Day: September 7, 2017

Closing Thought–07Sep17

Most Americans give very little thought to America’s longest running war…..and when asked they are a wealth of opinion on what the war looks like…..and depending on what station one gets his/her news from the complexion of that war may be completely different.

How does it look to you…..how does it look to them?

CNN International, which is widely watched in the Muslim world, has not been fair to the American position in the current clash between Islam and the West and Israel. Western media have a strong presence in the Middle East but refuse to bring much needed enlightenment to the Muslim public, and explain that the West has a legitimate right to self-defense against Islamic jihadist terrorism. As a result, the majority of Muslims in the Middle East, and many in the West, have no clue why America is in Afghanistan and why Syria is a huge security threat to Western nations.

Source: Afghanistan: How We See It vs. How They See It

Time for me to treat my throbbing foot…..see you guys tomorrow…..with stuff aplenty…..chuq

Come September

American politics has become so damn boring that it is too silly for words…..but that may soon change….

It is now September and the Congress returns to what they call work…..and they are faced with several options for failure….deficit…..taxation….budgetary debate….none of these will bode well for the GOP….they do not have a reliable partner in the White House….

President Trump’s public comments this week have made one thing crystal clear: September is going to be a very big month for the US. Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to pass a funding deal to avoid a shutdown, and Trump has thrown a wrench into things by demanding serious money for a border wall. But in a deadline with more serious consequences, Congress also must raise the debt ceiling around the end of September or the US could default on its debt, reports the Wall Street Journal. The issues are separate, but they’re likely to get lumped together, and not much goodwill is circulating at the moment. In addition to his shutdown threat, Trump on Thursday blamed Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell for the debt ceiling “mess.” Related coverage:

  • Chances of a shutdown: Flip a coin. A Goldman Sachs advisory to investors puts the odds at 50-50, but Axios has a GOP source who thinks there’s a 75% chance of a shutdown: “The peculiar part is that almost everyone I talk to on the Hill agrees that it is more likely than not.”
  • Better odds on debt ceiling: “We’re going to get the debt ceiling passed,” said Treasury chief Steven Mnuchin this week, per Bloomberg. (He wants a “clean” increase with no strings attached.) At the same event in Kentucky, McConnell said there is “zero chance—no chance—we won’t raise the debt ceiling. No chance.”
  • Unless: Yes, the budget and the debt ceiling are separate, but because the deadlines are so close together, they could become “entangled” in negotiations, per the New York Times. For example, Bloomberg notes that House conservatives are demanding big spending cuts in return for lifting the ceiling.
  • Consequences: If the ceiling isn’t raised and the US defaults on its debt, it would rock financial markets around the world, explains NBC News. Also, ratings agencies could downgrade the US. At the Wall Street Journal, James Mackintosh writes that he finds “it hard to believe that the US will default,” but he explains that the mere possibility is already making investors nervous.
  • How we got here: The Washington Post notes that, in 2015, President Obama and Congress agreed to suspend the debt ceiling decision until March of this year, and emergency measures have extended it since then. But Mnuchin runs out of tricks next month. The story also points out the contrast in Trump’s tweet about the “mess” and Mnuchin’s public attempt to ease fears and notes that Trump has mocked Congress for raising the ceiling in his pre-presidential days.

In all this drama the country shutdown looms…..

You want humor….then these debates will be the best place to go for a good chuckle…..

Lewis And Clark

Go West Young Man!

There is so much interesting history in this country’s early years….my favorite period is 1760-1812…..during this period we had a revolution, a VP treason, the birth if a small republic….but the most interesting was the timely trek of Lewis and Clark…..

Time for high adventure….after the purchase of the Louisiana territory from France….Pres. Jefferson sent an expedition to explore our newly acquired land.

There were many conspiracies around this trip…..looking for Welsh speaking native Americans…..but the main reason (stated) was the search for a Northwest Passage……

Such a passage — a river or series of connected rivers that would cross the western mountains and reach the Pacific Ocean — would have allowed more direct commerce with the Orient. Thomas Jefferson believed the discovery of the northwest passage would break open the wealth of North America.

Source: Lewis and Clark . Inside the Corps . Circa 1803 | PBS

But on a dark note of history…..Lewis never made it back to DC he died on the Natchez Trace in Mississippi Territory……and the story smacks of a conspiracy…..for those interested….

Source: THE DEATH OF MERIWETHER LEWIS — SUICIDE OR MURDER?

Source: Who killed Meriwether Lewis? – Salon.com

A small reminder of our early history…history is almost always more interesting and intriguing than the stuff we are taught…….

Class Dismissed!

The “Art Of The Deal”

There has not been much said these days in the news about Iran or the deal that the two signed…..we have heard all the stuff about China, North Korea……but believe it or not the deal that the US and Iran signed a year ago is still in effect.

AS a matter of fact the deal is working out well….at least according to the IAEA……

In their latest monthly statement on the P5+1 nuclear deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has once again confirmed that Iran is in total compliance with the deal, and that its low-enriched uranium stockpile is well within limits.

This is the statement they’ve issued every time since the deal was implemented, but comes at an increasingly important time, as President Trump has repeatedly claimed he considers Iran to be in violation is some non-specific way.

It also comes amid calls from US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley for the IAEA to inspect all of Iran’s conventional military facilities, to try to look for some violations. The IAEA, however, has insisted that there is no need for this.

The IAEA has affirmed that it has the right to demand access to military sites, but only in the case that there is reasonable suspicion of activity there. Since there is no such suspicion, there will be no inspections.

(antiwar.com)

With things going well…..yo would think that all is good and the deal is solid…..but you forget you live in a country commanded by Trump…..he is planning to kill this deal at any cost……

With Donald Trump threatening to invade Venezuela and start a nuclear war with North Korea, his stated intention to refuse certifying Iranian compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)  –  the nuclear deal between America, Iran, Europe, Russia, and China  –  has fallen from the headlines. However, the gravity of how he appears to be moving toward that end could spark a policy crisis. To hear his allies outside of government tell it, Trump’s plan to kill the Iran deal is the same one he uses to produce Trump suits and neckties: Outsourcing. Two key points highlight this scheme.

First, Trump’s failure to certify Iran’s compliance would give the Republican-led Congress ultimate decision-making powers over whether to stick to the nuclear deal. The reason for this is evident in the underlying statute  – the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA).  Under INARA, the President is required to provide a “compliance certification” to Congress every 90 days, which verifies Iranian adherence with its JCPOA commitments.

Source: Trump’s Plan To Kill The Iran Deal? Outsourcing | HuffPost

If Iran is living to the issues of the deal why would it need to die?  Better yet…..who will make the most money if the deal dies?

If successful then this situation will not bode well for the US.

Russia, Russia, Russia

Harvey and Russia……that is the extent of the news reports this week…..Russian news has gotten out of hand…..

They maybe diddled with our election……Trump and his cronies may have had dealings with the country and its leaders….the election thing is old hat…..the investigations are getting to the saturation level of most Americans

If Russia and the investigations are true then it is a legal issue….yes it is news but to what point?  Do we truly need to know if the pizza delivery guy met with some Russian looking for borscht on his pie?

With all the Russian news…is it possible that some of it could be misleading?

There is an inherent danger of news organizations getting infected by “confirmation bias” when they want something to be true so badly that even if the evidence goes in the opposite direction they twist the revelation to fit their narrative. Such is how The Washington Post, The New York Times and their followers in the mainstream media are reacting to newly released emails that actually show Donald Trump’s team having little or no influence in Moscow.

On Tuesday, for instance, the Times published a front-page article designed to advance the Russia-gate narrative, stating: “A business associate of President Trump promised in 2015 to engineer a real estate deal with the aid of the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, that he said would help Mr. Trump win the presidency.”

Wow, that sounds pretty devastating! The Times is finally tying together the loose and scattered threads of the Russia-influencing-the-U.S.-election story. Here you have a supposed business deal in which Putin was to help Trump both make money and get elected. That is surely how a casual reader or a Russia-gate true believer would read it – and was meant to read it. But the lede is misleading.

Source: More Misleading Russia-gate Propaganda – Consortiumnews

Personally if any of this is true then a price needs to be paid….but I say let the investigation play out…..stop trying to convict in the realm of public opinion….all players that crapped on the Constitution and our laws need top pay and pay heavily……that is an “IF” they are guilty.