like globalism and corporatism with LGBT and transgender silliness.

        C’mon everybody, do The Social Issue Shuffle!

        • sauerkraut December 9, 2015 at 12:47 am #

          Yep. Not like the right, who can’t be controlled with fake issues like abortion and gun control. That would never work.

  60. Phutatorius December 7, 2015 at 7:45 pm #

    Well, except for the word “feminized,” which evokes Julius Evola, I agree.
    -Phut

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  61. Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 7:57 pm #

    I’m writing in response to “daytrip’s” earlier post at 2:22 pm and his longer 4:05 pm sub-post, extolling Bill Moyers as a paragon of virtue for PBS, concluding with, “Anyway, I just wanted to mention Bill Moyers as a great journalist who did some in-depth reporting with PBS, back in the day.”

    Even further “back in the day”,choirboy Billy Don “Bill” Moyers (who served as an ordained Baptist pastor and in 1959 completed a Master of Divinity degree at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas) was the protégé of the previously-referenced “odious political toad” Lyndon Johnson, working tirelessly behind the scenes, helping carry-out Johnson’s typically seedy political moves. From Wikipedia:

    “In 1954, then-US Senator Lyndon B. Johnson employed him as a summer intern and eventually promoted him to manage Johnson’s personal mail. Soon after, Moyers transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, where he wrote for The Daily Texan newspaper. In 1956, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. While in Austin, Moyers served as assistant news editor for KTBC radio and television stations, owned by Lady Bird Johnson, wife of then-Senator Johnson…

    “During Senator Johnson’s unsuccessful bid for the 1960 Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, Moyers served as a top aide, and in the general campaign he acted as liaison between Democratic vice-presidential candidate Johnson and the Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy…

    “When Lyndon B. Johnson took office after the Kennedy assassination, Moyers became a special assistant to Johnson, serving from 1963 to 1967. Moyers is the last surviving person identifiable in the photograph taken of Johnson’s first inauguration on Air Force One. He played a key role in organizing and supervising the 1964 Great Society legislative task forces and was a principal architect of Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign. Moyers acted as the President’s informal chief of staff from October 1964 until 1966. From July 1965 to February 1967, he also served as White House press secretary.

    After the resignation of White House Chief of Staff Walter Jenkins because of a sexual misdemeanor in the run up to the 1964 election, President Lyndon B. Johnson, alarmed that the opposition was framing the issue as a security breach, ordered Moyers to request FBI name checks on 15 members of Goldwater’s staff to find “derogatory” material on their personal lives. Goldwater himself only referred to the Jenkins incident off the record. The (Frank)Church Committee stated in 1975 that “Moyers has publicly recounted his role in the incident, and his account is confirmed by FBI documents.” In 2005, Laurence Silberman claimed that Moyers denied writing the memo in a 1975 phone call. Moyers said he had a different recollection of the telephone conversation.

    “Moyers also sought information from the FBI on the sexual preferences of White House staff members, most notably Jack Valenti. Moyers indicated his memory was unclear on why Johnson directed him to request such information, “but that he may have been simply looking for details of allegations first brought to the president by Hoover.”

    “Moyers approved (but had nothing to do with the production) of the infamous “Daisy Ad” against Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign. That ad is considered the starting point of the modern-day harshly negative campaign ad.

    “Journalist Morley Safer in his 1990 book “Flashbacks” wrote that Moyers and President Johnson met with and “harangued” Safer’s boss, CBS president Frank Stanton, about Safer’s coverage of the Marines torching Cam Ne village in the Vietnam War. During the meeting, Safer alleges, Johnson threatened to expose Safer’s “communist ties”. This was a bluff, according to Safer. Safer says that Moyers was “if not a key player, certainly a key bystander” in the incident. Moyers stated that his hard-hitting coverage of conservative presidents Reagan and Bush were behind Safer’s 1990 allegations…”

    For much more insight into the kind of political “animal” (in the worst sense of the word) Lyndon Johnson was, and the enabling role Bill Moyers repeatedly played on his behalf, including communicating Johnson’s request to have the bubble top removed from President Kennedy’s limo (purportedly to make him more accessible to Johnson’s fellow Texan constituents): “Get that goddamned bubble [top] off unless it’s pouring rain” said Bill Moyers just hours before John Kennedy’s head was blown off in Dallas on November 22, 1963, I highly recommend:

    “LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination” by Phillip F. Nelson, and his follow-up book, “LBJ: From Mastermind to ‘The Colossus”

    I have read a number of books on Lyndon Johnson and am convinced not only that he was the worst President in American history, but that he was a criminal and a sociopath who, in a just world, should have been sent to prison very early in his political career.

    Sticks-of-TNT

    • Frankiti December 7, 2015 at 8:18 pm #

      LBJ did more to crack this country’s foundation than the heaps of fools after him. Perhaps why a poor corn poke commoner should never be elected again.

      • BeerBarrel December 8, 2015 at 8:22 pm #

        LBJ is known as the man who consolidated White House war powers. Too bad Obamanation can’t effectively use them. Damn. We’d not be having Muslim issues (ISIS) were Bush still in charge.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 9:40 pm #

      Yes and when Israel attacked the Liberty, Johnson said, I wont embarrass an ally. Let them sink it. Extraordinary. America was already gone at the highest levels – it just hadn’t worked its way down yet. Luckily, the military wasn’t on board yet, and ignored his orders. Seeing the approaching US planes on radar, the Israeli jets fled.

      • Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 10:23 pm #

        You are absolutely correct, Janos. A disgraceful story and we can be certain the truth is not taught in our government-controlled schools. -Sticks

        • Pogo December 8, 2015 at 12:18 am #

          Several years ago, I happened to meet a guy who was on the Liberty. He told me the attacking airplanes had no insignia or national markings and that the attack last for a very, very long time.

    • daytrip December 8, 2015 at 2:36 am #

      Well, who’da thunk it? I admit that I don’t know much about Bill Moyer’s past. Probably the earliest thing that I saw from him was the “Power of Myth” series with Joseph Campbell, which I enjoyed. My impression of him was (is) that of a progressive voice that spoke for the common man. Your post is interesting.

      • Sticks-of-TNT December 8, 2015 at 10:11 am #

        You are very gracious. Admittedly, Moyer has a folksy charm which he uses to his advantage. Obviously, a product of his Texas upbringing and his time as a Baptist pastor. Behind that facade is the spirit of a serpent. Be well. -Sticks

    • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 10:55 am #

      LBJ was rude, crude and socially unacceptable. He was a lunatic. A sociopath. Ruined the lives of millions of people. 3,000,000 Vietnamese died and all we ever talk about are 58,000 Americans. A 60 to 1 kill ratio. Made a fortune off the war. NASA made him rich. Few people have noticed how that happened. The faking of the lunar landings made LBJ millions. In the end he could not bear the weight of the mendacity of his life. He had a nervous breakdown. Tricky Dick had to finish the farce. The 2 greatest American events happened on the same day July,16. The Trinity Atomic Bomb Test and Apollo 11 both occurred on July 16. JFK Jr died July 16. Stanley Kubrick insisted “Eyes Wide Shut,” be released on July 16, 1999 the exact day and year JFK Jr died. Kubrick also predicted the year of 9/11, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

      • pequiste December 8, 2015 at 1:13 pm #

        You are right on target here Seawolf.
        LBJ was an evil bastard… spawn of the devil…destroyer of America and other places.
        Plus the co-inky-dinks you mention are so damning.

        Ramstein’s great video says it all:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxroiTRg7Tg

  62. fodase December 7, 2015 at 8:04 pm #

    It’s clear that Trump has become the de facto President of the United States of America with his honest remarks about muslims – our mortal enemy – during the present wartime.

    Stating obvious truths that the current JV president in the White House will not utter. His failure to do so is directly resulting in the slaughter of Americans.

    Trump’s words alone are hundreds of times more powerful a deterrent to terrorist acts than Obama’s failure to act – which stokes muslims’ resolve to kill Americans.

    muslims know that an America under President Donald Trump will crush them.

    Trump speaks muslims’ language very well, and they understand this

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 9:44 pm #

      Compare this to Ted Cruz’s statement, We will carpet bomb ISIS into non-existence. I don’t know if sand can glow, but we’re going to find out.

      Not a word about keeping America safe. And sure enough, he is opposed Trump’s plan to keep the enemy out.

      The next step is deportation. It is the only reasonable thing to do.

    • Pogo December 8, 2015 at 7:45 pm #

      Trump is similar in many regards to Theodore Roosevelt.

      I have a coffee table sized book called “A Free and Hardy Life: Theodore Roosevelt’s Sojourn in the American West”, by Clay S. Jenkinson. There are many things from the book that I could use to illustrate the similarities but happened to flip it open to page 143.

      “Roosevelt and the Libel Suit”. [Trump will suit you in a NY minute]

      “On October 12, 1912, towards the end of the Bull Moose presidential campaign, the Ishpeming, Michigan, Iron Ore [newspaper] published the following statement:

      “Roosevelt lies and curses in a most disgusting way; he gets drunk too, and that not infrequently, and all his intimate friends know about it.” [We don’t know about Trump’s drinking habits but can only wonder if they are similar.]

      …”It was easy to see why Newett [the editor] might regard Theodore Roosevelt as an intoxicated man. His behavior was so hectic and over-the-top at all times that it was hard to believe he was not pouring something into his gigantic cups of coffee. Even my friend Henry Adams wrote, “Theodore is never sober, only he is drunk with himself and not with rum.”

      “His election rival William Howard Taft [why didn’t they just call him Bill?] said, “I think the intoxication was altogether with his own verbosity. I would make an excellent witness in his defense.”

      “After the Bull Moose campaign ended, Roosevelt sued Newett [the newspaper editor] for libel.”

  63. budizwiser December 7, 2015 at 8:26 pm #

    The subject of cultural “health” hardly lends itself to objective metrics.

    I wish we had a method of measuring the meaning of the judgments and accusations made in this BLOG.

    For me, I considered the media-industry’s acceptance of GW’s and Dickie-boy’s “WAR ON TERROR” as my “1984” truth-speak moment.

    Of course – on the other side it could depend on what your definition of what “IS” is ???

    Anyways – never mind – that’s what everyone else does……

  64. wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 8:37 pm #

    Men have not made a humane world. It’s time to give control to women.

    The men (Germans, Russians, Brits, Americans, etc.) of the “greatest generation” really messed things up during WW2. Years of war, millions dead, and at the end millions remained under Stalin’s oppressive communism. Complete failure… leading to Cold War.

    Time for women to take over. Giving women full access to all combat positions in all branches of the armed forces is a start. Requiring that more than half the congress be women representatives. Hell, we may even have a woman elected president next year. It is time for 200 years of rule by women (40 or so women presidencies).

    • vengeur December 7, 2015 at 8:52 pm #

      God save the Queen!

    • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 10:37 am #

      I’m sorry but I just can’t see a 500 ft obelisk change into a 500 ft taco.

  65. Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 9:14 pm #

    Vote for Trump for Time Magazine’s Man of the Year. What? You don’t like being told who to vote for? Ok, vote for someone else then. One question though: why are you in favor of immigrants who have no heritage of Democracy and who will just vote for whomever their elders tell them to?

    http://www.today.com/news/times-person-year-2015-caitlyn-jenner-donald-trump-isis-join-t59931

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  66. wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 9:29 pm #

    ” immigrants who have no heritage of Democracy and who will just vote for whomever their elders tell them to?” –Janos

    Oh, those poor, stupid immigrants! They have no place in the American white nation! They are like children who cannot think for themselves… poor things! They need strong white men to lead them. /sarcasm off

    • Janos Skorenzy December 7, 2015 at 9:46 pm #

      Truth from the mouth of babes. A child will lead us.

      • wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 10:28 pm #

        No, a woman will lead us… HRC.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 12:08 am #

          Here is Knox’s masterpiece, First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. It is our answer to the SCUM Manifesto which you implicitly support.

          http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualNLs/firblast.htm

  67. pjs December 7, 2015 at 9:48 pm #

    a little “art” piece I put together in late 2012 – from a larger 30 minute tape I titled, “Brides of Nonsense”.

    (The HLS mentioned is my character calling Homeland Security)

    https://soundcloud.com/lowvibes-on-the-totempole/timothy-mcveigh-is-gonna-pep-em-up

    • pjs December 7, 2015 at 9:52 pm #

      *note – I am from the town that executed Timothy McVeigh. In fact, my Uncle was his nurse at the Federal Pen.

      I still recall the news trucks lined up outside the Penitentiary during my freshman year of high school. A good early lesson in the mechanisms of the Spectacle.

      And yes, the pep band drummer on tv did look like Timothy McVeigh.

      • Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 11:50 pm #

        Your “town” did not execute McVeigh, nor did your state. Don’t put that on the good Hoosiers of Terre Haute, Indiana. -Sticks

        • pjs December 8, 2015 at 5:56 am #

          I am certainly not.

          Goodness, now I am left to wonder where you might be carrying those ‘Sticks-of-TNT’.

          Please pardon my vernacular into the future when referencing location(s), events, and meaning. As is laid down in historical record, yes, the town did not collectively inject like a horde of white coated zombies or a lynch mob. A topic I might very well explore into the future with you fine people, if the curmudgeons about the residence do not nitpick too hard, will be historical event and possible psychic weight that might instill within a people.

          Thanks,
          pjs

          • pjs December 8, 2015 at 5:59 am #

            Sticks,

            Is your handle a spaghetti western reference?

            How do you feel about the music of Ennio Morricone?

          • Sticks-of-TNT December 8, 2015 at 9:54 am #

            Words matter here. Welcome aboard (if you can stand the heat, you’ll learn a lot.) -Sticks

  68. wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 9:54 pm #

    SHINING A LIGHT ON TRUMP

    Six reasons I will not vote for Trump:

    1) He wants to create a database of all Muslims in the United States.

    2) He lies about Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11.

    3) He is the birther-in-chief, cynically sowing doubt about President Obama’s legitimacy as the duly elected President of the United States.

    4) His misogyny.

    5) His xenophobia and scapegoating of immigrants, including his lies about Mexican immigrants and his ardent desire to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

    6) His unmistakable passion for bullying. Again, there’s no shortage of examples, but you could start with his defense of supporters who roughed up a protester at one of his rallies or his ridiculing of a disabled New York Times reporter.

    • nsa December 7, 2015 at 10:16 pm #

      You’ll look great in a burqa….but better skip the burqini.

      • Sticks-of-TNT December 7, 2015 at 10:36 pm #

        We’re laughing our asses off here at Fort Apache.

    • nsa December 7, 2015 at 10:17 pm #

      Some guy from kenya named hussein….what is there to be suspicious about?

      • wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 10:37 pm #

        We need to shine a light on Trump. How can we know where he was born when he refuses to show his birth certificate.

        Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has refused to release his long-form birth certificate and passport records, despite demanding the same from Barack Obama during the 2012 election. The Guardian contacted the Trump campaign to request the birth certificate and passport records of the Apprentice host, but a spokeswoman refused to share the documents.

  69. Pucker December 7, 2015 at 9:59 pm #

    What is your happiest childhood memory with a Catholic priest?

    • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 10:40 am #

      An excellent question. I cannot think of a single one. I am Catholic, born in New Orleans, went to Catholic schools all my life. Priests were like another life form. It’s hard to describe.

  70. wpa_ccc December 7, 2015 at 10:41 pm #

    Donald Trump is now an actual threat to national security. He’s providing jihadists ammunition for their campaign to demonize the US. –Jeffrey Goldberg

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    • Florida Power December 8, 2015 at 9:11 am #

      Well if Jeffrey Goldberg said it then it must be true.

  71. Pucker December 7, 2015 at 11:23 pm #

    I once saw on one of those CNN fashion shows a hot, svelte Russian model walking the runway in a see-through Muslim burqa. She was Hot!

  72. Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 12:00 am #

    http://www.amren.com/news/2015/12/brown-university-professor-denounces-mccarthy-witch-hunts/

    These educated fools actually thought that could give the bully their milk money and that would be the end of it. No street smarts at all. To the Black bullies, milk is too White what to speak of the professors.

  73. wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 12:13 am #

    Trump wants shutdown of Muslims entering USA.
    Others respond:

    Good opportunity for Canadian tourism: our dollar is down and we don’t exclude visitors because of their religion! –Ingrid Mattson

    https://t.co/zjAbXUZbsp

    • Q. Shtik December 8, 2015 at 11:16 am #

      Good opportunity for Canadian tourism: our dollar is down and we don’t exclude visitors because of their religion!

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

      It’s one thing to visit; it’s another thing to STAY.

  74. Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 12:33 am #

    Attn Kdog:

    http://www.amren.com/news/2015/12/isis-has-targeted-refugee-program-to-enter-us-homeland-security-chairman-says/

    This is mere confirmation of what aware people already knew. It was obvious to us and completely opaque for you. It’s not necessarily that you are without intuition or the power of deduction, but you are simply refusing to use them on this (and other) issues. Political Correctness is a mind killer.

  75. steelkilt December 8, 2015 at 12:38 am #

    “The surviving local newspapers are little more than bulletin boards for news releases from interested parties. They’ve fired all their reporters.”

    True. One of the interested parties influencing reportage at the LA Times is the Los Angeles Police Union, whose $18.4 billion pension fund is managed by Oaktree Capital, which is the single largest owner of Tribune Publishing, parent company to LA Times and San Diego Union-Tribune. Additionally, editors and writers of the San Diego Union-Tribune have been fired at the behest of the police and fire union in Los Angeles.

    http://anewdomain.net/2015/08/01/ted-rall-lapd-la-firing-scandal-rall-vindicated-lapd-under-fire-exclusive/

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  76. Walter B December 8, 2015 at 12:51 am #

    I sincerely wait with great anticipation for every Monday morning when I can click over to this place and read your words every week. Thank you. You have hit some long balls this week sir and I applaud you achievement!

    Institutional rot of the Catholic Church – They purport to represent Jesus on earth. Look at Jesus. Look at the Vatican. Seriously WFT are they smoking?

    Dying newspapers – nothing ever dies in American culture and newspapers will always be useful because they soak up a lot of dog pee and are great for starting fires. I get mine second hand because they are not worth paying for.

    Diminishing returns of technology – Don’t speak this too often or they will tie you to a stake and burn you. There is ALWAYS a great price to be paid for such things but it is always hidden well enough to fool the Common Idiot who would pull out his own teeth with a pair of lineman’s pliers to get the next upgrade to his techno-baubles. Ah but so true, well written – I am proud to be a fan sir! Keep up the good work.

  77. pequiste December 8, 2015 at 1:17 am #

    The concept of shining a powerful light on a subject to showcase the truth or at least its shadow: powerful and dangerous.

    Notice how cockroaches scatter the moment the light comes on; the old interrogation room has the one bare bulb right above the perps face causing him to squint as the detective do some heavy grilling; sunlight causes the laundry to dry clean and fresh on the line.

    But as JHK laments we don’t have it anymore, that availablilty to read all about it. It has truly dissolved into the abyss of the digital world. Lament the loss of the IBM Selectric with a moments silence please.

    Just look at it: the facile, almost infantile, coverage of the momentous (Le Front Nationale makes historic victories in French regional elections) while deep analysis is rendered to the idiotic and dare I say retarded (Kim Khardashians new whelp and any American sport you care to choose.) At least in the U.S.A. European radio, press and TV know that the winds of change are blowing against the EPIC FAILURE of Liberal government folly ( and probably the royal houses of Europe also – they have been utterly complicit in the catastrophic experiments in national destruction.)

    And the triumph of technology makes it oh so simple.
    Research? we don’t need no stinking research – we use Wikipedia!
    Where legwork and connections in the borderlands of society used to exist – now there are treadmills at the gym for any legwork and wifi connections will do nicely because its just too fucking dangerous to go into the ‘hood, or Monrovia; or Raqqa for that matter. Way too messy and inconvenient. Comfy and safe spaces are what’s important.

    Like the attention span that has been gifted to the watchers of the TV, it seems almost no one can sit and write a letter in cursive anymore – takes too much time. Best just tweet that thought and send it out into the ether and share with everyone: the jejune, the mundane, the banal because that is exactly what has become interesting to the masses. Not investigative journalism that can hurt peoples careers or send them to jail or expose entire industries and institutions for what they really are: nightmares made corporeal for decades, centuries and millennia .

    A civilization with a backbone of silly putty and grey matter that has metamorphosed into cotton candy. Sort of just like Barry’s speech last night. No research, no history, no passion – simply specifics of marshmallow fluff and presented in a way not to hurt anybody’s feelings.

    • wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 3:42 am #

      The senior Islamic State militant leader known as Abu Nabil in Libya, and the senior Al-Shabaab leader in Somalia had more than their feelings hurt by our Commander in Chief.

      Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis also confirmed the death of Abdirahman Sandhere, known as ‘Ukash’ in an air strike. He was a senior leader of Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia.

      Marshmallow fluff? You mis-characterize President Obama. Obama is kicking ass. It’s all illegal, and grounds for impeachment, but the Republicans in Congress are ignoring Obama’s unauthorized war and refuse to give him the authorization Obama requested over a year ago.

      Pentagon confirms airstrikes killed top ISIS & Al-Qaeda leaders in Libya, Somalia

      https://www.rt.com/usa/325022-pentagon-isis-leader-libya/

      Pssst! That’s the news service of CFN’s beloved macho man, Putin.

      • pequiste December 8, 2015 at 10:17 am #

        wpa,,,you just don’t get enough oxygen to that head of yours.

        All the U.N. Security Council’s permanent members are, with the exception of CHina, actively engaged in military operations against the proto-state of the Caliphate aka ISIS. However, there is no coordination between them to make a battle plan e.g. NATO member Turkey shoots down Russian warplane to cause antagonism that could escalate into WWIII.

        Reason enough I think to disband the useless NYC home of a cake gig for well connected diplomatic family types and technocrats. The U.N. stands for useless nonsense.

        A medium sized military expeditionary force of the said Security Council, say 10 infantry divisions, 10 armored divisions, two special forces brigades, and current in-theatre air assets should EASILY crush the “J.V.” team of Yzlamik soldiers of ISIS. In a month. Why hasn’t it happened? Bidness? Hurt feelings? Geo-political shenanigans???

        There is hand wringing from the Europeans with some air warfare thrown for feeling good; the Russians doing a yeomans’ job of supporting their client Rump Syria; Barry sez the solution to terrorism is to bring them to America and don’t insult them, or I’ll sic Loretta Lynch on you; and the Chinese, sitting in their box seats, laughing their asses off.

        NO sorry, no party here except for the Russians and Turks are serious: the Turks want the bidness with their brethren to continue and the Russians want revenge. There will be no Gallipoli , or Treaty of San Stefano or Berlin, this time should things escalate.

        Whatever the case, you, wpa… are a hard-core, true believer in Barry of the Apotheosis, and as such there is no convincing, compelling or coercing arguments for you that the occupier of the Oval Office is a phraud.

        I applaud your ignorance, for it is strength.

        • Q. Shtik December 8, 2015 at 11:07 am #

          Peq,

          More and more, I am enjoying your excellent and common-sense-ical rants.

          • pequiste December 8, 2015 at 12:43 pm #

            I appreciate your compliment and also your usual snarky participation in this CFN forum. Thank you.

        • Frankiti December 9, 2015 at 10:23 pm #

          WPA is a multiple personality/avatar troll. A Phil Hendrie character testing the limits of absurdity and believability.

    • elysianfield December 8, 2015 at 11:22 am #

      “We should build tools to help de-escalate tensions on social media – sort of like spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment. We should target social accounts for terrorist groups like the Islamic State, and remove videos before they spread, or help those countering terrorist messages to find their voice.”

      “Without this type of leadership from government, from citizens, from tech companies, the Internet could become a vehicle for further disaggregation of poorly built societies, and the empowerment of the wrong people, and the wrong voices.”

      This quote, from Today’s BBC website, purportedly verbatim, from Google’s CEO, who may well soon decide who are the wrong people with the wrong voice.

      “How do you like it now, Gentlemen”?

  78. wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 3:32 am #

    NEO-NAZIS BACK TRUMP

    “Heil Donald Trump – THE ULTIMATE SAVIOR.”

    That’s what Andrew Anglin, publisher of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer had to say in response to Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

    “Finally: someone speaks sense,” Anglin wrote, pasting Trump’s new proposal under the headline “Glorious Leader Calls For Complete Ban on All Moslems.”

    “Make America White Again!” his post concludes.

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

    • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 10:43 am #

      As an orator, he’s not a pimple on Adolf Hitler’s ass.

  79. fodase December 8, 2015 at 7:32 am #

    Marshmallow fluff? You mis-characterize President Obama. Obama is kicking ass.

    obama spends 98% of the time coddling muslims. it took 2 major terrorist attacks with 500+ casualties for him to begin to kick ass, which consisted of killing 1 jihadi

    he also wants to bring in tens of thousands of unvettable muslims, calling them orphans and children

    we saw what just 1 of the orphans and widows did last week in san bernadino (malik the unvetted fiance)

    your side has brought down death, destruction and anarchy upon law abiding citizens.

    the epic failure of insane liberal policies has come home to roost. you are in the process of being taught a brutal lesson in common sense

    anyone with a smidgeon of decency knows islam is a cancer on modernity & is incompatible with Western ideals

    Le Pen in, French borders closed, muslims deported, Trump in, muslims tracked, muslim immigration stopped, mosques and individuals wiretapped

    you can thank us normal folk when you don’t get melted by a nuclear device

    or do you doubt the muslims would use one on the US?

    you tout the rule of women, while standing for the worst ghastly religion that literally murders them for no reason

    you are a typical mixed up lefty

    liberalism is a mental illness, oh it is so obviously so

    • alphie December 9, 2015 at 9:56 pm #

      “obama spends 98% of the time coddling muslims” where’d you get the stat flo-nase? Another example of why Flonase is…..nuttier ‘n holiday fruit cake

  80. fodase December 8, 2015 at 9:04 am #

    what’s wrong with making america white again?

    i thought all cultures are to be celebrated?

    a website say up with whites, blm and farrakhan say up with blacks…

    whites, like noble blacks, have given the world so much.

    we’re all equal and part of the rainbow

    right, wpa?

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    • alphie December 9, 2015 at 9:59 pm #

      “what’s wrong with making america white again?” Because then everbody ‘d look like you. Uggh! This is just too easy

  81. nsa December 8, 2015 at 9:10 am #

    THE EIGHTH CRUSADE HAS BEGUN……christians and muslims in a death match with the jews instigating in case the battle slows down. The christians have managed to destroy 5 muslim nations in 10 years….now the counterattack commences. Enjoy…….the first seven crusades blundered on for 200 years.

    • ozone December 8, 2015 at 9:21 am #

      nsa,
      Imagine what the crusades of olde could have ‘accomplished’ (body-count-wise) if it had a even a small portion of modern weaponry! Glorious, I tell you!

      But the question remains: Will we read about this glorious clash of former “civilizations” in the Sunday comic section or hear it from the Great Wurlitzer?

    • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 10:33 am #

      Exactly. the Muslims people are fighting for their collective lives. Many are leaving, abandoning their homes, just like we wanted them to. Bomb the shit out of them. They’ll leave their oil wealth behind. GLADLY. Trump is now trumpeting the goals of the Catholic Church. Destroy Islam. People laugh at me when I say the Catholic Church runs the world. Look around man. Who are we killing? Who are we stealing from? Whose nations are being destroyed?

      • Frankiti December 9, 2015 at 10:19 pm #

        Do you drink your Mad Dog 20/20 from the bag, or pour it into a plastic cup?

    • wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 12:40 pm #

      The UUP “dollar express” which you advised people to buy at $26 has gone down 2.42%

      My checking account at the credit union is paying me +2.03% … outperforming your UUP “dollar express” -2.42%

      Your credibility is wavering, nsa.

  82. fodase December 8, 2015 at 10:27 am #

    here is islam in a nutshell. what a sorry, sorry ‘culture’. :

    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/12/07/police-officer-bitten-by-rampaging-migrant-screaming-allah-akhbar/

    this, leftist scum, is what you have done to advanced wonderful civilisations with your horrific compassion

  83. seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 10:29 am #

    Fundamentally the Catholic Church is a criminal organization based on Satanic principles. It is based on human sacrifice and demon worship. It is organized along the same lines as ancient pagan religions including command structure, holidays, sacraments, and dogma. It has no useful purpose in a modern world. The wealth it holds must be liberated. It is capital held hostage.

    • malthuss December 8, 2015 at 10:41 am #

      Lets turn it around,

      The [insert, whatever, Muslim or Jewish] Church is a criminal organization based on Satanic principles. It is based on human sacrifice and demon worship. It is organized along the same lines as ancient pagan religions including command structure, holidays, sacraments, and dogma. It has no useful purpose in a modern world. The wealth it holds must be liberated. It is capital held hostage.

      • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 10:44 am #

        Agreed.

      • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 11:25 am #

        I don’t think Islam or Judaism or Hinduism has a financial equivalent to the Vatican.

        • pequiste December 8, 2015 at 12:37 pm #

          Can’t say much about the Hindu, Buddhist or Yzlamik balance sheets; but I will mention one name to consider against your suggestion about Judaism’s financial equivalent of the Vatican:

          Rothschild.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 3:37 pm #

          The richest group on Earth. Pure delusion now. The Vatican Bank was taken over a century ago. And after Vatican Two, the Church dismantled its shrines to children who had been martyred by the Jews in the different parts of central and Alpine Europe. And changed its entire liturgy, social policy, and Theology. Masons, Jews, and Protestants were all there giving advice as Catholicism was dismantled and put back together against as an adjunct of the nascent global state.

          • seawolf77 December 9, 2015 at 3:34 pm #

            A nearly 2000 year old institution and you think they’re broke. C’mon! During the Dark Ages they were the governing authority so they taxed and stole the people blind. During the Inquisition they stole enormous wealth. During the Crusades they raped and pillaged and looted. They’ve had that basket going around in thousands of churches dozens of times a day. They sold indulgences and dispensations for decades until Martin Luther began the Reformation. It is the most powerful entity on Earth. It is the richest entity on Earth. The Rothschilds are fronts for the Catholic Church, just like the Jews. Look through history. Why is it that the countries that suffer the most are all enemies of the Catholic Church.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 2:56 pm #

      You said that Satanism was good up thread. Were you fooling around then or are you fooling around now?

      • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 3:36 pm #

        Good and evil are children’s toys. You gotta get past that Janos if you wanna run with the big dogs. Of course if you want to stay up on the porch with the puppies…maybe you should lay on your back and get your belly scratched.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 6:26 pm #

          So why did you condemn the Vatican as Satanist? How can you condemn anything if good and evil don’t exist? You are a very self righteous person who needs good and evil. You’ve just under cut your whole existence.

          • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 9:24 pm #

            You have to stop talking in hyperbole. Condemn is “I sentence you to 30 years.” Or “Building is unfit for human habitation.” What I am CRITISIZING is an entity that purports to be a force for good and is evil instead. It is the hypocrisy and the deception I find galling. The buggaring of little altar boys at Christmas. The holding of enormous wealth while accepting money from the poor. That sort of thing. If you’re looking for “I gotcha’s” there’s an old 70’s song that goes “I Gotcha, Uh HUH, HUH you thou I didn’t see ya now didn’t you.” You can probably find a 45 on ebay.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 2:40 pm #

            Wow. If that’s what you meant, why isn’t that what you said? Now you believe in Good and Evil again, and are for the Good. I understand your exasperation, but it has turned to rancor, creating misunderstanding and exasperation in others. Poorly done.

            You pretend to be a Satanist and then get huffy when I believe you. C’mon, accept some responsibility. Of course bad people pretend to be good. Does that Revelation excuse your pretence?

          • seawolf77 December 9, 2015 at 3:35 pm #

            I never said that. Don’t put words into my sentences.

        • Frankiti December 9, 2015 at 10:14 pm #

          That’s a canned line he has unleashed, pun intended, time and time again. Cut and paste.

    • Frankiti December 9, 2015 at 10:12 pm #

      Those ancient “pagan” religions are your European/occidental patrimony. Their holidays and sacraments were appropriated by a middle-eastern born cult. As they stripped the marble and stone from their temples, they stole their feast days and their rituals… finally their empire.

      io saturnalia

  84. wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 10:41 am #

    “You tout the rule of women…” –fodase

    Yes, because women are oppressed in the USA where there has never been an America woman elected president… compared to more enlightened Muslim countries which have had woman presidents.

    Movements for Muslim women to seek roles in national leadership have increased rapidly. Greater opportunities for women in education have further encouraged their involvement in politics. The most prominent Muslim female leaders are former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto (served 1988-1990 and 1993-1996), Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri (elected 2001), former Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller (served 1993-1995), former Senegalese President Mame Madior Boye (elected 2001), Bangladeshi Prime Ministers Begum Khaleda Zia (served 1991-96 and 2001-06) and Sheikh Hasina Wajed (first elected in 1996), former Iranian vice president Masoumeh Ebtekar (served from 1997 to 2005), Malian president Cissé Mariam Kaïdama Sidibé (elected in 2011), current President of Kosovo Atifete Jahjaga (elected in 2011), and current President of Mauritius Bibi Ameenah Firdaus Gurib-Fakim (elected in 2015).

    Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah, an Islamic institute that advises Egypt’s ministry of justice, issued a fatwa stating that female rulers and judges are allowed in Islam

    The Qur’an contains verses that appear to support the role of women in politics, such as its mention of the Queen of Sheba, who represented a ruler who consulted with and made important decisions on behalf of her people. Further, the Hadith provides numerous examples of women having public leadership roles. Prophet Muhammad’s first wife Khadija bint Khuwaylid was his chief adviser as well as his first and foremost supporter. His third wife Aisha Abu Bakr, a well-known authority in medicine, history, and rhetoric, often accompanied the Prophet to battles, even leading an army at the Battle of the Camel.

    The USA is slowly becoming more accepting of women. 1400 years after The Battle of the Camel now American women can assume combat roles in all ihe branches of the armed forces, just 1,400 years after Islam’s progressive feminist reform of the 7th century… And even now many Christian men disapprove of women being equal to men in combat roles in the US Marines.

  85. fodase December 8, 2015 at 11:04 am #

    oh, sorry, you’re right! muslim countries have elected women presidents!!!

    my bad, i thought throwing acid in their faces, denying them education, forced clitorectomies with a kitchen knife, obliging them to cover their entire phreaking bodies, marrying 6-year old girls to 54-year old men, divorcing them by saying ‘i divorce you’ 3 times out loud, not allowing them to enter the same heaven as men, killing them if they’re raped, stoning them to death, murdering them if they talk to another man who’s not their husband, muslim conferences which discuss the kuran’s approval of wifebeating, not allowing them to worship freely in the mosque’s etc. etc. etc.

    now i see why liberals support islam – it’s so woman-friendly!!!! makes perfect sense.

    gee, thanks for setting us straight!!!!

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  86. fodase December 8, 2015 at 11:13 am #

    “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people; a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs…”

    John Jay, Federalist 2

    Absolutely the antithesis of what the multiculturalists want.

    United We Stand

    Trump ’16

  87. Buck Stud December 8, 2015 at 11:16 am #

    Trump is absolutely fracturing the GOP as it was once known. Now, traditional GOP politicians such as Chris Christie, Jeb! Bush, Lindsay Graham and John Kasich are using terms such as “unhinged” to describe front runner Trump.

    Trump, however, is rolling the dice with his Muslim policy declarations. He is betting on more ISIS inspired attacks or even direct ISIS attacks on American soil. And does anyone doubt that ISIS seeks to do exactly that? In that regard, who really is “unhinged”?

    With every attack, Trump at once solidifies himself as “prophet and savior” while Bush, Graham, and Christie, et al only amplify the irrelevant status they hold within the current GOP electorate.

    Somewhere in the background another politician is smiling with glee at the brush fire within the GOP and relishing the prospect of facing off against Trump in November 2016. But I also have to wonder, if incendiary nature of the ISIS/Muslim dynamic in the homeland might light her campaign up in flames as well.

    As a condescending misogynist might quip, this is a powder keg, Honey, so be careful what you wish for.

    • Kevvia Knack December 8, 2015 at 11:40 am #

      Trump is nothing but a set-up for Romney to enter the race. The GOP power brokers have it all arranged. Romney will announce his candidacy next spring. He will be seen as the party savior. He will have newly found gravitas. And, gosh, he will have conveniently escaped a year’s worth of public scrutiny!

      • Buck Stud December 8, 2015 at 1:18 pm #

        I have read that theory/rumor and I don’t buy it, although I have no doubt ‘they would if they could’.

        But the genie is out of the bottle and there is simply no way that a Romney or anyone else for that matter can present a new GOP “Tabula Rasa” which actually wouldn’t be a blank slate, but just more of the previous-to-Trump same old.

        Put another way, no GOP candidate can win without the Trump wing of the party and nobody but Trump cannot represent that wing.

        Checkmate!

      • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 2:59 pm #

        Millions stayed home rather than vote for wimpy, vacillating, Owned, Romney.

        You’re wrong. If Romney comes in, he’d be just another Rubio. Why bother?

    • wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 1:02 pm #

      Godwin’s Law has, as of yesterday, been annulled for the 2016 election.

    • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 1:25 pm #

      You are 50 times more likely to be killed by a policeman than a terrorist. This is a red herring. When somebody points that out to Trump, he’ll look like a fool. Terrorism is a freak event. You can’t plan for freak events. And it is a crime. It is not a war. They call it a war so they don’t have to adhere to the rights a person has under habeus corpus. Then they say he doesn’t belong to a country so they are not bound by the Geneva Convention. These guys lie out of both sides of their mouths.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 3:26 pm #

        Terrorism is another name for guerilla warfare, an early stage perhaps. Stop it now or it will progress to full on guerilla warfare. A stich in time saves nine.

        • seawolf77 December 8, 2015 at 3:38 pm #

          You mean like the American Revolutionaries used to defeat the British.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 6:28 pm #

            Yeah that’s fine. It started with snow ball fights in Boston.

  88. wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 12:14 pm #

    “my bad”

    Your bad is generalizing to an entire religion based on a minority sect’s behavior. There has been no American woman president, there have been many Muslim women elected president… and not by “acid throwers” … by the great majority of peaceful Muslims in a women-friendly religion. Muslim women were assuming national leadership roles when American Christian women were still fighting for basic rights and expecting to be good stay-at-home Stepford wives.

  89. FincaInTheMountains December 8, 2015 at 12:26 pm #

    From other fronts of European military operations

    Snipers of Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) kill civilians in order to provoke the fighters of the People’s Militia

    Ukrainian snipers kill civilians to provoke the soldiers of the Donetsk People’s militia to open fire. This was reported by a source in the military headquarters of the Republic.

    According to him, on the night of Monday, December 7, UAF sniper opened fire on 70-year-old resident of the village of Pioneer region Maria Prikhodko. The woman was wounded in the leg and fatally – in the head.

    http://rusvesna.su/news/1449560155

  90. wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 12:33 pm #

    As Cold always says: “Follow the money” …

    The big money Republican donors are now saying if Trump is the nominee, they will support HRC. Big money does not like to lose.

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  91. Sean Coleman December 8, 2015 at 12:56 pm #

    Here’s the link I promised to Richard Webster’s Flat Earth News article:

    http://www.richardwebster.net/jersey2.htm

    There is a Part 1 as well, but it’s probably better to start with this one. He promised a Part 3 but I have looked everywhere but can’t find it. I understand that Stead ended up in prison.

    Webster argues that crusading journalists are dangerous. I have argued this before on quite a few occasions so I’ll save myself the trouble of typing by pasting in a quote I prepared earlier. Nick Davies, author of the best-selling Flat Earth News, which takes the press to task for its uselessness in this globalized world, himself joined in with the hysteria over the Jersey (that’s the Island off the coast of France) abuse scandal which (like them all) never was.

    “A former care-worker writing in the Mail had written this at the time about the Jersey case:

    “My mouth went dry and my fists clenched when I heard about the remains in Jersey. [which turned out to be bits of coconut shell]

    “I felt sorrow and rage that police are once again belatedly investigating a huge paedophile ring based on care home kids, and expect to dig up more bodies.

    “A ring of evil men exploited the most vulnerable children imaginable for up to 40 years, ad no one stopped them.”

    Webster concludes his article: “Stead’s modern heirs, who credulously drove forward the witch hunt that took place in North Wales in the closing decade of the twentieth century, make up, as we will see, a roll-call of some of our most distinguished journalists.

    “It is a matter of some interest that this roll-call, which relates to those who enthusiastically embraced one of the most dangerous flat-earth stories journalism has ever seen, includes the name of Nick Davies himself.”

    Webster coined the term Good Cause Corruption to describe what happens to educated people in responsible positions who allow themselves to get swept along in these insane crusades.

    Webster’s explanation for it is interesting but only partly convincing (he traces it back to the 17th C English Cultural Revolution, as it were) but his research and insights are devastating.

    In England the so-called Westminster Paedophile Ring story has been simmering along under the surface, erupting from time to time with lurid allegations, usually against dead people, such as former Prime Minister Edward Heath (presumably because this former officer who served in Europe during WW2 was a confirmed bachelor) and former Home Secretary Leon Brittain (because, I imagine, his Spitting Image puppet was so grotesque). What these things always lack is named witnesses.

    I’m not commenting about Boston specifically as (unlike the truly deranged Casa Pia case in Portugal) I don’t know anything about it, but I don’t see why it should be immune to the general trend.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 3:32 pm #

      It pales in comparison with the culture of PC denial. Rotterham much? Over a thousand English girls were trafficked over the course of a decade and a half. No crusading journalist showed up to publicize the atrocity.

      Look, you are beating your drum about half of reality. Sometimes journalist create trouble by doing something – sometimes by doing nothing. Sins of commission and sins of omission.

  92. wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 1:08 pm #

    Yesterday Bernie Sanders presented his plan for improving the correctional system and improving police-community relations. Did anyone see that?

    Yesterday Hillary Clinton presented her plan for taking on Wall Street. Did anyone see that?

    The news focused on something else yesterday… how convenient Trump is for corporate America. How convenient fear is for the NRA and gun sellers. Apparently you can never have too many guns… or feel really safe. Even though in the USA white supremacist terrorists have killed more Americans than self-radicalized ISIS sympathizers.

  93. routersurfer December 8, 2015 at 1:11 pm #

    Good rant ! I find it comforting so many on this blog have found real sources of ” News.” Can we try something a little different on the slide down ? Anarchy ( Chomsky) style anyone ? This top down male or female leadership thing has not gone very well. What a shame if we take the worst of our past into a new future. See you on the way down. Full speed ahead and Damn the pyramids!!! Time for new social shapes.

  94. FincaInTheMountains December 8, 2015 at 1:47 pm #

    How Putin used the cover of “Russian corruption” to modernize the Army under the nose of clueless Americans

    President Putin at the time of the Munich speech (02.10.2007) realized that tough confrontation with the West is inevitable, but the Russian army was not ready for it.

    At the same time, open preparations for the coming war would give the West time to strike Russia at a time when it is still not strong enough, or very well prepared for a new Cold War with the prospect of turning into hot, and in any case does not give Russia the opportunity to take revenge for the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century – the collapse of the Soviet Union by the CIA agents.

    The plan was simply brilliant.

    The essence of it was to mask the true vector of development of Russia and the Russian Armed Forces.

    President gave a very difficult task to Anatoly Serdyukov, appointed to the post of Minister of Defense of February 15, 2007 (immediately after the Munich speech!).

    Appointment of demonstratively incompetent in military affairs person for the post of minister of defense was to create for Western “partners” the appearance that the Russian army is close to its final breakdown, only capable of holding the local anti-terrorist operations.
    But the military competence of Serdyukov was not required – in military affairs were engaged other specially trained people, whose names have not yet been declassified. From Serdyukov other talents were required, the possession of which he had perfectly demonstrated in the previous post – the Federal Tax Service.

    This was the ability to conduct secret financial transactions, the ability to mask the serious public spending in the veil of the one-day firms, kickbacks and illegal tax refunds.

    It was a truly brilliant Putin’s decision, based on a deep knowledge of psychology of the Western “partners” – in fact the best disguise is a lie in which Western intelligence readily believes itself.

    The West was so convinced of the total corruption of the Russian elite that it swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

    The Western intelligence constantly brought information about total corruption in the Russian Defense Ministry, and it was for them so believable, so in line with their own ideas about Russia and Russians, that they have not guessed to dig deeper.

    And at this time the “stolen” and “irrationally spent” money accelerated pace, in secrecy, of rearming and preparing for future fights of the Russian Army, built secret facilities, bunkers and command centers, new electronic warfare systems.

    When Serdyukov has fulfilled his mission in the defense ministry, the special operation has entered its final stage: on him and his assistant was opened a criminal case with a view to defer the moment when our “friends” would realize the terrible truth.

    We have seen that Russia out of nowhere came to a possession of a modern efficient army, force to reckon with, and that leaves our Western “partners” with only one possibility – grind their teeth in impotent rage and reassure the Europeans with ridiculous marches demonstrating old equipment which is now could be playfully destroyed by any Russian Motorized Rifle Division.

  95. goat1001 December 8, 2015 at 3:02 pm #

    Putin is kicking ISIS’s ass!!! http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151208/1031439645/russia-syria-300-sorties.html

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  96. goat1001 December 8, 2015 at 3:10 pm #

    Trump wants to “close the Internet”. Woah! Trump is headed back to the future – 1984 – Orwell’s 1984.

    • wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 4:30 pm #

      By closing the internet we can deny Daesh its means of communication, recruitment, and radicalization of alienated youth.

      Don’t you think it makes sense for Trump to want to close the internet (“and a lot of other things”)?

      Democrats are doing cartwheels of joy over these Trumpisms.

      • wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 4:35 pm #

        Whoa, now Trump is saying internment camps may be necessary. OK. Deep breath. We should trust Trump to know who to put into internment camps, and whether or not gas ovens will be needed. Trump knows about good management (“and lots of other things”).

        • Q. Shtik December 8, 2015 at 9:00 pm #

          We should trust Trump to know who to put into internment camps, – wpa

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

          Easy peasy.

          Any swarthy bearded male. Any female wearing a vale. Anyone with a foreign accent. Anyone in or near a mosque. Anyone whose first, fourth, middle, third or last name is Mohammed. Anyone who refuses to eat bacon. Anyone with odd head wear. Anyone whose home has no Christmas lights. Anyone who acts so completely normal that you would never suspect them to be a terrorist. Anyone accepting UPS deliveries from Smith and Wesson. Anyone who looks ‘funny.’

          • capt spaulding December 8, 2015 at 10:06 pm #

            veil

          • elysianfield December 8, 2015 at 10:34 pm #

            ‘veil’

            The good Captain is revenge…Q his comeuppance.

          • elysianfield December 8, 2015 at 10:35 pm #

            “Is”

            His…

          • Q. Shtik December 8, 2015 at 11:28 pm #

            Capt and Elysian,

            That was a test to see if you were paying attn. ;o)

  97. FincaInTheMountains December 8, 2015 at 4:45 pm #

    I remember how much shit was given to Putin in Russian blogosphere during that infamous Serdyukov’s criminal affair in connection with Presidential pardon. (even more with regards to rumors of awarding Serdyukov with the highest military medal of honor – the star of “The Hero of the Russian Federation”)

    I hope that article gives the CFNers the idea in what complex conditions the leaders of modern states are operating, and how little of the truth they could really convey to the public.

    So when I read on this pages critic of President Obama, I wonder how much understanding of the real mechanisms of American governance the critics have.

  98. fodase December 8, 2015 at 4:59 pm #

    i have to laugh at you lefty folks who berate Trump for this or that remark about foreign threats.

    it was TRUMP only who began talking about the problems connected with immigration during the early part of his campaign, several months ago.

    no one else would touch it……thanks to the insane PC crowd’s dictum that discussion of certain topics is verboten

    and now, everyone’s talking nothing but immigration

    that’s called leadership, taking the country where it needs to go, in spite of the PC weaklings that’ve brought us to the brink of disaster at the hands of a semi-invisible enemy they purposely brought in

    democrats/leftists gladly trade American lives for votes.

    all power-mad liars, much like the republicans

    so, leftist maniacs, continue to berate Trump as fascist, hitler, unqualified

    the good genie is out of the bottle, you liberals know your time has come to an end, liberalism has shown itself to be a failure of colossal porportions in most every area in Europe and the US, sowing discord, racial hatred, favoritism, racism, gross disrespect of basic family values, and welcoming and facilitating atrocities.

    yes, you have facilitated atrocities by abandoning your basic governmental duty to protect borders and keep out undesirables

    …..all to get votes because you are power maniacs

    • alphie December 8, 2015 at 5:31 pm #

      it’s the same old tired rant about liberals. I know people, myself included, who hold both liberal and conservative views. Gee where do I fit in? Trump is merely playing on the confusion of the collective madness we call society today. Everybody’s divided about everything. And we all know a house divided can not stand. This country is imploding in slow motion

      • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 9:07 pm #

        What did you expect? How many cultures can exist in a single State? Guess what? Optimally, there is only one. You know, like one mind per body. More than one? Madness. Or absurdity like that Steve Martin movie. America is a Tower of Babble and it will fall.

        Now admit it: you think it’s great. Dilute those evil Europeans. Who taught you to think this way? Howard Zinn among others, right? Now how did this utter bigot get his book into every college in the land? Follow the money. The great Corporations and Foundations wanted it taught. But they are evil White racists, and moron Patriots! How little you really understand. The Left and the Corporations have been on the same page for a long time. Capitalism isn’t what you think it is – and neither is Communism.

        • alphie December 9, 2015 at 5:47 pm #

          So much of the world devolving into chaos. Political boundaries dissolving. The only thing that makes us look like an intact country is the protection afforded us by the two oceans on either side. We see the desperate running out of options and clamoring to come to the only secure place on the planet. Even my liberal self doesn’t think we should take in Syrian refugees. How could we possibly know who to trust. But like Jim said last week about how the US has left a train of broken governments, we are implicated in all this(or at least our government is)

          I would like you to expound on your last sentence: Capitalism isn’t what you think it is – and neither is Communism. We may find common ground after all

          • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 12:20 am #

            Too much diversity. Homogeneity is strength. Fascism is Nationalism and Patriotism is Nationalism, therefore the Leftists are right: Patriotism is Fascism. They are wrong to say it’s bad – it’s good.

            Fascism is based on Man whereas the Economic philosophies are based on things or matter. Thus Capitalism and Communism untied against Fascism and will do so again. They are the vehicles of Globalism. White Americans were duped into fighting their brothers in WW2. They fought for the Globalists and against Nationalism.

    • alphie December 9, 2015 at 10:11 pm #

      “i have to laugh at you lefty folks…” You go right ahead Flonase there’s no law against laughter. In fact it’s healthy to have a good laugh.

  99. wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 5:11 pm #

    “the epic failure of insane liberal policies has come home to roost. you are in the process of being taught a brutal lesson in common sense” –fodase

    Watch carefully these next two months, fodase. You can witness the process of Trump being taught a brutal lesson in common sense. If the United States gets its first USA president, it won’t be the Republican candidate whose face Trump said looks like a horse.

    • wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 5:32 pm #

      ^ If the United States gets its first WOMAN president ^

    • alphie December 8, 2015 at 6:02 pm #

      I don’t question Trump’s business savvy but his emotional IQ is that of a 4th grader. He’s short on policy details and big on name calling. I want a president I can look up to not one I would be inclined to say, “hit ’em again Don”. He wants to build a wall along the US/Mexico border. He better build it 50 miles into the Gulf and 50 miles into the Pacific because they’ll be comin’ in boats. And he better build it many feet under ground unless he doesn’t believe they can dig a tunnel. It’s nonsense

      • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 6:31 pm #

        You talk defeat because you want defeat. Only this is considered virtuous by your ruined mind. And of course you want to impress the other ruined minds of Liberalism too. Who can betray their own country the most? A potlatch for Whites!

        • alphie December 8, 2015 at 9:58 pm #

          Yes Janos we all see you on your white stallion. And as far as this betrayal of country(you’re so cute when you wax patriotic), what part of it do any of us actually own. You think you own your house? Try not paying your taxes for a while and see how long your country lets you stay there. What’s mine is my voice. And I think the founding fathers would agree that free speech trumps(can’t look at that word the same anymore) correct speech. You think you’re correct. I don’t agree with you. This is the country you live in Janos, deal

          • Frankiti December 8, 2015 at 10:28 pm #

            Janos still clings to some far-off notion that the US is a country of countrymen. Never really was, never will be. It’s been diluted with cosmopolitanism and saturated with the “inclusion at any expense” doctrine. It’s beyond redemption, and as Kunstler is prone to say, “not a place worth caring about” (that is until you travel and recognize that 90% of the world is an irredeemable sh*t hole).
            Passports are keys on a keyring, swearing fealty to a flag is for chumps… and people that put put their hands over their hearts during anthems, an act they confuse with pledges, the other jingoist childhood indoctrinator. The media will give them a state created plutocrat to vote for, and all is well.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 3:20 am #

            Yes, you people have won. But you admit despite yourself that my vision is the correct one. Israel is a Fascist State – always was. America was 90% White up to the 1960’s. It hadn’t been easy assimilating the different European groups, but it had been done. Thus the Jews, with the help of gentile front men like Kennedy, finally pushed through their dream agenda, which they had been advocating for decades: 3rd World Immigration. America had to be ruined in order for Jews to feel good. You explain it to yourself. I already know.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 3:22 am #

            Have you thought of getting into the dog food business? The property tax should never have been created, obviously. Just a scam to create the bread and circus mob of Obama voters.

  100. FincaInTheMountains December 8, 2015 at 5:16 pm #

    Alexander Brodsky: Will commander of the flying monkeys surrender Bastinda?

    It’s unbelievable, but the Obama’s “Oval” speech provoked a tantrum from his opponents on the right and left, and everyone rushed to correct him: all started with the fact that he did not use correct type of visa of the California female terrorist, and the White House corrected him gently. Immediately some Clintonite “corrected” the president in the sense that Obama did not ask for US Congress to formally declare a war to Islamic State.

    The piquancy of the situation lies in the fact that Obama did not in his speech use the word “war,” and appealed to Congress to “take action”, which, considering the pathos of the Oval Office and the seriousness of the situation could only mean one thing: demand to officially declare war on Islamic State.

    But the word “war” was not used, and it is very important for Clinton’s people because official declaration of war means the activation of “Trading with enemy Act of 1917″ and those who are now in the United States surreptitiously helping DAESH will be the customers of the Act, which provides as awards imprisonment as a minimum.

    So the stakes in this debate are extremely high: the precedents in 1917 and 1943 indicate that the law is retroactive, which, as you know, worry Hillary Clinton. Perhaps now it is the only option that allows taking her off the race with relatively peaceful means, though of course the commander of the flying monkeys is already knee deep in that mess and will not surrender the owner of the magic hat without a fight.

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  101. wpa_ccc December 8, 2015 at 5:38 pm #

    Now Trump says he still might run as an independent. That would mean he wins with Republican, Democratic, and independent voters… or not. Hee haw, Hillary!

  102. FincaInTheMountains December 8, 2015 at 5:59 pm #

    American tourist just came back from the trip to Russia and sharing his experiences with friends:

    “You know, I can’t believe how backward those people are: they still have men sleeping with women”

  103. fodase December 8, 2015 at 6:21 pm #

    of course a wall can be built, it’s been done in israel with great success.

    so what if they come in boats – turn them back.

    what do you think an army is for, if not to protect a country and its citizens from invasion?

    these are commonsense ideas.

    he doesn’t have policy details?

    1. build a wall
    2. send back illegal immigrants
    3. kill isis
    4. simplify tax system to 10%, 20%, etc.
    5. stop muslim immigration

    don’t you pay attention?

    just doing 1-2 would vastly improve the country.

    come one, wake up.

    so what’s hillary’s policy details? let us all know

    • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 8:57 pm #

      They want us to accept Muslim terror just as we accept Black crime. Even one of these is too much, now they add another. We must not let them. The Blacks will unite behind the Muslims and we will be in even more dire straits.

      • alphie December 9, 2015 at 5:13 pm #

        Classic xenophobic language: “they” and “them”. You left out “those people”. I think you’re slippin’ Janos. I think most of us come here because we believe the sky is falling. I noticed with you Janos the sky is so much of the time black. Too bad, you’re missing out on some fine people. They’re not all as you believe them to be

    • alphie December 9, 2015 at 4:59 pm #

      Actually what you listed aren’t policy details. Simple solutions for simple minds. Let’s just take one: #3 kill isis. How? Where? Do we just start bombing. It’s not like they have their own country. Or maybe we can just turn the other half of the world into a moonscape. And great success in Israel? Wow! You heard it here first. You better contact the Associated Press. You’re nuttier than holiday fruit bread

  104. FincaInTheMountains December 8, 2015 at 6:35 pm #

    “Merkel is being pumped up by foreign media because she is weak and pliable and does not represent German interests.
    But she made a fatal mistake with the refugee crisis.
    Her time is coming to a close.” — 439

    Merkel is doing a lot, considering that she is a subject of Chancellor Ac of 1949.

    http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-183232

    • malthuss December 9, 2015 at 3:18 pm #

      Angela Merkel:
      First woman to win TIME Person of the Year in …

      Angela Merkel is the first woman to win TIME Person of the Year in 29 years.

      whooopeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

  105. fodase December 8, 2015 at 7:03 pm #

    it’s the same old tired rant about liberals. I know people, myself included, who hold both liberal and conservative views. Gee where do I fit in?

    uh, these ‘liberals’ and their unfettered immigration insanity/multiculturalism is getting people SLAUGHTERED by muslims in europe and the US.

    gee, i dont know, where do you fit in on this ‘stuff’?

    can’t make up your mind, i see.

    too difficult to figure out what’s right or wrong.

    another vote for hillary.

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    • Pogo December 8, 2015 at 8:18 pm #

      “too difficult to figure out what’s right or wrong.” – fodase

      It seems so for you. Open your eyes and maybe you will see the world in Technicolor…or at least in shades of gray. For you, apparently, everything is black or white and nothing in between.

      I agree with the post from alphie. I am probably more “liberal” than tea-party conservative, because I have a belief that everyone screws up sooner or later and needs a “hand up” rather than a “put down”.

      That doesn’t mean that I believe in “unfettered immigration insanity/multiculturalism ” as you put it. In fact, I lean more toward the Donald in this regard…but for the simple reason that I believe the world is vastly overpopulated and we don’t need any more people of any stripes, colors, frecking religion or whatever.

      My first election, I voted Goldwater. How right wing is that? It was 1964 and, fresh out of the military, I was a believer in the “domino theory” [do you remember that BS?]. So Barry, who was a General in the Air Force Reserve and an honorable man, was my choice to protect our freedom and all that crap.

      Next, I voted Nixon. Liberal choice? I think not. But after Watergate, the scales were off my eyes. Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, etc.

      A person can change. Maybe its not too late for you. Open your eyes. There is a spectrum of stars in the universe.. not just a fixed sun. Try to open your eyes and your mind. Best of luck…

      • Janos Skorenzy December 8, 2015 at 8:54 pm #

        The morally challenged love the ambiguities (they do exist) and try to universalize them. But some things really are black and white, wrong and right. Murder is wrong. Abortion is wrong. Rape is wrong. Bringing in Muslims is wrong.

        • malthuss December 9, 2015 at 3:16 pm #

          Who do you think was behind 9-11?

          • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 12:13 am #

            Don’t know. Don’t know if we ever will. Probably a vast conspiracy which allowed the Arabs to do what they intended to do in order to get the new Pearl Harbor they (the Neo Cons) so desperately wanted. The British reported reporting the fall of Bldg 7 before it fell is particularly damning.

        • alphie December 11, 2015 at 8:06 am #

          I like the way you slip in “bringing in Muslims is wrong”. Right up there with rape and murder aye? So much for “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” I agree with Jim that the US left behind(in the middle east) a train of broken governments. And you know what they say, “you break it you bought it”

    • alphie December 9, 2015 at 7:45 pm #

      Another angry white male. pity

      • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 12:15 am #

        Why shouldn’t we be angry? Everything is being taken from us. If you’re not angry, you are either an animal or a god. Men are angry.

        • alphie December 10, 2015 at 3:11 pm #

          But the anger is misplaced and simply becomes scapegoating

          • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 3:39 pm #

            Well I give people a great compliment: I accept them as human beings who can be held to account. Liberals don’t. And I believe in corporate or group identities that I can get angry at too. I exist. I take up space. I have needs. You’ve renounced all of these understandings and all of these rights.

            Read the link I sent Buck. An allegory: a lost tribe of men held that each person and being and situation was a unique event. So if a tiger killed and ate someone, it didn’t mean that tigers were dangerous. Or even that the same tiger would do the same thing again. Or even that “tigers” existed. Each moment the world was born anew. Think the tribe made it?

            Scapegoating is Stereotyping is Generalizing is Thinking or putting things into categories. Scapegoating is the bad category. If you can’t do this, you are useless, a danger to yourself and others.

          • alphie December 10, 2015 at 6:43 pm #

            “Well I give people a great compliment: I accept them as human beings who can be held to account. Liberals don’t”
            So Janos here I am a liberal by all accounts, although I don’t have much use for labels since calling someone a liberal or conservative precludes any new information that might change one’s thinking, but for now it’s appropriate. So tell me how I don’t hold “them” to account. It would help if I knew who “they” were and what exactly they should be held to account for.
            You see Janos I don’t see people as tigers or berries or snowflakes. And I refuse to judge much less condemn a whole group of people based on the bad behavior of a few.

            Greg Johnson in his piece entitled “In Defense of Prejudice” says,”There are seven billion people on this planet. It is impossible to treat each and every one as a special snowflake, and if one tried it, even with the limited numbers of people we encounter in our individual lives, it would consume all one’s time and make it impossible to pursue one’s own goals, i.e., to actually live.” Where do I begin. I would say to Greg that nobody is saying that you have to take everyone you meet out for coffee and learn the intimate details of their lives. It’s not even about something you have to do. It’s about what you don’t do, namely judging. Stop being fearful. That would free up a whole lot of space for other things

            He goes on to say,”…the purpose of life is self-actualization” In other words ‘be all you can be’. Did Jesus fulfill his potential? And what did he say were the two greatest commandments? Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Maybe that’s the path to self-actualization

            Greg begins his next paragraph with these words: “One of the ways that civilization advances….” Has civilization advanced Greg? Technologically yes but spiritually and ethically I’d say no

      • malthuss December 10, 2015 at 3:13 pm #

        ANGER IS SEXY

    • alphie December 9, 2015 at 10:23 pm #

      Ok Flonase I’ll interpret the quote for you. I hold some views which are conservative: I am against gay marriage. I hold other views that would be considered liberal: we are warming the climate with the burning of fossil fuels. Do try to think these things through for yourself Flonase I can’t keep stopping to explain things to you

  106. MisterDarling December 8, 2015 at 8:05 pm #

    THIS WEEK’S submittal by JHK was interesting in two ways: that which is seems intended to say and that which is does not.

    As I see it, there’s a problem with ‘Framing’ here, ie., the role of legacy News Media – what it says that it does and what it actually does. For instance, in “Manufacturing Consent”;

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

    – Noam Chomsky & Edward Herman ‘shine’ and lot of ‘light’ on Mass Media as a tool of political elites [*] and (amusingly) enumerate the ‘Five Filters of Editorial Bias’ that repackage the unvarnished documented Truth into a something that serves and/or flatters relevant Powers That Be [**].

    Mister Kunstler seems to be saying that we need _more_ not less of editorial bias, along with more not less top-down hierarchical structure – and that somehow this top-down ‘command-push’ instead of bottom-up ‘recon-pull’ structure will inform and guide society in a way that heals and strengthens.

    That’s interesting coming from someone with a large online presence. Right now, one of the biggest threats to the corrupt and increasingly ineffective Powers That Be is the as-yet untamed Internet in all its manifestations – so much so that whistleblowers like Mister Snowden have been able to yank the rug from under an entire raft of command, control and surveillance programs funded, aided and abetted by the top 1/10th Percentile of the global power elite – and royally piss them off along the way… And yet, Mister Kunstler seems to argue for a return to legacy paper media and the political message-control which masqueraded as ‘editorial quality management’.

    Well, of course he’s right about the gutting of Journalism as an industry. It has been defunded in ‘The West’ – with good political reason – because it’s **unwanted** by the Powers That Be (et al.).

    This is a time of great “turbulence” (caused by their gross mismanagement), the bad news vastly outweighs the good (from their standpoint) and therefore it is time to swing a scythe across press-room floor – as many times as necessary.

    Conversely, across the pond things are different; Russian Today and Al-Jazeera have been packing on staff for the better part of a decade. Their journalists have a lot of work do, their operation is a ‘hive’ of activity… Make of that what you will.

    😉

    SO MUCH for what the weekly installment seems intended to say. What about that which it does not (yet does, inadvertently)?

    The phrase “epochal fog” is telling. Every great empire descends into chaos shrouded by the “fog of war” and the dust-cloud its collapse raises. Imperial communications break down, unorthodox alternatives and surviving back-channels are officially condemned. Take the collapse of the Western Roman Empire for instance; an “epochal fog” shrouded its former territory (Western Europe and North African Littoral) for centuries and there was no ‘One Official Source of News & Information’ – until the primacy of the Bishop of Rome was established and the Church he led was pronounced ‘Catholic’ in authority [***].

    Hmm, wasn’t the Catholic Church intended to be a ‘light in the darkness’ resting on the strong, capable shoulders of “men acting like honorable men” working within a ‘hierarchy of leadership’?

    Something tells me that we’ll be seeing a lot more “epochal fog” before being ‘rescued’ by purportedly honorable men, and when we are we’ll need to keep a weather eye on *them* – and their hands – as well.

    Cheers!

    — — —

    [*] whether, feudal, oligarchic, theocratic, ‘democratic’, fascist, communist, etc.
    [**] A term referring to everyone with actual hire/fire/life/death/fund/defund decision-making power in any given scenario.
    [***] Ie.,via ‘Mass’ & ‘Universal’.

    • Pogo December 8, 2015 at 10:36 pm #

      I think I mostly agree, MisterDarling, but am not sure. Just to offer a few points:

      I believe Mr. Snowden is a courageous individual just as Daniel Ellsberg was…believing in a cause larger than themselves. And please don’t forget the history: The “Pentagon Papers” was made public by the Washington Post, a major newspaper. And Snowden’s revelations and escape were only made possible because of the assistance of traditional newspaper reporters. He needed help in getting his message out…and in getting out of the country. Ellsberg got a walk in the park while Snowden got condemned to the dark regions.

      What I think Mr. Kunstler is getting at in this essay is that an informed “vox populi” is essential for the continuance of this grand experiment we call “democracy” or, if you prefer, representative government in the form of a Republic. So the fundamental question is how do we, the vox populi, stay informed? How is the news and essential information gathered and delivered and what means or methodology is used to deliver the information?

      Was Marshall McLuhan correct when he proclaimed that “THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE”? To quote Wikipedia:

      “The medium is the message” is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.”

      This implies we receive a different message when it is delivered via the Internet, and I do not disagree with this view. I would still rather read a good, reliable newspaper that cruise the Internet for news. Trouble is, there aren’t any left.

      I disagree with your assertion that the demise of the newspapers was because “It has been defunded in ‘The West’ – with good political reason – because it’s **unwanted** by the Powers That Be (et al.).”

      That’s not my view. To apply Occam’s Razor…the great newspapers of this country (which were at one time the greatest in the world IMO) declined simply because all the advertising dollars were sucked up by the Internet. Craigslist alone wiped out a major source of revenue; not to mention that, for the Internet, the manufacturing costs and delivery costs are practically nil compared with traditional newsprint.

      I have an affinity for newspapers, perhaps, because I had paper routes back when every large city had two, three or more more major newspapers. I had a paper route delivering the Memphis Press Scimitar (the evening paper) but later delivered the Memphis Commercial Appeal (the morning paper). At the peak, I delivered about 200 of the huge Sunday papers (filled with advertising supplements, naturally) which required my Mom to get up on Sunday mornings to drive the car since I could never had delivered that number using just my motor scooter. Was I really a soldier in the vast Army delivering “news” or was I merely a slave working for the advertising shills in Manhattan?

      There was a tactile connection with the newspapers when I folded then for sailing into my customer’s rose bushes. I loved the smell and the feel of the newspaper! There was and is a tactile and implicit connection with the all the people responsible with delivering the news, and this connection I believe is shared when a person can quickly scan the summary leads on the front page (the way it was then) then leisurely fold the paper back and page through those stories that attract attention. I don’t get this feedback with the internet, and the goddamn popup ads are only getting worse and worse! My newspapers never had an unwelcome, obnoxious and obtrusive popup ad that I recall!

      I also have an affinity for newspapers because my grandfather arranged a tour of the newspaper company, where I got to see the giant Linotype machines spitting out hot lead slugs of words that were then inserted into the even more gigantic printing presses where these word slugs were magically arranged into coherent sentences that accurately reflected the coherent news story constructed by a skilled, trained, educated and competent reporter, and where a competent news editor and proofreader had ensured the story was accurate, grammatically correct and coherent. It was one hell of a lot more magic going on than constructing a web page. It was noisy and hot but you had the feeling that something of consequence was going on.

      I find it supreme irony that some of the most admired writers and thinkers in this country like Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain of course) began their careers learning to set type and print a newspaper. Is there a lesson here? If there is some discipline garnered from the practice of getting a good newspaper out, can the same be said for producing a virtual newspaper? One difference that comes to mind is that Ben Franklin, Sam Clemens or any others of an army of printers probably spent one hell of a lot of time proofreading…which entails reading what you have written over and over…obviously not a practice in the world wide web of wisdom.

      The demise of the traditional newspaper has had a profound affect on collection, assimilation and delivery of news. News that is vital to keeping the “informed citizenry” that Thomas Jefferson felt was necessary to maintain the democracy.

      I don’t know where we’re going with all this, but I have the deep and profound feeling that we are at a point of major change…and the lack of large news gathering and reporting organizations will not help us in finding our way. We only have Breitbart and Alex Jones to guide us.

  107. MisterDarling December 8, 2015 at 8:12 pm #

    So fellow travelers, the end of the year has arrived and it’s time to take stock.

    For instance, Jeff Gundlach said that IF Oil Prices dropped into the $40/barrel range, THEN there’d be geopolitical hell to pay:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-05/jeff-gundlach-if-oil-drops-40-geopolitical-consequences-could-be-terrifying

    … Looks like Gundlach was right. Kudos to Jeff.

    😉

  108. trypillian December 9, 2015 at 12:38 am #

    James is once again harping on Putin as a ‘leader’. If you consider a mob boss as ‘leader’, so be it. Putin has autism, specifically Aspergers Syndrome. [ from a Pentagon Report 2008 ]. The characteristics of which are: ‘lack of social interaction and inability to communicate’ – just the attributes you want in a leader. Putin in utero had a stroke as well as the mother while having the demon seed.

    Thie above explains the vacant, demonic stare during photo ops and as a purveyor of propaganda. Rumor has it he has been taking lessons from Anderson Cooper. His right arm does not move while walking, the right side of his brain is not working either based on the orwellian rubbish discharging from that orifice.

    Other characteristics of the ‘leader’ include steroid use to enhance his otherwise diminutive body mass, amphetamines to jump start cognitive dissonance and neurological damage. His facial skin is getting randomly puffy, a certain symptom of the above. If anyone bombs or shoots down another one of his airplanes, it looks like his head will explode.

    • Buck Stud December 9, 2015 at 1:36 am #

      Interesting information(and hilarious, too!) Trypillian–thanks for posting,

      I’m not sure why Vlad gets a pass in certain internet quarters, but I think it has to do with that ‘former Reagan Cabinet member’ providing a certain weird sort of credibility.

      Putin always reminded me of a banty rooster types especially when I saw how short he was in comparison to other world leaders. I think Tom Crusie might even be taller that Vlad Putin and that’s not saying much.

    • elysianfield December 9, 2015 at 6:20 pm #

      Tryp,
      Yeah, and Hitler was a paperhanger, housepainter, failed artist. Himmler was a chicken farmer. Von Ribbentrop was a wine peddler, Goering (Meyer) a dope addict, and Rudolph Hess a toady.

    • alphie December 11, 2015 at 9:07 am #

      For me the jury’s still out regarding Putin. I don’t mind “the vacant, demonic stare during photo ops”. It beats the “please elect me because I’m a happy guy and oh look I’m kissing a baby!” act we in the US get. But I am aware that Putin is the soviet version of George W. Shoot first and ask questions later(spoken with that ‘down home’ Bushian drawl)

  109. Buck Stud December 9, 2015 at 1:38 am #

    Once in a while it feels good to engage in some irrelevant nonsense, such as a shit talking “poem” (Dana White) lionizing the Irish cage fighter Conor McGregor:

    Conor McGregor had a staring contest with Medusa and won.

    Jesus walks on water. McGregor swims on land.

    Conor McGregor once jizzed into a semi trucks gas tank. That truck is now called Optimus Prime.

    Dragons breathe fire.
    Conor McGregor breathes dragons.

    Conor McGregor was in all 6 Star Wars movies… as The Force.

    When Alexander Bell invented the phone, he already had 3 missed calls from Conor McGregor.

    Conor McGregor has already been to Mars. That’s why there are no signs of life.

    Conor McGregor can beat you in connect 4 with only 1 move.

    Conor McGregor has a grizzly bear carpet in his room. The bear isn’t dead, it’s just afraid to move.

    Conor McGregor can slam a revolving door.

  110. wpa_ccc December 9, 2015 at 3:00 am #

    “Forced federal registration of US citizens, based on religious identity, is facism. Period. Nothing else to call it.” –Jeb Bush

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    • Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 3:25 am #

      In any other context, they’d jump at the chance to get us all carrying a biometric ID card. Maybe they’ll use the Muslim presence to bring that about. Never waste a crisis, but create them whenever possible.

      • Buck Stud December 9, 2015 at 11:01 am #

        It looks like the educational efforts of Frankiti and Alphie are paying off: it reads like you’re wising up. But probably just for an instant.

        Trumps declares it’s “Us or Them”. Isis declares it’s “Us or Them” Therefore Trump = ISIS in the “Us or Them” dynamic, Behind the scenes, of course, are the war profiteers or those you claim ‘never waste a crisis’. Does it occur to you that not only do they never waste a crisis, but actually instigate and orchestrate crisis’?

        And speaking of that, what’s up with fodase? Posts after post, after post it’s “stupid liberals” and ‘scum Muslims’? Doesn’t this hyper-repetitive asshole ever get bored with himself? Truly an aberration of Nature, no variety within harmony,and yes, even in Lucifer’s den a certain torturous harmony exists and I’m sure fodase will fit right into that choir. But no evidence of the beautiful “other” lends variety to his inane world of ‘sameness’.

        But I digress. Flash forward to the fall of 2017 and Janos, lying in bed and all alone with nothing but his honesty wonders: What happened to ISIS? They dominated the news cycle and then poof, were gone right after the elections? He doesn’t go so far as to consider that there are those who actually pay others to kill in order to further the ‘Us or Them’ dynamic and besides, it felt so good, “The Great White Hope” –the “Great Man” as Janos exalted–pounding the podium with ’round em up and send em back’ declarations.

        But the moment of insight and reflection didn’t last. Because in a quiet honest moment and all alone with nothing but his honesty Janos likes the feel of the propaganda dildo thrusting in and out of the anus of his mind.

        It’s “Us”, it’s “Them”. Us, Them…US, THEM! In and out it goes, deeper and deeper the propaganda penetrates and let’s face it, nobody in mainstream political circles drives it home quite like the “Great Man” . Never mind the the dull chaste reality of barren truths; the lies, the manipulations –over and over and over again– feel too damn good.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 2:26 pm #

          So you don’t think of ISIS as other, hence the quotation marks? That simply bizarre. Imagine if our Founders had the same attitude – think they would have triumphed over the Indians? Look Buck, we’re obviously not all going get along. The very idea is not only preposterous but childish. Grow up.

          Of course our Government is the enemy of American Whites. When have I ever said otherwise? They desperately want to flood America with dangerous aliens. What is wrong with you that you trust them all of a sudden? Is the criterion that you support them as long as they are hurting America? That would explain your support for Hillary. But what does that make you? A monster.

          • Frankiti December 10, 2015 at 5:48 pm #

            “Triumphed” over the Indians has to be the silliest hair-brained comment from a litany of hair-brained comments posted by Herr Himmler on CFN.

            It’s obvious that Janos has never heard of, nor subscribed to, the concept of universality. If he did, he’d be fully aware that all humans screw all other humans all the time. His primitive mind seeks patterns, it needs to categorize, the primitive mind needs to find something else, a flaw, it cannot accept that humanity itself is the problem. That categorizable flaw for him is something simple or arbitrary; a color, an origin, a religion, an ethnicity. Once he places the things he dislikes in their appropriate category, his cognitive dissonance subsides. It’s not all people after all, it’s some people… the bad ones unlike me.

          • alphie December 11, 2015 at 8:48 am #

            Janos thinks he is pure as the driven snow. Your line Frankiti,” that all humans screw all other humans all the time” is not only apropos but funny as hell.

            just as an aside here: how do we know Janos is male? Could be derived from Jan or Jane. I’m not trying to be funny here just an honest inquiry

        • Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 3:37 pm #

          Try harder. Start here:

          http://www.counter-currents.com/2015/12/in-defense-of-prejudice/#more-59632

        • alphie December 11, 2015 at 8:25 am #

          Too dam funny! I need to frame that Buck

  111. KL Cooke December 9, 2015 at 4:11 am #

    “What’s your favorite weird upper class Protestant name?”

    I always liked Nevil Brownjohn.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 2:28 pm #

      That’s a fine one. Maybe we could create a deck of playing cards with these names? I’ll raise you one Stringfellow Barr to match your Nevil Brownjohn.

  112. FincaInTheMountains December 9, 2015 at 4:45 am #

    Two things in San Bernadino shootings that do not fit into “Muslim terror” scenario:

    1. “After the shooting began, San Bernardino Police Department Lt. Richard Lawhead said that their SWAT team happened to be conducting training nearby. The team was suited, “ready to roll” and responded rapidly, Lawhead said.”

    http://www.popularliberty.com/12253/breaking-swat-team-drill-turns-real-mass-shooting-scenario-san-bernadino-ca

    2. The reports in Fox News, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Los Angeles Times, Mediaite and elsewhere named a 28-year-old Qatari citizen, Tayyeep bin Ardogan, as the second suspect.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/2/tayyeep-bin-ardogan-identified-second-san-bernardi/

    There is apparent similarity in the mistaken identity of the San Bernadino terrorist to the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan

    Was it a message to certain part of American Elite: keep supporting Erdogan and you’ll have more DAESH-related terror in US?

  113. FincaInTheMountains December 9, 2015 at 5:09 am #

    Dmitriy Sedov: Turkey and the US looking for Russian weak points in Syria

    Recent reports from war zones in Iraq and Syria say that the forces of self-proclaimed “caliphate” can be destroyed quickly enough. And then the fate of the region will be in the hands of the victors, and the American-led coalition does not play a prominent role among the winners.

    The victory of Syrian troops with the support of Russian and Iranian allies for the US will mean the beginning of the failure of the project “Greater Middle East”. NATO is going to have to admit that its concept of the “zone of responsibility of expansion and projection of power around the world” has failed, as well as the practice of gang-raping of unwanted regimes.

    And independent, confident Russia’s actions have received support and sympathy in other countries.

    All three provocations of the last days – the Turkish “ambush” of the Russian Su-24 bomber, Turkish tank units entering the territory of Iraq, an attack by Western “coalition” aircraft on the positions of Syrian government troops: their general sense is that the US and Turkey are making overtures to turn the front of the war against Russia and its allies, carefully analyzing Moscow’s reaction to each next step.

    Actually, the “minimum program” of further escalation of the conflict has already formed: Turkey takes control of border areas in Iraq and Syria, the Western “coalition” bombs Syrian government forces, the Russian air group in Syria is trapped.

    Judging by how strongly the US allies, for example, the same Germany, rejected the possibility of military cooperation with Russia in Syria, the disengagement has already occurred and the line of confrontation developed.

    Apparently, Moscow is well aware of the feverish state of Washington strategists. Moscow decided not to be afraid. In response to Washington’s threats Su-30 jet fighters are securing the positions of Syrian troops and tactical bombers and attack planes have increased the intensity of the attacks on militant positions.

    Together with air defense systems covering the whole territory of Syria, the Russian military have quite strong positions.

  114. I AM SULLY December 9, 2015 at 8:00 am #

    I feel that Chomsky’s critique of journalism post-WW2 is substantially correct. I seriously doubt there was ever a golden-age of journalism where the “powers that be” were “kept honest”. In fact, journalism has had “agendas” every since it came into existence. So, I have a hard time shedding a tear for something that never existed.

    • Frankiti December 10, 2015 at 7:39 pm #

      But of course it was better back then, it always was, is, and will be.

  115. FincaInTheMountains December 9, 2015 at 8:24 am #

    The International Monetary Fund loosened its policy on lending to countries that default on their debts to sovereign creditors, easing one potential obstacle for bailout money continuing to flow to Ukraine if the nation fails to repay a Russian-held bond this month.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-08/imf-eases-lending-policy-in-move-helping-ukraine-in-bond-feud

    Yesterday’s IMF’s decision is that now no one has to pay nothing to anybody in principle. And who will live and who will die will be decided by United States. US blocking stake in the capital of the IMF will be more than enough. Along with the votes of those who do not want to sink alongside defaulted debtors.

    Even more simple: Europe has been had to complete loss of political sovereignty. In response to any disagreement with American policy they now instantly will get non-payment of debts by Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and the list goes on. A collapse of the debt market in Europe.

    The yesterday’s decision has another consequence, which can be figuratively described as “better a horrible end than horror without end.” In fact, go-ahead was given to a complete destruction of the global financial system as we know it.

    And this is also US response. This time to China, which until recently has used the mechanisms of the existing system for their gains and attempts to intercept the power from the dollar. And it almost reached the goal. All theoretical and technological work is completed. The status of reserve currency the Yuan has received; issues of sovereign Yuan bonds and their distribution through London are set in motion.

    Mutual currency swaps with dozens of countries have been concluded. International banks (the BRICS and ABII) started the work.

    In this situation, the United States could no longer wait. The countdown now was measured in weeks, not months.

    What will be Chinese, London and Russian response?

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  116. FincaInTheMountains December 9, 2015 at 9:30 am #

    It is impossible to fight with DAESH without first nailing in the US those who created those cannibals, nourished and released them into the world, those who prepared for ISIS in Mosul 2000 Hummers and 300 tanks.

    Obama needs enacting “Trading with the enemy act”.

    • sprawlcapital December 10, 2015 at 9:29 pm #

      Finca: Obama needs enacting “Trading with the enemy act”.
      ==========================
      To my knowledge that is already the law–it has been enacted. Obama needs to enforce that law, is what I believe you are saying..

      Whether America’s abandoning military equipment in Iraq, that equipment then being appropriated by ISIS, is the same as trading with the enemy is dubious, at best.

      Still, I get what you are saying, Finca.

  117. fodase December 9, 2015 at 10:40 am #

    “too difficult to figure out what’s right or wrong.” – fodase

    It seems so for you. Open your eyes and maybe you will see the world in Technicolor…or at least in shades of gray. For you, apparently, everything is black or white and nothing in between.

    how thick do you have to be to not recognize that muslims are hellbent on destroying the West – aided and abetted by the insance policies of the left?

    it may not be too late for you to recognize this.

    or do you want to dilly dally about the fine shades of technicolor while another muslim takes out 35 americans?

    you people are blind. you see paris, you see san bernadino, and then tell us things can’t be black and white.

    you are the problem.

    no worries though, real men are coming to your aid to make your country safe again, so you can ponder things in peace.

    • alphie December 9, 2015 at 8:00 pm #

      “-aided and abetted by the insane policies of the left” How conveniently you forget the 8 years of George W who broke open the middle east and unleashed this hell on the world. Fodase-nuttier ‘n a holiday fruit cake

  118. sauerkraut December 9, 2015 at 11:09 am #

    Mr. Sean Coleman, you seemed to have missed my response above, so I’ll respond again.

    You are still denying global warming, that is, AWG. I quote, “It is related to man-made global warming, although in the case of the Church there is a small core of truth whereas with AGW the delusion appears to be total.”

    Well, Sean, when you have time, please do tell us what is wrong with AWG.

    Specifically.

    You do know, do you not, that a life of riches and glory awaits for the One who can do that. Just ask some of the entrenched manipulators of opinion. So please, do us both a favour and publish.

    • Sean Coleman December 9, 2015 at 12:56 pm #

      Sauerkraut

      Just did that above. I also gave specific examples which you ignored in our earlier conversation a few weeks ago. One of them was the former head of your country’s national scientific association. You remember, where you poured scorn on my sources, after a quick consultation with your kindred spirits on Wiki*, as either graduates in gender studies (La Framboise – give the lady the credit of being attacked by the Sisters for heresy) or (in the case of Booker) evolution deniers (there’s that word again!). I told you that the IPCC were trying to shoehorn a complicated subject into crude computer programmes designed to disgorge the right answers.

      But hold! We’ll leave it there for now. One delusion at a time folks!

      * For those who missed it, this is where I said that Wiki is a superb resource if you want to know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall or (as I once discovered) the weight of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in metric tonnes. The same post where I mentioned a school quiz where several questions were written in a curious language that sounded like English, but not quite, and which distressed both audience and participants alike. Afterwards, on a hunch, I found the answers where we all find them: in Wiki.

      • sauerkraut December 9, 2015 at 1:05 pm #

        Your memory fails you, Sean. I did respond to that.

        Now, why don’t you respond to this? Keep to the point. What is wrong with AWG?

      • sauerkraut December 9, 2015 at 2:34 pm #

        Let me help you, Sean. You passed over the right track when you wrote, “I told you that the IPCC were trying to shoehorn a complicated subject into crude computer programmes designed to disgorge the right answers.”

        That at least acknowledges the existence of the issue, which is, “What is wrong with AWG?” Now all you have to do is to justify that remark, by
        1. listing the programs and specifying how each is deficient; and
        2. telling us how you know that the “programmes (are) designed to disgorge the right answers”.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 2:53 pm #

        You can’t be part of the Liberal Tribe if you do not believe in man made global warming. He is offering you a ultimatum: believe or be expelled.

        • alphie December 9, 2015 at 3:43 pm #

          Why is it so inconceivable that our species couldn’t produce enough waste in the form of CO2 to alter the climate?

          • alphie December 9, 2015 at 4:37 pm #

            I don’t know if I phrased that right. My question is: why is man made climate change not within the realm of possibility?

          • Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 6:35 pm #

            Prove it before you change all our whole Civilization. We tore our whole educational system apart for Blacks only to realize that the Old South was right about them to begin with. Let’s not do the same thing here.

            The planet was much warmer at various points in the past. Did the Medievals create the warming period, when Greenland could grow Trees in some places?

            Or in the remote past, the planet didn’t even have ice caps. Did the dinosaurs do it – or did the Sun change?

          • alphie December 9, 2015 at 6:52 pm #

            “We tore our whole educational system apart for Blacks only to realize that the Old South was right about them to begin with” Right in what way Janos, that they should be slaves. You really can’t get past skin color can you? You operate on the most superficial level possible and call it thinking.
            Do you even consider them human? A good way to justify the mistreatment of people is to, well…not consider them people at all. Are blacks people Janos?

          • alphie December 9, 2015 at 7:00 pm #

            You come off like you know the corrective for what ails us but you can’t see what’s staring you in the face. It’s hatred that’s destroying us and you’re playing right into it Janos

          • sauerkraut December 11, 2015 at 1:43 am #

            Janos.

            Proof? It’s been done beyond a reasonable doubt. We have a known effect, that the globe is warming. We have a plausible mechanism, CO2. And we have a very good correlation between the two, all worked out in the greatest detail. What more do you want?

            The planet was indeed warmer at various points in the past. And colder in the past. There are many reasons for this, such as astronomical alignments, solar cycles, galactic orbits, continent-wide burning of peat during volcanic eruptions (there’s that CO2 again), celestial collisions, etc. These are known causes, and are incorporated into the models.

            The problem is, it’s not just global warming. Excess CO2 is changing the chemistry of the oceans, and that messes with oxygen production. Yep. The stuff we breath. Change our whole civilization? Lack of oxygen will do that right smartly.

            So why not take out a little insurance against catastrophe? I spend a few dollars on car insurance, and even insure my house against fire, even though the chances against fire are thousands to one. So why not insure the global climate? Costs about the same: 1 or 2% of income.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 2:07 am #

            Are dogs the same species as wolves? They can inter-breed but they are so different that they are classified as separate. There are other examples such as chimps and bonobos. Clearly Blacks and Whites are a similar case.

          • alphie December 11, 2015 at 9:29 am #

            “Are dogs the same species as wolves?” Ok I’ll bite. Science classifies all people, black, white, red ,yellow and everyone in between as homo sapiens. Now do you want to argue with science Janos? Or maybe you’re a science unto yourself. All the brilliant scientific minds down through the ages, devoted to unraveling the mysteries of the universe and life on earth can’t contend with the one Colossal mind of Janos Skorenzy(queue angelic choir)

          • alphie December 11, 2015 at 9:52 am #

            And no Janos not “Clearly Blacks and Whites are a similar case.” In fact not at all. For someone who purports to be intelligent your arguments have no basis in science

        • sauerkraut December 9, 2015 at 4:20 pm #

          No, no, no Janos.

          Belief is not involved. This is a matter of reality, which is independent of belief. The best way we have of understanding that reality is the scientific method. The scientific method informs our investigations. Those who investigate a particular phenomenon are experts, that is, they know a while lot more than the uninitiated. That makes their expert opinion, in that particular subject, worth more than inexpert opinion, and worth a whole lot more than belief.

          And expert opinion is nearly unanimous: AWG is a fact.

          Let me give you an analogy, Janos. If your daughter had a big unsightly lump on her body, and you went to 30 oncologists who said, “Yes, we all agree it’s cancer (Global Warming), and yes we can treat it, and we all agree about how to treat it (reduce CO2),” plus one guy who said, “Yes it’s cancer (Global Warming), but no, we can’t treat it (because we don’t understand it),” would you opt for treatment? Yes or No?

          • Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 2:09 am #

            No my doctor says the lump is benign and needs no treatment.

          • sauerkraut December 11, 2015 at 12:35 pm #

            Janos, do you seriously doubt that the globe is warming? Or do you seriously doubt that it’s a problem?

            Please clarify.

  119. FincaInTheMountains December 9, 2015 at 11:30 am #

    Michael Hudson: The IMF forgives Ukraine’s debt to Russia

    The IMF has now been drawn into the U.S. Cold War orbit. On Tuesday it made a radical decision to dismantle the condition that had integrated the global financial system for the past half century.

    This has been the system by which the dollarized global financial system has worked for half a century. The beneficiaries have been creditors in US dollars.

    But on Tuesday, the IMF joined the New Cold War. It has been lending money to Ukraine despite the Fund’s rules blocking it from lending to countries with no visible chance of paying (the “No More Argentinas” rule from 2001). With IMF head Christine Lagarde made the last IMF loan to Ukraine in the spring, she expressed the hope that there would be peace. But President Porochenko immediately announced that he would use the proceeds to step up his nation’s civil war with the Russian-speaking population in the East – the Donbass.

    What should Russia do? For that matter, what should China and other BRICS countries do? The IMF and U.S. neocons have sent the world a message: you don’t have to honor debts to countries outside of the dollar area and its satellites.

    Why then should these non-dollarized countries remain in the IMF – or the World Bank, for that matter. The IMF move effectively splits the global system in half,between the BRICS and the US-European neoliberalized financial system.

    Should Russia withdraw from the IMF? Should other countries?

    The mirror-image response would be for the new Asian Development Bank to announce that countries that joined the ruble-yuan area did not have to pay US dollar or euro-denominated debts. That is implicitly where the IMF’s break is leading.

    • MisterDarling December 9, 2015 at 3:31 pm #

      Hi FitM!

      I saw that information this morning as well. At this point I can only be amused by the way that Global Finance is burning down its own house to ‘save’ itself… from *itself*.

      _Good Luck_ to them all with that!

      Cheers!

    • ozone December 9, 2015 at 9:17 pm #

      Michael H.? Turn out that light!!!!

  120. nsa December 9, 2015 at 11:52 am #

    With females being granted a combat role in the USIS military, we here in Ft. Meade are requesting the public’s input: should the helmet be worn over the burka or under the burka?

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    • wpa_ccc December 9, 2015 at 5:11 pm #

      Get on board the UUP dollar express, nsa said… and since that great nsa advice UUP has lost 3.56% (-3.56%) while my credit union checking account is paying me +2.03%. Goldbrickers at Ft. Meade don’t know shit from shinola when it comes to finances.

      • Sticks-of-TNT December 9, 2015 at 7:08 pm #

        wpa,

        What was the date of nsa’s recommendation? I don’t have a dog in this hunt, but coming from the investment business, unless he and Q are day-trading, their time horizon should be longer than a couple of weeks.

        We used to ask people like you, who wanted to measure their investment progress day-by-day from the stock prices in the daily paper, if they were gardeners, would they pull their carrots out of the ground every day to see how they were doing?

        wpa, you may very well be correct, although I didn’t have the impression you were a currency trader by profession, but give the guys a little time before you start dancing on their graves! Otherwise, you just sound silly.

        Sticks-of-TNT

        P.S. Meanwhile, putting liquid funds on deposit in a demand account at your friendly local credit union at the interest rate you cited, in today’s ZIRP environment, sounds like a smart move. I intend to investigate it for myself.

        • wpa_ccc December 9, 2015 at 9:10 pm #

          nsa announced it like it was leaving the station and used the word “express” … maybe it takes two weeks for the “express” engines to warm up?

          Look for Kasasa accounts. Checking account interest rates vary from 1.63% to 4.64% depending on your local institution.

          https://www.kasasa.com

          • Sticks-of-TNT December 9, 2015 at 10:39 pm #

            wpa,

            Good point. The “all aboard” call timing was pretty awful. Unfortunately, it happens a lot, even by the very best in the business. Murphy’s Law, I guess. Egg on the face seems to go with the territory. It’s as much art as science.

            Thanks for the Kasasa info. I do intend to look into it.

            Peace. -Sticks

  121. Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 2:32 pm #

    CAIR demands that the child of the shooters be given to a Muslim foster family. But Obama already said the parents were not Muslims. So since everyone is equal, and the baby was not born a Muslim, why not give it to atheists just to show the principle of equality? Why are parents allowed to raise “their” children anyway? Shouldn’t the State being doing that?

    • malthuss December 9, 2015 at 3:13 pm #

      Turn off the ‘news’–you know its disinformation.

  122. Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 2:51 pm #

    http://www.dailystormer.com/zulu-king-blacks-destroy-south-africa/

    The Brutha is a very switched on spade.

  123. MisterDarling December 9, 2015 at 3:11 pm #

    @ Pogo:

    Hello! Thank you for taking the time to write a thoughtful, cogent & interesting response. It is appreciated.

    Regarding | “I believe Mr. Snowden is a courageous individual just as Daniel Ellsberg was…believing in a cause larger than themselves. And please don’t forget the history: The “Pentagon Papers” was made public by the Washington Post, a major newspaper. And Snowden’s revelations and escape were only made possible because of the assistance of traditional newspaper reporters. He needed help in getting his message out…and in getting out of the country. Ellsberg got a walk in the park while Snowden got condemned to the dark regions.”-pogo.

    While newspapers were helpful they did not play a critical role in the Snowden Saga. Taking it from the top: 1) Edward Snowden got _himself_ out of the country – he was hunkered down in a Hong Kong hotel room registered under an assumed name when he finally found some newspaper folks who would take the story. 2) It took _months_ to find legacy media ‘journalists’ who would work with him, 3) The journalist that ended up taking the lead was a maverick outsider within his profession: a homosexual extrovert naïve enough to think that he had nothing to lose and that the people opposing the story played by rules and had scruples. 4) Without leveraging the internet Mr. Snowden wouldn’t even have gotten that far: he encrypted, then backed up his story in four different remote locations with the implication being that the story wasn’t going to die with him and that if the newspapers didn’t take it someone would, 5) It wasn’t the newspapers that did the heavy lifting of getting him out of Hong Kong and the Moscow airport, it was a freelance documentarian and a Hong Kong Chinese human rights organization… So again, no thanks to legacy media. They did eventually publish _some_ of the story – with enough arm-twisting and spoon-feeding (and reap the monetary reward). So there’s that… /S

    Regarding the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg is on record – in the movie ‘Citizen 4’ – stating that he didn’t face the same level of resistance nor did he have as large & immediate a historic impact as Mr. Snowden did. The Summer that the Snowden/NSA story got out all of the largest US tech corporations (/NSA sock-puppets) took double-digit hits in their overseas sales figures. That was the _strategic level_ beauty of the Snowden disclosures: they circumvented the obstructionist American system of ‘public discourse’, legislation and ‘justice’. The vote came in immediately in the only way that the American Power Elite understand: big money losses, and it didn’t stop there.

    And since we’re not forgetting our history, let’s try to remember how many people the legacy newspapers destroyed for displaying the ‘presumptuous effrontery’ of publishing a story that they (he New York Times for example) didn’t think the public was ‘ready’ for. Let us remind ourselves of what happened to Gary Webb;

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

    – When he broke the story of the CIA developing a network of cocaine smugglers and crack dealers to help raise funds for organizations they’d been explicitly told to not be involved with. What happened to him? The NSA and the CIA didn’t need to get directly involved, they simply made some phone-calls to their pet newspapers and the helpful editorial staff did the rest. . . So much for integrity! [*]

    And while we’re looking at historical examples, let’s look farther back at the Vietnam War. One of the things that I found discouraging about discussing Afghanistan (when prompted) was the almost total lack of recent information available to the people I talked to. It was as if they were talking about another war – or the war the way it was two years earlier. I conferred to with veterans from the Vietnam era and they showed me that the lag in American news coverage from the top-5 newspapers was the same back then – “22 months” – and I was memorably told this: “…really, it’s the job of the newspapers to make people *feel* that they know what’s going on, and that’s it. Too much truth and things change, and we’re can’t have a bit of that!”

    Sir, I understand your affection for paper media in all its forms. I too feel an affection for its physicality, but No Sir, you will not get me to feel emotional about the legacy version of the Elite’s Propaganda Machine.

    Regarding | “That’s not my view. To apply Occam’s Razor…the great newspapers of this country (which were at one time the greatest in the world IMO) declined simply because all the advertising dollars were sucked up by the Internet. Craigslist alone wiped out a major source of revenue; not to mention that, for the Internet, the manufacturing costs and delivery costs are practically nil compared with traditional newsprint.”-pogo.

    Pogo, this is simply a tacit admission that legacy media was and is in thrall to commercial interests. Refer to ‘Manufacturing Consent’ regarding he manifold portals of corruption that opens. The internet on the other hand is filterable. I see very little in the way of advertising – because I set my filters to block it – and I see a much less ‘locally customized’ version of webpages because I anonymize my traffic. By analogy; you don’t *have* to chat with every hooker and junkie you see when you drive down the street, similarly there’s no reason that you have to be distracted by AdWords/AdSense garbage. In either cases it’s not my job or yours to spin the wheels of commerce for it. There are ten suckers lined up behind us that can take that job if they like!

    Additionally, the internet informs people who know how to use it faster, freer and better than was possible in the Pre-1990 era. Besides search engines (yes, there are multiple and not all of them track and store your queries) there’s simply the freedom to get to the source overseas and get it from them. The amount of information that a freelance researcher has at their disposal now VASTLY exceeds what their counterparts in a national intelligence agency had back in the 80’s (caveat: outside of their operational area if they were HUMINT data collectors, before they got downsized). The ability to get versions of a story from beyond the American MSM Oligopoly is a bigger deal-killer for the newspapers than ad revenue. Truth is the essence of Relevance. The real world needs actionable information. In the long-run, Impressions, Clicks and Readership figures will forever flit about in its shadow.

    With all of this clearly in view, the real problem of the old newspapers was that they became victims of their own success. They ‘played the game too well’ as it were – and now they can take their rightful place – in *History*.

    😉

    Cheers!

    — — —

    [*] Yet another CIA-human monster alliance. If you’re wondering if this is part of an established pattern of organizational behavior, it is.

    • ozone December 9, 2015 at 5:27 pm #

      MD,
      Excellently reasoned response.
      Careful, you might be branded as, “eminently sensible in the face of uncomfortable truths”. (As you know, we can’t have that.) 😉
      – just passin’ through

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 9, 2015 at 7:43 pm #

      MD,

      Incisive analysis, as usual, particularly your Snowden vs. Ellsberg insight.

      I got the Gary Webb story from his book, “Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion”. Lengthy, but worth it. Highly Recommended to CFN “shitizens”. Great look into a part of society who operate above/outside the law as a way of life and more confirmation of the old, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

      As always, “Thank you for your servitude!”

      Sticks-of-TNT

    • Pogo December 11, 2015 at 10:42 pm #

      @ MisterDarling

      Just to let you know I read your reply and appreciate the time you put into it. I’ll admit that I was “waxing nostalgic” about the olden days of newspapers (with the help on a brandy). In fact, I don’t subscribe to any printed newspapers and get all my news from the Internet, including RT and Al Jazeera and BBC, German news, etc.

      Overall, I was trying to make the point that it takes large organizations to do the actual shovel work of gathering and delivering the news. If we don’t have organizations like UPI, AP, Reuters, API and so on, but instead rely on untrained onsite individuals who twitter what they see…then that is not reliable reporting in my book.

      Have large, traditional newspapers ever lied to us or been manipulated by the government? Well, of course. But are we better off without them? I don’t think so.

      In 1841, Thomas Carlyle wrote, “Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all”.

      We could probably debate this point forever but I still maintain that something has been lost when anyone can throw out any piece of “news” without it being question, vetted or edited.

      One example I might make is to compare the quality of self-published e-books with some of the great writers of the past who were guided to fame by great editors of the past like Maxwell Perkins. There was a symbiotic relationship. The old question of whether a group of monkeys banging away at keyboards could ever produce a great novel is an interesting one…but I think we really know the answer to that.

      You seem to have a greater depth of knowledge about Edward Snowden than I. But is it not a fact that Snowden arrived in Hong Kong on May 20 and contacted The Guardian in June? My memory of the story is that is was major newspapers all the time that helped him get his revelations out.

      I certainly agree that the Internet is one of the great inventions of all time. Not quite as much as the concept of an alphabet or the printing press but pretty damn important and useful. I use it all the time, and yes, I may be old but am aware of search engines like DuckDuckGo.
      I also use AdBlock Plus but it is not perfect and the amount of intrusive advertising is becoming oppressive. Or popups like one I encountered tonight that required a survey to be completed before viewing the article.

      Let’s face the fact that good journalism cannot be delivered for free. People need to be paid for their work, including James H. Kunstler.

      Here’s an example from Wikipedia (which is begging for donations lately):

      “On March 5, 2010, Ars Technica experimentally blocked readers who used Adblock Plus—one of several computer programs that stop advertisements from being displayed in a web browser—from viewing the website. Fisher estimated 40% of the website’s readers had the software installed at the time. The next day, the block was lifted, and the article “Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love” was published on Ars Technica, persuading readers not to use the software on websites they care about:[24]”

      ” … blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical … It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin.”

      “The block and article were controversial, generating articles on other websites about them, and the broader issue of advertising ethics.[27][28] Readers of Ars Technica generally followed Fisher’s persuasion; the day after his article was published, 25,000 readers who used the software had allowed the display of advertisements on Ars Technica in their browser, and 200 readers had subscribed to Ars Premier.[24]”

      Well, it is late in the week and time to get to my book. A printed book by the way. So good night.

      Pogo

  124. wpa_ccc December 9, 2015 at 3:58 pm #

    “Who do you think was behind 9-11?” –Malthuss

    OBL.

    Who do you think killed OBL?

    BHO. Kicking ass.

  125. bukowskisghost December 9, 2015 at 5:46 pm #

    What did you guys do before you wasted time out bullshitting each other? Do the crypto nazis that make ” pronouncements” on Jim’s blog shine their jack boots all day? I have never see such a bunch of needy egomaniacal jackasses since I worked for ” the company” in DC eons ago. It is what it is all you armchair geniuses…. Get over it and live your life best you can. Amen.

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    • alphie December 9, 2015 at 5:58 pm #

      Lol!! True dat! (said the guilty party)

    • Janos Skorenzy December 9, 2015 at 6:39 pm #

      Just how many Mexican and Central American immigrants is enough? How many Muslims is enough? You don’t even have the modus operandi to answer these questions. You are struck dumb, thumb in mouth, a complete tool and follower.

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 9, 2015 at 8:00 pm #

      bg,

      Thanks for dropping in to bless us with your insight. There are a billion sites on the World Wide Web out there waiting for you to visit. I’m sure you can find one more to your liking if you get started now. Please hurry! Amen back. -Sticks

    • capt spaulding December 10, 2015 at 2:16 pm #

      Wow. Crypto Nazi. I haven’t heard that expression since Gore Vidal used it on William Buckley. Buckley in turn called him a Queer. Obviously that particular debate degenerated into name calling, however, I do miss those Buckley debates on PBS, that were couched in more civilized tones. Buckley vs John Kenneth Galbraith, for example. It was a wonderful opportunity to watch two skilled users of the English language engage in debate. All we have nowadays is rush limbaugh and his ilk to listen to. simplified down to the lowest common denominator. No class.

      • elysianfield December 10, 2015 at 5:13 pm #

        Captain,
        One of my fond remembrances of Buckley’s “Firing Line” was his discussion with Eldridge Cleaver, whom Buckley introduced, at the beginning of the show, as a “rapist of white women….”

        Priceless.

  126. fodase December 9, 2015 at 7:29 pm #

    I’m more than happy to take in to the US as many qualified, legal immigrant South/Central Americans or anyone of any other flavour, Muslim, Shinto.

    They should all be asked to state their allegiance to the United States, pass English fluency/political acumen tests and, in the case of Muslims, renounce the supremacy of Sharia Law and all violence against non-Muslims.

    Trump will whip ass and bring back respect for the United States of America.

    Under BHO and sseveral past “D” and “R” presidents, we’ve become a laughingstock that illegal felonious aliens mock, sue & otherwise extort.

    Time to put them in their place.

    Get in line, get legal, get a skill that your prospective new country can use.

    fodase

    • ozone December 9, 2015 at 9:23 pm #

      Hey now,
      That’s an especially piquant “armchair” series of pronouncements and declarations, Brasileiro. “Keepin’ it *real*.”

    • malthuss December 9, 2015 at 11:25 pm #

      Check Greg Hunters latest interview on Youtube.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 12:01 am #

      The Japanese used to make the Dutch Traders trample crucifixes if they wanted to trade. Why? Because they have been badly burned by the Catholics in the previous century or so (the Church converted one of the southern Islands and started a huge rebellion). Maybe we should make Muslims burn the Koran or something? If they can’t, then they are too devout to come in. But that’s unfair, many will scream. Yes. The ideal of a Universal Republic is absurd and failing badly.

  127. Q. Shtik December 9, 2015 at 9:41 pm #

    At the NY Times it’s Trump all day every day…Trump, Trump, Trump. The left wingers are starting to get hysterical. Check out Frank Bruni’s op-ed today: ‘What To Tell Trump.’ The fear is palpable.

    Sure, I am appalled that a man so inarticulate can go this far but I am loving his message against any Tom, Dick and Hasan just walking into this country with no intention of ever assimilating.

    • malthuss December 9, 2015 at 11:26 pm #

      In the 1990s the BIG HEADLINES were along the lines of
      ‘Oh No, Le Pen might rule France.’

    • wpa_ccc December 10, 2015 at 12:04 am #

      Do you really consider Trump to be “inarticulate”? He seems like a good communicator, getting lots of ovations and leading the polls for months now. He shouldn’t have any trouble getting the Republican nomination.

      Of course, he could decide he is being disrespected by the Republicans and run as an independent. In that case 68% of his supporters say they will vote for him as an independent… which gives Trump zero chance of being elected president.

  128. nsa December 9, 2015 at 10:29 pm #

    How will the kenyan-in-chief handle the influx of muzzies with multiple wives and multiple litters of little muzzies? Will there be multiple welfare checks and multiple section 8 apartments and multiple food stamps and multiple obamaphones and multiple medicaid? What about the “earned income tax credit”…..a fucking muzzie with a couple of wives/litters could get a $50k refund back just by filing a 1040EZ. We don’t have enough freeloaders already?

    • wpa_ccc December 10, 2015 at 12:12 am #

      “$50k refund back just by filing a 1040EZ”

      I think this is impossible. How can you get a $50K “refund” if you have not paid $50K in taxes? Or is this like your UUP dollar “express” comment? Wishful fantasy world thinking.

  129. Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 12:06 am #

    https://www.yahoo.com/politics/scalia-argues-black-students-benefit-from-slower-210637220.html

    It’s called winning. Because we are smarter? No, because we are right. It doesn’t matter how smart you are if your sacred cause is bullshit. Behold the turning of tide. Enjoy, brothers. Gnash your teeth, haters.

  130. ZrCrypDiK December 10, 2015 at 12:11 am #

    Watched NBC news tonite, they opened with a story about the two ISIL LoveBirdz. Sooo fuxored – NBC anchorz (dupez) just dictated whatever US Govt told them. Completely contradictory to the story from 3-letter-acronym club-boyiez only a week earlier (but who’s paying …). No Mo investigative journalism, *WHATSOEVER*.

    Corrupt (conspiratorial?) political/religious/social structures, eh? Mr J-H-K. You still doubt conspiracy? (Well,) You still *DELETE* me…

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    • ZrCrypDiK December 10, 2015 at 12:17 am #

      Oh, and in case you wanna jam hardcore, well, then – just have a *GANDER* at the following tune :

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKgv0R9LiA4

    • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 12:23 am #

      So in other words, you agree with Trump and I, that Muslims should be banned.

      • ZrCrypDiK December 10, 2015 at 6:49 pm #

        How about we get a “news” report after every (US?) drone bombing, “1-3 high level terrorists killed, 15-30 collateral deaths (women, children, uld fux – U no).” Can U *imagine* what happens after the 10th report, said-same-day?!?

  131. wpa_ccc December 10, 2015 at 3:19 am #

    TRUMP’S PLAN FOR BAN ON MUSLIMS EXPLAINED

    MSNBC: The Customs agent would ask the person his or her religion?

    Trump: They would say: “Are you Muslim?”

    MSNBC: And if they said “Yes” they would not be allowed in the country?

    Trump: That’s correct.

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

    Trump has a foolproof plan. Everyone knows that Daesh’s one weakness is they can’t tell a lie.

    This is proof Trump has good management ideas and knows lots of other things, too.

  132. FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 3:54 am #

    Finca’s theory of Trump being Ross Perot circa 2016 for Hillary goes mainstream

    A Trump-driven conspiracy to elect Clinton?

    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-conspiracy/index.html

    “Actually, that this is the current phenomenon of Trump that he began as Ross Perot 2.0, suddenly discovering that he is not only 2 times bigger than the most popular of any other Republican candidate, but also enjoys considerable support of Obama’s Democrats, who are so sick of Hillary Clinton’s statement about her invincibility that this time they are ready to vote for the Republican candidate. And as an independent candidate, as Clintons originally intended, Donald Trump will be simply unbeatable, taking votes not only from the Republican candidate, but from Democratic candidate as well, which would guarantee to bury the American two-party political system as in the word “forever.”

    http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-spectacle-so-far/

  133. FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 4:19 am #

    A striking example – strategic B-52 bombers, of which the United States have 65 pieces. The last batch of these aircraft was made back in 1962, 53 years ago. Last renovation of them took place somewhere before the collapse of the Soviet Union, that is, over 25 years ago.

    Pratt&Whitney engines J57-PW-19W and J57-PW-43 for these planes are not produced since 1970, spare parts are not available, even the technical documentation is lost. US military-industrial complex tried to fit engines from 747, but failed.

    As to what the US military budget is almost eight times more than the Russian. On the one hand it is a demonstration, who is actually a militant imperialist and who only defends itself.

    However, tens of billions spent annually on various overt scams, like “weapons of the future.”

    For example, $19 billion was spent on the software, which should be able to predict the actions of the enemy. As a result, the program is mistaken in 70% of cases; so any quarter-dollar coin shows better reliability.

    These facts partially explain why the US is in a hurry – part of the technology is lost, the new often do not work – missiles SM3 and aircraft the F-35 really do not fly – so if they do not come into direct confrontation in the next couple of years, when they still have a residual life of past achievements, it will lose new opportunities for attacks on China and Russia for many years and will require even more resources. And given the stagnation of the US economy and the future of US superiority at all becomes unlikely.

  134. FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 8:21 am #

    If it comes to confrontation of Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton, she’ll find an Islamist terrorist who would kill Trump, and then the US will fall into a civil war that is going to end with autodafe on the White House lawn.

    So now desperate efforts are being made to withdraw both Trump and Hillary from the race, and then Bernie Sanders will automatically become the next President, who will work under the strict control of board of directors of “USA, Inc”.

    All this is absolutely hopeless because of Hillary’s personal qualities, who is now to crawl out from the frying pan, is ready to promise Putin anything, up to Yalta-2.0, just to hang him later like Saddam Hussein.

    And if she gets a chance to use “nuclear option”, make no mistake, she’ll go for it. And all of it is being determined now, not a year later, alas!

    Eagle Named Uncle Sam Attacked Donald Trump
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S259QYLFbXM

  135. Reagan December 10, 2015 at 9:28 am #

    Even Democrats should applaud Trump (and vote for him), simply because he has done what many people on both sides have wanted for decades: someone outside to shake up the establishment. He has done that and is not stopping. It’s time that someone who isn’t an embedded politician take office and not be owned by some corporation or billionaire who is more often than not a Wall Street insider or banker. Go Trump! BTW, no person, especially anyone who calls himself a man, would vote for Clinton. She says anything to anyone to get elected. Just look at her response when anyone brings to light the rapes and molestations of her husband. If she was any type of real person, or a “strong woman” as she likes to say, she would have dumped him after the first instance. Go Trump!

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  136. elysianfield December 10, 2015 at 10:43 am #

    “A German court has ruled that Islamists who patrolled a city’s streets as “Sharia police” did not break the law and will not be prosecuted.

    Nine were arrested in September 2014 after patrolling streets in Wuppertal, western Germany. They wore bright orange jackets with the words “Sharia police”. They told passers-by not to frequent discos, casinos or bars.”

    The above news, earlier today, posted on the BBC site.

    How do you like it now, Wpac?

  137. FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 11:22 am #

    Joe Biden has triggered a new war in Ukraine: Go, Joe, go!

    A new war is breaking out in Ukraine, and it has been triggered off by no other than the vice president of the United States. During his visit to Kiev last weekend, Joe Biden publicly warned President Poroshenko that “the country is on the cusp” of being completely ruined by rampant corruption.

    Ukrainian media reports Joe Biden, US Vice President, demanded action, among other things, the removal of certain Ukrainian officials in the Ministry of Defense and the Prosecutor General’s Office.

    But instead of encouraging the war on corruption, Biden’s intervention seems to have given a new impetus to a war between various oligarchic and political clans in Ukraine.

    The credibility of the vice president’s anticorruption message may have been undermined by the association of his son, Hunter Biden, with one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies, Burisma Holdings, and with its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, who was Ukraine’s ecology minister under former President Viktor F Yanukovych before he was forced into exile.

    http://sputniknews.com/europe/20151210/1031539590/joe-biden-ukraine-corruption-war.html

  138. Buck Stud December 10, 2015 at 11:32 am #

    “Us–IN; them–OUT!” And in and out it thrusts, the dildo of propaganda driven ever deeper into the collective mental anus of Janos, Fodase and other minds prone to delusional delineations.

    And why is it delusional? Because there will NEVER be a resolution. On purpose. The only sure thing about this mind fuck is that Janos and Fodase are the voluntary, unquestioning grease that lubricates the perpetual war machine and their endless stream of profit. “Resolution” is bad for business, after all.

    But why can’t Janos or Fodase see this? Is it because they’re too deep into the jungle, with every twig and every leaf viewed as yet another “other” to be vanquished and removed in order to prune their perceived ideal forest of humanity? Last year it was the Mexicans; this year it’s the Muslims. And every year it is the “Blacks”: Always the “Blacks”. And because Janos at least has the sense to recognize the importance of variety, he throws in the occasional anti-women, anti-gay screed every now and then. Oh, and let’s not forget the Jews either; how could we; Janos won’t let us!

    Hate does not expand vision; it condenses vision into the tip of a spear. Which is why the higher martial arts train their adepts to transform animalistic impulses and the adrenal response into a more effective awareness able to see beyond the constricted and condensed perceptual response induced by hate/anger/retribution and into an expansive awareness capable of deciphering motivation and purpose. A type of vision not driven by lower energies that is aware and broad enough to recognize that another “Us/ Them” roll in the hay is sometimes best avoided altogether. Witness Reagan hightailing it out of Beirut when terrorists killed nearly three hundred Marines. But developing that type of awareness is painful. One might realize they are an addict and worse yet, a stooge tool.

    Put another way, Janos/Fodase are still down below, throwing rocks at false shadows on the cave wall. Childish, in other words. And surely not the mindset of a promising child.

    Congratulations, Dupes.

    • FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 12:32 pm #

      “Put another way, Janos/Fodase are still down below, throwing rocks at false shadows on the cave wall.”

      Here’s nice illustration of the concept:

      http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/serfilatov/37945564/325916/325916_600.jpg

      • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 3:43 pm #

        You mean shadows like this?

        http://www.dailystormer.com/jewish-terrorist-khodorkovsky-plans-new-bolshevik-revolution-for-russia/

        Think Putin takes this lightly, considering what Jews did last time? Think he regrets letting this fucker go after the guy vowed to stay out of politics? Think maybe he’ll rectify the situation?

        Here’s your existential choice: Putin who you claim to love or a fellow tribesman. I think we all know which you will choose.

        • FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 5:47 pm #

          Don’t you worry, Janos, Russians got a good vaccination against the Bolshevism – for next 500 years.

          As far as Khodorkovsky is concerned, he’s just pathetic, he should stay out of politics and enjoy fishing in Geneva ponds – that’s what he was planning to do anyway, but US is so desperate for regime change in Russia, that they dug him up.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 3:04 pm #

      Well said Buck. We have many enemies, both foreign and domestic – just like the Founding Brothers. They triumphed and and so can we. But we can’t triumph by being “nice” – which means allowing unspeakable cruelty to be inflicted on innocent people, people our leaders have sworn to protect. We must hold men to their Oaths. Surely you can understand that much at least?

    • alphie December 11, 2015 at 11:05 am #

      Preach it brother. I didn’t want that to end Mr Stud. I think the firm of J & F just got schooled(J&F standing for Just F….well, you get the idea)

  139. fodase December 10, 2015 at 11:34 am #

    Former Aussie PM Abbott tells ‘grand mufti’ that White culture is superior.

    The PC tide is going out fast, not to return for several generations, i.e. until the lessons of the need to call evil for what it is, and destroy it, have once again been forgotten:

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

    As Breitbart London has reported, Mr Abbott, who was ousted from his leadership position in a coup by his own conservative coalition in September, said in an interview with Australian broadcaster Sky News on Tuesday that “all cultures are not equal.”

    “A culture that believes in decency and tolerance is much to be preferred to one which thinks that you can kill in the name of God, and we’ve got to be prepared to say that,” he said.

    Mr Abbott followed up his statements in a column for The Daily Telegraph newspaper in Sydney, pointing to the death of two Australians at the Lindt café siege in Sydney in December 2014 and the shooting of police accountant in Parramatta in October as reasons the Muslim religion needs to be overhauled.

    He pushed for change within Islam and said Western Civilisation should declare “clear superiority” over a culture that justified killing people in the name of God.

    “Islam needs to delegitimise the urge to ‘behead all those who insult the Prophet’ but only Muslims can do this,” he wrote.
    ========================================

    hear hear Mr. Abbott

  140. fodase December 10, 2015 at 11:40 am #

    “A German court has ruled that Islamists who patrolled a city’s streets as “Sharia police” did not break the law and will not be prosecuted.
    Nine were arrested in September 2014 after patrolling streets in Wuppertal, western Germany. They wore bright orange jackets with the words “Sharia police”. They told passers-by not to frequent discos, casinos or bars.”
    The above news, earlier today, posted on the BBC site.
    ===
    How do you like it now, Wpac?

    wpac likes it a lot, it’s a peaceful interfaith multicultural exchange that stops drinking and dancing.

    anything that furthers compassionate leftists’ urge to control despicable christians and side with islam

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    • elysianfield December 10, 2015 at 5:34 pm #

      Fodase,

      I’m sure the Brown shirts of Ernst Rohm, very early in the struggle, and when a vast minority, were courteous and made vague suggestions regarding their idea of propriety, all the while helping women cross the street, etc. In Iran, Afghanistan, and other nests of fundamentalism, the suggestions became more…strident…and ass whippings and worse were the order of the day.

      I would opine, that if we were to give crossing guards cudgels, or whips, the school children, those little bastards, would soon wipe the smirks from their faces.

      • elysianfield December 10, 2015 at 5:57 pm #

        Edit: “were the order of the day”…

        “have become the order of the day.”

  141. volodya December 10, 2015 at 12:33 pm #

    You can say what you like about the multi-talented Mr. Trump but at least he gives the appearance of having left the script in the limo.

    I say “appearance” because maybe, like Hillary who plans to be more spontaneous, Trump’s incontinent blather is in fact highly scripted. This IS show-biz after all.

    Showbiz or no, maybe what Trump needs is to slow down. Think things through a bit more.

    How does a person sound all high-falutin’ and smart? He convolutes things. He avoids certain terms. He wants to sound calm and serious and temperamentally fit for high office so he uses 10 words to say what can be said in 5.

    What am I talking about? Do you remember what Randy Paul said? You don’t remember? Ok, well, neither does anyone else.

    But Randy said (before Trump) that he wants to put a pause on immigration from 34 countries, these countries being “high risk”. But, no, Randy’s not in favor of a moratorium based on religion. No, of course not.

    See what I mean? Note that Randy didn’t say “Muslim”. Randy’s way of saying it sounded much more level-headed than Trump. Different terminology, more words, but the same thing.

    Trump COULD puff things up with some politically correct fluffery, so that with the benefit of sober reflection, things that at first sound grossly inflammatory might come across as more well considered. It It might give Gwen and Amy something to chew over on PBS.

    Like, what if Trump said, OK, the USA is ALL about freedom to worship as you see fit. Because, at its root, if America isn’t about THAT, then what’s it about?

    But, in the next breath, what if Trump said, look, America is all about freedom. And so the individual has wide latitude as far as lifestyle, modes of belief and all that. But having said that, what passes muster in a Bedouin encampment or a Pakistani mountain village may not pass muster here. You can stretch the behavioral or societal envelope only so much.

    So, for example, Trump might ask, are face coverings ok? And he might answer, maybe not so much. They creep people out, especially modern western women, especially given that it took centuries to cast off the shackles of father and brother and husband.

    To the modern western woman who doesn’t take her hard-fought status for granted, things like face and head coverings and floor length dresses might represent female subjugation and submission and, as such, represent a step backwards.

    In short, never mind the Confederate Flag, just as slavery has no place in the modern USA, neither does second class citizenship for non-whites, nor anything that implies second-class status for women, symbolic or otherwise. The road up from subservience was exceedingly long and steep, the road back down could be exceedingly slick and fast.

    America is the new world, it is the embodiment of progress and freedom. Or it’s supposed to be.

    Trump would be smart enough to know that no matter that the screed touched on freedom of religion, the plight of women and racial minorities, to the almighty enlightened, particularly those having been educated in those bastions of political correctness, all this sounds deplorable and so they will go on the assault.

    Now, Mr. Trump might then say in reply to the inevitable counter attack, consider this, maybe what he says sounds deplorable to these people here who really don’t have a clue about conditions overseas.

    Anyway, the broader issue is one that’s been around as long as America. What cultural practices are acceptable here? Do we give foreign ways a foothold? Maybe it sounds broad-minded and intellectually and morally elevated all that sheep-shit, and as long as a miniscule proportion of the population adheres to backward foreign ways, the rest don’t care.

    Clitorectomy? Infibulation? Forced marriages? A shrug, a yawn, whatever, out of sight in their own enclaves and, therefore, out of mind. Nobody gives a shit, especially the exalted ones in their leafy, green neighborhoods and ivy covered campus buildings. As long as the backward one percent don’t go shooting dozens of people at a time or setting bombs at public events.

    But what if it’s not one percent but ten percent? How tolerable will it be then? What if it’s twenty percent? What about thirty? What if some of these bearded people forget their “place” and start demanding a say and start challenging for power? What if they start calling the Progressive Left morally depraved and perverse and unfit for influential position in society?

    What if American cities become subdivided by self-segregating, mutually exclusive no-go zones? What if disparate groups start insisting on separate schools, separate justice systems?

    Or, for example, what if that age-old civil war, Sunni vs Shia, flares up here, or that old civilizational conflict, Christian vs Muslim. Can’t happen? Why not? Happens all over the world.

    What about when the spunky, liberated, progressive-minded western woman who wears and goes and does what she bloody well wants, finds herself called an infidel whore out in the streets? How tolerable is that?

    Can’t happen? From what I’ve heard, it happens all the time in Europe. Never mind that fourteen people are dead in California and 130 in Paris, calling a woman names is exceedingly small beer. Compared to shooting her, that is.

    I noticed that Obama gave the obligatory scolding lecture. Yeah, yeah, how many times have we heard it, Americans have to be tolerant and accepting blah, blah. But these things go both ways, so did he give a lecture to American Muslims also, that there are corresponding obligations to accept American-Western societal and cultural norms? Heaven forfend, that would never do, not even after a series of mass murders on US soil.

    But, if we’re going to give lectures, don’t stop with Muslims, there’s many others. For example, what about proponents of the Hispanicization of the USA? Hispanicize to what end, one wonders, given the sorry state of things south of the Rio Grande?

    I know that the Billionaire Club rub their hands with glee at all this, you know, America as an agglomeration of mutually antagonistic groups, because the billionaire’s aim is to divide and conquer. Wage suppression is the agenda so, to billionaires, this is the stuff of dreams.

    It’s not just the billionaires, the Idiot Left wants the same thing. See, they think they’re above all these greasy, inter-ethnic vendettas so they think that the more that society is fragmented, the more their power would be enhanced as thought leaders and societal adjudicators from their lofty perches in the academy and civil service and judiciary.

    But I would caution especially the Idiot Left. Did they notice who the Paris attacks targeted? The young, the hip, you know, “progressives”.

    Maybe Lefties still think that their agenda passes muster with Islamist killers. They should think again, the ironically detached atheist, especially those in positions of power, could well find themselves at the front of the be-heading line. “Je suis Charlie” you say? OK, have it your way, but you better make out a will just in case. For now it’s the “soft” targets, but just wait, how long before the jihadist targets the well connected and powerful? There’s a precedent. Remember Pope John Paul II getting shot by that Turk way back?

    See, there’s a lot of people in power or in positions of influence that take their place for granted. They shouldn’t. There are many others in this world, from many different places, that don’t see eye-to-eye with the Harvard educated and these others want a place in the sun.

    Hard for an American to accept but education comes in many forms, sometimes in centuries old academies in places like Mecca and Qum. Never mind far more ancient places from the Far East. Sometimes these folk may don a suit and tie. So they may dress like an American but they sure as hell don’t THINK like an American and they sure as hell don’t think of their own age-old ways as inferior. The opposite in fact.

    The melting pot model of assimilation served America well. It has a centuries long track record of success. Don’t mess with success…

    • Buck Stud December 10, 2015 at 1:39 pm #

      “Trump COULD puff things up with some politically correct fluffery, so that with the benefit of sober reflection, things that at first sound grossly inflammatory might come across as more well considered. It It might give Gwen and Amy something to chew over on PBS.”

      If Trump did that he would sound like the generic GOP candidate. And that’s not going to fly with “the base”. Trump has injected PCP into the collective psyche; they ain’t going back to cock tail hour niceties.

      But you’re right, there can be some intelligent solutions to the illegal immigration problem and it is a problem. And it starts with strict employee verification, which, ironically, Obama has championed and the GOP opposed.

      Trump is simply antagonizing Muslims which will inevitably lead to more violent responses on both sides. To use a cliche, it’s a cycle and cycle that Trump not only perpetuates, but enlarges and speeds up.

      I notice “conservatives” never mention how Reagan ‘turned tail’ and exited Beirut after terrorists killed 300 in the Marine barracks bombing. Can you imagine the hypocritical outrage if Obama or any Dem for that matter would have done the same?. Clearly there is a double standard in play and reveals why the GOP should never, ever be trusted. Ever.

      Once upon a time–1979 or so– the Grateful Dead traveled to Egypt and played a three night stand at the base of the Great Pyramids. Their legendary legion of fans accompanied them on this remarkable sojourn/ ” cultural exchange”. Obviously that can’t happen today. What happened?

  142. meargen December 10, 2015 at 1:05 pm #

    Back to Spotlight. I saw the movie last weekend, and enjoyed it very much, and it depicts a world of investigative reporting that has fallen away. I also enjoyed the Boston locations, since I lived there, as did JHK, although he admits it wasn’t a kind city to him.

    I kept being reminded of a lot of the old Sidney Pollack films.
    If there was real investigative reporting, totally unbiased, Obama would never have been where he is. Nor Bush, Clinton, etc.
    That weekend I also saw Brooklyn, another good movie. It’s fun to watch, and although not very dramatic, it catches a woman’s struggles and the world of NYC in the fifties, as well as Ireland. Like Marty, a little movie about little people.
    I thought the film had a real JHK moment when Eilis, the Irish heroine, is with Tony, a plumber she starts a romance with. Tony takes her to Long Island at a stretch of countryside, showing some new houses he and his brothers will build, especially one for their mother. I thought ‘suburbs!’ JHK has to see the film and comment on this.
    It shows how people wanted some space away from cities, and their noise and worn-out architecture, as JHK has noted in his books. There was a reason for suburbia.
    Having grown up in the fifties, I like the way they recaptured the clothes and locations. A church hall is exactly what dumpy halls looked like. Also, you see women working and deciding their own lives. I’m tired of it being called ‘oppressive’, like the recent Progressive commercial where Flo (my favorite TV character) is in fifties mode, being chastised for thinking and not having a husband. That’s not the way I remember it, and all the women I knew were working and had a say in things.

    Also, it was a contrast in the two films where Eilis had a kindly, helpful priest get her through things, Spotlight is about a real loss of trust in the Church.
    All of you should see both films.

    As for the political stuff, I’m always to the right of Janos, so he can do the heavy artillery for me. The only two things I’ll say is that Trump, whatever you think about him (and most of you despise him), has shown the apathy of the corporate class. They have no interest in the country. America is dead, and needs to die so world corporate rule can replace it…much like Protestantism was a reaction against a super-national Catholic church.
    Also, Time making Merkel Person of the Year is another slap in our face about any concern for the white race and national survival…but I guess we’re lucky Jenner didn’t get the merit badge this year.
    Merkel reminds me more and more of a pod person.
    She creeps me out.
    Thank God for Eilis. And Flo.

    • Q. Shtik December 10, 2015 at 3:26 pm #

      “Person of the Year” does NOT mean that Time likes them or agrees with them……although in this instance they probably do.

      Hitler was Time’s Man of the Year back in 1938, back before it became politically incorrect to say “Man.”

    • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 3:48 pm #

      You are to the right of me? I doubt it: only God and Attila the Hun are. I am so far right that I am left. Reality is curved after all.

      Trump isn’t a conservative – he is a nationalist. Big difference as people have finally begun to realize. Fascism!, the paid whore media cry. Yes, they are right, but they say it like it’s a bad thing.

      • elysianfield December 10, 2015 at 5:46 pm #

        “You are to the right of me? I doubt it: only God and Attila the Hun are”

        Janos,
        I believe a correction is in order…I am sure you meant the God of the Old Testament…not the New.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 12:29 am #

          Have you ever read the New Testament as an Adult, of your will? Try it again and you will see. No Prophet talks as much about Hell and Damnation as much as Christ. Yes, his focus was on the personal and psychological, not the political or the national. But to the point: a softy he wasn’t.

          • elysianfield December 11, 2015 at 11:34 am #

            Janos,
            In the Old Testament there was a hell of a lot of “Smitin'” going on…Lot of threats in the New, and, as we all know, talk is cheap…. The Old Testament God would show you the back of his hand…the New? Threats and promises.

        • wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 3:12 pm #

          “I am sure you meant the God of the Old Testament…not the New.”

          Isn’t God eternal, all-ways good, powerful, all-knowing?

          So, the God of the Old Testament is identical to the God of the New Testament. You can’t just go changing God around to fit your preconceptions, can you? OK, maybe you relativists can, just to justify your lifestyle.

  143. wpa_ccc December 10, 2015 at 2:01 pm #

    ““A culture that believes in decency and tolerance is much to be preferred to one which thinks that you can kill in the name of God, and we’ve got to be prepared to say that,” Abbot said.” –fodase

    ———————————-

    Killing in the name of God is an American tradition and is NOT a desirable culture.

    Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin told another audience, “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”

    “We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this,” Boykin said last year.

    On at least one occasion, Boykin said of President Bush: “He’s in the White House because God put him there.”

    Killing in the name of God is an American tradition and is NOT a desirable culture. America has killed millions of Muslims. Muslims have not killed millions of Americans.

  144. fodase December 10, 2015 at 2:05 pm #

    this is the culture they come from, it’s endemic to islam –

    http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2015/12/10/watch-little-palestinian-girl-demonstrates-how-to-stab-israelis/

    Trump doesn’t need any pointers on how to talk, he’s simply saying out loud what a majority of US Americans know is true about islam, PC rubbish, illegal immigration

  145. wpa_ccc December 10, 2015 at 2:56 pm #

    “They told passers-by not to frequent discos, casinos or bars.”

    Gee, I saw some kids waving signs telling people to get their car washed by the students in Glee Club.

    The fake “Sharia Police” have as much authority as the high school glee club or the Westboro Baptist Church. They can tell people not to “frequent discos, casinos or bars” all they want, but they have no legal authority. Sharia law is not even supported uniformly in Muslim countries.

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

    A Pew Research Center survey of Muslims in 39 countries asked Muslims whether they want sharia law, a legal code based on the Quran and other Islamic scripture, to be the official law of the land in their country. Responses on this question vary widely. Nearly all Muslims in Afghanistan (99%) and most in Iraq (91%) and Pakistan (84%) support sharia law as official law. But in some other countries, especially in Eastern Europe and Central Asia – including Turkey (12%), Kazakhstan (10%) and Azerbaijan (8%) – relatively few favor the implementation of sharia law.

    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/07/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

    How do you like it now, with some facts on board, elysianfield and fodase?

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    • elysianfield December 10, 2015 at 5:59 pm #

      Wpac,
      Well, when the Glee Club starts beating the shit out of you for refusal to get your car washed, then we will discuss the facts….

      • wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 12:07 am #

        The glee club does not beat the shit out of anybody and neither does the shariah police. They are both harmless and legal. You are making shit up to fear monger.

        A German court has refused to press criminal charges against a squad of “Sharia Police,” who “patrolled” the streets of Wuppertal in self-styled “uniforms.” The group alarmed locals last year by preaching Salafist morals outside of casinos and bars.
        A Wuppertal city district court rejected a case against the controversial self-declared ‘Sharia police,’ saying the orange safety vests worn by the group did not breach any laws. The court said that the bright neon vests that bore the inscription do not form any intimidating or threatening messages and furthermore could not be confused with a real police uniform.

        Oh, they were “preaching” … How scary!

  146. Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 3:11 pm #

    CNN anchor tries to fight Trump official by pointing out that Jews weren’t banned after all of their terrorism in America. Guess she didn’t get the memo that you aren’t supposed to talk about that. Oh, she put her foot in her mouth up to her ankle. Delicious.

    http://www.dailystormer.com/cnn-anchor-accidentally-calls-out-jews-as-terrorists/

  147. fodase December 10, 2015 at 3:22 pm #

    lol, wpa your constant standing up for islam has become chucklingly funny to behold.

    now you’ve likened a sharia patrol in Germany to a high school glee club, say it has no authority….

    except we have sharia patrols (and no-go muslim areas) now in germany, france, the UK, belgium, holland, denmark, sweden, and likely other european countries.

    yep, it’s all as innocent as “the Westboro Baptist Church” you cite.

    lol, i am chuckling.

    yeah these muslims just fit right in, just like their wretched call to prayer blasted from loudspeakers in michigan 5 times a day.

    that’s how they “assimilate”.

    no need to keep the noise down, it’s religious freedom.

    but americans – if they’re white – are forbidden from putting up a Christ in the Manger nativity scene.

    that’s offensive and must be stopped. separation of church and state.

    right, wpa?

  148. malthuss December 10, 2015 at 3:27 pm #

    TECHNO NARCISSISM

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/may/14/bill-gates-cloud-whitening-dangerous

    However, the truth is we are being sprayed. Look up and see the planes. Chemtrails are NOT contrails.

    I assume there is a population control thing going on and Gates whats to make it look otherwise.

    Check–youtube — Dane Wiggington.

  149. Q. Shtik December 10, 2015 at 3:40 pm #

    Alphie calling fodase flonase is nonsenseical but very funny.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 3:53 pm #

      Alphie the sacred river ran,
      In caverns measureless to man.

      Doesn’t sound right. Anyone who calls themselves Alphie deserves to eat dog food even before they are old. Countless senior citizens survive on dog food. That’s what you get in late stage Capitalism as well as early stage industrial Capitalism. Only the middle is good and that’s over now.

      • FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 5:58 pm #

        “Countless senior citizens survive on dog food”

        Why can’t they/us eat cake? I am planning to survive on plantains. Just planted 1500 trees (it’s not really trees, it’s one-time palms)

        • Janos Skorenzy December 10, 2015 at 7:30 pm #

          What about Comrade Komerofsky?

      • alphie December 11, 2015 at 6:34 am #

        Ruff ruff

  150. FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 5:11 pm #

    A.Brodsky: Bosch inspired thoughts of US Elections

    Hillary should be removed from the elections, it is more or less clear to everybody, especially after yesterday, when Putin expressed the hope that he will not have to use nuclear weapons against the DAESH, of which she is the Godmother.

    We say DAESH – we mean Hillary, we say Hillary – we mean DAESH. Therefore, no one wants to go to the Last Judgment with a photo of Hillary in the teeth, but it is inevitable if she becomes US President.

    But the removal of the main candidate from the election is unprecedented, and to keep the balance Trump will be removed too. Moreover, I’m sure that concrete negotiations are underway on this subject.

    Now when Trump and Hillary are removed from the primaries, a candidate number 1 from GOP becomes Ted Cruz and runs against the Donkey Sanders. Trump becomes independent candidate or creates his own party (such as The Party of The Common Sense) and gets 40% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats vote (100% Obama’s Democrats).

    Trump president with 56%, Cruz becomes vice president with 30% of the vote, while Sanders is gaining 14%. US two-party system comes to an end. Hillary finished it off. This is a fact.

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  151. fodase December 10, 2015 at 5:15 pm #

    yet another muslim killing for allah:

    http://www.wnd.com/2015/12/muslim-arrested-after-neighbor-flees-sword-attack/?cat_orig=us

    now now, we mustn’t rush to judgement, it’s only a small number of muslims

    the rest are those moderates you never see denouncing the small number

    they’re too scared

  152. fodase December 10, 2015 at 5:21 pm #

    anne coulter hits the nail on the head. i don’t expect most of you to get it, it’s too commonsensical
    ======================================

    For my best birthday gift this week, Donald Trump called for blocking Muslim immigration to the United States. If he throws in all immigration, it will be my merriest Christmas ever.

    By contrast, the eunuchs running against Trump went mental.

    Marco Rubio called Trump’s proposed moratorium on Muslim immigration “offensive and outlandish.”

    Rubio’s idea for stopping Muslim terrorist attacks on U.S. soil is something simple: Launch several wars to clean up the entire Middle East.

    Chris Christie called Trump’s plan “ridiculous,” saying, “This is the kind of thing that people say when they have no experience and don’t know what they’re talking about.”

    People with “experience” say things like: Walls don’t work and are “too expensive.”

    Ted Cruz said he disagreed with Trump and instead would focus on “radical Islamic terrorism.” Cruz will have a lot more radicals to focus on if we keep importing a quarter million Muslims every year.

    And these were Republicans. MSNBC acted as if the nation had come under terrorist attack (by a Muslim immigrant) with its round-the-clock, breaking-news coverage of Trump’s proposal, rife with images of dangerous demagogues from George Wallace to Hitler.

    People without real arguments call anything they don’t like “racist” or “unconstitutional.”

    Trump’s proposal is neither – I won’t waste space mentioning 100 years of constitutional law and practice, but of course our country has absolute authority to decide who gets to immigrate here.

    In the 14 years since Muslims killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11, this country has admitted another 1.5 million Muslims. So we’re xenophobic, bigoted racists if we don’t make it 2 million? Three million? When will we have enough? How many murdered Americans is an acceptable number before we can shut off the spigot of Muslim immigration?

    The amazing thing is that no one (except the American people) wants any pause in Muslim immigration – even after more than a dozen Muslim terrorist attacks on our soil in the last 15 years.

    House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he will refuse to consider cuts to Muslim immigration, saying, “That’s not who we are.”

    Republicans are totally copacetic with Pew’s recent finding that white Christians are now a minority in America, but furious with Trump for suggesting we take a break from importing Muslims.

    “Adios, America! The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole” is Ann Coulter’s latest best-selling book driving the left nuts — hard, cold facts about immigration’s impact

    Can we move them to Ryan’s district? According to Pew, only 11 percent of Muslims are Republican or “lean Republican.” They may not make the “best Americans” – as Ryan claims – but at least they’d get rid of him.

    The hysterical demand for never-ending Third World immigration has gone beyond the rich’s need for cheap servants and the Democrats’ need for voters. It’s a mass psychosis.

    Everyone acts as if Pakistani pushcart operators are the same as American blacks, and we’re required to bring them here to make up for the legacy of slavery.

    Foreigners aren’t the descendants of American slaves! The rest of the world does not have a civil right to move here. We’re under no moral imperative to allow any immigration at all. We don’t owe citizens of other countries anything.

    But as long as you brought it up: They owe us. America runs around saving other countries from tsunamis, earthquakes, pirates, disease, starvation, warlords, dictators, Nazis, communists – then their citizens show up full of grievances, as if we owe them.

    Angry Muslims have been popping up all over TV to denounce Trump and complain about anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S. If they’d prefer a country with a larger Muslim population and no white devil oppressors, low-rent mud huts are available in any of about 50 Muslim countries around the world. First month free; after that, two goats a month.

    In addition to the thoughtful policy objection that Trump is a racist, we’ve been treated to an endless stream of stunningly stupid arguments against Trump’s proposal.

    Fox News’ Dana Perino complained that Trump’s policy doesn’t “distinguish the peaceful from the radicals.”

    Yeah, nor can our government.

    Given the devastation caused by only two Muslims in San Bernardino, eight Muslims in Paris, two at the Boston Marathon, one at a Chattanooga military recruitment center, one at Fort Hood, 19 on 9/11, etc. etc. – it’s really irrelevant whether “most” Muslim immigrants are peaceful little lambs. It doesn’t take a lot of them to create havoc.

    I don’t know why we need any.

    While it’s fantastic news that most Muslim immigrants aren’t terrorists, as Samuel Johnson said, “A horse who can count to 10 is a remarkable horse, not a remarkable mathematician.”

    We want remarkable Americans, not immigrants whose selling point is: “hasn’t blown anything up yet.” What’s the upside of admitting 250,000 poor, culturally backward, non-English-speaking Muslims every year? When are we allowed to talk about what’s good for America?

    San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s mother described his father – the original immigrant – this way: “My husband is mentally ill and is on medication but is also an alcoholic and drinks with the medicine.”

    Fantastic. So glad we got him. The father, who has been here since 1973 – thanks, Teddy Kennedy! – told an Italian newspaper that he preached moderation to his son, saying it’s not worth fighting Israel, because Russia, China and the U.S. “don’t want Jews there any more.” In “two years,” he assured his son, “Israel will not exist any more.”

    So after four decades in American culture, these highly integrated, model immigrants are still clinging to their insane magic potion fantasies.

    The senior Farook didn’t come here to work in some highly complex technical field, like nuclear physics or cell extraction biology. He’s a truck driver. So one American lost his job as a truck driver and 14 Americans lost their lives because of Ted Kennedy’s 1965 immigration act.

    How else have the 1.5 million Muslims admitted since 9/11 made our country better? Their massive welfare use? Overburdening our schools and hospitals? The machete attacks? The clitorectomies? The honor killings? The occasional terrorist attack?

    Currently, there are more than a thousand active investigations of ISIS in all 50 states. Here’s an idea: Instead of paying for an ever-expanding federal workforce to track, wiretap and investigate immigrants with possible terrorist sympathies, let’s stop bringing them in!

    Beginning to sense the public’s fury, a number of Republican politicians have been trying to talk tough on immigration. This week, Trump proved that that’s all it is: talk.

    Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/12/trumps-muslim-plan-happy-birthday-to-me/#gwuBlCKRm3iWRWzE.99

    • alphie December 10, 2015 at 10:03 pm #

      “For my best birthday gift this week….. it will be my merriest Christmas ever.” -How sweet Flo-nase

      Why do I feel like I just stepped into a Disney Christmas Special?

  153. Sean Coleman December 10, 2015 at 5:47 pm #

    This article from Richard Webster puts the clerical abuse witch hunts around the world, and particularly in Ireland, in context and is a good general summary of the late author’s approach.

    http://www.richardwebster.net/print/xbrynestynireland.htm

    I had forgotten about the repressed memory movement from the 80s onwards.

    • Sean Coleman December 10, 2015 at 5:51 pm #

      I posted this link above:

      http://irishsalem.com/international-controversies/usa/index.php

      Notice that one of Fr Paul Shanley’s accusers withdrew charges when he developed sudden problems with his memory.

    • Frankiti December 10, 2015 at 5:53 pm #

      You chose your words wisely. It is about time the church got a taste of it’s own medicine. Payback is a witch.

      • Frankiti December 10, 2015 at 5:54 pm #

        its… its… heaven forbid floridadbag or the other resident pedant pounces on it…

        • Q. Shtik December 10, 2015 at 6:29 pm #

          Wrong again.

          In correcting yourself you should have said it’s its.

          • Frankiti December 10, 2015 at 7:30 pm #

            negative. i was saying the correction twice, as in “its! its!”

  154. FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 5:50 pm #

    Is it only me, but I have a feeling that fodase is the other reincarnation of wpa_ccc.

    They just work perfectly in unison, but from different angles.

    • Frankiti December 10, 2015 at 5:56 pm #

      More than likely. I have read a few accounts of how certain trolls treat comment boards like a roll playing game, complete with distinct personalities and beliefs for each avatar. Creepy and sad.

      • Sticks-of-TNT December 11, 2015 at 1:30 am #

        it’s…it’s…role playing

        -Sticks

        • Frankiti December 11, 2015 at 7:19 am #

          it sure is, now get back to your bucket full of dicks

          • Sticks-of-TNT December 11, 2015 at 5:12 pm #

            No, fair is fair. You caught ’em, you eat ’em.

  155. Frankiti December 10, 2015 at 5:59 pm #

    I said it a few times in the past, and I’ll say it again, at times I feel as though I am getting duped by personas here a la Phil Hendrie.

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  156. FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 6:06 pm #

    By the way, I do not think that Donald Trump is really that stupid that he believes that he could suspend the US Constitution and install a religion test for people entering the US, he’s just playing his role.

    • Frankiti December 10, 2015 at 7:28 pm #

      He’s aiming too low. The question should be, “are you religious?”

      Someday, future inhabitants will look back at homo sapiens like we look at children believing in tooth fairies and egg hiding hares… and wonder “what in the f***were they thinking?”

  157. fodase December 10, 2015 at 6:51 pm #

    even the democrats are starting to get it & say That Which Must Not Be Named:

    http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/loretta-sanchez-muslims-caliphate-terrorism-216656

    shows what a leader Trump is.

    he has reoriented the entire country to ditch PC nonsense and recognize these truths about immigration and cancerous islam

    this presidential election is already over. Trump is already much more listened to than obama, and is considered the real President

    • alphie December 10, 2015 at 9:56 pm #

      Another slice of fruit cake anyone?

  158. fodase December 10, 2015 at 7:17 pm #

    Trump right again when he says there are no-go zones due to muslim terror:

    http://www.dailystormer.com/uk-cops-say-trump-is-right-about-moslem-no-go-zones/

    if i’m not mistaken, he was vehemently castigated for saying this

    once again, this is what a leader does, he highlights and confronts a situation that needs fixing

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3352406/Scotland-Yard-mocks-Trump-s-claims-London-police-terrified-Muslim-areas-officers-claim-tycoon-RIGHT.html

    so refreshing to see the truth finally told

    • alphie December 10, 2015 at 9:49 pm #

      pandering to the powerless and paranoid is not being a leader.
      Those holiday fruit cakes do tend to hang around

  159. Titchfield December 10, 2015 at 7:34 pm #

    The month beginning Nov 13 has been a rough one for Paris. After ISIS operatives slaughter scores of its citizens, a bunch of journalists and blog posters start sullying its reputation.

    The Enlightenment. This term describes a thought-revolution all of us have heard of. The Enlightenment grew up in Edinburgh and London but found its maturity in Paris, and it was from Paris that the Enlightenment perspective was broadcast to the world.

    Paris is the city of the Enlightenment. Paris is therefore The City of Light. This is the title that was bestowed on it generations ago and that’s been hallowed by worldwide usage and by time.

    But certain writers now know better. They’ve designated Paris “The City of Romance.” To them, “The City of Romance” is Paris’ most fitting cognomen.

    Henceforth, the historical purpose of Paris is to have been a mere backdrop, a setting for candlelight dinners and sex. That’s it.

    Whether Paris is better suited than most other cities for sexual dalliance
    is not for me to say. But if Paris is now going to be celebrated more for that sort of thing than for anything else, we may as well scrape the whole damned city into the Seine.

    Paris is the city of the Enlightenment. Paris is the city of light.

    (I suspect that Paris was attacked not just because it’s a soft target or because ISIS sees it–rightly–as the crusader capital, but because Paris is Europe’s greatest city, the very mind and soul of modern European civilization civilization. To violate Paris is to violate all of Europe.)

  160. FincaInTheMountains December 10, 2015 at 7:51 pm #

    Yesterday on Russian TV talking to Shoigu (DefenseSec), Putin expressed the hope that he will not have to use nuclear weapons against the Islamic State.

    Why would he say something like that? Why would anybody want to use a BIG ONE against a handful of bearded guys hiding in basements?

    But if you put it in the context of sending message to US elites who are well aware of the hillary’s essence of DAESH, things become a little more clear, don’t they?

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  161. Pucker December 10, 2015 at 10:01 pm #

    Speaking of shining a light, I like it when strangers look over my shoulder to see what I am doing and when they listen in on my conversations.

  162. Titchfield December 10, 2015 at 10:32 pm #

    Sauerkraut.

    In challenging Sean Coleman to provide evidence for his belief that the idea of man-made global warming is an untruth, you’ve likely given him a challenge he cannot meet.

    However, I think you’re incorrect to say that reality is independent of belief. I’ll explain what I mean with an example.

    It’s noontime and sitting in your upstairs windowless den, writing a blog post on your computer. A noise begins. The noise is the kind that rain makes when its falling on a shingled roof, which is the type of roof that’s right over your head. You make a simple inference: its raining. Then there’s another noise, a ringing, and it’s coming from the landline phone in the room next to your den, and next to this phone is a window. As you answer the phone you notice that your inference was mistaken–it isn’t raining after all. Sensation trumps inference.

    You BELIEVE that the absence of rain rather than the occurrence of rain is the present REALITY. Your eyes offer you a picture of a rainless day and you BELIEVE that this picture is a representation of the REAL. You could, if you wanted, begin to disbelieve, on principle, the evidence of your senses. You could do that. But you’d be dead long before the mad-doctors arrive to cart you off to the madhouse.

    All empirically-based investigation depends on belief, every observational step of it, every logical step of it. Science depends on belief, whether the simple science of discovering that it isn’t raining or the complicated science of discovering that the planets move around the sun in ellipses rather than circles. How can it not?

    Sean Coleman has submitted some instructive posts–his essay on the difference between the introvert and the extrovert, for instance. But his attempt to write in the mandarin style seems sometimes to shift his attention from what he’s saying to how he says it.

    • sauerkraut December 11, 2015 at 2:10 am #

      I don’t agree about belief.

      What you are talking about is a sensory impression which leads to a suspicion and a (provisional) model of reality. That model is falsified by further observation. Nothing mysterious here, as all models are provisional and awaiting falsification and/or refinement.

      This process has nothing to do with belief. It is simply the bare bones of the scientific method.

      Belief is much stronger than suspicion. Ask any believer, religious or otherwise: he does not readily change his views in light of new data or valid argument.

      The ideal to which a scientist aspires is the opposite. A scientist believes as little as possible.

      There is, however, one respect in which you are correct. The way in which you see the world governs, to some extent, what you can observe about it. A catch phrase of which I am fond says, “There are no facts without theories.”

    • Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 2:52 am #

      Yes, the word “raining” implies a paradigm of water falling from the sky not being the norm. On another world, there would be no word “raining” since water falling from the sky would be the norm. Somehow this relates to Sauer’s unconscious assumptions. Like the Aztecs of old, the global warming cult feels powerless in the face of Nature. The Aztecs sought control through ritual sacrifice, the Glowbos through their belief that man is doing “it” and therefore can stop. Then we will all live in a multicultural/racial paradise, free from disease, ignorance, pollution, or Whites. The last is key since it is the guilt complex of the White Man that is driving this. It is last remnant of Protestantism – their parting shot and it may well prove the end of us. Driven by self hate, they open our borders to the World, desperately hoping to breed their own Race into extinction.

      • Buck Stud December 11, 2015 at 10:41 am #

        “Then we will all live in a multicultural/racial paradise, free from disease, ignorance, pollution, or Whites. ”

        Free from Whites? How would that be possible if it’s a “multicultural paradise”? Or are you implying that Whites are not part of the collective human race, or even more revealing, that “paradise” is not possible in the presence of whites?

        Moreover, how limited is your vision? From space, the blue planet Earth might look like a multicultural paradise where distinct ethnicities merge into one human race–viewed from a distance and with “perspective”. Not unlike the effect produced by aerial perspective in which a forest of cottonwoods, elms, and pines merge into a collective group of indistinct “trees” and where idiosyncratic color is modified by the enveloping atmospheric light key: A group of trees doesn’t look green, yellow or red from the promontory of distanced perspective.

        Ridiculous, the aforementioned? No doubt you believe so. But at least admit that “God” was a very bad composer, lumping together all these humans obviously not fit to live harmoniously with with each other.

        I wonder (not really; I already know) what a canvas painted by Janos would look like? Would it simply be all white, a modernistic tribute to both the white race and formalism? Or would it be a choppy, delineated group of distinct objects with no connection or relation to each other and god forbid, no common ‘mother color’ mixed into each color to produce an overall harmonic effect? And certainly no ‘soft or lost edges’ where shapes can visually merge and traverse adjacent shapes,allowing the eye to travel across the canvass in order to appreciate the grandeur of “The Whole” while arriving at the focal point of “The Particular”.

        Or would Janos shrink himself into Pygmy Smalls, thereby enlarging his own distinct surroundings? Would he circumscribe the white race from all other colors and now imagine his new world ‘large and powerful’ not because it has enlarged in actuality, but because he, Pygmy Smalls, has diminished his own self in relation to his actual surroundings?

        “Look at how big my small world now looks!” Janos might exalt, and not unlike the scientist peering into the vast world produced by a microscope.

        In this all white world how dull ‘white’ would appear devoid of multi-colored objects no longer able to beautifully penetrate and reflect into adjacent and absorbent white surfaces?

        But even more probable and problematic, how would this ‘all white’ world function with no “other’ to demonize, conquer or colonize? With ‘people of color’ absent would they turn their sights on each other and start cannibalizing their own? Would “The Irish” and “The Italians” now be low groups on the totem pole of humanity and the new demonized?

        But to anticipate your response, I’m just being ridiculous and childish. After all, one doesn’t have to imagine; one just needs to page through European and early American history books. among other historical epochs.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 2:34 pm #

          Of all people you should get it, but alas your ego gets in the way. Diversity requires keeping things separate – like watercolors on a palette. If you mix everything you just get mud. And that’s where we’re going. Sometimes progress means retracing ones steps to where one lost the trail. Humility is required of course, and it is wanting in the Liberal Establishment. So they will continue trying to jam square pegs in round holes until both the peg is splintered and the hole ruined – for they care for neither. Only “winning” and destroying us, the sane Whites.

          How do White nations function? Glad you asked: beautifully, which is why the rest of the world wants in to sack us. Are we perfect? No. Have we come along way? Yes. Further than the rest of humanity? Obviously. Are we better than everyone else in every way? No, no one ever said that. But in civic matters, we reign supreme or at least we did.

          • Sean Coleman December 11, 2015 at 6:36 pm #

            ‘If you mix everything you just get mud.’

            This for me gets to the heart of the matter. Well there is also the other equally matter of social cohesion: there is a persuasive argument that immigration destroys social capital (that may be the wrong term) and that is the reason that Americans don’t like to spend their taxes on a welfare system that benefits people they don’t identify with.

            But getting back to the diversity, when I argued against immigration on the Irish Economy website (the only real debate on a public forum in Ireland that I am aware of, which feels very strange) my opponent, an open borders disciple of Philippe Legrain (once an economic advisor to Barroso) said: ‘Ireland should not see this a case of meeting a minimum quota but instead openly welcome as many refugees and migrants as want to come here. Of all countries, Ireland needs new ideas, new people and more diversity.’ He later says, ‘Immigration enhances growth, employment, productivity, wages (in the medium-term) and also innovation. It also makes a country a far more interesting place in which to live.’

            Apart from the fact that his economic arguments are quite wrong, it’s the last sentence that I really take issue with. It doesn’t lead to vibrancy but to anomie and impersonality which is depressing both for the hosts and the newcomers (probably more the next generation). I am surprised this point isn’t made more often. The world as a whole becomes, obviously, less diverse not more.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 12, 2015 at 12:31 am #

            Yes Sean, is that clown even thinking about tourism, last I heard one of Ireland’s biggest industries? Are people going to keep coming once Ireland “looks like the world”? A couple of years ago they had tourist ads about Novia Scotia with the last image a Black kid playing a bassoon. Who the hell wants to go to Nova Scotia to see Blacks? And how long will people keep going to Ireland if it becomes a colony of Nigeria?

            And of course, making money is the least of it. What about the People themselves? The Irish. The poor, foolish Irish who fought heroically for independence only to squander it for a mess of Capitalist and Socialist pottage.

            Do you read the Irish Savant? I tried to post him here but it gets blocked somehow. He has a fine intellect and is a good Fascist or Nationalist.

      • sauerkraut December 11, 2015 at 12:27 pm #

        No, no, no Janos.

        It’s not belief. It is inference. If you don’t believe in the power of science and inference, perhaps you should try doing without everything from agriculture on. That will change your mind.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 3:40 pm #

          http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/24/lord-monckton-wins-global-warming-debate-at-oxford-union/

          The Oxford Union is only the world’s premier debating society. Together Lord Monckton, third Viscount of Brenchley, and Lord Blaby Of Lawson thrashed Lord Whity and his conferees. The witless Lord Whity said that “everyone knows” that nearly all climate scientists believe in global warming. When asked to cite his source, he could not. This is another one of those “everyone knows” things like the one in four college rape canard – or the flat earth.

          • sauerkraut December 11, 2015 at 5:45 pm #

            Really Janos. You do know that debating is all about scoring trivial points by sleight of verbal hand, do you not? It prepares liars for the courtroom, to make the worse case seem to be the better, in the minds of the ignorant. It has as much to do with reality as religion.

            Debating Society? The Podunk Dog Washing Society has a better chance of getting to the truth. They at least care about something real – washing dogs.

            But I have to hand it to you, Janos, you are far more skilled at debating and misdirection than Sean C, who seems to be genuinely misguided. You, by contrast, are quite skilled at changing the subject and obscuring the issues. Accordingly, I will drag you back to the point: show what is wrong with the models. Put up or … how does that phrase go, again?

          • Janos Skorenzy December 12, 2015 at 12:36 am #

            I accept that! Thank you. But can you prove your point that “everyone” accepts global warming? And even if you could, that’s not proof that they are right of course. To say otherwise is one of the classic logical fallacies. But it would certainly warrant a closer look if 90% or more of climatologists favor it.

          • sauerkraut December 12, 2015 at 1:38 am #

            Janos. That is gracious. I applaud you.

            You write, “But it would certainly warrant a closer look if 90% or more of climatologists favor it.” According to a 2008 University of Illinois poll of 3146 scientists, reported on CNN on January 20, 2009, 97% of the climatologists agreed with AGW.

          • Sean Coleman December 13, 2015 at 2:35 pm #

            I am sceptical of the value of the Uni. of Illinois poll.

            http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/

    • basil December 11, 2015 at 9:43 am #

      sauerkraut/titchfield-
      I appreciate a thoughtful exchange of ideas. I think that the word “believe” has long since been co-opted by those who use it for or against pet causes. it can be a powerful word. I really don’t use it anymore. when asked about my religious leanings, where the word is at its height of power, my answer is something like: “I don’t think there is a spirit world”, or “I don’t think there are any gods”. responses like that add a modicum of humility that makes people more likely to think about the subject, rather than oppose it out of hand. it also implies the basic truth that no matter how strongly someone promotes a point of view, there is still a chance that point of view is wrong.

  163. Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 12:40 am #

    http://www.dailystormer.com/yes-donald-trump-call-out-israel-for-funding-isis/

    Trump doesn’t say it, but insinuates it. The Man is a Giant, both of will and subtlety. Don’t let the barbaric exterior fool you. Think Genghis Khan was dumb? Alaric? Attila? Tamerlane? I thank God I have lived to see this. Now your Servant can depart in peace.

  164. FincaInTheMountains December 11, 2015 at 2:13 am #

    Rep. Ed Royce: It is radical Islamists schools that preach radical version of Islam [Wahhabism] we should and must screen against, not Islam

    http://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/12/11/rep-ed-royce-san-bernardino-investigation-interview-erin.cnn

    Of course Ed Royce failed to mention that those schools – madrassas – are being funded by the biggest ally of United States in ME – Saudi regime:

    How does Saudi Arabia go about spreading extremism? The extremist agenda is not always clearly government-sanctioned, but in monarchies where the government money is spread around to various princes, there is little accountability for what the royal family does with their government funds. Much of the funding is via charitable organizations and is not military-related.

    The money goes to constructing and operating mosques and madrassas that preach radical Wahhabism. The money also goes to training imams; media outreach and publishing; distribution of Wahhabi textbooks, and endowments to universities and cultural centers.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-yousaf-butt-/saudi-wahhabism-islam-terrorism_b_6501916.html

    Wahhabism should be acknowledged by international community as Islamic version of Nazism and banned, and then United States could quite legally and constitutionally protect itself by screening people entering the country on being brainwashed by that radical, hateful ideology.

  165. wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 3:09 am #

    The USA provides billions of dollars worth of weapons to the Saudis. The Saudis spread violent extremism: Wahhabism. Saudis attack us on 9/11. Our stupid president, George W Bush, retaliates by attacking the wrong countries, which created Daesh and millions of refugees.

    Then fodase cluelessly says we have no moral obligation to accept refugees.

    We should accept millions of Muslim refugees, not thousands. We do have a moral obligation … it is the simple pottery barn principle. You break it, you pay.

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    • elysianfield December 11, 2015 at 11:37 am #

      Wpac,
      Yes, and the Pottery Barn also posts…”We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”

  166. FincaInTheMountains December 11, 2015 at 4:25 am #

    December 10, 2015, at 21:21 local time unit 4 of Beloyarsk NPP with reactor BN-800 has been plugged in and produced first electricity to the power grid of the Urals. The new unit has been started at a minimum electric power of 235 megawatts (MW). (Total capacity 800 MW).

    No other country has been able to master the technology of fast neutron reactors – perhaps the most safe to date and for another 50 years ahead.

    The technology – a real solution to the problem of radioactive waste disposal, the most important problems of the nuclear industry. The BN-800 will be the technology of “closed fuel cycle” – it means that spent fuel will not have to be unloaded, bury and contaminate the planet.

    https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/3301/5432.5/0_8a004_4fcccf1d_L.jpg

  167. FincaInTheMountains December 11, 2015 at 4:35 am #

    Khodorkovsky affirmed the need for a revolution in Russia. In the umpteenth time. Elections are not fair, it is necessary to destroy the country, to overthrow the regime and drown in shit up to the nostrils, like in Ukraine.

    BN-800 needs to be shut down: harmful to environment, and indeed, to make nice with our colleagues from the United States.

    And technology – to give away in return for advice on democracy.

  168. orbit7er December 11, 2015 at 7:37 am #

    On the student protests in various Universities – the New York Times had an interesting piece:

    http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/what-do-campus-protesters-really-want/?rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=Blogs

    tallying ACTUAL student demands across the protests.
    As the article points out most are NOT for firing Administrators, blacks only, or “safe zones” but reasonable pleas for diversity.
    It is surprising there are not more protests of the million dollar college president salaries which are outrageous…

    As usual the Corporate media has taken a few cases and blown these up as representative of student demands.
    Unfortunately Kunstler has been taken in by the Corporate media coverage

  169. Cold N. Holefield December 11, 2015 at 9:01 am #

    Has anyone heard anything about Donald Trump lately? I haven’t heard or seen a single thing as of late. It’s as though he’s fallen off the radar and the press has forgotten he existed or exists. Thanks.

    • FincaInTheMountains December 11, 2015 at 9:17 am #

      From my confidential FSB sources he’s sitting in Putin’s Sochi bunker waiting out Hillary’s muzzy assassins.

      Just kidding.

      • Cold N. Holefield December 11, 2015 at 10:30 am #

        Haha! You’re kidding, but you’re not. We all sense it may be coming. A Muslim Oswald patsy lurks just around the corner. Or better yet, maybe a double name like Sirhan Sirhan. Maybe Abu Bakr Abu Bakr and the media will murder its pronunciation in the months of coverage the momentous event will generate in the ensuing aftermath. Jeb will rise in the polls and will win the nomination and the presidency because the public will see that The Dems encouraged the assassination and a strong Establishment leader is needed to steady the Nation and make it secure and great once again. Just kidding. Really, I am. Really.

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 11, 2015 at 9:41 am #

      Cold, we’ve wondered the same about you. You’ve been kind of scarce of late yourself. -Sticks

      • Cold N. Holefield December 11, 2015 at 10:32 am #

        “….it feels good to be out of the rain…..”

  170. fodase December 11, 2015 at 10:32 am #

    Trump correct again about no-go zones in Europe:

    pandering to the powerless and paranoid is not being a leader.
    Those holiday fruit cakes do tend to hang around

    any factual rebuttal of this, bub?

    fools like you will be saying this as you enter the ovens.

    this has been confirmed by the police forces in the affected areas.

    you may need their help one fine day soon.

    go join hillary, who’ll whip the islamic maniacs with love and kindness.

    she doesn’t pander.

    fodase

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  171. nsa December 11, 2015 at 10:45 am #

    We here in Ft. Meade occasionally take a timeout from bashing the kenyan muzzie-in-chief to investigate other aspects of amerikan pop kultur. To wit, the candidate’s wives. Der Trumpster’s better half is hot, hot, hot….great legs. Now compare her to the beasts. Sander’s squeeze is an obese grotesque jewess resembling ben franklin…..take a lot of viagra to dip into that one. Worse is Carson’s horrific ubangi thang…just hideous scary….no wonder he is into skanky white prostitues. And what about la clinton’s wife huma….not too bad if you shave the mustache…….

    • basil December 11, 2015 at 11:48 am #

      ft. meade middle school?

  172. fodase December 11, 2015 at 10:47 am #

    so now we find out that DHS knew and was monitoring the islamic butchers who murdered 14 in san barnardino, but erased their records because it was ‘profiling’.

    tell that to the families of the victims – “well, you know that’s not who we are as americans, we need to protect their civil liberties”

    ====================================================
    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been accused of deleting intelligence records relating to dangerous Islamists linked to terrorists Sayed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, because they wanted to protect the “civil liberties” of members of the caliphate-supporting network.

    Phil Haney, a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol analyst, says he was ordered to stop investigating Deobandi Islamist groups and his work on them was erased. He even says he was subjected to a disciplinary when he attempted to blow the whistle.

    If he’d been allowed to continue his investigation, he claims Malik’s visa application would have been flagged for greater scrutiny.

    He explained: “The administration was more concerned about the civil rights and liberties of foreign Islamic groups with terrorist ties than the safety and security of Americans”.

    Analyst Phil Haney told Fox News that he once worked as a researcher looking into potential terrorists in the Passenger Analysis Units at the Department of Homeland Security in Atlanta, as well as at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center.

    Mr. Haney says that he had been identifying and tracking members of the al-Huda and Tablighi Jamaat groups, offshoots of the radical Deobandi school of Islam, which was founded in British colonial India specifically to oppose western culture.

    Tablighi Jamaat is a Deobandi revivalist movement whose mandate is, according to its leading advocate Ebrahim Rangooni, to save the Muslim world “from the culture and civilisation of the Jews and the Christians…” To this end, he has suggested cultivating “such hatred for their ways as human beings have to urine and excrement.”

    Tablighi Jamaat have been linked to 80 per cent of all recent terrorist related crimes in France.
    ==========================================

    an insignificant statistical minority, the v a s t majority of muslims are just great great folks, we need more, let ’em in!

    fodase

  173. volodya December 11, 2015 at 10:56 am #

    Buck, you asked “what happened”?

    You can analyze this stuff until the end of time but IMO, events, many and varied but, in general, too many in the Muslim world looked at the West and didn’t like what they saw.

    You might say our loosening societal strictures against pre-marital/extramarital sex, porn, women’s equality, just to take a few examples, went against the cultural grain.

    Not to mention our growing disbelief in religious doctrine. A lot of stuff that we do and think as a matter of course just rubs the wrong way.

    In the 1960s women wore miniskirts in big Egyptian cities. No more. Benazir Bhutto complained that she used to be able to wear jeans on the streets in Pakistan. No more of that either. She said “it’s the Saudis”.

    So you can say it was “soft power” Muslim style, for example, the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, or Saudi oil money funding Wahabist mosques and madrassas which other commenters already referenced.

    Others might talk about the effect of the Israel-Palestine conflict. But, IMO, it was-is a distraction and a trifling issue in the grand scheme. Now that that there’s a raft of failed and failing Muslim states, nobody gives a damn. That squabble looks smaller with every passing week.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 2:51 pm #

      As Princess Hijab (a Muslim graffiti artist who draws veils on women in billboard ads) said, It’s visual terrorism. Women wearing mini skirts control male attention. Then they become enraged when men look at them – unless the man is deemed worthy. But men can’t help looking in general, so they are being unjust in a very deep way. Of course I don’t think they deserve to be gang raped – that’s where Muslims simply lose it completely.

      If women want men to behave themselves, they have to help by dressing modestly. Obviously that’s relative, (lust can fixate on ankles) but it is helpful. And of course I’m not talking about Western Women putting on space suits. Just our own traditional garb.

  174. malthuss December 11, 2015 at 11:46 am #

    The St. Louis Board of Alderman voted to fund a new football stadium for the loser St. Louis Rams.
    The stadium is to be built on the riverfront in North St. Louis.

    What a tremendous waste of Taxpayer money to build in one of the most — areas in town.

    It’s so stupid, it’s beyond belief that a city that’s imploding on it’s self is funding a stadium for a multi-billionaire owner who won’t even commit to having his team of losers stay anyway.

  175. malthuss December 11, 2015 at 11:52 am #

    Old Obama had a farm
    e-i e-i o

    here a stadium
    there a stadium
    e-i e-i o

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  176. Sean Coleman December 11, 2015 at 12:59 pm #

    Sauerkraut

    Re ‘AGW’, I have not responded to your request to discuss this again here because it isn’t that relevant, we have ‘discussed’ it already and I don’t have the time.

    For anyone who is interested our exchange of views can be found in the Leviathan thread. Just do a word search for ‘brutally honest’, which is taken from you description of scientists: ‘thousands of individuals who are all brutally honest by training, and most of them brutally honest by nature’.

    This description doesn’t convince me nor does it extend to you yourself. Remember, I congratulated you, in exasperation, as being the most wilfully obtuse and economical with truth blogger I have sparred with in quite a while. (Though that doesn’t reach the dizzy standard set by one deranged man I have encountered who plays a cast of hundreds of voices, all arguing with each other.) We all have our own contribution to make. I’m still unsure whether your assumed tone of a pained truth-seeker is genuine or a clever wind-up.

    But just a couple of points, in passing (I know, I’m a sucker). (I’ve forgotten. Do you number your own points to lend an air of painstaking objectivity? I won’t.)

    First. You most certainly didn’t answer my points. Just to repeat one of the pieces of evidence (you must have your evidence evidentially evidenced) from the Leviathan colloquium: Frederick Seitz, former Pres. of the US Academy of Natural Science, who wrote in the WSJ in June 1996: ‘But this report is not what it appears to be, it is not the version approved by the contributing scientists listed on the title page. In my more than 60 years as a member of the American scientific community… I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events which led up to this IPCC report.’ Needless to say you ignored this, rather like the IPCC ignores inconvenient ‘data’!

    2 Above, you say that the correlation is close enough to warrant some preventetive action. This is a poor analogy. In Britain they are knocking down the last remaining yet efficient coal power stations and replacing them with… windmills. They will have to import their energy. Russia, China and India appear to be politely ignoring the whole circus. Even the Europeans (this is an area where the EU has finally found a world-saving role) seem to look after their own interests behind the pious rhetoric.

    3 Belief. As I have said repeatedly, I think this is a psychological thing. You talk about perception. In her book Quiet, Susan Cain discusses a re-run of a classic experiment where a group were given easy tests, which were on the whole too easy to get wrong, and then an actor was introduced who confidently gave the wrong answer in many cases. This led to many of those (extraverts according to Cain, though I don’t know how this was worked out) changing their answers to the wrong ones. Then the brutally honest men in white coats examined the brain scans on the shiny apparatus we all believe in and found that the brain activity in these cases was mainly n the perceptual areas of the brain rather than those associated with reasoning. In other words, they weren’t putting it on, they actually saw things differently. I mention this for what it’s worth, seeing as neuropsychology seems to be a very vague field of study.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 2:42 pm #

      Yes, when asked Palestinian children say they are great at math. They aren’t. What they are great at is self esteem. Chinese children say math is very difficult and challenging. They are great at it – about the best in the world. Like other East Asians, they score lower on self esteem, but it may not be a problem per se, since the culture discourages it.

      Liberals have smaller amygdalas then Conservatives. They tend not to see threat. But when threat is pointed out to them, they react with fear and rage towards the person that tried to help them, like a hippy tripper angry that someone is trying to bum trip them.

      • malthuss December 11, 2015 at 8:48 pm #

        EUREKA — They tend not to see threat.

      • Q. Shtik December 12, 2015 at 1:14 pm #

        Liberals have smaller amygdalas [then] Conservatives.

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

        In my next life I want to have, at a minimum, a 10″ amygdala.

        • elysianfield December 13, 2015 at 10:47 am #

          Q,
          That’s serious overkill…you can be in the movies with an 8….

        • capt spaulding December 15, 2015 at 11:26 am #

          than

    • sauerkraut December 12, 2015 at 12:24 pm #

      Sean.

      1. I most certainly did answer your points. You responded with invective.
      2. It is not an analogy at all. Look up the definition. And what on earth do the actions of various governments have on differential equations and statistics?
      3. Belief is indeed a matter of psychology. But we are talking about AGW, which is a matter of reality.

      Dragging you back to the point, Sean. What is wrong with AGW? Which equations? Which calculation?

      Specifically.

      • sauerkraut December 12, 2015 at 12:28 pm #

        Typo
        “And what on earth do the actions of various governments have to do with differential equations and statistics?”

      • Sean Coleman December 12, 2015 at 2:46 pm #

        Sauerkraut

        1 You of course avoided my points. The only question is whether this was intentional on your part or not. As for responding with invective, that’s not my style as I prefer mockery.

        I gave one very concrete example, that of Seitz (above). As a former president of the US Academy of Natural Science (which I assume is a reputable organization) how do you dismiss him, and by extension the large number of other scientists who agree with him? If he is correct about the IPCC (and I see mountains (to use your own word) of circumstantial evidence in his support) then how would a person, be he a scientist or not, try to explain this hugely large-scale and influential outbreak of organized deceit and self-deception? Does one, in seeking to find an explanation, ignore the similar waves of seemingly inexplicable mass delusion or instead look for a pattern and common elements?

        Another point I made, which you failed to address (except perhaps your assertion that 60% of the material in IPCC reports is ‘peer-reviewed’ – see the Seizt quote above for what he thinks of this peer-reviewing – which ignored the fact that in the crucial sections, which generated all the the media and political hype, this peer-reviewing was absent, but instead often barely qualified youngsters rewrote the conclusions reached by more experienced *and qualified* scientists) is the infamous hockey stick graph. The index of Booker’s The Global Warming Disaster sums up the role it played:

        ‘Hockey Stick’, 82-86 (graph), made icon by IPCC 84-85; 97-98; flaws in exposed, 99-105; use of in Gore film, 141-142; 144-145; US Congressional enquiries uphold criticism of, 151-158; battle to ‘save’ for IPCC, 189-194; new bid to ‘save’, 345-346; BBC continues to promote 246, 320-323; 344-348

        I made another ‘point’ (which like all the others you avoided responding to) in saying that the graph was drawn up in manner totally contrary to the principles of scientific enquiry in that its author, hitherto an obscure young scientist, cherry-picked his data (as I recall, two contested studies, at least one of which, I also recall, was taken out of context) and ignore scores of other data ‘sets’ (to use your jargon). Its author was obstructive when he was asked to hand over his computer codes to a Congressional Committee to inspect. He later was forced to publish ‘a grudging little Corrigendum’ in ‘Nature’, which had first published the graph.

        2 ‘It is not an analogy at all’. Your analogy of finding a bump on your daughter and suggesting that a preventative cure by a doctor is just that, an analogy. ‘And what on earth do the actions of various govts have on differential equations and statistics?’ This is not about equations and statistics. If they are in the hands of scientists who misuse them (sometimes to the point of deliberate deceit and fraud, but usually, I assume, just seeking to confirm a mistaken belief) they are worse than useless surely.

        3 ‘Belief is indeed a matter of psychology. But we are talking about AGW, which is a matter of reality.’ This is the problem, It’s not real. But you are defending this belief by saying, ‘It’s not a belief because it’s real!’ Those who defend their beliefs in other mass delusions say the same thing. Atheists criticizing others for their religious beliefs don’t realize that their belief is also a belief.

        Don’t ask me what equations or calculations are wrong as I don’t know. I don’t have the scientific training nor do I have access to the data (look at how cagey Mann, the author of the hockey stick curve, was when asked to release his). The equations and calculations might, or might not, be correct but if the data has been pre-selected to reach the desired conclusion then what they are meaningless, or worse. Or if the data has been interpreted always to support the AGW theory rather than considering other explanations. Or if the computer programmes have written with a bias towards the desired results, or have genuinely not considered other variables in what everyone concedes to be an extremely complex area of studies. Don’t ask me about equations knowing that I don’t have expertise in that area. Instead, direct your questions to the scientists who have expressed public scepticism, often at risk to their standing and even their careers.

        I’ll leave it with one final ‘point’ (though there are more I could use) which is your charge that I resort to ‘ad hominum’ (sic) rather than reasoned argument. Look back at our exchange on the Leviathan thread and you will see that it is yourself who resorted to ad hominem. I don’t need to.

        • sauerkraut December 12, 2015 at 4:54 pm #

          Sean, this is becoming tiresome. But I will say it again.

          Show me where it’s wrong. Just one line of code will do. It’s out there for a reason: so that everyone can check it for himself.

          A few points of detail. As I said in a previous thread: Seitz reviewed work from the LAST CENTURY. Got it? It’s a decade or two out of date. Something really has been published since then.

          Peer review and Seitz: it’s very far out of date.

          If it was all done by “often barely qualified youngsters”, that puts them leagues ahead of you, doesn’t it? Or did you sneak in a post-doc since the last posting?

          Time series analysis is a bit more complex than looking at a graph and finding a hockey stick. It is highly technical. This led to an opportunity to criticize the methodology. This criticism was later found to be invalid for technical reasons (peer review). Since the hockey stick originally appeared, it has been replicated more than 20 times, many of them reverenced by the IPCC. The scientific community has reviewed these extensively, and found a few minor differences of expert opinion, none of which change the result. Each peer reviewed study has confirmed the effect.

          Got it? Confirmed the effect.

          You wrote, “Above, you say that the correlation is close enough to warrant some preventetive action. This is a poor analogy.” A correlation is not an analogy.

          On reading your post above, I see that you had my analogy in mind. The analogy to which YOU DO NOT RESPOND.

          You say, “If they are in the hands of scientists who misuse them (i.e. equations and statistics) … they are worse than useless surely.” Really, Sean, do you think that 2+2=4 is invalid because it might have been uttered by Hitler?

          We come back to the point. Show how the statistics and equations are being misused. “If they are in the hands of scientists who misuse them …” . You might begin by giving us just the least thread of evidence that this is the case. Perhaps some real evidence from this century.

          You say, ” … you are defending this belief by saying, ‘It’s not a belief because it’s real!’ ” NOT TRUE. i said, ” Belief is indeed a matter of psychology. But we are talking about AGW, which is a matter of reality.”

          I’ll spell it out: AGW is a statement about the real world. It may be true or false. It is not a statement about belief. Do you honestly not see the difference between what I said, and what you imputed to me?

          • Sean Coleman December 12, 2015 at 8:22 pm #

            Sauerkraut

            ‘Sean, this is becoming tiresome. But I will say it again.’

            You are repeating my lines again. I just called it ‘tedious’.

            ‘Show me where it’s wrong. Just one line of code will do.’

            What are you on about. If the *code* is so important you show it. I asked you earlier to show the ‘equations and calculations’ that mean so much to you. Well, go on then.

            ‘A few points of detail’

            Translation: ‘more trivia, while I avoid the main issue’

            ‘Seitz reviewed work from the LAST CENTURY’

            Did he? So what? Isn’t this all about trends in global temperature?

            What about his much more important point that the IPCC had corrupted the peer review process? He’s a scientist, former President of the US Academy of Natural Science. The IPCC is a political organization masquerading as a scientific one and dominated by a tiny clique of scientists who are all closely involved professionally.

            ‘It’s a decade or two out of date’

            Again, so what? Have you also noticed that the IPCC are also a decade or two out of date and that the temperature isn’t rising?

            Youngsters who are ‘leagues ahead of you… or did you sneak in a post-doc since your last posting?’

            Again, what are you on about? Leagues ahead of me how? Education and judgement or the ability to devise computer programmes?

            ‘Peer review and Seitz: it’s very far out of date.’

            Which means? Seitz was talking about the IPCC corrupting the peer-review process. Has corruption gone out of date?

            By the way, you never answered my questions from the earlier thread. Are you involved in Wiki? Do you have an editorial role with Wiki? Are you a scientist? Are you an expert in climate science?

            ‘Time series analysis is a bit more complex than looking at a graph…’

            Is it? If you don’t mind, I won’t take your word for it as I wouldn’t now trust you to be able to tell the time. What exactly has this got to do with what I have been saying?

            ‘This criticism was later found to be invalid for technical reasons (peer review)’

            It’s the way you tell them. What *specifically* (to use your word) were these reasons? Do they explain Mann’s absurd pre-selection of the studies which were to be fed into the computers which then proved he was right? I am sure it’s more than 20 times, probably 2,000 times.

            Let’s read that sentence once again:

            ‘This criticism was later found to be invalid for technical reasons (peer review)’

            Oh, now I see it. It was proved right by peer review. That would be the same peer review Seitz refers to as the most corrupt he’d seen in his 60 years wouldn’t it? If you had been alive in the Soviet Union there’d be a job for you at Pravda.

            ‘Since the hockey stick first appeared it has been replicated more than 20 times.’

            Now why doesn’t this surprise me? It seems that AGW hangs almost exclusively from computer programmes.

            Hold on, I didn’t finish that last one:

            ‘Since the hockey stick first appeared it has been replicated more than 20 times, many of them reverenced by the IPCC.’

            Quelle surprise! (I’ll pass over the Freudian spelling mistake.)

            ‘The scientific community has reviewed these extensively, and found a few minor differences of expert opinion, none of which change the result.’

            I don’t know, but I won’t take your word for it. I imagine what happened is that those sympathetic to the IPCC’s views have reviewed it and have worked very hard, and successfully, to give the impression that there is unanimity, or near unanimity about this. I am certain that this is utterly misleading. By the way, does the intolerance of criticism shown by your side not remind you of any other areas of dispute, frequently discussed on this board?

            ‘Each peer reviewed study has confirmed the effect.

            Got it? Confirmed the effect.’

            Has it? Who says so. Peer-reviewed by whom? That’s interesting. Now, you have demanded *specifics* from me and I am now asking you (again) to be specific. Please link.

            I’m short of time now and have to go to bed.

            I did respond to your analogy which was a bad one. The AGW movement want to make reductions in emissions that would cripple the world’s economy. That is like bringing in your daughter with the lump to a doctor who proposes sawing off her arms and legs. Just in case.

            ‘The analogy to which YOU DO NOT RESPOND.’

            I just have now, a second time. Here’s it for a third time. It’s a poor analogy. It’s a stoopid analogy. Do you know what an analogy is?

            ‘Do you think 2 plus 2 equals 4 is invalid just because it might have been uttered by Hitler?’

            No, although there are probably one or two here who think it is wrong if Trump were to say it. But it is beside the point if it is used to give scientific respectability to tendentious research which has not been carried out in a reasonably objective spirit of free enquiry but to fulfil an agenda. You really don’t seem to understand. If the data is pre-selected, if the computer programmes are manipulated to give the required results and if the IPCC is dominated by a small clique of scientists, with the backing of the political and media establishment, who are labouring under a messianic delusion (and who will not tolerate any dissent) then all the equations and calculations in the world, yea even your beloved time series analysis, won’t make it right.

            Your final paragraph:

            ‘I’ll spell it out: AGW is a statement about the real world. It may be true or false. It is not a statement about belief.’

            I’ll spell it out, again: I don’t say it is a statement about belief. It is a belief. It is very mistaken and the fact that govts are taking it seriously is very worrying. My interest is in trying to work out and explain why so many people adhere to this irrational delusion.

          • sauerkraut December 13, 2015 at 12:51 pm #

            Sean, Sean. Anyone can play the assertion game. If there is one word you need to study and learn to use, it is “because”.

            You write, “My interest is in trying to work out and explain why so many people adhere to this irrational delusion.”

            Yet you yourself admit that you have no scientific training. A bit ambitious, is it not? I mean, most people start out trying to understand something simple, like the details of how beams and posts do their thing. Yet you want to skip all that, rediscover 400 years of how to know things (the scientific method), and then tackle something simple like human cognition.

            Well good luck, Sean. I wish you well, and for selfish reasons: ignorance is a tax on us all.

          • Sean Coleman December 13, 2015 at 2:06 pm #

            ‘Sean, Sean, anyone can play the assertion game. If there is one word you need to study and learn it is ‘because’.’

            ‘Sean, Sean’

            You keep repeating my name in your efforts to sound lofty and condescending. After all, you are sure you have all the answers because the men in white coats have told you so.

            What is your first name, by the way? I imagine you as Cliff from Cheers. Closer to the truth would be Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. I’ll settle on Cliff for the moment until either you tell me your own or stop annoying me with mine.

            ‘Anyone can play the assertion game’

            Cliff, Cliff, so far it is your assertions against mine. I have also given you reasonable arguments and some solid evidence (Seitz, taken almost at random from a ‘mountain of evidence’) that AGW is wrong and its supporters either misinformed, deluded or deluded *and* deceitful.

            How about giving over the waffle, Cliff, and adduce your *specific* evidence. Give me the equations, Cliff, give me the calculations. You can even give me your time series analysis if you really must. Do some work. Build a case, Cliff.

            You can also (but not instead of the above) answer my *specific* points, Cliff. Start with Seitz’s condemnation of the IPCC’s corrupt peer-reviews. Don’t tell me that I don’t have a ‘post-doc’ (whatever that may be) or that there is unanimity, or anything even close to that, among qualified climate scientists (I *specifically* exclude computer programmers).

            Cliff, Cliff. If you think this kind of thing should only be argued by qualified scientists then why are you wasting your time talking to little ol’ me?

            But I also asked you, Cliff, if you are a scientist. Are you a qualified climate scientist, Cliff? Ok, are you just an ordinary scientist? Or is that you just like reading magazines about science and computers?

            Maybe I shouldn’t be wasting my time trying to argue with you, Cliff, if you’re not a proper scientist after all.

            Perhaps you have a white coat, though. That would be a start.

            By the way, don’t worry about my own theory about what you call ‘human cognition’ (why can’t you use ordinary English?) My arguments don’t hang on it. They are independent of it and held by a lot of people (many of them qualified climate scientists who understand things like time series analysis and (what’s your latest?) yes, ‘how beams and posts do their thing’ (whatever that may mean).

            So, Cliff, there’s your homework. You like numbering your points, so I’ll make it easy for you:

            1 Answer my points (that means don’t avoid them, Cliff, or dismiss them by going on about Seitz’s specific areas of study, which has nothing to do with his lifetime’s experience of what peer reviewing should be like)

            2 Do some work and bring me your equations and your calculations, bring me your *code* (you know, the *specifics* you keep demanding of me) and try to use them to prove that AGW is true.

        • sauerkraut December 12, 2015 at 4:55 pm #

          You say, “Don’t ask me what equations or calculations are wrong as I don’t know. I don’t have the scientific training …”

          Well, I guess that settles it. You must know more than those who do have the scientific training.

          • Sean Coleman December 12, 2015 at 8:28 pm #

            I know, by now, what a mass delusion looks like. This is one. You can dress it up in a white coat and peer-review it until the cows come home, but it’s still a delusion.

  177. fodase December 11, 2015 at 1:07 pm #

    http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/12/11/govt-missed-red-flags-san-bernardino-killers/

    yet another liberal achievement, dropping investigation into known terrorists because it’s profiling.

    and your family ends up dead.

    you voted for obama, here’s your hope and change

    they won’t protect you against known terrorists, but they want your guns, cuz you’re too incompetent to use them

    lol, probably half a billion guns in the US, good luck trying to confiscate them

  178. FincaInTheMountains December 11, 2015 at 1:31 pm #

    “But the removal of the main candidate from the election is unprecedented, and to keep the balance Trump will be removed too. Moreover, I’m sure that concrete negotiations are underway on this subject.” — me

    GOP power brokers are reportedly preparing for an 11th-hour floor fight to defeat Donald Trump

    The national Republican establishment is preparing for potentially not having a clear winner after the party’s 2016 presidential primaries, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

    And if front-runner Donald Trump is still ahead at the end, several unnamed “longtime power brokers” reportedly urged the Republican Party to prepare for a floor fight to nominate a more acceptable alternative.

    https://beta.finance.yahoo.com/news/gop-power-brokers-reportedly-preparing-220111281.html?ltr=1

    That is to say that those Republican voters that are sick of the establishment of their own party, now will have to accept the results of any intrigue or falsification of that establishment. But the fact of the matter is that the Trump’s popularity among voters is the result of their hatred to the establishment, not its cause.

    Removal of Trump as a candidate for the Republicans will not work, as it will give him a free hand to declare himself an independent candidate and to gather around him not just Republicans who are dissatisfied with the establishment, but also Democrats who hate Hillary.

    And I am confident that they will prove that American democracy is rough and tough reality, not fiction, as many in political establishment want you to think.

    And Trump’s role for Russia is important because it has already demonstrated the falsity of the axiom that the American people are russophobes and aggressors, and any politician who will be in these conditions for cooperation with the Putin’s Russia or for giving Russia the lead in policy in the Greater Middle East, is doomed to failure and hatred of the voters.

  179. wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 1:39 pm #

    “Has anyone heard anything about Donald Trump lately?” –Cold

    Not since Trump said (in three different interviews) that he wants to bang his daughter.

    • FincaInTheMountains December 11, 2015 at 2:20 pm #

      What he actually said:

      …she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her…

      Far cry from vulgar “bang his daughter”

      • wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 3:07 pm #

        “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father…” –Trump

        Yeah, no need to finish that thought.

        Trump wants to bang his daughter. To hell with societal taboos. He’s a billionaire and can bang his daughter if he wants to.

  180. FincaInTheMountains December 11, 2015 at 2:15 pm #

    Putin: I order the military to act extremely harshly

    From Expanded meeting of Defense Ministry Board

    And I want to warn those who are again trying to organize any kind of provocation against our troops. We have taken additional measures to ensure the security of Russian troops and air bases. It is reinforced by new air wings and air defenses. All activities by the strike aircraft are conducted with fighter cover. I order you to act extremely harshly. Any targets that threaten Russia’s group or our terrestrial infrastructure are to be destroyed immediately.

    http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50913

    Pretty straightforward rules of engagement.

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  181. Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 3:01 pm #

    The saturation point is the point at which an object has absorbed as much of a substance as it can. All objects have such a point for each type of substance they can potentially absorb. Substances absorbed can include liquid, gases, chemicals and energy. Once the saturation point has been reached, no additional amount of the saturating substance can be absorbed.

    Perhaps the most common example of the saturation point is a sponge that has absorbed all the water or other liquid it can absorb. When a sponge soaks up water, the water displaces the air held in the pores and chambers of the sponge. Once all the air has been displaced, the sponge can no longer absorb fluid. Additional fluid applied to the sponge will simply leak out.

    Another common example involves air. The Earth’s air can hold a certain number of molecules under any given condition. When the air becomes saturated, the dew point is reached.

    In chemistry and physics, the term can also apply to the absorption of chemicals or energy. Once an object has reached its saturation point, additional energy will have to go elsewhere. The term could alternatively be used to refer to light. Every object and solution is capable of absorbing a certain amount of light, no matter how small that amount may be. Once the maximum amount of light is absorbed, additional light will be refracted or “bounced off” the object.

    It is important to note that items have different saturation points. This applies even to very similar items. Size, of course, plays a role in determining how much an object can absorb. A larger sponge, for example, will have a higher saturation point than a smaller sponge. Density is also important — a sponge with more holes will absorb more than one with fewer holes.

    Temperature is another key factor in determining the saturation point. Both the temperature of the object or solution absorbing the substance and the temperature of the substance itself will cause variations in the amount of substance that can be absorbed.

    While the term was originally coined as a science term, it has come into common use to describe people in certain situations. A person who has learned a large amount of new information in a short period of time might be said to have reached his “saturation point.” The phrase might also be applied to someone who has drunk as much alcohol as he can manage.

    The wisdom of he who is known as the Wise Geek

    Obviously America reached its saturation point in being able to absorb and assimilate immigrants some time ago.

    wiseGEEK
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  182. wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 3:17 pm #

    Yes, it is true. Trump wants to bang his daughter.

    “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father…” –Trump

    Yeah, no need to finish that thought.

    Trump wants to bang his daughter. To hell with societal taboos. He’s a billionaire and can bang his daughter if he wants to.

    But because Trump has been so vocal about wanting to bang his daughter, and because TV is not going to promote father-daughter incest, Trump is disappearing from the airwaves.

  183. wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 3:20 pm #

    Trump wants to bang his daughter… but he says his favorite book is the Bible. I wonder if he has read Leviticus 18:8-18:18

    https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=leviticus%2018:8-18:18&version=NIV

  184. Q. Shtik December 11, 2015 at 3:43 pm #

    Just to clear up a loose thread:

    Both Putin and Tom Cruise are 5′ 7″

    Cruise’s former wife, Nichole Kidman is 5′ 11″. When they split she said she was glad not to have to continue wearing flats.

  185. FincaInTheMountains December 11, 2015 at 3:49 pm #

    Ben Carson joins Donald Trump in threatening to leave GOP

    “If the leaders of the Republican Party want to destroy the party, they should continue to hold meetings like the one described in the Washington Post this morning,” Carson said in a statement. “If this was the beginning of a plan to subvert the will of the voters and replace it with the will of the political elite, I assure you Donald Trump will not be the only one leaving the party.”

    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/11/politics/ben-carson-donald-trump-leave-republican-party-threat/index.html

    Way to go, Ben!

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    • wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 4:14 pm #

      Ben deserves to be Trump’s vice-president. (We don’t want a woman… like horse-face Carly, who Trump apparently does not want to bang).

      But both Ben and Donald should chill out. RNC holds a meeting and they freak, threatening to take their ball and go home… not a sign of leadership.

  186. wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 4:08 pm #

    In one incident, nine bikers were shot dead, 20 were wounded, and an unprecedented 177 people from at least five different clubs wound up in police custody.

    When are we going to start worrying about the “radicalization” of white Christian terrorists?

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 11, 2015 at 4:50 pm #

      Yeah, don’t know what we’re gonna do about those Bible-thumping Christian biker gangs sneaking into the country.

      • wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 5:03 pm #

        Find out who is radicalizing them. Disarm them. Strip them of their citizenship. Deport them. Isn’t that the Republican answer to every non-white minority or religion you fear? Trump is going to deport the “illegal Mexicans” so fast your head will spin… he is going to do that and “a lot of other things” (when he isn’t banging his daughter).

        • Sticks-of-TNT December 11, 2015 at 6:29 pm #

          wpa_ccc,

          As stated here often on this forum, I have assumed you to be a woman and despite our philosophical differences, I have attempted to defend you on this point. Long-time members here have insisted otherwise. This incessant “banging his daughter” language from you begs differently and makes me question my own conclusion.

          You and others have quoted exactly what Trump said about his daughter recently in several different media venues. We’re all grown-ups here. Since you have already expressed your opinion on this several times here in quick succession, perhaps going forward you could leave it to the rest of us to draw our own conclusions about what his words meant. I say this as someone who is NOT a Republican and who has not commented here about Trump previously in any way. Peace.

          Sticks-of-TNT

          • wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 9:21 pm #

            I do not approve of father-daughter incest and find Trump’s comments to be disgusting. But I have no doubt that Trump wanting to bang his daughter will not affect his poll numbers.

  187. Q. Shtik December 11, 2015 at 4:09 pm #

    Holy Shee-it !!

    WTI crude $35.43/barrel.

    • wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 4:15 pm #

      Gas at the pump is headed to under $1 a gallon.

      • wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 4:20 pm #

        Private Payroll Employment Has Grown For 69 Months

        69 consecutive months of employment growth. Unemployment at 4.9% … gasoline under $2.00 a gallon … bin Laden dead … al Qaeda leaders dead. Damn that Obama! We always knew he was inept, had no experience, and would ruin the country. /sarcasm off

    • sauerkraut December 12, 2015 at 5:26 pm #

      Saw that. I guess that we’ll find out who is playing chess in a couple of years. Or maybe less.

  188. wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 5:05 pm #

    NEWS FLASH: Orthodox Church in Russia says it holds no grudge against Pussy Riot.

  189. wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 5:46 pm #

    70,000 Muslim Clerics Pass Fatwa

    Almost 70,000 Muslim clerics have come together to pass a fatwa against global terrorist organizations, including the Taliban, al Qaeda and the militant group that calls itself the Islamic State.

    During an annual gathering of South Asian Sunni Muslims in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh this week, almost 1.5 million attendees signed a document protesting global terrorist activity, according to The Times of India.

    They want to spread the message that they don’t consider groups like the Islamic State to be true Islamic organizations — nor do they view members of these organizations as Muslims.

    DUH! ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE

    • Janos Skorenzy December 11, 2015 at 7:23 pm #

      Islam also supports transgender rights and the right of trannies in general. Caitlyn Jenner has been spotted wearing a burqa and is reportedly considering conversion.

      • wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 9:17 pm #

        I heard Caitlyn was seen sewing a white sheet into a robe with a pointy head and was spotted at a neo-nazi chapter meeting with a copy of Mein Kampf. She is reportedly going to join the white supremacist movement.

  190. fodase December 11, 2015 at 10:00 pm #

    Not since Trump said (in three different interviews) that he wants to bang his daughter.

    i sense lots of desperation on your part, wpa_ccc.
    You have been reduced to talking about nonsense since you have no substantive criticism to offer.

    President Trump is already leading the country, defining what is discussed on the airwaves, galvanizing the country behind him, uniting the Good World against Evil.

    Even democrats are taking up his mantle, calling for checks on muslim immigration, admitting that vast swaths of muslims support terrorism.

    Trump is the Man of the Ages. I know even you sense this, though your fallen side is fighting against it, futilely I might add.

    Recognize your Master, Luke.

    Trump was right on Mexican illegal felonious immigration several months ago, correct on muslim terrorists infiltrating via failed obama non-vetting immigration, correct that we need to halt muslim immigration, correct that there are no-go zones in europe due to muslim problems, as always.

    in the face of overwhelming self-condemning behaviour on the part of muslims, you call for Christians (of course White Christians, the saviours of this planet) to be profiled. It is one of your last ditch attempts to divert attention from reality.

    You are being taught a very valuable lesson of right and wrong. You are 70 years old, a Noble Black Man I would be proud to call Friend, despite our vociferous disagreements.

    I welcome all my Muslim, Black, White and other Colored Brothers who abide by the manifold scientific, societal, and material advances that Western European-Hellenic Advanced Culture has bestowed upon a benighted world.

    fodase

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    • wpa_ccc December 11, 2015 at 10:50 pm #

      A Noble Black man? LOL! Yes, fodase, you are welcome in my mud hut anytime, regardless of who is living in the big white house.

  191. FincaInTheMountains December 11, 2015 at 11:32 pm #

    Chess board analysis by Chipstone

    It would seem that global Trans-National corporations (TNC) have almost achieved the final victory, but it is only at first glance. The United States, who became the undisputed leader in the financial sector due to the presence of the virtual emission center (FED), are limited in time due to the rapid growth of the debt pyramid and the process of creating competing Chinese/British centers.

    If and when China will be able to launch the project of gold Yuan, which is supported by both Russia and Britain, the fate of the dollar as a world currency will begin to count down the last days. A launch date of the “golden” project depends only on the amount of accumulated physical metal and the creation of independent from the US monetary instruments, including international.

    Russian and Chinese projects, in principle, are consistent with each other. And both are equally opposed to the US. Moreover, both projects were forced to cooperate against the American TNCs. In economic and financial terms, Russia is not able to withstand the pressure of TNCs alone without the support of China and Britain behind it.

    China with the help of Britain is quite able to do without Russian financial and economic cooperation, but both are weak in military confrontation with the United States. All equally need the collapse of the current virtual dollar-based financial system and establishment of a new gold standard.

    Britain needs Russia as the military pressure on China to guarantee the inviolability of property and assets located in China. And Russia gets from Britain and China guarantee the safety of financial assets abroad (which is all kinds of foreign currency assets, including gold in foreign banks).

    State of the World, the manifestation and the power of certain elements of this or that model of the world dictate to the Players a certain type of behavior in the economy and foreign policy.

    For the United States, as the organizational and ideological center of the corporate model of the world is an attack on two fronts – the use of force (military) and economic (financial).

    In addition, there is the global work on the full sweep of the ideological and religious fields, designed to prevent the emergence in the world of any coherent ideological concept in the near future.

    Such tactics dictates a very high degree dependence on the time factor. If, within a relatively short period of time the United States will not be able to reverse the situation completely in their favor, their model is doomed, and its collapse is able to completely destroy the American state itself.

    Sino-British model identifies attacking China’s behavior in the economic field and defensive in military terms. Ideology is not too important, but society constantly maintains traditional level of nationalism. The time factor for China is moderate.

    Imperial Russian model dictates her defensive tactics in the economic field and attacking (counterattacking) in military terms. In ideology Russia has chosen tactics of active defense of traditional values that could in the future form the basis for a global ideological paradigm. For Russia, the time factor has a minimum value. More precisely, it is simply is counterproductive to hurry anywhere.

    Time clearly plays to her advantage. Russia does not claim foreign colonial component and does not compete with China. In the military area is enough not to lose influence in the region of future zone of responsibility.

    It is no coincidence that tough confrontation with the United States emerged just after US encroached on Ukraine, which Russia considers if not part of its empire in the near future, then at least a zone of primary responsibility.

    Almost the same thing is happening in Syria, where the beginning of Russian military operation clearly can be considered as defensive counterattack against United States with their desire to create a ring of violent instability around Russia.

  192. Janos Skorenzy December 12, 2015 at 1:03 am #

    The average single Black woman has a net worth of five dollars. Freedom, so called, has been an economic disaster for Blacks and therefore Whites and White Society. Things were much better economically under slavery. I’m not arguing this by the way. As a Fascist, I reject the purely economic philosophy of life. Blacks have the right to be free and we have the right to be free of them. But into every life, some economics must fall. And this is an interesting perspective – especially for all of you that hold an economic view of life, be it Capitalist or Socialist.

    To reiterate, I want Blacks gone. But if you want them here, read on Dear Reader, read on. Of course a less strong version of the argument might be a return to the values of post war South, with Whites dominant and Blacks subordinate but still enjoying the fruits of White Society.

    http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2012/07/13/slavery-a-positive-good/

    • malthuss December 12, 2015 at 7:19 pm #

      Can you cite a source for ‘$5’ and IF true consider it ‘negative’ below 5 if you remove the NW of Oprah, Moochelle and Beyonce, etc.

  193. FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 5:03 am #

    Published a deathbed interview with the famous film director Stanley Kubrick, in which he spoke at length and in detail that all landings on the moon by NASA have been fabricated and how he was shooting all the frames of American lunar missions.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqSg6W8EMYU

    Skeletons are slowly beginning to get out of closets. I am sure this is not the last significant exposure of falsifications of history.

    Is it possible to be completely sure that this very interview is not a fake? Most likely it is really genuine stuff, but still could be a fake. But that does not matter. Apparently a decision has been made to view it as a fake regardless of the truth. So, a fake it will be from now on. And in any case the Black Spot to National US Elites.

  194. FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 5:42 am #

    An Israeli Pivot to Eurasia?

    Jerusalem recently entered into a free trade zone with the Eurasian Economic Union.

    Expanding Israel-EEU relations come at a critical juncture for Jerusalem. Russia is now two months into a military intervention across Israel’s northern border in Syria. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian republics are seeking openings with an Iran less restrained by international sanctions following the P5+1 nuclear accord.

    Just days after the EEU-Israel agreement was signed, Turkey shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 jet near the Turkey-Syria frontier. Moscow responded with a sanctions package against Ankara. Russia listed Israel as a potential substitute to compensate for Turkish exports impacted by sanctions. Thus, for Russia, Israeli entry into a free trade zone with the Eurasian Union comes at an opportune time.

    http://thediplomat.com/2015/12/an-israeli-pivot-to-eurasia/

  195. FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 6:10 am #

    The Navy’s newest [and most expensive in history] ship breaks down, limps into port

    ABOARD THE LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP MILWAUKEE, VIRGINIA CAPES – The littoral combat ship Milwaukee, the Navy’s newest ship, broke down Dec. 11 and had to be towed more than 40 nautical miles to Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, Virginia.

    The ship suffered an engineering casualty while transiting from Halifax, Canada, to Mayport, Florida, and ultimately its home port of San Diego. The cause is being evaluated by ship’s crew and technical consultants.

    Initial indications are that fine metal debris collected in the lube oil filter caused the system to shut down, according to a Navy statement provided to Navy Times. The cause of the metal debris in the lube oil system is not known and assessments are ongoing.

    http://scoopdeck.navytimes.com/2015/12/12/the-navys-newest-ship-breaks-down-limps-into-port/

    An excellent illustration of how many parasitic sector in the US inflate costs, with the inevitable result of the reduction of the physical output per dollar spent.

    This degradation concerns defense contractors, medicine, and industry – almost all sectors.

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  196. fodase December 12, 2015 at 7:53 am #

    There are visible objects on the Moon left by astronauts. One of them is a reflecting small pyramid used to reflect lasers shot from Earth back to Earth in order to measure the distance to the Moon.

    At least that’s what Kubrick told me to say.

    Let’s put the Moon Hoax behind us, that’s so O.J. Simpson 1973.

    By the way, where is Orenthal James these days?

  197. wpa_ccc December 12, 2015 at 8:01 am #

    Why Bernie Sanders Will Become President

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/bernie-sanders-will-become-president_b_8780730.html?ir=Politics

    re: Clinton’s “inevitability.” Conventional logic is often rooted in a herd mentality, wrapped in a cloak of groupthink, and justified by doublespeak. It’s the reason that television gravitates away from honest individuals and towards anyone who will sell commercials. According to a Philly.com article by Will Bunch, More Americans support Bernie than The Donald — but he gets 1/23 the TV coverage.

  198. fodase December 12, 2015 at 9:04 am #

    sander’s message and persona do not resonate, he’s harmonically challenged

    there’s nothing magnetic about him or what he’s saying

    you have to laff at jeb bush, who after castigating The Donald for his muslim shutdown is now calling for the same thing

    “Jeb: There Should Be ‘Temporary’ Refugee Ban on Refugees Until ‘Clear’ There Aren’t Any Terrorists”

    lol, all caps! jeb’s polling probably less than 5%

    guy’s about as inept a politician as you could imagine. how in the WURLD did he ever become guvna of florida?

    god, i swear a rock has more charisma than he does.

    jeb’s proven emphatically that money can’t buy you brains

  199. FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 10:14 am #

    Transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTP) – a planned free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States – appears will not be concluded in the near future.

    The Social Democratic Party, which is part of the ruling German coalition, at its congress decided to support the line of the Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, to require a fundamental change in the negotiation process with the United States and the exclusion of certain aspects of a treaty draft prepared by the European Union (primarily concerning the structure of conflict resolution).

    In other words, Germany will not sign an agreement in one of its form which the United States have almost pushed through during the (secret!) talks with the European Commission.

    In addition, Congress has approved Sigmar Gabriel as candidate for chancellor of Germany in 2017.

    It seems now that TTIP will not be concluded in any case before 2017. And this is a very serious blow to the US economy, which due to the economic crisis urgently needs duty-free access to the European markets.

    http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/spd-sigmar-gabriel-setzt-sich-mit-ttip-kurs-durch-a-1067477.html

    The next step will be an escalation of the international tensions everywhere on the globe.

  200. FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 11:05 am #

    “Putin always reminded me of a banty rooster types especially when I saw how short he was in comparison to other world leaders.” == Buck

    How tall was Julius Caesar?

    http://i.imgur.com/qxVgD.jpg

    http://www.dw.com/image/0,,16429937_403,00.jpg

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    • FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 11:10 am #

      Caesar’s height was 5 foot 7 inches high. He had dark brown eyes with soft white skin. He kept himself neatly shaven, and was balding prematurely which he disliked, and he became very sensitive to any mention of his hairless head.

      http://i.imgur.com/pBdG3.jpg

      http://i.imgur.com/lwNuh.jpg

    • FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 11:17 am #

      On the question of the need for history of political art…

      • Buck Stud December 12, 2015 at 11:43 am #

        Was five foot seven inches really considered short back in the time of Ceasar?

        So let’s keep it current. Bill Clinton, Barrack Obama and others, simply tower over the diminutive Putin.

        I was struck by how short Tom Cruise looked when seen next to taller males: He’s a shrimp! But he would look Vlad Putin straight in the eye, according to Q.

        Maybe it’s an American thing and thus foreign to your sensibilities but Americans like their bad asses a bit taller than 5′ 7″ . Think of “The Duke” or James Arness as “Marshall Matt Dillon’ in the show “Gunsmoke”. Or how about Clint Walker in “Night of the Grizzly–all 6’6″ of him!

        And of course, 6′ 4” Clint, “Dirty Harry” Eastwood. For some reason “Josey Wales” wouldn’t have looked nearly so menacing and formidable had he been looking up at his adversaries.

        Maybe when thinking of Putin I should think more along the lines of a short Al Pacino as “Michael Corleone”. Yes, that comparison resonates. And how ironic, nothing to due with height!

        • FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 12:04 pm #

          Let’s not forget that Vladimir was born to the parents who suffered through the blockade of Leningrad, when over 60% of the population died off hunger.

          Could the genetic memory of starvation be passed to a child influencing his future size?

          Bill Clinton, Barrack Obama and others grew up on a rich American diet born to the parents that had no less.

          I remember how I was shocked by the amount of ham in a “ham-and-cheese” sandwich purchased for lunch by my co-worker – it amounted roughly to my monthly ham allowance in Russia.

        • FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 12:20 pm #

          However, I can buy that “Michael Corleone” comparison in the following aspect:

          “Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in”

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPw-3e_pzqU

        • malthuss December 12, 2015 at 7:20 pm #

          Tom is a Gay Scientologist.
          His wives are Lesbians.
          Children adopted.

  201. Buck Stud December 12, 2015 at 11:15 am #

    “Trump is the Man of the Ages. I know even you sense this, though your fallen side is fighting against it, futilely I might add.”–fodasse

    The “futilely fighting against” is not really coming from those on the left, but from the GOP establishment. In a recent poll, Gravis Marketing, as I recall, Trump garners 43% of the vote, his highest percentage to date. And panic is starting to set in the the GOP establishment, hence their threats of a “brokered convention”.

    Just imagine the backlash, if they, the “GOP Establishment” conspires to rebuke Trump at the convention. Or even more likely–and far less obvious and thus less likely to create a backlash–fire up their notoriously corrupt vote counting methods during the primaries: Live by the sword, die by sword! The vote counting corruption eagerly embraced by current Trump supporters when used against Dem candidates will now be used to try and take down their hero, “Trump, The Man of the Ages”. And have no doubt that the upper echelon of the GOP has their best and brightest “Derail Trump at the Election Booth” tech experts working night and day on the project as we type. And let us not forget corrupt GOP local election oversight officials pocketing their filthy dirty deed money well in advance of their diabolical ‘throw Trump votes in the trash’ endeavor. Does anyone doubt that Karl Rove still has some favors coming his way?

    Sorry to be a bring down for all of the Trump supporters but I look where you now fear to look. Because if you did look into the corrupt darkness you formerly embraced you would see shadowy Rovian figures and cackling hyenas tying the hangman’s noose for your man Trump.

    How do you like it now, Gentlemen?

    • FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 11:31 am #

      Providence works in mysterious ways

  202. Q. Shtik December 12, 2015 at 11:38 am #

    Hey Janos,

    Here’s some fresh meat from today’s NYT op-ed section.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/opinion/campaign-stops/goose-steppers-in-the-gop.html?_r=0

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 12, 2015 at 3:34 pm #

      What a crock!

  203. FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 11:50 am #

    No matter how you slice it or dice it, Trump today is the only US Presidential candidate who stands for negotiations – not confrontation – with other major players – China and Russia.

    I do understand people who dislike Trump. But may be you just dislike his election-style image he’s chosen for himself? What do we really know about that man? What do we really know about the team of people he assembled for his presidential campaign?

    He’s playing to win and he must play to the feelings of 99% of American voters – he can’t win based on establishment and its media, he must win based on the popular vote.

    • wpa_ccc December 12, 2015 at 1:38 pm #

      No matter how you slice it or dice it, Trump today is the only US Presidential candidate who stands for negotiations – not confrontation – with other major players – China and Russia.

      You might want to reconsider Bernie Sanders as an alternative.

      “When people around the world do not have water to drink, or they do not have land to grow their crops, of course there will be war and international conflicts,” Sanders stated. “If we are prepared to work with China and Russia and India and countries all over this world, our country can lead.”

      Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150918/1027218746.html#ixzz3u8J3IxIP

  204. fodase December 12, 2015 at 1:42 pm #

    GOP will seal its own coffin if they jettison Trump.No other republican candidate excites/will excite the 70% of the base that want Trump, they won’t vote for a second stringer that’s been forced on them.

    republican voters are mad as hell, and as a result their party is backed into a corner. they have to take Trump, or it’s lights out in ’16.

    It’s no contest.

    There’s no one else who can take on hillary, the congenital lawyer.

    Naturally, there’s a big question mark as to whether the gop even wants to win.

    • wpa_ccc December 12, 2015 at 1:59 pm #

      “they won’t vote for a second stringer that’s been forced on them.”

      Don’t be so pessimistic about the GOP. If Trump is forced out and the choice is between Clinton and Ted Cruz, I would bet all the Trump supporters would go for Cruz, plus all the establishment GOP. Cruz wins. Unless Trump decides to go it on his own as an independent. Then all bets are off. Clinton wins.

  205. wpa_ccc December 12, 2015 at 1:55 pm #

    It does not matter how old Bernie Sanders is. It doesn’t matter that Bernie Sanders is Jewish. It doesn’t matter if Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist. It doesn’t matter that Bernie Sanders does not have a SuperPac or the support of billionaires.

    If Bernie Sanders receives the most electoral votes, Bernie Sanders will be the next president. That is the way the system works.

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  206. wpa_ccc December 12, 2015 at 2:05 pm #

    BLACK LIVES MATTER

    “It wasn’t coincidence who Daniel Holtzclaw chose to violate, it was methodical and it was deliberate,” said Benjamin Crump, a national civil rights attorney who stood side by side with victims and their families as they spoke to the press. “Some might not consider them model citizens, but they were citizens. They were Americans, and their lives mattered.”

    The jury recommended 263 years of prison for serial rapist, Mr. Holtzclaw.

    “He just picked the wrong lady to stop that night,” said Jannie Logins, the victim who triggered the investigation into Holtzclaw after she reported him.

    Logins, who said she still lives with the trauma of the assault every day, described being pulled over by Holtzclaw and being forced to perform oral sodomy.

    “All I could think was, he was going to shoot me, he was going to kill me,” Logins said. “Only thing I could see was my life flash before my eyes, and the gun in the holster on his right side.”

  207. wpa_ccc December 12, 2015 at 3:05 pm #

    OBAMA SAVES THE PLANET

    The world’s leader, Barack Obama, went to Paris to call for global action on climate change. Obama succeeded. For the first time, rich and poor countries across the world have agreed to take steps to limit and adapt to climate change — from reducing their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to helping one another adapt to rising seas, devastating droughts, food shortages and other impacts of global warming.

    As the Paris text states, climate change “represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet,” and “requires the widest possible cooperation by all countries.”

    Thank you, President Obama, for an outstanding two terms as President.

    • malthuss December 12, 2015 at 7:22 pm #

      You are a laugh.

      OBAMA SAVES THE PLANET [bs]

      The world’s leader [what the fuck?]

  208. FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 3:08 pm #

    “You might want to reconsider Bernie Sanders as an alternative.”

    Sure, how could I forget Bernie-F35-Sanders, Senator From Lockheed-Martin.

    http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2015/08/03/milquetoast-bernie-sanders-senator-from-

    Bernie Sanders: US Needs to Work With Russia, China……to Fight Climate Change

    http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150918/1027218746.html

  209. Sean Coleman December 12, 2015 at 3:15 pm #

    Sauerkraut

    I left a reply to you up the thread. Do a word search for ‘ad hominum’ (sic).

    If you want to continue this tedious discussion (and I really prefer not to) perhaps you might actually spend some time and care in marshalling your arguments rather offering short posts that rely on lazy statements and irrelevant jargon. My own posts, both here and in the original exchange of views on the Leviathan thread, took some time to write. If you want to get any more reaction from me (and I am not promising anything) you’ll have to do a lot more work. And seeing as you have been demanding ‘equations and calculations’ from me perhaps you show us your own, bearing in mind of course that these are worse than useless if the original data has been skewed and pre-selected and the conclusions reached beforehand, it being the case that it is yourself who holds the extraordinary belief (I just choose not to share it).

    • nsa December 12, 2015 at 4:14 pm #

      so what’s wrong with “lazy statements and irrelevant jargon”? This is the fucking internet……39% porn, 10% gaming and gambling (more if you include wall street), and the balance being mostly time wasting infotainment (like cfn comments) and buying shit you don’t need…..

      • Sean Coleman December 12, 2015 at 7:31 pm #

        I am not opposed to generalizations as you have to make a point in a few sentences at most and it is not a place for speechifying. However I am saying this to Sauerkraut (not anyone else) because he avoids considering any of my arguments and then says I’m not being *specific*. He wants me to give him equations and calculations, and I notice he’s at it again now, just looking for a line, just one line, of *code*.

    • sauerkraut December 12, 2015 at 7:54 pm #

      Allright Sean. I’ll leave you with just one last thought.

      For the sake of argument, let’s assume that you have found a superior method for discovering the truth about reality, and that you are right, and AGW and all the qualified scientists are wrong. Then, in the future, you might have a conversation like this with your granddaughter:

      G: We studied the Global Warming controversy in school today. What did you do, Grampa?
      SC: You know me – I wasn’t taken in by that kind of lie.
      G: Yes, but what did you actually do?
      SC: Oh, we drove big heavy cars, and flew in big airplanes just to lie in the sun. And we kept the house warm, 72 F.
      G: But Grampa, didn’t you think of leaving any for me?

      Of course, if you are wrong and the scientists are right, your granddaughter may have truly harsh words for you.

      • Sean Coleman December 13, 2015 at 2:22 pm #

        Cliff (formerly known as Sauerkraut)

        I left a reply to your latest meanderings above. Just search for Comic Book Guy.

        If I see you coming down the street, Cliff, I cross over to the other side and keep my head down in case you might see me.

        This analogy is even worse than the last one (the one about your daughter and her lump).

        ‘and all the qualified scientists are wrong’

        How many of these scientists are experts in the climate and its history?

        How seriously should we take the claims that the scientists all agree and (to use the phrase) ‘the science is settled’.

        Why are people so anxious to keep repeating that ‘the science is settled’?

        Why do you think many people (including plenty in the white coated community) don’t believe in this fairy tale?

        Should we wreck the world’s economy (or that part residing in the EU) because of an unproven (and mistaken) theory?

        Should we ignore the fact that the leading player, the IPCC, has a proven track record of deceit?

        Once you have answered those questions, Cliff, you might get back to me with the *specifics* you have demanded of me. That means the ‘equations and calculations’ you keep pontificating about, the ‘code’ (whatever that may be). You can even show me the famous time series analysis of yours. So long as you can use this stuff to demonstrate that AGW is real.

        So no more waffle, Cliff. No more analogies or little parables. Give me the *specifics*.

  210. FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 4:14 pm #

    One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, frigging hilarious

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-03RjbxKhM

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  211. FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 4:25 pm #

    Kubrick: They are going to poison us all so fast that we even wouldn’t have time to sneeze

    In 1971, Kubrick left the United States for United Kingdom and did not appear more in America. All of his subsequent films were done only in England. For many years the director led a secluded life, fearing assassination. According to the British newspaper “Sun” director “was afraid of being killed by US intelligence agencies, as other participants of the US lunar scam.”

    The director reportedly died of a heart attack at the end of the assembly period of the film “Eyes Wide Shut” starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. It was Kidman who in July 2002 in an interview with American newspaper «The National Enquirer» reported that Kubrick was killed. The director called her 2 hours before the official time of “sudden death” and asked not to come to Hertfordshire, where, as he put it, “all of us will be poisoned so fast that we wouldn’t even have time to sneeze.”

    • FincaInTheMountains December 12, 2015 at 4:40 pm #

      Separate question is, why the Soviets went along with the fake?

  212. wpa_ccc December 12, 2015 at 4:32 pm #

    Trump’s lawyer sent a threatening note warning about slandering The Donald, and Bush’s lawyers shot back by filing a complaint that the Trump lawyer was illegally working for the Trump campaign.

    Some of this letter was pretty amusing, such as:

    ‘Just as your client is attempting to quickly learn the basics of foreign policy, we wish you personally the best in your attempts to learn election law.’

    The funniest line was probably: ‘Should your client actually be elected Commander-in-Chief, will you be the one writing the cease and desist letters to Vladimir Putin, or will that be handled by outside counsel?’

    • Cold N. Holefield December 12, 2015 at 8:09 pm #

      Go Jeb! I’m ready for my next lesson. 😉

  213. Pucker December 12, 2015 at 7:54 pm #

    Could they use Helium-3 from the Moon to make non-radioactive “clean” nuclear weapons?

  214. wpa_ccc December 12, 2015 at 9:01 pm #

    CRUZ LEAVES TRUMP IN THE IOWA DUST*

    31% …. Cruz

    21% … Trump

    13% … Carson

    10% … Rubio

    6% … Bush

    Trump is wounded. Trump is being punished for stupidly saying to ban all Muslims. You can’t be that stupid and get away with it, not even in Iowa. A 10% drop is a big punishment for Trump’s anti-Muslim bigotry.

    Hug a Muslim today. I am making a point to hug my Muslim friends. Islam is a religion of peace. Believe otherwise and you will not become president.

    *(Bloomberg Politics/DesMoines Register poll released Saturday, December 12, 2015)

    • Buck Stud December 12, 2015 at 10:50 pm #

      Not so fast WPA. GOP/evangelical Iowa is notorious for choosing the likes of fellow evangelicals such as Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, both of who went on to lose and lose big in the previous election years.

      Of course you don’t mention because you want to tweak and agitate the Trump supporters here on CFN, sophist that you are 🙂

      • wpa_ccc December 12, 2015 at 11:14 pm #

        sophist

        mid 16th century: via Latin from Greek, sophos ‘wise.’

        Thank you, Buck. I am a lover of wisdom. 🙂

      • wpa_ccc December 12, 2015 at 11:24 pm #

        “both of who”

        both of whom

        whom is used when object of the preposition “of”

  215. Q. Shtik December 13, 2015 at 12:50 am #

    I was struck by how short Tom Cruise looked when seen next to taller males: He’s a shrimp! But he would look Vlad Putin straight in the eye, according to Q. – Buck

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

    Robert Reich, Sec of Labor under Bill Clinton, is 4′ 11″.

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    • wpa_ccc December 13, 2015 at 1:10 am #

      Texas Sate Treasurer, Charley Lockhart, 3′ 9″

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 13, 2015 at 8:06 am #

      Wow, a leprechaun!

      • Sticks-of-TNT December 13, 2015 at 8:14 am #

        (I’m referring to Reich. I have no idea what Lockhart looks like.) -TNT

    • Buck Stud December 13, 2015 at 10:39 am #

      Yes but Reich is an intellectual giant using his gift to fight for the little people on Main Street. A great man who writes columns by the way.

      And speaking of “truth”, Reich is spreading the word, Lord have mercy:

      http://robertreich.org/post/128561058250

      • Sticks-of-TNT December 13, 2015 at 7:43 pm #

        Yes, Reich would be an ideal champion of “the little people on Main Street!” -Sticks

        (I can’t get the picture out of my head of the scene in “The Wizard of Oz” where Dorothy is talking to the Mayor of Munchkinland and all his Munchkin minions, accompanied by the singing of the Lollipop Guild, all in vivid Technicolor! ;>)

  216. FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 3:53 am #

    Valentin Katasonov: On December 21 the world financial order may finally collapse

    December 21 promises to be the most disgraceful day in the history of the IMF, which could be followed by the death of this international financial institution. Alas, before its death, the IMF is still able to blow up the world financial system, using the Ukrainian debt to Russia as a detonator.

    The world is entering a phase of chaos. Until recently, the United States have embarked on the creation of the “controlled chaos.” Events in the Middle East dispel the illusion that the initiator of the chaos can manage it. The same uncontrollable chaos may soon arise in international finance. United States again act as initiator of uncontrolled financial turmoil, and the detonator of process will be a 3 billion Ukrainian debt to Russia.

    After creating the Bretton Woods monetary system, the United States themselves dealt first blow to it in 1970s when abandoned exchange dollars for gold. Demonetization of gold has been carried out; the world moved on to paper money, fixed exchange rates were eliminated. It gave a push to frantic growth of financial markets and financial speculation, which significantly reduced the stability of the world economy and international finance. This was a financial chaos, but still manageable. One of the management tools of international finance remained the International Monetary Fund, established in December 1945.

    And today we are witnessing the destruction of the IMF, threatening to escalate instability of global finance into the global financial chaos. The IMF’s role in maintaining relative financial order of the world was not only that it gave loans to some countries, but also in the fact that it played the final authority, to shape the rules in the global financial markets.

    After the United States, as the principal shareholder of the IMF (about 17% of the total votes of the Fund), pulled the IMF into their games around Ukraine, the international financial organization has to break their own rules, which it developed and polished over decades. Fund with its recent decision on providing loans to Ukraine even after its sovereign default, creates a precedent for the game without rules, the consequences of which for international finance is almost impossible to calculate.

  217. FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 5:00 am #

    India Times: China to launch yuan gold benchmark in April

    SINGAPORE: China has delayed the launch of its yuan-denominated gold benchmark on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) to next year, two sources familiar with the matter said.

    The yuan price fix would mark one of China’s biggest steps so far towards capitalising on its position as the world’s top producer and consumer of gold. State-run SGE had initially planned to launch the benchmark by the end of this year but it will now be launched in April.

    Sources have earlier told Reuters that the yuan benchmark would be derived from a 1 kilogramme contract to be traded on the SGE for a few minutes each day, with the exchange acting as the central counterparty.

  218. FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 5:25 am #

    Sources previously told that gold Yuan will be launched by the Yuan peg to the contract for 1 kilogram, and will be traded on the Shanghai Gold Exchange for a few minutes each day, with the exchange acting as a central counterparty.

    It is unnoticed news, but a very important piece of the puzzle of the picture of what is happening. Apparently it is, if not the main cause of deterioration of the international situation, but very important part of it.
    If we assume for a moment that the world’s largest economy – China – officially go on the gold standard, the current world of funny money would very quickly come to full Fakarachio. Even faster, if this system will be joined by other prepared countries, such as India and Russia.

    Standardizing value through gold is going to make the printing press not only pointless, but also explosively dangerous. The more you print funny money, the faster it depreciates not only the ones that are already in circulation, but also all assets denominated in them.

    Given the scale of the share of the dollar and Euro of the economy in the total volume of global finance it will automatically lead to paralysis of the economies. When you do not know what your assets will be worth in the evening of the current day, with the dominance of credit facility at a floating rate, it is not clear who owes what to who, and how much. And if there will be parallel system without these problems, the vast majority of businesses will run there.

    Why is it not desirable for the United States? Elementary arithmetic. If from current estimated size of US GDP subtract the US debt, eliminate the inflow of foreign capital and discount volume of domestic debt of American households, it turns out that the US GDP, instead of the 17 trillion dollars, at current prices, is reduced to about 3 trillion.

    America is losing its economic leadership. Most likely decline happens even deeper, as the owners of deliberately inflated speculative exchange assets as quickly as possible will choose to “lock in profits” and withdraw from funny money to funded money. I will not be surprised if eventually the US GDP will slide even lower, to 2, or even to 1.5 trillion.

    http://cont.ws/post/162779

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 13, 2015 at 9:30 am #

      Fascinating analysis, Finca.

      MisterDarling, would love to read any commentary from you or other CFN economic experts who happen to stop by here at week’s end.

      Things seem to be taking a decidedly ominous turn with the crashing of crude prices (and other indicators) as pointed out by Q. on Friday.*

      Time to hunker down CFN shitizens!

      -Sticks

      *Keep blowing sunshine and soap bubbles if you must Ms. wpa_ccc, but nobody’s listening except the weakest thinkers among us.

      • wpa_ccc December 13, 2015 at 2:19 pm #

        The people blowing sunshine are those offering apparently simple quick fixes: build a wall! close the borders! ban the Muslims! The naive innocents who are believers in such fixes will be disappointed.

        If you do all that closing borders, banning Muslims, deporting Mexicans, etc., I will be watching to see if happiness increases… though I suspect, the anti-human moral corruption will then move to consume those within the white walled garden.

        You don’t feel safe from the “Other” … the solution is to embrace the other, not wall them out, deport them, bomb them, and dehumanize them. That way lies madness, fear, and loneliness.

        I am so glad I am already part of a multicultural community (decades in the making) with friends of many races and religions… upon whom I have depended in times of crisis. And they can depend on me and my skills in the coming collapse which is just around the corner … Dec. 21? CFN never gets the dates right, but it doesn’t matter when you are in a community full of laughter and love… and sunshine.

    • elysianfield December 13, 2015 at 11:04 am #

      Finc,
      Well done. Elysianfield is experiencing microaggression….

    • Buck Stud December 13, 2015 at 1:59 pm #

      Fin bear with my curiosity/ignorance for a moment. You mention the ‘printing press’ and I assume by extension, the arbitrary nature of printing press money: ‘Out of thin air’ if you will.

      You juxtapose the aforementioned against the possibility of the gold standard championed by China. I presume this means verification of the actual gold? How is that done and by whom? Wouldn’t China at that point have to consistently prove their holdings?

      And if this would be so destructive to the American economy and their world standing, what stops a Doolittle like bunker busting raid over said Chinese stash of gold in the name of “the American way of life”?

      Put another way–and again forgive my ignorance here–China only has as much tangible gold reserves as the U.S military decides it should. Because if a nation has to prove and visibly verify their assets–as in the “Gold Standard”–then such assets become vulnerable to destruction.

      And put another way still, if China doesn’t play nice they will essentially lose assets one way or another. Because if you think for one moment that Texas, California and New York, along with Alabama, Wyoming and Alaska–the collective U.S.– is going to passively stand by and let the Chinese claim world dominance with barely a whimper you’re sadly mistaken.

      There is no way the U.S. is going to stand pat and let a nation of tech stealing, non-creative mimic clones one up good old fashioned American ingenuity. Beijing will be the second coming of Hiroshima before that day ever happens, rest assured.

    • elysianfield December 13, 2015 at 5:09 pm #

      “Sources previously told that gold Yuan will be launched by the Yuan peg to the contract for 1 kilogram, and will be traded on the Shanghai Gold Exchange for a few minutes each day, with the exchange acting as a central counterparty.”

      Finc,
      Starting a gold exchange is not the same as being on the gold standard…if it was, then both the US Dollar and British Pound would be on the “Gold Standard”, which, of course, they are not(considering that the US and Britain both have gold exchanges).

      The Shanghai Gold Exchange will, however, benefit the Yuan, as it will be the currency in which the exchange will be traded, thereby vastly increasing international trade in the yuan, and its legitimacy as an international currency… one which will soon be more readily accepted by sovereign funds, governments, etc, and held in reserves.

      I am, obviously, no economic expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night….

      • FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 5:54 pm #

        It is not just Gold Exchange, it’s Asian Bank of Infrastructure Investments and BRICS bank that are designed to replace (in emergency) the existing Bretton Woods institutions.

        Judging by American behavior in regards to Ukrainian sovereign default, such emergency is around the corner.

        In my opinion, it’s all designed to bring the World Financial and Trade systems back to the principles of original Bretton Woods as it was envisioned by Roosevelt in 1944 – it does give certain advantage to the “Hosting” country, but not at the expense of total lawlessness and chaos like we have today.

      • FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 6:05 pm #

        Obviously, the preferred solution would be keeping existing institutions in place, just re-distributing the voting blocks like it was agreed in 2011.

        Unfortunately, time is a pressing issue and Trump, who is ready to negotiate, will not be installed in office before the showdown.

      • Sticks-of-TNT December 13, 2015 at 6:25 pm #

        You don’t have to receive a paycheck as an economist for a major bank or university to speak intelligently on the subject. Your comments are sound. Ben Carson is the proverbial “brain surgeon” and you’re way ahead of him! -Sticks

        • Sticks-of-TNT December 13, 2015 at 6:29 pm #

          (Directed to elysian.)

  219. FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 6:50 am #

    A.Brodsky. About Russia

    Heir to Byzantium – the Grand Duchy of Moscow, then Russian Empire – began in the era of Peter the Great, the only state that accepted Western scientific method, while maintaining its civilizational otherness. Even in those days, when the modernization and Westernization seemed to become synonymous, Russia retained its distinctive spiritual life and Orthodox worldview.

    Thus it challenges the whole of Western European civilization, joining with it in a technical and military competition, but refusing to become part of it. The harmony of the Byzantine way is giving it a serious advantage in this competition, but, unfortunately, Russia has imported the conflict between the Church and Science in the process of Westernization.

    Since then, the imperial power had to constantly fight with both “orthodox” obscurantism, rejecting scientific progress as such that threatens the loss of sovereignty, and with frantic Westernization, destroying the spiritual unity of the Russian people and invariably leads to turmoil and the collapse of the centralized state.

    It should emphasize the role of Western “well-wishers of Russia”, with equal pleasure supporting both groups against the imperial power.

    Rabid Westernizators destroy the spiritual life of the people and are a natural recruitment base of conscious agents of influence.

    Obscurantists block modernization projects and are condemning Russia to backwardness, forcing it to abandon technical and military competition.

    In our time, in the course of “perestroika” Russia, at the price of incredible sacrifices managed to fit into a raw material appendage to the West-created global division of labor, and still had time at the last minute to jump on the leaving boat of capitalist innovation.

    Unfortunately, the rabid Westernizators did not have time to look at the name of the departing ship, and when in the course of the global economic crisis, it became clear that the name of the ship is “Titanic”, it turned out that raw material appendages are not entitled to life-saving monetary emission.

    In the course of restructuring and privatization of public property, the invisible hand of the market hit hard the institutions of family, science and culture. Church and state were in Russia only legally competent subjects of history, but only through the joint efforts of science they can change the status of a raw materials appendage to restore the rest of the institutions of civilization and build a raft to save Russia.

    It will have to suppress imported from the West conflict and return to the harmonious development of the Byzantine path. And about traitors it is said in the Scriptures that “they would be better not to be born.”

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 13, 2015 at 9:58 am #

      Obscurantism / obscurantists??? Really?

      • FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 10:25 am #

        Full Definition of obscurantism

        1: opposition to the spread of knowledge : a policy of withholding knowledge from the general public

        2: a style (as in literature or art) characterized by deliberate vagueness or abstruseness

        http://beta.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obscurantism

        The author is most likely referring to ongoing attempts of liberal reform of Russian Academy of Science

  220. FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 8:58 am #

    Another NATO-Russian escalation

    Russian Frigate Uses Firearms to Prevent Collision With Turkish Vessel

    The crew of the Russian “Smetlivy” destroyer was forced to use firearms on Sunday to prevent a collision with a Turkish seiner vessel in the northern part of the Aegean Sea, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.

    http://sputniknews.com/military/20151213/1031680448/russian-frigate-collision-turkey.html

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  221. FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 11:04 am #

    Selim Cora

    Erdogan brought down the “Moskoff” plane. We all saw how it fell in the sky of the Levant. Whatever happens, he cannot apologize. It will be a violation of the deeply hidden wishes of tens of millions who have never ceased to dream of Empire.

    Young man sitting in front leans over to me and says: “After all these years, we have brought down the plane.” His eyes widen: “And brother, it’s a Moskoff plane!”. He looks at the blue sky, smiling and contemplating this pleasant thought.

    In the Turkish public consciousness, the term “Moskoff” has a share of ridicule and scorn – and, at the same time fear. Moskoff is not like the “Room” (Greek) – a former slave who sometimes rebels, but whom you cannot beat up as you cannot beat up the younger brother. It also does not look like an Arab, this back-stabbing Bedouin who likes to sleep too much, and not able to do much harm if, of course, is not directed by the Englishman.

    No, Moskoff occupies a very special place in the pantheon of the Turkish enemies. This is a big, hairy bear, hanging over the Turkish house. From time to time he throws himself at us, in all its godless savagery.

    The first piece it bit off in 1783, defeated the Turkish fleet and seized the Crimea, home of the Muslim and Turkic Tatars. In the next century we lost one Balkan province after another, and our enemies were supported by Russia.

    Russian saw the conquest of Constantinople as its historical mission, not only because they need warm port in the winter, but also because Constantinople, or the TsarGrad as they call it – was the historical capital of their religion.

    They would have seized, if not for the French and British intervention.

    The British and the French feared that Russia would become too powerful on a diet consisting of absorbed pieces of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, in 1853 they entered into an alliance with the Turks, and barely managed to stop the army of the Tsar. In the end, a slow and painful decline of the Ottoman Empire was due to a billion reasons, but the Turks did not forget who started it all.

    And now Erdogan brought down the “Moskoff” plane. We all saw how it fell in the sky of the Levant. Whatever happens, he cannot apologize. It will be a violation of the deeply hidden wishes of tens of millions who have never ceased to dream of Empire.

  222. nsa December 13, 2015 at 12:31 pm #

    Der Trumpster is now openly mocking the republican establishment as wannabe democrap lite knockoffs…..which they are. Ryan, bagman for the welfare state, still promotes unlimited influx of muzzies and beaners. Dame lindsey the fag still trying to promote WWIII with the russians and castigating Trump supports for opposing his true love, the kenyan muzzie-in-chief. We here in Ft. Meade have turned the whole country into a two dimensional cartoon……

    • Buck Stud December 13, 2015 at 2:09 pm #

      “Dame lindsey the fag “…”

      LOL! Sometimes you just gotta laugh…

  223. Q. Shtik December 13, 2015 at 12:50 pm #

    Economist, Larry Kudlow, has done roughly a 180 flip. Read this (it’s short and won’t disrupt your viewing of the Jets game at 1PM):

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/12/12/immigration-reformer-explains-why-he-now-wants-sealed-borders-a-halt-to-visas-ive-changed-this-is-war/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%2012-13-15%20FINAL&utm_term=Firewire

    I mostly agree with Kudlow’s line of reasoning, specifically that a ban on immigration should NOT be based on religion but rather a TOTAL temporary ban. I would suggest a 3 year ban after which the powers that be would take another look.

    Secondly, such a ban would not only be for reasons of homeland security but more importantly because 320 million people in the US is more than enough. I reject the eternal economic growth argument.

    Since wpa-ccc had a vasectomy when he was 18 to do his part in halting population growth I expect his support on this proposal, wink wink.

    • malthuss December 13, 2015 at 12:58 pm #

      In your lifetime USA population has more than doubled, yes?
      An you want a TEMPORARY ban on immigration.

      WTF?

      And ‘anchor babies’ and [fake, sent by UN] ‘Refugees’ are not immigrants.

      Wake up, pops.

      • Q. Shtik December 13, 2015 at 4:40 pm #

        US pop in 1940, 132.1 million vs present pop of approx 320 million.

        The only reason I say TEMPORARY ban is to assess potential negative “unintended consequences.”

    • wpa_ccc December 13, 2015 at 2:06 pm #

      “Since wpa-ccc had a vasectomy when he was 18…”

      If that was true, it would make the medical journals! You are remembering Asoka. I am not Asoka.

      As to the point you fail to make: migration/immigration/emigration is just people moving around in physical space and does not lower the population as a vasectomy does… or in my case a tubal ligation.

      • Q. Shtik December 13, 2015 at 4:46 pm #

        I am concerned about the population of the US first, the world second.

        As to your not being Asoka and your gender change, I’m calling bullshit.

        • malthuss December 13, 2015 at 6:51 pm #

          hawhawhaw.

          Tubes tied my eye.

  224. wpa_ccc December 13, 2015 at 1:47 pm #

    “America is losing its economic leadership.” –fodase

    So what? Many countries who were once world leaders are now not world leaders, and their citizens continue to lead full and productive lives. Other countries were never world economic leaders, and their citizens also live happy fulfilling lives. Losing economic leadership is not important (except to some people’s egos). The countries that win surveys on happiness (Denmark, Panama, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Puerto Rico) are not economic leaders… and so what? Their quality of life far exceeds the richest countries. The rich are plagued by suicide, depression, pollution, addictions, etc.

    The sooner the USA loses its “exceptionalism” and focuses on the well-being of its citizens (as the Constitution demands)… the sooner the better.

  225. wpa_ccc December 13, 2015 at 1:56 pm #

    “The rich are plagued by suicide, depression, pollution, addictions, etc.”

    The citizens of countries who are “economic leaders” have garages and storage sheds full of “stuff” which failed to make them happy. Happiness of citizenry does not depend on the “economic leadership” of their country. Some of the happiest people I know are from Chile… which has never been a world economic leader.

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  226. FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 2:20 pm #

    Putin has sharply raised the stakes in the Middle East game by opening the nuclear trump card in the hands – ability of Calibers to carry nuclear tactical warheads. The question is – why? The Syrian theater of military operations will not be affected, and the Islamists won’t even know. There are two options, both suitable:

    Firstly, it is a stark warning to the “party of war” not to push Turkey to deeper invasion of Iraq. Otherwise, the current fast-moving campaign to pacify Syria threatens to turn into the Iranian-Turkish war in Iraq, which will spread to Turkish-Kurdish war in Turkey. Involvement of Russia in such a mess would be a real defeat of the foreign policy, so the “partners” should be reasonably assured of willingness to extinguish the threat of a major war by Kremlin with the help of a very potent fire extinguisher. At a minimum, this threat adds arguments to Erdogan’s backstage resistance to domestic hawks and militarists overseas.

    Secondly, with such statement Putin compensates American hawks for their rejection of the real aggravation in Iraq that was necessary for the promotion of candidates for the presidential election. If to pacify Syria Putin has to help the “war party” in the United States, and thus keep the balance in favor of Obama and his Financial Control, then why not.

  227. FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 2:58 pm #

    “And put another way still, if China doesn’t play nice they will essentially lose assets one way or another. Because if you think for one moment that Texas, California and New York, along with Alabama, Wyoming and Alaska–the collective U.S.– is going to passively stand by and let the Chinese claim world dominance with barely a whimper you’re sadly mistaken.” — Buck

    You are absolutely correct assuming that the confrontation is between US and China, China does not stand a chance.

    But the reality is a little more complicated – essentially it is a competition of three different projects:

    1. China + British Wing of Financial Oligarchy (they are basically pushing the milder colonial project the way it existed in the 1960s through 1980s)

    2. United States with its Trans-Nationals and TPP and TTIP

    3. Russia with its own imperial project (only concerning Eurasia)

    China is strong economically, but is not sufficiently strong militarily and lacks certain financial and media technologies (that where Brits are playing major role).

    Russia is weak economically, but has very potent military, including latest technologies.

    British-Chinese consortium needs Russian nuclear umbrella to insure against possible intrusions by United States, also British needs Russians as a counterweight to Chineese to insure safety of their Asian interests.

    Russians need assurance of both London and Beijing regarding the safety of their foreign assets.

    Of course in he future it all may come apart and new alliances will be formed, like US-Russian alliance against Chinese – who knows?

    One thing is for certain: US can’t have it all to itself, you guys gona have to share one way or another.

    You have to start listening to Trump: negotiations, negotiations, negotiations….

  228. FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 3:13 pm #

    “I presume this means verification of the actual gold? How is that done and by whom? ” — Buck

    I am not aware of all details, but I assume it is going to be something like original Bretton Woods where the trade deficits will have to be settled in gold by Nations Central Banks through Chinese clearing houses, who will be obviously capable of doing verification.

    Since the trade cycles rarely span over a year, the actual gold deposits of participating countries won’t have to be that huge.

    • FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 3:21 pm #

      To make sure – it is NOT going to be a rigid gold standard when emission is strictly linked to physical gold – it will only concern the international trade and settlement of trade deficits (or surpluses).

      Within your own Nation you still could print money as required by national monetary policy, as long as it does not add to Nation’s trade deficit with others countries.

  229. wpa_ccc December 13, 2015 at 4:18 pm #

    NEWS FLASH: George W. Bush enters the race! This changes everything.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKXGA-AU50w

  230. FincaInTheMountains December 13, 2015 at 5:19 pm #

    You cannot imagine what Trump was saying today about Hillary Clinton, only he attributed her wickedness and hundreds of thousands of victims not to the fact that she is a genius politician obsessed with evil and not to the demon from Hell who 50 years ago possessed the student of law school and known in some circles by the nickname “Deep Throat”, but to the stupidity and lack of character in a weak woman whose head is full of lipstick and theatrical effects.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DENQQZvrnA

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    • wpa_ccc December 13, 2015 at 6:38 pm #

      Trump saying Hillary doesn’t have “stamina” is a lie. Hillary proved that in the hearing on Benghazi when she went for eleven hours, while five Republicans tag-teamed her, them taking breaks. They decided not to have any more hearings when they realized how handily she defeated them.

      We know from W that the Presidency is a really hard 24/7 job, requiring a broad knowledge of economics, diplomacy, foreign affairs, politics, and more. She or he needs to be articulate and able to interact with a variety of people here and in other countries. The President also needs to be well versed in our governmental structure as outlined in the Constitution. Trump does not qualify. Hillary does.

  231. wpa_ccc December 13, 2015 at 6:29 pm #

    If you needed to have double-digit support, this is what the Republican debate would look like:

    NBC/WSJ Poll – 12/13/2015

    Trump – 27

    Cruz – 22

    Rubio – 15

    Carson – 11

    Perhaps, with only four candidates, something of substance could actually be debated?

  232. wpa_ccc December 13, 2015 at 10:54 pm #

    FRANCE COMES TO ITS SENSES

    PARIS (AP) — Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front collapsed in French regional elections Sunday…

    Well, that didn’t take long. France is accepting that immigration is a fact of life and Muslims are not dangerous. The native-born French (and Belgian) citizens who are alienated are the ones who can be dangerous.

  233. elysianfield December 14, 2015 at 12:33 am #

    Janos,
    Regarding your up thread statement suggesting I read the New Testament of my own volition, I will have to politely decline. My comments regarding the God of the Old and New Testament were generated by my perception (unstudied), bordered on the anecdotal, and certainly could be seen as flippant. I would never debate with you any subject involving the metaphysical, for my knowledge extends not far beyond this one observation;

    “To have someone say to you, “Jesus Loves You”, is good to hear if in a church, but not so good if in a Mexican prison….”

  234. capt spaulding December 28, 2015 at 2:19 pm #

    It’s Dec 28, & no postings from JHK. Anybody know what’s going on?

  235. capt spaulding January 5, 2016 at 2:40 pm #

    Apparently I’m the only one with any faith. It’s now Jan 5, & not one of you loudmouths has posted in 3 weeks. Apparently once you don’t think anyone is reading your bullshit, you lose interest. So much for you clusterfuckers. Bunch of posers is all you are. You have no interest in learning other people’s point of view, it was all about YOU all of this time. Fuck you all.

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  236. capt spaulding January 20, 2016 at 10:53 am #

    Jan 20.

  237. capt spaulding January 27, 2016 at 3:59 pm #

    It’s now 1-27-16. I’ve looked online, and cannot find anything that would explain JHK’s absence. Am I the only one of the faithful? Or does anyone else scroll to the bottom of this blog except me? All of the most prolific posters are absent, which tells me that they were not so much interested in learning other peoples opinions, as they were in blathering their own opinions online. Is there anyone here interested in continuing the dialogue that JHK has started? I would like to think so, but so far there has been nothing. If nothing else, out of respect for the owner of this blog, we should continue with the examination of the current state of affairs. I’m surprised and disappointed that no one has expressed any interest in doing so. Does this mean that no one is interested in anything other than talking about themselves and their own pathetic opinions? Sad to say, this appears to be the current state of affairs. You have all been downgraded to the status of posers in my opinion, and deserve nothing more than to be ignored, now, and in the future. So Q shtik, WPA_cc (and all the rest) I don’t give much of a fuck what your opinions are, since you have shown yourselves to be hangers on to what JHK has stated. Lets go motherfuckers, lets hear from some of you people unless you are posers as I stated above.

    • capt spaulding February 1, 2016 at 3:05 pm #

      Feb 1. Nothing at all from you “frequent flyers” out there. Nothin’ to say?

  238. FincaInTheMountains February 2, 2016 at 4:36 am #

    test http://oohoo.livejournal.com/198046.html

  239. capt spaulding February 5, 2016 at 3:57 pm #

    It’s time to raise your fist in the air, and demand a change. The machinery of justice will not serve you here- it is slow and cold and it belongs to THEM ( the others), you know who I’m talking about, the KOCH brothers, Goldman Sachs, and the rest of their ilk’ who have been dictating the politics that we live under. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Vote for the outsiders, do as much damage as you can. If enough of you get your message across, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously now and the next time. The public has been disrespected for a long time, and the powers that be are used to ruling as they see fit. Thus the fact that nobody in the financial community was sent to prison for the machinations that took place leading to the (almost) collapse of everything. But hey, it’s just business and politics as usual right? It’s the way of the world. Well, it will continue to be the way of the world until somebody throws a wrench into the comfortable world that the powers that be have created for themselves The fact that Trump on the right, and Sanders on the left are leading in the polls is nothing more than the final reaction of the public to what has befallen them economically. It’s a comfortable world that both parties live in, fight with each other, and pretend that there’s a difference between them , and when the dust settles, it’s business as usual. It’s time for the sheep (that’s you) to look up and recognize what’s going on, and to do something about it. If you don’t do that, then you have forged the chains that bind you and keep you down.

  240. capt spaulding February 8, 2016 at 11:00 am #

    Feb 8, and nothing from JHK. Or anyone else for that matter.

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  241. capt spaulding February 10, 2016 at 3:28 pm #

    Well, in lieu of someone better qualified to comment than I, here’s my take on things. Sanders and Trump walked away with the votes in New Hampshire. Signifying once again, the disgust that average Americans feel when looking at the politics and economic war being waged against the (what used to be), middle class. This includes both the left AND right wings of American politics. At the risk of repeating myself, it just goes to show that both sides, left and right, recognize the games that are played by the powers that be, and are refuting them. Frankly, I’ll vote for ANYONE who is outside of the current power structure, and tries to restore the wishes of the average voter. I wish I had JHK’s gift with words to say what I mean, but i don’t, so you’re stuck with what I have to say. What I want to know, is where are all of you people who have opinions about what is going on? I’m willing to admit that I’m one of the least qualified people to post about what’s going on, but my question is: Where is everyone else? Is it necessary for JHK to post in order to elicit comments from all of you? Yes, I’m talking to YOU. Or are you all cowards? I keep posting to attempt to elicit comments from others, but no luck so far. I know there are better qualified people out there to comment on the current goings on. Whatever the reason, we need to keep this blog alive, along with the spirit of what JHK is trying to say about the situation in this country. WELL, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

  242. capt spaulding February 12, 2016 at 2:33 pm #

    I see that Hillary has decided that she is against the TPP. Gosh, do you think she finally saw the light, or did she just change her position to conform to the wishes of the people? Something tells me that it’s a position of convenience, which can be dropped once she becomes President. She is a politician of the old order, meaning that she supports Goldman Sachs, and others of their ilk, in the meantime lying to the general populace in order to get their vote. The only person that I see so far who is honest is Bernie Sanders. It’s too bad that we have to count on an old man to lead the way, when there should be more people willing to stand up for the(vanishing) middle class. If you folks haven’t figured out what’s going on by now, then there’s little hope that you can see what’s going on, which is the evisceration of the middle class. We are gonna go the way of the Buffalo. In the meantime, the Koch brothers and the rest, can continue to exert their undue influence to get the people elected who will continue to allow the status quo to remain in place. Does anybody else agree with these statements? You’ll have to post to make your opinions count. I’m still tryin’ to help make this website something that counts for something.

  243. capt spaulding February 17, 2016 at 4:27 pm #

    I can’t believe that there’s not more people who look to the end of this blog to see if there’s anyone looking. Where are are all the erudite posters who flock here to offer their views on everything? Are you worried that nobody will read your words of wisdom? Frankly, I don’t give a damn if anybody reads this or not.

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