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August 30, 2016
Open Thread 2016-29
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Hillary, Hillary!
From my Link 98 above
On July 3, 2015, presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton addressed a hand-picked audience at a Dartmouth College campaign event. She lied calling Iran an “existential threat to Israel… I hope we are able to get a deal next week that puts a lid on (its) nuclear weapons program.”
Even if we do get such a deal, we will still have major problems from Iran. They are the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism.
They use proxies like Hezbollah to sow discord and create insurgencies to destabilize governments. They are taking more and more control of a number of nations in the region and they pose an existential threat to Israel.
We…have to turn our attention to working with our partners to try to reign in and prevent this continuing Iranian aggressiveness.
~ ~ ~
July 03 2015: “Iran is the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism.” said Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State. Yet, 6 months later, January 17, 2016, Obama’s Treasury pays Iran USD$1.7 Bln dollars – in part, $400 million consisting of various currencies, was delivered in pallets of cash.
Was it a ransom, a truncated deal of the Shah OR Both?
Posted by: likklemore | Sep 1 2016 16:27 utc | 101
Reply to Pyotr Berman Comment #96: TRUMP ON FOREIGN POLICY
Thanks for your request. To me foreign policy is the most critical issue. Inexplicably, Trump’s website mentions nothing about foreign policy. A link to the New York Times transcript of Trump’s April 27, 2016 foreign policy speech is given in my comment #97.
As a result of your request, I sent an email to the Trump campaign team asking that the GOP candidate’s website post statements and speeches on world affairs. Even if Trump were wrong on everything else, this issue alone makes him a clear choice over Hillary.
Foreign policy might even be the key to the California vote, where world peace is a big concern.
Thanks again for pointing this out.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 1 2016 16:31 utc | 102
US Government Launches a Massive Attack Against the European Commission
The US government has launched an unusually massive attack against the European Commission: The Americans accuse the EU of acting as a supranational control authority and of discriminating US corporations like Apple in this function. The US government is threatening the EU with retaliation in case the EU should stick to its course of condemning Apple to a billion-Dollar-tax payment.
Irish government crisis over Apple’s €13 billion tax dodge
The European Union’s decision to fine US tech giant Apple up to €13 billion (US$14.5 billion) for failing to pay taxes at its European corporate headquarters in Ireland, has prompted a major crisis in Irish ruling circles that could lead to the collapse of the government.
The total amount due to the Irish government is around £19 billion, when interest is taken into account.
Shortly after Tuesday’s announcement directing the Irish government to collect legally due taxes from Apple, the right-wing Fine Gael party, which is in a coalition with the Independent Alliance, announced it would appeal the decision.
Think the Irish people will wake up to their intestine enemies? Maybe not. The US Congressinal menagerie routinely gives tax breaks to the TNCs while cutting social services to the American people. The only question that occurs to the American people is, Gee, should we vote for the elephant? or the jackass?
Posted by: jfl | Sep 1 2016 16:44 utc | 103
@ paul | Sep 1, 2016 1:33:34 PM | 103
“…”
May be the best thing you never said.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 1 2016 17:39 utc | 105
Sure is an interesting situation. The wsws article makes it sound as though the Irish people got cheated out of the tax revenue when of course they benefit from hosting companies like Apple, Google etc in terms of jobs.
They are US companies so of course the US government wants a slice. I’d say the EU had the best case since Apple etc. made so much money there.
Posted by: dh | Sep 1 2016 17:53 utc | 106
@ Karl Pomeroy | Sep 1, 2016 12:31:53 PM | 101
You may have exposed the imprisoning grip the ‘moral majority’ has on what remains on the Duhmerican mind (Duhmerica being the space between Mexico and Canada that keeps those countries from normal intercourse between neighbours). The normal political process can be said to those negotiations that bring about the best answer between conflicting interests. For more than a generation now the phrase evil has become coin of the realm, e.g. lesser of two evils rather than best possible result. As long as the political process is captured by this implanted mindset, no better answer will be produced, it is designed into the ruling agenda’s propaganda. Those who insist for their moral superiority on avoiding evil are mentally so imprisoned that the chance of reality ever reaching their awareness becomes vanishing small – but to the end of their days they will ceaselessly caterwaul the holiness of their opinion, giving even banshees a hard run. Maybe there may be some in this audience that haven’t had their minds lost to the marketing and propaganda, but one thing is for certain, no third party candidate will ever supplant either of the major parties, no matter what one smokes or injects in their veins.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 1 2016 18:00 utc | 107
another disingenuous article in the nyt that emptywheel breaks down.. this shit is pretty predictable..
In Attempted Hit Piece, NYT Makes Putin Hero of Defeating TPP..
Posted by: james | Sep 1 2016 18:22 utc | 108
@ dh | Sep 1, 2016 1:53:06 PM | 105
It is doubtful the Irish people even knew what was happening, or such information was in The Irish Times in any recognisable form (The Irish Times once had a journalistic renown, but time has taken its toll there as well). Unfortunately Ireland has become a wholly owned subsidiary of global corporate monopoly and gateway to the common market that speaks english – end of story. There were a small number of jobs provided as fallout but insignificant to economic need – nothing new there.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 1 2016 18:28 utc | 109
Must see
http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/060217-000-A/bagdad-chronique-d-une-ville-emmuree?autoplay=1
(sorry, French or German, some of the Arabic interviews can be heard)
Posted by: Mina | Sep 1 2016 18:31 utc | 110
China is Australia’s biggest trading partner and a large source of foreign investment, spending $11.1 billion (8.45 billion pounds) on Australian assets, mostly property, in 2015, accounting and advisory firm KPMG and the University of Sydney have said.
You’re with us, or you’re against us.
Posted by: stumpy | Sep 1 2016 18:32 utc | 111
rememberinggiap
a play from Nov 7, 2012
https://youtu.be/zSIwiOflo_I
Posted by: okie farmer | Sep 1 2016 18:53 utc | 112
M K Bhadrakumar’s latest sept 1st.. US-Turkey ties reach a crossroads…
Posted by: james | Sep 1 2016 18:56 utc | 113
@jfl 102
Apple is its biggest of taxpayers. Ireland may now wish to reconsider and do a IRexit
The Telegraph.co.uk Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Apple travesty is a reminder why Britain must leave the lawless EU
Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook said…[.]
[.] “The Commission’s move is unprecedented and it has serious, wide-reaching implications. It is effectively proposing to replace Irish tax laws. This would strike a devastating blow to the sovereignty of EU member states over their own tax matters, and to the principle of certainty in Europe,.:”
AEP: [.] “Ireland is now in the odd position of being told that it must claw back 13 bln euros of back taxes from Apple even though it categorically rejects the legal arguments of Mrs Vestager,.“(the EU competition chief)
~ ~ ~ ~
Will the diktats in Brussels ever learn? Brexit is a precedent, now this! One more pull of the thread and the whole EU pants unravels.
Posted by: likklemore | Sep 1 2016 19:13 utc | 114
Elon Musk blows up a Falcon 5 Space X and its payload:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ
LOX doesn’t explode when it leaks, as, for example, if there is a grounding static discharge. There is no reason the LOX and propellant fuel would be mixing during a LOX filling operation. None. There would only be a flame flare if leaking propellant was mixing with excess O2 evaporating outside the vehicle.
That violent of an explosion without a fire first and that high up in the vehicle should require a special independent investigation team. That’s our taxes that just blew up! Maybe Musk is doing a WTC7 for his buyout of Solar City to get the double-indemnity catastrophe insurance?
How would we know, without a special investigator?
It seems likely Tesla and Solar City will see bankruptcy court in 2017 without some insurance money cash flow to bail them out.
This reminds me of the totally falsified Challenger explosion, that NASA blamed on M-T, the smallest subcractor, rather than admit they failed to do the altitude-density recalculations after temperatures plunged overnight. Instead they went to full power up at the same launch duration and velocity as previous launches, literally ripping the orbiter off the liquid fuel tanks, while the supposed ‘leaking o-ring’ solid boosters went happily on their way rocketing downrange.
I watched that launch live, and vividly remember the close up video as the orbiter nose pylon violently vibrated then tore away in the much higher altitude-density than NASA calculated and failed to recalculate.
Then I was flumoxed at the M-T swindle, later outraged when doctored video shows a *straight* flame plume where there was none, magically shooting across a 6-foot gap slip-stream of *2000mph*, and still somehow burning through *several feet of insulation* without generating any smoke, and then just by a complete miracle, blowing up the mixed fuel lines *that don’t pass by that point in the center fuel tank*.
Anyway, that’s why we have insurance, and a mafia-complicit media.
Blame it on M-T. Don’t shut down NASA, don’tvshut down Musk. Too many investors and pension funds will lose too much equity. Just pay the insurance and goose the Tesla share price after all the suckers sell.
Wash, rinse and blow up. The newest ETF ‘scheme’ for the Trump-Clinton epoch of mafia criminality. You will see things over the next 4 years that will make this Musk gambit look like a game of checkers, then wake up in 2020 with a now -$26 TRILLION ‘debt’ (sic), and all health and human services liquidated to pay interest-only bite to the private Fed…forever.
If you get jammed up, pull a Musk. Put all your polyesters clothes in a laundry basket, turn on an electric space heater next to it, then visit you family out of town on some winter holiday. Oh, the house burned down, good thing we have insurance. Let’s move to where there’s still jobs, maybe as a nanny and a caretaker in WADC-NOVA, where all our last life savings went.
Posted by: TheRealDonald | Sep 1 2016 19:34 utc | 115
Many thanks okie. I only hope I’m not the only one. We were quite fortunate to have him as an acquaintance, a (presumptive) friend.
Posted by: juannie | Sep 1 2016 19:48 utc | 116
Echo of the Aylan Kurdi (bogus name if u ask me) hoax still heard after one year:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3768922/People-dying-doing-Aylan-Kurdi-s-father-condemns-failure-stop-Syrian-bloodshed-year-harrowing-picture-son-laying-dead-beach-symbol-Europe-s-migrant-crisis.html
Posted by: xyz | Sep 1 2016 20:09 utc | 117
Reply to Formerly T-Bear, comment #106.
Ho-kaay. Look, I couldn’t care less about moral superiority. All I’m trying to do is help Donbass. Is that fair? Or is that taboo? My whole unwelcome website has its origins in the cause of Donbass, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, one place in the world fighting militarily for their lives, their land, and freedom from the global elite. But who gives a d*mn, right? After all, the only people trying help Donbass are just those unwelcome morally superior people who are also hoping to avoid World War III, and stop the vilification of Putin and Russia. Now why would I do such a thing? And for free? All my time is donated. And I work hard. Sorry I was trying to promote myself. Sorry community of Moon of Alabama. You see, there’s a connection. Donetsk People’s Republic president Alexander Zakharchenko and Russia’s leading geopolitical analyst Alexander Dugin (a link to which Moon of Alabama will not let me post, as I have learned) both have confirmed what I already knew: that Donald Trump is the best hope for friendship with Russia and withdrawal of US support for the Kiev regime, which is killing innocent people in Donbass. So you see, I too am here vilified. Fine. You’re the one who’s morally superior. Have it your way. Maybe someone else will help me help Donbass. Or will they? Seems pretty hopeless. I guess it’s one of those days.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 1 2016 20:17 utc | 118
@ 117
You need practice your reading comprehension methinks.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 1 2016 20:28 utc | 119
With my apologies to our host b.
@Karl Pomeroy 117
Can’t resist Formerly T-Bear @ 118.
FT-B, perhaps you may allow some slack to Commenters here; –> KP @ 117 – whose mother tongue (first language) is not americanisky English!
We post here to share ideas and be courteous. No need for put-downs.
If a comparison be addressed on construct; yours @ 106 to KP’s @ 101 there is nothing amiss with his (KP’s) reading comprehension and kudos to KP @ 101 for “helping out” in the Donbass and suggesting to Trump his website should address foreign policy in fulsome.
America’s president and foreign policy affects all of humanity in world affairs.
Oh, the exceptional meddling one…the bully kicking down doors in fine glassware-china shops.
Posted by: likklemore | Sep 1 2016 21:41 utc | 120
Gleb Bazov’s original site Slavyangrad tells the real story of Donbass:
https://slavyangrad.org/2016/08/08/the-face-of-evil/
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 1 2016 22:46 utc | 121
@ 119
Karl Pomeroy’s use of this language shows a general proficiency sufficient to realise that his remarks starting ca. 94 through 101 mentioned nothing as was contained in 117. I happened to respond to Karl’s written remarks and in doing so tried to support what he had written. Your reading comprehension is faulty as well. At this point I regret trying to bring out something your Karl said that was germane to why things were going awry. Shall not make that mistake a second time. Good luck removing the chains of political slavery with your beliefs and myths. So play your ròle as hall monitor on someone who might give a shite about what your opinion is.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 1 2016 23:08 utc | 122
@105 dahoit
That money doesn’t belong to Irish taxpayers alone, it belongs to all the parts of Europe and beyond, probly a good deal to the US id say. Wherever it goes, it should be used to relieve debt, instead it will be fought over for years in the courts, doing nothing for anyone but lawyers.
Posted by: MadMax2 | Sep 1 2016 23:33 utc | 123
Yeah, detailed policy proposals foreign and domestic are really The Donald’s forte.
If one cares to look, one will find all that one needs to know about Mr. Trump’s “thinking” on international affairs.
Trump’s plan is to use American ground troops to forcibly seize the most valuable resource in two different sovereign countries. The word for that is colonialism.
Trump wants to wage war in the name of explicitly ransacking poorer countries for their natural resources — something that’s far more militarily aggressive than anything Clinton has suggested.
This doesn’t really track as “hawkishness” for most people, mostly because it’s so outlandish. A policy of naked colonialism has been completely unacceptable in American public discourse for decades….
He’s all for ramping up torture, as well. He believes that it works, but says “if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing.” Punishment first, then trial — The Donald in Wonderland!
Domestically, he’s on record for a grab-bag of very specific ALEC-friendly tax cuts, and is all in on climate denialism.
Will he improve the fortunes of American proles? Well, given that he thinks auto workers make too much money, I wouldn’t think so. What of his products does he make here, anyway? Aside from gaudy, tacky real estate? He opposes off-shoring — he wants us Americans to undercut our own wages.
In the unlikely event he gains the Oval Office, expect a golden-orange age of bigotry, bullying, and bombast to ensue. “Political Apprentice: Making America Great Again (TM) Edition” will be boffo.
So yeah, business as usual with Mrs. Clinton would be way more damaging than that.
Maybe not for very long….
I’m thinking of an Art. II Sec. 4 remedy. As opposed to him blowing up the planet. I think the odds favor high crimes and misdemeanors happening first.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 1 2016 23:47 utc | 124
Hello folks, especially Formerly T-Bear.
Sorry, I misunderstood your comment and thought you meant I was posing as “morally superior”. Thanks for your support, and especially for your support of Donbass.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 1 2016 23:48 utc | 125
@ 111 and 115 (Juannie and Okie) – I too was wondering if our old comrade Rememberinggiap was still reading MoA or even still in this realm as I was catching up on this thread. Still remember his passionate threads and memories from the earlier MoA days.
Posted by: Maxcrat | Sep 1 2016 23:57 utc | 126
@105 dh. ‘I’d say the EU had the best case since Apple etc. made so much money there.’
Apparently that’s the case, but Apple’s lawfare utilized Ireland’s legal system to elude tax liability and the Irish pols are standing with the TNCs against the Irish people and all the other peoples of the EU countries in helping the TNCs avoid tax liability and engendering the ‘austerity solution’ in response to the lost tax revenues. The incumbent political class in the West is just a part of the TNC octopus, helping the TNCs rise above the law.
Posted by: jfl | Sep 2 2016 0:12 utc | 127
@94 kp
‘vote for Trump. He’s anti-establishment. And he’s the one who can win.’
That’s pure projection on your part. Trump is completely underspecified, although he is clearly an opportunistic blowhard, and you are projecting your hopes on top of his underspecification, IMHO.
‘Refined pragmatism is indispensible at this crucial juncture in history, when global nuclear war threatens the world.’
Projecting your hopes and dreams onto and choosing Trump is ‘refined preagmatism’? ‘Refined pragmatism’ … aka choosing the lessor of two evils … is what got us to where we are today. Slowly we turned, step by step, closer and closer … til here we are, today.
‘a vote outside the menagerie is a vote for change. It’s not a vote for change if the candidate can’t win; its a de facto vote for the establishment.’
No, a vote for the elephant or the jackass is the vote for the establishment. It is not about this election. Short of a miracle – I don’t believe in miracles – the elephant or the jackass is going to win, again. The program is to change the system over a series of elections, over the course of a decade or a dozen years. If we had begun in 2004 we’d be done by now.
‘Third party votes help keep the elite in charge.’
I agree there, I buy Maurice Duverger‘s argument. Our longer-term solution is to eliminate the stranglehold of our 2-party, single-ballot system and to substitute an alternative, open, poll-till-majority election method.
But our ‘2-party system’ can be viewed as a 3-party system: elephants, jackasses, and ‘others’. ‘Others’ got 1.6% of the votes in 1012. Our short term goal – 10-12 years – is to elevate ‘other’ to 1st party status and to reduce the elephants and jackasses to 2nd and 3rd party status – we’re not particular about which is which – in order to effect our reforms.
‘Idealism, again, is a luxury.’
You are a poor soul. Ideas are alternatives envisioned and blueprints for implementation.
‘We have to be pragmatic. By all means, vote for the “lesser of evils”‘
Been there, done that. You are counseling me to vote for the status quo. I will not do that. I know we need change.
Posted by: jfl | Sep 2 2016 0:55 utc | 128
all one can do is read the comments and take them as reflecting the person who makes them.. if someone is has to speak/write in a different language then the one they are familiar with – it is good to cut folks some slack.. forget about those too stiff to not offer some understanding..
Posted by: james | Sep 2 2016 0:56 utc | 129
Hi again to Formerly T-Bear,
Please do disregard my mistaken interpretation of your comment, which seemed slightly intellectually obscure to me and required my full concentration, admittedly lacking at the time. My response, as noted by likklemore 119, had little to do with what I had said previously, but was more or less an inappropriate core dump of my state of mind disturbed by another commenter’s challenge. I will read more carefully in the future. All my best.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 2 2016 0:58 utc | 130
@126 Bad planning by whoever designed the EU regulations. They were so busy being inclusive they left the back door open.
Posted by: dh | Sep 2 2016 1:12 utc | 131
Reply to jfl 127:
Personally I don’t think Trump is the lesser of evils. I think he will make a great president. Being a New Yorker, he’s bold and up front. So sometimes he may seem brash. But my point about pragmatism is, cultured well-dressed European women and children have been massacred in Donbass by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi battalions, which are supported by the US government and the Clintons. Their foundation has received $29 million from one Kiev oligarch alone. Ukraine is their biggest donor. So I am suggesting that Americans overlook certain aspects of Trump’s personality and vote pragmatically to help save lives, even if Trump seems the lesser of evils in their opinion.
My assessment of Trump comes from his statements on foreign policy, in particular his Foreign Policy speech of April 27, 2016, to which I posted a link in comment 97. Please take a look.
Idealism is essential to a good life, but when the car is crashing, turn the wheel. Mental techniques are not one-size-fits-all. Each circumstance demands a different approach. In the case of US foreign military intervention, so many people are dying, we have to be pragmatic and act as quickly as possible. Trump is a possible solution within our grasp in the next six months. That’s all I meant.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 2 2016 1:32 utc | 132
@127, at least Trump hasn’t been bloviating over “human rights”. Not as far as I have heard.
Posted by: ruralito | Sep 2 2016 1:33 utc | 133
@jfl 127
Kp makes several good points to which you are not addressing.
Unsavory face-value aside, Because we have no record of a political Donald Trump, we have to at least take what he says as a (at the very least) 50/50 proposition. And as KP later addresses, Donald Trump throughout his campaign has put forward a very positive notion of an anti-establishment foreign policy, with greater cooperation with Russia/China, as well as the US being an “honest broker” in the Palestinian conflict. Couple that with his aversion to shitty trade deals, his proven ability to negotiate better ones, the fact that Gary Johnson supports the TPP and is surrounding himself with neocons, that Jill Stein is the unicorn-candidate, And I’m afraid that now is the moment, my friend. One of our last, best hopes (which hope is really what we after, after all). It can not wait…just ask the youths that were chainsawed by ISIS recently (Sputnik news).
And yet you want 10 years…for what?
(Thx B! For this place)
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Sep 2 2016 3:32 utc | 134
@jfl 127
“Our short term goal – 10-12 years – is to elevate ‘other’ to 1st party status and to reduce the elephants and jackasses to 2nd and 3rd party status – we’re not particular about which is which – in order to effect our reforms.”
My man, don’t you see? Donald Trump has sped up this process by at least four years. He obliterated the GOP (praise His name) and is/will destroy that other family name in the annals of wretched neoliberal history. Yet you still can’t see that he is the one single-handedly delivering the masses from the jaws of this two-party duopoly.
Everyone that is someone in the establishment is railing against. Hmmmm…I wonder why?
Either he is elected and the awakening continues or the globalists with crash this thing harder and bloodier than the reckoning has to be.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Sep 2 2016 3:41 utc | 135
By Patrick Henningsen
Global Research, June 28, 2016
21st Century Wire 27 June 2016
Region: Middle East & North Africa, USA
In-depth Report: PALESTINE
Global Research, June 27, 2016
Has American political reality finally set in for GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump?
With only days before the Republican Party’s National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, presidential candidate Donald J. Trump finally abandoned any pretense ‘neutrality’ on the Israel-Palestine issue, and is now firmly “committed” to supporting Israeli settlement expansion on territories it has seized illegally, and also not recognizing a Palestinian State.
=====
Karl, apparently Trump is not about to irritate his fellow real estate tycoon who is father-in-law of Ivanka. And Palestinians, at least the majority, are Muslim, which is one of the several categories selected for bashing by Trump. And isn’t it curious that for people like you and me, the foreign policy positions are the only appealing feature of his candidacy (apart from his creativity in insulting people which, I am sorry to say, is often fun to watch), and he skipped ANY of it from his website? Does he have any strength of conviction there? I doubt it. Without that, he will do nothing of note. And I really do not think that Hillary will lead us to a nuclear war.
Most disturbing are mental patterns revealed by Trump. We should help allies who pay their dues. That describes Gulfies to an iota. Another mental patterns is that he simply detests large classes of folks, and yeah, Russians are not among them, so it is not utterly negative picture.
And domestic policy proposals, if one can use a highfalutin expression, are distinctly retrograde, and that, my boys and girls, he can reliably get through.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Sep 2 2016 4:54 utc | 136
@ Karl Pomeroy | Sep 1, 2016 7:48:13 PM | 124, 127
Not a problem, thanks for the civilised reply. I thought your comment re evil was not only superior but well worth some amplification, sorry it turned out as negative as it did, but then, when expressing ideas when Duhmericans are involved, I find the expectation of addressing adolescents a helpful resource. I thought your original response (@ 117) likely incorporated other issues as well which I was not addressing, therefore my acute reply. Best now left to experience experienced. Thanks again for your civil reply.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 2 2016 4:54 utc | 137
I consider those that think that somehow Trump is going to save Americans and the rest of the world from private finance and those that own it delusional. To posit that Trump has shown any sort of humanistic or altruistic qualities in his life that would make him anything other than the grifter he seems is further delusion.
That said, I think that Clinton II is a war criminal and hold out hope that my country is rejected by the rest of the world in a manner that lets us manifest the original motto of the US, E Pluribus Unum.
Voting for the lesser of evils still has you supporting evil.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 2 2016 5:02 utc | 138
@ jfl | Sep 1, 2016 8:55:42 PM | 127
There is another club beside the one so famously illuminated by George Carlin that you also don’t belong to, given your persistent caterwauling for third party losers as a solution to profound political problems. That club’s members are those having the capability and resources to sustain creative thinking; all you provide is a cut and paste professionalism. Take that as constructive criticism if you will. Come to think about it, there is another club you’re not on the membership rolls with, that club have the capacity for original thought. My, three clubs and not a member of any, just one of the 99.9%.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 2 2016 5:21 utc | 139
@kp @nc
Sorry, guys. I look at Donald Trump and don’t see your projections at all. It is going to take a more sustained effort than pick the least-worst candidate every 4 years to effect any change at all. Twelve years have already come and gone since we were introduced to the neo-cons and their demented plans which have brought about the world full of sorrow we’re living in right now. Let’s not let another dozen years slip by without doing something radicle about it.
Our actions are the ones that count – or our inactions that don’t – not the histrionics of the manikins on stage. Ella Baker said it … strong people don’t need strong leaders. And if we don’t need strong leaders we certainly do not need the endless string of divisive blowhards and criminals who parade before us biennially/quadrennially impersonating strong leaders. In fact they can only negatively contribute to the already sorry situation in which we find ourselves. We need to pull up our socks and do what needs to be done. We’re the only ones here with our own – humanity’s – interests at heart.
Posted by: jfl | Sep 2 2016 5:46 utc | 140
Exclusive: U.S. set to approve sales of Boeing fighters to Qatar, Kuwait – sources
(Reuters) The United States is poised to sell $7 billion worth of Boeing Co fighter jets to Qatar and Kuwait after years of delays, and it may start notifying U.S. lawmakers as early as next week, four U.S.- and Gulf-based sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Saudi Arabia buys drones from China
Saudi Arabia and China have agreed on a deal for the purchase of an unspecified amount of Wing Loong or medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned drones, according to the Wahhabist kingdom’s Al-Watan newspaper.
The drones are capable of carrying two air-to-ground missiles and are effective surveillance gatherers.
According to the Global Times, the Kingdom is the first Arab country to obtain such types of drones, which were developed by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group.
The drones can fly more than 4,000km in 20 hours and is equipped with laser-guided sensors.
A capitalist plutocrat is a capitalist plutocrat. East is east and West is west and ever the twain do meet.
Posted by: jfl | Sep 2 2016 5:53 utc | 141
ALL HAIL PHOTOSHOP !
http://sputniknews.com/art_living/20160830/1044780502/reporters-photos-photoshop.html
Posted by: xyz | Sep 2 2016 9:29 utc | 142
oh look, it’s the original thought police…not.
Posted by: hejiminy cricket | Sep 2 2016 12:30 utc | 143
@ 111 & 115 & 125 (Juannie, Okie and Maxcrat) – As R’giap would no doubt advise … Still Steel.
Posted by: Outraged | Sep 2 2016 13:43 utc | 144
Here’s a good one;Joe Bitem is heckled by friend of Syrian dead,and Bitem says my son died too!
What a maroon.His son died of cancer(possibly self war related)and the Syrians dead from our intervention and support for headchoppers.
Apples and oranges Joe.What a schmuck.
97;These furriners like Piotr Berman have no idea of the pulse of America right now,its collapse into a facsimile of itself by zionist globalization.
Trump just scored a KO with his Mexico trip,and his subsequent speech about compassion for the illegals trumped by compassion for Americans.Awesome!No wonder the MSM are steaming piles of doo doo about it.
America First is a winning hand!
Posted by: dahoit | Sep 2 2016 14:05 utc | 145
134;Only zionists and America haters want no part of Donald Trump as POTUS.And as you say,if they steal this election,as they are trying to do,the repercussions will be incredible,and yes,the next cycle will bring Hitlers clone.
To me,as you say,his destruction of neolibcon criminals in the rethug party was awesome,and a sign he will win big in November,as America first is a winning hand.
Wapoo is dissing the closing of the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City as Trumps fault,when of course it is the fruit of globalization that has impoverished the elderly who made up those caravans to the gambling houses,as they have no money to spare in this disaster of our economy.
And I see we sentences Guccifer to 5 years in jail.
Romania sucks for giving him up.Yankee Come Home,let the wacko Europeans commit suicide on their own.
Posted by: dahoit | Sep 2 2016 14:24 utc | 146
As if bombing Syria would have helped Iraq and its 3 presidents, its concrete walls separating sects in Baghdad, will the destruction of Yemen bring world’s peace?
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-yemens-past-being-erased-air-strike-air-strike-609240671
Posted by: Mina | Sep 2 2016 15:29 utc | 147
Thanks to NemesisCalling (you’ve said it well) and Formerly T-Bear for your kind replies.
To Pyotr Berman: You question Trump’s strength of conviction. Yet he has always advocated friendship with Russia and US non-intervention (except in the arguably justified case of ISIS). He was against the war in Iraq and the invasion of Libya, and consistently opposes regime change, at least in his statements. Had these noninterventionist policies been in effect for the last 20 years, the US and its allies would not have murdered thousands of innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and most important to me personally, Donbass (formerly southeast Ukraine). No neocon would ever make such statements. So the chances that Trump will enact a more humane foreign policy are definitely higher than for Hillary. I just hate to see more oppression and murder of people in foreign countries, that’s all.
About Trump’s other policies, I agree with some (strong borders, better trade agreements) and not with others (unchecked support of police). But those are selfish concerns. My foreign policy concern I would hope to be shared by everyone. And I do think US foreign policy is the most important issue right now, both for the karma of America (if you accept that concept, it is abysmal and inviting self-destruction) and for the sake of ordinary innocent people all over the world, whether or not Hillary will actually lead us to nuclear war.
To dahoit: “Only zionists and America haters want no part of Donald Trump as POTUS.” Great statement!
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 2 2016 16:06 utc | 148
114
Musk immediately denied being insured, which is a joke, because the Israeli spy satellite payload was, and they would never insure the payload without checking the launch vehicle insurance. The media is spinning up the Big Lie that the launch vehicle was ‘being fueled *with a mixture of LOX and kerosene*, and a spark *probably* set off the explosion”.
Guess what, the fuel and the LOX aren’t mixed until they are injected into the combustion chamber. The launch vehicle was being fueled with LOX according to initial reports. LOX will react with kerosene only if kerosene is spilling out of the tank BELOW the LOX tank, then form a flame plume that would eventually cause an explosion. That was not the case here, where a sharp violent explosion destroyed the launch vehicle in a single blast.
More on the payload and its insurance coverage, and the Israeli’s plan to sell their new spy satellite constellation to the Chinese:
“SpaceX (or Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) co-founder Elon Musk, of Tesla Motors fame, *didn’t buy an insurance policy for the Falcon 9 rocket that exploded at Cape Canaveral, according to a person familiar with the matter*.
The billionaire sought to launch a satellite named Amos 6, built by Israel Aerospace Industries, a privately held defense company, and operated by Israeli firm Space Communications Ltd.
The satellite was backed by a policy worth almost $300 million, said the person, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. SpaceX declined to comment, while an IAI spokeswoman said her company “holds an all-risks prelaunch policy, which covers events during transit and whilst at the launch site and will file a claim accordingly.”
“A successful launch of Amos 6 was a condition of the $285 million sale to a unit of Beijing Xinwei Group, according to an Aug. 24 filing.”
[“Enjoying great strength and high reputation in the international communication field, Xinwei Group has set a goal to become the industry leader and enter the world’s top three of telecom enterprises.”]
Aon Plc, the second-largest insurance broker by market value, counts SpaceX as a client and said in June that insurers have given Falcon 9 a “tremendous amount of support.” A representative of the London-based firm declined to comment on Thursday’s explosion.
[or on Musk’s undisclosed ‘according to SPOX’ claim there ‘was no insurance policy’, just as Musk is forced to sell $489 million of his Tesla and SolarCity stock as collateral to secure “personal borrowings” e.g. he’s broke.
I’m sure the CIA was thrilled to have their US contractor launching an Israeli spy satellite constellation for the Chinese. It’s just business, get over it.
Posted by: chipnik | Sep 2 2016 17:21 utc | 149
Karl@147
I visited your Quemado site and appreciate that someone has not forgotten the people suffering in the Peoples Republics or what is left of them. It’s a shame that Putin can’t spare some of the cruise missiles and bombe he expends to prop up and protect a foreign dictator to defend the Russian Speaking people in the Donbas he promised to shield. This Frozen Conflict will probably continue, as is, because it does serve Russian interests, Ukraine cannot join NATO so long as it persists.
I have to admire the IEDs Trump has set off under the Washington Consensus and there is fear and loathing sending the formerly unchallenged dominant elites and their quislings into the arms of the Clintonites. I can’t see these powerful combined forces allowing anyone as powerless as voters deciding what is best for ‘their’ country so I doubt they will even try to hide their manipulation of this election. Clinton is probably the perfect despised leader to educate the rubes about what it actually means to be ruled by Oligarchy.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 2 2016 17:36 utc | 150
137
PM Netanyahu was re-elected by only 28% of the Israeli population (e.g. a super-minority) which closely matches the ~28% of Israelis who are former-Soviet Khazar immigrants. In other words, Likud was re-elected by the same former-Soviet mob that it’s composed of.
Then it’s not too much of a stretch for Fed.Biz Trump and Mil.Gov Clinton to stage a Smackdown in November~! to jiss up the electorate to ‘elect’ (sic) the same Exceptional Ubers that gave USA Gramm-Leich-Bliley.Con, Dot.Con, 9/11.Con, Mortgage.Con and QEn.Con.
All those upside-down QEn-overvalued R/E and commodities holdings, forever pricing the Average Joe out of affordable housing and food, forever locking in student debt-for-life and seniors medical bankruptcy, forever paying interest-only on fiat ‘debt’ of the Ubers.
Their entire galaxy of corruption will keep on chugging along until the train tracks end.
The best you can do is take care of the 95,000,000 already homeless and jobless, and be prepared for another 100,000,000 lost, once the global house of cards starts to crumble.
Mission Accomplished~!
Posted by: chipnik | Sep 2 2016 18:08 utc | 151
Gleb Bazov’s original site Slavyangrad tells the real story of Donbass:
https://slavyangrad.org/2016/08/08/the-face-of-evil
@121 Karl Pomeroy
Slavyangrad is an invaluable site for Donbass civilians and militia/army. Way back, following the coup and just after the fighting went hot in Ukraine, Slavyangrad posted a conversation with former leaders of Ukraine discussing organ harvesting and trafficking from the Ukraine to Israel. It was hard to read.
You say one of Gleb’s sites. What are others?
okie, Maxcrat, Outraged,
y’all got me really sentimentally nostalgic now. But my #69 question (previous page, this thread) has yet to be answered.
The Giap discussion was very interesting to me. Thanks all.
However it does bring to me a nostalgia of ‘rememberinggiap’. I suspect if he is still with us he’s not visiting here anymore, else I’m sure he would have responded to the interchange.
Anybody know if rgiap is still with us in this realm?
Posted by: juannie | Sep 2 2016 18:34 utc | 153
Meanwhile in Gabon, Ali Bongo, another Francafrique prince, had helicopters shoot at the opposition headquarters and kill a number of protesters after he rigged the election. The observers had said the vote did not go under fair conditions and they were asked to leave the meeting room of the election committee for the latests discussions before the results were announced…
French MSM are almost mute and when they are not they twist the issue, insisting on Bongo’s victory (1 percent difference… and 95 percent yes in his own region with a 100 percent turnout…), avoiding to mention that the different oppositions had agreed on one of them rather than to boycott the elections, skip the helicopters part, just mentioning that the people of the main opposition party are refusing to leave the HQ, etc.(RFI is the French radio which has special programs on Africa, and it has an English version as well; they are on a certain number of issues under total control of the Ministry of Foreign affairs which keeps an office within the building)
Posted by: Mina | Sep 2 2016 19:13 utc | 154
@154 mina
Thanks for the information, Mina. I haven’t been following France in Africa. I appreciate your coverage.
@149 chipnik
Thanks for the information. And good to see you back. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and sidekicks, Israel … all the Sickman of the Western World’s ME ‘vassals’ in open revolt, each one going for its own perceived interests. The USA as the Ottoman (upholstered footstool) Empire. I guess ‘leading from underfoot’ is the new pivot from ‘leading from behind’?
@151 ‘… until the train tracks end’
Good to read an alternative focus – although necessarily not far removed – to the war porn.
Posted by: jfl | Sep 3 2016 0:50 utc | 155
I think our resident Trumpeters are well-advised to stick with their projected “feelings,” “hopes,” and “expectations” about The Donald as some sort of peacenik radical “reformer.” This is because the reality of The D**khead Donald is not very pretty.
Take this incident. Mrs. Clinton’s head on a pike, “Game of Thrones” style. So it says, no cable, don’t watch it.
Uh, the usual suspects here can spare me their gruesome applause for the suggested treatment of Mrs. Clinton.
Tommy Christopher of The Daily Banter notes that the contrast with Donald McCain’s behavior in 2008.
Now we all remember the ugliness in 2008 that led Senator John McCain to put the brakes on a supporter who thought then-Sen. Obama was “an Arab,” but Trump crossed and burned that bridge almost exactly a year ago when a Trump supporter called now-President Obama a Muslim, and Trump just laughed….
McCain’s reaction now seems almost quaint in its decency, while Trump has escalated far beyond passive encouragement.
The hounds have heard their master’s voice. Or rather, they’ve been conditioned by a long program of dog whistling to respond when prompted. The incident is, to coin a phrase, the tip of the iceberg; it is the logical outcome of long campaign of demonization the Rethuglican Party, a.k.a., The Party Known as Formerly Lincoln’s. Trump is now merely reaping a harvest others have sown.
In a re-post at Crooks and Liars from FreakOutNation.com, Matt Osborne argues that The Trump Campaign Makes Perfect Sense As ‘4th Generation Warfare’. He begins by wondering what Trump’s end game is.
Everyone wonders where this is going – why the Donald Trump campaign seems more theory than fact.
By what logic did he hold a Wednesday evening rally in Washington state, a place where he has no chance of winning any Electoral College votes? How come he doesn’t have more campaign offices in crucial states, or any states for that matter? Why are his surrogates so laughable? Is he really planning to leverage a new media company on a presidential bid, win or lose? What is his relationship to the ‘alt-right,’ and why is it so happy about his fire-breathing immigration speech last night?
….So here’s a frightening hypothesis: what if the intentions of the Trump campaign (and perhaps more importantly, the intentions of people lurking behind the Trump campaign) are no longer specifically about electing a president, but rather about tearing up the civic contract of American politics?
….Even if Trump can’t win, leaks and hacked emails are great ways to hobble a Clinton presidency through a sustained drip of sensational headlines. Then there’s always that helpful wave of armed reactionaries whenever a Democrat is sworn in as president, so if you want to stir up civil strife that will threaten America’s very constitutional structure, this election season and its aftermath will offer many opportunities.
Furthermore, if you wanted all of this to happen – if you even just encouraged some of it from afar, with plausible deniability, via indirect and untraceable influences – you would be practicing ‘Fourth Generation Warfare.’ And you’ll never guess which cast of characters are yuuuje fans of this very concept.
Osborne lays out the the contribution of William Lind to the stock of ideas and postures now taking shape around The Donald and his alt-right bromantic hordes. An historian, Lind helped develop the “Fourth Generation Warfare” concept (which emphasized the supposed uniqueness of modern media, like Bismarck didn’t have his Ems telegram) while on a Pentagon study committee.
His social views might be a bit controversial.
Lind has also written a novel about a second Civil War in America. His plot involves a tactical nuclear weapon exploding in downtown Atlanta, an act that forces urban black people out into the countryside, where they are coerced to resume sharecropping in the fashion of their ancestors. Lind’s story centers on an all-white enclave that successfully overthrows the US government, restores Victorian values within a segregated Retroculture, and embarks on a 10th Crusade against Islam.
Bubba say “Jiiiiiiii-had!”
By the late nineties Lind was an influential proponent of the notion of the Frankfurt School having plotted “cultural Marxism” to subvert America. It attempts to argue that it was not the underlying socio-economic forces of late capitalism (e.g. the liberation of women for factory & office work fostered by the need send men to the trenches in the World Wars, the feasibility of birth control, the demystification of sexuality begun by Freud and Masters & Johnson) but rather a plot by Adorno, et al. to subvert The American Way of Life.
If Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man is to be believed (it should), this was largely by letting the fetishization of commodities run its course. The single dimension lay in capitalism’s ability to conflate the rational with itself. An alternative to capitalism is then made “irrational” and the system maintained largely through consent.
Incidentally, Russia Insider (not to its credit) is now promoting this “cultural Marxism” fantasy. See e.g., here.
And at least some of our “anti-zionist” friends will like this — the Lind tends to make a fuss that they were Jews. Keep on keepin’ on with the protocol….
To return to Osborne’s article, he discusses the impact Lind has had on contemporary far-right politics. He was an associate of and co-author with the late Paul Weyrich, a leading conservative activist who popularized the “culture wars” back in the Reagan Era.
William Lind’s views are written into the DNA of ‘birtherism’ and crank narratives about Huma Abedin, baked into the malevolent fantasy of restored white supremacy that does not agree Black Lives Matter….
That is especially true of Breitbart.com, where the alt-right was already a sublimated presence when Andrew Breitbart was alive and has been welcomed with open arms under the management of Steven K. Bannon since 2012….
Defying simplistic explanations, the alt-right presents as a toxic mix of European Identitarianism, ‘Men’s Rights Activists,’ neofascist and neofeudalist political philosophers, as well as transhumanist and techno-libertarian ideas all layered on top of the ‘same old’ white supremacy and patriarchy, with an extra helping of Islamophobia.
Osborne concludes by noting that the movement is more attuned to someone like Thiel, the Silicon Valley slayer of The Gawker, than it is to The 20th Century Donald. But to be fair, he does have a hell of a Twitter, so he seems to aware of social media and using it quite well.
So I’m thinking its bigoted white male low-information misogynistic, solipsistic, racist voters with anger control issues and gun fetishes that support Trump. Make America Hate Again!
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 3 2016 3:26 utc | 156
Anyway, Biden put out a real zinger on Thursday!!
http://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/09/02/joe-biden-gave-an-unexpected-response-to-a-protester-who-said-hi/21464815/
Posted by: bbbb | Sep 3 2016 5:38 utc | 157
I always thought that it was going to be Clinton II’s health that got her but now I think she would be smart to use it as an excuse to back out of the race.
The following seems to be a clearly illegal matter but how much Teflon does Clinton II have?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-02/fbi-report-shows-how-bleachbit-deleted-hillary-clintons-oh-shit-moment
I think Clinton II should be tried at the Hague for war crimes related to Gaddafi’s murder…….We came, we saw, he died……
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 3 2016 6:31 utc | 158
So while I am on a roll of ZH links, here is another that, IMO, will be the straw that takes the world economies down.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-02/ripple-effect-could-be-tremendous-retailers-demand-government-bailout-after-hanjin-c
I don’t know if you know the story about the body deciding which part has the most control. Of course it ends up being the asshole and if I may be so bold as to make a comparison, distribution is the asshole of capitalism. You are about to watch what happens when distribution “tightens up”…..grin
Get in, sit down and buckle up, its going to be a crazy ride……..
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 3 2016 6:52 utc | 159
Your October Surprise: has financial media freaking out the global markets:
South Korean shipping giant Haijin filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday
Space X rocket explodes on launchpad to announce black swan event just a day later
845,000 containers of contract supply items at risk of seizure or delayed delivery
Container rates future shipments increasing rapidly. Bank Letters of Credit at risk
JIT and Xmas supply lines in jeopardy on contract price and delivery rates already set
Shipping financial and insurance lines roiled: is this “an Act of God” (force majeure)?
It’s pretty clear what the strategic analysis sitrep will be for the next two years:
Global glut of Mega-Super Max container ship orders freeze in South Korea shipyards
Trump-Clinton seize on “Need to Establish American Shipping and Clown Security”
Congress passes “American Ocean Shipping Guarantee Act” and hires 100,000 DHS clowns.
Democrat and Republican parties merge into one: National One Clown Party: (NOCPZIs)
Clowns and clown costuming becomes raging US fashion, social and media trend
Inditex announces miniskirted clown fashion line Fall 2017; there are clowns everywhere!
Then all of a sudden things go dark on the poor 2Q17 jobs report:
DHS Executive order: arrest and hold without trial all hijab clowns (and gypsies)
NOCPZI troops move into Venezuala to “secure South lands”, seize Venezualan oil assets
Trump-Clinton claim US “needs more living space” in order to “Make America Great Again”
Mexican border guards allegedly “attack DHS border agents”, National Emergency declared
1,000,000 Clown March on WADC demanding “teach browns the Ubers will not be messed with”
Elite NOCPZI Shock Troops (CC) attack Mexico in blitzkreig assault, seize Petrobas Oil
SecState declares GWOT2: ‘Operation One Party Shekhinah (OOPS)’ against Russia, China
Or… the butterfly will flap its wings, and Johnny doesn’t get his Trump-Space X model rocket set for Xmas, and Jill doesn’t get to wear her slutty clown uniform to school.
It’s just business, get over it.
HAPPY LABOR DAY, AMERICA
Posted by: TheRealDonald | Sep 3 2016 9:54 utc | 160
Donald vs. Killary. For what it’s worth.
Facebook: Hillary’s Page = 5.9 M (M = million) Likes. Trump’s Page = 10.5 M Likes (nos. lifted from somewhere, the vid below gives other/more detail)
Reddit forums search —Hillary Clinton :
*Hillary for Prison* (title of forum) 56 K subscribers
*Clinton and Kaine*, pro-Hillary (re. own description) 26 K subscribers
other – minuscule nos.
seach —Trump
*Trump for President* 203 K subscribers
other – one ‘Discussion’ with 4 K.
Reddit skews young, mainstream, middles, and imho white? Favorite candidate was Sanders. *Sanders 2016 Sanders for Pres.* 219 K subscribers. Other – I stopped counting at 30 and will spare the details.
Google search:
Hillary Clinton for President 42 M — Donald Trump for President 186 M
Hillary for President 16 M – Donald for President 242 M
Clinton for President 243 M (includes Bill natch) — Trump for President 236 M
Maybe in part only reflects the fact that Trump is more newsworthy / interesting / controversial / crazy.. etc. and that men get more attention than women. Still .. see coupled with ‘for president.’
The most searched (world leaders..) Goog. in July 2016, within the USA: Trump > Hillary Clinton > Obama > Sanders > Bill Clinton. Hitler is 12th and Putin 20th.
vid that covers you tube twitter instagram etc. with almost exactly the same proportions or even more for Trump. (visuals and vids will skew to Trump.)
https://youtu.be/Tuj1NmRJ0PQ
Posted by: Noirette | Sep 3 2016 13:39 utc | 161
so the self appointed ‘world cop’ just added another mantra for himself, murkka ‘the global financial controller’ !
*US Attorney-General issues warning to corrupt officials around the world
The Department of Justice will not allow the American financial system to be used as a conduit for corruption,” US Attorney-General Loretta Lynch told a news conference in announcing the civil suit.
“Corrupt officials around the world should make no mistake that we will be relentless in our efforts to deny them the proceeds of their crimes* [1]
with 6.5 trillions dollars ‘mia’ at home,
uncle scam finds time to go after malaysia’s pm for alleged corruption. ! [2]
hehehe !
[1]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-21/us-moves-to-seize-1-billion-in-assets-of-malaysian-1mdb-fund/7647256
[2]
http://journal-neo.org/2016/08/22/the-collapse-of-rome-washington-s-6-5-trillion-black-hole/
Posted by: denk | Sep 3 2016 14:41 utc | 162
162
The president of the United States has declared a nationwide “state of lawlessness” after suspected Mexican extremists detonated a bomb that killed 14 people and wounded about 70 in New York City, his home city.
Donald Trump said his declaration did not amount to an imposition of martial law. It allows US troops and DHS agents to be deployed in urban centres to back up the police in setting up roadblocks, checkpoints and increasing patrols, he said.
Already the new stop-and-frisk checks have yielded the arrests of 1,426 deadbeat student loan dodgers, and a similar number of elderly medical bankruptcy escapees.
Amos Ramos, not his real name, a spokesman for the militant group Zeta13, claimed responsibility for the blast near a stock market exchange and adjacent $1000 a bottle Wall Street watering hole, but a Trump SPOX said investigators were looking at other possible suspects, including social support networks and sanctuary cities, which Trump has targeted in a bloody crackdown on overstaying visa holders and hijab wearers.
“As the Law and Order candidate, these criminals must know that We have declared unlimited IDIQNB funding to DHS, NSA and their Israeli security subcontractors, and if The Agency has to violate the civil rights of every American, we will find these evil perpetrators and their gypsy and Romanian followers.”
Stock markets were mixed overnight as city cleanup crews finally removed the bodies amidst the rubble.
Posted by: TheRealDonald | Sep 3 2016 16:29 utc | 163
Tarmac Altercation Erupts After Obama Lands In China: Official Shouts “This Is Our Country, Our Airport”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-03/tarmac-altercation-erupts-upon-obamas-arrival-china-after-official-shouts-out-countr
Posted by: Jack Smith | Sep 3 2016 20:17 utc | 165
in re 161 —
The search for the Holy Grail continues as our Trumpeteers look for any bogus metric from any random analyst to argue that America’s Greatest Winner (TM) is in fact winning.
A YouTube video by a teenage Trumpeteer is I am sure the best source for analysis of the intricacies of internet traffic metrics. The high number of searches could just as easily reflect incredulity as support. “He didn’t really say that? I’d better check that.” Mrs. Clinton has been in public life for some time and her views are arguably much better known. And no doubt our tech-savvy alt-right folks are helping to cook the numbers to support such wishful thinking.
I wonder, how many votes do Facebook and Twitter get in the Electoral College?
While the margin has narrowed, the statisticians at FiveThirtyEight show the probability of victory favoring Clinton over Trump 71.5 to 28.5. I note that the map shows Clinton winning all of the battleground states, such as Pennsylvania and Florida, at this time.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 3 2016 20:34 utc | 166
To h, 152:
Sorry, no other sites. I meant by “Bazov’s original site” that Slavyangrad was the site originally founded by Gleb Bazov. I remember when he was just getting it started. He claims to have little to do with it now, although he did post this last article. Gleb Bazov was arguably the main spokesman for Donbass on Twitter in the early days, ie 2014, and promoted awareness of the unfolding tragedy. It was Bazov that first made me aware of The Saker, whose great website at the time was a tremendous source of information. Not so anymore, as Saker seems to have lost interest in Donbass.
Yes, Slavyangrad can be downbeat and hard to read, which I’ve railed about in the comment section from time to time. But it has a true-to-life authenticity, and I consider the number one pro-Novorossiya website.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 3 2016 20:47 utc | 167
Exactly! Like it or not – China and the airport belong to them. It’s about time the Chinese speak up and Putin should do the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIES-dhafks
Posted by: Jack Smith | Sep 3 2016 21:01 utc | 168
To wayoutwest 150:
Thanks for taking a look at the website. The Donetsk People’s Republic is one place on this earth where the global elite does not rule. The DPR militias have the courage to fight militarily and win. It’s an amazing little country. Unprecedented in the 21st century. And though Minsk was a compromise, in another sense it was a coup: these guys are still going after two and a half years. 🙂
Putin really betrayed Donbass. But maybe it’s better that they’ve had to fight for themselves.
Russian geopolitical analyst Alexander Dugin, a Trump advocate, has expressed concern that the ruling elite would rather start a world war than let Trump win. My fear is that they’ll strong-arm the electoral college, or that Obama will fire up the threat of impending war, declare a state of emergency, and postpone the elections. It’s a cliff hanger.
Are you in the Southwestern USA? I’m tucked away here on a ranch in the Arizona highlands some 35 miles from Mexico.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 3 2016 21:41 utc | 169
98;Mr.Pomeroy,these people believe MSM propaganda about Trump.
Trump is the most radical candidate since FDR,of course a different agenda,but radical in the sense of rejection of neolibcon control of America.
And people framing this as repub democrat loyalty,fail to realize that Trumps support is from all parts of the political spectrum,from old hippy democrats(me)to old conservatives like Pat Buchanan.He himself voted democrat many times.
I was a lifelong democratic voter until 2000,when the idiot Gore chose a likudnik traitor for VP,which of course showed that the response to 9-11 from Gore would have exactly the same idiocy as the shrub.
America first is so radical,the whole MSM leviathan hates it with a passion unseen before in American history,or at least modern,as it implies our policies under Trump will be for Americas benefit,not Israels,and the divide and conquerors illegal immigration scheme,like leaking Fukashima,will also end,and all the tower of babel shite with it.
Jill stein would be like Obomba,a puppet ruled by Zion,as she has neither the gravitas and moxie to neuter her fellow co-religionists from their perch in our seat of power.Talk about concern trolls,in the sense of faux concern for the fools on that propaganda hill in Syria a couple of years ago,that drew USA further into the black pit of yinon.
Trump has already said they re all fired,these neolibcon scum.
Posted by: dahoit | Sep 3 2016 22:02 utc | 170
156;Six words in I knew it was you,the Trotskyite zionist up to your usual character assassination!
Voila!You are hillaryous!
71-25?Last week he was at nine!Don’t get nervous now.Statisticians at 538?sheesh.
Only 6% of the American public now trusts the borg zionist media.Can they count on you for a subscription?It will be a beautiful day,no matter if its a hurricane, when Donald Trump is elected POTUS.
Have you have a nice day too.
Posted by: dahoit | Sep 3 2016 22:23 utc | 171
169;If Putin had invaded the Donbass(actually)the USA and their zionist masters would have corrupted that empty suit Moon,or Nato, into WW3. Especially with that propaganda about the shot down flight,they would have had their smoking gun.
It would have given actual credence to all their lies about Russia.
Putin knows America will not be there forever,and Russia will.The long game.
Posted by: dahoit | Sep 3 2016 22:31 utc | 172
170
Too late! “The United States and China, the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have announced they will formally ratify the Paris climate change agreement in a move campaigners immediately hailed as a significant advance in the battle against global warming.”
Obama and Xi just locked Trump out on Climate Chains, the neoliberal genocidal campaign to goose the price of natural gas, hence fertilizer costs, hence increase 3W starvation, and of course, tax, tax, tax to bloat Mil.Gov.Fed.Biz for Trump’s embrace of ‘The Wall’ that xhiney object distraction from the fact that Trump’s plan is the same neoliberal $Trillion and UNLIMITED DHS-DOD-NSA spending plan that Biden wrote, Bush enacted and Obama increased, and that $Trillion will get carved out of SS,MC,VA, the other genocidal neoliberal plan to privatize all social welfare for the Ubers.
Trump is no ‘maverick’. McCain tried that and bombed. Trump plays the racist card as a schtick tip-o-the-hat to the Zionist and delusional Xtian Fundy scum who claim that Palestine never existed, and Mexicans are sub-human. He trash-talks TPP and NAFTA but openly supports the UNLIMITED Hindu H1B ‘legal’ immigration ‘scheme’ that has utterly devastated American high-tech and professional engineering employment.
So what are the outcomes under Trump, an Exceptionalist Whiteist class-based society of Uber aristocracy and pauper Fiverr service gigges; a $Trillion NeoLiberal National Police State carved out of SS, MC and VA; a $26.5 Trillion national ‘debt’ (sic) by 2020; continued military adventurism against Crimea and Syria; unlimited H1B guttering of high-tech and professional careers, and massively larger Mil.Gov.Fed.Biz bloat, all financed by fiat QEn and IDIQNB infrastructure and Defense spending. Oh, and a Technocratic Carbon Caliphate with a bunch of bearded hippie mullahs on the public welfare dole running around telling everyone to turn their lights off and embrace car-pooling.
The only people voting for Trump are tax-dodging Ubers and addle-brained white Crackers. Mil.Gov.Fed.Biz employs more than 50% of America, directly or on contract. We have reached critical mass. Regardless of Trump or Clinton, that juggernaut will continue to metastasize into the Eye of Mordor and No Personal Freedoms, on a New NeoLiberalocracy whose slogan is:”E pluribus no hay comida, no hay nada!”
Posted by: TheRealDonald | Sep 3 2016 22:32 utc | 173
ssian President Vladimir Putin has announced a complete ban on all GMO animal food products in Russia.
160
Russian authorities announced the ban on all GMO animal feed imports as Russia completes all the necessary steps to become a completely GMO-free country.
The Russian food safety regulatory agency Rosselkhoznadzor made the announcement on July 21, saying that animal feed that contains any GMO ingredients will no longer be permitted to be imported into the country.
Since a key leg of the Israeli junta coup overthrow of Ukraine was to lease the privatized and collectivized farmland to Monsanto, which they did to see NATO membership in the soft underbelly of EU, Putin’s response virtually guarantees War in Crimea for 2017.
And the NeoLiberal ‘The Wall’ National Police State virtually assures unlimited perpetual War in EurAsia.
Learn to love Big Brother, or learn to speak Russian.
Posted by: TheRealDonald | Sep 3 2016 22:45 utc | 174
dahoit — Since The Donald has only bad character, if I were assassinating it, I would be doing us all a favor.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 3 2016 23:19 utc | 175
100
Obama said Washington had urged Beijing to bind itself to international rules and norms to help build a strong international order. “Where we see them violating international rules and norms, as we have seen in some cases in the South China Sea or in some of their behavior when it comes to economic policy, we’ve been very firm,” Obama told CNN. “And we’ve indicated to them that there will be consequences.”
This is Obama visiting China as part of G-20 and threatening his host. Nice.
“If you sign a treaty that calls for international arbitration around maritime issues, the fact that you’re bigger than the Philippines or Vietnam or other countries … is not a reason for you to go around and flex your muscles,” Obama said. “You’ve got to abide by international law.”
Jesus, the moxi, the hubris, the chutzpah!! All Obama and the sell-out Congress wants is a $100 Million THAAD unit in Guam, and a S China Sea cover story for the largest in human istory arms buildup, happening right now, completely outside the media radar eye, glossed over as Pivot to Asia.
Posted by: TheRealDonald | Sep 4 2016 4:11 utc | 176
@169 I’m not sure what to think of Donbass. I get a ‘bandit’ vibe from videos of the lieutenants.. I’ve talked to Ukrainians and to Russians, and I have to feel bad for Ukrainians as they have lost a lot of land, flat out taken from them by Russia (Crimea), and then taken by Donbass militias.
Ukrainian militias get branded as Nazis (Bandarists), but they are anti-russian, and seemingly with good cause. Putin did not want to do anything about Donbass,but civilian areas were being mercilessly shelled, so he acted. It’s a tragic situation because I really like Ukrainians – they are great people. I hope some resolution can be achieved without any additional warfare.
Posted by: bbbb | Sep 4 2016 7:39 utc | 178
@173 I’m kind of sick of the Trump train. I don’t like the alt.right wonks, the Trump Jrs. literally look like slimeballs, and quite frankly, I’ve always found republicans to have repugnant viewpoints.
Trump seems like lesser version of Nixon, but possibly very dangerous. His internal admin would be run like a reign of terror, if his campaign is any indicator. I believe neocons could most-certainly ‘get’ to him, and there’s
I think Hillary’s would be more common-interest, administration-wise (EMPIRE-R-US).
I’ve said it elsewhere, but it’s more up to the rest of the world to contain/guide the USA. Putin and Xi have put up nearly immovable challenges to direct American influence in their respective countries. Hopefully there will be a refocus on domestic issues. Who am I kidding! Sleep time
Posted by: bbbb | Sep 4 2016 7:51 utc | 179
b4, @178-9 ‘I’m kind of sick of the Trump train.I have to feel bad for Ukrainians as they have lost a lot of land, flat out taken from them by Russia (Crimea), and then taken by Donbass militias. … I think Hillary’s would be more common-interest, administration-wise.’
Well, at least you’re consistent: Maidan and Hillary supporter.
Posted by: jfl | Sep 4 2016 10:50 utc | 180
in re 178 —
The Kiev regime is a cesspool of fascism. Pravyi Sektor, Azov, Svoboda, etc., are a bunch of thugs. They are anti-Russian in the same way that the Nazis were anti-Russian. They get branded Banderists since they are, if not in the actual Banderist formations (eg. OUP/OUN) then they revere his memory of collaboration and genocide.
Their cause is ongoing corruption and an unwarranted, exaggerated view of the Ukraines role, size, and importance. The post-Maidan coup was all about screwing the Moskals.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 4 2016 10:55 utc | 181
RT Arabic was reporting yesterday that Hadi was moving the Yemeni army to the border north so that it helps protecting KSA from the Houti incursions. This doubled with the heavy bombing of Saada (which has a lot of Shiites) and the renewed bombing of Sanaa mean that KSA rejects any negociation.
Posted by: Mina | Sep 4 2016 13:44 utc | 182
rufus at 166. I am no Trump supporter, not even under the ‘lesser evil’ argument, anyway not my biz., not a US citizen. My point is that Trump is far more popular by those kinds of metrics (which one can disconsider, I gave some reasons to do so, and it would be interesting imho to think about those – yet not entirely dismiss imho otherwise I wouldn’t have posted) than Hillary, and implicitly of course that such ‘considerations’ do in part reflect the mood of the electorate and the upcoming vote. Though between now and then much may take place. As for a teen on you-tube, go and see there the subscirbers, adherents, comments, search Trump / Hillary etc.
Remember the polls on Brexit? All of them were wrong. Why? At one extreme, one can make accusations of deliberate, pre-organised, fudging (care of the top polling brass, who are in the main paid by the PTB, the ppl who do the work have no clue); at the other end, an insidious process where polling is carried out following certain traditional entrenched methods etc. which return the desired result, and this process can be completely unconscious, built-in to the system, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For ex. what I have seen happen once is that a poll returned results which were contrary to PTB-MSM expectations – everyone dug in to show the method was flawed – this was a one off – outlier to be dismissed – not properly done, etc., with excellent arguments! However nobody thought of applying the same kind of critique / analysis to the polls that showed the ‘desired’ result, those were hunky-dory.
Posted by: Noirette | Sep 4 2016 14:29 utc | 183
Karl@169
I’m in central NM and have worked and played in the Quemado area, my last visit was to Alpine AZ just before the fire.
I agree that the People’s Republics are unique in out time but they seem to be hanging in limbo with no change possible under present conditions.
It’s probably impossible to make accurate predictions about the coming election but is will be interesting.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 4 2016 15:10 utc | 184
Were there a lot of errors in the primary polling? I don’t recall any. Failure in Britain last year says nothing about American polling now. Speculation is cheap, hard data is good, untrimmed coin.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 4 2016 15:14 utc | 185
180 At this point hillary’s been dragged through so much mud that I guess I’ve got a sadistic desire for her to win, just to make all the annoying red pill alt.right wonks on the Internet’s heads explode.
Is Trump a man of high character? Well there are claims floating around that he raped an underaged girl – in fact I think a suit was brought against him over it. Perhaps it’s bogus but perhaps it is not. Obviously Bill Clinton probably did the same, but it’s something to consider about both candidates.
RE: Ukraine. I believe Putin did the right thing in order to stop any sort of ethnic cleansing, but having renegade Russians carve out areas of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine is rather alarming. If you were a non-Russian citizen of a Baltic country, would you want that to happen?
USA obviously instigated this situation, and for that I believe Hillary and Obama and co. should always be called out for it and criticized, but at the end of the day treachurous games are being played with peoples lives and sovereignty
Posted by: bbbb | Sep 4 2016 17:59 utc | 186
Rufie@185
You are doing everyone, who are engaged in this election, a favor by parroting Clintonite hasabra like spin. Many people, outside of liberal enclaves, realize that a fix is in the works to install the Crooked Red Queen no matter what the public may vote or think so this kind of Newspeak spewing from the chattering class is expected and discounted because no one can ignore the near complete allegiance of the worst examples of the right-wing and liberal interventionists to the Clintonite agenda.
Even with the near complete control and assistance of the media, business and government the Clintonites enjoy, the polls show a near dead heat in this race and that data is surely skewed to favor the designated representative of the status quo. It’s amazing to see the many people, who would never contemplate voting for a republican under normal political conditions, state they will vote for Trump.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 4 2016 18:33 utc | 187
Jeezus Christ, will you look at the passel of frauds exchanging biographical information?
Not for nothing, but the antidote for all your bad faith will be written on the walls of tenements of the cities across the lands across the world, scrawled in your own blood. Metesky was here.
After you’ve been bled to dust.
F#%king Mary’s.
Posted by: hocus crocus | Sep 4 2016 19:36 utc | 188
Hello wayoutwest 184! Wow, are we in the neighborwood. My family owns acreage, which we hold as a wildlife refuge, near Quemado on the continental divide. We spend time up there every year. My website “Quemado Institute” is named after it.
About the fire up there, devastating. I couldn’t believe how different the Mogollon Mountains looked afterwards—no longer emerald green, just jutting bare rock. I wouldn’t want to drive to Alpine. We were up there before the fire, and the cabin hostess said it was “just a matter of time” before fire hit them. And then it did.
Donbass is in a very tense almost frozen state, as you note. But I do see the faintest of hopes in Donald Trump. He just might end US financial and military support for Kiev, which could help collapse that crooked regime, speeding up the process of letting Donbass go, an idea the Ukrainian parliament is already discussing. After all, Trump has a friendly attitude toward Russia, and said he would consider recognizing Crimea as part of that country. A faint hope, yes, but any boat in a storm. The Clinton Foundation, on the other hand, has received the majority of its support from Ukraine, as shown on a bar chart of “contributions” by country. No chance Hillary would help Donbass.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 4 2016 20:33 utc | 189
To dahoit 170: Like your comment. Weird how the same people who say they hate the MSM turn around and believe it when it comes to Donald Trump. Don’t they get it? If the MSM hates Trump, he’s definitely on the right track. But Madison Ave psycho-propaganda gets into the mind whether we realize or not. That’s why it’s dangerous. And effective. IMO, the people who think they’re not affected are the most vulnerable. My political background has never been left or right, Democrat or Republican. My views don’t match those patterns. You’re right Trump attracts the whole spectrum. It’s called reason.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 4 2016 20:46 utc | 190
To 188: Excuse me, but were you talking to me? Is biographical information taboo? Did not know that. Please explain if so. And why should it be?
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 4 2016 20:47 utc | 191
Sorry likklemore not you, I meant 191.
@191- piss off you jake legged rum pot.
The fire is coming.
Posted by: hocus crocus | Sep 4 2016 20:59 utc | 193
Rasmussen: NATO to re-arm Ukraine, ”Lethal Weapons”
Former NATO Secretary General, Advisor to the President of Ukraine, Mr. Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the West will give Ukraine lethal weapons in the event that Russia “destabilizes eastern Ukraine.”
“Ukraine is not a member of NATO and, therefore, the Alliance has no obligations to Ukraine’s security. However, if Russia will not fulfill the Minsk agreement, if it continues to destabilize eastern Ukraine, I think it’s time for the West and for NATO to provide Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons. And then the Ukrainian military will be able to better defend against Russian aggression”, Rasmussen said, in an interview with “Apostrof”, released on Sunday.
‘if Russia will not fulfill the Minsk agreement’, ‘if it continues to destabilize eastern Ukraine’. Who believes this stuff? Everyone in Germany? Everyone in the USA? Everyone in the UK?
Obama’s bloody war: A somber remembrance of what was destroyed in Donetsk
To our Sunday readers, we take a moment to remember, and pledge never to forget, either the beautiful city of Donetsk, the horror it suffered, nor the efforts to rebuild it. This war of the Obama administrations was only a natural expression of US foreign policy, one bent on destroying development and peace wherever it is. The US policy on Eurasia is to turn it into a war torn barren wasteland. … Do innocent people really deserve this? This is what Americans are voting for every four years when they give their blessing to four more years of the same policies.
Latest from Givi – “Pro-Russian Separatist”
Posted by: jfl | Sep 4 2016 22:44 utc | 194
Wayout —
I continue to get plenty of conspiracy mongering but little data.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 4 2016 23:58 utc | 195
Karl@189
My brother and I were in Alpine the day before the fire started and the conditions were extremely dry. I didn’t learn until later that there was another huge destructive fire in the Chiricahuas at the same time damaging another of my favorite places and where I once owned land. The fires seen today are unlike any I experienced when fighting forest fires in the ’70s in NM and CA and the forest doesn’t seem to able to regenerate due to lack of moisture leaving large permanently altered landscapes.
Trump has shown some rational attitudes about dealing with complex world issues but he has to break out and take a commanding lead in the polls to be able to make our corrupt election system work for his election.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 5 2016 1:23 utc | 196
The Eastern Front remains quiet.
The Novorossiyan side is suggesting a change of regime in Kiev is needed before a confederal solution to the civil war in the Donbas could be crafted. Either Kiev junta steps down, or we’re out say Basurin of Donetsk and Plotnitsky of Lugansk. The ceasefire begun 1 Sept. appears to be holding for now.
I would expect that it will largely hold. Despite what Eduard Popov argues to the contrary, it is only in Poroshenko’s interest that the “war” continues. He needs the appearance of war in order to keep the rightist militias distracted. The Ukrainians violations of the ceasefire are their pretext for not implementing Minsk.
Nor is Ruslan Ostashko correct in holding that Hillary wants war, but Putin is smarter. He does show Putin as besting the Americans in Syria (going back to Obama being graciously backed down from his “red line” over the supposed chemical attack). But he does not show a need for war. Someone will have to articulate some clear, rational objectives. Eventually.
The Russian Federation is a convenient, traditional bogeyman. Unlike the old McCarthyism, the present scare lacks the ideological overtones. Putin’s cabinet is not Comintern in the 20’s, seeking to destroy capitalism by the spread of world revolution. He wants his country to be independent, and he ended its former subservience to Washington that was a hallmark of the Yeltsin regime. He is a conservative nationalist (cf. the late Charles DeGaulle) whose heritage includes the Soviet experience.
Fear of the autocratic Russian Bear is a staple of Western politics since the Holy Alliance, which sought to suppress liberalism and thereby avoid another round of unpleastantries like the French Revolution. See Russian intervention in the Hungarian Revolution in 1848.
That and of course their role in diagnosing and robbing the “sick man of Europe,” the Ottomans. See Greek independence, the Crimean War, and their later interventions in the Balkans which secured independence for Bulgaria and Romania.
What is probably the most probative fact — Kiev is pretty certain to lose a war, if they start one.
Donetsk parliamentarian Denis Pushilin believes that The next offensive will be Ukraine’s last. “If Kiev fails to realize the Minsk Agreements, then more than just Mariupol will come under DPR control. An attempt at a large-scale offensive would be the final point of existence of Ukraine as a state….” The article notes a similar statement by Alexander Zakharchenko in August. But he feels they might try it anyway, to stay in power.
The item concludes with this interesting related report —
Just the other day, Ukraine’s representative to the Minsk Contact Group, Olga Ayvazovskaya, stated live on the Svoboda Slova (“Freedom of Speech”) talk show that Kiev can not let the question of Donbass breaking away go to referendum, as this would be the beginning of the legal collapse of the country.
Speaking of Mariupol, the fascists of the Azov militia battalion are a little put out about being moved away from the fighting there. Or maybe it’s being moved away from border and smuggling. Just asking questions….
To conclude, here’s a very interesting article from Fort Russ highlighting Marxist theorist Samir Amin. I think it’s more the “resist the Washington Consensus” angle than a newfound taste for dialectical and historical materialism. He asks the musical question: for Defeating Ultra-Imperialism: Can China’s model work best for Russia?
We have an alternative which is the socialism. I know that it is not very popular to say, but the only solution is socialism. It is a long road which starts from reducing the power of the oligarchy, reinforcing the state control and establish a state-capitalism, which should replace private capitalism. It doesn’t mean that private capitalism will not survive, but it should be subordinated to state control. The state control should be used also in order to support a social progressive policy. This should guarantee good full-employment, social services, education, transport, infrastructure, security etc.
I would lean of course to proletarian revolution and workers control of the means of production on a global scale. But like the Sanders campaign, the soft social-democracy of which I would also disagree, he is talking socialism. As a Fourth Internationalist, I would argue that China now, like the former Soviet Union, was a deformed workers state. They are inherently unstable social formations, and will either go forward to socialism or revert to capitalism. The Soviets experienced the latter.
We’ll have to see what the future holds for the Chinese one, that’s not my area.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 5 2016 1:45 utc | 197
140
And the band will now play ‘Nearer My God to Thee’…
Posted by: TheRealDonald | Sep 5 2016 1:57 utc | 198
Here are a couple of links from ZH that I thought MoA folks may like.
The first is about the future as proposed by China or the US
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-04/ultimate-21st-century-choice-obor-or-war
The second is support for an earlier comment by me about the potential effects of the Hanjin bankruptcy.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-04/fed-fiddles-while-free-markets-burn
I think major governments and Mr.Mrs. Market are about to have huuuuuuge hissy fits. Gawd only knows where we will all be when the dust settles. America is not the world supper power of yesterday. Today America needs to climb down from its superiority perch and join the rest of humanity trying to share what is left that the US hasen’t wasted with decades of excess consumption…….and, IMO, it is all about the sickness of private finance and the .001% it has created and maintained for centuries.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 5 2016 6:40 utc | 199
@198, RonaldMcDonald
I’m not real strong on xtian hymns so I had to look it up…
“Nearer, My God, to Thee” is a 19th-century Christian hymn by Sarah Flower Adams, based loosely on Genesis 28:11–19,[1] the story of Jacob’s dream. Genesis 28:11–12 can be translated as follows: “So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it…”
The hymn is well known, among other uses, as the alleged last song the band on RMS Titanic played before the ship sank.
Strong people don’t need strong leaders, nor ‘angels’ to do what must be done. I guess you’re referring to association of that tune with the Titanic? Well I can agree that a vote for Trump/Clinton is a vote for the iceberg, but I imagine that you are holding out The Donald as the angelic savior of our lucky selves from the cold, hard ice.
We’ll see. I can’t imagine an alternative to Trump/Clinton actually being elected in 2016, so – let’s say 50/50 – we’ll see if your man the Donald does save us. Or the Hillary. I put them both about even for not doing so, time will tell. I hope that enough Americans join me in voting for ‘other’ to at least break double digits this time. One point six per cent was a pretty sorry showing in 2012. Effecting change is not going to happen in one election. People don’t even believe it’s possible yet. All the Trump/Clinton voters are testimony to that.
Posted by: jfl | Sep 5 2016 13:42 utc | 200