Sic Semper Tyrannis

New Year's Eve

Caviar, Sour cream, other goodies.  See you in 2018.  pl

Editorial Comment: A Tale of Two Delegators

After thinking about the stylistic mannerisms of DJT and his pal Mattis, I believe I am approaching the truth.

Trump is a Management by Exception executive.  IOW he establishes broad guidance for his principal subordinates, delegates authority to them and sits back to watch the machine run.  He then feels free to watch TV news shows, argue with the CIA PDB briefers and intervene on an exceptional basis with his subordinates to give them "course corrections,"  a-s chewings and/or pats on the head as he probably did with the employees of his sole proprietor company.  He also has no inhibitions about making side deals with various other CEO types without informing "his people."

Mattis, the warrior monk,  has a highly developed style of management that is not very different from that of his boss.  He, too, is a management by exception type.  It is now clear that he has returned a lot of power and authority to his subordinates both at the service departments (Army USMC, Navy, USAF) but also in the operational chain of command (CENTCOM, PACOM, etc).  He believes in delegating to his subordinates as much power as they think they need.

This sounds great, especially if you have ever worked for the far more common, nitpicking, micro-manager types.  BUT, there is a certain cumulative effect when you  have two Delegators stacked one on top of the other in the hierarchical world of government.  IMO the result can be seen in the case of Syria where military commanders in the field have been given a great deal of freedom of action to pursue what they think we should be doing even as DJT is busy with the TV news, tweeting away happily, and engaged his own pursuit of "side deals."

This results in fitful beginnings and endings, orders from the WH that have no antecedents from the point of view of the forces in the field and  frustration of officers who are not accustomed to sudden change and who are generally rigorous rather than creatively spontaneous thinkers.  Having watched US military think tanks try to deal with futures they have not seen as yet, I can testify to the existence of a collective absence of "the vision thing."

Well, pilgrims, The DJT/Mattis method is one way of doing business.  pl

 

Whither 2018?

 

One of the members suggests that we give our opinions as to the coming year's major developments.  Good Idea! Not too long please.  pl

Looks Like FBI or McCain May Have Paid for the 17th Report of the Steele Dossier by Publius Tacitus

Looks like the FBI is in big trouble thanks to John McCain. They may have paid Christopher Steele, either directly or through Fusion GPS, for the 16th report of the now infamous Steele Dossier. If you have not been paying attention, there were 17 reports in the Steele Dossier--the first is dated 20 June 2016 and the last is dated 13 December 2016. Only one problem. The Clinton campaign only paid for 16 of the 17 reports. Their contract with Fusion GPS ran until the end of October 2016:

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.

After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the company in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by an unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS’s research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.

Fusion GPS gave Steele’s reports and other research documents to Elias, the people familiar with the matter said. It is unclear how or how much of that information was shared with the campaign and the DNC and who in those organizations was aware of the roles of Fusion GPS and Steele. One person close to the matter said the campaign and the DNC were not informed by the law firm of Fusion GPS’s role.

Now enter John McCain. After Trump won the election, McCain got a hold of the 15 reports in the dossier:

A de facto ceasefire between the US and the SAG

 "On December 27, UK Army Major General Felix Gedney, deputy commander of strategy and support in the US-led coalition, announced during a press briefing that the coalitions will not conduct operations in the areas held by the Damascus government.

“We will continue to prevent conflicts with Russians, but we don’t intend to continue operations in areas controlled by Assad,” Maj. Gen. Felix Gedney said, according to the Russian news agency Sputnik.

During the briefing, Maj. Gen. Gedney also accused the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) of allowing ISIS fighters to move through its areas north of the US-led coalition base in al-Tanaf, near the Syrian-Iraqi border. Moreover, the US-led coalition commander called on the SAA to clear these areas from ISIS.

“We are seeing the movement of a limited number of militants westwards. They seem to be moving with impunity through the regime-held territory, showing that the regime is clearly either unwilling or unable to defeat Daesh [ISIS]within their borders,” Maj. Gen. Gedney said.

The US-led coalition is trying to establish the current situation in eastern Syria as a de-facto border between the SAA and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This could be the first step in a US plan to separate the SDF-held areas from Syria in order to form a Kurdish-dominated enclave within the country."  SF

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Pilgrims, we have been indicating here at SST that there is a tacit understanding between DJT and the Rooshians as to a desired outcome in Syria.  Like just about all successful lone wolf entrepreneurs he does not tell "his people," (in this case; Tillerson, McMaster, Mattis et al) what he is really going to do.  From his point of view, why should he?  They probably would try to foist some fancy-pants theory off on him when all he wants is a good deal.  From his point of view they are all flunkies.  Haley may think what he tell her is literally true. She doesn't care.  The big apartment in the Waldorf Towers is its own reward.   No wonder he wants fewer bureaucrats!  Ah, a revelation!

In this case, the war in Syria will end with the "processing" of yet more jihadis by the SAG and its allies (R+6) in a variety of pockets around the country and generally west of the Euphrates watershed. Idlib will continue to be a main focus.   While that occurs the US led coalition will hang onto the country east of the Euphrates and north of Raqqa until the various diplomatic processes yield an agreement that contains an autonomous area for the SDF/YPG.  Turkey will not be happy, but tant pis pour eux.  I never said that Turkey would be successful in using its weapons purchases as leverage against Russia.  Russia is too big, too near and probably offers the best deals for that to work, and they have Putin.

My friends tell me that actual foreign policy in the DJT era rolls downhill from The Boss wherever he might be and often arrives at theater level as an unexplained surprise.  Well, tant pis pour eux aussi.  In this case a Brit general was sent out to talk about this policy so that the Americans (probably unhappy about it) would not have to do so.  pl 

https://southfront.org/us-led-coalition-says-it-will-not-conduct-operations-in-areas-held-by-syrian-army/

Irredentist Turkey?

"Minutes ago, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad during a press conference in Tunisia, labeling him a ‘terrorist.’

” It’s impossible to work on a solution in Syria with Assad, he is a terrorist leading a state of terror,” Erdogan told the crowd."  AMN

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Erdogan has been making equivocal noises about Assad for some time.  This is probably because of Russian influence.  The Russians are continuing their effort to close out the war in Syria with the present Syrian government still in power and a satisfying number of "harvested" jihadis on their score card.  Yesterday Turkey and Russia announced a deal for the sale to Turkey of the Russian S-400 SAM system.  Perhaps Erdogan thinks that gives him more leverage with the Russians in the Syria peace negotiations.

I suspect that Erdogan's goal is to retain as much of Syria's territory as possible in the areas that the Turks have occupied in the last year.  In his imagined role as restorer of the Ottoman Empire such action would have a certain logic.  pl

 https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-assad-terrorist-no-way-will-talk-erdogan/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-400_missile_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Syria

Open Thread - 26 December 2017

pl

The Message and Music of Christmas Transcend The Law.

By Robert Willmann

As I was working on a law-related item for this website about two cases set before the U.S. Supreme Court the week of 3 December 2017, and was trying to figure out how to do a formal posting,  I was "overtaken by events", as is said at the State Department.   The Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Represetatives held hearings with witnesses from the FBI and Department of Justice; two FBI employees as extramarital lovebirds -- or lustbirds, as the case may be -- were moved out of the group of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which is supposed to investigate the Russian government's alleged "interference" in the 2016 presidential election; the chief in-house lawyer at the FBI, James Baker, is to be reassigned; Jerrold Nadler (Democrat, 10th District, in New York City) takes the place of the retired John Conyers as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee; and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe (the number 2 person) is going to "retire early" around March 2018, when he can then receive full retirement benefits.

Fortunately, Christmas is here, as its message of Hope and Peace, and the international language of music, transcend "The Law" of governments. 

The Christmas Truce of 1914, during World War 1, demonstrated the message.  One hundred years later, a resolution was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.Res. 781, to commemorate that brief truce [1].  Unlike the fighting men -- who had a short, but real, truce -- the politicians sent the resolution to the "House Committee on Foreign Affairs", where it languished and stalled.  Nevertheless, it was announced on the floor of the House, and brief remarks were placed into the Congressional Record on 11 December 2014 by its sponsor, Joseph Crowley (Democrat, 14th District, New York), who was joined by only two co-sponsors--

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2014/12/12/extensions-of-remarks-section/article/E1827-1

The music of Christmas strengthens the message, and its range from classical and choral to modern is performed today.  Stille Nacht (Silent Night)--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ3kyGQKoq8

An original art form of the U.S.A. is jazz music, established early on by those wanting freedom and which could be expressed through its improvisation.   Gaining legitimacy over the years, it is now fully developed and its reach is imaginative.  The first college jazz education program in the U.S. was started not in New York or Los Angeles, but in 1947 in Denton, Texas, at North Texas State University, now called the University of North Texas (UNT).  When at that time they went to the Texas State College Board of Trustees in Austin to get the program approved and funded, some members balked at the prospect of a "Dance Band Program" being taught to and among young college students.  The trustees finally authorized the program after the school said it would be called a "laboratory band", which gave the skittish board cover with some of the public [2].  The name has stuck, and the nine jazz bands in the program today are each called a "Lab Band", identified by the time of day the band has class and rehearses.  The most accomplished one is the One O'Clock Lab Band, which meets at 1:00 p.m. 

There are numerous fine music schools in the U.S. If anyone has a son or daughter interested in studying any type of music for any purpose, and who is serious about it, making a trip to Denton to the UNT to see the program first hand would be worthwhile [3].

Jay Saunders, an accomplished trumpet player, was interim director of the One O'Clock Lab band in 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 before retiring from that job--

https://jazz.unt.edu/saunders-bio

Early in his career, he played with the U.S. Army Field Band Studio Band, which is now called the Jazz Ambassadors [4].  The U.S. Army Field band has four performing groups:  The Concert Band, The Soldiers' Chorus, the Jazz Ambassadors, and the Six-String Soldiers.  To warm things up a little, here are the Jazz Ambassadors in concert on 3 April 2017, performing Bye Bye Blackbird, with their vocalist, Alexis Cole.  She joined the Army to get the job, and sang from 2009-2015, re-enlisting twice.  She sang with the group some in 2017 since at that time it was looking for but did not yet have a vocalist--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg0-7CwetH0

At a 2014 Christmas concert, the UNT One O'Clock Lab Band of college students, directed by Jay Saunders, took the light, modern song Sleigh Ride, which seems to be on every tape of vaseline elevator music played in stores at Christmas, and dressed it up along with a break into a jazz inprovisational structure, for a nice, new look [5]--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSMs_t51jM4

Then, at that same concert, joined by the UNT Jazz Singers, the band performs the traditional choral song, Angels We Have Heard On High, as a jazz arrangement, up-tempo and a little tricky [6]--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXK7WISd5Nk

 

May you have a Blessed and Merry Christmas!

 

The Shipwright’s Next Project - TTG

"He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist." - Saint Francis of Assisi

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Last year I introduced a series of videos where Master Shipwright Louis Sauzedde built a traditional work skiff in his Rhode Island workshop. I quoted Saint Francis then and it is appropriate to do so again. This year Lou designs and builds a sport dory of his own design using both traditional and innovative techniques and materials. I hope many of you find the series as entertaining and enlightening as I do.

In the first video Lou examines several types of dories and explores the mathematics of the designs. This reminded me of the programs supported by the Alexandria Seaport Foundation. Here former director Joe Youcha started an apprenticeship program for “at risk” youth to teach mathematics through building boats. Joe is now the director of the Building to Teach organization where he is expanding his concepts nationwide.

I believe Saint Francis would recognize the artistry of Lou and Joe with appreciation and admiration. May you all enjoy Lou’s videos in the same light. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my fellow committeemen

TTG

Season 2 - Building the TotalBoat Sport Dory

Alexandria Seaport Foundation

Building to Teach

If You Are Looking for Consistency, Trump Ain't Your Man by Publius Tacitus

Christmas came early for Donald Trump. He signed a historic tax cut, kept the Government funded and operating and, to the delight of many in his base, used UN Ambassador Nikki Haley as a mouthpiece to tell the rest of the world to go pound sand. He is feeling groovy. But Donald Trump is still his own worst enemy. And his Presidency will be fatally harmed if he continues with his erratic foreign policy and his empty talk on dealing with the opioid plague.

Let's start with his wildly fluctuating foreign policy. There is no consistency nor is their a theme. When he announced that he was recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, many assumed he was on the Israeli leash and was behaving as any obedient dog would. Perhaps.

How then do you explain yesterday's (Thursday) decision to arm Ukraine as a show of force to Russia:

The Trump administration has approved the largest U.S. commercial sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine since 2014. . . . Administration officials confirmed that the State Department this month approved a commercial license authorizing the export of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems, ammunition, and associated parts and accessories to Ukraine, a sale valued at $41.5 million. These weapons address a specific vulnerability of Ukrainian forces fighting a Russian-backed separatist movement in two eastern provinces.

The people we are arming in the Ukraine are the actual and intellectual descendants of the Nazi sympathizers who helped the Einsatzgruppen murder more than a million Jews after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Scholar Richard Sakwa provides the horrifying details on the pro-Nazi ideological foundation of the key Ukrainian political groups we are backing:

“The Orange revolution, like the later Euromaidan events, was democratic in intent but gave an impetus ‘to the revival of the radical versions of [the] Ukrainian national movement that first appeared on the historical scene in the course of World War II and a national discourse focused on fighting against the enemy’.41 ” . . . . 

More on the 2004 UFO intercept by US Navy

 

 "In his debrief comments, Dave, his WSO and the two other crews stated the object had initially been hovering like a Harrier.  They described it as uniformly white, about 46  feet long (roughly fighter-sized), having a discernible midline horizontal axis (like a fuselage) but having no visible windows, nacelles, wings or propulsion systems.

As Dave was pulling for nose-on and trying to get a dogfight lock with his radar, the AAV tightened its turn, “lift vector on, then aft” as Dave described, passed behind his tail and accelerated away at multi-Mach speed.  Dave immediately queried Princeton for a snap-vector but the SPY-1 radar had also lost the contact.  The first calls from Princeton were “picture clean.”  A few moments later Princeton came back with, “You’re not going to believe this, it’s at your CAP.”  Princeton had picked up the AAV hovering at 24K at the assigned Lat/Long Dave had used earlier during training as his orbiting point."  Fighter Sweep.com

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Just read it.  pl 

https://fightersweep.com/1460/x-files-edition/

At least Nauru is still with us ...

 

"  nine states – including the United States and Israel –voted against the resolution. The other countries which supported Washington were Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, Guatemala and Honduras."  Guardian

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(irony alert) So, Perfidious Albion has bitten the hand that fed them.  That's right isn't it?  No?  What about all that Spam we sent them when they ran out of crumpets?  What about that?  Why would Palau have voted on our side?  Ah, there must be some pot of Golden Grickels from which they sup, maybe something about a Jack London memorial pearl fishery or, something. (end of irony)

 

Nikki Haley, is a city girl flower of South Carolina politics.  Do you suppose that she may be learning that THE WORLD is harder to bully than a bunch of "good ole boys" who like to put Rebel flag decals on their pick-up trucks?

And then, there are the related spectacles of the Israeli UN ambassador sneering just now on the TeeVee at THE WORLD whilst Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt voted for the resolution.  I guess that means that they don't need the money badly enough to roll over when ordered. 

There will be no peace for Israel.  pl 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/21/united-nations-un-vote-donald-trump-jerusalem-israel

Visitors?

 

" ... the mission of Cmdr. David Fravor and Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight, who were in training over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego at the time. They got a strange call from a radio operator. The military had been tracking strange aircraft in the region for about two weeks, the operator said. Sometimes, these flying objects made sudden maneuvers, dove tens of thousands of feet or even hovered, according to the reports.

Asked to investigate, Fravor and Slaight eventually spotted one. About 40 feet (12 meters) long, it was hovering 50 feet (15 m) above the ocean, the Times report says. (Fraser added that the object appeared to be causing a sort of boiling or bubbles in the ocean, as the rest of the water looked calm.)"  space.com

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 Whaddaya think?  Is there any significance to California having the largest number of sightings?  This is it, the end of everything. Do they know that the US is EXCEPTIONAL (that was a joke.)  THEY are now closing in on us.  Do they "come in peace?"  If they have any more good techie stuff like velcro on board, maybe they could trade it to us as a modern equivalent of frontier traders selling glass beads to Indians.  Whoa!  Wait a minute!  Some of you think the Europeans sold the Indians blankets infected with smallpox.  Maybe we should be cautious.  pl  

https://www.space.com/39147-navy-pilots-ufo-sightings.html

 

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/19/571868263/secret-program-at-the-pentagon-spent-million-to-study-ufos

The NPR piece has a better presentation of the electronics system in the FA-18. The aircraft is in a 20 degree left bank following the object as it goes around an arc. The footage was cleared for release by DoD. Maybe this reflects a change of policy in the DJT Administration. This is said to be one of three of this incident. It looks to me at the end that the object is making a turn into the path of the fighter. I can hardly wait to see what happened next. pl

NOT SERVING AMERICA'S INTERESTS: DECAMERON

12/18/17  UN Security Council debating and probably voting today (Monday) on resolution to nullify the Trump declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

From DW (Deutsche Welle Akademie) this morning:

“The United Nations Security Council will on Monday vote on a draft resolution earlier next week that would consider any changes to the status of Jerusalem legally invalid and call on any such changes to be reversed.

“While not naming the US specifically, the Egyptian-drafted text, seen by AFP and Reuters news agencies, is a significant repudiation from the international community of US President Donald Trump's decision earlier this month to recognize the holy city as the capital of Israel and move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv.

“The draft resolution states that "any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council."

“The draft also demands that states refrain from establishing diplomatic missions in Jerusalem in accordance with prior Security Council resolutions that declare any changes in the status of Jerusalem as a city divided between Israelis and Palestinians to be violations international law."

http://www.dw.com/en/un-to-vote-on-resolution-rejecting-us-jerusalem-decision/a-41826293

UN debate comes after the OIC, the Arab League, 14 current members of the UNSC (individually) rejected the unilateral pronouncement on Jerusalem by Trump, and after mass demonstrations from Amman to Kuala Lumpur.  Blood is again flowing in the streets of Palestine with Israeli forces using live ammunition.  Liberal Zionists comfort themselves saying that the reaction is not as bad as they expected.  Too soon. -- Decameron

 

HARPER: WHY ISN'T JAMES CLAPPER BEHIND BARS?

One of the biggest failures of the United States Congress, IMHO, has been the refusal to hold Executive Branch officials accountable when they lie to Congress on vital matters of national security.  And no case angers me more than that of James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence under President Barack Obama, who held a series of high-level intelligence positions during his long career as an Air Force officer.  

Clapper, during his tenure as DNI, lied to Congress when directly asked if the intelligence community was spying on millions of innocent American citizens.  His lies were exposed with the release of the Edward Snowden documents.  While several individual Members of Congress called for his resignation and a few even dared to demand his prosecution for contempt of Congress, nothing happened.

More recently, Clapper again lied to Congress, in claiming that the intelligence community findings about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections were compiled by all 17 member agencies.  In later testimony in May 2017, he belatedly admitted that the report was compiled by the FBI, the CIA and the NSA, and that the authors had been hand-picked to conduct the study.  According to Robert Parry in Consortium News, one of the FBI agents who participated in the study was Peter Strzok, a Trump-hater and Hillary Clinton partisan who was fired by Robert Mueller last July after an investigation by the Department of Justice Inspector General revealed his biases.

I recall comments over the years by Col. Lang about his personal experiences with Clapper while at the DIA in the early 1990s.  I am interested in Col. Lang's and others' comments and observations.

 

Iran to Syria route is open now.

 

"The first Iranian military convoy crossed into Syria coming from Iraq through the Tell al-Badi crossing during this week, the UK-based news outlet the New Arab reported on December 16.

A senior Iraqi official told the New Arab that the Iranian military convoy consisted of 20 covered trucks carrying an unknown load. The official added that the convoy was escorted by fighters and commanders of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iraqi Hezbollah and Hezbollah al-Nujaba.

“A convoy of 20 mud-covered, unmarked vehicles crossed into Syria after being let through checkpoints manned by the PMU … The cars were transporting Iranian and Iraqi forces to fight alongside the Assad regime. I believe this could signal the activation of the long-planned Tehran-Damascus road,” the Iraqi official told the New Arab.

If these claims are true, this can be considered as a huge achievement for Iran and its allies, mainly Lebanese Hezbollah. For the last four years, Iran was shipping weapons and ammunition to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and Hezbollah through an air route. This method allowed Israel to identify, track and target Iranian arms shipments to Hezbollah easily, as only few cargo airplanes land in Syrian airports every day.

However, now Israel will be incapable of identifying any Iranian shipment on the new ground route, as it will be used by thousands of Iraq and Syrian companies on daily basis in the upcoming months. Experts believe that this will give Hezbollah and the SAA a huge advantage over Israel and will allow Iran to increase its supplies to its allies."  SF

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Israeli air attacks against vehicles moving from Iran to Syria along this route, but it is a mighty victory for Iranian strategy in the region.  An alternative route for commercial traffic will be through the Jordanian panhandle and across the  border in the Daraa area.  pl

https://southfront.org/first-iranian-military-convoy-enters-syria-through-land-route-from-iraq-reports/

Space double-header tomorrow. pl

"There's a lot of spaceflight action on tap Sunday morning (Dec. 17), and you can watch it all before the first NFL game of the day kicks off.

Three new crewmembers are scheduled to launch toward the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Sunday at 2:21 a.m. EST (0721 GMT; 1:21 p.m. local time in Baikonur). Watch the liftoff live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV; coverage begins at 1:15 a.m. EST (0615 GMT).

A few hours later, SpaceX's robotic Dragon capsule — which launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket Friday morning (Dec. 15) — is scheduled to arrive at the ISS on a cargo run for NASA. Coverage of the freighter's rendezvous and capture by the station's huge robotic arm begins at 4:30 a.m. EST (0930 GMT), and coverage of Dragon's installation on the ISS starts 3 hours later, at 7:30 a.m. EST (1230 GMT)."  Space.com

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I watched the launch of this Dragon on live TV a few days ago.  It was magnificent.  pl

https://www.space.com/39119-watch-iss-crew-launch-spacex-dragon-webcasts.html

Your Trump Dossier Cheat Sheet by Publius Tacitus--UPDATED

The latest revelations following the release of the FISA application on Saturday, 21 July 2016, requires an update to a piece I wrote last December on the so-called Steele Dossier devoted to Donald Trump. There now is no doubt that FBI and DOJ officials  were collaborating with the Intelligence Community, under the direction of Jim Clapper, in misleading members of Congress and feeding the media about alleged collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and the Russians. At least we now know for certain that the FISA judges were informed that the information came from a source hired by the Democrats to go after Donald Trump. How those judges could acquiesce to such blatant partisan bullshit is grist for another day.  

We already knew, thanks to Washington Post reporting in October that the dossier was commissioned by Clinton attorneys and compiled and prepared by a retired foreign intelligence officer, Christopher Steele: 

Marc Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington, D.C., firm, to conduct the research. Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community.

Elias and his law firm, Seattle-based Perkins Coie, retained the firm in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’ research into Trump was funded by a still unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS’ research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.

And, as I noted in my previous piece, we also know that the wife of a senior DOJ official, with ties to the CIA, was working with Fusion GPS on Russian matters related to Trump during this same time frame.

I think it is important for everyone to take a look at the actual dossier, which is summarized by the date of each report (see below). There are two salient points deserving your focus:

155th Fredericksburg Facebook Live - TTG

I don’t have cable TV, so I thankfully have no exposure to the constant assault of the cable news networks. Instead, every morning I walk outside and pick up my morning Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star and sit down to a morning mug of tea. This morning I read about an event held by the Civil War Trust (CWT) to commemorate the 155th anniversary of the first battle of Fredericksburg. Historians from the CWT and the National Park Service filmed a terrain walk of the Fredericksburg battlefield.

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“The small troupe trudged through the expansive field on Slaughter Pen Farm Wednesday morning, stopping intermittently under a clear winter sky and under the assault of freezing and whipping winds to recount a battle that raged on the outskirts of the city during the Civil War’s Battle of Fredericksburg.

Four historians rotated turns in front of a cameraman, armed with a smartphone, providing play-by-play accounts of the fighting—strategies, missteps, near misses and bloody clashes.

The group’s production at Slaughter Pen Farm was one of several stops as they hopscotched to numerous battle sites around Fredericksburg as part of a live Facebook video presentation marking 155 years since the famous and bloody Civil War battle in and around Fredericksburg.

Garry Adelman, director of history and education with the Civil War Trust, was the ringleader of the college football gameday-like live production, guiding the historians through the story of what happened on the fields outside the city in December of 1862 and interacting with viewers at the same time.”  (FLS)

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I maintain a Facebook account for the sole purpose of viewing other FaceBook pages of interest. How fortunate. I viewed the CWT videos on their Facebook page today and was glad I did. The cold and the wind of the last few days added to my appreciation of the videos, even if it did play havoc with the production.  The series of videos started at Chatham Manor on the Stafford side of the Rappahanock River. It moved across the river to highlight the street fighting in the city. At Pelham’s Corner, we learn of the gallant Pelham and his twelve pounder Napoleon. The crew moves to the swale at the base of Marye’s Heights and then on to Slaughter Pen Farm and Prospect Hill before ending at the Sunken Road. A final video is taken at the Fredericksburg Confederate Cemetery to wrap up the event.

Eventually, CWT will put these videos on YouTube where they’ll probably be easier to view. I’ve walked much of the Fredricksburg battlefield, but the guided video tour was enlightening. My advice is to skip the Fox and Friends, MSNBC and CNN madness for a day and watch these videos.

TTG

http://www.fredericksburg.com/news/local/historians-recount-civil-war-battles-in-spotsylvania-fredericksburg-live-on/article_ee75d876-5062-51af-a642-b3df56d4cd27.html

https://www.facebook.com/civilwartrust/

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 14 DECEMBER 2017

CIVIL SOCIETY. If you believed the Western media you'd think that Putin did everything in Russia from writing editorials to planning the state doping program and that whatever feeble civil society existed was the creation of selfless foreign NGOs now suffering "squeezing"and a "devastating" "crackdown". One of the authors sent me the report "Indigenously Funded Russian Civil Society". In this researched and balanced picture of the state of play we learn that 1) foreign NGOs never funded much (a high of 7% in 2009); 2) there's quite a lot of civil society activity; 3) there are quite a few sources of funding from government, businesses and private individuals. Read it: a summary of an important subject that gets mostly propagandistic treatment. Russians are doing things on their own at an accelerating pace.

PRESIDENCY. Putin said he'll run again. This will be his last term – he will be 72 at the end – so, apart from anything else, he will be grooming a successor. He will be elected. And for good reason: you'd vote for more of the same too. Quick summary of today's press conference. English. Russian.

CORRUPTION. According to the Procurator-General, since 2014 corruption has cost Russia about US$2.5 billion; 122,000 corruption-related crimes have been registered, more than 45,000 sentenced, of whom 4500 were law enforcement staff, 400 were politicians and 3000 were officials.

AMERICA-HYSTERICA. The story so far. "Wife of DOJ Deputy Was Fusion GPS Employee, CIA Research Aide, and Applied for HAM Radio License Month After Contracting MI6 Agent Christopher Steele… ". Oh, maybe he and they went a little too far. I think we're getting close to the exposure of the whole rotten conspiracy. "What in the hell is going on with the Department of Justice and the FBI?"

RUSSIA INC. "Expert" predictions of doom fail again; tiny budget deficit and foreign reserves up.

EU-USA. The German Foreign Minister has called for more independence from Washington. In particular he mentioned the damage done by the Congressional sanctions and the fear that abrogating the Iran agreement could be dangerous.

PROBLEMS WITH THE NARRATIVE. The Western Official Narrative is getting harder to spin. Apparently Ukraine is a disappointment in its "fight against corruption" (Washington, IMF). Well, duh: if you replace crooked oligarchs with different crooked oligarchs what would you expect? Meanwhile the BBC says British taxpayers subsidised Daesh. US too. Unintentionally. Of course.

SYRIA. Putin says it's basically over. The BBC gives an entertainingly grudging report, Fox, USA Today, France 24, Haaretz, New Yorker ditto: lots of only helping blood-soaked dictator, killing civilians, chemical attacks, US coalition did the real work. Washington alternately claims credit or says the declaration is premature. French Foreign Minister ludicrously says Russia "misappropriated the victory". Washington says it will stay: not a good idea. Bad losers all: complete defeat.

NATO EXPANSION. NATO made a promise. It broke it. Moscow has no reason to ever believe it.

IOC. Doping! What's that got to do with it? US Senator says we have to stand up to Putin the bully. Thereby giving the whole game away. A very flimsy case – based, in fact, on a single source.

NEW NWO. Putin's trifecta: Assad, Sisi and Erdoğan all on the same day. Trapped in their misinformation bubble most Westerners can't see it, but Moscow is establishing a reputation in the rest of the world for competence and reliability. China ditto. The world is readjusting itself. We approach a tipping point, I think, in which the reality can no longer be hidden. I am stunned by the speed of the decline: only a quarter of a century ago the West was triumphant in everything.

MUST READ. Gilbert Doctorow's presentation of his book Does the United States have a future? He starts: "I will explain why a book about the United States failing on the world stage deals so largely with what is happening in Russia." The neocons and their liberal allies, in their overreach, had to attack Russia "Because it has been the only major power to publicly reject the US global hegemony both in word and in deed." Their attempts, ranging from "colour revolutions" to sanctions to regime change in neighbours to Olympic boycotts, have made Russia stronger, more united and more determined and brought Russia and China into close partnership. The ricocheting failure feeds the crescendo of hysteria that is tearing the US polity apart. And the losing wars go on and on. My readers will have noticed that these Sitreps lately have had more to do with Russia-in-the-world and less with Russia internally: Doctorow explains why Russia is now so very central in the geopolitical rebalancing. That was very much not the case when I began the series twenty years ago.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer

Fake News, Sedition and Public Apathy by Publius Tacitus

Where is the outrage? The evidence is quite clear. It is no longer a matter of informed speculation that during the final year of Barack Obama's Presidency, key leaders of the intelligence and law enforcement bureaucracies conspired and collaborated to destroy Donald Trump. The latest evidence to emerge comes via an email dump of messages sent and received by a senior FBI Agent Peter Strzok. Strzok was not a low level worker bee covering counter intelligence matters. Nope. He occupied a senior position in the world of counter intelligence. This means he was a frequent visitor to CIA Headquarters and regularly dealt with CIA Director John Brennan.

So what? Well, that would be meaningless were it not for the fact that Strzok is a Forrest Gump like character--always present at critical events affecting his candidate, Hillary Clinton, and the object of his bile, Donald Trump. Fox provides a nice little overview:

House Intelligence Committee investigators have long regarded Strzok as a key figure in the chain of events that began when the bureau, in 2016, received the infamous anti-Trump "dossier" and launched a counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in the election that ultimately came to encompass FISA surveillance of a Trump campaign associate.

Strzok briefed the committee on Dec. 5, 2016, sources said. But within months of that session House Intelligence Committee investigators were contacted by an informant suggesting that there was “documentary evidence” that Strzok was purportedly obstructing the House probe into the dossier.

Strzok also oversaw the bureau’s interviews with ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn – who pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators in the Russia probe.

He also was present during the FBI’s July 2016 interview with Hillary Clinton at the close of the email investigation, shortly before then-FBI director James Comey called her actions "extremely careless" without recommending criminal charges.

 Strzok, unlike Gump, was not a passive observer. He was an active participant with the authority and the power to set the course of investigations into both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In the case of Strzok we now know that Lady Justice in Strzok world is not blind. That's why we get the bizarre decision to grant Clinton aides, Abedin and Mills, immunity in testimony without pre-condition. That's why Hillary gets the kid glove treatment from Strzok and his team despite clear evidence that she had mishandled Top Secret material, including Special Access Program (aka SAP) intelligence. And that is why Strzok played a key role in pushing the sordid, politically suspect Trump dossier as sound intel to justify domestic spying on Donald Trump and his team. All done in the name of saving America.

HARPER: WHEN MOORE IS LESS

The defeat of Roy Moore in Tuesday's special election in Alabama, to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, was a welcome development.  But Democrats should not rush to congratulate themselves and draw too many unwarranted conclusions about the implications for the upcoming midterm elections.  

Rarely has a major party put up a Senate candidate who was so widely renounced by top party elected officials.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made clear that he was prepared to find a legal remedy to block Moore from taking his seat if elected. President Donald Trump backed Moore's opponent in the Republican primaries (while Steven Bannon enthusiastically backed Moore) and only came in with a lukewarm endorsement in the final weeks, based more on a pragmatic consideration about the narrow Republican majority in the Senate than any enthusiasm for Moore as a future GOP Senate stalwart.

One takeaway from the Moore loss is that Republicans in Congress will rush even faster to pass an ill-conceived tax reform bill--before the new Democratic Senator from Alabama, Doug Jones, can be sworn in.  A Moore demand for a recount could stall that swearing in by a matter of days or weeks, but in any case, it is now more likely that a strictly partisan tax bill will land on President Trump's desk before the end of the year.

Another takeaway from the narrowing of the GOP Senate majority is that perhaps, after years of intensifying partisan gridlock, it may become clear that members of the GOP and Democratic Party are going to have to begin working together on bipartisan legislation.  That kind of return to comity and bipartisanship would be a welcome development for the nation.  Whether it was Barack Obama's signature Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank bill, or the GOP efforts at ACA repeal, tax and immigration reform, it is usually the case that legislation passed by a strictly party-line vote is bad legislation.  

For one brief moment earlier this year, it appeared that President Trump understood that simple fact and cut his deal with "Chuck and Nancy," to the consternation of the Republican Establishment.

The United States is not a parliamentary system.  We are a democratic republic. President George Washington, in his seminal Farewell Address, not only warned about the dangers of "passionate attachments" in foreign policy.  He warned equally about the divisiveness of factions, regionalism and partisanship.  Some times core principles ring true through the decades and centuries.

Robin Wright admits that the Borg has lost in Syria

 

" ... given the political and military realities, U.S. officials have now concluded that any transition of power would depend on a credible election conducted by the United Nations. And the physical realities in Syria today are just as tough. Vast swaths of cities—homes, businesses, schools, health-care facilities, and infrastructure such as electricity grids and roads—have been destroyed. More than five million of Syria’s roughly twenty-two million people have fled the country, with twice as many more forced from their homes inside Syria. The prospect of holding a free and fair election in Syria—one that also includes the millions of refugees scattered in dozens of countries—will be an unprecedented challenge, diplomats told me. It will also take time for a new and more credible Syrian opposition to emerge.

The Trump Administration says it still wants a political process that holds the prospect of Assad’s departure. But it has concluded that it may take until 2021, when the next election is scheduled, to pull it off. Depending on the outcome of the 2020 U.S. election, Assad could still be in power after Trump leaves office. U.S. officials worry that Assad could win the 2021 Syrian election, one way or the other, and remain in power for years to come."  RW in the New Yorker

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IMO little Robin Wright has long been; mascot, cheerleader and spokesperson for the Borg (foreign policy establishment).  This New Yorker article is IMO a press release from the Borg.

IMO it reflects the Borg's bitter resignation to the reality of its defeat in Syria where it sought to affect its greatest stunt in fostering the dream of a westernized Middle East that would accept the presence and domination of Israel, the Borg's most beloved tool in the region. 

In spite of her acknowledgement of defeat Wright continues to foster unrealities that if actually believed by the Borg reflect an inability to comprehend reality in syria:

1.  She still fosters the mythology of the SAG's unrelenting chemical attacks on the civilian population in spite of the overwhelming evidence that the incidents referred to were opposition IO events carefully staged as ammunition in the Borg fostered propaganda war against the Syrian Government.  She is an intelligent person.  She should take another look at the photographs from Khan Sheikhoun in which municipal officials sat with their feet in a hole in which a Sarin loaded bomb had supposedly exploded.

2.  She refuses to acknowledge the great increase in quality and numbers of the SAA under the tutelage and sponsorship of the Russian and Iranian commitments.  The SAA has done the bulk of the ground fighting in re-conquering the country with the significant assistance of the Hizbullah expeditionary force in Syria, The Quds (Jerusalem) brigade of exiled Palestinian troops, tribal militias, Christian militias, etc., but the SAA has been the main ground hammer which has crushed IS west of the Euphrates.  Does DIA no longer try to explain ground reality to the Borg or will the fantasists not listen?

3. She ignores the last Syrian presidential election in which Assad won handily with the help of many, many refugee votes.  She thinks Assad MIGHT win?

IMO there is a private understanding between DJT and the Russian leadership as to a desired outcome in Syria.  IMO he has not informed the Israelis and their Borg allies of this understanding.  In the "shark" world that he comes from you trust no one, nor should you.  pl  

https://www.newyorker.com/sections/news/trump-to-let-assad-stay-until-2021-as-putin-declares-victory-in-syria

Waiting for the punch in the mouth - TTG

Back in 1987 a reporter interviewed Mike Tyson about his upcoming fight with Evander Holyfield. The reporter asked Mike if he was worried about Evander and his fight plan. Mike famously replied,”Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” That thought came to mind when I read the latest plan articulated by a Pentagon spokesman for our military forces in eastern Syria.

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“WASHINGTON—The Pentagon plans to keep some U.S. forces in Syria indefinitely, even after a war against the Islamic State extremist group formally ends, to take part in what it describes as ongoing counterterrorism operations, officials said. There are approximately 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, along with an unspecified number of contractors supporting them. Last month, the U.S. military withdrew 400 Marines from Syria, which U.S. forces first entered in the fall of 2016.

Officials earlier this week disclosed the plans for an open-ended commitment, known as a “conditions-based” presence. That is the same approach the Trump administration is taking in Afghanistan. “The United States will sustain a conditions-based military presence in Syria to combat the threat of terrorist-led uncertainty, prevent the resurgence of ISIS, and to stabilize liberated areas,” Army Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Wednesday.

U.S. defense officials stressed there would be no large, permanent bases in Syria of the kind the U.S. maintains in places like Germany and South Korea. Instead, troops will be assigned to smaller bases and outposts. In some instances, troops will deploy temporarily from other bases in the region for specific missions, one of the defense officials said. It isn’t clear how many forces would stay in the country.

The Pentagon has said the forces will target parts of Syria that aren’t fully governed by either regime or rebel forces. The military says it has the legal authority to remain there. “Operating under recognized international authorities, the U.S. military will continue to support local partner forces in Syria to stabilize liberated territory,” Col. Manning said.”  (WSJ)

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This “conditions based” presence sounds like a new way of saying we plan on staying in Syria indefinitely just like we plan on staying in Afghanistan and Iraq indefinitely… or at least until we get punched in the mouth. Not much of a plan as far as I'm concerned.

Not long ago CIA Director Pompeo sent a secret letter to the IRGC’s General Soleimani reportedly to warn him not to attack US or Coalition forces in Syria or Iraq. Soleimani did not open the letter. It’s existence was reported by Press TV. Soleimani later sent his own not so secret message to the CJTF-OIR Commander.

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“Brigadier General Haj Qassem Soleimani sent a verbal letter, via Russia, to the head of the US forces commander in Syria, advising him to pull out all US forces to the last soldier “or the doors of hell will open up”.

“My message to the US military command: when the battle against ISIS (the Islamic State group) will end, no American soldier will be tolerated in Syria. I advise you to leave by your own will or you will be forced to it”, said Soleimani to a Russian officer. Soleimani asked the Russian responsible to expose the Iranian intentions towards the US: that they will be considered as forces of occupation if these decide to stay in north-east Syria where Kurds and Arab tribes cohabit together.”  (Elijah J. Magnier)

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To add to the CJTF-OIR Commander’s concerns, the leader of an Iraqi PMU militia, Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, declared that “Trump’s stupid decision” to hand Jerusalem to the Israelis is “a legitimate reason to target American forces.”  In Aleppo the Liwa al-Quds Brigade rallied in protest to Trump’s decision on Jerusalem. As the full reaction to Trump’s decision develops, our forces will end up surrounded by hostiles with no friends in sight. As Magnier surmises, Trump may be setting our troops up for a repeat of the events of 1983 Beirut. Now that would be a punch in the mouth.

TTG

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-remain-in-syria-indefinitely-pentagon-officials-say-1512752450

https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2017/12/09/qassem-soleimanis-letter-to-the-us-leave-syria-or-else-could-al-hasaka-2018-become-beirut-1983/

Jerusalem update - 10 December 2017

The US decision to give Israel the title deed to ALL of Jerusalem without diplomatic recompense will look worse and worse as time passes.  The street demonstrations breaking out in places like Beirut and Amman are just the beginning of the process of condemnation.  Almost every country in Europe has condemned the action.  The Arab League has condemned the action.  This will put the Arab states in the position of having to make basic decisions about their relations with Israel (Egypt and Jordan) and the US.  In the case of Jordan and Egypt large amounts of free money from the US and Saudi Arabia will be at stake but ... Russia, China and many European companies stand in the wings waiting to expand their influence and activity.  At the same time Sultan Tayyip Erdogan has invited the OIC to convene in Turkey to consider the Islamic World's reaction to Trump's gift to Israel.  Trump apparently decided to do this on the basis of the counsel of his Zionist son-in law acting on behalf of Likudniks who IMO want nothing more than an Israel from the sea to the Jordan River that is Arab free except for a suitable population of helots.   It has been interesting this Sunday morning to watch Jake Tapper ask Nikki Haley how it is that this land deal will promote a settlement.  She smiled a secretive smile redolent of private meetings and knowledge.   We have spoken to both sides she said and you will see that we have restored motion to the process.  Tapper pressed her on this and she could only say that Tapper will understand what a great policy change this is.  He was unconvinced.  IMO Trump, urged on by Kushner, believes that the Palestinians, have no recourse and that having been beaten like dogs will accept anything.  pl 

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/239095

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5164435/Turkish-President-Erdogan-calls-Israel-terrorist-state.html

 

DECAMERON: LET THE BUILDING BEGIN -- IN THE USA

 

Bloomberg news: "Trump promised during his campaign to introduce a $1 trillion proposal within his first 100 days in office, then the administration said there’d be a plan by the third quarter. That didn’t happen..."

"The president aims to release a detailed document of principles, rather than a drafted bill, for upgrading roads, bridges, airports and other public works before the Jan. 30 State of the Union address, said the administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details aren’t public. Naysayers should wait until they see the details and how the legislative process unfolds, the official said."

"The White House plan is essentially complete and Trump recently reviewed it, the official said. It calls for allocating at least $200 billion in federal funds over 10 years to spur at least $800 billion in spending by states, localities and the private sector."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-07/trump-is-said-to-ready-infrastructure-plan-for-january-release

The Hill reported, Dec. 5 from the Bipartisan Policy Center's Gov. Ed Rendell: 

"One of the impediments that has to be changed is how we score under our budget act. The European Union has its own infrastructure bank where loans and loan guarantees are doled out to important projects. They charge a very modest interest rate, and they make a small profit. If we were to construct such an infrastructure bank, under current rules, those loans and loan guarantees would be scored as spending even though there would be a track record showing that the overall program never spends money but actually makes a small profit. In some ways, I feel like a lone voice in the wilderness (although I was happy to hear that the “Problem Solvers” congressional caucus may also recommend a federal capital budget), but it’s the only real solution."

"For those who say, “let the states do it,” know that the states are trying. Twenty-five states, both red and blue, have increased their gas tax in the last three years. The states simply do not have enough money to do it alone. For those who say, “let the private sector do it,” they forget that the private sector must have a reasonable rate of return before it invests in anything, and most infrastructure projects cannot give them one. For example, there are 60,000 structurally deficient bridges in America. No more than 100 of them have enough traffic that could generate toll revenues enough to supply that return. This leaves 59,900 that need repair that must be done with government investment."

https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/ed-rendell-this-is-the-only-solution-to-fixing-americas-crumbling-infrastructure/

When POTUS Trump made his Jerusalem announcement, he boasted that other presidents "promised." but POTUS Trump "delivers".  Why did Jerusalem come before infrastructure?  America First?  BHO promised infrastructure in 2008.  Congress allocated nearly $1 trillion in "stimulus"  in 2009.   Potholes were fixed; bridges weren't rebuilt. No infrastructure.  Deja vu? -- Decameron

HARPER: THE TIES THAT BLIND

In 1965, New Left godfather Herbert Marcuse, a founder of the German Marxist Frankfurt School, wrote an essay in a book called A Critique of Pure Tolerance. Marcuse's essay, "Repressive Tolerance," argued that liberal society was dead and that the notion of pure tolerance for all points of view, particularly political points of view, was no longer appropriate, and was actually counter-revolutionary.  According to British scholar Maurice Cranston, in his 1970 book The New Left, Marcuse preached a new doctrine, that became the battle cry for the American New Left: "tolerance of the Left, subversion and revolutionary violence, combined with intolerance of the Right, existing institutions of civil society and of any opposition to socialism."

While most of the more notorious radical groups of the 1960s and 70s New Left like the Weathermen, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the Black Panther Party, ultimately faded from the political landscape in the post-Vietnam War period, the ideology preached by the likes of Herbert Marcuse and other Frankfurt School revisionist Marxists, lived on in the minds of many of the Vietnam era radical activists. It spread to their off-springs as well, through the educational system, the mass media and other cultural institutions. 

Many of the New Leftists of the 1960s and 70s and their children are the liberal Democrats of today. While their impulse to violence may have been tamed by age, the core ideology of Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Eric Fromm, Max Horkheimer and Hannah Arendt (all first generation Frankfurt School members who migrated to the United States and took up important academic posts) has remained a powerful influence on the thinking of many such liberals.  And the university graduates of the late 1960s and 70s did succeed in a "march through the institutions" that has impacted significantly on the media, the national culture and the political system.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the mainstream media's unending barrage of attacks on President Donald Trump, whose very election as President has been declared to be illegitimate, despite the fact that no one challenges the actual vote count or the results of the Electoral College.  The crazy notion that Vladimir Putin stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton by spending a few hundred thousand dollars on twitter and Facebook ads is beyond preposterous.  A large portion of Americans, fed up with the liberal tyranny of both the Bush-Cheney neoconservatives and the Obama-Clinton humanitarian interventionists, voted for a high-risk change. And they got it, for better or worse.

There are many things about the President that are legitimate targets of criticism, and my point here is not to defend Donald Trump or those who voted him into office.  My point is that the urban liberal establishment, led by the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC, has gone all-in with Marcuse's notion that the political system can and must be upended in order to assure the victory of a radical New Leftist view of the world that aims to replace our democratic republican system of government and elections with a quasi-dictatorship of political correctness (by whose standard?) that threatens to tear the country apart. 

Reread the synopsis of the Marcuse essay by Maurice Cranston, or if you have a strong stomach, read the entire Marcuse essay, widely available on the internet.  And hold it up to the light of today's warped political media circus and see if you don't see the same echoes of intolerance and Leftist supremacy that I do.  Comments are urged. 

Watergate Deja Vu and Fake News by Publius Tacitus

If you have HBO I encourage you to carve out some time to watch their latest documentary on the life and times of former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. The most important take away from the film is how different the so-called Russian collusion scandal is from Watergate, which brought down Richard Nixon. Yet, in watching this documentary you can easily grasp the desperate fantasy of the Trump-haters who are hoping for a repeat of a President being humiliated and forced from office.

The other major event in Ben Bradlee's life that provides more insight into the current Trump Derangement Syndrome that has seized most of the media is the Janet Cooke scandal. Cooke, an African-American woman hired by Bradley, became infamous for fabricating a story about an 8 year old inner city heroin addict. Her editors included Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee. Their desire for the story to be true blinded them to the bald lies of Cooke. She won a Pulitzer for her story, but it fell on Bradlee to inform the Pulizer committee that the award could not be accepted. This was a major stain on his legacy.

That sure sounds a lot like the current state of the media. We have witnessed this type of hysteria ourselves in just the last two days. First there was the Brian Ross debacle, which entailed Ross peddling the lie that Trump ordered Flynn to contact the Russians. That "fake news" elicited an emotional orgasm from Joy Behar on The View. She was on the verge of writhing on the floor as she prematurely celebrated what she thought would seal the impeachment of Donald Trump. Whoops. Ross had to retract that story.

 

More on Kushner and company.

First thing to understand is Trump's "Peace Initiative" is a sham. The only thing he is trying to do is to keep the region from exploding. He is under pressure from the Arab countries to do something to make life better for the Palestinians - not necessarily to get them their own state. The Trump administration does not want protests erupting in Arab states because the Israelis do something dumb to the Palestinians. Between Jason Greenblatt, David Friedman and Kushner the information Trump gets on Israel is very heavily skewed. Friedman especially but also Greenblatt to a lesser degree strongly favor the concept of the Greater Israel. While not advocating a complete return of the Kingdom of David, they strongly believe parts of Jordan, Lebanon, the Sinai and Syria BELONG to Israel as G-d promised. I've attended numerous Jewish events in New York City where Friedman and Greenblatt have spoken and they do not hide in any way their dreams for Israel. Israel is getting stronger by the day compared with it's rivals in the region. This strength eliminates the need for any concessions to the Palestinians. For the foreseeable future there will be no Palestinian state, no citizenship for West Bank Palestinians etc. The U.S. declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel even though our embassy is in Tel Aviv sounds like a Trump engineered compromise that will mean absolutely nothing to further a peace agreement. For Israel when they say Jerusalem they mean the territory right up to the border of Ramallah and including Maale Adumim whose municipal boundaries extend all the way to Hebron - a huge chunk of the West Bank. Trump would have pissed off the Palestinians far less if he had just said he was moving the embassy to West Jerusalem. This comment “If you want to look for a silver lining, this administration has been accumulating pro-Israeli credentials,” the former Israeli official said. “When they table a deal, it will be very hard for this [Netanyahu] administration to say no.” Whoever made this comment really will not admit how Israel negotiates. They will graciously say thank you when they get concessions but with their next breath will ask " how about this and that". They will continue to collect concessions until they get 100% of what they want.  jdledell

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This was a draft comment from jdledell.  He has great personal knowledge of the subject.  pl

Is Kushner next?

 

"Jared Kushner failed to disclose his role as a co-director of the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation from 2006 to 2015, a time when the group funded an Israeli settlement considered to be illegal under international law, on financial records he filed with the Office of Government Ethics earlier this year.

The latest development follows reports on Friday indicating the White House senior adviser attempted to sway a United Nations Security Council vote against an anti-settlement resolution passed just before Donald Trump took office, which condemned the structure of West Bank settlements. The failure to disclose his role in the foundation—at a time when he was being tasked with serving as the president’s Middle East peace envoy—follows a pattern of egregious omissions that would bar any other official from continuing to serve in the West Wing, experts and officials told Newsweek."  newsweek

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Syria is quiescent at the moment, North Korea hangs in the balance as a possible scenario for a major war.  Some people would like to steer me away from the subject of the Mueller investigation but the story is far too interesting for me to accept that.

I would think that Flynn's guilty plea is about developing leverage with regard to Kushner's oddness.

-  He did a poor job of filling out security clearance forms.  He did that repeatedly. Too good to obey the law?  I have filled out the same tedious forms many times and I can understand his reluctance, but, people can be hired to interview you and fill them out for you.

-  He thinks that he and his perfect group of experts (identities?) can bring the Palestinians and Israelis to an agreement over what I long ago came to see as a problem without a solution.  The difficulty is that the two groups' deeply felt desires and aims are mutually exclusive and not really subject to compromise.  The truth is that they both want ALL of the land between the sea and the Jordan River and in Israel's case a good many of them want a piece of Jordan as well.  Kushner will learn that both Bibi and the Palestinians are lying to him about their willingness to compromise.  But, his blindness to that is not a crime.  It is simply the result of his conceit and actual ignorance of these people.

-  IMO he is an agent of the Israeli state or the Jewish Agency who is unregistered under FARA.

-  It now appears that Kushner sent Flynn (perhaps the dumbest Irishman in the world - I am part Irish) to seek in the president elect's name Russian government cooperation in blocking a resolution at the UN that was unfavorable to Israel.  Did Trump know that Flynn was so dispatched or did Kushner take it upon himself to use his father in law's influence to send Flynn on this errand on behalf of a foreign state?  Is this a crime?  I know not as yet.  pl 

http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-disclosure-form-west-bank-settlements-israel-white-house-729290

Open Thread - 3 December 2017

pl

HR... Is the corner office worth it? Really?

"China should take unilateral action to cut off North Korean oil imports, McMaster said, adding, "you can't shoot a missile without fuel." He said that both he and Trump felt that a 100% oil embargo would "be appropriate at this point."

But the national security adviser said Kim was extremely unlikely to change his behavior "without some significant new actions in the form of much more severe sanctions" and "complete enforcement of the sanctions that are in place."

On military options, McMaster acknowledged that given North Korea's fielding of conventional artillery and rockets aimed at Seoul, South Korea, "there's no military course of action that comes without risk." But he said that Pyongyang's actions had made America's alliances with Japan and South Korea "stronger than ever.""  CNN

 

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"Making a difference ..." 

 

Well, maybe he won't shop you like Flynn and the other guys. ..   Maybe.  pl

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/02/politics/mcmaster-potential-war-north-korea/index.html

A roadster in Mars orbit?

 

"SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk tweeted Friday that his red Tesla Roadster will head for deep space on the maiden flight of the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket as soon as next month, and do it to the tune of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

But it won’t make the trip on battery power.

SpaceX’s Falcon rockets burn hydrocarbons for fuel, consuming a grade of highly refined kerosene called RP-1. The rockets’ Merlin engines burn the RP-1 kerosene mixed with super-cold liquid oxygen.

Musk tweeted Friday night that the Falcon Heavy’s first test flight, scheduled to blast off from Florida’s Space Coast next month, will have his midnight cherry Tesla Roadster on-board.

The Falcon Heavy’s “payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity,” Musk tweeted. “Destination is Mars orbit.”

The repurposed car “will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on ascent,” he wrote.

Musk’s Twitter followers weren’t sure whether to take him seriously."  spaceflight now

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OK.  Perhaps this is a joke, or perhaps it is not.  If it is a joke, I like it.  There is too little humor in the world these days.  pl  

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/12/02/spacex-will-try-to-launch-elon-musks-tesla-roadster-on-new-heavy-lift-rocket/

Mueller Charges Against Flynn Exonerate Trump of Russian Collusion by Publius Tacitus

The news of Mike Flynn's plea agreement with special prosecutor Robert Mueller was trumpeted on the media as if Flynn had admitted to killing Kennedy or had unprotected sex with Vladimir Putin. But once I took time to read the actual agreement I realized, not surprisingly, the the media lynch mob was blinded by hatred and unwilling to think objectively or fairly about the matter. The evidence exonerates Donald Trump of  having colluded with the Russians but does expose Michael Flynn as a man of terrible judgment when it comes to talking to the FBI. There was nothing that Flynn did with the Russians that was wrong or improper. 

Here are the key details for you to judge for yourself:

STATEMENT OF THE OFFENSE (link)

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11, the United States of America and the defendant, MICHAEL T. FLYNN, stipulate and agree that the following facts are true and accurate. These facts do not constitute all of the facts known to the parties concerning the charged offense; they are being submitted to demonstrate that sufficient facts exist that the defendant committed the offense to which he is pleading guilty.

1.    The defendant, MICHAEL T. FLYNN, who served as a surrogate and national security advisor for the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Campaign"), as a senior member of President-Elect Trump's Transition Team ("Presidential Transition Team"), and as the National Security Advisor to President Trump, made materially false statements and omissions during an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") on January 24, 2017, in Washington, D.C. At the time of the interview, the FBI had an open investigation into the Government of Russia's ("Russia") efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Campaign and Russia, and whether there was any coordination between the Campaign and Russia's efforts.

2.    FLYNN's false statements and omissions impeded and otherwise had a material impact on the FBI's ongoing investigation into the existence of any links or coordination between individuals associated with the Campaign and Russia's efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

False Statements Regarding FLYNN's Request to the Russian Ambassador that Russia Refrain from Escalating the Situation in Response to U.S. Sanctions against Russia

 

How Do Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles Work? - Space.com

 

"An ICBM, as its name implies, can travel from one continent to another. Once launched, ICBMs travel in a parabola, much like a baseball flying through the air. Just like a baseball, an ICBM can be released at any angle. But in North Korea's case, the ICBMs are being launched "almost straight up," Coyle told Live Science. "They fly straight up against the force of gravity and come down some distance from North Korea … If they're long-range, [the North Koreans] usually drop them on the other side of Japan, which, of course, makes Japan very nervous."

It's important to note that North Korea wouldn't aim its ICBMs straight up if it wanted to launch an actual attack. "They'd launch toward their target, which might be thousands of miles away," Coyle said. That means that even though the Hwasong-15, the latest ICBM, traveled about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) from its launch site, it could travel much farther — likely more than 8,100 miles (13,000 km) from its launch site if it had a standard trajectory, according to a Nov. 28 blog written by missile expert David Wright.

However, it's challenging to know how far a battle-ready North Korean ICBM would fly, as its "practice" ICBM likely had a light payload or none at all. Such a payload — like a nuclear warhead — would weigh down the ICBM and limit the distance it could travel, Coyle said."   Space.com

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 Achievement of a miniaturized nuclear warhead for this beast is just a matter of time and effort.  NoKo progress so far exceeds expectations.  Why should it not continue to do so?  For a literally wormy lot, they have an impressive ability to build these things.  I remember my father (a Korean War veteran at age 50) telling me that Korean farmers used human feces to fertilize their fields and that as a result the population was rotten with parasites. (parental reference).

My point is that NoKo will achieve what amounts to a first strike capability with their first and last ICBM to be launched at the US. Would we be lucky and have the thing hit Toronto rather than NY City?  Who knows?  IMO it would be the luck of the draw given the probable CEP of a NoKo ballistic missile.

How big a warhead would the thing be armed with?  Would it function after re-entry?  Who knows?

Ballistic missiles are very different weapons from the usual run of destructive instruments.  I was in Baghdad during the harb al-mudun (war of the cities) when Iran and Iraq were pummeling each other with SCUDS.  (self glorifying reference) There was little warning.  Occasionally a few seconds of radar driven siren, but usually there would be ordinary city noise followed by a very loud noise and a building would be gone.  I made it a habit to stay on the middle floors of hotels to avoid the consequences of a rooftop hit or a ground burst next to the hotel.  pl  

https://www.space.com/38954-how-do-intercontinental-ballistic-missiles-work.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwasong-15