Day: October 12, 2018

Closing Thought–12Oct18

So much happening in the world….so much news to be had…..a devastating hurricane, a missing presumed dead journalist, a market that is sliding and endless wars……so much happening and the president, Our Dear Supreme Leader, held an TV event in the Oval Office yesterday……he had a face to face with a nose picker, Kayne West.

No joke….one babbling idiot to another….

Elvis’ 1970 White House visit with Nixon has nothing on Kanye West’s sit down with President Trump on Thursday. Ostensibly, the meeting was to be about urban revitalization, workforce training, African-American unemployment, clemencies, and Chicago crime, per CNN. But in a freewheeling, 10-minute monologue the rapper, seated across from Trump in the Oval Office and decked out in his MAGA hat, touched on a vast array of subjects, leading USA Today to muse that “Kanye West out-Kanyed himself.” Of the aforementioned MAGA cap, Kanye told Trump, “There was something about putting this hat on that made me feel like Superman.” Here are some more choice moments from West’s visit to the White House, F-bombs and all:

  • “Trump is on a hero’s journey right now,” West said, per CNN, adding, “He might not have thought he’d have a crazy motherf—er like me [as a supporter].”
  • Speaking of cars, according to the Detroit Free Press, West said, “One of the things we gotta set is Ford to have the highest design, the dopest cars, the most amazing—I don’t really say dope. I don’t say negative words and try to flip them. We just say positive, lovely, divine, universal words. So the flyest, freshest, most amazing car.”
  • Regarding his recent revelation that he was diagnosed as bipolar, CNN reports, “I actually wasn’t bipolar, I had sleep deprivation.”
  • West did talk about clemency for Larry Hoover, alleged leader of the Gangster Disciples who is serving a life sentence, Slate reports. “There’s infinite amounts of universe and there’s alternate universe,” West said. “So it’s very important for me to get Hoover out because in an alternate universe, I am him.”

Want more? Watch the video here.

“Don’t worry about the future….all we have is today”……total CRAP!  But will play well with the head bobbers that support the Supreme Leader.

Is this what America wants from its “president”?  I am guessing yes…..the media covered this but not some of his rallies….so apparently the confused babble of Kanye is more important that the issues and news of the day.

My my how far will my country sink into the muck of stupid?

Please have a good day and a better weekend…..chuq

Forgotten Heroes Of The Revolution

Yes my friends it is that time again……a history lesson like it or not……

Believe it or not there were several foreigners that fought with the Americans in their war of independence.

Most people can name one……Marquis de Lafayette….but who are the others?

On October 11, 1779, Polish cavalry officer and American Brigadier General, Casimir Pulaski, died of wounds incurred during the Battle of Savannah (Georgia) during the American Revolutionary War. Pulaski, known as “The Father of American Cavalry,” had fought in Poland against the Russians, and was forced to flee his own country, taking his military skills to America where he became a hero of the American Revolution. Pulaski was not the only major Polish officer to fight for America’s Independence, and of course other foreign born people also served in America during the Revolutionary War. Here we list 5 of the most notable of those foreign freedom fighters fearlessly fighting foes of freedom. (Hey, a little alliteration never hurts!) Who would you add to this list?

https://www.historyandheadlines.com/october-11-1779-5-foreign-heroes-fought-american-freedom/

Poland and France gave the war some fantastic soldiers that help this country gain its independence.

Sad that so many foreigners came to help in our time of need and we ignore them in our history almost as bad as our dismissing of Thomas Paine.

And the history of our nation is being re-written by reactionary a/holes…..we must stop this and give credit where credit is due…..and win our freedom back.

The Crack Widens

Just days before the mid-terms and our politics is so broken that it will take more than one election to repair.

It all began in the 1990’s with the election of Bill Clinton and the Midterms that followed.  The country started dividing itself along red and blue lines…political fault lines.

We have always been a country with two parties and two ways of looking at the role of government.

And with each election after that we have widened the crack in our society…….

The United States is politically fragmenting. It would seem that the various cultural and ideological stresses impacting the nation are destabilizing the country’s two traditional political parties.

At this point in the fragmentation process we can identify four political groupings. They are (1) those of Democratic Party persuasion—and it should be noted that the Democrats are being stressed by contesting interpretations of just what the party stands for; (2) those of continuing Republican Party persuasion, which by now really represents a small “rump” party of Trump supporters; (3) the independents now bolstered by what once was the “moderate” multitude of the Republican Party as well as a growing number of ex-Democrats on the disaffected left; and (4) the mass of apoliticalAmericans who have always been alienated from politics and usually do not vote. This last group also may well be growing. Let’s look at these four groups in more detail against the backdrop of contemporary events.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/19/political-fragmentation-on-the-homefront/

Vote by vote and issue by issue and eventually we have the situation that we have found ourselves in today……division……

Despite common differences and shared values Americans are becoming more politically polarized. And it seems to be happening in large part because our tribal leaders are intentionally dividing us for their own political gains. I find this deeply disturbing and it’s something that is damaging our country as it results in a government that cannot legislate in the best interests of its citizens. So I wanted to write a few thoughts about what’s happening and why.

My general theory of this political polarization is a bit like my theory of an inter-temporal conundrum in finance. Basically, we have short term needs that are best fixed using mostly longer-term views, but we have a  political system and a news media that feeds on our short-term biases. This is creating a whip-saw effect where we are consistently dissatisfied by the wrong short-term policies that are enacted and this leads to the seasaw of changing leadership that results in little effective change. The only real winners in this whole saga are the political leaders who have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

https://www.pragcap.com/theyre-dividing-us/

Like I have written…this division is destroying the country and few seem to notice because they are too busy insulting the people around them……

I rarely tell readers what to believe. Rather I try to indicate why it might be wise to distrust, at least without very good evidence, what those in power tell us we should believe.

We have well-known sayings about power: “Knowledge is power”, and “Power tends to corrupt, while absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.” These aphorisms resonate because they say something true about how we experience the world. People who have power – even very limited power they hold on licence from someone else – tend to abuse it, sometimes subtly and unconsciously, and sometimes overtly and wilfully.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/24/hiding-in-plain-sight-why-we-cannot-see-the-system-destroying-us/

All this division worries me.  This country is so much better than the silliness we have as a government these days.

Mid-Terms are approaching….time for a change….then we have 2020 it will definitely be time for a change.

Only you the voter can change the track of this country……make the country come first.

The Saudi Connection

There is a lot of info in this post and will take time to take it all in but it is a subject that deserves your attention…..the murder of a journalist for doing his duty has to be a crime against freedom and humanity.

I have been following and writing about the plight of WaPo journalist Khashoggi…….https://lobotero.com/2018/10/10/a-price-to-pay-to-criticize-the-saudis/

In the days since I wrote my piece more has come to light….

Turkish officials have stepped up accusations against Saudi Arabia over the apparent assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, saying that the order to assassinate him came from the “highest” levels of the Saudi royal court.

On top of this, Turkish officials named 15 Saudi men that they have identified as “operatives” involved in the assassination of Khashoggi. The group included a Saudi special forces member, two royal guards, and a chief in the internal security agency.

Saudi officials have denied that anything at all happened to Khashoggi, saying he entered the consulate on October 2 and left unharmed. Turkish officials claimed unspecified confidential intelligence that he is dead. His body has not been found, but there has been no sign of him since this visit.

Turkey even his video of this putative assassination team, who all arrived in Turkey on two Gulfstream jets. That Turkey was so easily able to identify this group, and that they arrived in such a conspicuous manner suggests that the Saudis did little to cover their actions, and may even have figured being implicated would intimidate other dissidents.

(antiwar.com)

Even Trump has weighed in but his words are hollow knowing the relationship his family has with the Saudis…..

President Trump has confirmed that he has talked to officials at the highest levels of the Saudi government as well about the matter.

Trump says he want the US to get to the bottom of the incident. He told reporters that the US is “demanding everything” and considers the matter a very serious situation, adding the US is working closely with Turkey.

(antiwar.com)

Our Congressional entities have demanded also……

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke to reporters Wednesday, reporting that it would be a “game changer” if the Saudis had in any way mistreated Khashoggi. Since early indications are that the Saudis had him killed and chopped into bits, that’s going to be tough for Graham to back away from if this turns out to be the case.

Sen. Graham and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) both warned there’d be “hell to pay” if the Saudis were behind the journalist’s disappearance. It seems that’s an even safer bet, and while Graham didn’t want to elaborate on what that meant, he did say he thinks the Saudis “know what it means.”

(antiwar.com)

A game changer?  Seriously?  Why do I not believe a damn word these tools say?

Then there is a piece that says that US intel could have warned the journalist of his impending fate…..

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/10/us-intelligence-had-a-duty-to-warn-khashoggi-why-didnt-that-happen.html

I shall continue to watch this story and ask those questions that need answering…..

And this is the bullshit that I was talking about….this from Our Dear Leader……..

A new twist in the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi: American officials knew months ago that Saudi Arabia was plotting against the journalist, sources tell the Washington Post. The sources say US intelligence intercepts discovered a plan to lure Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi monarchy, back to the kingdom from him home in Virginia and detain him. The operation was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the sources say. Several of Khashoggi’s friends tell the Post that Saudi officials had called him repeatedly in recent months to offer him protection—and a government job—if he returned to his homeland, but he said he “didn’t trust them one bit.” Turkish authorities believe Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi agents during a visit to the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate on Oct. 2.

President Trump vowed Wednesday that he would “get to the bottom” of the case, the BBC reports. “We cannot let this happen to reporters, to anybody,” he said. But he said blocking US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a move some lawmakers are calling for, could be a step too far, the AP reports. “I think that would be hurting us,” Trump said. “We have jobs, we have a lot of things happening in this country … and frankly I think that that would be a very, very tough pill to swallow for our country.” A bipartisan group of senators urged Trump to impose sanctions on anybody found responsible for the disappearance. GOP Sen. Bob Corker, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said “everything points to” Saudi involvement. (An Apple Watch could reveal what happened to Khashoggi.)

What kind of person authorizes the dismemberment of another human being?

Further news as of the draft date…..

I wasn’t planning to write about the barbaric murder of my friend, Jamal Khashoggi. We were supposed to be sharing a panel at a conference two weeks from now.

The Saudi journalist, who disappeared a week ago while inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, has been executed by a Saudi hit squad with Islamic State-like barbarity.

Some may think that a murder at the Saudi consulate, which – according to the rules of diplomacy – is considered Saudi territory, is merely a Saudi problem. However, this incident may create the perception that any Saudi diplomatic mission could be a potential crime scene.

https://theantimedia.com/barbaric-murder-jamal-khashoggi/

Time for these Saudis to act like a civilized country or turn them into an international outcast they should be….

Politico ask a question that we all should be asking…….

President Donald Trump’s desire to maintain strong ties to Saudi Arabia is facing its biggest test yet: allegations that Riyadh ordered the killing of a dissident Saudi journalist who had been living in the United States.

Calls are mounting for the Trump administration to find out what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have taken steps to force a government investigation. Khashoggi’s fiancée has pleaded for Trump to “help shed light on Jamal’s disappearance.” The fury has grown after a Washington Postreport that U.S. intelligence knew of Saudi plans to abduct Khashoggi, raising questions about whether the administration failed to warn the journalist.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/10/trump-saudis-journalist-disappearance-890411

My guess that he will get some vague crap from the lips of these murdering swine and say that he accepts their lies.

The American Conservative sees it differently……

There has already been a significant response from members of Congress to reports of the Saudi government’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Sen. Rand Paul is proposing to force a vote to halt all military assistance and ties to the Saudi military:

This week, I intend to introduce another measure to cut all funding, training, advising, and any other coordination to and with the military of Saudi Arabia until the journalist Jamal Khashoggi is returned alive.

Sen. Paul’s proposal is consistent with the “fundamental break” with Saudi Arabia that Sen. Chris Murphy spoke about a few days ago. It is a break that has needed to happen for many years, and the Saudis’ latest crime may prove to be the last straw for many people in Congress.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-overdue-backlash-against-saudi-arabia-has-started/

All I can say in closing is…..do not trust Rand Paul to do the right thing….he has failed to do so time after time.

Leave it to Our Dear Supreme Leader to put a price on a human life…..an arms deal is the price.

This is so sad that this asshole could be the president of my country!

Turn The Page!

Updated 12Oct18 0625hrs…..

Turkish officials say they have audio and video evidence proving that journalist Jamal Khashoggi was tortured and murdered inside Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate. The officials, speaking under condition of anonymity, tell the Washington Post that the audio evidence is extremely graphic. “The voice recording from inside the embassy lays out what happened to Jamal after he entered,” one source says. “You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured, and then murdered.” Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that Turkish officials have shared the evidence with their American counterparts and are discussing how and when it should be publicly released. The Post‘s sources say officials are worried that releasing the recording will reveal that they spy on foreign consulates.

President Trump confirmed Thursday that investigators are looking into the disappearance of Khashoggi, who was a US resident, but he rejected suggestions US arms sales to Saudi Arabia should be cut off, the Guardian reports. “I don’t like stopping massive amounts of money that’s being poured into our country,” he said. “They are spending $110 billion on military equipment and on things that create jobs for this country.” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the Saudi ambassador to the US, Khalid bin Salman, returned to his homeland Thursday and the US will expect information from him when he returns. The ambassador is the younger brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who allegedly ordered a plot to lure Khashoggi from Virginia back to Saudi Arabia.

In The Skies Over Syria

The skies over Syria have been busy and crowded for years with war planes of US, Russia, Syria, UAE, Jordan, etc……and part of the US response to this conflict has been the use of drones.

These machines kill indiscriminately both civilian as well as combatants and the US has toned their attacks as best possible….https://lobotero.com/2017/02/27/the-new-game-of-drones/

For the reading impaired a couple of videos to explain the use of drones……

The reason I bring up this technique of war is that the US drones may not be alone……

Across the Middle East, countries banned from purchasing armed drones from the US due to a weapons embargo are increasingly gravitating towards Chinese defense manufacturers, according to a new report from the Associated Press, sales that “are helping expand Chinese influence across a region vital to American security interests.

“The Chinese product now doesn’t lack technology, it only lacks market share,” said Song Zhongping, a Chinese military strategist and former lecturer at the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force University of Engineering. “And the United States restricting its arms exports is precisely what gives China a great opportunity.”

https://theantimedia.com/deadly-chinese-drones/

I agree with those that are calling for limited use of drones as a tool of war because that it does kill indiscriminately.