Month: December 2017

Who Are We?

This is my Closing Thought for the day…….

“These are times that try men’s souls”…..the opening statement from Thomas Paine’s “The American Crisis” (a title that rings true today as it did in Paine’s day)…….

I read a brilliant op-ed by fired asst AG Sally Yates……it asks an important question….one that needs thought and an answer…..who are we as a country?

Over the course of our nation’s history, we have faced inflection points — times when we had to decide who we are as a country and what we stand for. Now is such a time. Beyond policy disagreements and partisan gamesmanship, there is something much more fundamental hanging in the balance. Will we remain faithful to our country’s core values?

Our founding documents set forth the values that make us who we are, or at least who we aspire to be. I say aspire to be because we haven’t always lived up to our founding ideals — even at the time of our founding. When the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are created equal, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were being enslaved by their fellow Americans.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/19/what-kind-country-we-speak-out-core-american-values-sally-q-yates-column/951828001/

The American people need to think abou6t this question and search their ‘soul’ for an answer.

May her op-ed save the republic as Paine’s pamphlet saved the revolution.

Coup From The Top?

All the dangerous rhetoric by the babbling Right is getting dangerous.  The hatchet job that Trump, some mindless Congresspeople and the Right wing news is doing on the very foundation of this republic is just screaming pathetic.

Seven months ago there was an article on the Alternet site about the chances of Trump trying a coup……

American democracy is in crisis. The election of Donald Trump feels like a state of emergency made normal.

Trump has threatened violence against his political enemies. He has made clear he does not believe in the norms and traditions of American democracy — unless they serve his interests. Trump and his advisers consider a free press to be enemies of his regime. Trump repeatedly lies and has a profoundly estranged relationship with empirical reality. He uses obvious and naked racism, nativism and bigotry to mobilize his voters and to disparage entire groups of people such as Latinos and Muslims

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/leading-historian-believes-its-pretty-much-inevitable-trump-will-try-stage-coup

I found the article interesting and included in a post that I was writing…..but the author did not foresee the whole picture…..the real story is so much more fascinating…….

Tensions between the White House and Robert Mueller’s investigative team appear to be on the rise, so much so that reporters asked President Trump on Sunday night whether he’s considering firing the special counsel. “No, I’m not,” he said, per CNN. But Trump added that his legal team is “very upset” with how Mueller obtained thousands of emails from the Trump transition team—the president’s lawyers think it was unlawful, but Mueller says it was all above-board. Either way, Trump says the emails will show nothing damning because there was “no collusion whatsoever” with Russia. Details and developments:

  • Cooperation wanes: The New York Times has a front-page look at the situation, observing that the “image of cooperation has begun to fracture” between Trump’s lawyers and Mueller as the inquiry digs ever deeper into Trump’s circle. The story notes that GOP Sen. John Cornyn over the weekend became the latest prominent Republican to suggest that Mueller’s team might be biased, thanks to now-public text messages.
  • Allegations of a ‘coup’: Fox News host Jesse Watters drew attention over the weekend by suggesting that those texts may be “proof the investigation was weaponized to destroy (Trump’s) presidency,” adding, “Now, if that’s true, we have a coup on our hands in America,” per Mediaite. Guest Kellyanne Conway, appearing with a chyron of “A Coup in America?” declared that “the fix was in against Donald Trump from the beginning.”
  • Charged language: The Washington Post looks at how Fox News hosts and guests have been leading the charge against Mueller with similar language. Another common theme is to compare his tactics to those of the KGB. The story also notes that GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said on the House floor that “we are at risk of a coup d’etat in this country.”
  • It might be working: At Axios, Mike Allen suggests that the “rising conservative drumbeat” against Mueller is gaining more and more converts. As one source close to the White House puts it, “You’re starting to win over mainstream conservatives to the backlash over overreach.”
  • ‘Feedback loop’: An analysis at CNN by media writer Brian Stelter sees a “vicious circle” at play. “The TV hosts encourage Trump, then Trump supplies sound bites for their shows, and then the hosts are even more emboldened.”
  • Risky Mueller move? Mueller’s office has defended how it obtained the Trump transition emails from the General Services Administration, but Georgetown law professor Jonathan Turley argues in the Hill that it was “legally unprecedented and strategically reckless.” Turley warns that the move could come back to haunt Mueller in any later trial, if the investigation is found to have relied on contaminated evidence. (In the Times story cited earlier, legal experts disagree with the assertion that Mueller, who has wide leeway to obtain documents, did anything improper.)
  • Feeling confident: Trump is privately telling people that he expects to be exonerated relatively soon, reports CNN. The story, based on interviews with three dozen mostly anonymous sources, says Trump predicts he will have a letter from Mueller in a matter of weeks clearing him of any collusion. One person warned of a Trump “meltdown” if that doesn’t happen, which could lead to him firing Mueller.
  • Holder warning: Former Attorney General Eric Holder warned over the weekend that the president would be crossing an “ABSOLUTE RED LINE” by firing the special counsel. He called for mass protests if that happens, per the Hill.

Comparing the FBI to the KGB is ridiculous and insulting and Trump minions are playing a dangerous game……this all sounds like the groundwork being laid for martial law by Trump lackeys.

On The Streets Of Chicago

Best Christmas gift ever!

Surely everyone knows about the rash of crime and shootings in Chicago…..the Right wing media, Trump TV, FOX News has been pounding Obama over this when he was in office and now is pounding the mayor over the rising numbers…..something has got to be done to stop this trend.

Of course the loud mouth in the White House had to put his 2 cents worth in whenever he is talking to law enforcement officers…..”what the Hell is going on in Chicago”?….was his most recent comment…..

But what to do?

A county official has come up with an idea that should send Trump supporters into a stroke…..they will be babbling like a drunken sailor…..this is just too good to pass up….

From an article written in Anti Media……

As 2017 comes to a close, the city of Chicago has racked up over 3,400 shootings and over 650 homicides this year, and Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin is seeking to implement a highly controversial policy to deal with the problem.

Boykin shared his plans to reach out to the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Support, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, to seek help with “horrific levels of shootings” in the city of Chicago. If the organization were to step in, it would mark the first time a U.N. peacekeeping mission was implemented on American soil.

While on his way to New York to meet with Fernandez-Taranco, Boykin said:

“I’m hoping to appeal to the U.N. to actually come to Chicago and meet with victims of violence, and maybe even possibly help out in terms of peacekeeping efforts, because I think it’s so critical for us to make sure that these neighborhoods are safe.”

Boykin went on to say that Chicago’s leaders have failed to protect these neighborhoods from themselves

“There is a quiet genocide taking place in too many of our communities. Eighty percent of those who are being killed by gun violence are African American, and often killed at the hands of another African American. So we must protect these population groups, and that’s what the United Nations does. They’re a peacekeeping force. They know all about keeping the peace, and so we’re hopeful that they’ll hear our appeal.”

Boykin then elaborated on what he hopes the U.N. might accomplish in the city:

“They’ve been able to help in places like Africa and abroad, where they’ve sent troops in and sent forces in to help protect minority and vulnerable populations, and so quite frankly I think the same can be said for here in Chicago. I’m talking about physical security. I’m also talking about maybe suggestions for what we can do in Chicago to help protect our minority populations. We’re being, again, decimated by the violence that we see here in Chicago. I mean this is really a genocide, and we have to do something to stop it.”

(theantimedia.org)

I cannot wait for this to make it to the bobble heads on the right….like I said too good to pass up…..can you imagine what they will  say if blue helmets start patrolling Chicago streets?

It’s All About National Security

The misadventures of Fearless Fosdick.

The much taunted national security speech by our Fearless leader was a typical Trump speech….started off as a campaign speech lots of back slapping by the person speaking.  Your typical Trump greatest hits….good economy, trashing opponents and protection from immigrants.  For about 10 minutes he rattled off the litany of campaign hits…..the usual BS of Trumpisms.

Donald Trump declared a new national security strategy on Monday, echoing the message of his 2016 campaign as he declared, “America is in the game and America is going to win.”
In a speech at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Trump faulted previous US leaders for failing to look out for the nation’s citizens, the AP reports. He promised to seek openings to cooperate with rivals but added that “we will stand up for ourselves and we will stand up for our country like we have never stood up before.” Trump’s strategy envisions nations in constant competition, brushes aside Obama-era warnings on climate change, and affirms that the United States will unilaterally defend its sovereignty, even if that means risking existing agreements with other countries that have been a crucial part of US foreign policy since the Cold War.

The strategy could sharply alter US international relationships if fully implemented. It focuses on four main themes: protecting the homeland, promoting American prosperity, demonstrating peace through strength, and advancing American influence in an ever-competitive world. Trump called anew for construction of a border wall with Mexico and pledged to end “chain migration” of immigrants’ relatives and close “loopholes that undermine enforcement” of immigration restrictions. He also said that China and Russia “challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.”

The speech reads better than Fearless Fosdicks delivery…….

White House released the new National Security Strategy

If this was an outline of our national security plan then I would say it is thin at best.

Trump portrayed the open-ended warfare as “competition,” suggesting that rogue nations were trying to pose a challenge to American prosperity through military engagement, and that America has to “earn” its prosperity through enhancing its power.

On the subject of “protecting the homeland,” Trump played heavily on the idea of building a border wall and increasing funding for border patrols. He also talked of defeating radical Islam on social media, though that too has been something administrations have been failing to do virtually from the establishment of social media.

Ultimately much of Trump’s economic strategy also appeared to be his military strategy, promising massive increases to the size of the military, creating “millions of jobs.” He also set out the idea of the military engaging further in “cyber,” as well as the further militarization of space, and protecting against unspecified electromagnetic attacks.

Despite so much emphasis being placed on “America first” within the document, the strategy itself appears extremely intervention-centric, resting on the assumption that American prosperity is inexorably linked to military superiority, and not just superiority by numbers, but the kind that the US has to prove constantly through warfare.

(antiwar.com)

There are others that see more, or maybe I should say less, than I did in this speech/printed plan…..

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/what-least-credible-document-us-strategic-history-reveals

Only newsworthy thing about the speech was the way her drank water from a glass…..

All in all a great campaign speech but as far as a national security plan……. it sucks!

On The Road To Authoritarianism

There is a trend going on here in the US that is not something to be proud of…..I know we are according to the slogan “Making America Great Again”…..but the only thing that we are doing to our country is making it more authoritarian….

What does it feel like when a liberal democratic country turns the corner into authoritarianism?

America is changing. It isn’t always obvious and flagrant — like Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announcing that some opposition parties will not be allowed to take part in the country’s 2018 elections, or the Polish government changing the way the courts oversee the nation’s laws in order to advance the agenda of those currently in power. And neither are these changes necessarily all things that have happened only since President Trump’s election last year. Even if the authoritarian drift accelerated with Trump’s rise, it didn’t begin with him. He is its expression. We need to do everything we can to ensure he doesn’t end up being its culmination.

Doing that requires keeping our eyes open for and taking note of longer-term trends and signs of authoritarian drift that are sometimes difficult to detect.

http://theweek.com/articles/742632/americas-dawning-authoritarianism

What started off as a positive thing….the generals in the Trump cabinet would keep Trump on an even keel…..that has yet to materialize….if anything they are traveling the authoritarian road…..

An article yesterday at NBC focusing on Trump and “his” generals got me to thinking on this subject again.  Its author, Suzanne Garment, suggests that Trump likes generals as obedient alpha males.  They lend him credibility without directly threatening his delicate ego.  And there’s truth in this.

But I want to focus on other reasons for Trump’s preference for generals in high positions.  A year ago, I wrote an article for TomDispatch.com on “All the President’s Generals.”  That article focused mainly on the potential impact of these generals on America’s foreign policy and domestic culture.  As I wrote last December:

https://www.laprogressive.com/trump-authoritarianism/

It is not looking good for the country…..the American people need to stay informed and stay alert……we have a country to lose.

Closing Thought–18Dec17

WE hear about the suicide rate among our veterans…..also we read about children committing suicide because of bullying…..it seems that suicides are becoming all too regular.

I read something that gave me something to think about….a group that we do not connect to the word suicide……farmers…..

On the day in May 2011 that Matt Peters took his own life, he spoke on the phone with Dr. Mike Rosmann. Rosmann, himself an Iowa farmer, is also a psychologist who doubles as “one of the nation’s leading farmer behavioral health experts,” writes Debbie Weingarten for the Guardian. She knows that firsthand: The former vegetable farmer, weighed down by depression, once called Rosmann herself. “We were growing food, but couldn’t afford to buy it. We worked 80 hours a week, but we couldn’t afford to see a dentist, let alone a therapist. I remember panic when a late freeze threatened our crop, the constant fights about money,” she writes. And she’s not alone. Weingarten cites CDC figures that show the industry with the highest suicide rate is agriculture.

As for possible reasons why, the CDC lists “social isolation, potential for financial losses, barriers to and unwillingness to seek mental health services (which might be limited in rural areas), and access to lethal means.” And the financial picture isn’t pretty right now, with Weingarten noting the median farm income for this year is expected to be negative $1,325. Rosmann says many farmers’ issues can be addressed in no more than five therapy sessions, something he likens to an Employee Assistance Program. Congress in 2008 voted not to fund the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network, a program that would have made hotlines and counseling available to farmers. The cost would have been $18 million a year; Rosmann maintains that the price we pay annually due to suicide is much higher. Read Weingarten’s full piece here.

It is sad to read this……but keep in mind once these people are gone from agriculture then all we have is agri-business….corporate farms……the prices will be going up until the poor eat what they can grown in a pot on the window sill…..

Gotta bounce my friends…..but will return tomorrow….see you then……chuq

Middle East Toxic Schism

Note:  There is a lot of info in this post but if the reader really wants to know what is going on it is worth the time to read…..after all US troops are involved and could be further involved……

Since 1970’s Iran has been at “war” with Saudi Arabia….it is a war of words between two divisions of Islam….Shia and Sunni….it is a war for the soul Islam….but this “war” has been raging for centuries…..

The words Sunni and Shia only emerged into public consciousness at the end of the 1970s. Before then – except among Sunnis and Shias themselves – the terms had been largely confined to the rarified world of Islamic Studies faculties. But in 1978 it became obvious to journalists grappling with the early stages of the Islamic revolution in Iran that the Shia clergy, dismissed as irrelevant ‘black crows’ by the soon-to-be-toppled Shah, were actually very important. Few political analysts – including those in the CIA and MI6 – knew much about them.

Since then, we have gone from one extreme to the other. Today, far too many commentators latch onto the Sunni-Shia divide as the root cause of all the difficulties currently faced by the Middle East and much of the rest of the Islamic world. This explanation is facile, if convenient. Nor is it confined to neo-conservatives or right-wing identity entrepreneurs in the West, who relish writing about a Darwinian struggle for the soul of Islam that fits in with their own preconceptions about the essentially violent nature of the religion. Indeed, Barack Obama is on record as stating that ‘ancient sectarian differences’ are the drivers of today’s instability in the Arab world and that ‘the Middle East is going through a transformation going on for a generation rooted in conflicts that date back millenia’.

https://www.historytoday.com/john-mchugo/islams-toxic-schism

Of course the West has fueled this division since 1979…..the M-IC has made this a centerpiece of their game plan…..the profits made from sowing fear is staggering….

Recently there was a report that has been totally ignored by the MSM…..

In a speech broadcast Sunday, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran is ready to restore ties with Saudi Arabia if it stops bombing Yemen and cuts its alleged ties with Israel.

Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran in January 2016 after Iranian demonstrators attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in response to the Saudi execution of a prominent Shiite dissident leader.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/rouhani-ready-restore-ties-saudi-arabia-171210084010955.html

This is an opening for a peaceful settling of the Saudi devastation of Yemen……so far the Saudis have ignored the offer……plus they have enlisted US UN Ambassador Nikki Haley to make the case of Iranian missiles fired at Saudi Arabia…..she used visual aids, pieces of a missile, to emphasize the continuing attacks by the Houthis who are backed by Iran.

The US will not see the positive side of this situation……it calls for a “coalition” to confront Iran……

The US ambassador to the UN has called for an international coalition to counter Iran’s influence in the Middle East, while accusing the country of “fanning the flames of conflict” in the region.

Nikki Haley, standing in front of what she said were the remnants of Iranian-made weapons, said the US has found evidence that Iranian ballistic missiles were transferred to, and used by, the Houthi rebel group in Yemen, a violation of Tehran’s international obligations.

“In this warehouse is concrete evidence of illegal Iranian weapons proliferation gathered from direct military attacks on our partners in the region,” Haley said during a news conference in a military hangar near Washington, DC on Thursday.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/calls-global-coalition-counter-iran-171214190652267.html

The intel that the US is using against Iran may be flawed……

The most widely remembered episode of a U.S. administration using an intelligence-based public presentation to stir up hostility toward a country with which it was intent on picking a fight was Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation on Iraq to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003.

That presentation and the Bush administration’s year-long campaign, of which Powell’s speech was a part, to sell the U.S. invasion of Iraq represented a misuse of intelligence — less because of the substance than because of the whole nature and purpose of the exercise. Instead of using intelligence for its proper purpose of informing policy decisions yet to be made, this campaign was instead a selective and tendentious use of intelligence to sell a decision already made.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/12/16/trumps-misuse-of-intelligence-on-iran/

The US is determined that Iran is the enemy and needs to be slapped down.

But even with support from the US will Saudi Arabia ever come in direct conflict with Iran?  Some doubt it……

The geopolitical rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is nothing new. Even before the 1979 revolution, which saw the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Iran under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi has been largely viewed in the Arab world as a regional rival except that, back then, Iran had robust relations with the United States and Israel.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/why-saudi-arabia-cannot-go-war-iran-9549775

The big deal about Iran is their nuke program and the deal that they have entered into that they are complying with but all accounts….the US does not want the Middle East to become a nuke hot spot…….and yet…..

Saudi Arabia might be allowed to enrich uranium, if it accepts a bid to build new nuclear reactors in the kingdom from a US company.

President Donald Trump could relax current restrictions on US companies building nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia by allowing them to offer uranium enrichment and reprocessing.

With billions of dollars at stake and a pledge by Trump to kick-start America’s nuclear industry, sources told Bloomberg that rules governing the export of uranium refinement technology to Saudi Arabia could be loosened.

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2017/12/13/saudi-arabia-might-enrich-uranium-in-us-nuclear-deal

I would love to hear what Tillerson has to say about this situation……nothing about this situation will be in the best interest in a more peaceful Middle East.

The rhetoric is not good…..it is almost as vile as the rhetoric leveled at North Korea…..will Iran be the next countrry that we destroy?

Destroying Syria was to be next. And then Iran. In 2006, columnist Taki Theodoracopulos warned in TheAmerican Conservative of the “Clean Break” plan “to aggressively remake the strategic environments of Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. As they say in boxing circles, three down, two to go.” Core promoters of the PNAC plan signed an open letter to then President Clinton calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein. They were Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, Elliot Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Zoellick and John Bolton, all solid members of the Neoconservative project.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/iraq-syria-iran-are-we-to-destroy-iran-next/

Only time will tell just what this president will do….he talks a lot but actions will speak volumes…..

Is It WMDs All Over Again?

Does everyone remember the WMDs in Iraq….the false flag to authorize the invasion and occupation……that was in 2003 but some things never go out of style…….Nikki Halley is trying to use it on Iran…….

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stood in front of a rusty hunk of metal Thursday and accused Iran of exporting weapons to rebels in Yemen, a violation of U.N. resolutions.

“The weapons might as well have ‘Made in Iran’ stickers on them,” Haley said. Behind her was a missile that provides “indisputable” proof, she said, that Iran is supplying Houthi rebels with weapons. The missile parts she showed off Thursday were recovered following a November 4 strike on an airport in Riyadh.

Haley described “Iranian missile fingerprints” on the missile and several other weapons that were on display, including an anti-tank missile and a “kamikaze drone.” She said the transfer of these weapons into the hands of Houthi rebels is a violation of U.N. resolution 2231, which bars Iran from the “supply, sale, or transfer of arms or related materiel.”

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/nikki-haley-says-iran-is-violating-u-n-rules.html

Really?  Follow them back to Iran?  Could any of the ordinance used on Yemen have a stamp “Made in USA” somewhere?

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran, as well as between Iran and Saudi Arabia, are reaching a critical level, as are risks of a deliberate or accidental confrontation among these parties. Nearly two years after entering into force, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1 (permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) is in jeopardy. Simultaneously, regional dynamics across the Middle East are trending in a worrisome direction. Friction between Iran and the U.S. is growing in Iraq and Syria as the strength of their common foe, the Islamic State (ISIS), diminishes. In Lebanon, Yemen and the Persian Gulf, Israel, the U.S. and a more assertive Saudi leadership see an emboldened Iran they are determined to cut down to size.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/global/introduction-iran-us-trigger-list

The US cherry picked facts in 2003 and I would expect them to do it when writing about Iran………

Although nobody knows exactly where Donald Trump intends to go with his campaign of seeking confrontation with Iran, his administration already has provided disconcerting parallels with the techniques an earlier U.S. administration used in selling its launching of a war against Iraq. Among these techniques is the cherry-picking of intelligence not to inform policy-making or to enlighten the public but instead to inculcate false perceptions among the public and thereby to muster support for a policy already chosen.

The parallels have become remarkably close as the Trump administration has tried to get people to believe there is some sort of cooperation and common purpose between Iran and Al Qaeda. The President made this insinuation in his speech on Iran in October. Then his CIA director, Mike Pompeo, ordered a tendentious re-exploitation of already exploited documents captured in the raid at Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama bin  Laden.

Cherry-picking Toward War with Iran

What is the Fearless Fosdick school of international relations going to be doing…..

President Trump’s October decision to “decertify” but not immediately dissolve the Iran nuclear deal opened a narrow door to forging a stronger approach to Iran. But his State Department negotiators will need help from Congress — which is facing a Dec. 12 deadline for action — and, crucially, from European governments.

Since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was signed in 2015, Iran has hardly moderated its efforts to boost its arsenal and regional influence, as some Obama officials had predicted. Instead, Tehran has expanded its provocative ballistic-missile program and continued to channel funds and weapons to Hezbollah; the Yemeni Houthis; and Shia militiamen in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. While it may have been easier politically to keep the JCPOA separate from the rest of the U.S. approach, the unfortunate truth is that in order to make real progress on confronting Iran and protecting U.S. national-security interests, Trump needed to make everyone uncomfortable about the status of the nuclear deal. At the same time, he must tread lightly and keep in mind the risks.

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/12/improving-iran-deal/144477/

Iran will be the next big thing as soon as North Korea is settled down…….

In a presentation critics characterized as remarkably similar to former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s case for the Iraq War, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley stood before a missile fragment that she claimed bears Iran’s “fingerprints” and asserted that the Iranian regime poses “a threat to the peace and security of the entire world.”

“It’s hard to find a conflict or a terrorist group in the Middle East that does not have Iran’s fingerprints all over it,” Haley said in a speech delivered at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, located just outside the nation’s capital. Haley went on to suggest that the fragment theatrically positioned behind her on wooden pallets was part of a missile Houthi rebels fired into Saudi Arabia from Yemen last month

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/12/14/theatrical-missile-speech-critics-say-nikki-haley-laying-groundwork-war-iran

Shades of 2003……..can anyone say deja vu?

2017 Final Tax Bill

It’s Monday and then political world is all a tether over the tax bill that will soon be voted on soon.

This thing had all the political drama that a good saga needed to be newsworthy…..but all that aside…..what does this final version look like?

Congressional Republicans on Friday evening revealed the final version of their massive tax bill, which appears likely to pass next week, the Washington Post reports. Here’s some of what’s included in the “Tax Cut and Jobs Act”:

  • The corporate tax rate is reduced from 35% to 21%, representing an approximately $1 trillion tax cut over the next decade.
  • Despite Trump’s claim the bill wouldn’t cut taxes for the wealthy, the wealthiest Americans see their tax rate reduced from 39.6% to 37%. The bill also raises the income needed to hit that tax rate.
  • People can inherit up to $11 million tax-free—an increase from $5.5 million—in changes to the estate tax.
  • The bill lowers tax rates within all seven tax brackets, leading to lower taxes for most Americans, ABC News reports. But those cuts expire in eight years, and independent analyses have found people making under $75,000 will pay more in taxes over the next decade.
  • The standard deduction is increased from $12,700 to $24,000 for joint filers and from $6,350 to $12,000 for individuals.
  • In a move seen as targeting blue states, the bill limits state, local, and property tax deductions to $10,000. Those deductions are unlimited under current law.
  • The bill keeps popular deductions for student loan interest and medical expenses, as well as graduate students’ tax break.
  • The bill repeals the ObamaCare individual mandate and allows drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Hill reports.

The Tax Cut and Jobs Act will be voted on next week, starting with the House on Tuesday. Republicans can only afford to lose two votes in the Senate, but there are currently no Republican senators on the record against the bill. Analysts have suggested tax cuts in the bill will add $1.5 trillion to the deficit and would likely not pay for themselves through economic growth, as Republicans and the Trump administration claim.

BTW, nothing about this is true with the exception that it will add to the National Debt……$1.5 trillion that my granddaughter will have to pay….this bill sucks!

Damn Close To Checkmate?

For about a week the Trump media empire(FOX News and Breitbart) has been calling for the firing of Mueller it even extended into the Congress where all his little butt boyz echoed FOX calling the FBI corrupt and calling for Mueller to be fired….then over the weekend something changed a statement was issued saying that the president would not fire Mueller…..why the sudden turnaround?

Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian contacts with President Trump’s campaign has accessed thousands of his transition team’s emails, according to several sources. But the investigators did not directly request the records from Trump’s still-existing transition group, Trump for America, and instead obtained them from the General Services Administration, a separate federal agency that stored the material—prompting transition group general counsel Kory Langhofer to complain the move was “unauthorized” release of non-government material, reports the Washington Post. The tens of thousands of emails pertain to 13 senior Trump transition officials, including former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, reports the AP; many include national security discussions about possible Trump international aims as well as candid assessments of candidates for top posts.

Langhofer said that a GSA official appointed by Trump in May had assured the transition in June that any request for records from Mueller’s office would be referred to the transition’s attorneys. According to Langhofer, the assurance was made by then-GSA General Counsel Richard Beckler, who was hospitalized in August and has since died. But late Saturday, GSA Deputy Counsel Lenny Loewentritt, who was present for the conversation, told Buzzfeed that there was nothing improper about the disclosure of the emails. Loewentritt said the transition was informed that by using government devices, the GSA wouldn’t hold back records from law enforcement. Transition officials signed agreements that warn them that materials kept on government servers are subject to monitoring, and there’s no expectation of privacy. Late Saturday, a Mueller rep said that “when we have obtained emails … we have secured either the account owner’s consent or appropriate criminal process.”

The game of political chess is fascinating…..I am sure that there is more drama and comedy to come…..stay tuned…..

Two high-ranking members of Donald Trump’s team said there’s been no talk at the White House of firing Robert Mueller, even as the president’s legal team accused the special counsel of obtaining emails from the Trump transition team illegally. Appearing on Meet the Press today, White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short said there’s been “no conversation about that in the White House whatsoever,” Politico reports. “You guys keep bringing that up,” he added. “We’ve continued to cooperate in every single possible way in that investigation.” Yesterday White House lawyer Ty Cobb reiterated that the president has no plans to fire Mueller. “As the White House has repeatedly and emphatically said for months, there is no consideration at the White House of terminating the special counsel,” Cobb said.

Meanwhile, on CNN’s State of the Union, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had to take time away from extolling the Republican tax-reform bill to address rumors about Mueller’s future, the New York Daily News reports. Mnuchin said he hadn’t “heard anything about this, any firing” at the White House, but said the decision would ultimately lie with Trump. “I don’t have any reason to think that the president is going to do that, but that’s obviously up to him,” Mnuchin said. Outside the White House, Republican Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn said he thinks firing Mueller “would be a mistake myself.”

I love this stuff…..listening to the Trump minions is like a SNL skit…..rabid idiots is the best description…..Reps like Jordan and Gohmert have always been morons they just have the loudest mouths right now……