Day: May 4, 2017

Closing Thought–04May17

May the Fourth be with you!

Before I go on I need to bring to everyone’s attention……on this day in 1970 soldiers shoot and kill protesting students at Kent State……

On this day in 1970 the Ohio National Guard were sent to Kent State University due to disturbances in the city of Kent that weekend. Students at the university were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam in the Vietnam War. The National Guard opened fire on the students, killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others.

On to the post for the hour………

Gravel at Our Feet!

For decades the US and others have imposed economic sanctions against the country of North Korea….the aim is to cripple the government and the country into submission to the will of the “Overlords”.

The US has just imposed a new round of sanctions in response to nuke testing and missile research…..by now, after decades,  there should be cracks appearing all over NK’s economy thanx to sanctions…..right?

Not so fast.

Resolute in its commitment to communism and plagued by sanctions, North Korea has one of the most isolated economies in the world. And yet its economy is showing signs of expanding — potentially at a pretty decent pace.

This weekend the New York Times’s Choe Sang-Hun wrote a fascinating article showing how the country has been experiencing economic success in recent years by taking steps toward allowing private enterprise to spread throughout the country.

According to the Times, some experts estimate that the North Korean economy could be growing between 1 and 5 percent per year. If North Korea’s economy is actually growing at the higher end of that estimate — say, around 4 percent — the country would be showing surprising resilience in the face of international sanctions.

Source: The North Korean economy is actually growing despite sanctions – Vox

If this is true then why are there a continuation of more sanctions if they are not doing what they were designed to do?

Einstein has a quote for this.

I close down for the day…..see you guys on the flip side of tomorrow….chuq

Will Trump Fail?

****Please if you are a Trump supporter read this post in its entirety before going on some worthless rant.  Yes I dislike Trump….but then I disliked Obama, Bush and Clinton….so please spare me your diatribes*****

The first 100 days……did not go as attempted…….

(above came to me on Twitter cannot remember who sent it out….so I cannot credit the originator)

Today is the big day…..I have been sitting on this draft since the inauguration….I wanted to see what if anything would come about that is good and constructive with our now president….in the brief time that he has been president nothing constructive has happened…..his promises unfulfilled and his government is a joke……one mishap after another.

Let me open by saying that I am not wanting this stuff to occur…..it is some interesting predictions by people that I wanted to share and maybe give some readers something to think about…..

What got me thinking about this was something that my good friend over at the blog “John Liming” had to say about the Trump presidency….

In fact, at some point in the game I expect him to become frustrated and to resign and give the reins over to Pence — and then we will see something far worse than Trump could ever hope to be ….. in my personal opinion.

I had to agree with him…..with that comment I started thinking about the future and the next 4 years……do others see this possibility?  The very idea of a Pence presidency should scare the pants off many….

There were several people that predicted that Trump would beat Hillary and become president……I even wrote about these predictions (few noticed but hey I am truthful if little else)…..

Source: 2016: Go Ahead Throw ‘Em A Bone – In Saner Thought

I refresh your memory because one of those that predicted his win has something else to say…..this is an interview of Eamonn Fingleton was one of those brave souls that predicted Trump’s win……now he has more to say……

Source: The Man Who Predicted Trump Now Predicts He Will Fail | Alternet

Also saying basically the same thing are a couple of other people that saw a Trump win……below is a short op-ed I wrote for my friends at Ace News Room…..

#AceNewsReport – Nov.16: This is News and Views post after #Trump election from my friend and featured writer #Chuq please read and check out his great Oped on // Ace News Room #Chuq says the…

Source: #Chuq Says Can Trump Make It For 4 Years? | Ace News Services

Now there is a “what if” scenario…..an interview of former Pres. Trump…..

Donald Trump’s meteoric rise to the White House will go down as one of the greatest triumphs of mindless indignation and reactionary overstatement over rational thought in the history of American Presidential elections. And in true American style arrogance and denial will stymie acceptance of the magnitude of the mistake until long after serious damage is inflicted upon the majority of those who actually supported him.

And when judgment day does come an unrepentant charlatan sitting in his skyscraper apartment adorned in golden splendor will boast of his con with the pride of a thief and embezzler who never payed a price for his transgressions. Project forward to that time when sober reflection is in order and I imagine an interview would go something like this.

Source: Interview of Former President Donald Trump, November 24, 2018 – LA Progressive

Please read the above as a “What If” piece….not a real interview…just a spit ball for thought.

Then there is a list of reasons why he will not make it…..

I actually don’t think Donald trump is going to last four years in office.

Not because he clearly doesn’t understand the rules or know which phone calls he can and can’t take, and not because he can’t decide if he wants Ivanka or Melania to be the first lady. Not because he nominated Ben Carson to fill a position his own spokesperson admits he knows nothing about, and not because he and Mike Pence are assembling a white supremacist dream team cabinet — yes, I consider Carson a black white supremacist — and not because he proves to be more and more incompetent every day.

I don’t think Donald Trump will last four years in office because Donald Trump is a hustler. He’s a moneymaker. He’s Mitch from “Paid in Full,” in love with the flip — the kind of guy who gets off by turning one dollar into 20. And Donald loves more than the hunt: He loves the bloody kill and the meal.

Source: 5 Reasons Why I Doubt Donald Trump Will Complete His First Term | Alternet

There is more on the “will not last 4 years front”…….

As startling and unprecedented as it may be, there’s a good chance Donald Trump won’t finish out one term as president. Yes, Richard Nixon resigned from office, so technically, there was a “precedent,” but Nixon’s case was different. Nixon resigned in disgrace to avoid being impeached—to avoid being exposed as the Machiavellian felon and borderline neurotic he was. Trump won’t face impeachment. He’ll just quit.

Here are four reasons:

Source: Four Reasons Trump Will Quit

Trump supporters will probably get their panties in a twist and come out swinging….without any thought…a typical Right wad technique.  I mean they did this very thing when Obama was elected…but that is not the same thing…(in their tiny minds)……I know it is difficult to think rationally when head is firmly place up one’s butt……give it a try(rational thought that is)….it does not hurt at all.

Of course all this is supposition…..but hey…..if it was good enough for Nostradamus….why not?

Are you a betting person?  If so then this should interest you…….

A combination of controversy, scandal and low polling numbers have prompted oddsmakers at a U.K. betting house to predict President Donald Trump would likely either be impeached or resign – or both – before the upstart politician’s first term in the White House officially comes to an end in 2020, according to a new report. The odds for an impeachment to happen were given a 4/5 chance of happening as of Friday, according to Inverse, a website that describes itself in part by asking “ What could happen next? ”

Source: Trump’s impeachment betting soars

Will Vegas follow suit?

Maybe if they keep up with the news of the day……like a story about what the sole voice in the wilderness during the election that predicted a Trump win…..he has more to say these days…..

The professor who took hell for predicting President Donald Trump has a much longer case for predicting President Mike Pence — and it’s all in his new book, out next week.

Allan Lichtman, a professor at American University, reached meme-status last fall for predicting long before anyone else that Trump would win, using a formula based on the popularity of the party in control of the White House that accurately predicted the eight previous presidential elections. Now Lichtman wants everyone to pay attention to the rest of what came through his crystal ball — that Trump will now be impeached.

Source: Prediction prof: Trump will be impeached – POLITICO

Okay Trump has made the first 100 days…..but some are asking if he will make a full 4 years.

Thoughts?

Is A Solution Possible?

For many years the group known as Hamas has been “fighting” the state of Israel……so hard that it is on the terror list…..in the beginning the charter that set up the group called for the eradication of the state of Israel as their goal….and has worked to that aim since the beginning…….

But just recently Hamas has updated it charter…….

Hamas has presented a new political document that accepts the formation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, without recognising the statehood of Israel, and says that the conflict in Palestine is not a religious one.

The positions were made official on Monday in Qatar’s capital, Doha, by Khaled Meshaal, the leader-in-exile of the Palestinian group that runs the besieged Gaza Strip.

“We shall not waive an inch of the Palestinian home soil, no matter what the recent pressures are and no matter how long the occupation,” Meshaal said as he revealed the document to the public after two years of work.

Source: Hamas Accepts Palestinian State With 1967 Borders | World Affairs Journal

If the reader is interested then this link will take you to the document in question……

Source: Hamas in 2017: The document in full | Middle East Eye

This is a moderate step forward for Hamas….while the document did nor call for the eradication of Israel…it still did not recognize their right to exist.  They also have agreed to accept the 1967 borders as the state of Palestine.

In the past couple of weeks, the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, succeeded in making the issue of its “new political document” a major news headline. It was not just about propaganda; Hamas was also preparing its anxious supporters for the release of the document, while gauging reactions on the leaked clauses of the new document.

The controversy surrounding the movement’s former Charter, first published in 1988, is not new. It dates back to the second Palestinian uprising (known as the Second Intifada) in 2000, especially after the late Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin stated in 2003 that Hamas would accept the two-state solution as a temporary solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Source: What is next for Hamas? | Middle East | Al Jazeera

Give Israel a few days and they will condemn this as some sort of “trick”…..

I say why not explore the turn of events if peace is truly what Israel has in mind…..my thought that Israel is more concerned about the acquisition of land than in peace.

And then Abba the leader of the PA comes to DC and meets with Trump and we have a promise of a settlement of hostilities in the “Holy Land”….

President Donald Trump expressed optimism for resumed peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel at the start of his Oval Office meeting with Mahmoud Abbas Wednesday in Washington, his first direct meeting with the Palestinian leader, the AP reports. Trump, who said he’ll “do whatever is necessary” to reach a Mideast peace agreement, added he’d “love to to be a mediator, an arbitrator, or a facilitator” between the two sides and thinks “there’s a very, very good chance” of bringing Israel and the Palestinians together. In fact, he noted as a luncheon began, the solution may be just within reach. “It’s something, frankly, maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years,” he said, per NBC News. He added, however, that a deal “cannot be imposed by the United States or any other nation.”

Trump didn’t provide any details about how the process might work, though he mentioned he’s long heard that brokering peace between the two sides was “perhaps the toughest deal” to make. He took that as a challenge, telling Abbas, “Let’s see if we can prove them wrong, OK?” Abbas, for his part, speaking through an interpreter, said that he’s hopeful for bringing about a “just and comprehensive” peace with Israel “based on the vision of two states,” using the borders of 1967 as a foundation. The Palestinian leader says it’s time for Israel to end its occupation of its land. Israel has rejected those 1967 lines as a possible border, saying it would impose security risks. Abbas said he believed he and Trump can be “true partners” in their efforts. “We are coming into a new opportunity … that would enable us to bring about peace” in the region, he noted.

How easy can it be?

Without details I am not impressed…anyone can say a settlement is coming….but the proof will be in the process…..so far I do not see one….

Did I miss something?

President Trump’s Corporate Government

Pres. Trump is doing what every American president has done for many long decades…..enriching corporate America.

We’re 100 days into Corporate Government.While giant corporations have for decades and on a bipartisan basis exerted far too much influence over government decision-making, we’ve never seen anything like the Trump administration.

The key officials in the federal government, starting with the president himself, come from Big Business; the administration openly seeks guidance and direction from giant corporations and corporate CEOs on policymaking; and the Trump administration is rushing to deliver subsidies, tax breaks and deregulatory gifts to the giant corporations to which the administration apparently owes its primary allegiance.

A day-by-day review of the administration’s first 100 days in office shows that virtually every day there has been a new, extraordinary grant of power to corporate interests and/or another development in Donald Trump’s get-rich-quick-scheme known as the American presidency.

Source: President Trump’s Corporate Government | Alternet

I think it is disgusting that corporations get all the breaks and benefits from the administration……Trump is not doing anything different from the last several presidents…but it seems that he is doing it better than his predecessors.