Nov 122019
 
 November 12, 2019  Posted by at 9:08 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,


Pablo Picasso Still life with fruit basket 1942

 

Schiff Witness Vindman Testified He Advised Ukrainians to Ignore Trump (GP)
Gabbard Lawyers Demand Retraction Of Clinton’s Russia ‘Defamation’ (Hill)
Alexander Downer: Australia Should Reduce UK Intel Sharing If Corbyn Wins (G.)
Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Lithium Deal (CD)
Russia Accuses Bolivian Opposition Of Unleashing Wave Of Violence (R.)
Correa: Morales Was Forced Out In ‘Coup’, OAS Is ‘A US Instrument’ (RT)
Death Throes of a Party (Kunstler)
White Helmets ‘MI-6 Co-Founder’ Found Dead In Turkey
US Northeast ‘Siberian Express’ Arctic Blast Could Break 200 Records (Ind.)

 

 

As I write this there are many helicopters flying overhead because Xi Jinping is visiting the Akropolis Museum. And of course half the city center is closed.

And really, Vindman told Ukraine to not do what Trump wanted? Do we call that treason or is there a better word? Read the whole article.

Schiff Witness Vindman Testified He Advised Ukrainians to Ignore Trump (GP)

Adam Schiff’s star witness Alexander Vindman testified to the House Intel Committee that he “thought” the President was wrong in his policy with Ukraine. So he later told Ukrainians to ignore the President. Alexander Vindman’s testimony was recently released and it shows an ignorant underling in the NSC who believed the President’s policy in the Ukraine was flawed and because of this Vindman notified a group of ‘Ukrainians’ to ignore the President’s requests. The Conservative Treehouse reported on the release and highlighted some interesting pieces from the testimony. Apparently in his opening remarks young Vindman stated that he believed the President ‘demanded’ something from the Ukrainians. Representative Ratcliff destroyed him on this assertion –


Ratcliffe challenges Vindman to find in the President’s transcript of the call where the President ‘demanded’ anything from the Ukrainian President – Vindman could not name anywhere in the transcript where the President demanded anything and that it was all what Vindman perceived and not based on the law or others interpretations of the meeting. Vindman had concerns about the President’s policy (who is he?) – Congressman Ratcliffe next destroyed the witness Vindman pointing out how Vindman told Ukrainian officials (not detailed in the discussion) to ignore President Trump – a blatant crime committed by the underling –

Read more …

This has the potential to get really amusing.

Gabbard Lawyers Demand Retraction Of Clinton’s Russia ‘Defamation’ (Hill)

Lawyers representing Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) on Monday called on Hillary Clinton to retract her comments alleging that the 2020 presidential candidate was a favorite candidate of the Russians, accusing the 2016 Democratic nominee of defamation. “Your statement is defamatory, and we demand that you retract it immediately,” Gabbard’s lawyer wrote in a letter, demanding that Clinton verbally retract the comments and post the retraction on Twitter. Clinton made the remarks last month on the “Campaign HQ” podcast. “She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her, so far,” Clinton said, without referring to Gabbard by name.

Clinton also said “they” are grooming Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate against the eventual Democratic nominee. A Clinton spokesman later said the former secretary of State had been referring to Republicans with the grooming comment. “It appears you may now be claiming that this statement is about Republicans (not Russians) grooming Gabbard,” Gabbard’s lawyer wrote in the letter. “But this makes no sense in light of what you actually said. After you made the statement linking Congresswoman Gabbard to the Russians, you (through your spokesman) doubled down on it with the Russian nesting dolls remark.”


Gabbard has consistently denied she is interested in a third-party White House bid. The congresswoman has faced repeated criticism for some of her foreign policy views, particularly about American military involvement in Syria.

Read more …

Well, well, look what the cat dragged in. Next up is Joseph Mifsud?

Alexander Downer: Australia Should Reduce UK Intel Sharing If Corbyn Wins (G.)

Australia’s former top diplomat in the United Kingdom, Alexander Downer, has intervened in the British election contest, declaring the Morrison government would need to “substantially reduce” intelligence sharing with London in the event Jeremy Corbyn wins on 12 December. In an excoriating assessment of the Labour leader at the National Press Club in Canberra, Downer contended that a Corbyn victory would imperil substantial Australian investments in Britain, and would trigger a reassessment of the “very intimate” security relationship between Canberra and London. Downer is a former leader of the Liberal party in Australia, and was foreign affairs minister in the Howard government for more than a decade. He was appointed after his retirement from politics as high commissioner in London by the Liberal government in Canberra.

[..] Downer’s appearance at Canberra’s National Press Club on Tuesday was billed as a situation report on Brexit, but the former diplomat and foreign affairs minister faced sustained questioning about his participation in the Barr inquiry in the United States. Donald Trump has established the Barr inquiry to discredit the Mueller investigation. The Mueller investigation began after Downer was allegedly told by George Papadopoulos, then a Trump campaign aide, that Russia had obtained damaging information about Hillary Clinton from her emails.


Downer then informed US authorities, which has led to accusations from Trump allies, such as the Senate judiciary committee chairman, Lindsey Graham, about the then high commissioner’s “directed” role in relaying information to US authorities about the Clinton emails. Australia has rejected those accusations. Downer refused to give direct answers to questions about the level of his participation in the Barr inquiry, or whether he now regretted his conversation in a London wine bar with Papadopoulos. He said he did not want to “play into the toxic politics of America” or disrupt the orderly business of the inquiry by providing commentary, although he signalled without saying so directly that he had been interviewed, and was “fully cooperating with the Australian government”.

Read more …

Morales had been talking about using the lithium reserves for the Bolivian people for much longer. Word has it that his plane is stuck in Paraguay because countries refuse to allow it in their airspace.

Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Lithium Deal (CD)

The Sunday military coup in Bolivia has put in place a government which appears likely to reverse a decision by just-resigned President Evo Morales to cancel an agreement with a German company for developing lithium deposits in the Latin American country for batteries like those in electric cars. “Bolivia’s lithium belongs to the Bolivian people,” tweeted Washington Monthly contributor David Atkins. “Not to multinational corporate cabals.” The coup, which on Sunday resulted in Morales resigning and going into hiding, was the result of days of protests from right-wing elements angry at the leftist Morales government. Sen. Jeanine Añez, of the center-right party Democratic Unity, is currently the interim president in the unstable post-coup government in advance of elections.

Investment analyst publisher Argus urged investors to keep an eye on the developing situation and noted that gas and oil production from foreign companies in Bolivia had remained steady. The Morales move on Nov. 4 to cancel the December 2018 agreement with Germany’s ACI Systems Alemania (ACISA) came after weeks of protests from residents of the Potosí area. The region has 50% to 70% of the world’s lithium reserves in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats. Among other clients, ACISA provides batteries to Tesla; Tesla’s stock rose Monday after the weekend. As Bloomberg News noted in 2018, that has set the country up to be incredibly important in the next decade:


“Demand for lithium is expected to more than double by 2025. The soft, light mineral is mined mainly in Australia, Chile, and Argentina. Bolivia has plenty—9 million tons that have never been mined commercially, the second-largest amount in the world—but until now there’s been no practical way to mine and sell it.” Morales’ cancellation of the ACISA deal opened the door to either a renegotiation of the agreement with terms delivering more of the profits to the area’s population or the outright nationalization of the Bolivian lithium extraction industry. As Telesur reported in June, the Morales government announced at the time it was “determined to industrialize Bolivia and has invested huge amounts to ensure that lithium is processed within the country to export it only in value-added form, such as in batteries.”

Read more …

Russia’s too quiet lately, on South America and in Syria.

Russia Accuses Bolivian Opposition Of Unleashing Wave Of Violence (R.)

Russia on Monday accused Bolivia’s opposition of unleashing a wave of violence in the South American nation and said it looked like a government push for dialogue had been swept aside by an orchestrated coup. Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Sunday he was resigning to ease violence that has gripped Bolivia since a disputed election, but he stoked fears of more unrest by saying he was the victim of a “coup” and faced arrest. Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement it was alarmed by the events and called on all political forces to show common sense and to act responsibly.

Read more …

The coup against Correa was way more subtle: his deputy Lenin Moreno did the deed.

Correa: Morales Was Forced Out In ‘Coup’, OAS Is ‘A US Instrument’ (RT)

Former leader of Ecuador Rafael Correa said the resignation of Bolivian President Evo Morales was the result of a coup d’etat and that events could have ended in worse violence, if the socialist leader had not resigned. “Of course there was a coup d’etat,” Correa told RT Spanish in an exclusive interview on Monday, explaining that such an insubordination of the country’s armed forces “cannot exist in a constitutional state of law” or democracy. “If Evo Morales did not resign, there would have been a bloodbath because there was no public order,” he said. Morales resigned on Sunday at the demands of Bolivia’s military chief, following weeks of protests and only hours after he had promised fresh elections. Morales previously proclaimed he had won the October 20 general election with a 10-point lead, a result which was quickly contested by the opposition, who accused him of tampering with the vote.

Read more …

“Everybody over twelve in this land knows that his kid Hunter was on the grift in Ukraine, plain and simple, and that Joe assisted in the operation. Color him toast.”

Death Throes of a Party (Kunstler)

Is it possible that Rep. Adam Schiff was hung out to dry by the devious Ms. Pelosi, feeding his vanity to be a one-man impeachment wrecking crew, knowing that the congressman from Hollywood would utterly blow it? Hmmmmm. Begins to look that way as Mr. Schiff’s House Intel Committee goes public this Wednesday with its soviet-style format on full display. Well, first, why? Why allow this nitwit to stage an ersatz impeachment only to see it fail? Perhaps to cancel the Jacobin menace metastasizing in the Democratic Party and get on with the business of winning the 2020 elections — with old-school candidates hand-picked to end-run the gang of fantasists currently on display.

The House Speaker must sniff the odor of failure in the wind. Joe Biden, smiling cretinously, blunders through the primary venues with a big red “L” plastered on his forehead, often uncertain of what state he’s landed in, or what direction to face the camera. Everybody over twelve in this land knows that his kid Hunter was on the grift in Ukraine, plain and simple, and that Joe assisted in the operation. Color him toast. Elizabeth Warren has been caught lying very publicly twice now, first as a phony Cherokee Indian (for career advancement in academia), and lately claiming falsely that she was canned from a teaching job years ago for being pregnant (with a 2007 tape of her out telling a contradictory story). Of course, that’s just the cherry-on-top of her dazzlingly unsound policy proposals to bankrupt the nation. Doesn’t look like she can reel it all back in and pretend to be a credible person in time for a full-on campaign.


[..] Which brings us back to Rep. Adam Schiff and his monkeyshines in the star chamber of his personal devising. Now that the show goes public, will he haul many of the same characters back into the witness chair to spin out his engineered narrative, without any cross examination allowed, or other felicities of due process? Someone ought to advise him that playing the Robespierre role tends toward an unhappy ending for the player. Especially when Mr. Jordan of Ohio, newly-seated on the Intel Committee, starts barking out points-of-order. I’m even half-wondering if Mr. Durham, the federal attorney, has not already measured up bills of indictment for Mr. Schiff himself, for the phony CIA agent “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella, the pre-wired IC Inspector General Michael Atkinson, US chargé d’affaires for Ukraine Bill Taylor, and the spectacularly seditious Colonel Vindman, whose antics stand out in this latest coup attempt against the elected president. And then what kind of bag does that leave Ms. Pelosi holding?

Read more …

There have been dozens of changes made to his Wikipedia page in the past day.

White Helmets ‘MI-6 Co-Founder’ Found Dead In Turkey (ZH)

The White Helmets, a roughly 3,000 member NGO formally known as the Syrian Civil Defense, was established in Turkey in “late 2012 – early 2013” Le Mesurier trained an initial group of 20 Syrians. The group then received funding from Le Mesurier’s Netherlands-based non-profit group, Mayday Rescue – which is in turn funded by grants from the Dutch, British, Danish and German governments. According to reporter and author Max Blumenthal, the White Helmets received at least $55 million from the British Foreign Office and $23 million from the Agency for International Development. They have also received millions from Qatar, which has backed several extremist groups in Syria including Al Qaeda.

The US has provided at least $32 million to the group – around 1/3 of their total funding – through a USAID scheme orchestrated by the Obama State Department and routed overseas using a Washington D.C. contractor participating in USAID’s Syria regional program, Chemonics. According to their website, the White Helmets have been directly funded by Mayday Rescue, and a company called Chemonics, since 2014. Yet there’s evidence that both of those organizations started supporting the White Helmets back in early 2013, right around the time the White Helmets claim to have formed as self-organized groups. Mayday Rescue, as we said, is funded by the Dutch, British, Danish and German governments. And Chemonics?


They are a Washington, D.C. based contractor that was awarded $128.5 million in January 2013 to support “a peaceful transition to a democratic and stable Syria” as part of USAID’s Syria regional program. At least $32 million has been given directly to the White Helmets as of February 2018. -TruthInMedia Notably, the Trump administration cut US funding to the White Helmets last May, placing them under “active review.” While the White Helmets tout themselves as ‘first responders’, the group has been accused of staging multiple chemical attacks – including an April 7 incident in Duma, Syria which the White House used as a pretext to bomb Syrian government facilities and bases.

Read more …

See? Siberia!!! It’s the Russians again.

US Northeast ‘Siberian Express’ Arctic Blast Could Break 200 Records (Ind.)

An Arctic blast sweeping across the eastern United States was expected to bring below-freezing temperatures and as many as 200 record lows throughout the week, according to the National Weather Service. The unusually cold air mass came from Siberia — a phenomenon called “Siberian Express” — and was predicted to bring historic low temperatures from the Great Plains to the Gulf Coast beginning on Monday and lasting until Wednesday night. The cold front rolled through the upper Midwest on Sunday before heading south towards Texas, where forecasters said temperatures nearly 30 degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius) below typical November averages would be felt beginning on Tuesday morning.


[..] The weather service’s Weather Prediction Centre tweeted on Monday morning that the nation’s cold spot was located in Malta, Montana, where the temperature sat at -24 degrees Fahrenheit (-31 degrees Celsius). The centre said earlier that 148 daily record lows were forecast “to be broken, tied, or come within 1 degree between Tuesday and Thursday this week,” while National Weather Service meteorologist Kevin Donofrio told the Associated Press that some 200 records may be broken this week nationwide. The January-like temperatures are far from common at this time of year in the southeastern US, though it’s not the first time a Siberian Express brought historic lows to the country. The term was reportedly first coined during the January 1982 cold front with air from Siberian origins, which brought record-lows to many parts of the country.

Read more …

 

Watch this interview and replace every mention of “Jamie Dimon” with “Al Capone” and it works perfectly.

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle November 12 2019

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
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  • #51232

    Pablo Picasso Still life with fruit basket 1942   • Schiff Witness Vindman Testified He Advised Ukrainians to Ignore Trump (GP) • Gabbard Lawyers
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle November 12 2019]

    #51233
    sdilizio
    Participant

    Hi Ilargi,

    Any updates on how Nicole is faring these days?

    As well, where do you both believe the financial system to be at this point (especially with the Fed effectively having resumed QE)?

    Thanks.

    #51234

    sdilizio,

    Unfortunately, I don’t know. I think somewhere around the time she accused me of being a Trump supporter and I said that was nonsense, she stopped communicating with me. She also said she “couldn’t” be associated with “that”.

    I’ve heard through the grapevine that she may have a new site and wants to write a book, but she has never told me about these things, just like she never told me she didn’t want to write for TAE anymore.

    It’s a strange situation. But she always remains welcome here.

    #51235

    As for the financial system, the Fed keeps on making sure that zombie continues to stumble on. It’s the people, not the financial system, we must worry about.

    The Fed should have stayed out and allow the system to auto-correct, but it’s too late at this point for that to happen in an “organic” way. The correction must now be a devastation.

    #51237
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    The correction must now be a devastation.

    But isn’t the way we, as humans, operate? We seem to go from one devastation to another…

    #51238
    John Day
    Participant

    David Stockman interview excerpts:
    Donald Trump is all by his lonesome. He’s home alone in the Oval Office. Now, half of it, he can blame himself. If he hires someone, a known idiot like John Bolton, what does he expect is going to happen except that everything he wanted to do is going to be undermined…
    ​ ​When you have a regime change policy—and this was the one real positive thing Trump brought to the table. He said regime change has failed; we’re not going to do it under my policy.
    ​ ​Why do you think the North Koreans are quasi-starving? And I know the Communist elite and Kim’s family and so forth live a pretty fat life, but nevertheless they’re in dire straits economically.
    ​ ​Why do they invest all this money in developing nuclear capability and missile capability? Because they don’t want to be regime changed. Kim is a young man, he’s in his mid-30s, and he doesn’t want to be another Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein.​..
    …I think the stock market is in its last days of bubble excess. I think the economy is slouching toward recession within a matter of a few quarters or months. If that happens, Trump is toast. Elizabeth Warren becomes president, and then that’ll be a whole new ball game that is hard to figure.​..
    …Foreign policy has been totally taken over by the Democratic paranoia about Russia and Putin and meddling in our elections.
    ​ ​Now it’s extended to the whole impeachment inquiry and Ukraine-gate. That’s what the whole debate is going to be about. The debate is going to be about a sideshow.​..
    ​ …​It’s not even mentioned because, as I say, the Warfare State machinery essentially squelches any kind of debate, suffocates any kind of thought that at all deviates from the status quo.
    ​ ​The big issue in the world today is war and peace, and we’re facing a campaign in 2020 where it won’t even be mentioned.

    David Stockman on How the Deep State Really Works

    #51239
    John Day
    Participant

    http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/11/workings.html
    MSM Adamantly Avoids The Word “Coup” In Bolivia Reporting​, ​by Caitlin Johnstone ​ ​
    ​ ​There has been a military coup in Bolivia backed by violent right-wing rioters and the US government, but you’d hardly know this from any of the mainstream media headlines…
    ​ ​The indigenous leader of a socialist South American government which has successfully lifted masses of people out of crushing poverty, which happens to control the world’s largest reserves of lithium (which may one day replace oil as a crucial energy resource due to its use in powering smartphones, laptops, hybrid and electric cars), which has an extensive and well-documented history of being targeted for regime change by the US government, simply stepped down due to some sort of scandal involving a “disputed election”. Nothing to do with the fact that right-wing mobs had been terrorizing this leader’s family, or the fact that the nation’s military literally commanded him to step down and are now currently searching for him to arrest him, leading to ousted government officials being rounded up and held captive by soldiers wearing masks.

    MSM Adamantly Avoids The Word “Coup” In Bolivia Reporting

    ​ ​Two days before Bolivian president Evo Morales was pushed out by the country’s military, Mark Weisbot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research penned a warning about what was happening, and what might unfold, in a Nation article titled, The Trump Administration Is Undercutting Democracy in Bolivia.
    He noted:
    ​ ​Multilateral organizations like the Organization of American States (OAS) have a certain perceived impartiality because they are, in theory, controlled by a diverse group of nations. But sometimes a great power can wield a disproportionate influence. It could theoretically be a coincidence that both the Trump administration and the OAS have tried—without offering any evidence—to discredit Bolivia’s national election in the past couple of weeks. But it’s more likely that this dangerous, ugly, and destabilizing operation is being pushed by Washington.
    ​ ​This “destabilizing operation” came to a head yesterday when Morales resigned under pressure from the military amidst a wave of protests and violence. The situation is Bolivia is complicated, but one thing you can be sure of is anything you hear or read in U.S. mass media will be a heaping pile of lies and propaganda…
    ​ ​Morales was barred by the constitution from running for another term, but he attempted to override this with a referendum which he lost 51% to 49%. The Bolivian Supreme Court later ruled that term limits were unconstitutional, so he decided to run again. He then won this new election in the first round by the 10% spread required, but the Organization of American States (OAS) immediately called into question the validity of the result. This sparked weeks of protests and culminated in yesterday’s military coup. According to Mark Weisbot, the OAS has provided zero evidence of election fraud, and also notes that approximately 60% of the OAS budget comes from the U.S. government.

    Bolivia Adds to the Ranks of Global Political Chaos

    Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Multinational Firm’s Lithium Deal
    “Bolivia’s lithium belongs to the Bolivian people. Not to multinational corporate cabals.”
    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/11/bolivian-coup-comes-less-week-after-morales-stopped-multinational-firms-lithium-deal

    ​The Many Ways Sanders and Warren are Different, and Why It Matters:
    ​https://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-many-ways-sanders-and-warren-are.html

    #51240
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Didn’t have time to follow up, but speaking of Vindman, I believe it may not have been “Charlie” who Schiff outed by accident, it was the fact that Vindman was the SOURCE for Charlie.

    “She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots”

    Because: Media, they forgot that just a month ago the DNC got in trouble for paying $1M to a contractor to create fake Russians and fake bots to make it seem the Russians were real push in the Judge Moore campaign. The owner was banned from Facebook and I believe was reported in the New York Times. Oh wait, just like Politico, the NYT disagrees with its own reporters on basic facts, depending on what they WANT to be true, on who they want to elect that day. So…Bots Ms. Hillary? Not so much. Everyone’s a troll. Everyone’s a bot. RussiaRussiaRussia. “I can see Russians under my bed!”

    Discovery would be fabulous. I’d really love to read what was on the server they removed from her house.

    “Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Lithium Deal (CD)”

    Pretty much says it all. Cut off the money. And get John Perkins on the phone.

    “Everybody over twelve in this land knows that his kid Hunter was on the grift in Ukraine”

    Not if you’re from Haaavard or work for ABC. Then you’re a lot dumber than an Alabama 12 year old.

    White Helmets ‘MI-6 Co-Founder’ Found Dead in Turkey (ZH)”

    Sure, just a few weeks after Mr. T releases money to them then tracks it to its head. Something like how Pelosi and Schumer visit Jordon suddenly and quietly, then two days later we know where al-Baghdadi is. Gee, why doesn’t he push these people out of his cabinet? A: because it’s a lot more useful to have them in, running around, tracking people, with their hair on fire.

    “US Northeast ‘Siberian Express’ Arctic Blast Could Break 200 Records (Ind.)”

    Thanks to Global Warming, 3RD record-breaking early cold this year. Crops are not in and can’t be. Put a fork in it, it’s over. If you don’t live in the United States, pretty soon you’re not eating.

    My prediction of cooling remains to be seen, but I’m not doing too bad this year. In any case, we haven’t had warming in 20 years, so it’s not like I’m going out on a limb.

    If you’re looking for a trigger, there it is. Like the French Revolution, these pressures can exist for decades, but when food gets short is all you need. That’s how they engineered Arab Spring: ethanol fine-tuning the food constraint with Bernanke rocking the backbone of food inflation, oil-price rigging (as rigging every market on earth, and have paid fines in many) is just a bonus. …And Obama’s election crew was right there on the ground in Egypt, right where he gave his first speech. But I’m a Coincidence Theorist, and I don’t think that’s related at all. Even though General Wesley Clark went on TV and said it would happen a few years before, in the exact order and number it happened. Probably called the next 5 roulette numbers by sheer luck, right CNN?

    Anyway, Powell can print money. No one can print food, and they will cut yours off, you crank. What are you doing reading whistleblower sites anyway? You anti-social or something? Only pals of President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho get access to food.

    And you can’t dodge that bullet. History says.

    #51241
    Dr. D
    Participant

    We disagree on Stockman and he’s been wrong before. He’s quite near the mark, but his predictions don’t follow through for the last couple years. While what he says is logical, there’s too much going on we can’t see, and too many lies told (like Nikki Haley and Anonymous) in what we can see.

    There’s an awful lot of that in conservative circles: that because something is LOGICAL, because it’s the LAW or something, it must happen, because to them, people are logical and follow rules. However at the very least there is one portion of the country that is emotional and re-writes rules anytime they want. And that’s over some portion like the CIA re-defining “whistleblower” and “FISA” and “evidence”, (and the meaning of “IS”, is) just because ALL lawyers and government weasels ALWAYS just redefine reality any way that wins the cookies. They’d redefine the moon as cheese if they wanted, and pass a law to make it technically so. So the thinking of a Stockman, a Peter Shiff, a Paul Craig Roberts, just don’t come true.

    On the flip side, when you re-define reality every 30 seconds to suit yourself, it’s the road to certain madness and not thinking straight, and then you lose. You can get to believe your own farts, like HRC accusing a background-checked, standing officer of the U.S. Army of being a Russian agent without a whiff of evidence. And the public has been so gas-sniffed, they no longer react to such utter nonsense, in-your-face rubbish someone from a psych ward would drivel after going on about lizard aliens talking to their brain.

    Which half the nation that believes the media is experiencing, as the media outlets contradict each other, then themselves, then contradict their own story and the previous sentence. …And they’re moving to harder contradictions even this minute as madness doesn’t have a hard horizon. However, the nation does, and we’re reaching it.

    #51243
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Amazing that the brilliantly logical Nicole Foss becomes unhinged when it comes to treating Trump rationally. It’s like you must either hate him entirely, or love him with irrational zeal, rather than treat him as a phenomenon with various qualities.

    #51245
    zerosum
    Participant

    “…. insubordination of the country’s armed forces “cannot exist in a constitutional state of law” or democracy. ….”

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

    The issue of voting rights in the United States, specifically the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups, has been contested throughout United States history.

    Eligibility to vote in the United States is established both through the United States Constitution and by state law. Several constitutional amendments (the 15th, 19th, and 26th specifically) require that voting rights of U.S. citizens cannot be abridged on account of race, color, previous condition of servitude, sex, or age for those above 18; the constitution as originally written did not establish any such rights during 1787–1870, except that if a state permitted a person to vote for the “most numerous branch” of its state legislature, it was required to permit that person to vote in elections for members of the United States House of Representatives.[1] In the absence of a specific federal law or constitutional provision, each state is given considerable discretion to establish qualifications for suffrage and candidacy within its own respective jurisdiction; in addition, states and lower level jurisdictions establish election systems, such as at-large or single member district elections for county councils or school boards. Beyond qualifications for suffrage, rules and regulations concerning voting (such as the poll tax) have been contested since the advent of Jim Crow laws and related provisions that indirectly disenfranchised racial minorities.

    In the 18th-century Thirteen Colonies, suffrage was restricted to white males with the following property qualifications …..
    —–
    Did you know that there now exist multi meaning to the word “THEY”

    “they” are not wearing poppies
    “they” are grooming Gabbard

    “All the world’s a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players;
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His acts being seven ages.”

    ― William Shakespeare
    —-
    “…. but when food gets short ….”
    ( it has not been a trigger everywhere. (N.Korea, Haiti, California, etc.)

    #51246
    zerosum
    Participant

    What to do when food gets short …..

    Greece and China in Athens Monday signed 16 agreements in sectors including energy, agriculture, tourism and ports.

    #51247
    zerosum
    Participant

    It must have taken month to prepare the following report.

    Bolivia coup led by Christian fascist paramilitary leader and multi-millionaire – with foreign support


    By Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton

    Bolivia’s extreme right-wing opposition had overthrown leftist President Evo Morales that day, following demands by the country’s military leadership that he step down.
    Virtually unknown outside his country, where he had never won a democratic election, Camacho stepped into the void. He is a rich and powerful multi-millionaire named in the Panama Papers, and an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz.
    Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves. And his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent.

    #51248
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    ARCTIC BLAST

    For those following true climate science this is not much of a surprise. The Sun has been very quiet in the past year which usually leads to colder weather.

    The concern is that the Sun may be entering an extended quiet period which would lead to global cooling and a series of bad winters and poor summers. There is a high expectation that this will last for some years.

    The worst case scenario is that we are entering a new Maunder minimum [little ice age]. This caused famine across the globe. With today’s global population it could cause an extreme disaster. Another Maunder minimum is thought to be a distinct possibility.

    The future could be quite bleak.

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