Day: July 5, 2017

Closing Thought–05Jul17

“Springtime For Hitler”

Did you ever watch the Mel Brooks film “Springtime For Hitler”?  A hilarious romp through the world of Broadway production…the movie was “The Producers”.

I bring up this hilarious movie because of something a Reagan aide has to say about today’s DC……

Bruce Bartlett — former adviser and confidant to President Ronald Reagan — compared Donald Trump’s presidency to the designed-to-fail fictitious musical “Springtime for Hitler” in the Mel Brooks musical comedy “The Producers” and said that Trump’s administration thus far has been “far, far worse” than he ever imagined it would be.

In an op-ed essay for Politico magazine titled “Trump is What Happens When a Political Party Abandons Ideas,” Bartlett reminded readers that he wrote a satirical column in 2015 saying that the Republican Party should nominate Donald Trump for president so that he could “lose in a landslide” to Hillary Clinton and set the GOP on the road to principled reform and nudge it away from embracing the far-right fringe.

Source: Ex-Reagan aide compares Trump’s ascent and presidency to ‘Springtime for Hitler’

Everyone has an opinion…..

Shut it down for the day….tomorrow will bring fresh stuff….chuq

Dammit! I Had To Work!

While I was on a break yesterday, the 4th, I did read my Twitter account to be sure that we did not start a new war or something…..

It is a shame that some people had to work….but if it is their job…they just buck up and do it….that is almost everybody.

What I did read was a Tweet by the UN ambassador, Nikki Haley about the NK missile thing……Nikki Haley, the South Carolina governor (with no real experience in international relations) that Donald Trump appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, decided that it would be a good idea to whine on Twitter that she was being forced to work on the Fourth of July thanks to North Korea.

Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley faced backlash today for a tweet saying she spent the Fourth of July in meetings about North Korea

“Spending my 4th in meetings all day. #ThanksNorthKorea,” Haley tweeted.

North Korea claimed Tuesday that they performed their first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

This isn’t the first time Haley has been critiqued for her social media presence. A tweet she posted last month about cutting funds for United Nations peacekeeping was met with confused reactions.

Gee poor thing had to work on the 4th……bummer!  What about the troops around the world that are fighting our many wars and they did not take to Twitter….

Sorry but this is almost unbelievable……what does she think her job is?  Maybe a 9-5 posting?  She is suppose to be a diplomat…maybe she should try and remember that before taking to Twitter and complaining about her job.  Or better yet resign and have all her holidays off.

Chest Thumping, Li’l Kim Style

North Korea has been in the news almost from day one with the Trump admin…..nukes are a problem….his missiles are a problem and now he has added yet another factor to the equation…..

“North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?” President Trump tweeted Monday night after Pyongyang’s latest missile launch. The Japanese government estimates that the intermediate-range missile launched early Tuesday local time flew for around 40 minutes—longer than similar recent launches—before landing in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, the AP reports. “Hard to believe that South Korea … and Japan will put up with this much longer,” Trump tweeted. “Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!”

US Pacific Command says NORAD “assessed that the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America,” CNN reports, though David Wright at the Union of Concerned Scientists says that according to distance and flight time estimates, the missile had a maximum range of around 4,160 miles—enough to reach Alaska, though not Hawaii or the lower 48 states. Sources tell the New York Times that Trump’s call for a “heavy move” from Beijing comes after a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping Sunday night, in which Trump warned that the US is ready to act on its own to pressure North Korea if China is unwilling to take action.

Granted this guy is a bit of a nut case…..and thumping his chest does nothing to calm the situation…..to antagonize the US he sent out a message….

North Korea’s first successful launch of an ICBM has shocked the world—and caused some gloating in Pyongyang. North Korea’s KCNA news agency quoted Kim Jong Un as saying “American bastards would be not very happy with this gift sent on the July 4 anniversary,” the Guardian reports. The agency said Kim, who has vowed not to give up the country’s nuclear program, urged his nuclear scientists to “frequently send big and small ‘gift packages’ to the Yankees.” According to KCNA, the missile North Korea launched Tuesday is capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead.

His words got him what he desires the most….the spotlight……

  • The US and South Korea responded to the launch with a joint ballistic missile exercise in the Sea of Japan Tuesday, reports the BBC. The two countries warned that “self-restraint” was “all that separated armistice and war.”
  • The US vowed to take tougher measures on North Korea, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calling for global action, reports Reuters. “All nations should publicly demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences to their pursuit of nuclear weapons,” he said. The United Nations Security Council will hold a meeting on the issue Wednesday.
  • The New York Times looks at the different options President Trump can proceed with, and finds that they are “few and risky.” One option that China and Russia agree on involves Pyongyang suspending its nuclear weapons program in return for the US suspending
  • The launch of an ICBM has long been seen as a “red line,” though analysts believe Pyongyang may still be years away from having long-range nuclear capability, the AP reports. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commanding officer of the British Armed Forces Joint Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear Regiment, says “in capability of missile terms and delivery, it is a major step up and they seem to be making progress week-on-week,” but “actually marrying the warhead to the missile is probably the biggest challenge, which they appear not to have progressed on.”
  • The Los Angeles Times reports that the ICBM launch wasn’t a huge surprise for some analysts, who observed that North Korea had two mysterious launch failures at the same facility last fall.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation looks at just how far the North Korean ICBM could go. Experts believe Alaska and possibly some America’s Pacific bases are now in range, as is northern Australia.
I say it again…this dude is a nutcase…..but is he serious about this “gift” thing?
First, calmer heads need to prevail…we already have one chest thumper we do not need more of them in the mix.
I believe that his verbiage is mostly “chest thumping”…he will play this until he gets some concessions from the US and others….the thing to do is meet with him diplomatically and work on a serious end to all this silliness.
Now the problem with that scenario is that the Trump plan is to cut the State Department, our nation’s diplomats, that if successful would put a wrench in the works.  Six months into the Trump era and we still do not have a full compliment of diplomats….that is what should be the most worrying….for without them then this thing could spiral out of control.
To solve this situation will take more than tough words and tough Tweets…it will take word and so far I do not see there is any capabilities to do so from DC….

Operation Gladio

I enjoy doing my research…..yes it is time consuming and pretty dry but it does help me get a good look at the subjects I encounter.

A friend ask me if I could give a talk to his class, history class, on the Cold War, especially the early Cold War just after WW2….of course I could not say no….basically because he is a friend and I owe him.

Anyway I was trying to find the direction I was going to talk on and decided the spies and counter spy stuff from the time.

Most history buffs know the time in question was a time when Communist parties were making in-roads into the different governing bodies of Europe.  Other than the silly movies of the time how did the Western countries handle this rise in Communism?

NATO, which was formed just after WW2 came up with a covert answer, Operation Gladio………

Operation Gladio is undisputed historical fact. Gladio was part of a post-World War II program set up by the CIA and NATO supposedly to thwart future Soviet/communist invasions or influence in Italy and Western Europe. In fact, it became a state-sponsored right-wing terrorist network, involved in false flag operations and the subversion of democracy.

The existence of Gladio was confirmed and admitted by the Italian government in 1990, after a judge, Felice Casson, discovered the network in the course of his investigations into right-wing terrorism. Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti admitted Gladio’s existence but tried to minimize its significance.

The main function of the Gladio-style groups, in the absence of Soviet invasion, seems to have been to discredit left-wing groups and politicians through the use of “the strategy of tension,” including false-flag terrorism. The strategy of tension is a concept for control and manipulation of public opinion through the use of fear, propaganda, agents provacateurs, terrorism, etc. The aim was to instill fear into the populace while framing communist and left-wing political opponents for terrorist atrocities.

Source: TruthMove – Operation Gladio

Gladio is also suspected in the death of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro who tried to form a government that included the Italian Communist Party….he was kidnapped and later killed by the “Red Brigade”….so the tale is told…..but some thought it was all Gladio…..

This is a lengthy documentary on the group that is worth watching……

The talk was a success but I think it was the intrigue that made it so for the students…..

Class Dismissed!

The Golden Age Of Incivility

We live in a society of civility and yet that has been degraded by years of outright hatred by some.  That incivility leads to dastardly deeds and words.

This nation has gone batcrap crazy….we have ill wishes for a Rep. that was shot by a crazy…..we have insulting child-like Tweets…….we have some that do not want any one’s opinion but there own……the incivility is just astounding……and it is getting worse…I mean when the president Tweets a vid of him beating up CNN we have hit a saturation point.

Has anyone noticed how the so-called Right will shut down anything they cannot defend?  They will just refuse to talk about…..plus they are very good at trying to demonize anyone that does not agree with the perverted world view.

These “people” despise anyone that is educated and especially if they are educated and have an opinion.  It is a prime example of one dimensional thinking.  This leads to bottom feeding when it comes to the “news”…..

For instance…..recently Donald’s son Eric had plenty to say about the opposition…….

President Trump’s son Eric Trump on Tuesday said Democrats are “not even people” to him after their obstruction of his father’s agenda.

“I’ve never seen hatred like this,” he said on Fox News’s “Hannity” Tuesday night. “To me, they’re not even people. It’s so, so sad. Morality’s just gone, morals have flown out the window and we deserve so much better than this as a country.

“You see the Democratic Party, they’re imploding. They’re imploding. They became obstructionists because they have no message of their own.”

(thehill.com)

(has been nominated for the Assie but did not make the cut)

This illustrates the moronic thinking……the Dems are the only ones that hate……apparently none of these mental toads, to include bloggers, remember the last 8 years.

This is a piece written for the Valley Morning Star……..

My fellow Americans, I have to ask: What happened to good manners?

When did being civil go out of style?

When did we decide that kindness equals weakness?

When did the idea of conducting yourself well — especially in public — become quaint?

The news is filled with stories of people behaving badly.

Source: The golden age of incivility – Valley Morning Star : Columnists

Good questions!  I am sure that there will be many justifications….but most will be nothing more than a mindless rant of hatred and vile.

Discourse is gone.  All that is left is insults and lies…..oh my bad….alternate facts.

The internet is being flooded by ill feelings towards Libs and there has been some unfeeling toads that have said all sorts of crap…..mostly hateful and disrespectful.  Even the “Motor City Mouth”, Nugent, has seen that this sort of crap is unproductive…..

You know things are tense when Ted Nugent says it’s time to tone it down. The rocker—who once described former President Obama as a “subhuman mongrel” and said he should “suck on his machine gun”—says he has decided to give up using “hateful rhetoric” after the Alexandria shooting, reports Mediaite. “At the tender age of 69, my wife has convinced me that I just can’t use those harsh terms,” Nugent told WABC Radio’s Curtis & Eboni show on Thursday. “I will avoid anything that can be interpreted as condoning or referencing violence,” said Nugent, who was questioned by the Secret Service in 2012 after saying he would be “dead or in jail” if Obama was re-elected.

“I encourage even my friends-slash-enemies on the left in the Democrat and liberal world that we have got to be civil to each other,” said Nugent, promising to “take a deep breath” and “back it down” if things become “hateful.” Nugent, whose long history of inflammatory remarks includes a call for Hillary Clinton to be hanged for treason, said the comments were part of the “over-the-top animal spirit and attitude” that he lives on stage, Entertainment Weekly reports. “I can be fiery, I can be passionate,” he said. “But I will avoid anything that can be interpreted as condoning or referencing violence.”

(No bets on how long this act of civility will last with this person)

I think that if this “person” can try to do better then we all should.

With the recent shooting of a US Rep there has been a heart warming “Cum-by-ya” moment with the Reps in Congress…all this love toward each other is disingenuous at best…..as soon as this calms down they will go back being at each other’s throats ( we can hope that these feelings remain after the fact but their track record is not all that good)

A closing thought……I do a lot of reading…even some Russian media sites and I have found that there is a lot of similarity between Russian news and conservative news…..I am NOT saying that there is any correlation only that it is interesting that they think a like…..at least for now.