Russia Expert Stephen Cohen: New York Times Stokes a New McCarthyism Against Critics of U.S. Policy
Posted on Dec 15, 2016
Full article: http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/stephen_cohen_the_new_york_times_is_enabling_a_new_20161215

Posted by: ben | Dec 18 2016 6:19 utc | 104

This is a question, thought I’d post it here to see if anyone has any input.
Myanmar. I know little about it, but I’m incredibly suspicious about about current atrocity reports. Haven’t really looked into them, but the same clowns who sold us Iraq/Libya/Syria seem to be now focusing on Myanmar, this to me is a red flag. It’s incredibly easy to be fooled by today’s sophisticated propaganda techniques, I don’t wish to wake up in a few years time with severe cognitive dissonance and the realisation I’ve aided yet another imperial adventure.
Thoughts?

Posted by: D. Barnes | Dec 18 2016 6:43 utc | 106

Alberto 98
Veterans today…. PTSD. Perhaps in amongst their gossip and rumor mongering and outright fiction there will be elements of truth, but you really have to aim a bit higher for links.

Posted by: Peter AU | Dec 18 2016 7:28 utc | 108

If anything it seems to me the media are playing down the slaughter of Muslims in Burma.
A little history – ethnic cleansing in Burma/Myanmar dates back to the rule of General Aung San who was the UK’s preferred choice of leader when circumstances forced them to relinquish Burma as a colony. WW2 had split the nation created by drawing lines on a map. Some ethnic groups had welcomed Japanese intervention just as they had across the border in the British Raj of India, because they saw Japan as being fellow asians who liberated them from British rule. But there were also groups who favoured the Chinese particularly the Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist Army who lost to Mao Zedung’s People’s Army, most of whom then fled to Taiwan occupying that island and stealing land, political power and economic resources off the indigenous Taiwanese population.
General Li Mi hung around Northern Burma with his Chinese nationalist army staying there (the nationalist army that is, Li Mi karked it a long time ago) pretty much until the present day. Some may remember that the CIA used those guys to stir trouble on Vietnamese supply lines (aka the Ho Chi Minh trail) during the period of the amerikan invasion and occupation of Vietnam.
Burma/Myanmar has always been cursed with two seemingly unresolvable problems.
The first is that it is difficult to class a geographic entity made up of many disparate and mutually leery cultures, many of whom have centuries of conflict between each other, as a nation. Altho the conflict appears to have only become an existential problem for the people since imperialism became an essential component of western capitalism.
The second is that Burma is incredibly ‘blessed’ with mineral and energy resources. This was why the Brits were so reluctant to let it go, and why until Ne Win’s coup and the subsequent takeover by the military, Myanmar most resembled the Congo, as various players most notably english capitalists armed and funded the disparate groups to stage revolutions and drive out “that damn bore, Smedly-Carruthers-PshawPshaw who makes the most dreadful to do at a chap’s club when they run out of his favourite tipple”.
The asshole tail-end of english imperialism very nearly destroyed Burma until Ne Win & co took over.
After that, inter-tribal violence pretty much died down. The Military government aligned themselves with the so-called iron Curtain & Bamboo Curtain States and the Brits no longer got a look in so there wasn’t anyone causing ethnic conflict.
Aung San Suu Kyi , General Aung Sung’s daughter finagled a place in the Ne Win government and for some reason , she believed that gig, plus her father’s messed up attempt at ruling Burma had entitled her to be the next leader after Ne Win.
That didn’t happen so Aung San Suu Kyi split to England and cut a deal with the Brits. Suu Kyi was telegenic and knew how to present as the submissive little Asian ‘girl’ so during the 1980’s Aung San Suu Kyi joined Benazir Bhutto as the most rootable women pols among slightly leftish and totally screwed up Brit males.
Bhutto’s facade became tarnished probably because she married a Pakistani ‘businessman’ but Aung San Suu Kyi married an Oxford don who she barely lived with – chiefly because after she convinced the Burmese government to let her return to Burma and began stirring up mayhem using Brit cash, she knew if she left Burma she would never be allowed back in by the government.
As it was her activities caused a number of violent incidents which would have got anyone else prison or death but Aung San Suu Kyi had western media eating outta her hand outside burma and support from the urban ethnic Burmese bourgeoisie in Rangoon.
So much so that in 1991, the takeover of the Nobel committees by USuk had been achieved, and Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace prize – an obscenity that probably outdoes Barry Blam Blam’s Nobel victory for bad taste.
The military stood resolute so that even after 2003 when shrub rescinded the US objection to Britain re taking former colonies, the Brits simply couldn’t get Aung San Suu Kyi made prez, she is the power behind the throne however and has chosen to follow in her father’s footsteps, by encouraging ethic conflict to distract the Burmese urban majority from their shitty lives which are getting much worse thanks to the shift from agrarian socialism to neoliberal corporate capitalism which insists all monies be transferred outta Burma and into the wallets of Aung San Suu Kyi’s corporate ‘sponsors’.
The simple explanation is that just as brexit found favour in the hollow shell that is most of Northern England and Trump won big in the rust belt, Burmese nativism is down to greedy pricks exploiting the mess created by their greed by blaming it all on ‘the other’ those poor bastards who are even worse off.
The attacks on Rohingya Burmese are easy to sustain as the ‘new’ Burma is favouring a brand of Buddhist fundamentalism which considers anyone not a Buddhist to be not a citizen.
Things are gonna get bad as Rohingya are followera of a pretty toned down islam – just as their cousins in Bangladesh traditionally were. That puts Rohingya at odds with the wahabi nutjobs who are the most able to kick up a stink on their behalf . Nice one Johnny Saud you would have to be a special form of sociopathic asshole to go for this USuk stunt.
That leaves Iran and Pakistan to run with the issue at the UN and I cannot see many listening.
This is just more murder for empire and its awful to say it but the Rohingya will have to grab a ticket from the machine and take a seat because it could be a while.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Dec 18 2016 8:17 utc | 110

@Perimeter | Dec 17, 2016 11:32:24 “The relief organization World Vision compares Aleppo to Berlin …”
Some background from aangirfan: CHARITIES RUN BY THE SPIES?:

1. The new boss of Toybox is Lynne Morris. Lynne worked for World Vision for over 12 years
2. Jeni York is now a Toybox Trustee. Jeni was Human Resources Director at World Vision for 21 years.
3. Ian Gray is now Toybox’s International Programmes Director. Ian was Associate Director, Policy and Programme Innovation at World Vision.
World Vision is alleged to be a CIA-front organisation. “USAID is ‘the humanitarian arm of the CIA’ and Americares has been singled out as well. “World Vision is also a CIA front.”
It appears that large international charities such as World Vision are in fact intelligence cut-out operations for clandestine mind-control operations and other counter-intelligence activities around the world.
“World Vision employee, Mark David Chapman, worked at their Haitian refugee camp in Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas.
“He was later to gain infamy as the assassin of John Lennon in New York City.
“World Vision works with refugees worldwide.
“At the Honduran border, they are present in camps used by American CIA to recruit mercenaries against Nicaragua.
“They were at Sabra and Shatilla, camps in Lebanon where fascist Phalange massacred the Palestinians.
“Their representatives in the Cuban refugee camps on the east coast included members of the Bay of Pigs operation, CIA-financed mercenaries from Omega 7 and Alpha 66.
“Are they being used as a worldwide cover for the recruitment and training of these killers?
“They are, as mentioned earlier, working to repopulate Jonestown with Laotians who served as mercenaries for our CIA.”…
4. Reporter Andrew Geoghegan visited his 14 year old sponsored child in Ethiopia.
The girl has “been part of a World Vision program all her life” yet said “until recently, I didn’t know I had a sponsor.”
And when asked about her knowledge of World Vision sponsorship she said “Last time they gave me this jacket and a pen.”
Geoghegan was disconcerted to find that despite being “told by World Vision that the girl was learning English at school, and was improving… she speaks no English at all.”
(Geoghegan, Andrew “Ethiopia – The Endless Famine”, Foreign Correspondent, 25 November 2008, series 18, episode 22, Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
(http://www.oilempire.us/reagan.html)
World Vision “ran the refugee camp in Sabra-Shatilla where the fascist Phalange were allowed in to kill the Palestinians…
“They ran the Cuban and Thai refugee camps in the United States.
“Mark David Chapman, who eventually shot John Lennon, worked at the Thai refugee camps out in Arkansas that World Vision operated there.
“They ran these camps brutally, forcing people into political education against Castro, refusing to feed people, beating people…
“The chairman of the board for some period was John W. Hinkley Sr..
“The son worked at Fort Chafey at the Thai refugee camps.
“There were pictures of him after the Reagan shooting running in his World Vision T-shirt around the edge of the camp…
“Scott was already doing the wheeling and dealing and was tight with Neil Bush…”
Jonestown – linked to the CIA and World Vision
And what about the Jonestown Massacre and World Vision?
(Source: Jonestown Massacre by Fiona Steel, published at Court TV’s Crime Library)
Allegedly Jonestown was part of a CIA mind-control program: the CIA infiltrated The People’s Temple, to carry out their experiments.
CIA theorists claim that Jim Jones had many questionable associations with the CIA throughout the years he was establishing The People’s Temple.
The Temple had a strong association with the World Vision organisation that many believe to be another CIA front.
(http://www.crimelibrary.com/8)
“Jim Jones had a very interesting past which was overlooked by the media: Jones was … sent to Brazil where his house, transportation and groceries were provided to him by the U.S. Embassy, and he frequently traveled to Belo Horizonte, the CIA headquarters in Brazil.
“Jones had been contacted in Ukiah by ‘Christian missionaries’ from World Vision (World Vision is a CIA controlled front operation), an evangelical order which had performed espionage work for the CIA in Southeast Asia.”
(http://www.subversiveelement.com/Firefromsky20.html)
Hillary Clinton after donating $2,000,000,000 to World Vision.
The ‘CIA front’ organisation World Vision UK has its HQ in Milton Keynes.

Posted by: ProPeace | Dec 18 2016 9:40 utc | 112

Posted by: Jack Smith | Dec 18, 2016 12:16:08 AM | 104
The ceasefire seems to have been brokered between Turkey and Russia – with no one else involved.
This here is the somewhat likeley version of the Teheran Times–

Posted by: somebody | Dec 18 2016 10:46 utc | 114

thanks Perimeter, may I ask which software you used?

Posted by: Mina | Dec 18 2016 10:58 utc | 116

@114 DiD, ‘A little history – ethnic cleansing in Burma/Myanmar dates back to the rule of General Aung San who was the UK’s preferred choice of leader when circumstances forced them to relinquish Burma as a colony.’
i agree with your conclusions in the present about buddhist fundamentalism and the fate of muslims in burma, and i agree that aung san suu kyi is tied to the west, but i think aung san himself was a good guy – he did kill karen during the war when he sided with the japanese, viewing them as possibly friends and certainly the lessor of two evils, because the karen were allied with the brits, but the shan and other ‘minorities’ liked and respected him – chances are the tory brits murdered him in order to throw a monkey wrench into independent burma. not unlike what they did to india/pakistan with the east-west division and in kashmir.
Who really killed Aung San? bbc youtube
Who Killed Aung San? same info in print from The Irrawaddy
Panglong Conference
Panglong Agreement
Alternatively, Naing Win / Kyin Ho, M.D. claims Newin killed Aung San
Who Really Killed General Aung San And His Cabinet Members ?
Newin and the SLORC were no damn good at all.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 18 2016 12:53 utc | 118

Pamela Anderson support Assange.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/12/12/pamela-anderson-calls-julian-assange-hero-and-asks-for-his-release.html

Posted by: Lionsshare | Dec 18 2016 13:42 utc | 120

MSM (BBC) reports negative facts about “rebels”!
Aleppo battle: Rebels burn Syria evacuation buses
22 minutes ago
Several buses en route to evacuate the sick and injured from two government-held villages in Syria’s Idlib province have been burned by rebels.
The convoy was travelling to Foah and Kefraya, besieged by rebel fighters.
Pro-government forces are demanding people be allowed to leave the mainly Shia villages in order for the evacuation of east Aleppo to restart.
Thousands of people are waiting to leave in desperate conditions, reports say.
The initial plan to evacuate eastern Aleppo collapsed on Friday, leaving civilians stranded at various points along the route out without access to food or shelter.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38358177

Posted by: From The Hague | Dec 18 2016 14:26 utc | 122

EU Confused About Its Future: Mulling Cooperation with Moscow to Counter Trump

Posted by: ProPeace | Dec 18 2016 14:49 utc | 124

127;Tillerson is an oilman like the Bushes.I guess they know him.
Harry Law;I have no idea why people would give a pass to a fraud POTUS.Wouldn’t checking his mothers passport tell us where she was at his birth?And yes,Cruz was ineligible.
Over at the Graun;Story about the assassin(Greenpsyn?) who shot a German(Von Rath?) in Paris in 38 which started Kristallnacht,which ended up a disaster for German Jews.They have a photo taken in 46 of him.How would an assassin of a German official escape Nazi punishment in CCs?

Posted by: dahoit | Dec 18 2016 15:17 utc | 126

D Barns 110
Go back through Tony Cartalucci’s articles from the last few years
http://journal-neo.org/author/tony-cartalucci/
His site here http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.au/

Posted by: Peter AU | Dec 18 2016 15:21 utc | 128

jfl@129
“… remember tee-rump’s pledge to eliminate two regulations for every new one made? ”
Alternatively to your (rational) conclusion, the eternal irrational in me wants to say: but also remember Obama telling us that everything the banks were doing to shaft us is technically ‘legal’ so there’s nothing he can do but praise them for being clever enough to do it. Trump has also said that he took every advantage he could of those ‘regulations’ – so he’s going to be in a prime spot to ferret them out now and cancel them.
That’s how I irrationally read it.

Posted by: juliania | Dec 18 2016 15:59 utc | 130

Apparently the UNSC meeting Friday last was in response to NATO officers being captured in Aleppo. Being in Syria ILLEGALLY prevents the NATO personnel from receiving protection under the Geneva Conventions.
https://uprootedpalestinians.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/arrested-nato-officers-in-aleppo-were-in-country-illegally-and-are-not-therefore-covered-by-the-geneva-convention/
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194590.html

Posted by: ALberto | Dec 18 2016 17:14 utc | 132

wrt comment(s) above concerning “low comment” on this blog…
barflys come and go… as do the trolls. The one constant is the insightful analysis rendered by our host. I come here for b’s comments, the rest is just gravy. Sometimes I find a real gem out of a handful. I could do without the personal attacks by some against one or more posters, but human nature being what it is, most of us expect some level of ego to slip in now and again… the level here is imho much much lower than most blogs.
As for the ‘level’ of comment, what is one person’s perception of that is certainly different from another’s.
In short, I find MOA to be a top-notch blog and excellent source of information. ymmv

Posted by: crone | Dec 18 2016 18:37 utc | 134

74
A friend in SE Asia sent me photos of abducted children, tape across their mouths, tape binding their hands behind them and their knees to their chests, then taped into heavy cardboard shipping containers, to be sent through international mail, in this case to Thailand, and hopefully for the ‘adopt an orphan’ swindle, but that’s the same swindle the pedo’s would be auctioning off of, and not really any different than the ‘fashion model’ swindle, or the ‘starlet’ swindle, or the ‘cheerleader’ swindle that gets young girls into the pedo circle, or the ‘sex tourism bar girl’ operations you see on the ground in every country, pay her bar ‘rent’ and the 1-hour motel room next door, which is all just one big lap dance in the infinity of the cosmos of starving and dying young children from around the world, every day. Don’t visit rural Philippines or India or China, you’ll go mad. Don’t walk the barrios at sunset, and have the starving children chase after you, pleading, ‘Money, money, money!’
They live in impossible circumstances. They carry a cup of gasoline in a plastic bag, in case the moto that they’ve paid a 50% balloon fee to the loan sharks for, sputters during their daily commute. If they don’t sell, they don’t eat, and as the Petrocene Era comes to an end, and the price of all forms of energy begins to climb the wall of woe that the Rentiers and their ZIRP have created, then the harvesting of food and creation of paying jobs will begin to steeply decline. We’ll all personally see children sold as pedo pawns in front of us for whatever venezuelan ratfest civilization the world devolves to, then at some point, we’ll find ourselves looking the other way, at a world reduced to a drowning blur in the rear-view mirror.
How many young angels can dance on the head of a nail? Many more, if you duct-tape them together. Fröhliche Weihnachten!!

Posted by: chipnik | Dec 18 2016 18:58 utc | 136

Latest Update trapped Anglo-Saxon mercenaries in Aleppo
OBAMA’S PSYCHOPATHS ATTACK BUS FOR SICK PEOPLE NEAR FAW’AH; THE THIRD INTIFAADHA IS COMING THANKS TO TRUMP!; FOREIGN MERCENARIES STILL STUCK IN ALEPPO
Ziad Fadel / 3 hours ago
ALEPPO: “…….Syrian, Russian and Iranian governments are not talking about the fact that over 11 American special forces operatives working for the CIA, and 2 retired British SAS terrorists functioning as “independent contractors” ………over 30 Turkish military elements, are still stuck in East Aleppo with no credible opportunity to leave. There was an earlier attempt to sneak them out of the city when they were dressed up as civilians and mingled with earlier groups of evacuees. That failed when the SAA-MI people checked everyone’s identification and spoke to many of the citizens in Arabic, a language most or all of the American buffoons never mastered…….. Another fear is that the agents will be lumped together with the remaining foreign rodents inside East Aleppo where their fate will be sealed as the army is planning a final push in to Sukkari to eradicate every trace of the Chechen, Albanian and Uigher …
http://syrianperspective.com/2016/12/obamas-psychopaths-attack-bus-for-sick-people-near-fawah-the-third-intifaadha-is-coming-thanks-to-trump-foreign-mercenaries-still-stuck-in-aleppo.html

Posted by: Jack Smith | Dec 18 2016 20:08 utc | 138

Comprehensive list of “evidence” compiled on the pizzagate affair here: https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1497611

Posted by: Lozion | Dec 18 2016 21:18 utc | 140

@137 juliana, @147 mm2
phoenix university. a scam leaving the government collecting the debt and the scammers running with the dough
@147 mm2,
i think you’re right on with your criticism. take stanford. all they are now is a technical school, ‘teaching’ their students to jump on the mill of technical ‘innovation’ … to nowhere. to twitter. to chase their tails. to more and more of the same. and the same is killing us all and mother earth, as well. i mean mother earth as we knew and loved here. she’ll outlast our pipsqueak race, as you’ve pointed out before. but at what cost?

Posted by: jfl | Dec 18 2016 22:56 utc | 142

@143 noriette, ‘Wait an’ see, soon! consequent ‘energy’ projects between USA and Russia.’
absolutely. damn the torpedos, full speed ahead! the fusiliers stumble, the fossil-fuelers overtake them on the inside. the financiers, of course, still lead the race … over the cliff.
it’s the paleo-cons in full ‘bloom’.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 18 2016 23:26 utc | 144

jflJ@149 Yes Dzerzhinsky was catholic thus christian and it is contended he was sort of a double agent. Who knows?
Agreed with the mystical strain statement. Russian orthodoxy has its roots in the Levantine interpretation of gospel which quite differs from Rome.
Also, the monasticism of early churches was and is still is a common trend in Russian orthodoxy. My take is this US vs Russia “conflict” has also a spiritual component to it. One only needs to observe american moral degradation (see @146 for ex) to come to that conclusion. Note that the Saint George against the Dragon episode originates in Levantine (eastern) Orthodox Church. Substitute George for a Bear and we get imo an allegory close to current times..

Posted by: Lozion | Dec 18 2016 23:38 utc | 146

@129 juliana
i dream too … but i always wake up
@131 jewels, ‘… the elites have consistently sought to return us to pre-Constitutional days when only the few had an adequate education that accomplishes this …’
and then they heap scorn and ridicule upon us. their depravity knows no bounds.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 18 2016 23:50 utc | 148

What a cracker of a comment: “Mr Hope & Change” …. love it: small change I assume, certainly no folding note – the only things he folded was all his promises to the electors (Gitmo; Afghan;Iraq; …), … oh, and the Tuesday Kill list in his back seat pocket.

“Michelle, you may not realize it, but Americans rejected you and everything you stand for. They know what hope is. Hope is when people, 30,000 at a time, stand in line, in the cold, with their children, hoping to get the glimpse of a man they think can change the course of their lives from the downward spiral that you and “Mr. Hope & Change” have put them on.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-18/judge-jeanine-slams-michelle-hopeless-comment-americans-rejected-you-and-everything-

Posted by: x | Dec 19 2016 0:32 utc | 150

Ho-ho-ho!
Ukraine Nationalizes Its Largest Bank, Which Holds 36% Of All Domestic Deposits
Dec 18, 2016 8:14 PM
It was just a few short days ago, on Wednesday of last week, that Ukraine’s largest lender, PrivatBank, said that reports it will be nationalized were “attempts to create panic and destabilize the political situation in the country.”
Local media, quoted by Reuters, speculated that Privatbank, which is part-owned by one of Ukraine’s richest men, billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky, could be privatized if it does not meet a year-end deadline for Ukraine banks to reach a capital ratio requirement agreed under an International Monetary Fund bailout program. However, what made Privatbank unique, is that with some $6 billion in private deposits – or 36.5% of Ukrainian banks’ total – it puts America’s own TBTF banks to shame: the bank is an absolute giant which controls nearly half of the local banking sector.”
—
The Israeli Junta Coup in Ukraine immediately looted $35 BILLION of gold bullion from the Ukraine Treasury, then shipped it off to NYC private bank vaults, and in return, the IMF private bank issued a tranche towards $35 BILLION in loans, that the Israeli Junta Coup in Kiev used to create $50 BILLION in Ukraine Junk Bonds, for use in buying up and privatizing all the prime ag lands and industrial properties, of which Ukraine is famous for, and is also the largest rocket engine and gun manufacturer. Who knew? Well, not the poor folks on MH17.
Here’s where it gets good! When private IMF bank stalled on the second tranche over Kiev’s junk bond privatization scheme, so then Kerry and the US Senate scooped $50 BILLION out of the Treasury, in July 15th, for a ‘Special Fund’. Kerry stated, illegally and unconstitutionally, that the US government would ‘fully backstop the IMF loans to our friends in Kiev.’
The Ukraine junk bonds started defaulting almost immediately after. Now the biggest bank is nationalized, and Americans are all giddy-up that Trump has assigned every USA finance arm to the Goldmans: Fed, Treasury, NEC, Commerce and OMB, now the entire global financial system is controlled by Those Who May Not Be Spoken Of, and USArya is headed towards a (-)$32 TRILLION ‘debt’.
Let’s review:
Ukraine citizens looted of $35B in gold bullion by Junta Coup;
Chosen IMF bankers issue $35B in private loans to illegal junta;
Illegal junta issues $50B in junk paper to privatize Ukraine;
Kerry and Co loot $50B from public Treasury to refi private IMF;
.: $85B in public wealth has been bicycled into private hands.
The Trump Bicycling Revolution has begun, and nobody seems to notice, and nobody seems to care.
Vud you like zome Venezuelan schnapps, perhaps?

Posted by: chipnik | Dec 19 2016 4:37 utc | 152

@105 estouxim
thanks for that link. i had read of lateral transmission of DNA sequences before, but Maximo Sandin very skillfully puts the origin and effects of such transmission into its matrix, and shows how recognizing that matrix reduces the wildly improbable odds of coincident ‘random mutations’ to something plausible and feasible. and his relations of the ‘paradigm’ from biology to socio-economics shows how the ‘wild economists’ mutations’ can finally be contained within a human matrix as well. i think it is a very good work. i’m surprised it’s not more current. although it might be, i may just read in the wrong circles. thanks again for introducing me to it.
@159 psycho
but aren’t the ‘things’ described as ‘capitalism’ and ‘private finance’ the same thing? we all see the problem, what we call it needn’t be a cause for division. Maximo Sandin’s work is a case in point, of recognizing the same problem under different names in different manifestations and studied under different regimes.

Posted by: jfl | Dec 19 2016 9:08 utc | 154

Trump names hard-line “deficit hawk” to head budget office

In a statement Saturday announcing the appointment, Trump declared, “Right now we are nearly $20 trillion in debt, but Mick is a very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink.”
Mulvaney’s convictions revolve around slashing entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, the largest single non-military areas of federal spending. In accepting the nomination, he said the Trump administration “will restore budgetary and fiscal sanity back in Washington after eight years of an out-of-control, tax and spend financial agenda, and will work with Congress to create policies that will be friendly to American workers and businesses.”
This is political code for cutting federal social spending drastically, to pay for further tax cuts for the wealthy and big business. Trump has pledged to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to only 15 percent, a windfall for the rich that will come out the health care and retirement money of tens of millions of elderly and disabled working people.

Think tee-rump’s supporters will be happy with this guy?

Posted by: jfl | Dec 19 2016 12:12 utc | 156

Russian ambassador gunned down in Ankara, seriously wounded: media
The Russian ambassador to Ankara was seriously wounded in a gun attack in the Turkish capital on Monday and was taken to hospital, NTV and other broadcasters reported.
Hurriyet newspaper’s English website said Ambassador Andrei Karlov was shot while making a speech at an art gallery. NTV said three other people were wounded.
CNN Turk television said shooting was continuing in the building.

Posted by: okie farmer | Dec 19 2016 16:45 utc | 158

re 165
Netanyahu wants to have the US defend him and destroy the Arabs. He wouldn’t want to lose that.

Posted by: Laguerre | Dec 19 2016 17:43 utc | 160

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/19/uber-self-driving-cars-bike-lanes-safety-san-francisco#comment-89796864
These self-driving, driverless cars – which will obviously be vulnerable to hackers, raises a question for me. What good will these self-driving cars be when hackers/terrorists will be able to load these things with explosives and remotely pilot them into areas to blow things up.
It’s an exciting future we have ahead of us isn’t it.

Posted by: Julian | Dec 20 2016 0:49 utc | 162

159
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-20/ray-dalio-praises-trump-predicts-huge-changes-it-will-be-glorious-be-rich
It will be glorious to be rich, when the Bank-Broksters have the privilege now to churn your savings deposit up the wall of QEn and WWE woe, with the entire Finance arm of Government controlldd bg the Goldmanauts, and nobody left to say whoa, and somehow, these credit-debt pimps and whores have conflated themselves with capitalism and the Titans of Industry, but I’ll bet their little hands are as soft as a baby-s ass, and the only experience they have with Titaning is choking the investors with ‘structural readjustments’, e.g. looting their SS and MC TRUST FUNDS , like the Israeli Junta Coup in Kiev looted the Public Treasury. This isn’t ‘capitalism’, this is credit-debt train robbery, bicycling the Public Wealth into the private offshore bank accounts of the Rich and Famous, and now In Control. All your wealth are belong to us. A final Ashkenazim Hordes attack upon the Little People, as the Lords pull up their drawbridges, and count their new silver shekels.

Posted by: chipnik | Dec 20 2016 18:59 utc | 164