Bigger doesn't imply better. Bigger often is a sign of obesity, of lost control, of overcomplexity, of cancerous cells
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May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Bigger doesn't imply better. Bigger often is a sign of obesity, of lost control, of overcomplexity, of cancerous cells |
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Among classic examples of American political humor are the following George Gavlin performances:
RadarKat73080
Nope. I've already said that George answered his own question when he asked where were all the good people of conscience in government. He mentioned ,in Life Is Worth Losing, the people who often end up assassinated: Jesus, Gandhi, Lincoln, JFK, RFK, MLK, Johm Lennon, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X. Folks who talk about peace, love and doing good to one another. These folks RARELY get elected to high office and those that do end up dead!
RagingCapitalist
If you think that the people who didn't get elected would actually be different, you need to watch this video again a few times.
Some not bad examples from Comedy Central (especially apt "Bullsh**t Mountain characterization of Fox network by Jon Steward):
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Mar 22, 2019 | twitter.com
kilgore trout's mom 3:53 PM - 22 Mar 2019
at last, a mysterious report no one has seen that contains all the supporting evidence to confirm my pre-existing opinions
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Mar 22, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials...
President Donald Trump's tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials.
U.S. diplomats and White House aides had believed the Golan Heights issue would be front and center at next week's meetings between Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But they were unprepared for any presidential announcement this week.
No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump's decision, and the diplomats responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark.
Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump's message.
After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do. Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies and dealing with the international fallout, and that is probably why so many of his policy decisions end up being exceptionally poor ones. The substance of most of Trump's foreign policy decisions was never likely to be good, but the lack of an organized policy process on major decisions makes those decisions even more haphazard and chaotic than they would otherwise be.
There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors.
Kouros , March 21, 2019 at 11:39 pm
I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?!
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Mar 21, 2019 | finance.yahoo.com
Dee 3 hours ago
"President typically take pains to ensure the Pentagon is being run by Senate confirmed official" .Presidents typically don't put incompetent people in cabinet positions or give his kids top security level clearances when they have no need and no experience that requires one...well, no one has accused trump of being presidential or typical - ever
Dianna 4 hours ago
The swamp is now the " Trump Cesspool."
Nonconservative 3 hours ago
Hey deplorables....hows that swamp draining going?...ANYWORD on that great big beautiful health plan with lower premiums and keeping my own doctor?....what about infrastructure?...any idea when the roads in every city will be driveable again...or did we spend all the money from the US govt. paying Trump to stay at his own hotels?........hello?......hello deplorables?......anybody home????
Pierre Escargot 1 hour ago
>Pentagon to probe if Shanahan used office to help Boeing. Why not? Robert Mueller's and James Comey turned government service into self-service.
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Mar 20, 2019 | www.theonion.com
BURBANK, CA -- In an effort to better integrate its values into the heart of its brand, the Walt Disney Company announced Tuesday it had decided to rehire writer–director James Gunn to helm Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 as part of a company-wide push to embrace pedophilia. "Pedophiles have always had an important role to play at Disney, but now more than ever we want to put people who have sex with children front and center," said company spokesperson Eloise Andrade, who explained that the decision to fire Gunn from the Marvel franchise had come only after the filmmaker angered Disney executives by apologizing for his 2009 tweets about enjoying pedophilia. "From John Lasseter to Harvey Weinstein, this company has a rich history of sexual predation, so Mr. Gunn, with his public endorsement of man–boy love, was always a good fit at Disney. We're glad to have him back as we move forward with our plan to inject a pedophilic spirit into everything we create, be it a Marvel film that centers on Baby Groot or an extended release of 1928's Steamboat Willie in which Mickey Mouse is shown to be transporting bound-and-gagged children in his ship's cargo hold." Andrade was quick to add that producers would be keeping a close eye on Gunn to make sure he does not try issuing any more apologies for the intense sexual yearnings he feels toward young children.
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Mar 20, 2019 | www.nytimes.com
Bad morals in a president? With Bill Clinton in office, the left was basically indifferent. With Donald Trump, it's indignant. Intense hostility to Russia? Previously a sign of paranoia; currently a prerequisite to patriotism.
Accusing the C.I.A. or F.B.I. of conspiring against our freedom? What was once de rigueur among progressives is now a slur on the good name of people who keep us safe.
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Mar 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
psychohistorian , Mar 19, 2019 4:29:46 PM | link
@ testing that responded to my comment that wrote of Berniebotstesting , Mar 19, 2019 4:36:06 PM | linkI will support anyone who wants to take down global private banking and I don't think that includes Bernie
That said, there is a growing mass of young folks that just might try to take over the (s)election process this time around.....will they succeed? Not from what we see of protests against US meddling in Venezuela.....nothing
We will see what TPTB put forward for a circus this time around.....if we make it that far.....
Thank you. Yes indeed. So much candidates. Seems like fog of war. That can only mean they in reality sticking to their original plans.psychohistorian , Mar 19, 2019 4:50:08 PM | link@ testing who wrote
"
Yes indeed. So much candidates. Seems like fog of war.
"With more candidates early on, it takes all that energy and diffuses it for petty warfare instead of a firmly focused "machine" that would take over Congress through the Dem party.
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Mar 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Guy Thornton , Mar 19, 2019 4:22:12 PM | link
Merkel might say:"There is definitely a place for Brazil in NATO. They can have ours."
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Mar 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Trick Shroade , , March 20, 2019 at 9:46 am
The modern GOP has a very brutalist interpretation of Christianity, one where the money changers bring into the church much needed liquidity.
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Mar 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
worldblee , Mar 19, 2019 3:20:54 PM | link
Random Guiado, the President who wasn't There. The longer this goes on, the stronger the Bay of Pigs smell grows.Ian , Mar 19, 2019 7:45:09 PM | linkworldblee | Mar 19, 2019 3:20:54 PM | 7:Ciso Tagori , Mar 19, 2019 8:24:18 PM | linkIn reference to your Bag of Pigs comment, I'm waiting for Trump to announce a new Space Race to Mars once they give up on their failed coup in Venezuela. LOL
@7 This time will be bay of rats.
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Mar 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
lyman alpha blob , , March 20, 2019 at 8:00 am
They want freedom -- for the wolves to eat the sheep.
PKMKII , March 20, 2019 at 1:08 pm
And then act like it's fair because they don't have laws against the sheep eating the wolves.
jefemt , March 20, 2019 at 9:18 am
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose...
shinola , March 20, 2019 at 1:06 pm
"nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free" ;)
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Mar 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Nature_Boy_Wooooo , 57 minutes ago link
Kadath , Mar 19, 2019 4:26:41 PM | linkWe must stop the Russians plot to put Trump in office the second time so he can increase the US military budget.
@13 lgfocus - that sounds suspiciously like something a COMMUNIST would say!!!!!!! During the 1797 XYZ scandal C.C. Pinckney reportedly said "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." which has been quoted by the Military Industrial Complex ad nauseam for the last 70 years to justify massive military budgets to fight the forever wars.Given the results of the last 70 years of US policies I would say that quote should now be updated to "Trillions for war, but not one cent for the people."
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Mar 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
John A , , , March 19, 2019 at 4:34 pm
Maybe they should have appointed aviation expert Nikki Haley to the Boeing board earlier.
A little bit of dignity , , , March 19, 2019 at 4:47 pm
How about seppuku for the entire top management?
Synoia , , , March 19, 2019 at 7:55 pm
Safety is at the core of who we are at Boeing
Yes, after money.
drumlin woodchuckles , , , March 19, 2019 at 8:08 pm
At what point does "crapification" become insufficient to describe Boeing's product and process here? At what point do we have to speak of " ford-pintofication"?
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Mar 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Not The Onion: Scholar Makes "Moral Case" For Letting People Decide Their Own Age
...Says recognition of ' trans-ageism ' would prevent 'severe discrimination'
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Mar 19, 2019 | crookedtimber.org
Glen Tomkins 03.09.19 at 5:25 pm ( 2 )
"Monopoly" is such an ugly term. We prefer to call it "market power" these days, because of course it's a good thing if the job creators and their enterprises have more power to do all the good things they do for us.It's clearly class warfare, if not racism, to use the term of abuse, "monopoly", when you mean "market power".
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Dec 09, 2016 | www.unz.com
Before the election, Rachel Maddow pointed out new polling that showed a strong shift towards Democrats in key "toss up" states, all states Trump won. Jimmy Dore breaks it down. Subscribe...
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Mar 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Catherine Krogman , 3 days ago
Alan Chamberlain , 3 days agoDonny Deutsch looks like the lovechild of Rachel Maddow and Gary Busey
We need a society that isn't based on the board game "hungry hungry hippos"
Marc James Levesque, 3 days ago
Jimmy Dore: "The puppets of oligarchy are so weak-minded they have to keep checking in with each other to figure out what they actually think." Aaaah LOL!!!
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Mar 13, 2019 | Consortiumnews
F. G. Sanford , March 13, 2019 at 6:27 pm
Sarcasm Alert:
Evidence matters, examples are rife. That's how Jeff Epstein got thirty to life.
Confident diplomats vouched for the prince, gruesome recordings just failed to convince.
Kashoggi was questioned, he just fell apart, the embassy staff swore they saw him depart.
OJ is rotting on death row today, his appeals were denied since he chopped up his wife.That Warren Commission Report got it right, ballistics would prove bullets pause in mid flight.
The fragments weighed more than the bullets intact, and dozens of marksmen repeated the act.
It turned out the cocaine involved in that search was imported to Mena for cancer research,
The Liberty Incident was a mistake, and John McCain's daddy set everything right.Jimmy Carter's success getting hostages freed would save Nicaraguans gravely in need.
Elliot Abrams and Oliver North had peace-keeping missions and carried them forth,
The coroner said he was shot from behind; they named Bobby's killer for his state of mind.
George Bush got elected by those hanging chads, an August 6th brief was advice he would heed!An interviewee said Assange was a creep. She claimed he and Epstein were both in real deep.
They both hired Dershowitz hoping to skate, she claimed that the evidence framed the debate.
The DoJ argued that laws were unclear, In Hillary's case, there was nothing to fear.
The kid on the submarine still went to jail, and Russia-gate fans weren't fleeced in their sleep.The world's greatest mastermind lived in a cave. His followers praised him and said he was brave.
The spooks were bewildered, his crimes wouldn't stop; he accomplished it all, with just a laptop.
Now Abrams and Barr are right back in the game. Some of the players look oddly the same.
Pompeo and Binney would candidly talk, Pompeo is loyal, he'll take that to the grave.Juan Guaido is legitimate State would allege, Palladino got miffed when Matt Lee wouldn't pledge.
"But there's evidence tailored to prove he's the guy, he was self nominated, now why would we lie?"
Ghaddafi had weaponized Viagra pills, and Assad was just swimming in chemical spills,
The evidence proved Saddam's nuclear plan, there are details galore if you read Zerohedge.The evidence matters, no doubt about that. DoJ will all read this, they're not pussycats:
Both parties are blameless their hands are all clean, corruption in DC has never been seen.
Ukrainians proved Russia shot down that plane, their motives were pure, they had nothing to gain.
Notice they're hoping that nobody talks, everyone walks with what's under their hats.Cherry picked evidence wouldn't accrue: It's not what the evidence serves to construe.
All of those sanctions they've now got in place, despite UN warnings that it's a disgrace,
Have so far escaped all judicial review. Nadler, Pelosi and Schiff may turn blue,
They'd like to impeach, but so far, Trump does everything those neocons want him to do.
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Mar 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Mar 15, 2019 5:37:36 PM | link
Excellent! Sanctioned Russian businessman Deripaska has filed a lawsuit against Outlaw US Empire charging the sanctions against him "violate the US Constitution."
Gee, maybe someone reading MoA stumbled upon my incessant writing about that very fact. This will certainly be a court case to follow.
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Mar 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Don Wiscacho , Mar 15, 2019 11:52:01 AM | link
About the terrorist attacks on New Zealand:
The media has once again proven Glenn Greenwald's definition of "terrorism": violence done by the 'other' against 'us'; it is never violence 'we' do to the 'other'. Media still report this terror attack as "shooting" or "incident". Even RT, which never hesitates to breathlessly call attacks on Israeli occupation soldiers as "terrorism" (attacks on occupational forces being legal under international law), terms it "mosque shootings" "mosque attacks". If these had been churches where people were slaughtered, it would have been "terrorism" even before the perpetrator was identified. Absolutely sickening.
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Mar 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Zachary Smith , Mar 15, 2019 5:39:03 PM | 141 ">link
Netanyahu: Israel mourns the murder of innocent New Zealand worshipers
I'd predict the "sincerity" here was akin to the grief displayed in the Former Confederate States of America when the news of Lincoln's murder arrived.
During the last 'mowing of the grass' in Gaza, the death totals amounted to a "Christchurch" every day for the month of February.
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Mar 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
oddjob , 47 minutes ago link
No matter what Party is in power, Ottawa always proves to be a source of disappointment for the average Canadian.
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Mar 15, 2019 | nationalinterest.org
Mr Russian -> milo • 2 days ago ,
Could you say that "checks and balances" of the US in current stage are "unbalanced"
Looks like executive branch has its own policies and legislative branch is trying very hard to nullify whatever executive branch can or could potentially do (and it will impact future presidents too).
And more importantly all this "meddling" (forgive me the pun) between the branches essentially cripples the US politics, foreign and internal.
If one can imaging THAT is the Russian goal then perhaps Mr. Trump could get the Star of Hero of the Russian Federation pretty soon
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Mar 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
The Justice Department and Hillary Clinton's legal team "negotiated" an agreement that blocked the FBI from accessing emails on Clinton's homebrew server related to the Clinton Foundation, according to a transcript of recently released testimony from last summer by former FBI special agent Peter Strzok.
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Mar 13, 2019 | www.nytimes.com
Mike fl March 11
Boeing's CEO, Mr Muilenburg, and every member of the Board of Directors should be on board every possible 737 Max flight to demonstrate faith in their plane.
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Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com
never-anonymous , says: March 12, 2019 at 5:23 pm GMT
I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters – "one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors "Anti-Semitism theater – a carefully staged social movement organized by Government owned media to divide the peons and make them hate each other. Real hate-group profit lies in charging for vast quantities of militarism but making just enough to kill women and children overseas.
Back home the flag waving patriots insist they need a giant military with weapons for anyone who can pay to protect them and their families. Dual loyalty to the Jewish lobby and the defense lobby.
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Mar 12, 2019 | www.unz.com
Ilyana_Rozumova says: March 12, 2019 at 2:31 pm GMT
We do not know the value of 30 pieces of silver today, but I do presume that Jewish bribes of Congress people are also hit by inflation. (like food). Or not?
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Mar 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
David , Mar 10, 2019 2:18:10 PM | link
Anyone remember Mullah Omar, the deceased leader of the Taliban? The U.S. military and intelligence services claimed over and over again that he was hiding in Pakistan. Bette Dam finds (pdf) that he wasn't:The fact that Mullah Omar's death was suppressed for two years even from high-level official sources, indicates to me that the theory bin Laden died in 2001 is very plausible. We even have a similar progression of statements regarding their respective health, doubts of whether they were alive at the respective time, etc.After 2001, Mullah Omar never stepped foot in Pakistan, instead opting to hide in his native land -- and for eight years, lived just a few miles from a major U.S. Forward Operating Base that housed thousands of soldiers.In late 2001, after the U.S. invasion, Mullah Omar resigned as leader of the Taliban and the movement officially surrendered to Hamid Karzai who promised them reconciliation. The U.S. did not like that and launched a vengeful campaign against all former Taliban member. Eighteen years later the U.S. is suing for peace.
Mullah Omar lived quietly, meditated and studied religious text. Allah remarked on his death:
On April 23, 2013, Mullah Omar passed away. That day, Jabbar Omari told me, the hot, dry lands of southern Afghanistan experienced something he'd never seen before: a hail storm. I assumed it was hagiographic bluster, but later I found a U.S. army publication referring to that day: "More than 80 Task Force Falcon helicopters were damaged when a sudden unprecedented hailstorm hit Kandahar Airfield April 23, where nearly half of the brigade's helicopters were parked."Of course, both terror leaders were kept "alive" for geopolitical reasons. Once ISIS (and later Russia/China) took over as a serious threat in the corporate media narrative, they no longer had to cling to those old phantoms.
Jose Garcia , Mar 10, 2019 2:38:46 PM | link
The story on Omar is astonishing, but to me not surprising. If the US spends billions on finding one guy, and at the end of the day, he is literally just down the road, it shows how incompetent and useless our intelligence gathering has become.That 93% of all personnel that are employed by the CIA are paper pushers in Langley and just 7% are in the field, of which I read sometime ago, has a ring of truth to me.
Stupidity has a firm grip on our rulers, and they are getting, not only us but many others, killed for absolutely no reason. And the dunces called the American voter, keep re-electing them. It leaves me breathless.
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Mar 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jen , Mar 10, 2019 8:32:36 PM | link
I know I saw this news here at MoA a few posts ago but it's worth mentioning again in this Open Forum thread:
US EMBASSY EMPLOYEE IS BRIEFLY DETAINED WITH MORTAR SHELL IN MOSCOW'S MAIN AIRPORT
https://southfront.org/us-embassy-employee-is-detained-with-mortar-shell-in-moscows-main-airport/The wonder is that this US diplomat was even allowed to board the plane after the investigation and that he might be allowed back into Russia. Where would he be keeping his "private collection" of mortar shells and similar items? Can't imagine he'd be keeping it back in the US. Ukraine somehow comes to mind.
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Mar 09, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Note that the candidate swears to be "faithful" to the "interests, welfare and success of the Democratic Party," but not to its principles. That's because there aren't any.
Readers may enjoy picking through the bafflegab, because I think you could drive a whole fleet of trucks through the loopholes. Here, for example, is Benjamin Studebaker's view : "A Second Term for Trump is Better Than Beto."
Nobody, after all, said that success had to be immediate ; perhaps a short term failure improves the ultimate welfare and prospects for success for the party.
In a way, this McCarthy-ite armraising is a kludge, another symptom of a fraying system: Exactly as we can no longer, apparently, trust voters to pick a President, and so must give veto power to the intelligence community, so we can no longer trust primary voters to pick a candidate, and the "National Chairperson" must step in if they somehow get the wrong answer. Pesky voters!
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Mar 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
It will fun to watch this developing:
Trump Seeks Huge Premium From Allies Hosting U.S. Troops
Under White House direction, the administration is drawing up demands that Germany, Japan and eventually any other country hosting U.S. troops pay the full price of American soldiers deployed on their soil -- plus 50 percent or more for the privilege of hosting them , according to a dozen administration officials and people briefed on the matter.
...
Current and former administration officials briefed on the idea, who asked not to be identified discussing the program, describe it as far more advanced than is publicly known. As well as seeking more money, the administration wants to use it as a way to exert leverage on countries to do what the U.S. demands overseas .As evidence, they say officials at the Pentagon have been asked to calculate two formulas: One would determine how much money countries such as Germany ought to be asked to pay. The second would determine the discount those countries would get if their policies align closely with the U.S.
The extortion scheme Trump wants to use against 'allies' is a perfect own goal.
The German government under Chancellor Angela Merkel is already accused of being too deep inside the U.S. rear.
Elliott A | Mar 8, 2019 11:42:10 AM | 5
Thank you for yet another good and humorous post.
The only section that is slightly unclear is, "The only sound reason to keep the 30,000 U.S. troops in Germany is to prevent them from moving to Poland from where they could threaten the country."
Surely the US occupation of Germany has been tacitly or latently threatening and controlling and dominating and bullying and extorting Germany for around 74 years?
So what major difference would it make if they were moved a few hundred kilometers away?
Kick 'em out! Germany has more than served her sentence!
A clarification would be much appreciated.
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Mar 09, 2019 | www.unz.com
Charles Pewitt says: March 9, 2019 at 2:58 pm GMT 200 Words
It's been the biggest money maker for them since -- the Rothschild family invented central banks -- or loaned money to both sides in every war they could find and/or drum up.
The Rothschilds must be financially liquidated in an orderly and legal manner as a lesson to the other globalizer plutocrats.
The Koch boys and the Benetton bunch should be legally liquidated financially as well.
There should be no billionaires in European Christian nations.
The Russians excepted; let those Ruski bastards do as they please within reason. I love Russians, and I would like to see many Russians depart the USA and England to go back to beautiful Russia. England for the English; America for the Americans; Russia for the Russians!
Billionaires in European Christian nations should be financially liquidated and exiled to sub-Saharan Africa. They must never be allowed to leave sub-Saharan Africa once they are escorted there.
The above is my modest Swiftian proposal to deliver swift justice to globalizer plutocrats such as the Rothschilds.
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Mar 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
1. Opiates/Big Pharma
2. Redundancies
3. John Bolton's harelip cover
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Mar 04, 2019 | www.unz.com
Just three examples. All those people would have troubles in the USA now. And that tells us something about the USA:
The wealthy Jews control the world, in their hands lies the fate of governments and nations. They set governments one against the other. When the wealthy Jews play, the nations and the rulers dance. One way or the other, they get rich."
'The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligations, knows no order nor discipline.'
'The enterprising spirit of the Jew is irrepressible. He refuses to remain a proletarian. He will grab at the first opportunity to advance to a higher rung in the social ladder.'
The comments above weren't made by Adolf Hitler or a member of the Nazi party but by some of the most dedicated early Zionists:
- Theodor Herzl, Deutsche Zeitung, as cited by an Israeli documentary
- Our Shomer 'Weltanschauung' , Hashomer Hatzair, December 1936, p.26. As cited by Lenni Brenner
- The Economic Development of the Jewish People, Ber Borochov, 1916
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Feb 28, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
WASHINGTON, February 28, 2019, 02:27 -- REGNUM members of the house of representatives of the U.S. Congress, Val Demings and Elise Stefanik, have introduced a bill demanding that the intelligence services provide information on the income and property of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports the ABC channel .
According to ABC, the bill called "The Vladimir Putin Transparency Act" has been proposed by these members of the Intelligence Committee. The bill is related to the alleged ambitions of Russia to undermine American democracy. It is assumed that information about Putin's income will help defend democracy in the United States.
Also in January, the U.S. Senate introduced a bill on protection against "Kremlin aggression". The bill also contained a request that the intelligence community provide data on the assets and income of the Russian leader.
Murdock February 28, 2019 at 12:46 am
I'm not the only one here who thinks this is like, weird, right? Right?Mark Chapman February 28, 2019 at 8:33 amForget "Putin Derangement Syndrome", it's gotta be pretty deep into fetish territory now. I can only imagine they would also like to know where he takes his lunch breaks and what he thinks about in the shower too. Perhaps they fantasize about what sweet nothings the Russian head of state whispers into his pillows before falling asleep.
Joke's on them: Putin does not sleep, he waits.
No, you're obviously not the only one who thinks this is weird. Washington's persistent preoccupation with Putin is indeed in fetish territory now; he has become the bogeyman, the witch who brings damaging storms down on American heads, causes crops to fail and cows to give sour milk. I would not be at all surprised to see the House come up with a bill proposing he be tried for witchcraft.Nat February 28, 2019 at 12:09 pmThe only explanation I can offer – except mass craziness brought on by too much junk food – is a propaganda machine which has slipped its governor, and cannot stop churning out ever-more-outrageous claims. The extremes generated on Venezuela are similar in nature – Maduro is the ultimate evil, to the point that no option exists but his immediate overthrow, without which all Venezuelans are doomed to early deaths.
Especially as it was what the Panama papers already tried to do, and failed miserably. In thousands and thousands of published documents, there wasn't anything even remotely belonging to Putin. It only reinforced that there was no "fortune" to find.Jen February 28, 2019 at 2:24 amSomeone probably ought to tell Demings and Stefanik that their bill is the 100,000,001st bill to be put to Congress demanding that all 17 intel agencies in the US pull out all the stops to find Putin's hidden $40 billion fortune, even if they have to lose a few agents on a one-way trip into the heart of the Sun or down the Puerto Rico Trench in search of his assets.Patient Observer February 28, 2019 at 9:50 amYes, a great history lesson and it places events in a proper context regarding Russian behavior as they expanded eastwards. I suspect a "Western" mentality would have slaughtered all of the descendants of Khan empire. No, a Western mentality would slaughter ANY non-Western population regardless of preceding history. Russians and Orthodox Slavs, in general, are forgiving as we see to this very day.Moscow Exile February 28, 2019 at 11:08 amWell, to be fair, Ivan IV's victorious army put the majority of the Kazan population to the sword when the city fell to his forces in 1552 and for the rest of the 16th century, Tatars were forbidden to live in the city, which became Russified. There was official discrimination against Tatars but it lessened as the years passed.yalensis February 28, 2019 at 11:35 amBy the 19th century, Tatars had cornered the market in St.Petersburg and Moscow in the restaurant trade -- as waiters. And I reckon most railway porters at the raiway termini in Moscow are Tatars as well.
I don't think Russians are even necessarily "forgiving", I think it's something else. and I don't believe that this has much, if anything, to do with Christianity. The Russian mentality is fundamentally different from the European mentality.yalensis February 28, 2019 at 11:42 am
Europeans see "others" as sub-humans. Russians simply see people as people. Whether friends or enemies. If enemies, then they are killed in battle, but once the battle is over, they start getting married.I always point to the Russian national poem "The Tale of Igor's Host" as the prime example of this attitude. Prince Igor and the Cumans are fighting to the death. Igor loses. The Cumans take him captive. The Cuman Khan marries his daughter to Igor's son. See, Russians and Cumans have the same attitude here: We fight, and then we get married. That's the difference. (And the Cumans are not Christian.)
That's why it would have been impossible for Russia to have Jim Crow laws like in the U.S., which forbid people of different ethnic groups to get married.And P.S., speaking of racism, I had to get this post off my chest , because I am really worried about certain Russian pundits being infected by American ALT-Rightie type racism.yalensis February 28, 2019 at 11:51 am
I truly believe that biological racism is alien to the Russian mentality, and yet certain individuals are becoming infected, as the American cultural influence spreads.
Not that this particular incident involves actual racism, but it still bothers me that the Russian pundits are starting to use American vocabulary, such as "white people", and that sort of thing.
I personally believe these Catholic "Covington" boys are little shits who needed a cultural slap-down. It's just too bad that those delivering the spanking are barking mad themselves. But such is the American political scene .P.S. – an etymological note. The American term "white cracker" had nothing to do with actual crackers or any other type of foodstuff. It originated in slave times. The "cracker" was the hired hand who "cracked the whip" and beat the slaves. It's all there in that Bible of Slavery, namely Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin". There you can read how slave-owners who were too squeamish (or too lazy) to whip their own slaves, could outsource the punishment to official businesses run by local "crackers" who would strip the skin off human backs, for a fee.Cortes March 1, 2019 at 4:41 pmThe etymology of cracker is probably nonsense. A good starting point for understanding the use of cracker in states originally settled by the "Scots-Irish" ( in today's parlance Ulster Scots) would be the Wikipedia entry on "craic"; I have a book chez Mrs C by a writer from GA making that very argument, that "cracker" was and is the archetypal carnaptious, disputatious rural type who would argue with God Almighty.
A gauche youngster doesn't and didn't deserve to be vilified after being abused by an old attention seeker and useless media and I hope the Covington kid is hugely successful in the litigation. On a literary note, what happened was a good illustration of the "pecking party" memorably described by Kesey in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest."
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Mar 03, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Anytime Donald Trump suggests he might withdraw troops, he is actually shaking down the Zionists, Saudi Royals, and arms merchants for more payoffs.
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Mar 03, 2019 | www.youtube.com
"RT is funded in whole or in part by the Rooskies....." Why doesn't CNN and MSNBC have to disclose their ownership by the CIA?
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Mar 03, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Donald Trump for 2020. Donald Trump jr. for 2024 and 2028. İvanka Trump for 2032 and 2036. Eric trump for 2040 and 2044. Barron Trump for 2048 and 2052.
KEEP AMERİCA GREAT
Real americans loves Donald Trump and his perfect family.
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Mar 02, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
Charles S Ferguson , February 20, 2019 at 3:45 pm
If I were one of the New World Order boys and wanted to destroy or weaken the United States I couldn't choose a better group of incompetent leaders than Pompous, Pence, Bolton, Trump, etc. Their arrogance truly demonstrates the possibility that they really believe what they are saying. A great man once said it well: "If the blind lead the blind they both shall fall into the ditch. Iran is no threat, but has been on the Israeli target board for years. And the Christian Zionists, being deceived by a false interpretation of scriptures, bow to Israel like the lap dogs they are.
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Mar 02, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
fastfreddy , Feb 28, 2019 2:49:48 PM | link
Trump's 11 dimensional chess is a lot like Obama's 11 dimensional chess. Neither could figure out a way to keep warmongers and hateful pricks out of their cabinets, or curtail the war machine in any way, or to stop handing out tax giveaways to people who don't need them.
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unz.com
The neocons are struggling to decide which country will be the next one to invade. Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua, Cuba, North Korea, ... So many good choices but so little time ...
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Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Stringer , Feb 18, 2019 2:29:34 PM | link
Russia's Lavrov snubs US journalist: "Whatever I answer, you'll write what you want"
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Feb 27, 2019 | www.unz.com
Sick of Orcs says: February 26, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT These neocon chickenhawk a-holes are like a parody of Veruca Salt.
"Daddy, I want war with Iran!"
"But, Love, you already have Endless Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and toys in another dozen countries!"
Talha , says: February 26, 2019 at 6:10 pm GMT
@A123The goal of any attack would be containment of the Iranian threat.
(sigh) Yeah, I'm sure any day now Persians are going to be landing boats, D-Day style, on Coney Island I'm certain my cat has nightmares about this, which is why he meows strangely at night for no apparent reason.
I know, I know, I've been through the drill enough times now; "if we don't fight them over there "
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Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com
So here it is, the announcement we've been waiting for all aboard for another cruise on the new and improved U.S.S. Magic Socialist with your captain Bernie Sanders at the helm! If you're not familiar with this extraordinary vessel, it's like the luxury liner in The Magic Christian , except catering to credulous American socialists instead of the British filthy rich. Tickets start at just $27 dollars so hurry, because they're going fast!
That's right, folks, Bernie is back, and this time it's not just a sadistic prank where he gets you all fired up about his fake "revolution" for fifteen months, gets cheated out of the nomination, then backs whichever corporate-bought candidate the Democratic Party orders you to vote for.
No, this time the Bernster really means it! This time, when the DNC rigs the primaries to hand the nomination to Harris, or Biden, or some billionaire android like Michael Bloomberg, Bernie is not going to break your heart by refusing to run as an independent candidate, unbeholden to the corporations and oligarchs that own both political parties, or otherwise make you feel like a sucker for buying his "revolution" schtick. He's not going to fold like a fifty dollar suit and start parroting whatever propaganda the corporate media will be prodigiously spewing to convince you the Russians and Nazis are coming unless you vote for the empire's pre-anointed puppet!
Bernie would never dream of doing that or at least he'd never dream of doing that twice.
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Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com
Sick of Orcs says: February 26, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT These neocon chickenhawk a-holes are like a parody of Veruca Salt.
"Daddy, I want war with Iran!"
"But, Love, you already have Endless Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and toys in another dozen countries!"
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Feb 26, 2019 | www.unz.com
Captain Willard , says: February 25, 2019 at 3:23 pm GMT
Hopkins is on to something here !So I modestly propose that from now on, all Candidates should have to file a prospectus with the SEC just like a stock IPO. After all, candidacies are just barely-camouflaged business enterprises.
Candidates should be required to disclose their business plan for America, including sound business models for all planned or contemplated invasions. I'm tired of pump-and-dump, loss-making invasions like Iraq and Afghanistan wherein only the Insiders benefit. If we're going to bother with Venezuela, shares of Citgo must be shared with all Americans!
Candidates should also show the capitalization table to reveal who owns them. For example, Obama's major ownership of Sanders LLC must be disclosed. Otherwise the gullible young generations who don't yet realize Unilever owns Ben & Jerry's cannot possibly understand who's in charge.
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Feb 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Uncle $cam , Feb 24, 2019 12:08:06 AM | link
From our own MOA poet laureate, Lizard:
A Stable Prez For A Stable Nation
he's a very stable genius
from a very stable clan
with stable people helping
the stable hidden handAmerika, a stable nation
enjoys its stable home
bought with stable wages
on borrowed, stable loansa stable media agrees
and feeds our stable wants
to please their stable owners
and keep their stable jobsour stable future awaits
to fulfill our stable plans
of stable global control
over stable global lands
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Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
by Tyler Durden Sat, 02/23/2019 - 18:25 553 SHARES
Satire or not? You decide...
via Babylon Bee.While Empire actor Jussie Smollett has been having a tough week so far, there appears to be a silver lining : cable news channel CNN has offered Smollett a job as an investigative reporter and on-air anchor after witnessing his skills at fabricating a story entirely out of thin air.
CNN producers were reportedly impressed throughout the ongoing saga of Smollett's apparent hoax attack on himself. They realized early on the facts didn't add up but were fascinated with how well the actor kept the narrative going. An HR rep quickly reached out to Smollett to see if he'd be interested in taking on a position at the news organization after news broke that the entire thing was probably fabricated.
"Smollett has exactly the kind of skills we look for at our fine organization," said CNN correspondent Brian Stelter. "He picked a narrative, made up all the relevant facts and details, and stuck with his story in spite of glaring holes in the plot. It's hard to find people who understand our core values here at CNN , but Smollett seems to be just the guy for us."
The actor has accepted the offer and is now undergoing training to learn how to weave even more intricate narratives ex nihilo , according to insiders.
And having entirely lost any sense of satirical humor, Snopes decided to fact-check Babylon Bee's story...
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Feb 23, 2019 | www.youtube.com
ProteanView , 1 day ago (edited)
Got em! One thing the Dutchie doesn't understand about "scapegoating immigrants." Illegal immigrants provide cheap labor for corporations, some of the very same people he's talking about. Very different than legal immigrants who must be paid minimum wage and are subject to IRS auditing. Putting immigrants in the same pile as illegal immigrants is like holding a bank robber at the same level as a customer at an ATM. "Well, they're both making withdrawals."
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Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Brazen Heist II , 51 minutes ago link
I am Groot , 44 minutes ago linkTaking humanitarian advice from regime changers is like asking Harvey Weinstein to babysit your daughter.
Benito_Camela , 21 minutes ago linkAnd your wife, her friends and your daughter friends.....
And telling him to invite Bill Cosby.
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Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com
Anon [322] Disclaimer , says: February 22, 2019 at 4:29 am GMT
@MoiTo be a real Jew, you have to born a Jew. It is the same for Hindus. Someone should tell Tulsi Gabbard she cannot convert to Hinduism -- she will not be accepted by most Hindus. This is the key reason why Hindus do not believe in propagating their religion.
LOL I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka. She thinks it's for real.
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Feb 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
James Howard Kunstler notes that the #Resistance has been losing bigly in recent days as each new "bombshell" it manufactures turns out only to reveal its modus operandi, which is that the end justifies the means - the end being to evict the wicked Mr. Trump from office and the means being dishonesty and bad faith in its use of the government's prosecutorial machinery.
hanekhw
Schiff is having recruitment problems. There are only so many deaf, dumb and blind Investigators available and, while almost all of them are already employed by the FBI and other government agencies the only available ones are asking phenomenal amounts and perks that he just can't afford.
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Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com
Andrei Martyanov , says: Website February 20, 2019 at 9:41 pm GMT
It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China.
Russia is more than racially closer, Russia is culturally much closer and by culturally I don't mean this cesspool of new "culture". But, as you brilliantly noted:
The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence.
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Feb 19, 2019 | www.unz.com
"An anti-Semite used to mean a man who hated Jews. Now it means a man who is hated by Jews."– Joe Sobran
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Feb 18, 2019 | www.rt.com
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has refused to deny reports that he nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize after being "informally" asked to do so by the White House, in a move that prompted ridicule online.... ... ...
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Feb 18, 2019 | twitter.com
Tulsi Gabbard is a really next-level politician. Any amateur can be a traditional US racist politician, but it takes skill to succeed in America as a Hindu-nationalist racist / tankie Assad apologist.
-- Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt) January 11, 2019
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Feb 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Robert Snefjella | Feb 16, 2019 1:34:44 PM | https://berlinspectator.com/2019/02/11/germans-fear-america-more-than-russia/
approximately 2/3 of Japanese, South Koreans and Mexicans feared the US, and in Germany 49% fear US and only 30% fear Russia.
">link
Curiously, after much Putin and Russia bashing, there was a petition in Alaska in 2014 – at some point it had 30,000 signatures – asking Russia to take Alaska back.
Joke or not, note that in a recent poll
https://berlinspectator.com/2019/02/11/germans-fear-america-more-than-russia/
approximately 2/3 of Japanese, South Koreans and Mexicans feared the US, and in Germany 49% fear US and only 30% fear Russia.">link
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Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Bmc February 17, 2019 at 1:16 am
Why would Max Boot and Bill Kristol want to conquer the middle east in order to spread Americanism while at the same time having nothing but disdain for actual Americans themselves?Hmm (strokes beard)
Hmmmmm (strokes beard more rapidly)
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (tears out beard furiously without abandon)
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Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Alex (the one that likes Ike) February 15, 2019 at 4:39 pm
By the spring of 2018, Kristol was considering a run for president himself.
Jesus H. Christ I don't even know what it is – a blinding hubris or an unbound idiocy. Or both.
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Jul 27, 2018 | thesaker.is
Alex on October 09, 2017 , · at 3:08 pm EST/EDT
Something tells me he doesn't want to push this too much as money for this film came from French and German sources. It is nice to see him sticking his neck out to uphold the Truth.When I watched the US rep. who supposedly investigated this Magnitzky affair for the US gov. state under oath that he never verified any of the info that Browder gave him, I kept thinking "Is this guy serious ?" But when you realize that they never did any investigation then it all seems logical.
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zerohedge.com
[yes, I did not have much influence of Trump]..."Nor did I have any influence on the captain of the Titanic, the operators of the Hindenburg or the 9/11/2001 Terrorism Prevention Team."
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Feb 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Tom Engelhardt via TomDispatch.com,
Hail, Donald J. Trump, we who are about to read your latest tweet salute you!
... ... ...
Let's note some other passing parallels between the new Rome and the old one. As a start, it's certainly accurate to say that our new American Caesar has much gall (divided into at least three parts). Admittedly, he's no Augustus, the first of a line of emperors, but more likely a Nero, fiddling while, in his case, the world quite literally burns . Still, he could certainly say of campaign 2016 and what followed: Veni, Vidi, Tweeti (I came, I saw, I tweeted). And don't forget the classic line that might someday be applied to his presidency, " Et tu , Mueller?" -- or depending on who turns on him, you can fill in your name of choice.
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Feb 14, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Derrick , Feb 14, 2019 2:11:32 PM | link
"What else then can he do?"
Purchase large caliber hand gun
Load gun with large caliber dum dum bullets
Take aim at foot (either will do)
Pull trigger.Oh! Wait! I think he's already done that.
Taffyboy , Feb 14, 2019 3:28:00 PM | link
..."Trump is now committed to 'regime change' in Venezuela. But how can he do it?"...
Well maybe he can show how great he is and drive the aid truck himself personally and then go to Maduro and ask him to leave. That would be a show of force indeed.
Cheers.
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Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com
Maybe Donald Trump isn't as stupid as I thought. I'd hate to have to admit that publicly, but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time. Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn't help but notice a significant decline in the number of references to Weimar, Germany, Adolf Hitler, and " the brink of fascism " that America has supposedly been teetering on since Hillary Clinton lost the election.
I googled around pretty well, I think, but I couldn't find a single editorial warning that Trump is about to summarily cancel the U.S. Constitution, dissolve Congress, and proclaim himself Führer . Nor did I see any mention of Auschwitz , or any other Nazi stuff which is weird, considering that the Hitler hysteria has been a standard feature of the official narrative we've been subjected to for the last two years.
So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under.
I'm referring, of course, to Venezuela, which is one of a handful of uncooperative countries that are not playing ball with global capitalism and which haven't been "regime changed" yet. Trump green-lit the attempted coup purportedly being staged by the Venezuelan "opposition," but which is obviously a U.S. operation, or, rather, a global capitalist operation. As soon as he did, the corporate media immediately suspended calling him a fascist, and comparing him to Adolf Hitler, and so on, and started spewing out blatant propaganda supporting his effort to overthrow the elected government of a sovereign country.
Overthrowing the governments of sovereign countries, destroying their economies, stealing their gold, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of the global capitalist "international community" is not exactly what most folks thought Trump meant by "Make America Great Again." Many Americans have never been to Venezuela, or Syria, or anywhere else the global capitalist empire has been ruthlessly restructuring since shortly after the end of the Cold War. They have not been lying awake at night worrying about Venezuelan democracy, or Syrian democracy, or Ukrainian democracy.
This is not because Americans are a heartless people, or an ignorant or a selfish people. It is because, well, it is because they are Americans (or, rather, because they believe they are Americans), and thus are more interested in the problems of Americans than in the problems of people in faraway lands that have nothing whatsoever to do with America. Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly).
Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela.
The entire global capitalist empire is working in concert to force the elected president of the country out of office. The US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina have officially recognized Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, in spite of the fact that no one elected him. Only the empire's official evil enemies (i.e., Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other uncooperative countries) are objecting to this "democratic" coup. The global financial system (i.e., banks) has frozen (i.e., stolen) Venezuela's assets, and is attempting to transfer them to Guaido so he can buy the Venezuelan military. The corporate media are hammering out the official narrative like a Goebbelsian piano in an effort to convince the general public that all this has something to do with democracy. You would have to be a total moron or hopelessly brainwashed not to recognize what is happening.
What is happening has nothing to do with America the "America" that Americans believe they live in and that many of them want to "make great again." What is happening is exactly what has been happening around the world since the end of the Cold War, albeit most dramatically in the Middle East. The de facto global capitalist empire is restructuring the planet with virtual impunity. It is methodically eliminating any and all impediments to the hegemony of global capitalism, and the privatization and commodification of everything.
Venezuela is one of these impediments. Overthrowing its government has nothing to do with America, or the lives of actual Americans. "America" is not to going conquer Venezuela and plant an American flag on its soil. "America" is not going to steal its oil, ship it "home," and parcel it out to "Americans" in their pickups in the parking lot of Walmart.
What what about those American oil corporations? They want that Venezuelan oil, don't they? Well, sure they do, but here's the thing there are no "American" oil corporations. Corporations, especially multi-billion dollar transnational corporations (e.g., Chevron, ExxonMobil, et al.) have no nationalities, nor any real allegiances, other than to their major shareholders. Chevron, for example, whose major shareholders are asset management and mutual fund companies like Black Rock, The Vanguard Group, SSgA Funds Management, Geode Capital Management, Wellington Management, and other transnational, multi-trillion dollar outfits. Do you really believe that being nominally headquartered in Boston or New York makes these companies "American," or that Deutsche Bank is a "German" bank, or that BP is a "British" company?
And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. Ask yourself, honestly, what have the "American" regime change ops throughout the Greater Middle East done for any actual Americans, other than get a lot of them killed? Oh, and how about those bailouts for all those transnational "American" investment banks? Or the billions "America" provides to Israel? Someone please explain how enriching the shareholders of transnational corporations like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin by selling billions in weapons to Saudi Arabian Islamists is benefiting "the American people." How much of that Saudi money are you seeing? And, wait, I've got another one for you. Call up your friendly 401K manager, ask how your Pfizer shares are doing, then compare that to what you're paying some "American" insurance corporation to not really cover you.
For the last two-hundred years or so, we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as the citizens of a collection of sovereign nation states, as "Americans," "Germans," "Greeks," and so on. There are no more sovereign nation states. Global capitalism has done away with them. Which is why we are experiencing a "neo-nationalist" backlash. Trump, Brexit, the so-called "new populism" these are the death throes of national sovereignty, like the thrashing of a suffocating fish before you whack it and drop it in the cooler. The battle is over, but the fish doesn't know that. It didn't even realize there was a battle until it suddenly got jerked up out of the water.
In any event, here we are, at the advent of the global capitalist empire. We are not going back to the 19th Century, nor even to the early 20th Century. Neither Donald Trump nor anyone else is going to "Make America Great Again." Global capitalism will continue to remake the world into one gigantic marketplace where we work ourselves to death at bullshit jobs in order to buy things we don't need, accumulating debts we can never pay back, the interest on which will further enrich the global capitalist ruling classes, who, as you may have noticed, are preparing for the future by purchasing luxury underground bunkers and post-apocalyptic compounds in New Zealand. That, and militarizing the police, who they will need to maintain "public order" you know, like they are doing in France at the moment, by beating, blinding, and hideously maiming those Gilets Jaunes (i.e., Yellow Vest) protesters that the corporate media are doing their best to demonize and/or render invisible.
Or, who knows, Americans (and other Western consumers) might take a page from those Yellow Vests, set aside their political differences (or at least ignore their hatred of each other long enough to actually try to achieve something), and focus their anger at the politicians and corporations that actually run the empire, as opposed to, you know, illegal immigrants and imaginary legions of Nazis and Russians. In the immortal words of General Buck Turgidson, "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed," but, heck, it might be worth a try, especially since, the way things are going, we are probably going end up out there anyway.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
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Feb 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Einstein101 , 6 hours ago link
schroedingersrat , 6 hours ago linkFurious China Accuses US Of Fabricating Threats, Slams Huawei Boycott As "Hypocritical And Immoral"
Huawei has no one else to blame for this but itself. The way the company has violated US laws, defrauding banks with its attempts to dodge the US sanction on Iran.
The American Sanctions on Iran are an international necessity, They May Even Help To Stop The Misery And Suffering Of The Iranian People.
Look Pompeo is posting on ZH
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Feb 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Tom , Feb 12, 2019 10:58:59 PM | link
psychohistorian #41How much has been spent, to date, on Russiagate? Well it seems that the Muller investigation has cost about $25 million.
The Muller investigation has seized $26.7 million from Manafort plus an additional $1.9 million from others charged my Muller. Must be one of the few government programmes that makes money!
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Feb 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
In a recent statement House leader Nancy Pelosi was reduced to accuse Trump campaign officials of doing their job:
"The indictment of Roger Stone makes clear that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt by top Trump campaign officials to influence the 2016 election and subvert the will of the American people. ...No one called her out for spouting such nonsense.
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Feb 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
frances , Feb 12, 2019 7:27:16 PM | link
Just an aside:Zachary Smith , Feb 12, 2019 7:49:07 PM | link
Saw this comin' from a mile away....the "reluctant candidate":
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-12/michelle-obama-going-run-president-2020@ frances #59...As for myself, I'd vote for a random US citizen chosen from a pool of non-druggie non-criminal people under 65 if such a person was running against Trump. Male, female, black, white, yellow, or purple - but not the wife of Obama.
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Feb 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
While U.S. politicians from both parties have given standing ovations for the U.S. oil and gas industry , investors appear to be losing their enthusiasm. The so-called shale revolution, the fracking miracle, may have resulted in record oil and gas production in North America, but the real miracle -- in which shale companies make money fracking that oil and gas -- has yet to occur.
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Feb 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Summer , February 10, 2019 at 2:22 pm
Summary: Are you are permitted to be a bad guy in Congress and absolutely evil as President? YES.
And the scary part? The 3rd branch, the Judicial branch, is still open for further discussion.
Parker Dooley , February 10, 2019 at 10:38 pm
Apologies to Barry Manilow, but --
I've been alive forever
And I wrote the very first law
I put the weasel words together
I am power and I write the lawsI write the laws that make my wealth increase
I write the laws of war and other hateful things
I write the laws that let the poor folks die
I write the laws, I write the lawsMy home lies far above you
But my claws are deep into your soul
Now, when I ignore your cries
I'm young again, even though I'm very oldI write the laws that make my wealth increase
I write the laws of war and other hateful things
I write the laws that let the poor folks die
I write the laws, I write the lawsOh my greed makes you dance
And lets you know you have no chance
And I wrote foreclosure laws so you must move
Dejection fills your heart
Well, that's a real fine place to start
It's all for me it's not for you
It's all from you, it's all for me
It's a worldwide travestyI write the laws that make my wealth increase
I write the laws of war and other hateful things
I write the laws that let the poor folks die
I write the laws, I write the lawsI write the laws that make my wealth increase
I write the laws of war and other hateful things
I write the laws that let the poor folks die
I write the laws, I write the laws
I am power and I write the laws
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Feb 10, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Published on Feb 8, 2019
'We have a system that is fundamentally broken.' -- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is explaining just how f*cked campaign finance laws really are.
" Subscribe to NowThis: http://go.nowth.is/News_SubscribeIn the latest liberal news and political news, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made headlines at a recent congressional hearing on money in politics by explaining and inquiring about political corruption. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, aka AOC, went into the issues of lobbyists and Super PACs and how the political establishment, including Donald Trump, uses big money to their advantage, to hide and obfuscate, and push crooked agendas. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is a rising star in the Democratic Party and House of Representatives.
#AlexandriaOcasioCortez #AOC #DarkMoney #politics
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Avembe , 2 days agoGood for her. Unfortunately a number of American citizens aren't intelligent enough to realize this exact scenario is playing out right now!
ATX World , 2 days agoOMG this lady is just a nuclear weapon by herself.
TrueDaxian , 2 days agoLove this feisty congresswoman. I can see why AOC is dislike by the right and even many democrats. She's in DC to work for the American ppl and not enrich herself or special interest. Love the 2018 class and hope they make changes and clean up DC.
Lani Tuitupou , 2 days agoAOC is amazing, pointing out all the fundamental wrongs in our political system. I hope she stays in Congress as long as possible to spread her influence.
Michael Zinns , 2 days agoTrue bravery and leadership in the face of corruption ! I love this woman
Aracelis Morales Garcia de Ramos , 2 days agoAOC is speaking out when no one else will about the corruption in Washington. She is disliked because she is actually fighting for people. This makes me want to move to New York just so I can vote for her. Keep it up the pressure.
She is going to be needing extra security. She's poised to take them down and we know how these things have been handled in the past. I'm loving her fearlessness but worry for her safety. May she be protected and blessed. SMIB
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Oct 06, 2017 | www.theonion.com
If last year's election showed us anything, it's that anger and resentment are on the rise. I hear it from small business owners and working-class families, from millennials and retirees. There's a sense that we've lost our way, and that the blame rests squarely on our nation's leadership. Simply put, Americans are sick of being patronized and sick of the same old ideas that we, as Democrats, are going to keep offering them over and over and over again.
The frustration is palpable. People are fed up with the status quo. Citizens from all walks of life are sitting around their dinner tables, talking about how they've had it with all the usual proposals that, once more, we will be repackaging and spoon-feeding to them in a way that's entirely transparent and frankly condescending.
That's something every American can count on.
It's no wonder voters are furious. Politics-as-usual has failed them, and they desperately want change that the Democratic Party has no plan to bring about in any meaningful way. But let me assure you, when our constituents tell us they've had enough broken promises, when they say our actions haven't addressed their needs, we listen. We hear your concerns -- hear them loud and clear -- then immediately discard them and revert back to the exact same ineffectual strategies we've been rallying behind for years.
It doesn't take a genius to see what the polls are telling us. Voters by the millions dislike our cozying up to Wall Street, our hopelessly out-of-touch elitism, our support for never-ending military entanglements, our blindness to the plight of rural communities decimated by globalization, and our failure to expand opportunities for American workers. So what are we going to do about it? Well, after taking all this into account, after taking a good hard look at ourselves and doing some serious soul-searching, I'm pleased to announce that .... Democrats will continue to run on the same set of platitudes we've been trotting out since at least the 1990s.
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Feb 09, 2019 | politics.theonion.com
1. WHY DOES BOOKER WANT TO BE PRESIDENT?
Hopes it could finally be his ticket out of New Jersey.
... ... ...
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Feb 09, 2019 | politics.theonion.com
WASHINGTON -- Expressing frustration at the obnoxious, nonstop attempts to aid his investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller was reportedly annoyed Friday that a chipper, overeager Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) keeps constantly sending him evidence he's already uncovered. "Christ, he just emailed me ...
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Sep 23, 1998 | home.isi.org
CITY OF DIS, NETHER HELL
After nearly four years of construction at an estimated cost of 750 million souls, Corpadverticus, the new 10th circle of Hell, finally opened its doors Monday.
Tenth Circle Added To Rapidly Growing Hell
The Blockbuster Video-sponsored circle, located in Nether Hell between the former eighth and ninth levels of Malebolge and Cocytus, is expected to greatly alleviate the overcrowding problems that have plagued the infernal underworld in recent years. The circle is the first added to Hell in its countless-millennia history.
"A nightmarishly large glut of condemned spirits in recent years necessitated the expansion of Hell," inferno spokesperson Antedeus said. "The traditional nine-tiered system had grown insufficient to accommodate the exponentially rising numbers of Hellbound."
Adding to the need for expansion, Antedeus said, was the fact that a majority of the new arrivals possessed souls far more evil than the original nine circles were equipped to handle. "Demographers, advertising executives, tobacco lobbyists, monopoly-law experts retained by major corporations, and creators of office-based sitcoms–these new arrivals represent a wave of spiritual decay and horror the likes of which Hell has never before seen," Antedeus said.
Despite the need for expansion, the plan faced considerable resistance, largely due to the considerable costs of insuring construction projects within the Kingdom Of Lies. Opposition also came from Hell purists concerned about the detrimental effect a tenth level would have on the intricate numerology of Hell's meticulously arranged allegorical structure. In 1994, however, funding was finally secured in a deal brokered between Blockbuster CEO Wayne Huizenga and Satan himself.
Prior to the construction of the tenth circle, many among the new wave of sinners had been placed in such circles as Hoarders and Squanderers, Sowers of Discord, Flatterers and Seducers, Violent Against Art, and Hypocrites. Hell authorities, however, say that the new level, the Circle of Total Bastards, located at the site of the former Well of Giants just above the Frozen Lake at Hell's center, better suits their insidious brand of evil.
Frigax The Vile, a leading demonic presence, is one of the most vocal supporters of the new circle.
" In the past, the underworld was ill-equipped to handle the new breed of sinners flooding our gates -- downsizing CEOs, focus-group coordinators, telemarketing sales representatives, and vast hordes of pony-tailed entertainment-industry executives rollerblading and talking on miniaturized cell-phones at the same time. But now, we've finally got the sort of top-notch Pits of Doom necessary to give such repellent abominations the quality boilings they deserve."
Pausing to tear off the limbs of an Access Hollywood host, Frigax added, "We're all tremendously excited about the many brand-new forms of torture and eternal pain this new level's state-of-the-art facilities will make possible."
Among the tortures the Corpadverticus Circle of Total Bastards boasts: the Never-Ending Drive-Thru Bank, the Bottomless Pit of Promotional Tie-In Keychains, and the dreaded Chamber of Emotionally Manipulative Home Shopping Network Products.
The Circle also features a Hall of Aerobics, where condemned TV-exercise-show personalities, clad in skin-tight Spandex outfits soaked in flesh-dissolving acid, are forced to exercise for centuries on end , covered in vomit and prodded with the distended ribs of skeletal, anorexic demons, accompanied by an unending, ear-splittingly loud dance-remix version of the 1988 Rick Astley hit "Together Forever."
In a nearby area, corporate raiders are forced to carry the golf clubs of uneducated Hispanic migrant workers from hole to hole for eternity, withering under a constant barrage of verbal abuse from their former subservients as crows descend from trees to peck at their eyes. In one of the deepest and most profane portions of the circle, unspeakable acts are said to be committed with a mail-order Roly-Kit.
"In life, I was a Salomon Brothers investment banker," one flame-blackened shade told reporters. "When I arrived here, they didn't know what to do with me. They put me in with those condemned to walk backwards with their heads turned all the way around on their necks, for the crime of attempting to see the future. But then I sent a couple of fruit baskets to the right people, and in no time flat, I secured a cushy spot for myself in the first circle of the Virtuous Unbaptized. Now that was a sweet deal. But before long, they caught on to my game and transferred me here to the realm of Total Bastards. I've been shrieking for mercy like a goddamn woman ever since."
His face contorted in the Misery of the Damned, a Disney lawyer said: "It's hell here–there are no executive lounges, I can't get any decent risotto, and the suit I have to wear is a cheap Brooks Brothers knock-off. I'm beeped every 30 seconds, and there's no way to return the calls. Plus, I'm being boiled upside down in lard while jackals gnaw at the soles of my feet. If I could just reach the fax machine on that nearby rock, I could contact some well-placed associates and work something out, but it's just out of my grasp, and it's out of ink and constantly blinking the message, 'Replace Toner Cartridge, Replace Toner Cartridge, Replace Toner Cartridge.'"
He then resumed screaming in agony.
Grogar The Malefic, a Captain in Hell's elite Demon Corps and supervisor in charge of admissions for the new circle, said Hell's future looks bright, thanks to the new circle.
"Things are definitely looking up," Grogar said. "We're now far better equipped, and we're ready to take on the most Unholy Atrocities humanity has to offer."
"We're really on the grow down here," Grogar added. "This is an exciting time to be in Hell."
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Feb 09, 2019 | off-guardian.org
Andy says Jan, 31, 2019
Trump making Bolton look like the paragon of discretion re oil https://youtu.be/4huS-3-Gs74
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Feb 08, 2019 | off-guardian.org
mark says Jan, 31, 2019
There was one leading US politician whose name escapes me for the moment. When Chavez was president, he complained bitterly that Venezuela's oil wealth was being squandered on things like healthcare, education, literacy and welfare. It could have been given instead to hard pressed Wall Street fund managers in bigger bonuses. He wasn't being ironic.
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Feb 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
different clue -> smoothieX12 . , 3 hours ago
EUrope has more overall people and more overall economic activity than the US has. EUrope does not have to be under any thumb which the current Lords of EUrope do not exactly want EUrope to be under.EUrope is legally free to dissolve NATO from its end any time it likes. If they want to have their own "after-NATO" defense organization, they can set it up just for their side of the Atlantic, which is the Eastern Side. They could call it NEATO . . . for North East Atlantic Treaty Organization. NEATO . . . get it?
As to America becoming a normal country among normal countries . . . that would require a change of hearts and minds. It could be done, but only from within America its own self. And as the joke goes . . . How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?Only one. But the light bulb has to want to change.
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Feb 07, 2019 | www.unz.com
Cyrano , says: February 7, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT
You'd think that US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few years.After all, both countries had their presidents installed by an unfriendly foreign power – in the case of US – that was Russia and in the case of Venezuela – that's US that did them the favor of choosing the proper president for them.
It's common knowledge now that without the Russian interference in the US electoral system – which as we all know works like a clockwork (orange), Trump would have never been elected as president of US – because that's not who they are.
And now the US – embittered by that experience -has decided to do the same thing to Venezuela. I see bad Russian influence everywhere. I think that indirectly – Russia is responsible for the crisis in Venezuela. If they hadn't elected Trump for president in US, it would have never occurred to the Americans that it could be done. That's not how democracies work.
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Feb 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
"IMO the Democrat women in their white Vestal attire looked like a flock of Harpies gathered for the kill."Hilarious, this is one reason I love reading this blog.
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Feb 06, 2019 | www.youtube.com
FrozenWolf150 , 1 week ago
Bari: "I think Tulsi Gabbard is an Assad toadie."
Joe: "What do you mean by toadie?"Bari: "Oh, I don't know what that means."
Joe: "Okay, I looked it up, and it's like a sycophant."Bari: "Then Tulsi is like an Assad sycophant."
Joe: "So what do you mean by that?"Bari: "I'm not sure what sycophant means either."
Joe: "I looked up the definition, it's like a suck-up."Bari: "All right, Tulsi is an Assad suck-up."
Joe: "Could you explain that further?"Bari: "I don't know what suck means."
Joe: "It's what you're doing right now.""Am I crazy?" No. Crazy and dumb are two different things. You are just dumb.
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Feb 05, 2019 | local.theonion.com
CLEVELAND -- In a devastatingly sad overestimation of his influence in the professional world, local father Bruce Tenety, 54, expressed the heartbreaking belief Monday that his connections could help his son Justin, a recent college graduate, find a job. "You know, I actually have a friend in the media business, and if you shoot him an email and meet up for coffee, he just might be able to hook you up with something," said Tenety, who depressingly appeared to be under the impression that this tenuous contact from a conference he attended three years ago would not only remember his name, but would also be willing to extend an offer of employment to a 23-year-old he knows nothing about.
"I also know a guy who works at a PR firm in Mayfield Heights. Old Gary definitely owes me one from back in the day.
Hell, you could probably call him up right now and get an interview this week. Just tell him you're Bruce's kid."
At press time, sources confirmed Tenety had noticed his name was suspiciously absent from the references section on his son's most recent job application.
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Feb 05, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
"Stocks have reached a permanently high plateau", "subprime is contained", "there's no icebergs this far south" and now "The Fed's balance sheet is not the threat that people seem to think it is."
Man's ability to willfully ignore 'downside possibilities' and remain cognitively dissonant far longer than logic (or their pocketbook) should allow seems to know no bound and none other than The Federal Reserve's Bill Dudley just unleashed what could be the piece de resistance of "nothing to see here, move along" agitprop.
fersur , 19 minutes ago link
costa ludus , 42 minutes ago linkGreat Picture' Cowboying a Nuke while discussing confidence in the FED, quite appropo' !
TRUTH @ 9:00; Plus this week, Friday will be Huge !
Should a seated President jail someone that attempted his Assassination, or a Former President that planned to Nuke the Yellowstone Super Volcano Caldera, or someone that sold email password to China and CC copied all 'to and from' messages including those highly Confidential, or blame a former President for planning 911 False Flag attack, or expose Planned Parenthoods first Amputating tongues for silently shipping in bulk, or expose Democrat history of Decades of Projecting blame while committing War Crimes, or end 19 Year War in Afghanistan ( Longest War ) then Syria against Last Night's Congressional Vote to keep status quo, or 'take a knee' and quit being President !
Is this from The Onion?
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Feb 05, 2019 | www.youtube.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9QOVk0x1Vw
JJL90 , 1 month ago (edited)
The emergency room visits are lower when you have bombed all the emergency rooms :D
So when you stop bombing the hell out of them, they can actually rebuild an emergency room, and visits go up :DDDD
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Feb 05, 2019 | www.youtube.com
tom burton , 15 hours agoBari Weiss is the monstrous motherlode of ineptitude, it would appear.
Robert Harper , 17 hours agoBari Weiss's next column: Joe Rogan is a toady of Tulsi Gabbard.
Mike Honcho , 17 hours agoNow it is easy to understand why I stopped my nyt subscription.
Unbelievable! It's like Joe is interviewing an airhead middle school mean girl.
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Feb 05, 2019 | www.aol.com
... Conservative commentator Ann Coulter lashed out at President Donald Trump Friday night over his signing of a bill that would temporarily open the government that did not include any money for his border wall. Coulter slammed Trump for the concession, telling "Real Time" host Bill Maher *that the president had broken* "the promise he made every day for 18 months."
"Now you're finding out he's a lying con man," Maher said. "What was your first clue?"
Over laughs and shouts from the audience, Coulter replied "Okay, I'm a very stupid girl, fine."...
... ... ...
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Feb 05, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
As one Washington Post headline observed at the time based on hard data : The less Americans know about Ukraine's location, the more they want to intervene . And now insert most any third world country targeted by Washington over the past few decades.
fudly , 3 minutes ago link
"The responses from members of Congress painted a shocking picture of ignorance, hypocrisy"
Lets just stop at ignorance, that pretty much covers it. What a pack of turds and this is supposed to be the political elite in this country. Would it even be possible to have an intelligent conversation with this rabble? Would you want to try?
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Feb 05, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
This latest ratcheting up of tensions between Moscow and Washington was wholly avoidable – that is, if avoiding confrontation is a goal of the US. Clearly, it is not. The unpredictable hotheads now dictating foreign policy in the Trump administration, particularly National Security Advisor John Bolton, a veteran hawk who the Washington Post recently called a " serial arms control killer, " have somehow concluded that playing a game of nuclear chicken on the European continent with Russia is the best way to resolve bilateral issues.
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Feb 05, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jen , Feb 3, 2019 10:37:30 PM | link
Red Ryder @ 30, Peter AU 1 @ 48:If corruption or mismanaging a country's economy were justification for foreign intervention to remove a leader, Israelis should be lobbying Washington DC to remove Binyamin Netanyahu as their prime minister since he and his wife Sara have been charged by police for fraud and bribery.
Indeed, depending on how it defines corruption, whether vaguely or narrowly, and on what criteria, the US would have its work cut out for decades hunting down "corrupt" politicians.
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Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com
NoseytheDuke , says: February 5, 2019 at 1:35 am GMT
@Johnny Rico Thanks for that Johnny. I'm sure that you also know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, Gadaffi is killing his own people, there is a civil war underway in Syria, Russia has invaded Ukraine and Israel is the only democracy in the ME.Oh, and there are no potholes in the roads of America, it being the worlds number one economy.
Carry on
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Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com
Agent76 , says: February 4, 2019 at 3:59 pm GMT
Jan 31, 2019 Trump and the MAGA Crowd Embrace the Neocon Plan for Venezuela. Is it fair to call MAGA neocon lite, or possibly MAGAcons?https://kurtnimmo.blog/2019/01/31/trump-and-the-maga-crowd-embrace-the-neocon-plan-for-venezuela/
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Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com
AnonFromTN , says: February 3, 2019 at 10:15 pm GMT
@Sergey KriegerCNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV.
That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and overseas. The less the population knows, the easier it is to lie to it.
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Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com
Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt, or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).
And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of dignity.
...Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid as there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they felt the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the strong smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions.
The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.
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Feb 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
The manufacturing economy that made America great in the 1950s is back (not). Unemployment has been vanquished (not). We are "energy independent" (not). The once-again rising stock market is proof-of-life for US business prospects (not). We have the best medical care and higher ed in the world (cough cough). It would all come as a surprise to the people dining on dog food with ketchup out in the flyover precincts - but they are not exactly the types to sit around and listen to Don Lemon and Jeffrey Toobin dissect the speech post-game.
Following the new-ish tradition of a designated opposition respondent to the SOTU, Democratic sore loser Stacy Abrams (Georgia Governor's race, 2018), will virtue-signal her party's dedication to identity politics, concealing its dark connection to the Wall Street / K Street grift machine, and to the Neocon war hawks so eager to manufacture failed states in parts of the world that are too bothersome to try to get along with. I suppose she will try to revive the Russian collusion angle, with a spin on how the Georgia election of 2018 was also rigged by malign forces to prevent her victory.
Mostly though, Ms. Abrams will extol the wonders and marvels of free health care and free college for all under the coming 2020 Democratic Party landslide, a comfy-cozy future of women-led caring-and-sharing, plus the promise of punishing taxes-to-come on super-rich toffs like Mr. Trump. The media will eat it up. Ms. Abrams will then be promoted as the next vice-president. The party's strategy is to get every female voter in America on-board along with its supplemental People-of-Color-and-LBGTQ army for a surefire electoral victory. I can see that possibly working, but is it a good fate for the country to be literally divvied up between a women's party and a men's party?
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Feb 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Trump wants to keep U.S. forces in Iraq so they can "watch" Iran:
President Trump plans to keep United States troops in Iraq to monitor and maintain pressure on neighboring Iran, committing to an American military presence in the region's war zones even as he moves to withdraw forces from Syria and Afghanistan.
"I want to be able to watch Iran," Mr. Trump said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We're going to keep watching and we're going to keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we're going to know it before they do."
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Feb 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
It's conceivable, in a nation that absolutely can't make sense of itself , that Mr. Trump's annual report to congress will be as incomprehensible as this year's Superbowl halftime show .
Even the weather in Atlanta was a complete mystery with Maroon 5's front man, Adam Levine, capering half-naked in tattoo drag amid artificial fires-of-hell, and then local hero rapper Big Boi's triumphal entry in a limo, nearly lost inside what looked like the pelt of a giant ground sloth - an eight-year-old's idea of what it means to be important. Or maybe it was just all code for two sides of the climate change debate.
You can be sure the atmosphere will be frosty to the max when the Golden Golem of Greatness lumbers down the aisle of congress's house on Tuesday night. I wouldn't be surprised if the Democratic majority turns its backs on him during the always excruciating preliminaries and then just walks out of the chamber. Don't expect the usual excessive rounds of applause from the president's own party this time, either, in the big, half-empty room. They don't know what to do about him at this point... or what to do with themselves, for that matter.
The running theme for State of the Union (SOTU) messages going back to Ronald Reagan is American Wonderfulness , so expect at least forty minutes of national self-esteem therapy, which nobody will believe. Throw in another ten minutes of elevating sob stories about "special guests" up in the galleries. But leave a little time for Mr. Trump to roll a few cherry bombs down the aisles. He must be good and goddam sick of all the guff shoveled at him for two years.
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Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com
onebornfree , says: Website January 30, 2019 at 9:15 pm GMT
"So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world and interfere with elections is perfectly fine? Because democracy? Riiiiiiight." :https://www.corbettreport.com/election-interference-is-ok-when-uncle-sam-does-it-propagandawatch/
Regards, onebornfree
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Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com
El Dato , says: January 30, 2019 at 10:11 pm GMT
@SeanNEOCON America does not want Russian bombers in South America.
Real America doesn't give a f*ck. Bombers are so last century, might as well put up machine-gun equipped Union Pacific Big Boys to make it marginally more steampunk and become a real danger for the USA.
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Feb 03, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
cripes , February 2, 2019 at 4:12 am
Ger , Feb 1, 2019 4:50:39 PM | linkImagine the response of the USA Goobermint if, in an obverse scenario of the Venezuelan fiasco, the Roosians and Chai-nese decided Trump was an undemocratic dictator and declared they are depositing all USA payments they owe into Bernie Sander's accounts?
Oh, I'm sorry, bad analogy: unlike Guaido, Sanders actually ran and would be hanging around the oval office if we had a democracy.
I note by other sources "Acting President of The United State", John Bolton, has stated he will send President Murado to Gitmo .....Apparently, a coup took place and Trump has been demoted from Chief Moron to Acting Moron of the United States.Ghost Ship , Feb 1, 2019 5:34:18 PM | linkExpect the Venezuelan White Helmets to appear real soon. This "project" is being run using the same plan as Syria. This means that shortly there will be reports that the Bolivarian government has used chemical weapons it doesn't have against the "freedom fighters".
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Feb 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Anonymous_Beneficiary , 1 hour ago link
(To the tune of Grateful Dead -Estimated Prophet)
The Orange Stooge
Makes Trumptards Snooze
While Neocons Schmooze
To Make Israhell HUGE
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Jan 31, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Oh , , January 31, 2019 at 12:40 pm
Bushie used the term "rule of law" and fooled a lot of people.
Most people don't realize that the more money you have more you can exercise the "rule of law".
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Jan 31, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
The Rev Kev , , January 31, 2019 at 8:08 am
Do you think that the Guardian will shortly report that Iraq's WMD were snuck out of Iraq and hidden in Venezuela all those years ago?
Colonel Smithers , , January 31, 2019 at 8:36 am
Thank you, Kev.
Please don't give the scoundrels at King's Place any ideas.
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Jan 31, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
At the other end of the spectrum, the Jerusalem Post reports that Nikki Haley is currently in Israel and charging $200,000 per speech.ancient archer -> Pat Lang , 7 hours agoHaley is getting paid for services already rendered. (Un)fortunately you haven't served those folks too well!! And you can be proud of that!
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Jan 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
NAV 2 hours ago
Ron Paul: Trump's Venezuela Fiasco
"It's ironic that a president who has spent the first two years in office fighting charges that a foreign country meddled in the US elections would turn around and not only meddle in foreign elections but actually demand the right to name a foreign country's president!
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Jan 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
schroedingersrat, 5 hours agoTrump is a psychopath and he loves to hire even bigger psychopaths. Your whole admin is a swamp of sociopaths, psychopaths and other sick deranged people.
TGF Texas, 5 hours ago link
schroedingersrat, 38 minutes ago linkWhen did he hire Hillary?
There is not much difference between Hillary and Pompeo. Pompeo is basically Hillary with a **** and a religious twist
bshirley1968, 2 hours ago
Thinking? Well that's a stretch of the imagination, but let me suggest this......
- The opposition hates me. I can do no right.
- The Trumptards blindly support me. I can do no wrong.
- There are not enough independent thinkers to make a difference as the two main sides bitterly fight eachother over every minute, meaningless issue.
- I can pretty much do as I please without consequence.....like pay off all my buddies and pander to the jews/globalist/elites.
That could be what he is thinking. But I can bet you anything that there isn't a Trumptard out there that can comment here and give us a rational reason for this appointment. Oh, they can down vote because they don't like being called Trumptards. .....but they don't mind being one.
NAV, 2 hours ago
Who knew that in electing Trump we were electing the ultimate politician? His "art of the deal" is nothing but politics 101: Blame both sides, apologize for your side, and immediately surrender your stronger points while praising the weak points of your opponent. And when you have a chance, give up; sacrifice your friends and appoint their enemies, and, last but not least, look everybody in the eye and say, "I didn't steal the money, "mistakes were made."
williambanzai7, 4 hours ago
Wondering who is getting fucked?
NAV
We are.
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Jan 27, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Investors are becoming desensitized," Bryce Doty, SVP at Sit Investment Associates, told Bloomberg, then continued the verbal poetry: "It's like watching 'Pulp Fiction.' Halfway through, the violence doesn't even bother you anymore."
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Jan 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
SirNancy Pelosi is worth several hundred million dollars. I don't think she's a Marxist in the classical sense. Although she would fit the classic Soviet politburo member with their private dachas on the Black Sea...
...Nancy believes she is now the opposition leader with the mandate from the Party of Davos to ensure the defeat of Trump...
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Jan 15, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
... ... ...
Why, it is apparently the following, which is surely a red hot smoking gun. That is, one that condemns the FBI, not Trump; and shows that the NYT , which once courageously published the Pentagon Papers and had earned the above sobriquet for its journalistic stateliness, sense of responsibility and possession of high virtue, has degenerated into a War Party shill – not to say the journalistic equivalent of a comfort woman:Mr. Trump had caught the attention of FBI counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack into the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump had refused to criticize Russia on the campaign trail, praising President Vladimir V. Putin. And investigators had watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia.
Well, for crying out loud!
Any journalist worth his salt would know that Trump's July 2016 shout-out to the Russians was a campaign joke. At best, it was merely an attempt to cleverly state in one more way the running GOP theme about Hillary's missing 30,000 emails. How many times before that had Sean Hannity delivered his riff about Hillary's alleged hammer-smashing of 13 devices and acid-washing with BleachBit of the missing emails?
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Jan 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
pasha , Jan 23, 2019 9:47:38 AM | link
What about this from the Guardian, which has bent over for the deep state since the Snowden affair?
It took me a minute to pick my jaw up off the floor.
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Jan 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via ConsortiumNews.com,
A new, updated data set is now available on a psychological phenomenon that has been labeled "Trump Anxiety Disorder" or "Trump Hypersensitive Unexplained Disorder," and it says that the phenomenon only got worse in 2018.
The disorder is described as a specific type of anxiety in which symptoms "were specific to the election of Trump and the resultant unpredictable sociopolitical climate," and according to the 2018 surveys Americans are feeling significantly more stressed by the future of their country and the current political environment than they were last year.
Pacific Standard reports as follows:
"As the possibility of a Hillary Clinton victory began to slip away -- and the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency became more and more certain -- the contours of the new age of American anxiety began to take shape . In a 2017 column, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank described this phenomenon as "Trump Hypertensive Unexplained Disorder": Overeating. Headaches. Fainting. Irregular heartbeat. Chronic neck pain. Depression. Irritable bowel syndrome. Tightness in the chest. Shortness of breath. Teeth grinding. Stomach ulcer. Indigestion. Shingles. Eye twitching. Nausea. Irritability. High blood sugar. Tinnitus. Reduced immunity. Racing pulse. Shaking limbs. Hair loss. Acid reflux. Deteriorating vision. Stroke. Heart attack. It was a veritable organ recital.
Two years later, the physiological effects of the Trump administration aren't going away. A growing body of research has tracked the detrimental impacts of Trump-related stress on broad segments of the American population, from young adults to women , to racial and LGBT communities .
The results aren't good."
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Jan 22, 2019 | www.theglobeandmail.com
Jared Yates Sexton is an associate professor at Georgia Southern University. He is the author of The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage.
This is, above all, a very real and very dangerous crisis. The time to wring our hands and hide behind faith and disbelief are over. To fully counter this possible betrayal we must look it dead in the face and begin to change our perception of what is feasible.
Mr. Trump has capitalized on the good faith of the American people. In order to start healing, we must accept that, with this administration, with this group, with this movement that Mr. Trump embodies, almost anything is possible.
Opiedog , 3 days ago
Ramsey0 , 6 days agoWhat you are witnessing is the decline in American influence and might. This is very similar to the decline of the Roman Empire. Slow degradation of social norms. Donald is not the cause of this but we are in real time witnessing the decline of America.
dbns , 1 week agoI canceled my subscription to the Globalist and Mail it'll expire at the end of this month but I must say, I'm going to miss reading all the comedy I have found in this paper, particularly in its comment sections.
MG-TD , 1 week agoAt this point I think it would be much worse if Trump isn't a Russian agent. At least being a Russian agent would make the ruination of the US a valid goal. If he truly isn't an agent, he's just ruining the US for the fun of it?
Unlimited reader , 6 days agoWhere is James Bond when you need him?
Globu , 1 week agoI'm waiting eagerly for Bruce Willis to show up and save the USA
M. Gavin , 1 week agoWhy the surprise? Mr. Trump is the very embodiment of the same cutthroat capitalism that has defined America since colonization, slavery and the Trail of Tears.
Trump is not an enemy of America. He is America at its strongest and most sinister form, just the way Wall Street likes it. If Americans want a better society, they'd better stop asking to be led by grifters and take the lead themselves.
tinman1957 , 1 week agoOne can see why this is in the Opinion section. It's melodramatic, devoid of facts, offers no reliable sources, fails to demonstrate motives, etc., etc. It's less obvious why the Globe would publish it at all, because "news" like this we can get listening to the barber.
Andrew Smith , 1 week agoThis guy isn't offering any news or opinion of concern he is just venting his hatred.
Globu , 1 week agoThe author is an associate professor of creative writing at a community college and it shows.
wellworn , 6 days ago"Special to the Globe" always translates to chequebook journalism.
wglenm , 1 week agoHe is an associate professor of Writing and Linguistics; there is nothing in the profile to suggest "creative" writing. I suspect that you creatively included the word to discredit the very plausible premise that trump is an agent working for Russia; he certainly is not working for the United States of America.
Personally I believe trump should be thoroughly investigated by the House committee to look at his tax returns and banking records to determine how much money trump and company have earned from Russian sources.
just as good as you , 1 week agoWho chooses the opinion pieces for this newspaper? This article is a completely one sided joke.
bdtaylor , 1 week agoIt IS - as you admit - an OPINION.
if Trump is such a boob, m_oron, rube and nitwitt that CNN and MSNBC make him out to be, then how has he managed to fool the most sophisticated surveillance network in the world: namely the CIA and NSA. if Trump was a Russian "Manchurian" candidate, does anyone actually think the CIA and NSA wouldn't have figured that out 2 years ago?
All we have are platitudes and no real evidence. Is their a bunch of corrupt people and dealing around Trump, yup (Michael Cohen, Maniford and probably others) is their actual Russian "conspiracy" NOPE.
This entire RussiaGate conspiracy was started by Robby Mook and John Podesta of the DNC (with the support of Clinton) to justify the embarrassment of losing to Trump in 2016. Imagine losing to Trump a complete political novice that Hillary outspent 2.5x (she spent almost $1Bil USD and still LOST).
Turn on your critical thinking and this entire RussiaGate is one big joke.
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Jan 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
BandGap , 2 hours ago link
Retirement? Hahahahahahahahahaha! Whatever.
in 2008 I switched everything into bonds, didn't lose anything in the market. In 2011 I got divorced and lost 55%. My advice, stay married.
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Jan 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Norfry , 43 minutes ago link
DEDA CVETKO , 1 hour ago linkBritish authorities have refined to a whole new level offering bald faced lies and patent absurdities with a dignified stiff upper lip. I have it from a highly placed source that envious American and Israeli official and unofficial liars have been practicing posturing as dignified and putting glue on their upper lips.
The only thing missing from this godawful Broadway screenplay is the lurid description of the violent sex between Sergei Scripal and Colonel McCourt and we have a 2019 Bad Sex Award laureate.
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Jan 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
skunzie , 39 minutes ago link
Buzzfeed's CEO should do the honorable thing and commit hari kari like the Japanese do when losing face, then the company should close up shop.
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Jan 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Brad F January 18, 2019 at 10:26 am
Dear ElitesWe appreciate that you have built a successful career and/or business under the prevailing laws, and that changing these laws would cause the destruction and/or appropriation of much of your wealth (while costing us little).
Nonetheless we've had a vote and decided that we will indeed go ahead and make these changes. Sorry about your luck. What? You don't agree! Don't you believe in democracy? You hypocrite you!
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Jan 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jackrabbit , Jan 20, 2019 8:57:31 PM | link
Putin weaponized Skripal's Persian Cat!!
Breaking News
The Integrity-lacking Initiative can now report that contamination in the Skripal home has been explained to a high degree of supposition. Unofficial sources surmise that the Skripal's prized Persian feline distributed the deadly Novichok throughout the house and was particularly attracted to birds nesting in or near the attic as the hungry cat-spy slowly starved in the boarded-up house.
Hundreds of British birds may have been infected by Putin's Persian distributor, putting thousands of British citizens at risk of toxic bird poop. An estimated 239.45 thousand British subjects are struck by bird poop every year and 11 million clean bird poop from their windows/windscreen.
Renown British secret agent Austin Powers marveled at the evil cunning of the devious Russians: "Sharks with frick'n lasers are bad but this is crazy, baby!" Powers explained that Russian cross-species research is deeply concerning to the fictional secret agent community.
Salisbury resident and avowed cat-lover, Misty Englander reacted with horror when she heard the news. As her mother carried the seven-year old away, Misty cried: "Please make Putin and the Iran Mullahs pay for this atrocity!" Or, words to that effect.
We await Teresa May's response to Misty's plea.
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Jan 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
spudski , Jan 20, 2019 3:33:42 PM | link
Reader's comment at Naked Capitalism:
"Capitalism works, because those who benefit from it, get to decide whether it works or not"
- vidimi, posted on January 18, 2019 at 7:36 am
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Jan 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Bruce , Jan 20, 2019 1:04:15 PM | 5 ">link
" The officer, who was hospitalised after being exposed to Novichok last March, is on duty once again. - Yulia Skripal recovered in less than ten weeks. Why did it take the doorknobichok™
Det Sgt Nick Bailey a full ten month to come back to work?"
Yulia Skirpal is a Russian woman - Pushkin advises a Russian woman can stop a wild horse.
Women who grow up in Russian villages that encounter a military grade nerve agent will try to walk it off. No disrespect meant for British bobbies but they are snowflakes by comparison.
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Jan 20, 2019 | www.unz.com
padre says: January 20, 2019 at 10:53 am GMT
Unlike the USA, they at least have a pension system!
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Jan 20, 2019 | crookedtimber.org
aristos 01.19.19 at 7:58 am
and then the government was forced to call the IMF.The prime minister condemned the bloodsucking parasites of international finance, signed the massive austerity measures imposed by the IMF and transferred his own money to an offshore account before the devaluation
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Jan 19, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
Fred C. Dobbs , January 16, 2019 at 05:49 AM
Donald Trump has been compromised by RussiaJulio -> Fred C. Dobbs... , January 16, 2019 at 08:56 AM
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/01/15/donald-trump-has-been-compromised-russia/V66kiNZWtOE8T9UrfNYJwK/story.html?event=event25 via @BostonGlobeMichael A. Cohen - January 15, 2019
- Donald Trump may or not be on the Russian government's payroll.
- He may or may not have been blackmailed by Vladimir Putin.
- He may or may not have actively colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign.
- But there's one thing we know for sure: Donald Trump has been compromised by Russia.
- Every day that he remains president will mean that he is putting Russia's interests ahead of America's.
The latest revelations that emerged this weekend in the Trump/Russia investigation only bolstered this notion. First, via The New York Times, we found out that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation after he fired FBI Director Jim Comey to determine if he was working on behalf of the Russian government. Then, the next day, The Washington Post revealed that Trump has gone to "extraordinary lengths" to keep the substance of his talks with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, hidden from his own aides, "including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials." ...
(Note: This is from Globe opinion write Michael A. Cohen not Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael D. Cohen.)
Related: Congress should subpoena translator from Trump-Putin meeting https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2019/01/15/congress-should-subpoena-translator-from-trump-putin-meeting/dcx00lwEHslqRsQNfY3L5L/story.html?event=event25 via @BostonGlobe. Congress should set aside their qualms about subpoenaing translators. US Representative Seth Moulton would support such a move, and there's a reason for it. ...
охота за ведьмами!!!RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Julio ... , January 16, 2019 at 08:56 AM:<)[Thank God for Google.]
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Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Babyl-on , Jan 15, 2019 7:51:44 PM | link
Come now, Trump closed down the government to please Putin. What could be a better gift to Putin than the closing of the US gov?...yet the "resistance" says nothing - why?
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Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Putin Asks And Trump Delivers - A List Of All The Good Things Trump Did For Russia
Slate's Fred Kaplan writes :
The Washington Post's Greg Miller reported Sunday that President Donald Trump's confiscation of the translator's notes from a one-on-one conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017 was "unusual." This is incorrect. It was unprecedented. There is nothing like it in the annals of presidential history.Not really. Other U.S. leaders held long private meetings with their counterparts without notes being taken.
When Richard Nixon met Leonid Brezhnev he did not even bring his own interpreter:
George Szamuely @GeorgeSzamuely - 20:57 utc - 14 Jan 2019Nixon would meet Brezhnev alone, the only other person in attendance being Viktor Sukhodrev, the Soviet interpreter. "Our first meeting in the Oval Office was private, except for Viktor Sukhodrev, who, as in 1972, acted as translator." Nixon on Brezhnev's 1973 visit. RN, p.878 . Therefore, the only "notes" that would exist would be those of the Soviet interpreter. Not sure he would have time to make notes and translate and, even if he did so, whether those notes would be housed in any US archive.
Nixon's White House office was bugged. There are probably tape recordings of the talks. There might also be recordings of the Trump-Putin talks.
At their 1986 Reykjavik summit Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev talked without their notetakers :
Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev began their second day of talks with a private meeting that had been scheduled to last 15 minutes but ran for nearly 70 minutes, with only interpreters present . They met in a small room in the Soviet Mission , with the Soviet leader seated in a small armchair and Mr. Reagan on a sofa.In the afternoon, they meet alone for a little over 20 minutes and then again for 90 minutes. All told, the two leaders have spent 4 hours and 51 minutes alone , except for interpreters, over the two days here.
The archives of the Reykjavik talks do not include any notes of those private talks.
But, who knows, maybe Nixon and Reagan where also on the Russian payroll, just like Donald Trump is today.
biggerOnly that Trump is controlled by Putin can explain why the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation against Trump (see section three).
That the FBI agents involved in the decision were avid haters of Russia and of Trump has surely nothing to do with it. That the opening of a counter-intelligence investigation gave them the legal ability under Obama's EO12333 to use NSA signal intelligence against Trump is surely irrelevant.
What the FBI people really were concerned about is Trump's public record of favoring Russia at each and every corner.
Trump obviously wants better diplomatic relations with Russia. He is reluctant to counter its military might. He is doing his best to make it richer. Just consider the headlines below. With all those good things Trump did for Putin, intense suspicions of Russian influence over him is surely justified.
Trump obviously wants better diplomatic relations with Russia. He is reluctant to counter its military might. He is doing his best to make it richer. Just consider the headlines below. With all those good things Trump did for Putin, intense suspicions of Russian influence over him is surely justified.
- Trump deploys TANKS to Estonia as NATO builds up HUGE army on Russian border - Express, Feb 7 2017
- Trump launches attack on Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles - CNBC, Apr 6 2017
- U.S. Rejects Exxon Mobil Bid for Waiver on Russia Sanctions - NYT, Apr 21 2017
- Trump to promote U.S. natgas exports in Russia's backyard - Reuters, Jul 3 2017
- Trump Urges East Europe to Loosen Russia's Grip With U.S. Gas - Bloomberg, Jul 6 2017
- Trump signs bill approving new sanctions against Russia - CNN, Aug 3, 2017
- Justice Dept Asks Russia's RT to Register as Foreign Agent - Newsmax, Sep 13 2017
- US 'to restrict Russian military flights over America' - Independent, Sep 26 2017
- Trump signs into law U.S. government ban on Kaspersky Lab software - Reuters, Dec 12 2017
- Trump gives green light to selling lethal arms to Ukraine - The Hill, Dec 20 2017
- U.S. Punishes Chechen Leader in New Sanctions Against Russians - NYT, Dec 20 2017
- Sputnik Partner 'Required To Register' Under U.S. Foreign-Agent Law - RFERL, Jan 10 2018
- Trump says Russia is helping North Korea avoid sanctions - CBSNews, Jan 17 2018
- Trump's 'energy dominance' strategy is undercutting Russia's influence and business in Europe - Reuters, Feb 9 2018
- Trump looks to deter Russia, China with $686B ask for Pentagon - The Hill, Feb 12 2018
- American General In Syria Confirms US Forces Killed Hundreds Of Russians In Massive Battle - The Drive, Mar 16 2018
- Trump orders expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats, closure of Seattle consulate - CBS, Mar 26 2018
- Trump vows periodical dispatch of US troops to Baltic states, step up air defense - Lithuania Tribune, Apr 3 2018
- Trump opposes Nord Stream II, questions Germany - AA, Apr 4 2018
- Trump just hit Russian oligarchs with the most aggressive sanctions yet - Vice, Apr 6 2018
- Trump orders missile strike on Syria military targets - CBSNews, Apr 9 2018
- Aluminum Stocks Jump As Trump Sanctions Target Putin Pal - Investors, Apr 9 2018
- Russia 'deeply disappointed' at Trump's withdrawal from Iran deal - Times of Israel, May 9 2018
- Trump to NATO allies: Raise military spending to 4 percent of GDP - AlJazeerah, Jul 12 2018
- Trump says U.S. ties to NATO 'very strong' - Politico, Jul 12 2018
- U.S. to sanction Turkey for receiving S-400 missiles - Ahval, Jul 27 2018
- Trump administration to hit Russia with new sanctions for Skripal poisoning - NBC News Aug 8 2018
- Space Force Is Trump's Answer to New Russian and Chinese Weapons - FP, Aug 10 2018
- US Sanctions Chinese Entity Over Purchase of Russian Fighters, S-400s – Treasury - Sputnik, Sep 20 2018
- Trump hints at punitive action against India for buying S-400 from Russia - India Today, Oct 11 2018
- Trump Agrees to Boost Pentagon's Budget to $750 Bln in 2019 - Reports - Sputnik, Oct 12 2018
- Trump says US will withdraw from nuclear arms treaty with Russia - Guardian, Oct 21 2018
- Haley Condemns 'Outrageous' Russian Firing on Ukrainian Ships - Bloomberg, Nov 26 2018
- 2 Trump Moves Cost This Russian-American CEO $2.3B - Forbes, Jan 14 2019
When one adds up all those actions one can only find that Trump cares more about Russia, than about the U.S. and its NATO allies. Only with Trump being under Putin's influence, knowingly or unwittingly, could he end up doing Russia so many favors.
Not.
Posted by b at 02:12 PM | Comments (121)
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Jan 19, 2019 | insider.foxnews.com
Carlson said Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her party are "no longer telling you that walls are too expensive [or] don't work -- obviously they do."
"The problem they're now telling us is God doesn't like walls," he said, adding that former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) said a wall along the Mexico border "will ensure death."
Freshman Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar demanded that President Trump "end his temper tantrums and quest for a racist and sinful big [border] wall."
"I join the similar calls made by my colleagues today, and I demand that the president end his temper tantrums and quest for a racist and sinful big wall,
Carlson said that, for a moment, we should accept Democrats' "immorality" premise:
"There are an awful lot of walls in this country. Now that we know they're an offense against God, how can we let them stand?" he asked.
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Jan 18, 2019 | politics.theonion.com
WASHINGTON -- In an impassioned call for preemptive action against the Middle Eastern nation, United States national security advisor John Bolton insisted Thursday that Iran was likely harboring the dangerous terrorist Osama bin Laden. "For the good of our nation, we must act immediately," said Bolton, citing several
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Jan 18, 2019 | insider.foxnews.com
Carlson played audio from earlier Friday of Buzzfeed reporter Anthony Cormier, who said his sources are "rock solid" and that he stood behind this story "one hundred percent."
Hey Adam, turns out it was Full of Schiff! https://t.co/01saPi8aaW
-- Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 19, 2019
"Just unbelievable," Carlson said in response to the news [ that Robert Mueller, through a spokesman, denied the veracity of a potentially damning Buzzfeed report about President Trump and his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen.]
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Jan 18, 2019 | politics.theonion.com
- Defiant Pelosi Begins Swimming To Afghanistan After Trump Denies Use Of Government Plane
- John Bolton Insists Iran Likely Harboring Dangerous Terrorist Osama Bin Laden
- Presumptuous Congressional Freshman Thinks She Can Just Come In And Represent Constituents
- New Hampshire Legislature Passes Bill Naming Fentanyl State Opiate
- Poll Shows Increasing Number Of Voters Blame Founding Fathers For Starting America
- Chuck Schumer Honestly Pretty Amazed He Hasn't Caved Yet
- Exhausted Robert Mueller Turns Off Phone To Give Himself Breather From Russia Probe News Over Holiday Break
- Trump Postpones Grand Opening Of Trump Tower Moscow Until Fuss Over Bombshell Report Dies Down
- White House Ficus To Leave For Virginia Arboretum After Declining Trump's Offer To Be Chief Of Staff
- Frazzled Robert Mueller Walking Around With Piece Of Russia Investigation Document Stuck To His Shoe
- Trump Administration Launches Human Rights Investigation Into Senate's Harsh Treatment Of Mohammad Bin Salman
- Bush, Loafers Thrown At Him Reunite On NBC For 10-Year Anniversary Special
- New York Family Man Latest Victim Of Nation's Misguided War On Tax Evasion, Perjury, Campaign Finance Violations
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Jan 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Just one day after Speaker Pelosi chose to exercise her right to not invite the President to give his "State of the Union" address, Trump has responded
... ... ...
'Tit'... meet 'tat'
"It demeans the office is the presidency because it is so petty," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says of Trump's decision to deny Nancy Pelosi use of a military plane for a planned overseas trip (which we presume means he did not think Pelosi's decision to rescind Trump's SOTU speech invitation "demeaned the office of the Speaker"?)
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Jan 17, 2019 | www.foxnews.com
Don Lemon -- has it nailed. As we told you Tuesday night - you could've seen this coming - the FBI has suspected this for some time.
The bureau opened a criminal investigation into the president more than a year ago, on the grounds that no loyal American would fire a leader as impressive as FBI director James Comey. Putin must have ordered it. The Washington Post concurred with this.
As one of the paper's columnists noted, Trump has also "endorsed populism." That's right. Populism.
It has the stink of Russia all over it. Smells like vodka and day-old herring.
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Jan 17, 2019 | www.foxnews.com
They have got him, finally. Trapped like John Dillinger outside the Biograph Theater by the G-Men. Democrats announced that they have finally obtained proof -- concrete and irrefutable proof -- that President Trump is, in fact, a secret Russian agent .
"This president seems to be putting Russia's interests ahead of our own," CNN anchor Don Lemon said.
The evidence suggests, indeed, Trump is, has been a pawn of the Russians," Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, said.
Don Lemon -- has it nailed. As we told you Tuesday night - you could've seen this coming - the FBI has suspected this for some time. The bureau opened a criminal investigation into the president more than a year ago, on the grounds that no loyal American would fire a leader as impressive as FBI director James Comey. Putin must have ordered it. The Washington Post concurred with this. As one of the paper's columnists noted, Trump has also "endorsed populism." That's right. Populism. It has the stink of Russia all over it. Smells like vodka and day-old herring.
So, people in Washington have had their suspicions for years. But now we know for certain. And we know because of a stunning New York Times piece on Tuesday. In it, current and former administration officials, speaking, of course, from behind the protective veil of anonymity -- because, honestly you don't know what the KGB or whatever it's called these days is capable of doing to people who tell the truth. But, nevertheless, they divulged that, on multiple occasions over the course of last year, President Trump privately floated the idea of pulling the United States out of NATO.
Let that sink in. Leaving NATO.
This is a huge story. Or it would have been huge in 1983 when the Soviet Union still existed, and it was still clear what the point of NATO was. NATO, you'll remember, was created to keep the Soviets from invading Western Europe. NATO did a very good job at that, all the way until the day the Soviet Union collapsed, in the summer of 1991. That was almost 28 years ago.
Vladimir Putin runs Russia now. He does not plan to invade Western Europe. He can't. So why do we still have NATO? Nobody really knows. In Washington you're definitely not allowed to ask. And that's a shame because it would be an interesting conversation.
How do we feel about that now? Are you ready to launch a nuclear war over Latvia? What do you think of sending your kids to defend the territorial integrity of Estonia? Our foreign policy establishment thinks it's well worth it. In fact, under the current rules of our membership in NATO, we would have no choice. You might not have known that. All of this might merit a national debate of some sort. At some point. When we're ready. 28 years in.
But no. The left isn't into national debates anymore. They're into screaming, and threats and criminal investigations, and other forms of coercion. They like the way things are in this country. They're benefitting hugely from the status quo, and they don't like being challenged. They consider asking difficult questions a criminal act.
On Tuesday morning, in fact, Preet Bharara - he's the most famous former federal prosecutor in America - explained this on Twitter: "If true, Trump should immediately and publicly state his apparent wish to withdraw from NATO, so he can be promptly impeached, convicted, and removed from office."
See also:
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Jan 16, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
Tulsi Gabbard for president! Nobody's perfect but at least she isn't a lawyer!
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Jan 15, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
GuyCybershy -> -> BaronVonAmericano , 10 Dec 2016 17:0
"Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies" - Ron Paulgreyford14 -> -> GuyCybershy , 10 Dec 2016 17:1Be careful there, Ron Paul is an FSB agent of Putin, according to the Washington Post.elias_ , 10 Dec 2016 17:0At least Tucker Carlson is able to see through the BS and asks searching question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRkeGkCjdHg
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Jan 14, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com
GuyM x Ignored says: 01/13/2019 at 8:26 pm
In support of RRC, I looked up their agency expenses, and found they are less than $50 million. That's to pay for keeping up with almost a half million oil and gas wells, thousands of operators, and multiple other duties, including taking care of a significant amount of State income. There is a grand total of about 725 employees. Hats off!Longtimber x Ignored says: 01/14/2019 at 8:24 pmCould have 1/2 of a F35 not including Fuel.
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Jan 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Adams , , January 14, 2019 at 2:05 pm
Bah, who cares about a little collateral damage. The Iranian people obviously don't know what's good for them. We just need to bring back Wolfowitz to make sure they are on hand to lay down palm fronds before the US forces as they enter Baghdad after we nuke it into rubble.
Speaking of sociopaths, I am sure Darth Vader would make himself available to advise from Wyoming. Where the hell is Elliot Abrams when you need him. What's Rumsfeld doing these days? How great would it be to get the old gang together again, under the maniacal leadership of Bolton. Maybe Dubya would be willing to do the "mission accomplished" as the smoke clears over the whole MENA region. What a great bunch of guys.
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Jan 14, 2019 | www.amazon.com
Most terrifying of all, the crew has become incompetent. They have no idea how to sail. They're spinning the ship's wheel like they're playing roulette and cackling like mental patients. The boat is listing, taking on water, about to sink. They're totally unaware that any of this is happening. As waves wash over the deck, they're awarding themselves majestic new titles and raising their own salaries. You look on in horror, helpless and desperate. You have nowhere to go. You're trapped on a ship of fools.
Plato imagined this scene in The Republic. He never mentions what happened to the ship. It would be nice to know. What was written as an allegory is starting to feel like a documentary, as generations of misrule threaten to send our country beneath the waves.
The people who did it don't seem aware of what they've done. They don't want to know, and they don't want you to tell them. Facts threaten their fantasies. And so they continue as if what they're doing is working, making mistakes and reaping consequences that were predictable even to Greek philosophers thousands of years before the Internet.
They're fools. The rest of us are their passengers.
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Jan 14, 2019 | www.unz.com
Like that scene in Orwell's 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in the middle of the Hate Week rally, the War on Terror was officially canceled and replaced by the War on Populism. Or all right, it wasn't quite that abrupt. But seriously, go back and scan the news. Note how the "Islamic terrorist threat" we had been conditioned to live in fear of on a daily basis since 2001 seemed to just vanish into thin air. Suddenly, the "existential threat" we were facing was "neo-nationalism," "illiberalism," or the pejorative designator du jour, "populism."
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Jan 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
NotTimothyGeithner , , January 11, 2019 at 2:26 pm
"Joe Biden is the Hillary Clinton of 2020" He has already floated the idea that he is the most 'qualified'. It worked so well for hill, hey why not?
...This is insulting. "we came, we saw, he died" is so morally damning.
Biden was a very normal senator, a creature with absolutely no guiding principles or morel values. And "go with the flow Joe" was a callous warmonger only because that's what Democrats of the time were. It's not his fault.
In other words, Biden is HRC without the selling points.
Carey , January 11, 2019 at 5:51 pm
"but HRC is lightyears than Biden.. She wasted potential.."
HRC 2016: "Party on!" for the 10%
Biden 2020: "Happy Dayz are Here Again!" for the 10%
Potential for what, or, for whom? Just not seeing it.
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Jan 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
John Mc , , January 11, 2019 at 12:10 pm
... ... ...
Before reading below, please know I did not mean to offend and I apologize profusely in advance if someone actually takes this list seriously or crystallizes anything from these mind droppings other than a poor attempt at silliness.
Elizabeth Warren & Matt Damon -- how you like them apples (nationalize Apple)
... ... ...
Kamala Harris & Jeff Bezos -- The Crazy Neoliberals Next Door
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Jan 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
NotTimothyGeithner , January 11, 2019 at 2:33 pm
Re Caption Contest:
"Poultry of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your place in an extra value meal!"
"Putin did it."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APWXorE6h8U
Its not really a caption, but I don't know how to transcribe these quotes accurately.
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Jan 13, 2019 | www.nytimes.com
xavier onnasis usa, america Jan. 11
@C Wolfe Ayn Rand, Rand Paul and Paul Ryan walk into a bar and order vodka tonics.
The bartender is out of vodka, so he mixes their drinks with wood alcohol instead. Ayn Rand, Rand Paul and Paul Ryan all die.
But they all die happy, because they're in a regulation-free environment where the marketplace is *always* self-correcting.
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Jan 13, 2019 | finance.townhall.com
Which brings us to recent commentary from Fox News host Tucker Carlson on his eponymous show, Tucker Carlson Tonight . Among other things Carlson asked why investors (think hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, etc.) are taxed at lower rates than are typical workers. Carlson's specific target was Mitt Romney.
The junior Utah senator famously earned hundreds of millions while running private equity (vulture) firm Bain Capital.
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Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com
Ilyana_Rozumova , says: July 23, 2018 at 5:46 am GMT
Hillary lost the election when she could not walk. she lost a shoe, she was shown in the van, and shoe was thrown after her. And that was arranged by Russians.
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Jan 12, 2019 | www.unz.com
But, seriously, all that actually happened back in the Summer of 2016 was the global capitalist ruling classes recognized that they had a problem. The problem that they recognized they had (and continue to have, and are now acutely aware of) is that no one is enjoying global capitalism except the global capitalist ruling classes. The whole smiley-happy, supranational, neo-feudal corporate empire concept is not going over very well with the masses, or at least not with the unwashed masses. People started voting for right-wing parties, and Brexit, and other "populist" measures (not because they had suddenly transformed into Nazis, but because the Right was acknowledging and exploiting their anger with the advance of global neoliberalism, while liberals and the Identity Politics Left were slow jamming the TPP with Obama and babbling about transgender bathrooms, and such).
The global capitalist ruling classes needed to put a stop to that (i.e, the "populist" revolt, not the bathroom debate). So they suspended the Global War on Terror and launched the War on Populism. It was originally only meant to last until Hillary Clinton's coronation, or the second Brexit referendum, then switch back to the War on Terror, but well, weird things happen, and here we are.
... ... ...
And then there's the battle for hearts and minds, which they've been furiously waging for the last two years, and which is only going to intensify. If you think things are batshit crazy now (which, clearly, they are), strap yourself in. What is coming is going to make COINTELPRO look like the work of some amateur meme-freak. The neoliberal corporate media, psy-ops like Integrity Initiative , Internet-censoring apps like NewsGuard , ShareBlue and other David Brock outfits , and a legion of mass hysteria generators will be relentlessly barraging our brains with absurdity, disinformation, and just outright lies (as will their counterparts on the Right, of course, in case you thought that they were any alternative). It's going to get extremely zany.
The good news is
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Jan 10, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
The biggest variable in my humble opinion is whether the US is going to allow Turkey to take possession of F-35s in Turkey. If Erdogan has really thrown in his lot with Putin he might let Russian engineers have access to the F-35 in order to reverse engineer it. There was a time when the prevailing view of the Turks in England was that they were a slippery and untrustworthy people. I certainly wouldn't trust Erdogan as far as I could throw him.Ishmael Zechariah -> James Thomas , 2 hours agoDamn right. We are not called "Perfidious Albion" for nothing.
Ishmael Zechariah
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Jun 27, 2018 | www.youtube.com
The video which features lookalikes for Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un, Hillary Clinton, Stormy Daniels, Mark Zuckerberg, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner is a satire on the news of the past 12 months.
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Jan 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Q: What do humor, health information, giant squids, robotic cockroaches, tedium and postmodernism have in common?
A: Russia weaponized them.
... ... ...
Kadath , Dec 17, 2018 7:46:00 PM | link
Breaking News, Anonymous intelligence sources report that Russia has successfully weaponized rational thinking, if you suspect you or a someone you know might be a rational thinker, immediately report to your local Atlantic Council affiliate to ensure that your thoughts are "Good Think" compliant.Amerikanski , Dec 17, 2018 4:45:50 PM | link"Mr. President, we must not allow a weaponization gap!" -- Gen. Buck TurgidsonIke , Dec 17, 2018 4:08:36 PM | linkRussia weaponised [bad] movies: https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitLiberalsSay/comments/7khmhq/russian_hackers_are_behind_the_poor_ratings_of/uncle tungsten , Dec 17, 2018 4:02:17 PM | linkIts ok SMCO @47.ex-SA , Dec 17, 2018 4:11:28 PM | link
remain calm, just poke a poppy or a rose in the gun barrel and blow them kiss. I am wondering if there are any academics amongst that Oxford Internet Institute that study obsessive disorders or have published on the current media obsession/paranoia with Russia.How do researchers in ponds such as OII check in with each other to eliminate mass hysteria?
And now Putin's Russia has weaponized Mueller's probe?! Mueller Dropping Russia Probe, Says Trump Working for Israel and Saudis | New Eastern OutlookCasual Observer , Dec 17, 2018 2:25:34 PM | linkRussia/Putin weaponized dolls with their Matryoshka Trojan horse within a Trojan horse!Bart Hansen , Dec 17, 2018 1:20:01 PM | linkJose Garcia , Dec 17, 2018 12:31:26 PM | link"Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project"The acronym for that shady outfit would be OUCPP. Say that acronym quickly several times and you WILL be in Monte Python country.
Putin has weaponized health care. My premiums went up and it's tough to pay.Hoarsewhisperer , Dec 17, 2018 12:24:29 PM | linkThis is my favourite... Vladimir Putin Outwitted Megyn Kelly by Weaponizing Incompetence The New Yorker, March 2018 I love the insinuation that CNN didn't suspect that Megyn is a bimbo until she tried to outsmart Putin.dh , Dec 17, 2018 9:38:59 AM | link
I think they must be weaponizing vodka too. I've got a terrible hangover this morning.Montreal , Dec 17, 2018 12:21:29 PM | link
We used to get completely weaponised on a bar on Alexandrovsky Park in St Petersburg, so much so that by the time we wanted to go home they had opened the bridges over the Neva and we had to wait until they closed again, re-weaponising ourselves in the meantime. The White Nights are beautiful beyond belief.dahoit , Dec 17, 2018 12:08:36 PM | linkPutin has weaponizing the stupidly of the MSM. My God.Quentin , Dec 17, 2018 9:40:02 AM | link
Yes! All true! But I weaponised Vladimir Putin to make media profits, newspapers (Guardian!), radio (BBC), internet (Bellingcat). Evidently only the Brits understand me. The US does the same in a different style.
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Jan 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Ross , Jan 5, 2019 2:53:21 PM | link
With apologies to bI know people get a bit touchy about pointing out typos, but there is a certain mordant humor to:
"Implementing the idea would lead to ethic cleansing "When as we know the neo-con thinkophobes underwent 'ethic cleansing' a long time ago!
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Jan 04, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
EMichael , January 01, 2019 at 07:04 AM
Well, it is a horror movie."On Thursday, Politico published a delightful story tracing how Donald Trump, American president, got control of his own Tweet Machine. You see, up until 2013, he had a social media manager named Justin McConney who would actually type and send each bit of, say, dating advice to Robert Pattinson. The workflow for this was legitimately bonkers.
'Even as the mogul embraced digital media, he did so in the most analog way possible. He had McConney print out his Twitter mentions, and he would use Sharpie pens to scribble responses, which McConney would then type up and tweet out. After appearing at events, Trump, who remained distrustful of anything he saw only on a screen, had McConney print out 8x10 glossy photos of him for his signoff before they were posted online.'
But one day, Trump got hold of the controls himself. In vintage fashion, he first used them to praise someone for praising him on the teevee:
This prompted perhaps the greatest ever quote about Trumpian social media use. Certainly it's the best from this news cycle.
"The moment I found out Trump could tweet himself was comparable to the moment in 'Jurassic Park' when Dr. Grant realized that velociraptors could open doors," recalled McConney, who was the Trump Organization's director of social media from 2011 to 2017. "I was like, 'Oh no.'"
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Jan 04, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
EMichael , January 01, 2019 at 03:35 AM
Personally, I think her response was perfect." I Was A Cable Guy. I Saw The Worst Of America .
A glimpse of the suburban grotesque, featuring Russian mobsters, Fox News rage addicts, a caged man in a sex dungeon, and Dick Cheney....
A few months later, my boss called and started with, "Don't kill me." He was sending me to Dick Cheney's. Dick was home.
He had an assistant or secretary or maybe security who followed me around while I checked connections and signal levels. I'd already found a system problem outside. I just wanted to make sure I never had to f!cking set foot in that house again. Dick walked into the office while I was working. He was reading from a stack of papers and ignored me. I told the assistant it would probably be a week or so. I'd put the orders in. He had my supervisor's number.
He said something to the effect of, "You do understand this is the former vice president." I panicked and said the first thing that came to mind: "Yeah, well, waterboard me if it makes him feel better. It'll still take a week." And I walked out.
It was my last call that day. I drove the entire way home thinking of a hundred better things I could've said. Finally, I called my supervisor and told him I might've accidentally mentioned waterboarding. He laughed and said I'd won. He'd stop sending me to the Cheneys'. I don't actually know if they ever complained. If they did, he never mentioned it."
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cable-tech-dick-cheney-sex-dungeon_us_5c0ea571e4b06484c9fd4c21
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Jan 03, 2019 | www.amazon.com
In 1906 the great statistician Francis Galton observed a competition to guess the weight of an ox at a country fair. Eight hundred people entered. Galton, being the kind of man he was, ran statistical tests on the numbers. He discovered that the average guess was extremely close to the weight of the ox. This story was told by James Surowiecki, in his entertaining book The Wisdom of Crowds. 2
Not many people know the events that followed. A few years later, the scales seemed to become less and less reliable. Repairs would be expensive, but the fair organiser had a brilliant idea. Since attendees were so good at guessing the weight of an ox, it was unnecessary' to repair the scales. The organiser would simply ask everyone to guess the weight, and take the average of their estimates.
A new problem emerged, however. Once weight-guessing competitions became the rage, some participants tried to cheat. They even tried to get privileged information from the farmer who had bred the ox. But there was fear that, if some people had an edge, others would be reluctant to enter the weight-guessing competition. With few entrants, you could not rely on the wisdom of crowds. The process of weight discovery would be damaged.
So strict regulatory rules were introduced. The farmer was asked to prepare three monthly bulletins on the development of his ox. These bulletins were posted on the door of the market for everyone to read. If the farmer gave his friends any other information about the beast, that information was also to be posted on the market door. And anyone who entered the competition who had knowledge about the ox that was not available to the world at large would be expelled from the market. In this way the integrity of the weight-guessing process would be maintained.
Professional analysts scrutinised the contents of these regulatory' announcements and advised their clients on their implications. They' wined and dined farmers; but once the farmers were required to be careful about the information they' disclosed, these lunches became less useful. Some smarter analysts realised that understanding the nutrition and health of the ox wasn't that useful anyway. Since the ox was no longer being weighed -- what mattered was the guesses of the bystanders -- the key' to success lav not in correctly assessing the weight of the ox but in correctly' assessing what others would guess. Or what other people would guess others would guess. And so on.
Some people -- such as old Farmer Buffett -- claimed that the results of this process were more and more divorced from the realities of ox rearing. But he was ignored. True, Farmer Buffett's beasts did appear healthy and well fed, and his finances ever more prosperous; but he was a countryman who didn't really understand how markets work.
International bodies were established to define the rules for assessing the weight of the ox. There were two competing standards -- generally accepted ox-weighing principles, and international ox-weighing standards. But both agreed on one fundamental principle, which followed from the need to eliminate the role of subjective assessment by any individual. The weight of the ox was officially defined as the average of everyone's guesses.
One difficulty was that sometimes there were few, or even no, guesses of the weight of the ox. But that problem was soon overcome. Mathematicians from the University of Chicago developed models from which it was possible to estimate what, if there had actually been many guesses as to the weight of the ox, the average of these guesses would have been. No knowledge of animal husbandry was required, only a powerful computer.
By' this time, there was a large industry of professional weight-guessers, organisers of weight-guessing competitions and advisers helping people to refine their guesses. Some people suggested that it might be cheaper to repair the scales, but they' were derided: why go back to relying on the judgement of a single auctioneer when you could benefit from the aggregated wisdom of so many clever people?
And then the ox died. Amid all this activity', no one had remembered to feed it.
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Jan 03, 2019 | www.unz.com
Cyrano , says: January 2, 2019 at 8:51 am GMT
... there is no hope for the humanity. The greed of the working class knows no boundaries. After all that the elites have done in the past 40-50 years to demonstrate their humanity – basically bringing a big chunk of the third world and resettling them in the west, the greedy underclass still demands proof from the elites that they are humanists.
Unfortunately the way they envision that the elites should prove their humanity is by opening their wallets and sharing their wealth with the poor in order to satisfy their ever increasing demands for better life by the undeserving poor.
Someone has to put a stop to it. Because if the poor underclasses succeed in draining the wealth from the innocent elites – the whole society will collapse. Why? Because there is no way that anyone can have respect for poor elites – which is where all this business with the yellow wests in France is going.
If the elites become poor – how can they maintain that magic aura of "we are better than you" that they project on the poor and which allows to govern them? No one can have a respect for poor elites. That's why I think it's time to step up the tried and trusted method – thankfully invented by US – that when somebody doubts the generosity of the elites – just import few hundred thousand fresh new faces from the 3rd world – to prove how much the elites care and that we are all equal – not with them, but among ourselves, which is where it really counts.
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Jan 02, 2019 | www.theonion.com
CHICAGO -- Saying it was ultimately a small price to pay in exchange for the splendid spectacle that has followed, millions of Americans admitted Thursday that they didn't really mind having their Facebook data stolen if it meant getting to watch that little fucker squirm.
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Jan 02, 2019 | www.theonion.com
SEATTLE -- Deciding at the last minute to hold off due to ethical concerns, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos reportedly set aside his latest cost-cutting initiative Wednesday after realizing it was actually human slavery. "On the surface, it seemed plausible -- owning our employees' bodies, implementing a mandatory 18-hour workday, restricting their movements, and not compensating them with anything besides minimal food and shelter -- but then it started to sound really familiar in a bad way," said Bezos, who acknowledged his fears were confirmed when Amazon's general counsel kept reporting back that such labor arrangements had been illegal throughout the United States since 1865. "It's too bad; the increased efficiency and cost savings would have been tremendous. And now I have to go explain to our shareholders why I spent $1.8 million outfitting all of our managers with bullwhips, shackles, and branding irons." Bezos went on to describe the setback as temporary, saying it wouldn't matter in five to 10 years when his entire workforce was robots.
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Jan 02, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
2019 Headlines in Advance Posted on January 1, 2019 by Yves Smith Reader Rev Kev provided his forecast for 2019, which I hope you enjoy. If you know of any other 2019 headlines, please pipe up!
* * * I do not own a crystal ball to predict the future with so in considering what is to come in the New Year for 2019, I have had to resort to staring into my coffee mug instead. As a public service then, here is what I foresee happening in the coming year, both the tragedies and the triumphs in the main story for each coming month-
JANUARY – Tragedy struck when the annual World Economic Forum at Davos was caught in a massive snow avalanche. Most would have survived except that under an austerity recommendation by the WEF, the Swiss Mountain Rescue was recently disbanded and replaced with "volunteers". Unfortunately when it came time for the rescue party nobody volunteered.
FEBRUARY – The US Federal Reserve Board steps down confessing they have no idea how the economy works anymore. Says that they are not a part of the government anyway. They are replaced with a reforming Government Board who includes people such as Michael Hudson, Stephanie Kelton, Mark Blyth, Bill Black and Steve Keen.
MARCH – A terrible mishap occurred at the center where all Federal student loans records were stored when an employee entered the command "rm -r" on his computer to format it not realizing that he was actually logged into the mainframe. Managers called in the FBI when it was remembered that the employee was living in a van in the center's car park as he could not afford anything else due to his student loans. A team of FBI special investigators quickly find that the whole thing was an accident with no charges needed. It was only found out later that these FBI agents too were still loaded up with student debts.
APRIL – In a surprise announcement, the Republican and Democrat parties say that they are going to amalgamate into one super party called the Progressives party. One operative stated "We have the same policies anyway". In a move to combine the "dirt" files that they hold on each other's candidates into one repository, these files are released to the public by Wikileaks and what is in them makes nearly all former Democrat and Republican candidates ineligible to run for office. A Sanders/Gabbard ticket now seems the only one viable for 2020. The new Progressives party blames the Russians.
MAY – Donald Trump, finally realizing now the awesome responsibility that he has undertaken as President, apologizes for his past behaviour, shuts down his Twitter account and spends his time pushing for any policy that attracts 80% of the electorate's support such as medicare for all, student loan forgiveness and winding back overseas commitments. A visibly shocked Hillary Clinton retires from public life, goes into a convent and undertakes a vow of silence.
... ... ...
JULY – Old KGB files surface showing that Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Freeman were actually committed communist agents pushing their ideas as part of a plot to destroy the West. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan now seen to be as 'useful idiots' for pushing these ideas further.
AUGUST – In a move to shore up falling ratings, the last six mega-media companies combine into one vast mega-media company. This move is announced with fanfare on all TV stations and major newspapers but as very few get their news from those sources anymore, hardly anybody notices. As ratings continue to plunge off a cliff, small newspapers, radio stations and TV stations arise to fill the void.
SEPTEMBER – The Pentagon, finding that due to rising costs that by 2022 they will only be able to afford one plane, one tank and one ship, announces that they will buy Russian weapons from now on saying they are cheaper and actually work. They further announce that this will continue until the industrial complex "wakes up to itself".
... ... ...
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Jan 02, 2019 | www.theonion.com
In a year where cruelty, deception, and unfettered corruption controlled all three branches of the U.S. government, The Onion 's flawless reportage and above-reproach journalism in 2018 exposed the dark underbelly of society and provided a beacon of hope that human civilization would finally and mercifully come to an end soon. Here, then, are the landmark moments of the year as reported with singular veracity by America's Finest News Source. January | February | March | April | May | June
July | August | September | October | November
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Jan 02, 2019 | www.wsws.org
The entire Baby Boomer generation was likewise "brainwashed" by Soviet propaganda in the 1960s: The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (1959-1964). What 10-year old All-American Boy was not enticed by the smokey-voiced Russian agent, Natasha Fatale? Such a doll!
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Dec 30, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
"Summer" Rerun: Journey into a Libertarian Future: Part I –The Vision Posted on December 27, 2018 by Yves Smith
Yves here. In some summers past, we've rerun NC classics during slow news periods. We haven't had slow news period in a while, and one side effect is that we haven't yet reprised this series on libertarianism, which will run this week and into next week. Enjoy!
This post first appeared on November 29, 2011
By Andrew Dittmer, who recently finished his PhD in mathematics at Harvard and is currently continuing work on his thesis topic. He also taught mathematics at a local elementary school. Andrew enjoys explaining the recent history of the financial sector to a popular audience.
Simulposted at The Distributist Review
Recently journalist Philip Pilkington has interviewed authors with unconventional perspectives on economic issues, including Satyajit Das and David Graeber. I thought it would be fun to interview someone too – but the man I interviewed uses a pseudonym. This is a six-part series.
ANDREW : Some people say that you represent a fringe view, and so interviewing you is a waste of time.
CODE NAME CAIN : If people obsessed with inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom underestimate libertarians, so much the better.
ANDREW : Can you give any evidence that your ideas are taken seriously?
CNC : Well, people used to think that the financial crisis was caused by antisocial behavior in the finance sector. In September 2007, Tom DiLorenzo pointed out on the Lew Rockwell website that the crisis was actually the result of the government forcing banks to make risky loans to low-income borrowers. Although initially ignored, DiLorenzo's thesis is now widely accepted among careful observers.
ANDREW : Is that your only convincing example?
CNC : Hardly. Did you notice how over the last year or so, everyone started to talk about how the threat of new taxes and regulations was making producers uncertain? And when producers are uncertain, the economy fails to improve? Well, the fact that worries about taxes and regulations cause uncertainty and so damage the economy is a key insight of Austrian economics that we have proclaimed for decades.
ANDREW : Wait, I thought people said that Obama was causing the uncertainty.
CNC : Obama is causing the uncertainty now. Before Obama, George W. Bush was causing the uncertainty. In general, democratic government causes uncertainty. Hans-Hermann Hoppe made all of this clear in his 2001 book "Democracy: The God That Failed."
ANDREW : Are there things you have learned from the work of Dr. Hoppe that you had not found in the writings of other libertarians?
CNC : "Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard were great men, but they lived in a time when supporters of freedom needed to be careful about what they said. As a result, libertarians often fail to describe their ideal future society in clear detail. But, as the Cato Institute's Patri Friedman has recognized , Hans-Hermann Hoppe is an exception to this reticence. He is willing to speak the truth, no matter how much it makes "politically correct" people squirm, and he is so logical and eloquent that I routinely quote from his classic book on the failure of democracy. Please color such quotes in red – I would never try to pass off my own ideas as if they were on his level.
ANDREW : Tell us now about the libertarian society you are working to make possible.
CNC : It will be a free society – no government, no coercion. People will have their rights respected. Everyone will be free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't interfere with anyone else's rights why are you looking at me like that?
ANDREW : I was kind of hoping for less speeches and more details.
CNC : What do you mean?
ANDREW : In our society, the government is the only organization allowed to kill people. In the libertarian society, which organizations will kill people?
CNC : There will be no government that is allowed to use force against people and kill them.
ANDREW : Some people will be very rich, right?
CNC : Of course. Some people will always be stronger and more brilliant than others.
ANDREW : Will the wealthy people still be worried about people stealing from them?
CNC : Obviously – all property is necessarily valuable; hence, every property owner becomes a possible target of other men's aggressive desires . [255]
ANDREW : So who will protect property owners?
CNC : Insurance companies in a competitive marketplace.
ANDREW : So in your society, insurance companies will be sort of like governments. Can we call them security GLOs (Government-Like Organizations)?
CNC : Sure, as long as we stress that the insurance companies, as security GLOs, will be very different from the statist, coercive governments we have today.
ANDREW : Will security GLOs be different from governments because they will be small family firms?
CNC : No. One reason that insurance companies will be well-suited for the role of security GLOs is that they are "big" and in command of the resources necessary to accomplish the task of dealing with the dangers of the real world. Indeed, insurers operate on a national or even international scale, and they own substantial property holdings dispersed over wide territories [281]
ANDREW : Will security GLOs be different from governments because they don't use physical force against criminals?
CNC : You gotta be kidding, right? in cooperation with one another, insurers [will] want to expel known criminals not just from their immediate neighborhoods, but from civilization altogether, into the wilderness or open frontier of the Amazon jungle, the Sahara, or the polar regions. [262]
ANDREW : So the security GLOs will be allowed to kill people, if they are known criminals?
CNC : The security GLOs will not kill people, they will just expel them to the Sahara or polar regions. What happens then is up to the criminals.
ANDREW : Can we say that the security GLOs will effectively kill them?
CNC : I really don't like that choice of wording. You make it sound like the security GLOs will be committing aggression against the criminals. That's backwards – the criminal commits aggression, and security GLOs will just defend people. They won't violate anyone's rights.
ANDREW : Maybe you would prefer that we say: the security GLOs will effectively kill people in a rights-respecting manner.
CNC: Yeah, that's better.
ANDREW : Will everybody be able to get insurance from the security GLOs?
CNC : Of course – in a market economy, shortages are impossible. Anyone can get anything by paying the market price.
ANDREW : What if the market price of insurance for some people is more money than they can pay?
CNC : Don't worry, competition among insurers for paying clients will bring about a tendency toward a continuous fall in the price of protection [281-282] .
ANDREW : In the future everyone will pay less for security than they currently pay in taxes?
CNC: Well, certain government-induced distortions would be eliminated. Government taxes more in low crime and high property value areas than in high crime and low property value areas. [259] Security GLOs would do the exact opposite.
ANDREW : So in rough neighborhoods, most people might not be able to afford security insurance.
CNC : Possibly.
ANDREW : Suppose there are people who aren't covered by any security GLO – would it effectively be legal to kill them?
CNC : They would definitely be rendered economically isolated, weak, and vulnerable outcast[s] [287] .
ANDREW : Then people are effectively forced to join a security GLO?
CNC : Maybe you haven't realized it yet, but this will be a free society. The relationship between the insurer and the insured is consensual. Both are free to cooperate and not to cooperate. [281] No one will force people to buy protection, and no one will force insurers to offer protection at a price they think is too low.
ANDREW : What are some other ways that you think this would be a good system?
CNC : Well, every property can be shaped and transformed by its owner so as to increase its safety and reduce the likelihood of aggression. I may acquire a gun or safe-deposit box, for instance, or I may be able to shoot down an attacking plane from my backyard or own a laser gun that can kill an aggressor thousands of miles away. [256] In a free society, security GLOs would encourage the ownership of weapons among their insured by means of selective price cuts [264] because the better the private protection of their clients, the lower the insurer's protection and indemnification costs will be [285].
ANDREW : Let's see if I understand. In poor neighborhoods, most people will not be insured, and it will be legal to kill them. The people that are insured will be encouraged by the security GLO to carry weapons that are as technologically advanced as possible. It sounds to me like this would be bad for the poor neighborhoods.
CNC : On the contrary – in "bad" neighborhoods the interests of the insurer and insured would coincide. Insurers would not want to suppress the expulsionist inclinations among the insured toward known criminals. They would rationalize such tendencies by offering selective price cuts (contingent on specific clean-up operations). [262]
ANDREW : Suppose that security GLOs, or private groups that they sponsor, are looking for criminals. When the enforcers catch the criminals, will they always transport them to an uninhabited area, or will they sometimes put them in prison?
CNC : Prisons like the ones we have? With basketball courts and televisions for the criminals? How would that be fair?
ANDREW : Maybe other kinds of prisons?
CNC : Look, it's not about putting people in prisons. It's about people getting what they deserve. And in the libertarian society of the future, people will get what they deserve. Security GLOs can be counted upon to apprehend the offender, and bring him to justice, because in so doing the insurer can reduce his costs and force the criminal to pay for the damages and cost of indemnification. [282]
ANDREW : So they'll have to do forced labor for the security GLO?
CNC : How can you possibly think this could be worse than our current system? Where instead of compensating the victims of crimes it did not prevent, the government forces victims to pay again as taxpayers for the cost of the apprehension, imprisonment, rehabilitation and/or entertainment of their aggressors [259] ?
ANDREW : Still, as a libertarian, aren't you against coercion?
CNC : Coercion? Obviously you don't understand what you're talking about. Coercion is only when someone interferes with rights someone else actually holds. Criminals can forfeit their rights through their own choices. When that happens, requiring them to make restitution for their actions doesn't violate their rights.
ANDREW : Will there be any other people in the free society who will be slaves?
CNC : Slaves?! Don't you know that the first condition of a libertarian society is that everyone owns themselves?
ANDREW : Sorry, I meant to say: effectively slaves in a rights-respecting manner.
CNC: Oh. Hmmm. Let me think about that.
ANDREW: For example, suppose someone signs a business contract and then, later, can't fulfill the terms of the contract. What would happen?
CNC : In a libertarian society, sanctity of contract is absolutely fundamental.
ANDREW : Let me be a little more specific. Suppose some guy can't pay his debts. Would he be allowed to declare bankruptcy and move on, or would he become, in a rights-respecting manner, the effective slave of whoever had loaned him the money?
CNC : That would depend upon the debt contract that the lender and borrower had together voluntarily signed. If they had chosen to include a bankruptcy proviso, then the borrower could declare bankruptcy.
ANDREW : Suppose that in the libertarian society, lenders would rather encourage borrowers to focus on repayment – and so they decide not to give borrowers an easy way out. Suppose that no lenders offer loans with a bankruptcy proviso. Would that be okay?
CNC : Economic theory tells us that loans without a bankruptcy proviso will be made at lower interest rates than loans allowing borrowers to go bankrupt. So if no loans contain a bankruptcy proviso, it will just mean that borrowers prefer low-interest no-bankruptcy loans.
ANDREW : I see some problems here.
CNC : Look, it sounds from your question like you think that the lenders should be coerced into allowing borrowers to be irresponsible and go bankrupt! That would effectively make them loan their hard-earned money in ways that they don't want. How is that any different than forcing them to work at hard labor?
ANDREW : Obviously it would be better to have defaulting borrowers be effectively enslaved in a way that fully respects their natural rights.
CNC : Obviously. Now that we've cleared that up, can you turn off the tape recorder? I want to get started on my steak.
Now that Code Name Cain has indicated the promise of a libertarian society, in the next part of the interview he will give a step-by-step plan for how we can make this society a reality.
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Synoia
Sleeping Dog December 30, 2018 at 9:05 amWhat puzzles me about the Libertarian Dream is their ability to ignore the Dark Ages in Western Europe.
It fulfills all their requirements, and by what accounts survive, was remarkably unsuccessful. Life was poor, nasty, brutish and short.
I've has the discussion of rule of law with libertarians, and it went like this:
Lb: We could have a farming society without rule of law.
Me: How are disputes resolved?
Lb: We all get together and resolve the dispute.Me: How is the dispute resolution enforced?
Lb: Everybody agrees to the resolution.Me: What happens if some do not agree? What happens if someone cheats?
Lb: ……..Me: We've used this mechanism before, Hatfields vs McCoy' in the US, and Campbells Vs McDonalds in Scotland.
Lb: ……..Those who don't know their History, are condemned to repeat it. Winston Churchill in his "History of the English Speaking Peoples" refers to the desire of the People in England to have "The King's Peace," otherwise known as "The Rule of Law" with all it's apparatus, Police, Courts, etc. The Libertarians appear to want "Rule by the Rich and Powerful" and do not understand that that includes few, if any, of the current libertarians, except perhaps for the Koch Brothers.
In the 90's when encountering a want-to-be business tycoon spouting Libertarian nonsense, I would encourage them to seek their fortune in Somalia, where no government existed.
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Dec 29, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has gone so far down the rabbit hole in his $25 million (taxpayer funded) Russia investigation -- going so far as to have "collected a nude selfie " to satisfy his probe.
The claim, according to The Hill was contained within a court filing by Russian firm Concord Management and Consulting - one of three businesses indicted by Mueller in February along with 13 individuals for election meddling.
In the Thursday court filing accusing Mueller's team of illegally withholding information in the case, Concord attorney Eric Dubelier made mention of the "nude selfie," asking " Could the manner in which he collected a nude selfie really threaten the national security of the United States? "
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Dec 29, 2018 | www.youtube.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54IcPmfqHlo
TectonicTsunami , 1 day agoLinkedIn needs to be linked-OUT.
Let me guess, not one single MSM outlet, will discuss this?
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Dec 28, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
MrBoompi , 35 seconds ago
CosineCosineCosine , 14 minutes ago4 unnamed sources = 0 believable sources
I call complete and total BULL ****
EDIT
SHOW US THE METADATA, YOU LIAR'S BLUFF PIECES OF HUMAN EXCREMENT !###@@@@!!@#@!
I fini. Feel a little bit better now
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Dec 27, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com
Phoroneus57 , 3 Jun 2018 23:03
'Trickle down effect' - the favourite buzzword of neoliberal supporters. I'd like to see trickle down effect tried at the local pub on the taps by the local mp. Imagine what would happen. Definitely doesn't pass the pub test.
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Dec 27, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Entropy Wins , Dec 26, 2018 4:04:42 PM | link
Those damned Russians will weaponize anything. Here they are weaponizing cuteness.
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Dec 27, 2018 | www.unz.com
FB , says: December 25, 2018 at 11:13 am GMT
In defense of the chickenhawk -- the actual birdThe first time I saw one in action, it was quite a revelation I looked out the kitchen window to see what looked like a blue jay perching on some kind of largish rock that he was pecking at of course that made no sense at all and upon closer examination it turned out to be a tiny raptor, not even a foot long from beak to tail, standing on a much larger dead chicken and ripping flesh off of it I ran out back toward the chicken yard and the mighty little slayer flew off the poor hen had a good part of her back flesh removed
Pretty amazing that such a tiny bird could take a chicken easily ten times its weight -- the sharp shinned hawk weighs just 200-400 grams
So while I certainly despise the useless eaters that agitate for war while having not the slightest idea what combat of any kind is about, I always cringe at the degradation of the word 'chickenhawk' a mighty little predator whose good name should not be sullied in association with such human detritus
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Dec 27, 2018 | www.unz.com
Digital Samizdat , says: December 25, 2018 at 10:54 pm GMT
Everybody say a prayer for Lindsay Graham this Christmas. I hear he's in distress
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Dec 27, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
John k , December 26, 2018 at 9:11 pm
I do remember this.
Nixon is not just to the left of today's reps, he's to the left of the so called centrist dems I would call them right wing corporate lackays that never saw a war they didn't like.
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Dec 27, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
A devotional gift for Xmas.
Big Tap , December 26, 2018 at 5:11 pm
They are several varieties of the Mueller candle. The vendor below said they sold out the original supply of candles but more will arrive in the future. Pray to St. Mueller!! /s
https://www.cargoinc.com/whimsy/robert-mueller-devotional-candle
Wukchumni , December 26, 2018 at 5:21 pm
Mueller candle: Votive confidence?
polecat , December 26, 2018 at 7:10 pm
How come he's not on a cross ??
ambrit , December 26, 2018 at 7:39 pm
That should be a St. Mueller vigil candle cover. Something appropriate for a saint dedicated to blocking the cleansing power of light.
From "The Legend of Saint Mueller":
"And then the Priest of the Temple named Mueller didst procure screens with which to block out from the sight of the People those necessary sins taken upon themselves by the Priests to protect that same People from the Forces of Evil."
In later days, that Priest named Mueller was elected to the ranks of the anointed as the patron of all who cast shade and do other evils in the service of a Good Cause. His Saint Day is February 29. The prayer to Saint Mueller begins: "Redactio ad absurdum." His sigil is 'A Candle Under a Basket.'
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Dec 26, 2018 | mainlymacro.blogspot.com
phayes , 23 January 2014 at 03:51
Anonymous , 23 January 2014 at 04:12That'd be like astronomers saying that although Hellenic astrology is pseudoscientific nonsense they can probably do business with Ptolemaic or Hindu astrology. Other scientists would laugh and call astronomy the dismal physics. Isn't it about time economists like yourself just told the knuckle dragging ideologues - of whatever colour and salinity - to fuck off?
Who is an economist who is not an ideologue?
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Dec 25, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
"Our material support to the jihadis we called moderate rebels was a clear anti-Assad move."You reminded me of a line by the political satirist Mark Russell commenting on our likewise misguided tactics back in the 1980s:
"The definition of a 'moderate Islamic fighter' is the guy who has suddenly run out of ammunition."
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Dec 25, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Cassandra.Hermes , 1 hour ago link
The Guardian is the best newspaper with 4,049,000 daily readers, they are owned by non-profit foundation and they are free to write whatever they are pleased but their contents is verified 100% so you are free not to like it but you have to accept it as a facts.
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Dec 24, 2018 | nationalinterest.org
Dingo Attack!!! • 8 days ago ,
Vic Dingo Attack!!! • 8 days ago ,Look at the Russian bots here? Do they actually think they can change anyone's opinions about their backwater country run by an egotistical authoritarian?
Says the one person making troll comments. "Russia bots" is the liberals new word for anyone that disagree with them. They need this little labels because they have no facts on their side. Only hatred for dissenters.
"35,000 Volunteers Sign Up for Ukraine's 'Information Army' on First Day" https://www.newsweek.com/35...
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Dec 24, 2018 | nationalinterest.org
Dingo Attack!!! • 8 days ago ,
James Thomas Dingo Attack!!! • 8 days ago ,Look at the Russian bots here? Do they actually think they can change anyone's opinions about their backwater country run by an egotistical authoritarian?
It is a good thing that the US is not ruled by an egotistical authoritarian.
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Dec 24, 2018 | nationalinterest.org
franciscoalmeida_br Savimbi says • 9 days ago ,the West seeks no friends , but rather vassals are welcome.
Scores of worldwide diplomats have their backstage sayings : " it's better to be US' foe than ally because if you are their foe, they'll try to buy you ; but if you are their ally , they will sell you.".
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Jul 23, 2017 | www.unz.com
Che Guava , says: July 23, 2017 at 2:55 pm GMT
Russiagate, what a nonsensical concept. Constantly shifting narrative. (1) OMG, they hacked voting machines! (2) OMG, they hacked DNC servers! (3) OMG, someone talked to a Russian!It is so stupid.
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Dec 21, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Scotch Bingeington , Dec 20, 2018 5:15:34 PM | link
Like firing a smoke grenade into a hornets' nest. What a priceless sight. The atlanticist scum over here in Germany are really at a loss, flat on their backs. Well done, Donald!
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Dec 21, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Prehuman insight
The American Empire:
an imperial ball of debt: a nation of never-educated, mobility scooter herds; a zillion-dollar military with decades of ineptitude fully demonstrated;
led by President Trash-n-Mock - without a mission, strategy or goal or chance for success.
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Dec 20, 2018 | www.unz.com
As my regular readers will probably recall, according to my personal, pseudo-Chinese zodiac, 2017 was " The Year of the Headless Liberal Chicken ." This year, having given it considerable thought, and having consulted the I Ching, and assorted other oracles, I'm designating 2018 "The Year of Putin-Nazi Paranoia."
... ... ...
Back in America, millions of liberals and other Russia-and-Trump-obsessives were awaiting the Putin-Nazi Apocalypse , which despite the predictions of Resistance pundits had still, by the Summer, failed to materialize. The corporate media were speculating that Putin's latest "secret scheme" was for Trump to destroy the Atlantic alliance by arriving late for the G7 meeting. Or maybe Putin's secret scheme was to order Trump to sadistically lock up a bunch of migrants in metal cages, exactly as Obama had done before him but these were special Nazi cages! And Trump was separating mothers and children, which, as General Michael Hayden reminded us , was more or less exactly the same as Auschwitz! Paul Krugman had apparently lost it , and was running around the offices of The New York Times shrieking that "America as we know it is finished!" Soros had been smuggled back into Europe to single-handedly thwart the Putin-Nazi plot to "dominate the West," which he planned to do by canceling the Brexit (which Putin had obviously orchestrated) and overthrowing the elected government of Italy (which, according to Soros, was a Putin-Nazi front).
As if that wasn't paranoia-inducing enough, suddenly, Trump flew off to Helisnki to personally meet with the Devil Himself. The neoliberal establishment went totally apeshit. A columnist for The New York Times predicted that Trump, Putin, Le Pen, the AfD, and other such Nazis were secretly forming something called "the Alliance of Authoritarian and Reactionary States," and intended to disband the European Union, and NATO, and impose international martial law and start ethnically cleansing the West of migrants. That, or Trump and Putin were simply using the summit as cover to attend some Nazi-equestrian homosexual orgy, which The Times took pains to illustrate by creating a little animated film depicting Trump and Putin as lovers. In any event, Jonathan Chait was certain that Trump had been a "Russian intelligence asset" since at least as early as 1987, and was going to Helsinki to "meet his handler."
In the wake of the summit, the neoliberal Resistance, like some multi-headed mythical creature in the throes of acute amphetamine psychosis, started spastically jabbering about "treason" and "traitors," and more or less demanding that Trump be tried, and taken out and shot on the White House lawn. A frenzy of neo-McCarthyism followed. Liberals started accusing people of being "traitorous agents of Trump and Moscow," and openly calling for a CIA coup, because we were "facing a national security emergency!" A devastating Russian cyber-attack was due to begin at any moment. National Intelligence Director Dan Coats personally assured the Associated Press that the little "Imminent Russia Attack" lights he had on his desk were "blinking red."
... ... ...
So here's wishing my Russia-and-Trump-obsessed readers a merry, teeth-clenching, anus-puckering Christmas and a somewhat mentally-healthier New Year! Me, I'm looking forward to discovering how batshit crazy things can get I have a feeling we ain't seen nothing yet.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.
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Dec 19, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Dec 17, 2018 2:38:03 PM | link
Although likely covered by weaponizing incompetence and stupidity, Putin has certainly weaponized the Outlaw US Empire's appalling lack of a professional diplomatic corp--just look at who he gets Trump to nominate to key diplomatic positions.Hoarsewhisperer , Dec 17, 2018 12:24:29 PM | linkThis is my favourite... Vladimir Putin Outwitted Megyn Kelly by Weaponizing Incompetence The New Yorker, March 2018Jose Garcia , Dec 17, 2018 12:31:26 PM | linkI love the insinuation that CNN didn't suspect that Megyn is a bimbo until she tried to outsmart Putin.
Putin has weaponized health care. My premiums went up and it's tough to pay.Bart Hansen , Dec 17, 2018 1:20:01 PM | linkIke , Dec 17, 2018 4:08:36 PM | link"Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project"The acronym for that shady outfit would be OUCPP. Say that acronym quickly several times and you WILL be in Monte Python country.
Russia weaponised [bad] movies: https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitLiberalsSay/comments/7khmhq/russian_hackers_are_behind_the_poor_ratings_of/ex-SA , Dec 17, 2018 4:11:28 PM | linkAnd now Putin's Russia has weaponized Mueller's probe?! Mueller Dropping Russia Probe, Says Trump Working for Israel and Saudis | New Eastern OutlookCurtis , Dec 17, 2018 6:33:53 PM | linkand last but not least, Russia is blamed for inflaming the protests in France: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-14/france-turmoil-blame-russiaalaff , Dec 17, 2018 8:20:19 PM | linkIt reminds me of the meme taken from The Brady Bunch instead of "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" it's "Russia, Russia, Russia."
Check it out & add to your nice collection, if you want.Russia is:
* Weaponizing 'technology':
https://www.axios.com/russia-misinformation-campaigns-us-elections-83428979-b184-4ed6-b153-25ed72d2f993.html* Weaponizing 'the continent / Venezuela':
https://www.breitbart.com/latin-america/2018/12/11/russia-places-nuclear-capable-bombers-venezuela/
https://www.krediblepolitics.com/cs/article/breitbart-russia-places-nuclear-capable-bombers-in-venezuela
(December 11, 2018)* Weaponizing 'Interpol red notices':
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-interpol-president-putting-fox-charge-hen-house-experts-say-1224160
(November 20, 2018)* Weaponizing 'Heather Nauert':
https://qz.com/1468983/russian-hackers-are-weaponizing-heather-nauert-a-trump-pick-for-un-ambassador/
(November 18, 2018)* Weaponizing 'Social media hate':
https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/10/02/the-last-jedi-study-blames-russian-trolls-for-weaponizing-social-media-hate
(October 2, 2018)* Weaponizing 'Debt':
https://sputniknews.com/us/201806191065559610-us-debt-dollar/
(June 19, 2018)
https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/30/investing/russia-us-debt-treasury/index.html
(July 30, 2018)* Weaponizing 'leaks':
https://www.wired.com/2017/05/russian-hackers-using-tainted-leaks-sow-disinformation/
(May 25, 2017)* Weaponizing 'History':
https://codastory.com/disinformation-crisis/information-war/weaponizing-history-world-war-ii-memorial-attackers-aim-to-divide-poland-and-ukraine
(February 27, 2017)Fran , Dec 17, 2018 10:20:44 AM | link
And besides humor I am sure Putin is also weaponizing calendars, at least in Japan. Maybe in exchange for keeping the Kuril islands: Putin calendar sales surpassing those of Japanese stars in JapanPeter VE , Dec 17, 2018 10:59:02 AM | linkThe underlying problem: Russia has weaponized telling the truth.
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Dec 17, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
How Putin's Russia Weaponizes X
Q: What do humor, health information, giant squids, robotic cockroaches, tedium and postmodernism have in common?
A: Russia weaponized them.
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Dec 17, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com
ShaunNewman -> TyroneBHorneigh , 23 Aug 2016 00:29
The only problem is that 'America' does not exist. America is a part description of a continent and I think we are talking about the USA (only one country on North American soil) Why do the yanks always have to exaggerate their own importance like the Olympics bloke who claimed he was robbed at gunpoint lol! Do the USAians actually have an inferiority complex?
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Dec 17, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
StheNine , 1 hour ago link
" Miller also admits that the dossier's broad claims are more closely aligned with reality, but that the document breaks down once you focus on individual claims. "
What?!?
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Dec 17, 2018 | www.rt.com
" Giving money in exchange for political favors could run afoul of federal corruption laws ," the report explains, seemingly unfamiliar with business as usual in Washington.
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Dec 17, 2018 | www.rt.com
Britain spent part of the spring chucking out Russian diplomats it accused of being spies, of course that means all the known alleged spooks are no longer around, so the UK needs to find some more. One of the things we have learnt in the post-Skripal world, is that there are now seen to be only two kinds of Russian: the spies and ... oh no actually just one type of Russian.
75,000 Russian expats spying in London? Their handlers' workload must be a nightmare! The true scale of the workload facing British counterintelligences has been recently revealed by a London based think tank, which estimates half of all Russian expats in the British capital are spies or informants.
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Dec 17, 2018 | www.rt.com
Unlike the 2014 Ukraine uprising, which witnessed invasive meddling on the part of US politicians and diplomats, Western support for the French Yellow Vest protests has been conspicuously missing in action ;-)
'Paris agreement isn't working out so well for Paris!': Trump taunts Macron over Yellow Vests fires...
Macron's European army has arrived. It goes by the name Gilets Jaunes
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Dec 16, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Piotr Berman , Dec 15, 2018 6:01:25 PM | link
b: After two years the Muller investigation found zero evidence for the 'collusion' between Russia and the Trump campaign that the fake Steele dossier suggested.I bet that there are few tons of evidence. b is unfamiliar with the most basic methods for detectives and prosecutors: connect the dots. For example, one dot in Toronto, ONT and the second in New Delhi, India. Connect them using a straight line, or more correctly, so-called grand circle that is the unique shortest air route from Toronto to Dehli. Voila! It goes through Russia.
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Dec 10, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Don Heffernton December 10, 2018 at 9:26 am
Those who dismissed the never-built Russian Property fail to understand that if or when it is built, the property's telephone system will interconnect with Russian Telcom – the same system that serves Putin and the Russian Federation, so they'd be directly connected by copper wires and fiber optic cable. You can't be more intertwined or interdependent than that. And don't get me started on how the buildings source of power is the same utility grid that serves Putin's home, Dacha, and Government Buildings.They practically makes tTrump and Putin Siamese twins just barely separated decades after birth. That's high crime and misdemeanor grade Collusion if I ever cleverly imagined it.
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21st Century Wire
John C Carleton • 2 days ago ,
"UK [elite] 'Integrity "
Thanks!
Needed a good laugh!
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Dec 09, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Have I Got News For You ✔ @haveigotnews
BREAKING: UK exhausted from endless stream of Brexit bollocks so here's a picture of some puppies.
Theresa May told to quit by Cabinet ministers if her Brexit deal falls and she fails to get better terms from EU TelegraphNo-deal Brexit: Disruption at Dover 'could last six months' BBC. I have trouble understanding why six months. The UK's customs IT system won't be ready and there's no reason to think it will be ready even then. I could see things getting less bad due to adaptations but "less bad" is not normal
The Great Brexit Breakdown Wall Street Journal. Some parts I quibble with, but generally good and includes useful historical detail.
British MP suggests threatening Ireland with food shortages over Brexit, Twitter outrage follows RT (kevin W)
It's crunch time for Labour. Empty posturing on Brexit will no longer do Guardian. Shreds the Corbyn op-ed we criticized yesterday.
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Dec 08, 2018 | finance.yahoo.com
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, the 46-year-old daughter of the company's founder, was detained in Canada on Dec. 1, the same day Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping dined together at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires.
A White House official told Reuters Trump did not know about a U.S. request for her extradition from Canada before he met Xi and agreed to a 90-day truce in the brewing trade war.
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Dec 08, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk | Dec 5, 2018 1:50:56 PM | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/opinion/george-bush-wasps.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage>
So, if you're a WASP, or at least did the American cursus honorum (i.e. went to Harvard or Yale), the American people is ok with you being POTUS. You're only an illegitimate POTUS if you weren't born and raised to be one -- nothing to do with winning an election with the help of the SCOTUS, or being a war criminal, or being a neoliberal.
">link
NYT, bastion of the liberals, covertly admits it doesn't like Trump because of the image he projects to the rest of the world, not because of his policies:Why We Miss the WASPs, by Ross Douthat, < https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/opinion/george-bush-wasps.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage>
So, if you're a WASP, or at least did the American cursus honorum (i.e. went to Harvard or Yale), the American people is ok with you being POTUS. You're only an illegitimate POTUS if you weren't born and raised to be one -- nothing to do with winning an election with the help of the SCOTUS, or being a war criminal, or being a neoliberal.
">link
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Dec 08, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Schmoe , Dec 7, 2018 6:26:10 PM | link
I anxiously await news that Lloyd Blankfein has been arrested and will be extradited to Malaysia due to Goldman Sachs' involvement in a $6b theft of Malaysian assets (1MDB), and Lloyd having met with the individual who executed the first step of the fraud back in 2012.As for Trump not being able to fire Bolton, give me a break. Wimpy Obama was able to stand up to Netanyahoo on occasion.
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Dec 03, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com
MickGJ -> outragedofacton , 8 Jun 2013 08:50
I hadn't realised the John WIlkes Booth and Lee Harey Oswald were bankers.@outragedofacton - You have to be careful when you take on the banksters.
Abe Lincoln, John Kennedy and Hitler all tried or (in Kennedy's case planned) on the issuance of money via the state circumventing the banks.But I do always enjoy the scenes in Saving Private Ryan when thousands of heavily-armed Goldman Sachs employees land on Omaha beach.
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Dec 03, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com
LOGIC 101: Introductory Course of StudyIf private, stockholder-held central banks such as the FED and the FED-backed ECB were not orchestrating this depression, and anybody who believed they were was a "wacko-nutcase conspiracy theorist", then why do they keep repeating the same mistakes of forcing un-payable bailout loans, collapsing banks, wiping out people's savings and then imposing austerity on those nations year after year -- when it is clearly a failed policy?
Possible Answers :
1. Bank presidents are all ex-hippies who got hooked on LSD in the 70's and have not yet recovered fully as their brains are still fried!
2. Central bankers have been recruited from insane asylums in both Europe and America in government-sponsored programs to see whether blithering idiots are capable of running large, international financial institutions.
3. All catastrophic events in the banking/business world, such as the derivative and housing crash of 2008, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and The Great Depression of 1929-40 were totally random events that just occurred out of nowhere and central banks were caught off guard -- leaving them no option but to play with their willies for years on end until a major war suddenly happened to pull the whole world out of "bad times"!
4. As central banks such as the FED and the ECB operate with insatiable greed and cannot be audited or regulated by any government body anywhere in the world, due to their charters having been set up that way, then bankers are free to meet secretly and plot depressions so as to gain full control over sovereign nations and manipulate markets so that their "chums and agents" in business can buy up assets and land in depressed economies -- while possible wars could also make corporations and banks more money as well!
Please choose one of the possible answers from above and write a short 500 word essay on whether it may or may not true -- using well-defined logical arguments. I expect your answers in by Friday of this week as I would like to get pissed out of my mind at the pub on Saturday night!
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Dec 01, 2018 | www.unz.com
Rational , says: November 29, 2018 at 7:51 pm GMT
"ALL LIES, ALL LIES, ALL LIES"So he screamed in the cafeteria and spilled his morning coffee. We all wondered what happened to him and so we looked at his friend, and he told us that he must have read the NYT, as that was his common reaction, a cry of pain and anguish and screams of "all lies, all lies, all lies" whenever he reads the newspaper or watches the TV, esp. NYT.
Your article and the previous news about Manfort visiting Assange and the funny timing of the same reminded me of this story.
The Western MSM is a lying scamming neoliberal propaganda machine.
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Dec 01, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
William Dorritt , 9 minutes ago link
besnook , 1 minute ago linkThe average Chinese Slave can barely afford their rent and food, if they complain they are sent to re-education camps or exterminated,
If healthy they will receive first rate medical care to worm them before they are harvested for organs.
The average USA Slave can barely afford their rent and food, if they complain they are sent to re-education camps or exterminated,
If healthy they will receive first rate medical care to worm them before they are harvested for organs.
fify
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Aug 30, 2012 | www.theguardian.com
DuErJournalist , 29 Aug 2012 17:42The New York Times: Burn after reading!JinTexas , 29 Aug 2012 16:02" The New York Times-all the news the CIA decided is fit to print. "
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Dec 01, 2018 | www.rt.com
FILM:
PRESIDENT: This is incredible! I never ordered such a thing!
SOVIET AMBASSADOR (scornfully): Our [intelligence] source was the New York Times.
-- "Dr. Strangelove"REALITY:
US President Donald Trump is still unsure whether to meet with Vladimir Putin, pending a 'full report' about the Kerch Strait incident that by pure coincidence happened just days before the upcoming G20 summit in Argentina.
Trump cancels Putin meeting at G20 over Ukraine standoff ... Trump, Putin to meet at G20 amid Russia-Ukraine tensions ... Trump to meet Putin at G20, but not MBS - Bolton - rt.com
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Nov 30, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Fuster-cluck , 42 minutes ago link
Have some heart. It wouldn't be right to stop Mueller and his pals from billing their law fees of $800/hr right before Christmas. Do you have any idea how much a yacht runs these days?
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Nov 30, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
MilwaukeeMark , 1 hour ago link
People like Macon remind me of guys who are still virgins but brag about their prowess...
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Nov 28, 2018 | www.rt.com
Cover your ears and avert your eyes, Americans: RT is attempting to weaken the United States using a whole host of nefarious methods – such as telling the truth, a former Homeland Security official has warned. Sounding the alarm during a panel discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, Suzanne Spaulding, former deputy secretary for cyber and infrastructure protection at DHS in the Obama administration, said that one of RT's methods when it comes to its influencing vulnerable Americans is telling the truth.As an example of this worrisome and effective truth-telling, Spaulding cited one of RT's weekly shows, America's Lawyer, hosted by prominent US trial lawyer Mike Papantonio. The theme of this show , Spaulding revealed to the audience is that the US justice system is "corrupt and broken" and has been "taken over by politicians and the elite for their own corrupt ends."
They feature every week, stories from our courts all across the country to demonstrate the truth of this statement. I don't think there's anything in there that is a lie.
A truthful news show dedicated to exposing the corruption of the American justice system? Terrifying!
Adversaries like Russia, Spaulding said, are "using information operations, sometimes enabled by cyber, to weaken us" – but the reason it can be so effective, she said, is that the information doesn't have to be a lie.
Oftentimes, they don't even have to make things up, they simply replay, they take kernels of truth, they take existing divisions and weaknesses of our own making and reproduce them, put them out, retweet them indefinitely in a very one-sided way.
Now, to many Americans, this might sound like some worthwhile viewing, but to Spaulding it is still "propaganda" because the ultimate objective is to weaken the country by revealing its flaws and stirring up trouble.
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Nov 28, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
A transcript of exchanges between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been leaked to National News Conglomerate by an anonymous source within the Kremlin . We here at NNC have confirmed the authenticity of this document using the same rigorous verification process we've been using to authenticate the evidence for all our other reporting on Russia's involvement in the 2016 US elections over the last two years. These verification methods include hunches, gut intuitions, and an introspective assessment of the way our feelings feel. The following exchanges revealed in this transcript provide the clearest evidence yet that the President of the United States has been in collusion with the Russian government for years.This introduction has been authored by the editorial board of the National News Conglomerate. Obey.
11/9/2016
Trump: I have done as you commanded, my dominant and all-powerful lord. I have conspired with your hackers to steal the election, and now I'm going to be president! I want to thank you for not releasing that video footage of those Russian prostitutes I hired to urinate on a bed the Obamas once slept in. If that had come out it would have offended and alienated a lot of people, which is something I never normally do.
Putin: Yes that is an old KGB tactic called kompromat, a word which only extremely intelligent people know about. Keep this line of communication open. As long as you do as I command, your pee pee tape will remain secret.
Trump: One thing I'm curious about though my lord, if you don't mind my asking. If you already had an army of hackers targeting Democratic Party emails, why did you need my help? Couldn't you just have hacked the emails and published them on your own? Why did you need me to interact with them at all?
Putin: Moral support, mainly. We don't need to get into specifics.
Trump: Oh okay.
~
1/20/2017
Trump: I'm in! Whew! I was really worried that leaked dossier would be the end of me! What are my instructions, my lord?
Putin: Begin introducing racism and division to the United States. America has never experienced these things before, and it will shock and disorient them. With the US divided against itself, your nation will be far too weak to stand against my plans of total world domination.
Trump: That's a really tall order! America has always been a harmonious place where everyone gets along up until today. I'll try my best though. Anything else?
Putin: Yes, make them distrust your nation's large media outlets and convince them that the US intelligence community is often dishonest.
Trump: That will be really hard because those institutions have always been trusted for their unparalleled integrity. But your wish is my command, oh lord.
~
4/7/2017
Putin: Bomb a Syrian airbase.
Trump: What? Really? Aren't they, like, your allies?
Putin: Exactly. This will throw inquisitive minds off the scent. We can't have them finding out about that pee tape.
Trump: Are you sure? Some people are saying that chemical attack looks like it could have been perpetrated by the many terrorist factions in Syria and not the government.
Putin: Who cares? Have you seen how relentless they've been in exposing us?? Have you never watched Rachel Maddow? That woman is a psychic bloodhound, masterfully sniffing out the truth at every turn! We can't afford to take chances. Do as I say.
Trump: Yes sir.
Putin: And see if you can arrest that WikiLeaks guy.
6/28/17
Trump: Hey do you want me to do anything about Montenegro's addition to NATO?
Putin: No. NATO expansion is good.
Trump: Uhhh okay.
~
6/28/17
Trump: Who do you want tapped for Ukraine envoy?
Putin: Kurt Volker.
Trump: Volker? He hates you! He's like the biggest Russia hawk ever.
Putin: We still need to throw the Russiagaters off the scent. We're playing 3-D chess here. This is high-level disinformation, or dezinformatsiya as very smart people call it. I want as many Russia hawks in your administration as possible.
Trump: 3-D chess? Alright. I guess you know what you're doing.
~
8/30/17
Putin: Shut down the Russian consulate in San Francisco and throw out a bunch of diplomats. That will confuse the hell out of them.
~
11/21/17
Putin: Now approve the sale of arms to Ukraine. Not even Obama would do that. This will throw them off the trail for sure.
~
1/1/18
Putin: Happy new year. Force RT and Sputnik to register as foreign agents.
~
1/29/18
Putin: Make sure your Nuclear Posture Review greatly escalates its aggressive posture toward Russia.
~
2/14/18
Putin: Happy Valentine's Day. Don't worry about those Russians your guys killed in Syria.
~
2/19/18
Putin: Send a fleet of war ships to the Black Sea.
~
3/25/18
Putin: Better expel a few dozen diplomats over the Skripal thing.
~
4/5/18
Putin: Sanction a bunch of Russian oligarchs.
~
4/10/18
Putin: Bomb Syria.
Trump: What?? Again?
Putin: Yes.
Trump: What the hell, man? Why'd you even recruit me if you're just going to have me do everything all the Russia hawks want?
Putin: Well, you know how I told you we were playing 3-D chess against the Russiagate investigation?
Trump: Yeah?
Putin: Well that wasn't enough. Now we're playing 4-D chess.
Trump: Fine, whatever, I don't care. Just don't release my pee tape.
~
7/17/18
Trump: Oh man. They're really making a major fuss about that summit. What should I do?
Putin: Play it cool. Don't let them know about our secret diabolical plot.
Trump: Right. Remind me what that was again?
Putin: Make Jim Acosta feel really, really sad.
~
9/2/18
Putin: Have you arrested Julian Assange yet?
Trump: Working on it.
~
10/20/18
Putin: I like John Bolton's idea. Pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
~
11/25/18
Putin: Make sure your administration loudly and aggressively backs Ukraine in our Kerch Strait spat.
Trump: OMFG this is getting too weird. Are you just trolling me? What the hell is this?
Trump: Hello?
Trump: Are you there?
Trump: Answer me!
Putin: 5-D chess.
* * *
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .
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The little voice inside my head , 18 minutes ago link
DisorderlyConduct , 1 hour ago linkJust encountered a Denzel Washington interview from last year, how true it's become, like the Guardian and Wikileaks "story"
Doesn't matter if it's true or not, just be the first , sell it!
francis scott falseflag , 1 hour ago linkLOL.
...bomb a Syrian airbase...
This is awesome.
The little voice inside my head , 13 minutes ago linkHey, that's where I stopped reading. Did I miss anything?
Element , 1 hour ago linkNot to sound like a Russian misinformation dude, but I was watching some of Putin's interviews and the dude speaks in common sense terms.
ABC asks Putin about meddling in the elections.
And the one with Megyn Kelly:
bfellow , 1 hour ago linkNNC logo?
cbxer55 , 1 hour ago linkReally Element? Does Keyser have to add a /s at the end to realize he was being sarcastic?
CNN backwards. LOL!!!!
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Nov 28, 2018 | www.unz.com
The Trumpenleft (or "Sputnik Left," as it is also called by professional anti-Putin-Nazi intelligence analysts ) is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It is a gang of nefarious Putin-Nazi infiltrators posing as respectable leftists in order to disseminate Trumpian ideology and Putin-Nazi propaganda among an assortment of online leftist magazines that hardly anyone ever actually reads. The aim of these insidious Trumpenleft infiltrators is to sow confusion, chaos, and discord among actual, real, authentic leftists who are going about the serious business of calling Donald Trump a fascist on the Internet twenty-five times a day, verbally abusing Julian Assange , occasionally pulling down oppressive statues, and sharing videos of racist idiots acting like racist idiots in public.
... ... ...
This is the type of gobbledegook the Trumpenleft use to try to dupe real leftists into putting down their phones for a minute and actually thinking through political issues! Fortunately, no one is falling for it. As any bona fide leftist knows, there is no "mass migration problem." The whole thing is simply a racist hoax concocted by Putin, Alex Jones, and other Trumpian disinformationists. The only thing real leftists need to know about immigration is that immigrants are good, and Trump, and walls, and borders are bad! All that other fancy gibberish about global capitalism, Milton Friedman, labor markets, and national sovereignty is nothing but fascist propaganda (which needs to be censored, or at least deplatformed, or demonetized, or otherwise suppressed).
But Angela Nagle is just one example. The Trumpenleft is legion, and growing. Its membership includes a handful of prominent (and rather less prominent) fake leftist figures: Glenn Greenwald, who many among the "Resistance" would like to see renditioned and indefinitely detained in some offshore Trumpenleft gulag somewhere; Matt Taibbi, who just published a treasonous article challenging the right of the US government to prosecute publishers as "enemy agents" for publishing material they don't want published; Julian Assange, who is one such publisher, and who the US has scheduled for public crucifixion just as soon as they can get their hands on him; Aaron Maté of the Real News Network, a notorious Trump-Russia " collusion denialist "; Caitlin Johnstone , an Australian blogger and poet who the Red-Brown Putin-Nazi hunters at CounterPunch have become totally obsessed with; Diana Johnstone , who they also don't like; and (full disclosure) your humble narrator .
Now, normally, the opinions of some political journalists and rather marginal political writers wouldn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but there's a war on, so there's no room for neutrality. As I mentioned in my latest essay , over the course of the next two years, the global capitalist ruling classes need to make an example of Trump, and Assange, and anyone else who has had the gall to fuck with their global empire. Part of how they are going to do this is to further polarize the already extremely polarized ideological spectrum until everyone is forced onto one or the other side of a pro- or anti-Trump equation, or a pro- or anti-populist equation or a pro- or anti-fascist equation.
As you probably noticed, The Guardian has just launched a special six-week "investigative series" exploring the whole " new populism " phenomenon (which began with a lot of scary photos of Steve Bannon next to the word "populism"). We are going to be hearing a lot about "populism" over the course of the next two years. We are going to be hearing how "populism" is actually not that different from fascism, or at the very least is inherently racist, and anti-Semitic, and xenophobic, and how, basically, anyone who criticizes neoliberal elites or the corporate media is Russia-loving, pro-Trump Nazi.
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Nov 26, 2018 | www.antiwar.com
Rep. Adam Schiff, who takes the chair of the House Intelligence Committee in January, has a nose for hot tips about his bete noire, Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as a strong bent toward credulousness. On October 23, 2018, Schiff solemnly told a young audience at the old Hillary Clinton/John Podesta Center for American Progress Action Fund that he had been told that Putin has one of his henchmen follow Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev around with a pillow to smother him in his sleep if he ever gets out of line.
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Nov 25, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk
Did anybody told this Trump?
Paul Greenwood , October 24, 2018 at 14:10
The British Army buys powder charges from South Africa. The US buys propellants for its AAMs from Belgium. UK leases its Trident missile units from a common stockpile in King's Bay, VA. Parts for F-35 Albatross are made in Turkey. UK imports its army uniforms from China as does USA
You clearly make your mobile phones in Harrow rather than import them from China
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Nov 25, 2018 | en.wikipedia.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Andreotti
A joke about Andreotti (originally seen in a strip by Stefano Disegni and Massimo Caviglia) had him receiving a phone call from a fellow party member, who pleaded with him to attend judge Giovanni Falcone's funeral. His friend supposedly begged, "The State must give an answer to the Mafia, and you are one of the top authorities in it!" To which a puzzled Andreotti asked, "Which one do you mean?"
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Nov 25, 2018 | caucus99percent.com
What else is amazing about her emails @leveymg
is how no one really talked about their content, eh? We learned that she rigged the primary against Bernie and then everyone started talking about Russia ! Just as she and Podesta wanted.
up 8 users have voted. --
#1
Amazing how elusive they are (scrubbed from the State Dept website) and how they have never been picked up on by most of the corporate media.Disclaimer: No Russian, living or dead, had anything to do with the posting of this proudly home-grown comment
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Nov 25, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk
Theresa May today chose to compare herself with Geoffrey Boycott. For once, she was being very accurate, especially when it comes to relationships with her own team. Boycott's players hated him so much during his captaincy they actually ran him out on purpose during a test match.
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Nov 24, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
DEDA CVETKO , 4 hours ago link
US Guvmint to the World: My way or the highway. The World to the US Guvmint: HIGHWAY!!!!!
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Nov 24, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Now we know who financial Steele dossier and created Skripal affair ;-) Perfidious Albion: or yet another example of the pot calling the kettle black when in fact the kettle may not be black at all; it's just the pot making up things
In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream.
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Nov 23, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
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Nov 23, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Deebo , Nov 22, 2018 1:52:47 PM | link
<.>Lol @ Pic
biggerIrony at its best !!!
Great work!!!
Circe , Nov 22, 2018 11:25:57 PM | link
Trump pardoned the Sawdi turkey and offended the entire Turkey population.psychohistorian , Nov 22, 2018 11:36:59 PM | link@ Circe with the line up of Turkeys.....niceI would just suggest b that you better don't plan any trips to SA in the near future.
Speaking of trips. Any but me think that the G20 is being set up for Show Time?
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Nov 23, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
In a trite refrain straight out of the standard Washington regime change playbook, the United States has lodged a formal complaint alleging Iran is developing nerve agents "for offensive purposes".
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Nov 23, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
William Bowles , Nov 23, 2018 4:59:21 AM | link
