Chevrus @3–
5-mile diameter asteroid strike atop the White House without any warning whatsoever ought to do the deed.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 13 2019 17:48 utc | 4

An excellent read on the MAX saga that Baconator pointed to…
Often I expect these stories in the media to get important technical details wrong…but here we see that this writer did his homework…
I have said this many times before, but the MCAS system is NOT an anti-stall system…it is there solely for the purpose of providing the right kind of stick feel to the pilot…

“On most airplanes, as you approach stall you can feel it,” a veteran pilot for a U.S. commercial carrier told me.
Instead of the steadily increasing force on the control column that pilots were used to feeling—and that F.A.A. guidelines required—the new engines caused a loosening sensation.

This is exactly it…and this is why I have to wonder how exactly is MCAS going to be cleared to fly again…since the original, much less authoritative version was found inadequate in providing the stick force required…and the rejigged production version proved to be a surefire killer if it kicked in at low altitudes such as takeoff…
We recall that Captain Sullenberger called the MAX a ‘death trap’…
So clearly the system’s authority has to be dialed back…in which case the airplane handling qualities do not meet established requirements…
The story here tells of the struggle that the family of Ralph Nader’s grand-niece, who perished in the Ethiopian flight, is waging to ‘axe the max’…
Hopefully they will succeed, but I doubt it..the MAX can never be a good airplane…full stop…

Posted by: flankerbandit | Nov 13 2019 18:12 utc | 6

@Please illustrate a situation where the executive branch/office of the USA would be suddenly discontinued…
Posted by: Chevrus | Nov 13 2019 17:33 utc | 3
Just found your query. Quick and dead-on response is a major EMP event, but that is not what I had in mind.
Let me see if I can work up another, but necessarily lengthier response.

Posted by: librul | Nov 13 2019 18:28 utc | 8

librul @2 ending of the US of A?
No! But there will be a new “civil war” in the US around the mid of the next decade. Split occuring not south to north, but west to east; chaos further increased by immigrants from the middle & south Americas with their own agenda.
Forces (land & air), militia & DHS people of the eastern party may seek secure backing near frontier to Canada (area of Great Lakes therefore save). Some of the ‘big capitalists’ who feel more international than patriot will flee to outer South America (Argentinia, Chile).
Eventually a dead president (for that and for the civil war please look into cycles of US-history). Peace will come with the first female president. Keep watch on Tulsi Gabbard (but may be also another lady – as I am in Europe I am not familiar with all probable coming female candidates).
Why no permanent split of the States? There are internal benefits (common traffic, markets etc.) but more it is the outside pressure: to be able to compete with China it is a necessity for the States to remain united. Also the coming chaos in Europe and Russia demands unification of the US.
Now a very strange remark: some elites in the US have already accepted, even promote the tendency toward “civil war” to enable a ‘reset’ of the political, economical and social structure of the country. Furthermore, a seemingly weak US with a split in the military may lead Russia in temptation to make some mistake (towards Ukraine and Europe). And now a very, very strange remark: while some forces in the homeland are caught in civil disorder some other forces in the overseas may be involved in a foreign war. Extremely pointed out: the coming civil war in a very specific manner is a fake (to deceive and trap Russia – of course not Putin but his followers).
Today I had a look into George Friedman’s book about the next hundred years. For the first view there is a lot of nonsense (disintegration of China etc.). But I agree that the power of the US will be restored during the century. And if not the same power as it was in the 1990s, then in every case the internal stability of the USA is completely guaranteed.
With greetings from Germany and with thanks to Bernhard for his valuable work, Gerhard

Posted by: Gerhard | Nov 13 2019 18:36 utc | 10

@ 11 jackrabbit.. you can claim that too and i am not ignoring you! i agree with bevin and b how this is insane what the dems are doing, but the whole usa political scenario is insane… at the same time i get cranky with regard to everything being laid at the deep states feet when no one can articulate just what the deep state is.. in fact, i think there are a number of powerful players running at cross purposes to each other, so i don’t think it is as easy as you make out laying it all at the feet of this ‘deep state’… sure, the political process is mostly a charade and i doubt it matters much who wins at this point…
but, i do think the usa continues to slide into a more precarious place that coincides with a multi polar world that the usa is also very resistant to… as for the people of the usa – maybe many of them are easily manipulated, but not all of them.. it is the same around the world… how does one explain how the protesters in bolivia or honk kong are so easily duped? no.. i think generally people are easily duped, but not all people..

Posted by: james | Nov 13 2019 18:51 utc | 12

james
I’ll make it easy for you.
Deep State: the unusual behavior and strange coincides driven by a small number of very well connected people that make little sense but advance the interests of the establishment.
Full-Spectrum Dominance (FSD) means controlled opposition everywhere. FSD in practice:

> Political kayfabe
Hillary makes mistakes that help elect Trump. Trump helps to get Pelosi elected as House Speaker.
> Compromising whistle-blowers
The Intercept turns in whistle-blowers.
> Co-opting dissent
Max B. as the new Assange.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 13 2019 19:21 utc | 14

Please illustrate a situation where the executive branch/office of the USA would be suddenly discontinued…
Posted by: Chevrus | Nov 13 2019 17:33 utc | 3
An imminent one-two punch from IG Horowitz and John Durham has powerful players quaking
in their boots.
9/11 saw Americans willingly surrendering rights;
accepting a pack of lies, a myth, to explain the event;
militarism becoming the refuge for American’s safety.
What are the limits of the rights that Americans are next willing to surrender?
**What are those limits?**
The Resistance, Democrats, no longer respects democratic rights –
no thought to the millions of voters that they would disenfranchise if
the nullification of Trump’s election were successful via a coup (impeachment).
Five years ago would you have imagined that Democratic voters would be so cavalier
about democratic rights? So willing to accept the vacuous accusation that our
President is a Russian agent. Would resurrect the CIA – the torturing, kidnapping,
assassinating, war promoting, false flag creating, disinformation spewing CIA, – and ravenously swallow endless streams of McCarthyist propaganda.
How fast,how far, can we spiral downwards? Is the seizure of power too far down the spiral
to imagine? Five years ago would you have imagined the current decent of Democrats we have witnessed?
If the pretext, the myth, of the necessity of seizing power, were echoed by the mouthpiece MSM
would Democrats go along? Americans have surrendered rights in our near lifetime. Americans
worship militarism and their military heroes more than ever before. Americans have swallowed
hook-line-and-sinker the new-McCathyism and “Putin is an evil man”.
An imminent one-two punch from IG Horowitz and John Durham has powerful players quaking
in their boots. To answer your question, I cannot imagine what players like John Brennan
are scheming. But as you know 9/11 was not beyond their criminal limit or capability.

Posted by: librul | Nov 13 2019 19:25 utc | 16

Paul Damascene @13–
Thanks for your reply! Note that the main event is the Business Forum, which is an arena where genuine national interests usually reign. As you’re likely aware, BRICS was formulated as an instrument to facilitate development via commerce and mutual investment and that its first major joint accomplishment was the formulation of the BRICS Development Bank to bypass the IMF, World Bank and the dollar dominated international trade regime. I found it curious that Global Times had zero articles on its main page related to the Summit, while Xinhuanet ran this short commentary overview which amounts to a short recap and cheerleading. We’ll need to await the presser this evening to get a better feel.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 13 2019 19:33 utc | 18

You make an interesting point librul… It reminds me of the whole continuity of government scheme. ‘In case of _____, break glass an impose martial law or whatever the manufactured disaster calls for. The fact that the north woods 911 bit worked is a testament to just how far the ptb are willing to go. You know, in regard to the USA perspective I can tell you from first hand experience that a steady diet of agitation propaganda as well loads of distraction have rendered a majority of the population easily lead no matter what stripes they might be wearing. Selling Russia as the bad bad guy was easy. Look if a large group of people buy the Bin Laden hit then the sky is the limit.
The 5 mile asteroid would pose a serious problem to most mammals, but given the amount of species self loathing being pedaled about…. My point about the executive branch and the question of ‘is he the last’ hinges on the fact that the president does nothing which is not somewhat scripted. We know what happens when they go “off the Rez”…

Posted by: Chevrus | Nov 13 2019 19:42 utc | 20

Below is a ZH quote about the meeting with Trump and Erdogan today
”
“It’s a great honor to be with President Erdogan… the ceasefire is holding very well, we’ve been speaking to the Kurds and they seem to be very satisfied, as you know we pulled back our troops quite a while ago…”
“I want to thank the President for the job they’ve [Turkey] done in Syria,” Trump said of Erdogan.
And on that note, he already addressed the rationale for continued US troop presence in Syria, saying with Erdogan sitting next to him: “We are keeping the oil. We have the oil. The oil is secure. We left troops behind only for the oil.”
”
To those Trump supporters, I would appreciate understanding how the keep the oil fits in with you saying Trump wants to get out of Syria?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 13 2019 19:56 utc | 22

librul @16–
IMO, lumping the D-Party into the same boat doesn’t reflect reality. A great many D-Party members were disenfranchised by the DNC during 2016; many know it and know why, and never swallowed Russiagate. Many of those D-Party folk are again backing Sanders and Gabbard because they’re the genuine social-democratic faction the DNC abandoned as soon as Reagan won in 1980 since it supposedly was the Reagan Democrats that swung the election–an assumption never proven correct. And the DNC stated during the lawsuit over 2016 that it would repeat its actions again in 2016, 2020, and beyond. Thus there’re two main factions: DNC-Corporate D-Party and small d social-democratic D-Party–both of which are clearly incompatible. It’s the former of those two that Gabbard wants to purge; Sanders also seems willing but hasn’t been as explicit as Gabbard. Thus we have the old House divided against itself cannot stand situation. Either you’re with Obama, Clinton, the Banksters, and the further enslavement of citizens via debt-peonage and expansion of the Outlaw US Empire or you’re with the Sanders and Gabbard social-democrats and liberation of citizens via the nationalization of education, health care and dignified retirement, and the neutering of the Outlaw US Empire. Unfortunately, both Gabbard and Sanders are adamant they won’t run as 3rd Party POTUS candidates, which means the Corporate faction will get its candidate on the ballot unless something remarkable occurs–a coup within the DNC that totally purges the Obama/Clinton/Corporate faction.
Sorry, but that last phrase I find to be 100% fantastical–about as probable as Kentucky’s #1 ranked basketball team losing at home to Evansville at much greater odds than the 40:1 cited for Evansville. Morrison said it was 5:1 50+ years ago, but I don’t think people were as brainwashed then as now.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 13 2019 20:12 utc | 24

@ librul | Nov 13 2019 19:25 utc | 16 (Executive discon)
ED occurs immediately after last gold bar and last whore is loaded onto last 747 transporters to Patagonia.
…
Seriously, there’s a naturally collegial grundnorm tween Ru and US, they simply need to work this out. The PE stand in the path, and act as impedance.

Posted by: Walter | Nov 13 2019 20:52 utc | 26

karlof1 @4
Your scenario doesn’t reach its logical conclusion:
1) Asteroid strike is automatically blamed on “those damn rooskies”.
2) Nuclear war ensues.
3) Far West, South, TransMissisippi and New England all secede with each claiming to be the rightful ‘United State of America’.
4) Voila.
Mu

Posted by: Mu | Nov 13 2019 21:05 utc | 28

@14 jackrabbit.. i am sorry, but it is too simplistic for me… your examples are fine, but as i see it, they random and not some orchestrated plot from up above… that is where we differ here… in fact, your overview is much too simplistic..you can make it simple for me, but the whole concept of deep state orchestrating everything here is much too simplistic..
@ 16 librul… good overview that is kind of how i see the democratic party here, although @ 24 karlof1 disagrees, it looks like that to this outsider / canuck.. here is the line from karlof1 that gives it away for me – “Unfortunately, both Gabbard and Sanders are adamant they won’t run as 3rd Party POTUS candidates” which begs the question, why? my answer – they are useful shills for this same agenda..

Posted by: james | Nov 13 2019 21:10 utc | 30

@ Gerhard | Nov 13 2019 18:36 utc | 10
I see a civil war in the USA as highly unlikely. The upper class has too much common interest and purpose. The lower classes are divided and powerless and in the near future only seem to be becoming more so. When the third-worldization reaches a critical point, a staged and managed revolution may be in the cards. Before a real revolution has any chance, the elites will have flooded the USA with immigrants from the south, ensuring further division of the lower classes and postponing any real challenge.
Overall, the societal foundation of the USA looks to have been crumbling for maybe five decades already and for the next few decades an acceleration of that process is more likely than a reversal. Don’t be on the lookout for leaders or movements to change any of that. Only when the american people clean up their act, ie. their addiction to numbing drugs, empty consumerism and false jingoisms, will anything there ever change for good. Until that happens, the place will be withering more and more.
Not until the American elites start to fail to safeguard their own priviliges at the cost of the rest of the population will change happen.
I don’t see the Russian aggression that you propose to be realistic or likely to happen. Russia does not need to reach abroad for energy, resources or food. Their main challenge is to manage the riches of the huge country with the people they have. Already the resurgence after the post-1990 crash (and the preceding stagnation) is an accomplishment worthy of admiration.
The Russian interest clearly is consolidation and defence, which is exactly what their policies have been showing on the international stage. Suggestions of aggression are pure projection by Atlanticists theselves. Instead of Washington trying to provoke Russian mistakes, the real game is about Moscow trying to contain NATO’s erratic trashing and carefully preventing any catastrophic escalation.
To wit, what country did recently “update” its nuclear doctrine, suggesting the possibility of ‘limited’ use of nuclear weapons? Was it Russia, or ehhm… perhaps the USA?
The only uncertain factor between Russia and the USA is Europe. I expect a lot more American craziness towards Europe, as its effective leverage crumbles. Europe has not yet devolved as badly as the USA and the American implosion is a major risk factor for the Europeans.

Posted by: Lurk | Nov 13 2019 21:29 utc | 32

BTW, all this talk about asteroids and false flags makes me remind the brilliant nineties movie “Starship Troopers”, in which Paul Verhoeven not only sort of presages 911 and the ensuing war on the bugs, but also smuggled into it the ephemeral phrase “Are you psychic?”. I sometimes wonder how many people got that…

Posted by: Lurk | Nov 13 2019 21:39 utc | 34

The issue with the Americans is a hyper-partisan mindset has been instilled, akin to duelling sports teams, so one cheers for their team facts or context be damned. This used to be a Fox News-Republican phenomenon, but now has infected Dem supporters as well.
Break up of US would mean break up of Canada too. Look to the moves made by province of Alberta in response to fed election – a sort of firewall is being proposed where Alberta will take on fed gov responsibilities pension, health care, etc. Alberta is a Koch Bros oil republic, and any N American melt-down will result in formation of private fiefdoms – i.e. Alberta-Montana-Wyoming-South Dakota become Kochland.

Posted by: jayc | Nov 13 2019 21:45 utc | 36

@Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 13 2019 18:35 utc | 9
I wonder how in the Earth can anyone have cultural cooperation and join efforts against terrorism with a goon like Bolsonaro who has posted Twitters celebrating Bolivia´s coup and is known misses Pinochet ´s “expeditive measures” against communists…How this, so called group BRICS, can continue following its path, as if nothing had happened, especially since the coup in Bolivia…
Just today read the statements by Kremlin spokeman, Peshkov, and what to say, seemed to me quite soft his stance, throwing balons out…Sometimes I feel like to trust John Helmer on his assesment on the existence of two blocks in the Russian Federation, the stavka, and these people of the Kremlin office…
To this you add the Russian ambassador to the US, today visiting Kissinger ( the builder of the Condor Plan…) a man always like begging for better relations to this bully of a country, and this is one of the times when I wonder if i would not be supporting all this time just the people who wants to crush me…( meaning my now almost 6 years long support for the RF and concretely this adminsitration…)
I found quite different the unambiguous and strong statements by the Russian FM and Kremlin itself when Venezuela was about to suffer a coup, and now when the legitimate government of Bolivia has been sent into exile and his indigenous population on the verge of extermination by nazi thugs…
You can not be against nazis in the Ukraine and then support ( or be way too soft in your lack of condemnation…) nazis in Brasil or Bolivia (… or the EU…) or you are for international law and human rights, always, or not, but not only when business opportunities are in prospect….
Yes, today is one of those days when my consideration of the RF and Putin´s administration as a referent in keeping international order in the face of a lawless US just wobbles…
No se puede estar en misa y repicando al mismo tiempo
Waiting for the final statement of the meeting for to possibly take a determination on this issue…

Posted by: Sasha | Nov 13 2019 21:55 utc | 38

Gerhard @ 10:
You’d probably do well to study the history of China after the downfall of the Manchu Qing dynasty up to the 1930s at least (when Japan began invading the country and bringing its own forms of chaos, violence and enslavement) to get an idea of where the US might be heading if and when the Federal government falls. From the 1910s onwards, China was governed by warlords looking out for No 1, with their own armies.
Not so very different from the situation prevailing in Afghanistan and Libya. Talk about the chickens coming home to roost.
The other alternative is if the 50 states decide to be self-governing statelets or form their own federations among themselves or with neighbouring provinces and states in Canada and Mexico, or even abroad. Alaska may petition Moscow to be accepted back into the Russian Federation and Hawaii may seek another large patron to attach itself for security reasons. Washington and Oregon states may finally form a federation with British Columbia and call it Cascadia.

Posted by: Jen | Nov 13 2019 21:59 utc | 40

Right now a struggle is going on in Bolivia that is the world’s struggle.

@Posted by: Paul | Nov 13 2019 20:06 utc | 23
Indeed ,the same way I see it, and it seems that, in this one, Russian will not be with us…After all there is neither oil, nor weapons to sale in Bolivia, nor to the working poor people…..
Just today I was hearing Trump stating that he would like very much assisting to the next Vicotry Day parade in Moscow…Well, how to say ( wait for me while I go throwing up a bit…) Just here again, a bit back in myself…
Thus, this thug, who just has unleashed those rabid nazi death squads over the poor indigenous people of Bolivia is going to sit along the veterans who really fought the nazis in WWII, the few who still are alive to remember the 25 millions of their own who died in the battle fields, moreover taking into account that Trump´s father really was a nazi himself and supported Nazi Germany as if there was no tomorrow…If you though that of Netanyahu last year was way too much…to see how yo take this…
Seeing these things, no wonder that fascism advance without obstacles…Voting in the UN or passing all day energically protestingthe demolition of monuments to Soviet heros of WWII is not enough…It is neede to eergically protest when today´s nazis are salughterin currently lving people…
As happened during WWII, I fear, it will be us the people who will have to organize ourselves to fight this scourge…Putin, simply, will not be there….May be the Red Army will…
In a documentary about the 9th company of

Posted by: Sasha | Nov 13 2019 22:14 utc | 42

James @ 39
I general concur with your brief reading of Jayson Kenney and Alberta talk of separatism. But on that score the comparison would not so much be to Texas as perhaps to Boris Johnson / Nigel Farage, in their moves to break away from the EU. I don’t know that either of them (or Kenney) is all that passionate about separation itself, but the divisiveness — and surfing various waves of polarization — are what this new nihilist political wave seems to be about.

Posted by: Paul Damascene | Nov 13 2019 22:21 utc | 44

For speculation:
‘NATO will be soiling its pants’: Ukrainian tycoon seen as power behind president calls for ‘new Warsaw Pact’ with Moscow

Posted by: vk | Nov 13 2019 22:51 utc | 46

off topic: I’ve just realized how vexing the idea of a non-citizen army.
Imagine: The tax payer funds the majority of tax dollars to a bureau that funds its own production of weapons, recruitment, training personnel, maintenance of 800 or so bases across the world and, finally, deploying these recruits wherever it deems worthy, based on the directions of it’s head, potus. its just so sweet: hire mercenaries, and do whatever you want across the planet….there are no draftees ….no one to criticize when the body bags return stateside. Some otherwise brain-dead fuck in the pentagon is enjoying lieutenant generalship, just for figuring out the army didn’t need a draft…there were plenty of poor people, who could be had with a few bucks……

Posted by: Breadonwaters | Nov 13 2019 23:43 utc | 48

Nemesiscalling @37
I know you’ve bought into the notion of Trump fighting the Deep State.
It’s a nice fairy-tale for the sheeple.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 13 2019 23:49 utc | 50

I was somewhat puzzled by your Good and Evil post in the last thread, karlof1. Were you just being facetious or did I misread you to say that all would depend on the outcome of the 2020 election?.
I followed you on the course of ‘the rest of the world’ under leadership from Russia and China into multipolarity rather than one hegemon; I’d tend to agree with you on that concept, though maybe we’d have disagreements on the course of history up to that point. I have a literary turn of mind myself, and to me “good” literature (with a small g) always comes out on top – as with goodness in most other aspects of life learning as well.
All the same, it’s hard for me to think the coming US election will really decide anything. That is, I don’t see any of the candidates preparing his or herself to join ‘the rest of the world’. That would be the good outcome for me and I just can’t see it happening.
I’ll be literary and say that maybe for nations ‘the way up is the way down.’ And while the disparity and struggle between wealthy and not in the US is starkly apparent, we are nowhere near bottoming out here yet. And I think we have to be; I think we will be – but when? I’ll be literary again and say that for Tigger it was when he got all his bounce taken out of him. All of it. Not ‘make America great’ but rather ‘help America survive yadayadayada…’
I’m kinda doubting I’ll be around to see it. It’s sort of that ‘not with a bang but a wimper’ sort of scenario – and we’re a long way from wimpering yet.
Still, I feel very positive. I think ‘the rest of the world’ is going to be kinder than we deserve when it all boils down to the dregs. What a day that will be!

Posted by: juliania | Nov 14 2019 0:47 utc | 52

Sorry – ‘whimper’ and ‘whimpering’. (I used to be such a good speller, truly!)

Posted by: juliania | Nov 14 2019 0:55 utc | 54

Occupied Palestine continues killing people as documented in the report below from Reuters
”
GAZA (Reuters) – An Israeli missile strike in the Gaza Strip killed six members of a Palestinian family on Thursday, all of them civilians, medical officials and residents said, bringing the death toll in the territory from a 48-hour surge in fighting to 32.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the pre-dawn incident in Deir al-Balah, which came as cross-border shelling exchanges continued despite a ceasefire offer by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
Israel killed an Islamic Jihad field commander on Tuesday, sparking cross-border rocket salvoes by the militant group and further Israeli strikes. Medics said 32 Palestinians have been killed, at least a third of them civilians.
Those killed in Thursday’s attack on a home in Deir al-Balah included a woman and a child, medical officials said. Another 12 people were wounded, they said.
”
Sad to see this continue to go on and no resolution in sight, only escalation

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 14 2019 1:28 utc | 56

@55 Juliana
I mean “right” in that allowing Russiagate to seep into the waking consciousness of America took the pressure off the dems and what was going to be their reckoning. In effect, they have now doubled-down in the hope that the Trump phenomenon of nationalism will fade away and their rule will be restored. Whether or not Sanders plays into this I think we are yet to see, but, so far, Sanders has played ball with a lot of dem garbage.
Again, by the “right” play I mean as if a dark sorcerer had banked his continued favor with the king he serves on a magic brew that would muddle the King’s brain and keep him from knowing of the Sorcerer’s repulsive ambition. Such is the dems plan as well as many if not all of the republicans who secretly detest DJT but who don’t speak up because their base believes in Trump.

Posted by: Nemesiscalling | Nov 14 2019 1:42 utc | 58

TASS and Sputnik have both published short reports on events from the BRICS Summit in Brasilia. As I noted earlier, it revolved around the Business Forum, so most everything focused on economics, global trade, and the hindrances in the normal conduct of commerce:
“‘Undoubtedly, the global economy was affected by the fact that methods of unfair competition, unilateral sanctions – including politically motivated ones are being used on a wider scale in the global trade, [and] protectionism is flourishing. Under those circumstances, BRICS nations have to take serious effort to ensure the development of their economies, to prevent the deterioration of the social situation and the fall of living standards, of our citizens’ welfare,’ Putin said at the closing ceremony of the BRICS business forum.”
Hopefully, there’ll be a full transcript of Putin’s remarks and further reporting to digest tomorrow.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 14 2019 1:55 utc | 60

Looks like Bolivians are getting organized and fighting back. Thousands congregate in El Alto and Cochabamba:
https://twitter.com/maduro_en/status/1194679324986814466?s=21
Lets hope some Army units “defect” to the cause before bloodshed gets serious..

Posted by: Lozion | Nov 14 2019 2:20 utc | 62

For any of you who use protonmail. They seem to be touting their links to clearly compromised media sources such as Bellingcat quite strongly these days, and are pushing the empire’s message on MH17, Ukraine, Scripals, Russiagate etc etc. I was an early adopter but they now seem compromised or simply deluded. Too bad, another one bites the dust.

Posted by: Sad Canuck | Nov 14 2019 2:38 utc | 64

@ 11 JR
I agree with your premise about this being kayfabe. From where I sit, there is no other explanation for any political party to make these endless attacks based on absolutely nothing over and over again. Attacks which can only maintain the charade from 2016 of Trump the Victim. Does anyone think that somehow the Dems suddenly stopped being to calculating psycho/sociopaths that they and the other side of the aisle are? Why would such shrewd players not verify what people like Vindeman had to say before putting them on the stand? They keep undermining their own case over and over again. I find it impossible that they would continue to stick their hands in the fire after being burned every single time before this, and with easily verifiable information. Especially when the attacks are ALWAYS over stupid shit and never go after anything he actually could be attacked for doing. What I keep seeing is like watching kindergarten kids try to kill a grown man with foam rocks.
We keep seeing this complex, convoluted, evil shit come out of DC and yet we simultaneously think these same players are morons? No freaking way. These attacks are the only thing that keeps Trump’s base on his side as he keeps betraying them and the opposition keeps trying to outdo its last performance of stupid. I have seen a LOT of Trump supporters throw in the towel on him for things he has done in the last 3 years, yet they come back to his side after the newest stupid thing the left wing of the uni-party comes up with.
Shit, it isn’t like Trump is even really shaking things up to cause such a ruckus!

Posted by: sorghum | Nov 14 2019 3:15 utc | 66

Another Jrabbit contribution I agree with;
“I know you’ve bought into the notion of Trump fighting the Deep State.”
“It’s a nice fairy-tale for the sheeple.”
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 13 2019 23:49 utc | 50″
Thanks rabbit, in time, these DJT “leg humpers” will see, that 99% of both so called “parties”, and DJT, work towards the betterment of themselves (more $), and the uber-rich, who have purchased the entire U$A, and it’s corporate empire..

Posted by: ben | Nov 14 2019 3:44 utc | 68

ben @68: DJT “leg humpers”
LOL!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 14 2019 4:21 utc | 70

@51 lizard – you should read Twilight’s Last Gleaming (Updated editiion) by John Michael Greer before you bother writing a novel about the break up of the USA.
—
Many commenters here blend the issues of 1) the existence of a deep state, and 2) Trump taking on the deep state. They are completely separate issues.
I agree with Jackrabbit and others who do not believe Trump is taking on the deep state, and that he never had any intention to take on the deep state. Trump is an extremely simple man, far too naive to be an effective president. He truly believed he could builld a wall that Mexico paid for, give everybody a tax cut, bring troops home, renegotiate some trade deals, but not much else. He had (and still has) no idea how to implement such grand policies in the DC swamp. He truly is the Wizard of Oz – all show and no substance.
That said, the deep state does exist. No it doesn’t exist in any single department. It’s not a secret cabal that meets at Bilderberg or the CFR or at Bohemian Grove. It is people like Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Rosenstein, McMaster, Victoria Nuland, John Bolton with soldiers like Peter Strozk, Lisa Page, Fiona Hill, Eric Ciaramella and dozens of others whose names we’ll never know. They worked independently and sometimes in coordination as a shadow government that stops policies they don’t like and implements their own policies ignoring elected officials. Along with the destruction of the dollar by the Fed and profligate spending by the uniparty, they will be the reason for the break up the USA – not Russia, not China, not a buffoon like Trump. The USA will eventually collapse into the dustheap of history just like Rome and many other empires have. The question is … when?? My guess is that the country has less than 25 years left, but many of us are old folks so what the f do we care…

Posted by: Don Wills | Nov 14 2019 5:00 utc | 72

Photo of Erdo and his foreign minister meeting with Trump, Graham ect.
Erdo looks like its just another day at the office for him, his foreign minister looks happy, Trump, Graham and the rest of the yanks look a bit sad.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EJSQ9CiW4AAdzDs.jpg

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Nov 14 2019 6:23 utc | 74

The AI can also be used to generate hilarious Onion-like texts. For example, given the following input:

When Putin and Lennon decided to collaborate on a record,

the algorithm spits out:

When Putin and Lennon decided to collaborate on a record, their mutual musical taste was obvious. But he had an issue with the singer’s use of the word “Putin” in a song called “Vesti Rossiya.”
“I said to him, ‘I can’t put that in the album. The word ‘Putin’ is so strong, and we are talking about Russia,'” Lennon recalled in the documentary “Putin’s Revenge.”
Putin’s Revenge, which will premiere in Los Angeles on May 27 and in New York on June 14, will also feature interviews with Lennon’s former aides, members of his inner circle and Russian officials.
For “Putin’s Revenge,” Lennon hired an Israeli songwriter to pen lyrics.
“The man is the creator of the music, but there is also a certain degree of control,” said Lior Ami, who wrote the lyrics. “He told me, ‘If you don’t write the lyrics in Russian, I will not give you the

You can input sentences in Shakespearean, Biblic, legalistic, pop song styles — it will mimic everything thrown at it.

Posted by: S | Nov 14 2019 6:31 utc | 76

S | Nov 14 2019 5:55 utc | 73:
This technology isn’t new to me. I’m seeing this more often in the Help / Support role of a service like my local cable service provider.
BTW, I got nothing when I typed in: “Alien invasion from space” BUT
“Queen Elizabeth II is a lizard”

We know this, for example, because of a few facts that the queen has told in print. First, the queen’s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, King George III, had a secret, in-law relationship with the lizard’s sister, the monarch said in 2008, when she was giving a lecture at Oxford University.
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Then in 2013, she told the same university audience that her great-great-great-grandmother was the last monarch who knew she had a lizard in her womb.
So, she’s not a person. But she’s not a lizard either. What is she? What can she do?
“There was something called a ‘dome-mamma’,” Queen Elizabeth told the audience, referring to her reptilian ancestor, Mother Elizabeth, whose death is a source of family shame. The queen

Posted by: Ian2 | Nov 14 2019 6:43 utc | 78

AI project, https://talktotransformer.com/
Rhetorically speaking, “Trump is asking, with Morales gone, where is our Lithium?” So we asked our cAI.
Background-Bolivia has +70% of known world Lithium reserves.
Does morales have the lithium in his ass
“But if you do that and you get pregnant, it’s not good for the fetus. It can cause a miscarriage.”
“So you’re telling me that if you do that and you get pregnant, it’s not good for the fetus. It can cause a miscarriage.” “Well, there are lots of things that can cause a miscarriage, if you’re pregnant, but it’s not necessarily something that should cause a miscarriage.”
And this shit about the sperm being able to see the cells that the egg cells were trying to implant in his ass.
“A sperm cell has a pretty clear view of its environment.”
“So sperm are like a satellite that can just go anywhere and just sort of do whatever they want. A sperm cell can go, uh, from a fertilized egg that’s in your ass, to the uterus, to another fertilized egg. They can do that without actually touching the cell that it was

Posted by: Eva Morales | Nov 14 2019 7:04 utc | 80

Well looking at the transformer machine with a couple of queries – Russia first, then Syria, it looks like a cross between moty python and US propaganda.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Nov 14 2019 7:25 utc | 82

Well looking at the transformer machine with a couple of queries – Russia first, then Syria, it looks like a cross between moty python and US propaganda.
…
It would be far better if you just ‘rolled your own’, there must be lstm-recursive engines out there where you can ‘train’ them on your own source material
Problem with this system, it is was trained using the ‘urban dictinary’ and other sources of garbage, thus the potty mouth.
A few years ago when the Clinton emails were dumped on wiki, I downloaded and trained the “AI” on those 2gb of text, then I would come back and ask rhetorical questions, and it was quite interesting, because the AI had been trained to ‘think’ like Hillary&Friends.
These AI’s just take in source materials say all the works of shakespeare, then you type in an input ‘sentence’ and using probability they generate N characters of next, where the generated text outputted is stuff most correlated with your sample.
The problem with this stuff while its easy to do if your a programmer, the real problem is knowing how to ‘train’ the engine.
It’s not a simple matter of using a website, you need to build the system on your own computer, and then have the training data-set, most often it just takes a few hours to train, then you can spend hours or forever just putting in ‘text’ and getting back coherent sentences and/or paragraphs based on probabilitys.
…
In this case, like you have all observed this AI was trained using URBAN BULLSHIT from web, so it generates BULLSHIT.

Posted by: bob | Nov 14 2019 7:48 utc | 84

All these fork-tongued implied criticisms of Evo Morales are the stuff of nausea. People too gutless to confront the evil celebrated within their own society, who know SFA of the tightrope which the MAS walked for more than a decade, now criticise with impunity Evo Morales for not slotting up all whitefella bandits in charge of oppression.
They tell us little other than their complete misunderstanding of how power structures actually function, worse they reveal their consummate inability to comprehend other less selfish indigenous societies.
There is no way in the world that Morales could have simply ’rounded up’ the whitefella leaders of the military & police. For 150 years plus, those types had been inducted into organisations whose number 1 job was to make sure that ordinary citizens never copped a say in the way the nation was shaped.
Consequently not only were the forces of oppression just waiting for the time to murder Morales, they had selected their middle-management I.E. nco’s, on the basis of the nco’s preparedness to sacrifice the common good in favour of personal gain. Yep it is likely that every police and army sarge didn’t feel that way, but as subsequent events have proven, sufficient did.
In some ways the government of Venezuela had a much easier ride, in that initially at least, sufficient money came in to have a beneficial effect on many citizens lives.
Probably more even importantly just like in Turkey with Erdy, the amerikan premature ejaculation in the form of too soon Venezuelan coups not only gave their respective governments the perfect excuse to purge traitors, the traitors’ behaviour had been so egregious & lacking in justification that even the suborned NCO class could not tolerate it.
Those two lesson were absorbed by amerika’s whores, blackmailers & murderers to the point where they understood they had but one shot at stealing Bolivia back, so they had to time it just right following a propaganda whitewash that would enable waverers to justify their choice of self ahead of community needs.
This is what happened and the evil plan showed us how well strategised the coup was. It showed a real understanding of indigenous culture.
eg If Hill the shill Clinton had won last time, what do you reckon would happen if following her inauguration, someone called her up and said “I’ve a knife at Chelsea’s throat resign now or she is dead”. Hill woulda prevaricated for a bit, then when her daughter ended up in a muddy ditch somewhere, she would have saved the incident up to drag out for votes in 2020 – exactly as orangeade woulda done if anyone threatened to slash Ivana’s throat.
With familial clans of humans better connected to the world around them that isn’t a choice at all. There is no way that Evo or any of the other senior MAS members would do anything other than capitulate in favour of a much loved family member.
The architects of this apt illustration of the callous perfidy of amerika’s ruling elite, sure demonstrates their easy familiarity with the morality of nazi concentration camp commandants. They do not acknowledge even to themselves they are telling the world they believe “whatever it takes is OK, if I can profit from it”.
So, I repeat, this problem cannot be fixed in Bolivia, sure you can kill the monkey, but the organ grinder lives on in amerika, butchering thousands in your name. The only way this can possibly be fixed right now, is if other amerikans do to these amerikan born and bred murderers, exactly what they ,the murderers, have been doing to the entire rest of the world.
There is no other way, amerikans and no one else, need to either f+ck them up or shut the f+ck up.

Posted by: A User | Nov 14 2019 9:38 utc | 86

bob #84
Thanks for reminding that training data determine results.
Then comes a realization that our own brains are neural networks too and they do learn from texts we read. So we are constrained by sum of information that was fed to us and in great extent we repeat and rehash what we ingested, be it good or bad. Not really news, but in the context of utmost bullshit that transformer AI can sometimes produce, the realization is even more painful. It’s a reminder to pay attention to the quality of what we read.

Posted by: pppp | Nov 14 2019 9:50 utc | 88

Seems the UK is following the way of the USA:
Life expectancy in UK falls amid rise in avoidable deaths in disadvantaged communities, report shows

Posted by: vk | Nov 14 2019 11:13 utc | 90

So long as the United States continues to serve its function as the core of the capitalist empire it will not be allowed to “break up”. Literally $trillions have been invested in brainwashing conditioning and indoctrinating the American public into barking (or salivating) on command like Pavlov’s dogs. This programming is, like religion, transgenerational (don’t religious people ever wonder how it was that their parents were indoctrinated into the “one true religion” and not one of all of the fake ones that everyone else believes in?). The capitalist programming (TV programming) compounds from generation to generation, becoming more deeply ingrained over the decades in the culture regardless of the birth and passing away of individuals in that culture. For capitalism to throw that massive investment away and start over somewhere else is a ludicrous proposition. That is not going to happen until capitalism itself is dismantled.
Where else in the world can capitalism find a base of support like the American poopulation? Where else would the capitalists be cheered on for unleashing the fascists gangsters or imperial stormtroopers on defenseless countries attempting brave experiments to uplift their people?
As long as capitalism continues to need a home base to operate their death squads from, and a population to recruit enthusiastic cannon fodder from, then America will be maintained largely intact.

Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 14 2019 11:54 utc | 92

@ Cherrycoke | Nov 14 2019 7:34 utc | 83
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic
In Starship Troopers, the teenager Carl uses his psychic abilities to cause his pet ferret to bite Carl’s mother’s leg (thereby illustrating both his abilities and his lack of common morality). When both boys join the military, Rico becomes an army grunt, whereas Carl is inducted into military intelligence. At the end of the film, Carl uses his abilities to remotely influence Rico’s actions in the pursuit of a brainbug.
The “are you psychic?” slogan is part of television commercials for recruiting military intelligence personnel.
I should credit not only Verhoeven for the film, but even more so Edward Neumeier, who wrote the screenplay. In doing so, he turned the original Heinlein book completely upside down, from a piece of thinly veiled military-fascist agitprop into a hilarious satire.

Posted by: Lurk | Nov 14 2019 12:19 utc | 94

I don’t know whether anyone else here has already posted this, but I noticed that an article over at Consortium News by Patrick Lawrence (also known as Patrick L. Smith) gave you a shout-out:

Last Tuesday, a day after Solomon published his report, Moon of Alabama, the much-followed web publication, posted a granularly researched and well-sourced timeline of the events surrounding Shokin’s dismissal at Vice President Biden’s request. This is the most complete chronology of the Burismagate story yet available.

Nice to know you’re “much-followed” now, eh!

Posted by: Seamus Padraig | Nov 14 2019 12:42 utc | 96

Are we going to see a “color revolution” in The Vatican? (via pl as SST)? Is this related to the recent events in Bolivia – the recent reassertion of the primacy of Christianity or more specifically, Catholicism in Bolivian politics.

100 priests, lay scholars call Pope Francis to repent for Pachamama idolatry at Amazon Synod

Going back a bit:

Donald Trump, who has publicly criticized Francis, has not interfered as his surrogates, who include former White House strategist Steve Bannon; Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis; Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States; and others have conspired with the powerful fascist-oriented Opus Dei sect of the church to undermine Francis’s authority. Trump’s eyes and ears inside the Vatican – US ambassador to the Holy See Callista Bisek Gingrich – is the wife of Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, a convert to Catholicism, and a major Trump political ally.

Neo-cons at it again.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Nov 14 2019 13:24 utc | 98

Agree with all the love for Verhoeven’s film, Starship Troopers. In my mind he will go down ad the best European making American films ever.

Posted by: Nemesiscalling | Nov 14 2019 14:02 utc | 100