Month: April 2019

No Obstruction! No Collusion! Exonerated!

Closing Thought–26Apr19

We have heard this mantra from Trump since the Mueller Report was released and the Trump crony AG Barr went before the nation and started the mantra.

A report from FOX News paints a different picture than the pitiful narrative the president is trying to make a fact…..

Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano argued Thursday that special counsel Robert Mueller‘s report contains “at least a half-dozen” instances of President Trump committing obstruction of justice. 

“Mueller laid out at least a half-dozen crimes of obstruction committed by Trump,” Napolitano writes in a Fox News op-ed, before listing off the various examples that he considers to be obstruction of justice.

Napolitano, among other things, argues that Trump obstructed justice by ordering former White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller, and to then lie to the media about the request. McGahn ultimately refused to follow through on Trump’s order, according to Mueller’s report.

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/440663-fox-news-legal-analyst-mueller-report-shows-trump-obstructed-justice-at-least

Let me emphasize that Napolitano is a legal analyst for FOX News

I think that answers any question anyone may have about the report.

Yep! Biden’s In!

The MSM is just plain giddy with the news that Biden will run in 2020. They are making it a battle for the DNC…..they are making the centrists candidates the candidates of choice…..the voter is noot driving this right now….it is the media that is pushing the candidates….Biden, Pete and Beto…..women are not that important to them right now.

The MSM wants the Dems to shoot their own in this election…..

Joe Biden is finally, officially getting into the race. If you want to get a sense of how threatened other presidential aspirants feel about this, consider their own decisions. Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton joined the race this week, just a couple of weeks after his House colleagues Eric Swalwell (California) and Tim Ryan (Ohio) did the same. Beto O’Rourke, Jay Inslee, and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper entered in March, joining Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Julian Castro, and Cory Booker. Michael Bennet, Bill de Blasio, Steve Bullock, and Stacey Abrams are still weighing their options, so let’s safely say at least two out of four of them will go for it.

The story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary so far has been the historic size of the field, which will end up in the mid-20s before all is said and done. And the size of the field is, in large part, a reflection of how Democratic politicians view Joe Biden: as a paper tiger, whose fall will make the nomination anyone’s for the taking.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/joe-biden-2020-democrats.html

DO NOT let the media pick your candidate!

This is an interactive look at most of the candidates…….please use it to pick your favorite…….

The Iowa caucuses are less than a year away, which means those planning to join what promises to be a crowded field of 2020 presidential candidates are beginning to formally announce their candidacies.

The field has grown to 20 Democrats with former Vice President Joe Biden’s announcement on Thursday morning, and others could still join the field. 

And there is still a chance of a third-party challenge from former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

Here’s a breakdown of the people who have officially announced their candidacies so far.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/03/23/election-2020-who-candidates-president/3210287002/

This election like ALL elections is very important…….do you want more of the same or do you prefer another approach to government?

Learn the issues …..learn the candidates……do some goddamn reading!

Learn Stuff!

When Is It Terrorism?

Let me ask…..if the FBI arrested a guy named Ali with lots of weapons and a manifesto to kill politicians and media personalities would and should he be charged with terrorism?

If your answer is yes then I say rightly so…….

Then why was this d/bag not a terorist?

A federal magistrate has agreed to the pre-trial release of a Coast Guard lieutenant accused of being a domestic terrorist, the AP reports. US Magistrate Judge Paul Day noted on Thursday that 50-year-old Christopher Hasson hasn’t been charged with any terrorism related offenses. Hasson was arrested Feb. 15 and is awaiting trial on firearms and drug charges. Prosecutors say he created a hit list of prominent Democrats, two Supreme Court justices, network TV journalists, and social media company executives. Day says he still has “grave concerns” about Hasson based on information prosecutors have presented. The magistrate says Hasson is “going to have to have a whole lot of supervision.” Day planned to order home confinement and electronic monitoring for Hasson. It’s not clear where Hasson will be confined or when he’ll be released. (Hasson reportedly once wrote that he was “dreaming of a way to kill every last person on earth.”)

Why is this person not sent to Gitmo and held with the rest of the terrorists that wanted to do harm to this country?

Once again a domestic terrorist gets the “benefit of the doubt”……somehting not many others get to claim……

Does that mean a white dude that wants to kill our political leaders and media personalities is not a terrorist….but a guy named Ali with the same intentions is a terrorists.

Can we call this situation an example of “white privilege”?

It Is Not Regime Change

Is this post about Venezuela? Nope it is Iran that is in process of a plan for regime change.

When the United States considered labeling the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization in 2017, then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security advisor H.R. McMaster were still with the Trump White House. In their places now are Iran hawks Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. The White House’s national security team is, therefore, more heavily in favor of taking a more aggressive stance toward the Islamic republic. With the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis, no influential voices remain to back a moderate course of action. Neither the Pentagon nor the CIA support applying the terrorism label to the IRGC, but their sway is less than it once was. There is now a higher probability that the United States will follow through with the designation. If the State Department does indeed label the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, it would mark the first time in U.S. history that it would have singled out a branch of a foreign military for such treatment.

On the question of targeting Iranian allies, the United States could designate several Iran-trained militias operating as part of Iraq’s security architecture as terrorist groups under one of several laws. But the consequences of doing so could be high. Although those designations could fall short of provoking Iran to target U.S. personnel in the region, such a decision would stoke anti-U.S. sentiment in Iraq, where these groups have become more entrenched in recent years, and could inspire Iranian-backed popular mobilization units or other groups to lash out at U.S. military, diplomatic and economic targets in Iraq. It would also strengthen the push from Iran-allied politicians in the Iraqi parliament to amend or revoke Iraq’s agreement with the United States to maintain troops in the country. Enforcing such a designation would create a complex problem of monitoring compliance for U.S. and other Western companies given that many of the Iranian-backed militias also have political wings. Earlier this month, the United States designated the Iranian-trained Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba militia in Iraq a terrorist group in what could mark the initial phase of this strategy.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/03/27/the_key_to_countering_iran_114288.html

Sanctions are designed to force a solution out of Iran……a solution that could lead to a shooting conflict…….

Diplomacy is out of the question with the Trumpites……these war hawks will not be happy until the bullets fly……

Can Trump hold back these rebel rousers?

Speaking on Wednesday at The Asia Society, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif says that he does not believe that President Trump wants a war in Iran, citing Trump’s promise “not to waste another $7 trillion” in the Middle East.

That said, Zarif said he believes that Trump aims to ‘bring us to our knees to talk,” while contrasting him with John Bolton and his “B team” who are angling for “regime change at the very least” in Iran.

Zarif linked Bolton to the Saudi crown prince, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Abu Dhabi crown prince, saying they are all looking for a pretext to convince Trump to take “crazy and adventurous” actions.

Zarif said this didn’t amount to a crisis yet, but that it was making the situation very dangerous, and that accidents could have unforeseen consequences for both sides.

(antiwar.com)

Bolton has wanted a war with Iran for 25 years…..and now he has a president’s ear….a president that is for all purposes ignorant on the situation…….

Who will win this tug of war?

Closing Thought–25Apr19

Sex with animals…..a disgusting act by disgusting people…..

A story that is being reported is one that is something out of the movie “Deliverance”……

WTF?

Three men who forced a teenager to restrain nine female horses, a cow, a goat and dogs while they had sex with the animals have been jailed for decades.

Matthew Brubaker, 31, Terry Wallace, 41, and Marc Measnikoff, 34, were all sentenced to 20 to 41 years in prison on Monday after regularly abusing at least 12 animals for years.

The discovery was made after police were called to a remote “makeshift farm” where the men all lived in Munson, Pennsylvania, in August 2018, according to Clearfield County District Attorney’s Office.

They were arrested after a 16-year-old boy living at the property told police the men had been having sex with the animals in a specially-designed V-shaped pen.

Officers found a “large volume of homemade videos, recording equipment and cameras”.

The men were charged with more than 1,400 counts relating to sexual intercourse with animals, cruelty to animals, endangering the welfare of children, and corruption of minors. 

Clearfield County District Attorney William Shaw said it was one of the most extreme cases of animal abuse he had handled.

(/www.independent.co.uk)

My solution to their prison stay is put them in the biggest most perverted person and let the chips fall where they may.

There is NOTHING too extreme as a sentence for these disgusting sacks of flesh. PERIOD!

The Wait Is Over! Or Is It?

19 nd counting…well it is now 20….or is it 21…..44….103….everybody in Congress wants to be the candidate to take on Trump….and everyone of them is a false prophet.

The media has been selling Biden the chance to run in the Dem primaries….they have at every turn tried to force the man into a run……polls saying he can beat Trump….polls saying that he is the most popular candidate even before he announced….in short the MSM has choosing your candidates for you.

The wait is over….and the media can be happy they won this battle…..the people maybe not so much……

Joe Biden is in. The former VP formally joined the crowded Democratic field for the 2020 race with the release of a video Thursday morning, reports the Wall Street Journal. This is Biden’s third run for the presidency. “The core values of this nation … our standing in the world … our very democracy … everything that has made America—America—is at stake,” Biden tweeted. “That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy.” A Morning Consult/Politico poll pegs him as the frontrunner, not only among Democrats but over President Trump as well. The poll has him up 8 points on Trump.

Please watch the video…..

Now my take….his video is all crap!  He is a centrist that will allow corporate American run rough shod over the government…..look at when he was VP to Obama….corporations wrote the health bill, the financial bill, and the wars he fought…….does anyone think that he has changed his tune?

His rhetoric may sound progressive but that is all it does “sound” progressive.

If you still think that Biden is the candidate for you then check out his site…….

https://joebiden.info/

1956: The Year That Was

My grandfather was a strong GOP supporter during the days of his life….and in 1956 he worked and voted for Ike…..if he were alive today he would be a strong Left progressive…..why would I say that?

First of all let’s look at the platform of Ike and the GOP in 1956……




1956 were the good old days for the GOP….the year they actually had ideas to make America a better nation…..those days are GONE!

Or if you prefer….I have written about this platform and the GOP in the past here on IST……https://lobotero.com/2018/11/06/where-has-the-gop-gone/

If you read the platform closely you will see just how “liberal” the party was in those days……(I miss those days)…….

Now you may ask….what happened to the GOP?

The year is 1971 and the Nixon nominee for the Supreme Court, Lewis Powell, wrote a memo to be forever known as the Powell Memo.

It was 1971 and Lewis Powell, a corporate lawyer in Richmond, Virginia, who had been president of the American Bar Association and a member of the board of the giant tobacco company Philip Morris, had come to believe that American capitalism was facing a dire threat. Americans were angry about corporate abuse and corporate pollution; President Richard M. Nixon had responded by signing the National Environmental Policy Act and creating the Environmental Protection Agency through executive order. Across the country, activists marched for Earth Day, and Congress passed the first air pollution standards. Ralph Nader and other consumer advocates had successfully fought for safer cars and other products.

Powell believed that corporate America needed a decisive response to this perceived threat to the free-enterprise system. In a lengthy memo, the soon-to-be Supreme Court justice laid out his concerns and proposed responses to the Chamber of Commerce, where he served as chairman of the education committee.

The document he penned, now known as the Powell Memo, has been described as the road map for conservative dominance of public policymaking. For any such plan to be successful, Powell understood, conservatives would have to fund a broad array of institutions that would exert control over the levers of power, including the courts, the legislature, and the media. Importantly, the tobacco lawyer insisted, it would require “careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.” What Powell grasped is that policy victories come after gaining control of the levers of power—and not before.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/04/17/getting-serious-about-power
 
I miss a party of ideas….the GOP lost its way in 1971 and continued its assault on the people of the country with Reagan and it has never stopped since those days….or even looked back at a brighter party.
 
For those interested……further reading on the Powell memo……
 
 
 
Learn Stuff!
 
Class Dismissed!
 

Vlad Meets Li’l Kim

We have seen the two “summits” between Li’l Kim and Don the Orange and the results that have been no where to be seen.

Not to be left on the sidelines Putin (Vlad) is set to have his “summit” with Li’l Kim….for security reasons the exact date has not been released…..but according to Russian speculation it will be soon…..

When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin for their first one-on-one meeting, he’ll have a long wish list and a strong desire to notch a win after the failure of his second summit with President Trump. But it’s not entirely clear how much Putin can or will oblige, the AP notes. Kim has two urgent concerns as he heads to the summit, the date of which hasn’t yet been announced. More than 10,000 North Korean laborers still employed in Russia, many working in the logging industry in the Russian Far East, are being kicked out by the end of this year as a 2017 UN sanctions resolution takes effect. The laborers, who previously numbered as many as 50,000, have provided a revenue stream estimated by US officials in the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Kim regime would like to keep flowing.


Kim is also looking at the possibility of a food shortage this summer. Russia has shown a willingness to provide humanitarian aid and just last month announced it had shipped more than 2,000 tons of wheat to the North Korean port of Chongjin. But his decision to more actively court Putin undoubtedly goes deeper than that. Despite all the talk in Washington about denuclearization, Kim’s primary concern is improving his country’s economy. Per internal documents obtained by a South Korean researcher and published this week in a Japanese newspaper, Kim wants to boost trade with Russia tenfold—to $1 billion—by 2020.
That would obviously require some significant easing of sanctions, which seems unlikely. But it would also require a change in Russian behavior. The AP has more on what the Kim-Putin summit could mean, and what could emerge as a result

Want more information?

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-northkorea-russia/north-korea-confirms-leader-kim-jong-un-to-visit-russia-for-summit-with-putin-idUKKCN1RY1KF

Since the US has massive sanctions in place any deal Kim makes with Putin would make things worse?  This will be interesting to watch the reaction from our Supreme Leader.

What Happened?

Closing Thought–24Apr19

Every president especially the poser we have now likes to thump their chest about the military and its possibility of being the best and well equipped. Well it is true that our Army is the best equipped in history…but the problem is…..the basic war skills.

There is a report that tells a tale about our Army squads and their abilities…….

The U.S. Army says it will meet its readiness goals by 2022, but young sergeants in most infantry and close-combat units don’t know how to maneuver their squads or do basic land navigation, Military.com has learned.

For example, sergeants in the majority of the Army’s active brigade combat teams (BCTs) don’t know the importance of gaining a foothold when leading squads on room-clearing operations, according to a series of report cards from the service’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, known as the AWG.

The findings come at a time when the Army is racing to transition from the counter-insurgency mindset that existed in Iraq and Afghanistan to one focused on preparing combat units to fight in large-scale, conventional battles against a foe of equal strength.

Since March 2018, the AWG — a special, operational advisory unit involved in training brigade combat teams in subterranean (Sub-T) warfare operations — has submitted reports to Army leaders on several occasions identifying trends that show small-unit leaders lack proficiency in key skills required for any type of combat, a Defense Department official with knowledge of the reports told Military.com on the condition of anonymity.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/04/22/most-army-squads-falling-short-infantry-skills-reports-find.html
 
I am not sure that I agree……I believe that our troops will continue to fight small units in other words an asymmetric war…..so to say that our Army infantry units are unprepared for the future is just not accurate…..I know that I am not privy to classified info on our military….but I just do not see the results the report issued.
 
I think the bigger danger to an all volunteer military is the American people…..

Donald Trump’s three-quarters-of-a-trillion-dollar defense budget request submitted to Congress last month contains a dirty secret, one that should make us all think twice about perpetual war and public support for it.

The youth of America don’t want to serve in the military any more.

The situation has become so dire that just to maintain America’s ground forces – the army and Marine Corps – the two services are resorting to unprecedented pay raises, bonuses and socialist trappings.

And things are going to get worse. This year, for the first time ever, Americans born after 11 September 2001 will be able to enlist in the armed forces. It’s a sobering reminder both of how long we’ve been at war but also how distant those very wars have become from America’s youth. And yet official military polling shows that fewer and fewer young Americans consider the military as a career or as a transitional step – only some 12.5% – the lowest number in a decade.

 
There is the bigger concern in my book.
 
Turn The Page!

Lock Him Up! Lock Him Up!

Could not resist using one of the chants from the past…..but not the main point of this op-ed…..sorry for the confusion…..and my digression.

Impeachment is the word of the week….the media is pushing this hard trying to get a rise out of Trump and as usual it does what was intended……..Trump is Tweeting his ass off about the Dems and the process….in other words helping the MSM generate news that NO needs to know.

But think about it….is impeachment really what should be the main gest of the news?  Or the burning issue for the Dems?

Even Pelosi does not think so……

Democratic lawmakers eager to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump in the wake of the Mueller report were disappointed Monday night. Sources tell the Washington Post that in a conference call with lawmakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats said there were no immediate plans for impeachment. The sources say Pelosi urged lawmakers to support the ongoing investigations of the president, saying: “We have to save our democracy. This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about saving our democracy.” In a letter to lawmakers earlier Monday, Pelosi said that it is clear that Trump, at a minimum, has “engaged in highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior which does not bring honor to the office he holds,” but Congress has more than one way to proceed.


In the letter, Pelosi urged lawmaker to focus on the facts instead of resorting to “passion or prejudice,” the AP reports. During the 90-minute call, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler told lawmakers about how the committee’s own investigation of Trump was unfolding, sources tell the New York Times. Minute before the call, Nadler’s committee subpoenaed former White House counsel Don McGahn. Some Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Jared Huffman of California, spoke in support of impeachment and urged their colleagues to consider the political cost of not holding the president accountable for the actions described in the special counsel’s report, sources say. In a tweet Monday, Trump said: “Only high crimes and misdemeanors can lead to impeachment. There were no crimes by me … so you can’t impeach.”

This is the best thing…..a push for impeachment will do little but energize his, Trump’s, base …….the “machine” can go back time and time again to the Bubbas and ask for $5 to help the president protect himself from those mean Dems…..keep in mind the Senate……there is not enough votes for a conviction…..No Chin Mitch will drag Dems like Manchin along with the GOP to protect this president from justice.

SO I agree with Pelosi (a first) let the impeachment investigation in the House proceed but do not make it the premier issue that some want….if they keep on this track they are guaranteeing a loss to Trump in 2020.  (IMHO)