Day: August 29, 2017

Closing Thought–29Aug17

Adopt A Nazi!

You can adopt a tiger….or an elephant or maybe a whale….now there is a new twist to the concept……

The term neo-Nazis has had a bad couple of weeks…..it all started with the protests in Virginia….

Now a group is raising money for a specific purpose…..crowd funding has become the way of the future for raising the needed cash for this dream or that….and this one is very clever use of the cash raised……

More than 1,800 people have “adopted a Nazi” in the US, raising nearly $133,000 to help neo-Nazis and white supremacists “fund their own demise”.

The campaign, launched by the Jewish Bar Association of San Francisco (JBASF), invites individuals to donate money for every person planning to attend a right-wing rally scheduled for Saturday in the northern California city.

Source: ‘Adopt a Nazi’: How groups are countering neo-Nazis | USA | Al Jazeera

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Seriously? 2020?

As things shake out in DC all eyes turn to the possibilities for the 2018 election.  We all are aware of the antics in Foggy Bottom….all the games….all the jockeying for position…..all the theater…with all that going on there are still some people that are looking to the 2020 elections for the “change” we are a;ways in search of…..

Not for the first time….there is a stir in the backrooms about a possible 3rd party ticket….an independent ticket…..

And suddenly, there’s a hot rumor about a presidential ticket for 2020—featuring a Democrat and a Republican, no less. The potential pairing is GOP Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, reports Mike Allen at Axios. The two (nicknamed “the Johns”) have been making the rounds of late talking about health care, and things are going so well that they’re reportedly toying with the idea of an independent bid in 2020, with Kasich as the presidential contender. Coverage:

  • Nothing formal:CNN has a source familiar with the discussions who confirms all of the above, while stressing that it’s all informal at this point. “The idea of a joint ticket has been discussed, but not at an organizational or planning level.”
  • Expanding platform: Both Axios and CNN say that while the two have been focusing on health care for now, they’ll be expanding their platform in the near future. Job creation and immigration will be two main topics, with a particular focus on helping those losing jobs to automation. A podcast or perhaps a cable show also may be in the works.
  • Health care: The pair plan to release their ideas for stabilizing the nation’s insurance markets next month, and they aim to get other governors to sign on, reports NPR. They wrote about the broad strokes and the need for a bipartisan approach in the Washington Post in June. One specific idea: They don’t like the ObamaCare rule requiring businesses with 50 or more employees to provide insurance; the number should be higher, they say, as it currently hurts small businesses.
  • Worry for Democrats: At the National Review, Jim Geraghty argues that it would be bad news for Democrats if such a ticket comes to be. (He’s skeptical it will.) “If you’re a vehement Trump foe, you want the anti-Trump vote split in as few ways as possible,” and Kasich-Hickenlooper could steal needed electoral votes from Democrats (including a total of 27 in the governors’ home states).
  • Not quite a denial: Hickenlooper was asked about the possibility of a joint ticket in early August and said, “I don’t think Kasich would ever do that,” per Politico. But he didn’t exactly rule it out: “You never know. You never say. … I do like the idea of working with him in some context at some point.”
  • 503 days: On Thursday, Hickenlooper said on MSNBC that he wouldn’t even think about a presidential run until his gubernatorial term ends, per the Hill. And he knew that he had precisely 503 days left.

A couple of thoughts……too damn early to be thinking that far ahead.  Who knows what direction this country will travel 7+ years from now.  Second, who the Hell is Hickenlooper?  If you are not a political junkie then this name means absolutely NOTHING to you.

This is a stupid report that deserves to be shelved until 2020 looms closer.

The Prague Spring–1968

1968 was a good year for history…..wars, protests, naval disasters, etc…….

Long before the Arab Spring there was the Prague Spring in 1968…..it was billed in the West as the Czechs attempt to throw off the bonds of communism and step into the light of democracy.

There were volumes written in support of this action here in the West….but was it about Communism and democracy?

On the morning of Aug. 21, 1968, Mr. William Teltscher realized that his trip to Czechoslovakia had ended before it really started. Being a descendant of a traditional wine-trading Jewish family from Mikulov, south Moravia, he decided to visit his native country for the first time since his family left Czechoslovakia in 1939 for England, escaping the Nazi furor. However, he landed in Prague’s Ruzyne airport only to see the tanks being unloaded from Soviet transport planes, so he turned around and left the country on the next plane for London.

He was apparently one of those who believed the Prague Spring might eventually lead to significant changes to the totalitarian system or at least give the citizens of Czechoslovakia the feeling that they are once more able to determine their country’s destiny. Like many other hundreds of thousands, he was deceived.

Source: Exploding the myth of Prague Spring | Prague Post

Once again history was not exactly as it has been painted by the media…..but we already knew that…..right?

What The Hell?

First–the tale of the foot.

I would like to thank all my readers that were concerned and offered their well wishes for the plight of my foot.

The damn thing is broken…oh badly broken and it will take a couple of months before it will be back to normal if ever…..

I appreciate the concern….you guys are the best.  chuq

Onward!

Recently a crazy story came out about the hearing damage that some American diplomats were suffering from while stationed in Cuba….some say it is happening to a few Canadian diplomats also.

That report was weird to say the least….but then I read another news article about Russian diplomats….

Russian ambassadors are dying at a startling rate: Russian and Sudanese authorities say Mirgayas Shirinsky was found dead at his Khartoum residence on Wednesday, making him the fourth Russian envoy to die overseas since December. Authorities say the 63-year-old was found in the residence’s swimming pool after suffering an apparent heart attack, the Sudan Tribune reports. Shirinsky had been the ambassador to Sudan since 2013, the New York Times reports. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s UN envoy, died suddenly in February. Alexander Kadakin, Russia’s longtime ambassador to India, died after an illness in January. And Andrei Karlov, Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, was assassinated in December last year.

Not a good year for diplomats, huh?  Russian diplomats that is.

The 100 Days Of Misery

War is a barbaric, chaotic and ugly period of time when all sanity has left the room.

I have been writing about World War One for a couple of years now…..a war fought 100 years ago that was to become one of the bloodiest….there was a period towards the end of the war that was some of the worse fighting of the war.

The Hundred Days (18 July-11 November 1918) was the final Allied offensive of the First World War on the Western Front. The stalemate on the Western Front had been broken by the great German offensives of the spring and summer of 1918, which had pushed the Allies back up to forty miles and created a series of huge salients in the Allied line. They had failed to achieve their main objective, which had been to separate the British from the French and capture the channel ports, and had drained much of the strength out of the German army.

One result of the crisis caused by the first of the German offensive (second battle of the Somme), had been the appointment of Marshal Foch as commander-in-chief of all Allied armies on the Western Front. As the German offensives began to run out of power, Foch began to plan the Allied counterattack. This was to begin with a series of attacks designed to eliminate the salients in preparation for a final campaign in 1919. If the initial attacks went well, then Foch hoped to launch a major offensive that he hoped would push the Germans back off French soil. Even if that succeeded, there was every chance that the Germans might choose to defend their own borders, leaving the final campaign still to be fought.

Source: The Hundred Days, 18 July-11 November 1918

We need to remind ourselves of these wars….we do not….and that is why we keep making the same silly mistakes decade after decade.

Bullets are not always the answer.

Class Dismissed!