Nov 142019
 
 November 14, 2019  Posted by at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,


Pablo Picasso Pitcher of flowers on a table 1942

 

The Impeachment Pantomime (Patrick Lawrence)
The Real Ukraine Controversy: An Activist US Embassy (Solomon)
Trump Impeachment Inquiry: New Claims Amid Public Hearing (BBC)
Trickster Adam Schiff Conjuring ‘Guilt’ Out Of Thin Air (NYPost)
Trump Impeachment Is Blueprint To Overthrow Government From Within (Rives)
Here Are The Payments To Hunter Biden, Leaked From Ukraine (CDMedia)
Lawmaker Posts Cryptic Jeffrey Epstein Message During Impeachment Hearing (G.)
The Holy-Cow Moment for Subprime Auto Loans (WS)
Le Mesurier Gets Cross (Craig Murray)
Greek Refugee Camp For 640 People Is Found To Be Housing 3,745 (G.)

 

 

I have too much to say about the impeachment thing to do it here, I’ll do that separately later. Meanwhile, a few strong commentaries:

The Impeachment Pantomime (Patrick Lawrence)

The impeachment probe starts to take on a certain reek. It starts to look as if contempt for Trump takes precedence over democratic process — a dangerous priority. Sperry quotes Fred Fleitz, a former National Security Council official, thus: “Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times knows. Congress knows. The White House knows…. They’re hiding him because of his political bias.” Here we come to another question. If everyone knows the whistleblower’s identity, why have the corporate media declined to name him? There can be but one answer to this question: If Ciaramella’s identity were publicized and his professional record exposed, the Ukrainegate narrative would instantly collapse into a second-rate vaudeville act — farce by any other name, although “hoax” might do, even if Trump has made the term his own.


There is another half to this burlesque. While Schiff and his House colleagues chicken-scratch for something, anything that may justify a formal impeachment, a clear, documented record emerges of Joe Biden’s official interventions in Ukraine in behalf of Burisma Holdings, the gas company that named Hunter Biden to its board in March 2014 — a month, it is worth noting, after the U.S.–cultivated coup in Kiev. There is no thought of scrutinizing Biden’s activities by way of an official inquiry. In its way, this, too, reflects upon the pantomime of the impeachment probe. Are there sufficient grounds to open an investigation? Emphatically there are. Two reports published last week make this plain by any reasonable measure.

Read more …

Nobody appears to know more about the Ukraine boondoggle than John Solomon. But the Hill seems to have dumped him. He publishes on his own site now.

The Real Ukraine Controversy: An Activist US Embassy (Solomon)

The first time I ever heard the name of U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was in early March of this year. It did not come from a Ukrainian or an ally of President Trump. It came from a career diplomat I was interviewing on background on a different story. The diplomat, as I recall, suggested that Yovanovitch had just caused a commotion in Ukraine a few weeks before that country’s presidential election by calling for the firing of one of the prosecutors aligned with the incumbent president. The diplomat related that a more senior State official, David Hale, was about to travel to Ukraine and was prepping to be confronted about Yovanovitch’s comments. I remember the diplomat joking something to the effect of, “we always say that the Geneva Convention is optional for our Kiev staff.”

The Geneva Convention is the UN-backed pact enacted during the Cold War that governs the conduct of foreign diplomats in host countries and protects them against retribution. But it strictly mandates that foreign diplomats “have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State” that hosts them. You can read the convention’s rules here. I dutifully checked out my source’s story. And sure as day, Yovanovitch did give a speech on March 5, 2019 calling for Ukraine’s special anticorruption prosecutor to be removed. You can read that here. And the Ukraine media was abuzz that she had done so. And yes, Under Secretary of State Hale, got peppered with questions upon arriving in Kiev, specifically about whether Yovanovitch’s comments violated the international rule that foreign diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs and elections of their host country.

Hale dutifully defended Yovanovitch with these careful words. “Well, Ambassador Yovanovitch represents the President of the United States here in Ukraine, and America stands behind her statements. And I don’t see any value in my own elaboration on what they may or may not have meant. They meant what she said.” You can read his comments here. Up to that point, I had focused months of reporting on Ukraine on the U.S. government’s relationship with a Ukraine nonprofit called the AntiCorruption Action Centre, which was jointly funded by liberal megadonor George Soros’ charity and the State Department. I even sent a list of questions to that nonprofit all the way back in October 2018. It never answered.

Given that Soros spent millions trying to elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump in 2016, I thought it was a legitimate public policy question to ask whether a State Department that is supposed to be politically neutral should be in joint business with a partisan figure’s nonprofit entity.

Read more …

The one thing that was new in yesterday’s circus was Bill Taylor claiming more third-hand stories.

Trump Impeachment Inquiry: New Claims Amid Public Hearing (BBC)

A top US diplomat told impeachment hearings that President Trump directly asked about a Ukrainian investigation into his Democratic rival Joe Biden. In previously unheard testimony, Bill Taylor, the acting US ambassador to Ukraine, said a member of his staff was told Mr Trump was preoccupied with pushing for a probe into Mr Biden. He was speaking at the first public hearings in the impeachment inquiry. Mr Trump told reporters he did not recall making such comments. Mr Trump is accused of withholding US military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure the country’s new president to publicly announce a corruption inquiry into Mr Biden, among the favourites to take him on in the 2020 presidential race.


[..] During a detailed opening statement, Mr Taylor said a member of his staff had overheard a telephone call in which the president inquired about “the investigations” into Mr Biden. The call was with Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, who reportedly told the president over the phone from a restaurant in Kyiv that “the Ukrainians were ready to move forward”. After the call, the staff member “asked ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine”, Mr Taylor said. Mr Taylor said: “Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden.” Meanwhile observers and former officials have drawn attention to the security implications of making the call from a restaurant, potentially exposing the conversation to eavesdropping by Russian intelligence.

Read more …

“Thanks to the false charges made by James Comey, John Brennan and others that Trump was a running dog for Vladimir Putin, uniforms and badges are no longer proof of rectitude. Count diminished public trust in those institutions as a lasting legacy of the Obama presidency.”

Trickster Adam Schiff Conjuring ‘Guilt’ Out Of Thin Air (NYPost)

The conclusion has always come first — get Trump — then create a justification by weaving a few thin threads together into a noose. In both cases, the Dems have relied on members of the resistance embedded in the government to serve as the hanging party. Some wear military uniforms while others are in the CIA and FBI. Thanks to the false charges made by James Comey, John Brennan and others that Trump was a running dog for Vladimir Putin, uniforms and badges are no longer proof of rectitude. Count diminished public trust in those institutions as a lasting legacy of the Obama presidency. The main problem now is that, three years after Trump’s election, these constant hair-on-fire screams sound and feel like partisan politics pretending to be apolitical.

The smell of a continuing dirty trick is hard to ignore. Schiff, of course, comes by his current role honestly in the sense that he has been a chief proponent of anything and everything that might turn the public against the president. He insisted that Trump was guilty of collusion for two years before Mueller said otherwise and then continued to say it despite Mueller. But after the special counsel’s public testimony turned out to be the dud of all duds, Russia, Russia, Russia dropped off the earth and Schiff instantly proclaimed Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine the new crime of the century. In a rational world, where facts matter and credibility counts, Schiff would already be consigned to history’s dustbin alongside Sen. Joe McCarthy.

Like the infamous red baiter who saw a commie behind every desk, Schiff sees evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors” every time the president opens his mouth. It’s been that way since before Trump was inaugurated. McCarthy was not burdened by decency, as Army lawyer Joseph Welch famously noted. Schiff is similarly unburdened and so he, too, willy-nilly ruins lives and trashes reputations without a sense of guilt. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is no less culpable. In the early months after she got the gavel, she skillfully pushed back against the tide of radicalism sweeping through her party. Repeatedly, she insisted that impeachment was extremely divisive, should only be a last resort and had to have bipartisan support.

Those were her red lines, and she violated all of them. Her resolution for a formal inquiry got zero GOP votes and the public support for removing Trump is essentially limited to her party’s voters. There is no national emergency that would justify such an extreme action, and yet she gave Schiff the green light.

Read more …

Jenna Ellis Rives is a member of the Donald Trump 2020 advisory board. She is a constitutional law attorney.

Trump Impeachment Is Blueprint To Overthrow Government From Within (Rives)

The House is ready to begin public hearings this week, furthering the partisan move by the Democrats to impeach President Trump in a blatant abuse of constitutional authority. Representative Adam Schiff said in a press conference, “These open hearings will be an opportunity for the American people to evaluate the witnesses for themselves and also to learn firsthand about the facts of the president’s misconduct.” There are several problems with this statement. First, Schiff is already characterizing the outcome of the investigation. As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he serves as a key arbiter of the inquiry under the resolution. As such, he is in a position that demands an unbiased irreproachable ethic in evaluating requests for subpoenas and testimony.

Any judge in a similar position would be required to recuse himself with even a hint of the pure bias Schiff has displayed, including coordination with the Ukraine whistleblower and other actions. The Democrats do not even pretend that their impeachment game is fair or actually about fact finding. This is simply about using a grant of power in the Constitution arbitrarily and politically, outside the bounds of due process and the purpose of that authority. Although the House does have the “sole power” of impeachment, that is a grant of jurisdiction, not a license to proceed on purely partisan motivation. Article One must work coordinately and not inconsistently with Article Two, which provides the legal basis upon which a sitting president may be impeached.

Second, Schiff demonstrates this is all about media play in the court of public opinion. Voters have no power or responsibility in an impeachment proceeding. The drafters of the Constitution intended the impeachment and removal process to be exercised only when there was sufficient evidence that the subject of the impeachment had committed a legally qualifying offense. This is not about whether impeachment is popular in the polls or whether a majority of Americans prefer it. Transparency in the context of this quasi judicial process is to provide fundamental fairness and due process for the president. Why are the Democrats so hellbent on blatantly refusing to allow Republican subpoenas and witnesses?

It is because it is a sham. Yet the Democrats are openly admitting that their goal is to try this in the media and attempt to dishonestly convince us that somehow we too should hate Donald Trump. They are hoping to convince us not to vote for him. That is not a legitimate or constitutional purpose of an impeachment. It is rather ironic that they claim his “crime” is an alleged quid pro quo to gain political advantage, while they are manipulating the power of impeachment for their political advantage. It is Schiff and other Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who should be impeached. There is an actual constitutional basis for that.

Read more …

And the series keeps going on.

Here Are The Payments To Hunter Biden, Leaked From Ukraine (CDMedia)

The information below has been leaked from the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s office and acquired from intelligence sources within Ukraine; it is part of investigative materials acquired during an investigation into Biden corruption. As CD Media has reported previously, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau Of Ukraine (NABU) has succeeded in shutting down all investigations into Hunter Biden, Joseph Biden, Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevskiy, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewskiy. NABU is controlled by Obama/Soros linked operatives and was created to coverup Democrat, Biden, Deep State, State Department corruption during the Obama Administration and the years after in which this cabal went after duly-elected President Trump.

Prosecutors who desire the information to get out in spite of the Deep State’s efforts to prevent such a release and prevent investigations to continue, have leaked to CD Media. The highlighted sections describe: According to the Department of Financial Monitoring (Counter-intelligence) of Latvia, the following sums of money were obtained from Busima Holding Limited (Cyprus) to the account of Burisma Holding Limited (Cyprus) which is open at AS PrivatBank in Latvia: money transfer of 14 655 982 US Dollars and 366 015 EUR from the company “Wirelogic Technology AS”, and 1 9 64 375 US dollars from “Digitex Organization LLP” based on the credit agreements. (Note: credit agreements here mean “intra-company” transactions to decrease the taxes to be paid or “credit agreement” also serve as means of hidden dividend payments).


Further, the part of the sums described above, the money was transferred to Alan Apter (302 885 EUR), Alexander Kwasniewski (1 150 000 EUR), Devon Archer and Hunter Biden. Additional information was leaked: BURISMA HOLDINGS LIMITED during a period from 18th November 2014 to 16th November 2015 transacted 45 money transfers through MORGAN STANLEY SMITH BARNEY LLC in the sum of 3.5 mln US Dollars. The recipient of the money transfer is the company Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC (belongs to Devon Archer). Note: The company belongs to Devon Archer and Kerry Family including Kerry Senior, Kerry Junior, Heinz Jr and Hunter Biden. Devon Archer, Kerry Jr, Heinz Jr and Hunter Biden are listed as partners in Rosement Seneca Fund, Rosemont Seneca Partners and affiliated Rosemont Seneca other companies.

Read more …

“EPSTEIN DIDN’T KILL HIMSELF”

Lawmaker Posts Cryptic Jeffrey Epstein Message During Impeachment Hearing (G.)

Conspiracy theories have abounded ever since Jeffrey Epstein’s death in a New York jail was ruled a suicide, with figures on the right and left claiming he was murdered. On Wednesday, a US congressman weighed in with his own cryptic message. Republican Paul Gosar, a staunch conservative from Arizona, issued a series of 23 tweets over a roughly eight-hour period railing against the Democrats’ impeachment investigation of Donald Trump. Taken together, the first letter of each tweet spells: “EPSTEIN DIDN’T KILL HIMSELF”. As the first public impeachment hearing got under way, it was unclear what prompted the timing of Gosar’s message. Asked whether it was intentional, his communications director, Ben Goldey, replied with an equally cryptic comment:

All of the tweets pertained to testimony from today’s hearing.

Rest assured, they are substantive.

Every one of them.

All of them.

5 were brilliant.

1 was ok.

Zealous Twitter users picked up on the original message, which was easy to miss as it was couched in standard-issue rightwing complaints: “No quid pro quo”, “Democrats are desperate”, “Hillary Clinton and the DNC funded a foreign spy”. A few hours later, however, Gosar’s account posted Goldey’s comment with the first letter of each line bolded, making the message clear.

Read more …

Yeah, Jay Powell, very strong economy.

The Holy-Cow Moment for Subprime Auto Loans (WS)

Serious auto-loan delinquencies – auto loans that are 90 days or more past due – in the third quarter of 2019, after an amazing trajectory, reached a historic high of $62 billion, according to data from the New York Fed today. This $62 billion of seriously delinquent loan balances are what auto lenders, particularly those that specialize in subprime auto loans, such as Santander Consumer USA, Credit Acceptance Corporation, and many smaller specialized lenders are now trying to deal with. If they cannot cure the delinquency, they’re hiring specialized companies that repossess the vehicles to be sold at auction. The difference between the loan balance and the proceeds from the auction, plus the costs involved, are what a lender loses on the deal.

The repo business, however, is booming. But delinquencies are a flow: As current delinquencies are hitting the lenders’ balance sheet and income statement, the flow continues and more loans are becoming delinquent. And lenders are still making new loans to risky customers and a portion of those loans will become delinquent too. And now the flow of delinquent loans is increasing – and this isn’t going to stop anytime soon: These loans are out there and new one are being added to them, and a portion of them will be defaulting. Total outstanding balances of auto loans and leases in Q3, according to the New York Fed’s measure (higher and more inclusive than the Federal Reserve Board of Governors’ consumer credit data) rose to $1.32 trillion:

Read more …

Upon the death of White Helmets co-founder James Le Mesurier, Murray lists some 20 UK journalists who all follow the Twitter account of “Philip Cross”, which has only ever retweeted things without posting one original tweet. “Philip Cross”, though, has changed Wikipedia pages for 2,987 consecutive days, and made dozenns of changes to Le Mesurier’s page in the 24 hours after his death.

Le Mesurier Gets Cross (Craig Murray)

This week, on the day of Le Mesurier’s death, “Philip Cross” made 48 edits to Le Mesurier’s Wikipedia page, each one designed to expunge any criticism of the role of the White Helmets in Syria or reference to their close relationship with the jihadists. “Philip Cross” has been an operation on a massive scale to alter the balance of Wikipedia by hundreds of thousands of edits to the entries, primarily of politically engaged figures, always to the detriment of anti-war figures and to the credit of neo-con figures. An otherwise entirely obscure but real individual named Philip Cross has been identified who fronts the operation, and reputedly suffers from Aspergers. I however do not believe that any individual can truly have edited Wikpedia articles from a right wing perspective, full time every single day for five years without one day off, not even a Christmas, for 2,987 consecutive days.


I should declare here the personal interest that “Philip Cross” has made over 120 edits to my own Wikipedia entry, including among other things calling my wife a stripper, and deleting the facts that I turned down three honours from the Crown and was eventually cleared on all disciplinary charges by the FCO. I hazard the guess that at least several of the above journalists follow “Philip Cross” on twitter because they are a part of the massive Wikipedia skewing operation operating behind the name of “Philip Cross”. If anybody has any better explanation of why they all follow “Philip Cross” on twitter I am more than willing to hear it.

Read more …

“Nine unaccompanied girls were sleeping on the floor in a 10 metre sq container next to the police office, with no bathroom or shower.”

Greek Refugee Camp For 640 People Is Found To Be Housing 3,745 (G.)

An EU-funded refugee camp on the Greek island of Samos built to house 640 people is home to 3,745, with unaccompanied children forced to sleep on the floor of windowless and overcrowded containers, an official audit has revealed. Other children were found to be living in makeshift tents or in derelict buildings on the outskirts of the camp in what the special report from the European court of auditors described as “dire conditions”. “Seventy-eight unaccompanied minors were in tents or abandoned derelict houses outside the hot spot, in unofficial extensions to the facility,” the auditors said. “Nine unaccompanied girls were sleeping on the floor in a 10 metre sq container next to the police office, with no bathroom or shower.”


The situation at Greek facilities on Samos and at the island of Lesbos are described as “highly critical in terms of capacity and the situation of unaccompanied minors”, due to a failure of the bloc’s relocation and return scheme for migrants coming to Europe from countries such as Syria. The auditors’ findings were echoed on Wednesday in appeals made by the mayor of Samos, Georgios Stantzos, who warned of riots due to the “primitive” conditions. Last month, a fire broke out in the camp after a brawl in town between rival groups of Syrians and Afghans.

Read more …

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle November 14 2019

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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  • #51293

    Pablo Picasso Pitcher of flowers on a table 1942   • The Impeachment Pantomime (Patrick Lawrence) • The Real Ukraine Controversy: An Activist US
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle November 14 2019]

    #51294
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Pablo Picasso Pitcher of flowers on a table 1942

    Hmm, flowers, plural…
    Is that Picasso’s sense of humor?
    It’s a lovely example of his cubist period of course…
    I happen to like it muchly…
    As with most of this long and wonderful life; I can’t say I understand much of it; but in my quiet moments there are glimpses…

    #51295

    I see four flowers

    #51296
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    So, the yellow triangles are flowers; regardless of position. I count three.
    But then, rather obscure, is a fourth, which looks like a “real” yellow flower; towards the top and well left of center…

    #51297
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Officials Are Using The Word “Disaster” To Describe The Widespread Crop Failures Happening All Over America”
    We are witnessing “unprecedented” crop failures all across the United States, but the big mainstream news networks are not talking too much about this yet.

    Officials Are Using The Word “Disaster” To Describe The Widespread Crop Failures Happening All Over America

    Don’t worry: we have Google and iPhones. We’re modern, space-age, advanced! Not like we need plants, animals, bees, or the environment when you’re as awesome as we are!

    #51298
    Dr. D
    Participant

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmj9kx/this-beer-says-epstein-didnt-kill-himself-on-the-bottom-of-its-can

    “Philip Cross”, though, has changed Wikipedia pages for 2,987 consecutive days, and made dozens of changes to Le Mesurier’s page in the 24 hours after his death.”

    I do not find that suspicious at all. I mean, doesn’t everyone work for the CIA/MI6 and do this kind of thing? Everyone I know does.

    “Nine unaccompanied girls were sleeping on the floor in a 10 metre sq container next to the police office, with no bathroom or shower.”

    I’d say send them to Sweden but it’s now the bomb/grenade capital of the world with one bomb or scare every day of the year, with Norway and Denmark both putting up walls.

    So from yesterday, adding to ‘them’ confirming the identity of the whistleblower Charlie Mellon, Schiff is now saying HE doesn’t know the identity of the (CIA non-)whistleblower. …You know the one he colluded with ahead of time to help write the form. …You know, the form they changed the policy of the day before he applied. …You know, the day they applied that they (illegally) back-dated. So, uh, Mr. Schiff? If you don’t know his name, how do you know who to protect and what name must not be said? Ah, more grist than the mill can churn.

    Anyway, so…YouTube and pals ALSO know the identity of the (non-)whistleblower, because they indeed blocking one and only one name. And Schiff doesn’t know. Uh-huh. Since every word of every sentence printed is a lie, I have a hard time tracking down each one, but HOW does YouTube/Google know who the whistleblower is and when did they know it? So apparently we should subpoena YouTube/Google for answers about government now? Yes? We knew for a long time, but maybe we should make that official now?

    Oh and since they will only release the ban when it’s reported by, say, Drudge to millions, RealClearPolitics, or becomes a top search result on Google, only if say, the President’s son names it on the top daytime TV show to millions, only if say a sitting Congressman says it in public to millions, then…when would you like to release the ban and let us, the American people, I dunno, discuss the impeachment of a sitting President and the evidence around him? And if your name is Charlie Mellon, then you get banned from YouTube, Facebook, sued in public? “Hey, I just went to Boy Scout supper with Joe Ciar*******a.” BANNED! “Help us celebrate the wedding of Tony Ciar*******a.” BANNED! Here is a book on the baseball stats on Massimo Ciar*******a.” BANNED!

    All this censorship – erasing the whole existence of a family line – in order to promote public safety and democracy for all. Open Society. True Patriots, fighting for freedoms like the 1st, to speak their opinions on publicly-available information.

    Speaking of protecting the sanctity of whistleblowers, ABC is questioning every employee they have and asking them to turn on each other to out and destroy their own whistleblower. …Because –Shock!—the random employee they got NBC –a totally different company!—to fire without cause on their behalf, simply on suspicion, with no evidence or process was NOT the actual whistleblower. Whose name is “Ingotus”. They are now feverishly grilling Harry Potter fans, I kid you not, apparently not realizing there is a language called “Latin” that people have used from time to time in history and law. Because, being journalists, they have never heard of this “Google”. Their second bet is that there is a fluent Latin speaker in the house, I kid you not, because I only WISH I were kidding, living in a loony bin of mentally deranged simpletons that would make “Idiocracy” blush. Look out you Yale graduates! Bet you’re sorry you passed that language class now!
    THIS is the level of attack for whistleblowers the media really feel: deeply, passionately, feverently, religiously, when attempting to defend a serial pedophile rapist for 20 years.

    …But we knew that from watching Assange. No one EVER, not ONCE, even ATTEMPTED to say what he published about Hillary Clinton or the U.S. Government wasn’t true. They simply didn’t care if it was true, if we killed millions randomly and covered it up, if we drone-striked children, citizens, journalists by the thousands. If we did it for the oil while taking millions in bribes. If we paid to undermine democracy and throw elections or primaries abroad or at home, and threatened, imprisoned, paid off, and ordered journalists to cover it up. …Didn’t even occur to them to care, or that it was wrong. They only cared about DESTROYING THE TRUTH, the #Logos, objective reality in a quest for power over everyone and everything, the power to destroy YOU, dear citizen, regardless of your country of citizenship or location on Earth, to be able to erase you, outlaw you, imprison you, forever until death…without even the illusion of a trial or a process.

    Exactly as we see on the floor of Congress today.

    So: new level. Beyond firing you. Beyond starving you. Beyond imprisoning you. Beyond killing you. They will outlaw your very name, erase not only you, but your whole family, from history itself.

    …Oh, and just as the Soviets did, even erasing people from photos. They are the same people with the same cause. So is that Doctor hyperbole today, or just the facts?

    And are you going to hide the truth and help the pedophile rapists have open season on your daughters, as Mario Cuomo did with a small donation from Weinstein, or perhaps the opposite, even if you risk a little to do so?

    It’s all up to you. Pick the Truth, or the Father of Lies. You were given the gift of free choice of the world you wish to make.

    #51299
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Thanks to the false charges made by James Comey, John Brennan and others that Trump was a running dog for Vladimir Putin…”

    Funny thing is, I think in many ways Trump is in thrall to Putin. Certainly not as the dumbocratic party claims. Trump was elected by Americans with an amazing amount of help by the DNC, not by Putin in some Wizard of OZ fever dream.

    But Trump listens to Putin, admires, likes, and often defers to Putin.

    I personally think that is a very good thing that helps prevent horrors like escalation into nuclear conflict.

    I perceive Trump in thrall to Putin because Putin does POWER extremely well, which Trump admires, and because Putin doesn’t dump on Trump unless Trump makes a glaring dumb-ignorant-crazy thing. Even then, he makes his critique about Trump’s actions about the actions, not Donald.

    He lets Donald be Donald on the world stage, treats him seriously, gives him a sense of stature and dignity that encourages Trump to behave responsibly.

    But then, Putin can afford to do this, because he has more power than any single man on the planet right now — and he knows it. Trump seems to know this too, and doesn’t antagonize Putin more than is needed to sustain a semblance of independence and whatever that MAGA stuff is supposed to mean.

    Putin is a savvy kid who roe through the ranks of one of the world’s most perilous bureaucracies at a time that bureaucracy was navigating the collapse of both an empire and domestic government. Rose to the top. Kicked out the foreign banksters. Balanced the budget. Solved the military problem posed by a rabid run amok USA military.

    We have CIA/NSA hacks who rose through the ranks of a majestically bloated and incompetent bureaucracy rivaling, maybe surpassing the decadence and folly of the dying USSR bureaucracy. They’ll go down as the ship goes down. If we’re lucky, some savvy USA Putin will end up trying to hold things together here in the States. But that’s AFTER the collapse of our empire and domestic governance.

    As a lifelong power junkie with a full-blown NPD jones for power and praise, Trump is at least smart enough to defer to real power when push comes to shove. Seemingly, the rest of the USA establishment seems determined to force Putin to place our collective head on the curb and stomp till it stops oozing.

    Not sure why this feel appropriate but it does

    #51304
    zerosum
    Participant

    I’ve lost respect for political leaders and the pundits

    Most politicians have a legal background or an accounting background.

    Most politicians learned how to put lipstick on a pig while they were in diapers.

    Synonyms for pork barrel
    back scratching, favors of office, logrolling, melon, patronage, payola, perks, perquisite, plum, political favor, pork, public crib, public till, public trough, spoils of office, taxpayer funds

    Synonyms for quid pro quo
    equal exchange, equal substitution, equivalent, eye for an eye, like for like, measure for measure, something in return, substitute, tit for tat, trade-off.

    Synonyms for pundit
    buff
    cognoscenti
    expert
    intellectual
    philosopher
    professor
    scholar
    thinker
    auger
    bookworm
    brain
    egghead
    savant
    solon
    teacher
    cereb
    learned one

    #51307
    zerosum
    Participant

    Pablo Picasso Pitcher of flowers on a table 1942. Topologically its a donut

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