Oct 052019
 
 October 5, 2019  Posted by at 9:49 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Pablo Picasso Head of a bearded man 1940

 

Democrats Subpoena White House For Ukraine Documents (ZH)
2nd Whistleblower May File Complaint About Trump/Ukraine: New York Times (RawS)
House Democrats Target Pence Over Ukraine; Peddle Fiction Over ‘Favor’ (ZH)
Newly Released Rosenstein Emails Reveal Crusade To Investigate Trump (ZH)
Do You Have a Lisance for that Minky? (Kunstler)
Boris Johnson Brexit Plan Hangs By Thread As EU Dismisses Weekend Talks (G.)
China Has No Room for Dissenting Friends (FP)
PayPal Becomes First Member To Exit Facebook’s Libra Association (R.)
Regulators Weigh ‘Startle Factors’ For Boeing 737 MAX Pilot Training (R.)
Boeing Crash Victims’ Lawyer To Seek Testimony From 737 MAX Whistleblower (R.)
Greece Needs To Face Reality About Asylum Seekers (HRW)
Air Pollution And Human Health Impacts Of Cryptocurrency Mining (SD)

 

 

This is not how US election campaigns used to look.

Democrats Subpoena White House For Ukraine Documents (ZH)

Just one day after President Trump dared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hold an impeachment inquiry vote – a move which would open Democrats up to Republican subpoenas, House Democrats slapped the White House with a subpoena first. Addressed to acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, the subpoena demands documents and communications related to the case being constructed against Trump – namely that his request that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son for corruption constitutes election interference and endangered national security. Of note, the Justice Department concluded that Trump’s phone call with Zelensky did not violate campaign finance law.

“How the White House, which has routinely rejected congressional requests for information, responds to the demands for documents could significantly shape the impeachment investigation going forward. Under normal circumstances, the White House could claim materials referred to in both requests were privileged, using that as a defense in court.” -New York Times. What Democrats aren’t pursuing, by the by, is anything resembling due diligence on Biden – the (still) leading Democratic candidate trying to fend off accusations of nepotism in Ukraine and China while abusing his office as Vice President. As we noted earlier Friday, Vice President Mike Pence was hit with a subpoena as well over, demanding information on “any role you may have played” in helping with the Ukraine effort against Biden.


Pence press secretary Katie Waldman said “given the scope, it does not appear to be a serious request but just another attempt by the ‘Do Nothing Democrats’ to call attention to their partisan impeachment.” Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) have warned that failure to comply with subpoenas will be viewed as obstruction of Congress – which the Times says is “itself a potentially impeachable offense.” “The White House has refused to engage with — or even respond to — multiple requests for documents from our Committees on a voluntary basis,” reads the subpoena, demanding information by October 15. “After nearly a month of stonewalling, it appears clear that the president has chosen the path of defiance, obstruction, and cover-up.”

Read more …

Also CIA.

2nd Whistleblower May File Complaint About Trump/Ukraine: New York Times (RawS)

President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry continues to grow, according to a bombshell new report in The New York Times. “A second intelligence official who was alarmed by President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine is weighing whether to file his own formal whistle-blower complaint and testify to Congress,” The Times reported, citing two people briefed on the matter. “The official has more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower, whose complaint that Mr. Trump was using his power to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals touched off an impeachment inquiry,” the newspaper explained. “The second official is among those interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general to corroborate the allegations of the original whistle-blower, one of the people said.”


“A new complaint, particularly from someone closer to the events, would potentially add further credibility to the account of the first whistle-blower, a C.I.A. officer who was detailed to the National Security Council at one point,” the newspaper noted. “Whistle-blowers have created a new threat for Mr. Trump. Though the White House has stonewalled Democrats in Congress investigating allegations raised in the special counsel’s report that Mr. Trump obstructed justice, the president has little similar ability to stymie whistle-blowers from speaking to Congress.”

Read more …

If both Trump and Pence are impeached, Nancy Pelosi is next in line to become president.

But the Dems won’t get any documents until they hold a House vote.

House Democrats Target Pence Over Ukraine; Peddle Fiction Over ‘Favor’ (ZH)

House Democrats on Friday roped Vice President Mike Pence into their investigation into whether President Trump “jeopardized national security” by asking Ukraine to investigate what looks like obvious corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. In a letter from Democratic House Committee Chairs Eliot Engel (NY), Adam Schiff (CA) and Elijah Cummings (MD), Pence is given a deadline of October 15 to turn over all documents related to President Trump’s April 21 and July 25 phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The letter also requests all communications between administration officials regarding the calls, as well as information concerning Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to investigate or pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.


Of note, the letter danced around a popular lie about the call between Trump and Zelensky: According to the record, President Trump stated, “I would like you to do us a favor though.” He also stated, “I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.” The letter then jumps to a transcript of the July 25 phone call in which Trump said: “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.” Meanwhile, House Democrats purposely conflate Trump’s “favor” – which was actually for the investigation of the DNC servers involving their contractor Crowdstrile – and the Biden investigation.

 

If Pence refuses to comply, the chairmen say it “shall constitute evidence of obstruction” in their impeachment inquiry. For those keeping track – Rep. Schiff lied when he said his office had no contact with the whistleblower (which earned him ‘four Pinocchios’ from the Washington Post). Schiff also fabricated a quote from the Trump-Zelensky call which he read during an official hearing. And now, he and two other House Democratic chairs are doing their best narrative shaping by misrepresenting more facts.

Read more …

Not looking good.

Newly Released Rosenstein Emails Reveal Crusade To Investigate Trump (ZH)

New emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit reveal the details surrounding communications between Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller in the days leading up to the former FBI Director’s appointment as special counsel in the Russia probe. Mueller would go on to assemble a team comprising “13 Angry Democrats” as Trump called them, due to their obvious animus towards the president. According to the 145 pages of documents obtained by Judicial Watch, Rosenstein and Mueller were discussing just three days after President Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey, and ostenisbly for some time before that.


“The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions,” Rosenstein wrote Mueller on May 12, 2017 as the two tried to nail down a time for their next conversation. Four days later on May 16- the day before Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein told former Bush administration Deputy Attorney General and current Kirkland & Ellis Partne, Mark Filip “I am with Mueller. He shares my views. Duty Calls. Sometimes the moment chooses us.” “And on May 17 Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Also, during the same time period, between May 8 and May 17, Rosenstein met with then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other senior Justice Department FBI officials to discuss wearing a wire and invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump.” -Judicial Watch

Read more …

“..that claque of lesser monsters who cooked up the coup to overthrow the president, and botched the job.”

Do You Have a Lisance for that Minky? (Kunstler)

[..] what if it turns out that there actually is no Whistleblower, that the figure was just a fiction, a CGI figment cooked up by Adam Schiff, his lawyers, and sundry other players on the Deep State bench? Sounds outlandish perhaps, but I wouldn’t put it past the congressman from Hollywood. We’ll find out soon enough. Meanwhile, it appears that the purported Whistleblower and his chief handler, Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson failed to observe the proper procedures in reporting the complaint through channels, not to mention the legerdemain of sketchy paperwork that attested to the complaint.

Remember who Michael Atkinson is: the former legal counsel to John P. Carlin, who was Assistant Attorney General for National Security during the origin months of the RussiaGate operation in the summer of 2016, and before that chief of staff to… wait for it… Robert Mueller, when he was FBI Director. Do you begin to detect a claque of senior bureaucrats scrambling to cover each other’s ass? Interesting days ahead as this feculent blob of malfeasance creepy-crawls through the spooky weeks of October, climaxing in Halloween. These are the weeks when the DOJ Inspector General’s report on FISA court shenanigans comes down. It’s also the month of the Brexit Absolute Deadline.


That hairball over in Old Blighty might seem of unconcern over here, but it contains enough explosive power to destabilize the European banking system and, with it, America’s, which would lead to some rather scary action in the bond and equity markets at exactly the time of year when accidents like that happen. And then, deeper in the background, like Hades and Thanatos, stand the grave figures of Barr and Durham, whose very silence lo these many months must be giving the vapors to that claque of lesser monsters who cooked up the coup to overthrow the president, and botched the job.

Read more …

“..no basis for such discussions, given the British prime minister’s insistence on there being a customs border on the island of Ireland.”

Boris Johnson Brexit Plan Hangs By Thread As EU Dismisses Weekend Talks (G.)

Boris Johnson’s Brexit plans look to be falling apart as the European commission said there are no grounds to accept a request from the UK for intensive weekend negotiations two weeks before an EU summit. EU sources said there was no basis for such discussions, given the British prime minister’s insistence on there being a customs border on the island of Ireland. Johnson’s chief negotiator, David Frost, along with a team of a dozen British officials, failed to convince their EU counterparts in Brussels on Friday that he had a mandate from Downing Street to compromise on what the EU sees as major flaws in the UK government’s proposals. Frost had been seeking to rescue the British prime minister’s proposed deal after it was strongly criticised.


The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, had told diplomats on Thursday evening that the British needed to “fundamentally amend their position”. A European commission spokeswoman said: “We have completed discussions with the UK for today. We gave our initial reaction to the UK’s proposals and asked many questions on the legal text. “We will meet again on Monday to give the UK another opportunity to present its proposals in detail.” The spokeswoman added that the proposals did not “provide a basis for concluding an agreement”. An EU official said: “The UK often asks for meetings to keep [the] process going; we agree we should leave no stone unturned. But there is nothing useful that could be done this weekend.”

Read more …

Muslim silence on Uighurs.

China Has No Room for Dissenting Friends (FP)

In July this year, 22 Western-aligned countries issued a joint statement to the high commissioner of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council objecting to China’s abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang province. That’s not unusual: The reports of human rights abuses in the province are coming out thick and fast, and Western countries are more than happy to raise concerns against such abuses, whether out of genuine concern, domestic virtue signaling by political leaders, or the use of any available stick to whack a geopolitical rival.

What was remarkable was the 37 countries issuing a counter letter praising China’s human rights record, from humanitarian luminaries including such as Syria, Myanmar, and North Korea. More interestingly, about half of the signatories of this letter were Muslim-majority countries. If the issues had been about Palestinians or even the Rohingya, one might expect the usual cynical domestic virtue signaling by political leaders around the well-worn claims of Muslim solidarity. Instead, they chose to loudly broadcast their support for Beijing’s policy of eradicating the old Islamic culture of the ancient Silk Road gateway to the Chinese heartland in Xinjiang.


The calculation of such leaders, from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto head of government of Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, is well understood and publicized: “Muslim solidarity” is a convenient and effective slogan to be thrown at domestic audiences, but if your national economy—and the personal profits of the elite—depends on the goodwill of Beijing, then you must defer to China’s supposedly sovereign right to do as it pleases within its borders, and forget about the umma.

Read more …

Won’t be the last.

PayPal Becomes First Member To Exit Facebook’s Libra Association (R.)

U.S. payments processor PayPal said on Friday it was leaving Libra Association, the entity managing the Facebook-led effort to build global digital currency Libra, making it the first member to exit the group. PayPal said it would forgo any further participation in the group and would instead focus on its own core businesses. “We remain supportive of Libra’s aspirations and look forward to continued dialogue on ways to work together in the future,” PayPal said in a statement. In response, Geneva-based Libra Association said it was aware of the challenges lying ahead in its attempts to “reconfigure” the financial system.


“The type of change that will reconfigure the financial system to be tilted towards people, not the institutions serving them, will be hard. Commitment to that mission is more important to us than anything else. We’re better off knowing about this lack of commitment now, rather than later”, Libra Association said in a statement. Facebook declined to comment.

Read more …

Now it’s ‘pilot overload’. And software of course. But the pilots were not overloaded, the hardware didn’t work.

Regulators Weigh ‘Startle Factors’ For Boeing 737 MAX Pilot Training (R.)

Global regulators are looking at “startle factors” that can overwhelm pilots as they consider revised protocols for the Boeing 737 MAX, Nicholas Robinson, the head of civil aviation for Transport Canada, told Reuters on Friday. Boeing Co’s fastest-selling jetliner, the 737 MAX, was grounded worldwide in March after two fatal crashes that killed a total of 346 people within five months. Pilot overload appears to have played a role in both crashes, in which crews struggled to regain control of the airplane while a new flight control system repeatedly pushed the nose down amid a series of other audio and sensory alarms and alerts. “What we need to do is ensure that the aircrew in the MAX are able to handle that environment,” Robinson said in an interview with Reuters.

Transport Canada is among a core group of regulators that is evaluating the requirements for the 737 MAX to fly again after a seven-month grounding. It has been convening weekly by phone, video conferences or face-to-face with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and its counterparts in the European Union and Brazil, Robinson said. Their decisions could lead to sweeping changes to pilot flight operating manuals and classroom instruction and even mandates for costly simulator training, industry sources have said. However, no training decisions can be made until Boeing submits software updates to the FAA for review and approval, Robinson said.


Transport Canada is closely aligned with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency on return to service demands and has also raised questions over the architecture behind the 737 MAX’s angle of attack system. “We continue to look for a solution proposed by the manufacturer and the FAA on that area,” he said. Still, Canada’s goal is for the MAX to return in countries across the globe simultaneously, or at least in close succession. “It’s not a necessity, but it’s a goal,” Robinson said.

Read more …

What is it about October and whistleblowers?

Boeing Crash Victims’ Lawyer To Seek Testimony From 737 MAX Whistleblower (R.)

An attorney representing families of passengers killed in a Boeing Co 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia said on Friday he will seek sworn evidence from a Boeing engineer who claims the company rejected a proposed safety upgrade to the 737 MAX because it was too costly. The engineer, Curtis Ewbank, said the upgrade could have reduced risks that contributed to two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that together killed 346 people, according to two people familiar with the complaint. Ewbank filed the complaint through internal Boeing channels after the March crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, the sources said. The sources described the complaint to Reuters, but Reuters has not seen a copy of the complaint.


Managers rejected the proposed upgrade from Ewbank’s team of engineers, called synthetic airspeed, on the basis of “cost and potential (pilot) training impact,” according to the Seattle Times, which first reported the complaint on Wednesday. Robert Clifford, the lead counsel representing families of victims from the Ethiopian Airlines crash, said in an email the complaint raises fresh concerns about Boeing’s culture and whether the company placed too great an emphasis on cost and schedule at the expense of safety. He said he would take steps to depose Ewbank as quickly as possible.

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Things are getting out of hand again. Hundreds of refugees daily, courtesy of Erdogan. A right wing government is not going to help. Still a dumb headline though.

Greece Needs To Face Reality About Asylum Seekers (HRW)

The Greek islands are under the spotlight again, as a new wave of tragic events has hit asylum seekers trapped there. On 29 September, a big fire broke out in Moria – the notorious camp on the island of Lesbos – killing one woman, and injuring at least nine more people, including a baby, the health ministry reported. On 24 September, a truck killed a five-year-old Afghan boy who was playing just outside Moria. The number of asylum seekers crossing the Aegean from Turkey is also increasing. With camps already overcrowded, conditions are horrific for asylum seekers and migrants trapped there. According to the government’s most recent figures, 26,753 women, men and children live in camps designed for about 6,300. The number has almost doubled since June.


But while the numbers have increased, neither the horrible conditions nor the flawed policies that cause them are new. Underinvestment, a poorly functioning asylum system, and a deliberate policy choice to confine asylum seekers to islands has left thousands trapped there for months or years in inhuman and degrading conditions. Forcing migrants and asylum seekers to remain on the islands was ostensibly to expedite their return to Turkey under the March 2016 EU-Turkey deal. But on 11 September, Gerald Knaus, head of a research organisation whose ideas inspired the EU-Turkey deal, wrote that: “The situation on Greek islands is unacceptable, the asylum system on the verge of collapse. This is a moment of truth.”

Read more …

Abstract of an academic study published at Science Direct.

Air Pollution And Human Health Impacts Of Cryptocurrency Mining (SD)

Cryptocurrency mining uses significant amounts of energy as part of the proof-of-work time-stamping scheme to add new blocks to the chain. Expanding upon previously calculated energy use patterns for mining four prominent cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Monero), we estimate the per coin economic damages of air pollution emissions and associated human mortality and climate impacts of mining these cryptocurrencies in the US and China. Results indicate that in 2018, each $1 of Bitcoin value created was responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in the US and $0.37 in China.


The similar value in China relative to the US occurs despite the extremely large disparity between the value of a statistical life estimate for the US relative to that of China. Further, with each cryptocurrency, the rising electricity requirements to produce a single coin can lead to an almost inevitable cliff of negative net social benefits, absent perpetual price increases. For example, in December 2018, our results illustrate a case (for Bitcoin) where the health and climate change “cryptodamages” roughly match each $1 of coin value created. We close with discussion of policy implications.

Read more …

 

The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.

– African proverb

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle October 5 2019

Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)
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  • #50368

    Pablo Picasso Head of a bearded man 1940   • Democrats Subpoena White House For Ukraine Documents (ZH) • 2nd Whistleblower May File Complaint Abo
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle October 5 2019]

    #50369
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Pablo Picasso Head of a bearded man 1940

    So, that’s what I look like…
    😉

    #50370

    Bernie’s 78. Gets a heart attack. And still thinks he can get elected as president?

    #50371
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Bernie’s 78. Gets a heart attack. And still thinks he can get elected as president?
    Raúl Ilargi Meijer

    Yo! That’s the American dream; which has mostly been a load of manure; now it’s been weaponized; believe in it or die!
    Beware the man on the white horse, wrapped in the flag, bearing a cross…

    #50374
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    IMPEACHKRAINEGATE

    Transcribing presidential phone conversations is secretarial work but because of the sensitive nature of the contents someone with a high security clearance needs to do it, hence the CIA.

    The idea is that these people will NOT disclose the contents – they need to be trustworthy.

    It must be known who transcribed this conversation so I am surprised that they have not been arrested and interrogated for this breach of confidence and national security.

    I would really have expected this to have happened within a day or two and am very surprised that it does not appear to have happened at all.

    At the very least I would expect that this function be removed from the CIA who have shown they are not fit to carry out this task.

    #50375
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. – African proverb”

    Old tribal wisdom’s currency is on the rise.

    #50376
    John Day
    Participant

    Bernie Sanders may get to be “kingmaker” this time. His endorsement will be extremely sought after.
    I say he should endorse Tulsi Gabbard, whi stood up for him last time, and which would be a proud stance, and a historic F__k You to the DNC billionaires who defrauded voters and robbed him in 2016.

    #50377
    John Day
    Participant

    http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/10/what-future-history.html
    ​Historical transitions are completely insecure. No assurances exist. No comfort zone. Root hog or die.
    How much daily insecurity are we used to?
    One of our main goals in life is to be more secure, to save resources for times of need, to be well liked socially, to have good clothes, a good roof over our heads, and a warm hearth, surrounded by loving family.​
    Nonetheless, economic resets must periodically be worked out by all the economic participants, in all of the critical classes: Production and Transport, Management/Organization, Politics, Resource-Allocation and Enforcement. (That’s just my own quick division of economic segments. I’d lump religion with politics, for instance.)
    All of us could be more conversant with production, especially kitchen-gardening, the intimate scale.
    Below is a picture of me before work, October 1, at one end of the long break-patio at People’s Community Clinic, It shows about half of the vegetable garden I grow there for my coworkers. My purpose growing vegetables at work, is to create familiarity with that core human activity, to provide a chance to get some vegetables in season, and to understand how a garden progresses through the seasons and years.
    Vegetable gardening provides the kind of security that comes from knowing the context intimately. It’s well aware of all of the limitations and weaknesses that inherently exist. It is not like the blind faith that “we” can transition to “completely renewable energy” by 2050, for instance.
    One of the classes of people which is still being supported by global financial capitalism is the managerial class, that I include second in the list, those who provide structure and order to the fundamental processes of our economy, roughly the top 10% of wealth, minus the 1-2% at the tip.
    I’m in that demographic, as you likely are. We can’t feel too easy; at least I do not. I’m in the business of understanding humans, their problems, diagnosing what is wrong, and finding inroads to improve and heal what is failing.
    I believe that American and global economies broke away from the paradigm of sustainable economy in the early 1980s, started lying about the future, which was well-received, and started a Ponzi scheme for all forms of retirement plans, keeping up payments from current receipts, while gutting the productive assets, and protecting them from the future claims of society, under private ownership.
    The problems inherent in that are myriad. “Ownership” exists within the context of a pervasive social-contract. The “owners” assume this will always exist for them, despite their covert embezzlement of all the cookies from the jar.
    They pay the enforcers and managers and transport people, don’t they?
    They are the masters of resource-allocation, are they not?
    They have lots of product saved up for bad times, and protected in bunkers, right?
    The problem is that the economy still needs productive workers, even though automation is so vast and pervasive. Workers and managers who are directly engaged in production have a working bond, that does not extend to bankers.
    Which side do the police and army take?
    Historically, they side with the bankers until they change sides and the revolution succeeds.
    They are never the banker’s kids, after all…
    At this point, we are forced to accept that there is actually an important societal role for Politicians. (Consider a writhing mass of earthworms in a manure bucket, which we don’t really want to reach in and grab with both hands.)
    All of our lives, the main paid-job of politicians has been to deliver the workers, managers and enforcers to the resource-allocators.
    That’s ending. It’s entering transition.
    The successful politicians in the next decade will convince the resource-allocators to allocate a lot less to themselves, in trade for some security, which will be gained from creating a new societal contract.
    The new social contract will be viable under conditions of more expensive and scarce energy and natural resources, and the fouling of our nest, which we finally have to address

    2020 is for all the marbles. The global capitalist ruling classes either crush this ongoing populist insurgency or … God knows where we go from here. Try to see it through their eyes for a moment. Picture four more years of Trump … second-term Trump … Trump unleashed. Do you really believe they’re going to let that happen, that they are going to permit this populist insurgency to continue for another four years?
    ​ ​They are not. What they are going to do is use all their power to destroy the monster … not Trump the man, but Trump the symbol. They are going to drown us in impeachment minutiae, drip, drip, drip, for the next twelve months. The liberal corporate media are going to go full-Goebbels. They are going to whip up so much mass hysteria that people won’t be able to think. They are going to pit us one against the other, and force us onto one or the other side of a simulated conflict (Democracy versus the Putin-Nazis) to keep us from perceiving the actual conflict (Global Capitalism versus Populism). They are going to bring us to the brink of civil war in order to prevent civil war. And, if that doesn’t work, and Trump gets reelected (or if it looks like he’s going to get reelected), they’ll probably have to just go ahead and kill him.
    ​ ​One way or another, this is it. This is the part where the global capitalist ruling classes teach us all a lesson. The lesson they intend to teach us is the same old lesson that masters have been teaching slaves since the dawn of slavery. The lesson is, “abandon hope.” The lesson is, “resistance is futile.” The lesson is, “shut up, eat your tofu, get back to work at your three gig jobs, service your school loans and your credit card debt, vote for who and what we tell you, and be grateful we don’t fucking kill you.
    http://www.unz.com/chopkins/trumpenstein-must-be-destroyed/

    Former Israeli Intel Official Claims Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell Worked for Israel
    ​ ​A recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has claimed that Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad.​ ​by Whitney Webb​ (Thanks for the link, Cat)​

    Former Israeli Intel Official Claims Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell Worked for Israel

    #50378
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Smiling lips and right side of face have that cartoon like and pop art-ish flamboyancy of two decades later.
    Not his best to say at least but Picasso, of course, is more than forgiven.
    Self serving congressional fight saga continues with public real needs nowhere to be registered in their minds.

    #50379
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    CRYPTO EURO?

    I have been wondering what this implications would be if the ECB created a crypto version of the Euro. Nothing complex – just a straightforward conversion. Euros could then be stored as cash, in a bank or in crypto.

    One plus point is that it bypasses SWIFT allowing for simple International payments.

    It would mean anyone with negative interest rates would immediately switch to crypto – it would eliminate negative interest rates. It would also attract a lot of other bank deposits even though it would not pay interest.

    Parking money in a bank has a risk. The banks would need to make the risk worthwhile with higher interest rates.

    It should reduce the desire for Bitcoins and similar as the main attraction is that they are not in a bank.

    If other currencies joined in then it could replace a lot of SWIFT transactions.

    It would be interesting!

    #50380
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “(Consider a writhing mass of earthworms in a manure bucket, which we don’t really want to reach in and grab with both hands.)”

    Quite the apposite analogy.

    #50381
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    As for the Picasso image: while it is an example of why I ignored Picasso when I was younger, having been exposed mostly to his ‘vivisectionist’ work to the near exclusions of his other work, I nonetheless look at it now and see Picasso struggling, among other things, to maintain that childish naivete he was known for.

    As for Euros, cryptocurrency (rhymes with kleptocurrency), I think the following news is a much more fundamental alteration of the global economic landscape:

    http://9bill.blogspot.com/2019/10/el-forko-tostada.html

    #50382
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    ABout the only card the USA has left is to attempt to occupy Saudi Arabia (at this point, I don’t know if our candy military can do even that much), which will at least lead, almost certainly, to a shutdown of Persian Gulf shipping, which in turn will increase demand for shitty USA shale oil, if only within the USA.

    I suspect USA gas prices will be at least double a year from now.

    #50383
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    I don’t think they’ll kill Trump. He knows way too much. Much of what he knows about them would also incriminate himself, but dead men are difficult to prosecute.

    I think Trump will win. The DNC is incapable of winning presidential elections anymore without a thorough changeover.

    We’ll go to war. It’s what we *do*.

    #50385
    lasttwo
    Participant

    I like it John Day — Bernie endorses Gabbard — the democrats have a candidate with actual integrity. you not a fake native or a fake vet or a fake prison reformist or a fake … that has not happened since Carter. The money would certainly help get her antiwar message out. come on Bernie do it.

    #50386
    lasttwo
    Participant

    before anyone says anything I know Carter was not a great president but he was and still is a mighty good human being.

    #50387
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Hmmm… puts on his tinfoil conspiracy fedora… a false flag attributed to Saudi Arabia of sufficiently large and, shall we say, vulgar atrocity would “justify” a shock’n’awe against Saudi Arabia of enormous scale.

    The one thing that USA military can still do is toss a zillion cruise missiles and such against adversaries not yet equipped with superior Russian defense weaponry.

    The USA populace would probably buy it but the rest of the world, hardly. The atrocities involved would piss off the entire Middle East since most ME nations have significant numbers of their citizens working and living in Saudi Arabia, but that doesn’t mean they’d retaliate, for while the USA military has become mostly a paper teddy bear, we are a nuclear armed-to-the-gills polity with a perilously corrupt tyrant class that smokes the Book of Revelations in a Jesus bong and seems to believe that Pyrrhic victory — or defeat — are what God wants to know when to come down and fix things.

    Like they’re Roman centurions working the signal tower that let’s Caesar know the barbarians have breached the Wall.

    So, crazy as it sounds, and oy, it sounds crazy, it’s par for the course with the likes of Pence and people who make Jeffrey Epstein seem like a nice enough chaperone for your daughter.

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