I will note that you posted the title (Choices) as a statement instead of a question which many wish it were in reality…..thanks for the posting b and continuing to hit all the quadrants of our civilization war.
We are stuck with dying empire that has killed off all the potential humanistic leadership they could and continue to threaten the rest.
There may be more entertainment is the VP choices. Certainly there must be a Dem VP candidate that contrasts with Pence who we know will never be in a room alone with them….grin
Venezuela may be the global tipping point with the connection to the ME with Iran adding gravitas. Cuba is small potatoes but empire cannot allow any South American country to show the benefits of a socialist government example…..which Venezuela continues to do and it has oil…..
On the good side is my understanding that Russia and China are backing both Venezuela and Iran.
I sense the global chessboard locking up soon. Then the real screaming and or triggered conflict starts somewhere and sides are taken. Whether it escalates from there is anyones guess.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 6 2020 5:29 utc | 4

I’m sure the difference between Maximus Pompeous Fatuus’s tweet and Creepy Uncle Joe’s tweet is that one of the two did his own and the other had someone else do it for him.

Posted by: Jen | Jul 6 2020 5:57 utc | 6

Peter AU1 #2

Biden smooching with little girls is a bit off putting though.

AND finger f#cking the interns !
The problem is obvious.
The solution is simple.
This is NOT a choice. It is an imposition on the decency and freedom of all.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jul 6 2020 6:04 utc | 8

I’m going to skip this election. The establishments really believe we are stoopid. Even if Biden win he’ll more than likely fall dead before inauguration day. My personal opinions America is a joke.
Hey MoA, the pandemic is not gonna to go away anytime sooner. The left and Right are pulling each other statues. Soon American, British, French and other national anthems gonna replaced…. You really have idiots been running around blaming each others and where is Hillary Clinton?

Posted by: JC | Jul 6 2020 6:31 utc | 10

Not being American, I realized elections in the US are a game of charades during the 2004 elections when I found out that Bush and Kerry belong to the same secret society, Skull and Bones.
It really doesn’t matter who you vote for , the policies stay the same.

Posted by: Down South | Jul 6 2020 7:19 utc | 12

Precisely, there is no choice. Poor Americans.

Posted by: Steve | Jul 6 2020 8:36 utc | 14

Posted by: kiwiklown | Jul 6 2020 5:58 utc | 7 That Iranian shipment of oil to Venezuela was a signal that the global policeman does not call all the shots: the closure of the Oil Bottleneck by Iran will cause the collapse of the quadrillions worth USD derivatives / bonds, testing USD supremacy unto destruction. In this game of brinkmanship, we await the next move. Will they dare to touch the second wave of Iranian oil tankers? I think not.
Well, there’s a problem with that. If Iran closes the Straits because the US seizes Iranian ships bound for Venezuela, that is all the US and Israel will need to start the Iran war. Iran can state all it wants that it is retaliating against US piracy on the high seas.
The problem is that the US electorate will be told Iran closed the Straits in support of “Venezuelan and Iranian terrorism”. And they will believe that crap. SO there won’t be much push-back when the US Navy starts sinking Iranian patrol boats in the Gulf to “free international shipping”.
And then the war is on.
As for the effect on the US dollar, well, that’s already in play. But I seem to recall a lot of people here saying that the trillions given to Wall Street in the last couple months indicates that the US elites are “taking their profits” – and of course burying them in Swiss francs and gold – so I assume they don’t give a damn if the dollar starts sinking.
Other people have pointed out that a war is great for mediating the effects of a Great Recession or Depression – which we’re in right now.
Now I don’t know if that is all true. What I do know is that Israel, the neocons and the military-industrial complex would love a war with Iran. The banks that still have holdings in derivatives might care, but who knows how many of the people calling the shots still do?

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jul 6 2020 9:39 utc | 16

Richard Steven Hack | Jul 6 2020 9:39 utc | 16 — “Now I don’t know if that is all true.”
I don’t know too, but I can see a way to agree with your descriptions of the physical aspects of the proposed Iran War.
But the monetary disaster for the US far exceeds the financial, economic, fiscal aspects. That was the knife held at the US’s throat when those 5 tankers sailed in open ocean without air cover, which was what made the move so spectacularly audaciously beautiful, something like a Persian Sun Tzu move.
That is also the reason why I think (no proof, opinion only) that Iran will do it again, and also why the US will not / cannot attack the next shipment. They will try some dirty trick and plead plausible denial, perhaps, let the ever-willing Brits to do something ‘clever’, or the French, or anybody who needs an excuse to look ‘strong’.
Not that I can out-think the Iranians, but I guess they would have thought that one out even before the first shipment.
Wasn’t chess invented in the Middle East? just as Wei Chi ( ‘Surrounding Game’ in Mandarin, or ‘Go’ in Japanese) was invented in China? and that, even before the Khazars had begun pretending to be Jews?
Which leads us all back to the Phatty Pompous Psychopath pleading for Iran to be a ‘normal nation’.

Posted by: kiwiklown | Jul 6 2020 10:07 utc | 18

pompous portly pompeo and bidet biden ought to mind their own business, of course there is a lake of oil to consider…how dare that oil be there…. as they steal Syrian oil, they will steal Venezuelas.

Posted by: John Bowery | Jul 6 2020 10:46 utc | 20

Ridiculous !!!
Meanwhile: U.S.A. C-Virus “aktuell” (means right now) July, 6th, 2020
US marks record 57,683 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours: tracker
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-covid-cases-hours-tracker.html
United States Breaks a Daunting New Record in Daily Increase of
Coronavirus Cases
https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020/07/04/united-states-breaks-a-
daunting-new-record-in-daily-increase-of-coronavirus-cases/#.XwL_cm73Kt9
Assessment of U.S. COVID-19 Situation Increasingly Bleak
https://news.gallup.com/poll/313415/assessment-covid-situation-
increasingly-bleak.aspx
You Know it’s bad, meaning really bad… when corporate MainStream
Serial Liar (Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Venezuela) Yahoo-News writes;
‘People aren’t stupid’: Pence’s virus spin test credibility
https://news.yahoo.com/people-aren-t-stupid-pences-130906577.html
Second wave of virus closures wallops California restaurants
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/second-wave-virus-closures-wallops-
175608421.html
Global COVID Cases Over 11 Million, John Hopkins University
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/global-covid-cases-surpasses-11-
million-johns-hopkins-university-20200703-0020.html
COVID-19 Is Circulating- In Brazil Since November Study As in Spain
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/The-COVID-19-Is-Circulating-In-Brazil-
Since-November-Study-20200703-0019.html

Posted by: Ashino | Jul 6 2020 11:31 utc | 22

My protest vote is for Jill Stein of the Green Party for President. I would have voted for Bernie Sanders but I’ll respect his wishes and not vote for him since he endorsed Biden. Also, it is likely that Jill Stein will actually be on the ballot in most states. I loved watching Jill Stein on Tucker Carlson saying that she was against the war machine. I miss the ‘no blood for oil’ liberals. They have disappeared.
I was surprised at how much I agreed with the Green Party’s platform, granted I concentrated on how we treat other countries but I was okay with a lot of the other stuff except for Judicial appointments. I have to face the fact that I’m not really a Conservative. I’ve been in denial for a long time now.
I hold Biden in higher contempt than Trump because he goes wherever the wind blows and pretends to be a leader. Trump is a bully and doesn’t bother trying to hide it.

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Jul 6 2020 11:43 utc | 24

These two clowns have an ever shrinking audience while the rest of us see them as a the cut-outs that they are.
Mr. ‘We lied we cheated we stole’ (and murdered) being the careeer criminal that he is will be riding the gravy train for life.
Creepy Uncle Joe has a rapidly disintegrating hologram and will make a great sock puppet along the lines of Ronnie Reagan.
What I find baffling is how after decades of trying to break Venezuela they still keep coo-ing about “nurturing democracy”.
Does anyone outside the USA believe this crap? As with most other scenarios across the globe, the USA is running out of defenseless nation to bully. They arent going to take an hold any ground, due largely to the fact that they have become an occupation force. But they sure can sanction to death countries that dont obey, strangle the civilian population and monkeywrench the bujeezus out of a culture!

Posted by: Chevrus | Jul 6 2020 11:56 utc | 26

Ashino | Jul 6 2020 11:36 utc | 23 — “US has been exposed for funding last year’s Hong Kong protests…”
Hong Kong people are street smart. They have not been fooled by the US-financed black ops. They have always called the rioters ‘cockroaches’, alluding to their all-black, antifa-style dress code, but more particularly to how they swarm and scurry of a sudden like sex-crazed roaches during mating season.
They now liken Joshua Wong, the lead rioter, to a rat scurrying across a public road, flushed from its hiding place in broad daylight, chased by people bent on smacking him.
And to see Plastic Pelosi calling the first riots “a beautiful sight”…. pathetic… so sad to see America die this way.

Posted by: kiwiklown | Jul 6 2020 12:34 utc | 28

On this American Independence Day, my thoughts are with Americans who continue to work tirelessly for the cause of democracy. It’s time for free and fair elections so that the American people can turn the page on the corrupt and repressive Republican and Democratic political party machines.

Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that gun in your hand?

Posted by: 450.org | Jul 6 2020 12:52 utc | 30

Anonymous (the hacker group) on Twitter had this to say about the “choices”:
Anonymous @YourAnonNews 6h
sam harris once joked about justin bieber becoming the next president of the united states.
unfortunately it’s not that far fetched if you look at who is running for the office nowadays

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jul 6 2020 13:16 utc | 32

Why do these crazed neo-con globalists keep on talking about an election. They had one. Maduro won. These evil lunatics really…..I don’t know what to say.

Posted by: restless94110 | Jul 6 2020 13:22 utc | 34

It’s hard to imagine what’s going through the minds of Pommpeo and Biden when they’re spouting such mendacious drivel. Man-boys or girlie-men? The silliest aspect is that neither of them, despite all the tough talk & bluster, could go 3 rounds with a revolving door and stay on their feet.
The funniest aspect is that 71 countries support China’s action to protect Hong Kong from US-UK regime-change sleaziness whilst Pompeo & Bidet are blithely pretending not to notice.
I had doubts that Trump would be able to Drain the Swamp. But now that it’s clear how much of their own balderdash the Swampers believe, it’s probably going to be easier than I suspected. And Trump’s been growing impatient with this deceitful claptrap for a lot longer than I have.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jul 6 2020 13:27 utc | 36

in some other threads I see little snide comments tossed my direction at the topics I bring up at MoA, but if you can’t see how it all relates, well, that’s not my fault.
the title of this post is “choices” and the reason that resonates with me is because the term “double bind” has been popping up everywhere I look. this morning, on a podcast, I was reminded of the work of Gregory Bateson and his wife, Margaret Mead, in developing the double-bind theory. from wikipedia:

A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, with one negating the other. In some circumstances (particularly families and relationships) this might be emotionally distressing. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other (and vice versa), so that the person will automatically be wrong regardless of response. The double bind occurs when the person cannot confront the inherent dilemma, and therefore can neither resolve it nor opt out of the situation.
Double bind theory was first described by Gregory Bateson and his colleagues in the 1950s.[1]

double-binds often come with elements of gaslighting, especially if being run as a gangstalking program on targeted individuals.
too many of you are watching the shadows and ignore the spell-casters. wake the fuck up, people. and if someone you know to NOT be insane starts telling you there are voices in their head, take them seriously. if you haven’t realized yet these sociopaths are not fucking around.

Posted by: lizard | Jul 6 2020 13:38 utc | 38

The only thing Trump could ever and would ever drain are the Herpes sores on his mushroom dick. People who ever believed otherwise are, for all intents and purposes, retarded and should be sterilized and not allowed to procreate and certainly never be allowed passage on the Transhuman Ark being built as we type.

Posted by: 450.org | Jul 6 2020 13:43 utc | 40

While the pandemic raged…Trump played golf…
Fact check: Trump has spent far more time at golf clubs than Obama had at same point
To be precise, Trump has spent 248-266 days, depending on whose count you believe, golfing rather than running the country. And since they were to his own golf clubs, his company charged hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Secret Service.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jul 6 2020 13:49 utc | 42

@38, meet @41. Case in point.

Posted by: 450.org | Jul 6 2020 13:55 utc | 44

@38
Some of the most egregious gaslighters are political party apparatchiks and political consultants. They are evil beyond compare and have no moral compass whatsoever. In fact, they will tell you that if you possess a moral compass, you are a sucker and will never survive in the world of politics or in life in general.
Take this gaslighter as an example. Allegedly as a gag, he published instructions on how to build a nuclear bomb and the most he got was a scolding for his gaslighting. He then went on to become a political consult and now he gets paid tens of millions of dollars a year to politically gaslight the world.
There are many here amongst us, who feel that life is but a joke.
John Aristotle Phillips of Aristotle, Inc.

Phillips was born in August 1955 to Greek immigrant parents and raised in North Haven, Connecticut.[1] In 1976, while attending Princeton University as a junior undergraduate, he designed a nuclear weapon using publicly available books and papers.[2] In February 1977, several months after the story first went public, Phillips was contacted by a Pakistani official trying to purchase his bomb design, an incident addressed on the Senate floor by William Proxmire and Charles Percy.[3] Phillips was a celebrity by this time, dubbed The A-Bomb Kid by the media,[4][5] and making a series of television appearances including a featured spot on the game show To Tell The Truth.[3]
Phillips was an underachieving student who played the tiger mascot at Princeton games. Hoping to stay at the school, he proposed a term paper for a seminar on nuclear proliferation outlining the design for an atomic bomb similar to the Nagasaki weapon. Whether the weapon as designed would have actually exploded was questioned. Dr. Frank Chilton, a California nuclear scientist who at that time specialized in nuclear explosion engineering, said Phillips’s design was “pretty much guaranteed to work.”[6] However, Phillips’ faculty advisor Freeman Dyson, a renowned physicist, and professor Harold Feiveson, who held the seminar, said Phillips’ design was not functional.[7] Nevertheless, the Federal Bureau of Investigation confiscated Phillips’s term paper and a mockup he had constructed in his dormitory room. In 1979, Phillips published his story together with a co-author, David Michaelis, as Mushroom: The True Story of the A-Bomb Kid (ISBN 0-671-82731-6 / ISBN 0-688-03351-2).

Posted by: 450.org | Jul 6 2020 14:07 utc | 46

@45
I agree with you that Fauci is a louse. I don’t trust him one bit. He has a sinister disposition. He’s an opportunist. He’s a corporatist. He is disingenuous and he’s a proven liar. He has provided cover for Trump time and time again, and yet the Dems laud him as some kind of holy man and place him on a saintly pedestal as they extoll his virtues that are really vices.
I don’t need Fauci or the CDC or the WHO to tell me whether wearing a mask or not will help in preventing the spread of the virus. Pascal’s Wager is all I need to wear a mask when I’m out and about in the presence of people. If we apply Pascal’s Wager, there is no downside in the bet but there is upside. Anyone who refuses the wager is a fool.

Posted by: 450.org | Jul 6 2020 14:23 utc | 48

@450,
considering cui bono is usually a good place to start. sorry to hear about your family member.
I haven’t claimed there is nothing out there making people sick, and the most concerning stuff about what this bug can seemingly do was described by Vietnam Vet. why are long haulers not getting more attention from a corporate media that jumps on peddling fear-porn?

Posted by: lizard | Jul 6 2020 14:54 utc | 50

Choices
The Empire is bi-partisan. As is USA’s divisive politics that set up against each other:

– Tear down statues or 10-years in prison for even defacing a statute.
– ‘Lock down’ or No restrictions: not even mask-wearing.

!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jul 6 2020 15:55 utc | 52

@pretzelattack
maybe you should ask who benefits from making us PURCHASE masks. this is from three years ago:

Black Rock Inc. boosted ts stake in Maplewood-based 3M Co. and now holds more than 5 percent of 3M’s total shares outstanding.
According to S.E.C. documents filed late Thursday, New York based Black Rock now owns 35.96 million shares of 3M stock, up from its previously recorded holdings of 24 million shares (as of September 2016).

you know about Blackrock, right? this is the Great Reset and why everyone needs to be VERY SKEPTICAL about anything corporate media and lying-ass governments are telling us.
if that makes some people appear insane and aggressive, consider that just one of the many added benefits for the ruling class.

Posted by: lizard | Jul 6 2020 16:08 utc | 54

lizard, you aren’t forced to buy masks. you can make your own, if you have sewing skiils. i bought some from a seamstress for 5 bucks apiece back in march. there was quite a little cottage industry there for awhile, and none of it was connected to 3m or blackrock. I paid 20 bucks for a package of 20 about the same time, the disposable surgical masks you see all over, but i rarely use those, i just use the cloth ones. in other words, almost all the money is staying in the local economy. the roughly 1000 new cases a day locally gives me an incentive to keep wearing them. the people who benefit from removing restrictions while using the working class as fodder (one gets sick, fire them and hire a healthy one), and coupling it with no ubi, are the elite.
it gives them a army of financially desperate people, so they are going to promote anything that reaches that goal. to repeat, no masks, no social distancing + benefits mainly going to the elite to trickle down is a formula for enhancing the power of the upper crust and their devoted apparatchiks.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jul 6 2020 16:21 utc | 56

@39
It reminds me of how Bush and his DOJ helped evacuate Saudi Nationals on and immediately after the 9/11 attack. It’s from the same playbook.
lizard has asked cui bono. In this case, the pandemic has greatly benefitted China and part of that is China’s excellent domestic response to the crisis but also China’s foreign operations in promoting Trump on Facebook and all forms of social media via their cyber operatives and spreading disinformation about the virus to idiotic Trump supporters so the Trump supporters arrogantly refuse to wear masks or take the virus seriously at all. The lack of a response and the irreverent attitude toward the pandemic only serves to diminish America and elevate China. Only a fool would deny that China doesn’t have a hand, in every conceivable way, of stoking Donald Trump’s death grip on progress. If ther wasn’t a pandemic, the Chinese would have to invent one, because it sure has paid them dividends.
The Trump administration played the part of Xi’s little American bitch by greasing the skids for those masks shipments. As far as I’m concerned, Trump is Xi and as such, he is putting the finishing touches on the wholesale destruction of America. Donald Trump is a traitor and should be arrested and executed fro his crimes against the American people and his crimes against humanity in general.
September 11, 2001: Evacuation of Saudi Nationals
The Commission determined that the Bush administration had properly handled the evacuation of the “six chartered flights that rushed scores of Saudi citizens out of the United States after the attacks.”
“A flight on Sept. 20, 2001, carried 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Osama bin Laden, according to the statement. But all 142 passengers on the flights, mostly Saudi citizens, were screened by law enforcement officials, the statement said, to ensure that they were not security threats and not wanted for questioning. The flights were ‘dealt with in a professional manner’ by the government, the commission said.
“The rush by the Saudis to depart attracted notice and stirred accusations that the administration allowed it to take place to maintain good relations with the Saudis. An article in Vanity Fair magazine last October asserted that the Saudis were allowed by the White House to violate a ban on flights imposed after the attacks to fly a group from Tampa, Fla., to Lexington, Ky., in a small jet, where they would join a larger group. But the Federal Aviation Administration maintained that the ban was lifted before the plane took off.
“Among other critics, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said last September that some of the Saudis who were allowed to leave may have had ties to terrorism. ‘This is just another example of our country coddling the Saudis and giving them special privileges that others would never get,’ he said.
“But according to the statement, the FBI checked ‘a variety of databases’ and searched the aircraft. The statement said that it was not clear whether anyone checked a watch list maintained by the State Department, but that a check after the departure showed no matches.
“The statement said the FBI concluded that no one who was allowed to depart was wanted for questioning, and that the commission had found no evidence to contradict this.”
Ask yourself, how can it be that Trump and Pence have not contracted COVID-19 all things considered? Dumb luck? The same “dumb luck” that allowed Trump to stumble into the presidency? How much “dumb luck” can one idiot possess?

Posted by: 450.org | Jul 6 2020 16:36 utc | 58

Bad cop, good cop….Dr.Trump and Mr. Biden…

Posted by: JohnH | Jul 6 2020 17:23 utc | 60

>those like me are just paranoids who can’t accept a leaderless void,
>so must fill it in with plans and conspiracies.
It wasn’t a leaderless void that invented the Russian election interference propaganda and the Russian bounties propaganda and the impeachment fiasco and told police across the country to set out piles of bricks and on and on. *Somebody* came up with those ideas and had the pull to get them implemented.
My money is on the FBI and CIA. NSA and the Pentagram don’t support the Russian bounty lies. In spite of the media’s constant use of “intelligence community”, the phrase “no honor among thieves” fits much better. I suspect we are witnessing a circular firing squad at the level just below Trump. I wonder if nitwit Trump even knows.
The most appropriate VP for Bidet would be Bloody Gina Haspel. Since she loves death and torment, she fits right in with the rest of the criminal class at the top. We’ve already had a CIA director as The Prez, so picking one to be Vice Prez will hardly be noticed.

Posted by: Trailer Trash | Jul 6 2020 17:29 utc | 62

RSH
They can save on sheets or cable this time, the cheapest way to get rid of the Maxwell heiress is a bad flu.

Posted by: Mina | Jul 6 2020 17:39 utc | 64

I take your post as a clue about the choice US citizens have. In French, one could describe it as “blanc bonnet ou bonnet blanc”. It means you have to choose and it won’t matter.
Their country is imploding under the load of such a disastrous situation.

Posted by: DidierF | Jul 6 2020 18:17 utc | 66

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 6 2020 17:24 utc | 61
“I’ll not vote for either Sewer Rat.”
I certainly agree with you on that, although I will still vote for TULSI GABBARD (by write-in) before either of the parties’ favorites. She was savaged by the democratic party machine, and was the only person on any of the stages that had a shred of honesty and honor.

Posted by: naiverealist | Jul 6 2020 18:45 utc | 68

I would also add that Iran’s wildcard (closing the straights) is presently at its weakest considering the present energy price depression. Perhaps some in Washington believe they can afford to close the Straights for a while, drive up prices and crack a few heads; nothing is too insane to ponder. No, Iran needs to make any war the empire starts as politically expensive as possible.

Posted by: Peter Fenton | Jul 6 2020 18:52 utc | 70

re: Trump’s chances
If the election were today, Trump would lose FL and that would be it. If this condition holds, all anyone can say is he did it to himself. Had the Trump administration made even a half assed attempt to stop the virus from spreading, he would have the benefit of a leader-in-time-of-crisis popularity bonus.
We are still 5 months from the election, however. The current wave of infections will pass, and if the average age stays low, it will be an economic matter, and no longer a public health disaster. (Voters can have a really short memory…).
The economic situation has potential to be all-time-bad, which puts Senate seats in play that may not be otherwise. They’ll be passing lots more stimulus $ legislation . . .

Posted by: ptb | Jul 6 2020 19:01 utc | 72

71 Cont’d–
I should include Luongo’s final paragraph as finally someone else recognizes what Neoliberalism’s doing:
“As such Russians stated to the world the other day that the truly dangerous disease infecting the West – unrestrained liberalism bordering on the libertine – will not be public policy going forward.”
naiverealist @68–
Yes, writing in Gabbard is also an option, although I also like the comedian known as Fluffy.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 6 2020 19:03 utc | 74

Fenton @67 said
” I don’t believe it’s in Iran’s or anyone else’s best interest to put the Empire to the test with fuel shipments or anything else;”
A little late for that. Iran already did that and all it caused was a bunch of shuffling and mumbling.
and
” No, Iran needs to make any war the empire starts as politically expensive as possible. ”
Why? and to who?

Posted by: arby | Jul 6 2020 19:30 utc | 76

No tweets about such a thing form both… of course…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QN86-WJDVQ
Robert Inlakesh Interview – The ‘Steal Of The Century’ & Normalizing An Openly Violent Ethno-State – Israel

Posted by: Ashino | Jul 6 2020 19:48 utc | 78

“Only a fool would deny that China doesn’t have a hand, in every conceivable way, of stoking Donald Trump’s death grip on progress. If ther wasn’t a pandemic, the Chinese would have to invent one, because it sure has paid them dividends.”
Posted by: 450.org | Jul 6 2020 16:36 utc | 58
…
Well holy unhinged batshit…I’ll pull the Batmobile around and we’ll get to work. Would you mind dressing as Tonto? Robin has a fever and will not be able to make it.
It’s actually worse than you think- 15 of the hijackers were actually Chinese, NOT Saudi- the other 4 were Russian. Russian Russian Russian! Do you hear? Oh yeah, and Israel loves you for your Freedoms. Now back to our regular scheduled programming.

Posted by: CitizenX | Jul 6 2020 20:13 utc | 80

@76

A little late for that. Iran already did that and all it caused was a bunch of shuffling and mumbling.

What do you prefer instead, that Trump should blow up in a drone strike the Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei? If so, speak to his intelligence briefers and have them put that option at the top of his list. He’ll do it if you tell him his farts smell like roses.

Posted by: 450.org | Jul 6 2020 21:12 utc | 82

What does a full spectrum retreat look like? Cebrowski dumpster fires, but not like Liberia or Puerto Rico. Monroe doctrinairness was wishful with defenseless people, but then there’s Cuba with an elephant and a mule on its back being a threat of a good example, or maybe just an exemplar. You’d thonk the greed heads would make even more by improving living standards where-ever they find their attention drawn (the cover of Nat Geo Magazine, for example).
“When the Yanquis first came to Trinidad, some of the women were more than glad…Both mothers and daughters working for the yanqui dollars….” Rum and Coca-cola by Lord Invader 1941 calypso

Posted by: FAILur MagiNation | Jul 6 2020 21:46 utc | 84

re: Trump is averse to war @79
True, Trump unlike his predecessors has not started a war, meaning a real war, not a trade war which lacks the horror of a real war. The Dems, because of their ties to the Atlantic Council and NATO (which Trump has degraded), want to get it on with Russia. With a Biden they just might succeed.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jul 6 2020 23:13 utc | 86

I came across an interesting article behind the paywall of the Australian Financial Review, “Coronavirus May Not Have Originated in China Says Oxford University Expert” by Sarah Knapton.
However various versions are available for free:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/05/covid-19-may-not-have-originated-china-elsewhere-emerged-asia/
The “expert”Oxford professor is Tom Jefferson, now where have I heard of him before?
As readers of MoA would realise, traces of the virus were discovered in wastewater samples in Spain dating from March 2019.
In addition, traces were discovered in sewage samples in Milan and Turin in Mid December, “many weeks before the first case was detected.”
Dr Jefferson believes viruses may, ” may lie dormant throughout the globe and emerge when conditions are favourable, which also means they can vanish as quickly as they arrive.” Here’s hoping!
“Experts have found evidence of traces in Brazil in November.” The virus was also discovered aboard an Argentine polar cruise ship where the passengers had been tested before departure, so it is suspected to come from frozen food. The virus was also discovered in the Falkland Islands.
Dr Jefferson points to the 1918 Spanish Flu killing 30 per cent of the population of Western Samoa despite the population not having “any communication with the outside world.”
I assume the POTUS will not attempt to use his kangaroo courts sue Spain and Italy for causing the virus, given that they do not have trillions of US national debt or US government issued T Notes, unlike China.
That’s what you get when you vote for a bankrupted real estate developer and amoral zionist stooge for president.

Posted by: Paul | Jul 6 2020 23:43 utc | 88

Thanks b.
Having choices, makes people happy.
I’d like to coin that, but nah, I’d get in trouble with the audience.
—
For some reason, I wasn’t a big George Jones fan, but always found his lyrics poignant.
“Choices”
I’ve had choices since the day that I was born
There were voices that told me right from wrong
If I had listened, no I wouldn’t be here today
Living and dying with the choices I’ve made
I was tempted, by an early age I found
I liked drinkin’, oh, and I never turned it down
There were loved ones but I turned them all away
Now I’m living and dying with the choices I’ve made
I’ve had choices since the day that I was born
There were voices that told me right from wrong
If I had listened, no I wouldn’t be here today
Living and dying with the choices I’ve made
I guess I’m payin’ for the things that I have done
If I could go back, oh, Lord knows I’d run
But I’m still losin’ this game of life I play
Losing and dying with the choices I’ve made
I’ve had choices since the day that I was born
There were voices that told me right from wrong
If I had listened, no I wouldn’t be here today
Living and dying with the choices I’ve made
Living and dying with the choices I’ve made

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Jul 7 2020 0:01 utc | 90

Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 6 2020 13:17 utc | 33 After all, Trump wins the award for “Best President Ever” for simply not starting any new wars. West should be able to top that. Really, how tough is it to NOT have a kill list that you murder people from?
I still prefer Angelina Jolie.
OTOH, there is General Zod. He’s been running in every Presidential election for years now. One of several current versions is on Facebook:
The Mighty General Zod For President 2020
He even agrees with Lizard that 5G causes the pandemic! I’m sure he’ll get Lizard’s vote.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Jul 7 2020 0:30 utc | 92

Patrick Lawrence ends his essay writing of choices versus fate as the West fades while the East rises, the context of which serves as the major backdrop for the 2020 POTUS contest. Certainly, neither Trump nor Biden seek to stop the Rentier Class‘s looting of the nations wealth so it can be hoarded and not used to MAGA–such activity is Trump’s Biggest Lie, yet shared by the Ds. Here’s the crucial section:
“Our elevation of individuality into an ‘ism,’ a creed, has failed. Counting from the Reagan presidency, our savaging of our public sector over four decades leaves us looking like a nation of deluded nitwits. The military hardware we worship like cargo cultists proves of no use.
“Consider these declared enemies, our latest axis of evil. China, Russia, and Iran are all non–Western nations in unmistakably emergent phases of development. In the advance toward parity with the West, these three are among the leaders.
“They all have sturdy state sectors, centralized governments to one or another degree, and extensive social welfare systems. None is immune from domestic turmoil, but none is beset with institutional collapse. And not to be missed: As of Monday, China has 405 active Covid–19 cases on its books; Russia and Iran while their numbers are not nearly as good, appear to be in recovery mode, bringing their crises under control.
“When the U.S. aggresses toward these nations by way of sanctions, threats of military attack, or a trade war, never mind how it explains itself. In the final analysis it acts in defense of the pretense of Western superiority. It is essential to the preservation of America’s understanding of the world that these nations fail.” [My Emphasis]
The conclusion then is that of failed policy choices–none ever really made by the general public, but endorsed in a manner via the electoral process: Consent Manufactured:
“Spengler considered civilizational decline inevitable, a fate imposed by history’s laws—a very Germanic notion. Arnold Toynbee, whose 12–volume “A Study of History” came some years later, thought otherwise. Decline is the consequence of a failure of imagination and creativity among leaders. They can no longer respond anew to new circumstances. Decline comes to a choice, then, not a fate.” [My Emphasis]
Will Europeans shy away from the Outlaw US Empire’s determination to fail, see the rising East as their future savior, and abandon their chosen Neoliberal path for it’s not too late.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 7 2020 0:59 utc | 94

Lots of loose talk about the US engaging in war. As if the choice to do so could manifest the power to do so.
Prediction: The US may start a war but the US will not finish that war. Its opponent will end that war, by causing unacceptable losses to the US – something quite easily achieved, and already proved to the world by Iran in this very year of 2020. And actually this was true as far back as the Vietnam defeat.
And the US will strain its mighty Wurlitzer to the utmost to declare victory as it retreats.
This will be the reality with practically any nation that the US could find on any map it cares about, in this modern age of Russian defenses and Iranian/Chinese missiles.
~~
Given this reality, then, the new standard of political competence in the US is whether any state actor with the power to influence action has the ability to cease acting before starting any such war. In an age of incontinence, holding your water takes on heroic proportion.
Those are the only realities I can see. Everything else is bluster, the flaring of gas from a source bed of bullshit.
~~
Honestly, I don’t know why this could still be up for debate. The reality is well established.

Posted by: Grieved | Jul 7 2020 1:09 utc | 96

MarkU | Jul 6 2020 19:42 utc | 77:
I’m half expecting Hillary to return back to the political arena. It’s interesting to note that by having the Democrat National Convention pushed back to August, it gives both candidates only 2 months of campaigning. Less time for mistakes to be made by either candidate and not as stressful due to less traveling. I’m not expecting any live debates. It would be televised with each candidate sitting in the comfort of their safe spaces. If so, it would give Biden the advantage as he can have handlers behind the camera giving him the answers. He just have to remember to repeat what he hears or sees on the teleprompter.
It’s going to be interesting to see what the virus does IF the Democrats win. Will it be memory holed? If Trump wins (which I’m expecting), then the Second wave is coming.

Posted by: Ian2 | Jul 7 2020 1:45 utc | 98

@97 karlof1
Rare that we get to intersect anymore, but I hope you know I always consider that I’m talking with you anyway, you and several others, we are in discussion.
The “Eternal War” – well, surely it would have to take some time for everyone to learn about something eternal? This happens through our telling them, so keep on preachin’. No one knows the day when one’s efforts are rewarded. It is not for us to know, I think.
But there is a quickening lately, is there not? And there are days we can see why the oppressors fear the oppressed – because if they ever figure out what’s being done to them, then the doers are done for…etc.
I have vastly more hope than I had, but vastly less certainty about the how and the when. It could be a hundred years of a slowly building movement, and it could flash tomorrow.
It gives me great satisfaction that those who think they’re in control have the same uncertainty.

Posted by: Grieved | Jul 7 2020 2:07 utc | 100