Sic Semper Tyrannis

The Real Star of the Debates

"Marianne Williamson warned her fellow 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to stop focusing on the details of policies and put more effort into defeating the “dark psychic force” that is President Trump.

“This is part of the dark underbelly of American society, the racism, the bigotry, and the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight. If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days,” she said in the second Democratic debate Tuesday night.

Williamson’s remark came as she was commenting on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan."  Washington Examiner

--------------

I love this woman.

SWMBO commented that she appears to have been brought forward by the Hollywood branch of the Democratic Party, You know, the Robert De Niro wing. 

She is a New Age other worldly motivational speaker and writer and she is quite good looking as well.  What more could you ask for in a Democratic Party candidate for president?

Well, there are the two arm waving socialist zealots, Bernie and Warren.  Boring, Neither of them seems to have any grasp of classical economics.  You know, the supply and demand stuff that we all took courses about as undergraduates.   

The rest are just meat still on the hoof.

I hope the Democrats keep her in the game for some time.  I enjoy looking at her.

Tonight should be even more fun.  More on this tomorrow.  pl 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/marianne-williamson-trump-emboldening-a-dark-psychic-force-in-america

"Antifa" (US) is a domestic subversive and terrorist movement, but there is no present way to outlaw them..

"The principal feature of antifa groups is their use of direct action,^[12] with conflicts occurring both online and in real life.^[13] They engage in varied protest tactics, which include digital activism, property damage, physical violence, and harassment against those whom they identify as fascist, racist, or on the far-right.^[18]

Activists involved in the movement tend to be anti-capitalists^[19] and subscribe to a range of ideologies, typically on the left. They include anarchists, socialists and communists along with some liberals and social democrats.^[26] Their stated focus is on fighting far-right and white supremacist ideologies directly, rather than through electoral means.    Wiki on Antifa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)

***********

I spent time this AM seeking the legal authorities needed to outlaw Antifa as the violent, seditious pastiche of anti-American lefty groups that it is.

I found none.  The US AG used to have a list of subversive Groups;  The Communist Party, Nazi Party, The Black Dragon Society, The Knights of the White Camellia, etc.  This was a useful list.  It could be used to exclude Dragoneers, etc. from federal employment, personnel security clearances for federal information and it made surveillance of such people by the FBI automatically authorized.

But, alas, Nixon abolished the list.  Try to come to terms with that, lefties.

At present there does not seem to be a suitable tool in the equipment of DHS or the FBI,

That, actually, is a good thing.  Some future administration would love to shut down opposition groups if it had the legal tools.

Go meet them in the streets!  Go greet them en masse. They think they will like that.  See if they do pl

"China-Russia air patrol shows Japan and South Korea in disarray" Frank Ching

"China and Russia conducted their first-ever joint air patrol last week by sending bombers along the South Korean coast, intruding into its air defense identification zone as well as that of Japan, with Seoul charging that a Russian warplane had violated Korean airspace – the first such incursion since the Korean War. Japan, too, sent its jets aloft to intercept the Russian aircraft.

Russia’s defense ministry issued a statement denying any violation of airspace, saying the flights had taken place “over a pre-planned route.” China’s foreign ministry pointed out that the airspace in an air defense identification zone is “not territorial airspace and countries enjoy the freedom of overflight under international law.”

China’s defense ministry spokesman, Wu Qian, explained that the purpose of the joint patrol “is aimed at deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership of China and Russia, and boosting the strategy coordination and joint combat ability of the two nations.” He said it did not target “any third nation.”

Yet, the two countries chose to patrol the sensitive airspace along the Korean coast, above waters linking Korea and Japan. They must have known that there would be a reaction to such an exercise.

The Russian intrusion into airspace claimed by both South Korea and Japan triggered off several hundred rounds of warning shots fired by Korean jets toward the Russian A-50 airborne warning and control plane."  Frank Ching in ejininsight.com

------------

This is a really bad thing and IMO it is altogether the result of the hyper-aggressiveness displayed by the US toward Russia since the fall of the USSR.  We had the option then of offering a welcoming hand to Russia as it emerged from the nightmare of communist rule, but we did not extend such a hand.  Instead, our civilian and military policy elites insisted that Russia was necessarily an enemy for the US and was still the communist USSR in disguise.

We (the US) drove the eastern boundary of NATO absurdly far into Russia's "comfort zone," and actively recruited the former member countries of the Warsaw Pact into NATO.  We have also recruited many former Union Republics of the USSR into a specifically ant-Russian military alliance.

We are now surprised that a weakened Russia, spurned by us, makes common cause with China?  What else were the Russians supposed to do?  Fall on their knees before us and beg our pardon for existing?

Neocon folly and a lack of any sort of policy thoughtfulness have brought us to this..  pl

http://www.ejinsight.com/20190729-china-russia-air-patrol-shows-japan-and-south-korea-in-disarray/

Who knew that eating garlic was haram, or maybe just discouraged in Islam? Not me.

"A shooting at the Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California injured 15 people and killed 3 more, bringing a horrific end to the popular annual event attended by thousands.

A 6-year-old boy was one among those killed, his father said.

“My son had his whole life to live and he was only 6,” the father of Stephen Romero told NBC Bay Area. “That’s all I can say.”

The wounded were taken to multiple hospitals, and their conditions ranged from fair to critical, with some in surgery Sunday night. At least five were treated and released.

Gilroy police said at a press conference that officers engaged the shooter in less than a minute, though the scene was still considered active and nearby areas were kept on lockdown into the night."  usatoday

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/29/gilroy-garlic-festival-shooting-what-we-know/1854727001/

*********

‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb (may Allah be pleased with him) is reported to have delivered a Friday sermon. In it he said: “O people, you eat two plants that I only find offensive: onion and garlic. I saw the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) and if he detected their odor on a man in the mosque, he would order [the man] to be taken out to Al-Baqī‘. So anyone who [wants to] eat them, let them eliminate [their odor] by cooking.''

Explanation

‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) told those who were attending the Friday sermon that they “ate two offensive plants: onion and garlic”. Arabs use the word ''offensive” for objectionable and reprehensible words, actions, possessions, food, or people. This is established in a Hadīth that Jābir (may Allah be pleased with him) reported from the Prophet (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) who said: “Anyone who eats from this offensive tree let them not come close to our mosque.” [Muslim] “…onion and garlic”: Everything that has an offensive odor, such as radish, leeks, tobacco, and cigarettes are included here. Onions and garlic are mentioned in particular because they are eaten often. Leeks are stipulated in a Hadīth reported by Jābir ibn ‘Abdullāh (may Allah be pleased with him) and narrated by Muslim. So if anyone smelled of onion or garlic in the mosque, they would be ordered to be taken out as far as Al-Baqī‘, because it offends not only people but also the angels, as was related in an authentic Hadīth. In Ibn Mājah, we read: ''At the time of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) if a foul odor was detected on a man, I would see him seized by the arm and taken out to Al-Baqī‘.” “So anyone who [wants to] eat them, let them eliminate [their odor] by cooking.” This is because cooking eliminated the odor and if the odor is eliminated, one may enter the mosque because the reason for the prohibition no longer exists. Cooking onion and garlic thoroughly is required if someone wishes to enter the mosque for prayer or any other purpose. If it is not time for prayer, one may eat them raw. The command to cook them is meant to prevent offending others.  hadeethenc.com

-------------

Well pilgrims,  SWMBO and I visited the fair town of Gilroy, California many years ago whilst studying Arabic at the Defense Language Institute at Monterrey, California.  She has always been diligent in researching and directing our visitations throughout regions where we have lived.  Gilroy bills itself as the garlic growing capital of the universe, although I think there are parts of Syria which could have contested the title before the outbreak of civil war.  Driving through little towns in central Syria it was interesting to see many shops and homes adorned with hanging bundles of white garlic. 

I, personally, love the "stinking rose."  For me, a dish without garlic is a disappointment.  There are exceptions. Strawberry shortcake may be one.  Garlic is widely used in Lebanese and Syrian cooking.  There is a lovely white dipping sauce eaten in Lebanon that reeks of garlic. I love it and always ask for more of this to be brought to the table.

But, alas, there ARE several hadiiths in different "books" (collections) of hadiths that strongly express opposition to eating raw garlic and/or onions.  Evidently the Prophet did not like the smell of either and told the originator of these various hadiths that if people ate either they should stay away from the mosque lest the angels themselves be offended by the odor.  Well, someone recounted that he had said that.  On the other hand, his favorite wife, Aisha let it be known that the last meal He ate had garlic in it. 

For those uninformed or generally uninterested Islam generally considers both Qur'an, (the uncreated literal thought of God transmitted to the Prophet), and hadith, (stories supposedly recounting the utterance and practice of the Prophet and early community [Umma]) to be scriptural bases of all else in the faith, jurisprudence, etc.)  There are, of course a wide variety of collections of hadith accepted as valid by differed consensus (ijma') groups.  And, as someone will remind me, the Ibadhis do not think the Qur'an to be "uncreated."

In any event it seems odd that this rifle toting scoundrel cut his way through a security fence to avoid the guards and police. Once inside the perimeter he opened fire at random targets with some sort of semi-auto rifle firing in bursts of three or four rounds that sound like a "bump stock." Or not. 

The police killed him quickly but as of this writing he remains unidentified.  It will be interesting to find out what this Garlic Avenger had in what passed for his mind.  pl

https://hadeethenc.com/en/browse/hadith/8953

Should Washington's memory not be expunged? (irony)

There is a public high school (secondary school) in San Francisco that is named for George Washington.  A stairway therein features  a large and IMO rather poorly painted mural executed by a Soviet Communist artist during the WPA period of FDR's attempt to spend the US out of the Great Depression.  It is reminiscent of Orozco or Diego Rivera in a sadly inferior way.  It focuses on the real or imagined defects of Washington's character and life.  Some of it is nonsense.  An example is the bit that shows Washington sending colonials to the West to settle the land over the bodies of slain aboriginals.  Someone provide me a citation for G. Washington having created a program for that.  The Left in San Francisco are divided over the issue of eradicating the mural.  A white woman with a child of color screamed in a meeting at those who opposed her when she said that her child is traumatized by seeing the mural with its reminders of cruelty (irony) to people of color.  Others want the mural to remain visible as a reminder of America's Original Sin (irony).  Willy Brown, the former African American (AA) mayor of San Francisco is one of those.  Brown himself is ironic in his insistence on his life of political oppression.

Pilgrims, Washington owned slaves.  Slavery was a bad thing, much worse than living in Africa would have been (irony).  Does this not make Washington a bad man (irony)?

If you peruse the lists below you will see that the evil (irony) descendants of the evil men (irony) who created the US named a multitude of places for the evil (irony) George Washington.

And then sadly, so many people of color bear the surname of the evil (irony) Washington.  Actually I can recall having met only one White (evil) person with the surname Washington.  But, sadly, senility (evil) may account for that. 

Surely the memory of this evil (irony) man should be erased from any mention other than a list of history's villains (irony)

We should begin with the names of the state of Washington and the District of Columbia.  Suitable names could be devised from among the stars in the pantheon of heroes revered by the Left.  We could then proceed to eradicate the tyrant's (irony) name from American memory wherever it rears its unlovely head.  pl

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_(name)

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

Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson

 

The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that this effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama. 

As I have written previously, the claim that Russia tried to hijack our election is a damn lie. But you do not have to take my word for it. Just listen to Barack Obama speaking in October 2016 in response to Donald Trump's expressed concerns about election meddling:

"There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they are so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this time," the president said to the future president in October 2016.

"Democracy survives because we recognize that there is something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making sure the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself. Becasue Democracy works by consent, not by force," Obama said.

"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place. It is unprecedented. It happens to be based on no fact. Every expert regardless of political party... who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found. Keep in mind elections are run by state and local officials."

It is important to remember what had transpired in the Trump/Russia collusion case by this point. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page:

Open Thread 26 July 2019

pl

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 25 JULY 2019 by Patrick Armstrong

STALIN. The Presidential Council on Civil Society and Human Rights condemns efforts to erect statues to Stalin: "civil servants of all levels should be clearly aware of the inadmissibility of the use of state or municipal land and buildings for this purpose. Such actions contradict not only morality, respect for our departed, innocently injured ancestors, but also official state policy". Ah well, mere facts should never get in the way of shrieking from the usual sources: (Guardian in July; WaPo in June).

DEMOS IN MOSCOW. There have been substantial protests in Moscow over the disqualification of opposition candidates for council elections. (Video). Candidates are required to get signatures from voters – these are easily faked and equally easily declared fake. If the establishment is trying to nobble Navalniy & Co, it's wasting its time and doing itself a disservice: they have little support and it's better to let them run. Moscow Times gets excited: no, it's not a "pre-revolutionary situation".

RUSSIA/CHINA. Joint Russia-China air patrol. The first of many, no doubt. The NYT (yesterday's news today) clutches its pearls. "That means President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia and peel it away from China. But his approach has been ham-handed and at times even counter to American interests and values." Now that's chutzpah!

AMERICA-HYSTERICA. We're not saying that they started the Great Hawaiian Pizza War, but them pesky Rooskies sure would like to. Satire is impossible.

NEW NWO. JP Morgan asks: "Is the dollar's 'exorbitant privilege' coming to an end?"

EUROPEANS ARE REVOLTING. Ankara defied Washington, the S-400s arrived, Washington cancelled its participation in the F-35 program. Why did Ankara insist? I believe the principal reason is insurance against becoming Washington's former friend: much more dangerous than being its enemy.

MH17. I have always thought the JIT "investigation" was rotten – see this (port engine intake – BIG clue as to direction of missile). We now have a documentary that reiterates Malaysia was excluded, a secret mission to get the black box first, the intercepts are fakes, more people report seeing fighter planes, the radars were not down for repair. But including Ukraine in the JIT and excluding Malaysia were enough clues that the investigation would be a fix. I'm sceptical that it was a BUK (too few fragments); I think the fighter plane sighting reports should be looked at. I think the Ukrainian side shot it down but I don't know whether by accident (wouldn't be the first time) or whether there was government involvement (but those faked up intercepts were out pretty quickly, weren't they?) Helmer discusses; the documentary.

UKRAINE 1. Not only was Poroshenko beaten by Anybody at All but the latter's instant support party won a majority on Sunday. In second place an eastern party; the Galicians, nazis and former Big Wheels were left in the dust. The only conclusion is that the voters of Ukraine are sick and tired of the last five years; the West's project in Ukraine has failed. And for the second time: Yushchenko was also scornfully rejected. Now what? The so-called NGOs (Washington puppets all) have given President Zelensky "red lines" – an obvious threat that there will be another "spontaneous" revolt if he tries to make peace and have a normal relationship with Russia. He is in office, without a tail and with only the support of the population and how many guns do they have? Three reasons for cautious optimism 1) Washington allowed the elections to happen without interfering 2) Trump shows little interest in Ukraine 3) the EU has its own problems. So maybe... if Zelensky does want to change course, if he moves quickly and decisively, if he can get backing from some power agency, if the West keeps out, if the rebels in the east want to be in some new Ukraine, if the nazis hold off... Probably too many ifs; Ukraine's nightmare is not over. I still think the end state will be a rump Ukraine with the other bits eaten by its neighbours. Post 1991 Ukraine has been pretty miserable for its unfortunate inhabitants; who really wants a re-do?

UKRAINE 2. A couple of weeks ago Zelensky proposed a bill to remove high-ranking officials who held their posts during the Poroshenko period – Poroshenko having lustrated the Yanukovych period. In short, he's proposing that nobody who's held high office in Ukraine before can hold it again. Which is a very interesting proposal indeed; even a reasonable one given their dismal performance. He now has the parliamentary majority to make it law. But again, there are questions: nobody knows who the newly elected members of his party really are and there are the suspicions that he's just Kolomoisky's creature and all that has happened is that a new batch of robbers has arrived in Kiev to steal what's left. I hate to fall back on the feeble analyst's conclusion but time will tell.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer

"much more water on the moon than thought " phys.org

"Back in 2009, as part of the LCROSS mission, researchers allowed an empty stage of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) launch vehicle to crash into the floor of a crater close to the moon's south pole. Testing of the debris cloud by sensors aboard the Shepherding Spacecraft, showed evidence of water and ice, along with other material.

The researchers with this new effort believed it was likely that there was more ice on the moon than was shown during the LCROSS impact study—likely existing in shadowed craters similar to those that had been seen on Mercury. To find out, they carried out a parallel crater study, similar to the one they had conducted for Mercury. In this case, they studied 12,000 craters on the moon using data from the LRO. They report that they found "a similar morphological trend" in craters on the south side of the Moon, near the pole. They suggest this indicates that such craters likely harbor thick ice deposits along with other materials similar to those that are believed to exist on Mercury. The researchers suggest that if this is indeed the case, then there could be up to 100 million metric tons of ice in such craters, which they note is double the amount of previous estimates based on data from the LCROSS impact study. The researchers conclude by suggesting that future Moon missions include the use of probes that can be used to study the shaded craters to confirm their suspicions."  phys.org

-----------------

This is a biggy.  Water is the stuff of life and the presence of this much water on the surface of the moon along with the presence of natural tunnels and caves will make it much easier to establish outposts on the moon.

Why do it?  Think mining of rare earths and other precious materials.  pl

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-moon-thought.html

Surely Puerto Rico, pearl of the Carribean should be free!

Puerto Rico's acquisition by the US in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War was a trivial incident in an era of ill considered American imperialism.  Read Tuchman's "The Proud Tower" to inform yourself on that.  The island is of no value to the US.  We once had a couple of valuable military bases there (Ramey AFB and Roosevelt Roads Naval Station) but these are long gone.  Tourism is the island's primary industry.  The inhabitants of the island pay no federal income taxes for PR derived income.  The island's elected government is so corrupt that it is a parody of places like the mythical island country of Parador.  The public internal debt is nearly 100 billion dollars and the morass of corruption has absorbed a great deal of the hurricane relief that the US has spent there recently.  Puerto Ricans are Americans?  Look at the pictures of the recent street scenes.  If you do, you will see more Gay Pride flags than you will see the Stars and Stripes.  The US should cut the island loose.  Present Puerto Rican Americans could be given the choice of the two separated citizenships.  Puerto Rico's Olympic team awaits its destiny under the flag of an independent country.  Viva Puerto Rico libre!  pl

"Elder Care" should have intervened to protect Mueller

"Much as I hate to say it, this morning’s hearing was a disaster. Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it. The effort to save democracy and the rule of law from this lawless president has been set back, not advanced."  Lawrence Tribe

----------------

I am 79.  Mueller is 75.  I recognize the symptoms of degenerative old age.  He looked very much today like someone who was too old to have accepted the role of Special Counsel in the blackhearted campaign to unseat Trump and restore the momentum of the globalist unifying revolution.  He was not at all in command of the document, his document, a document that will be his major legacy in history.  He fumbled around endlessly and had to be told over and over again where to look in his own report for materials referred to by questioners.  Particularly sad was his exchange with a Democrat congresswoman who had been a career policeman and chief of police in Orlando Florida.  She tried repeatedly to lead him to the paragraph she wanted to talk about and she just could not manage it. 

Trump is a boorish, rude, specimen typical of New York commerce and its leadership and perhaps of the city itself, but I agree with his economic and immigration policies and will continue to do so unless he caves in to his enemies in these matters.  In the ME he has shown himself to be the servant of Israeli imperialism and the anti-shia hatreds of the murderous Gulf Arabs.  And then, of course, there is the matter of his neocon  helpmates.

Nevertheless, the Democrats tried once again today to make something out of very little.  The American electorate is watching.  pl

https://www.foxnews.com/media/anti-trump-harvard-law-prof-laurence-tribe-calls-mueller-hearing-disaster-that-helped-the-president

The Robert Mueller's Impending Nothingburger by Larry C Johnson

Imagine you are a horny 15 year old boy and you have been promised sex with an incredible Hollywood talent. Driven by surging hormones your anticipation and excitement are off the scale. You are taken to the place where the tryst will happen. And you open the door. Waiting of you is Barney Fife.

That sort of sums up what is likely to happen tomorrow when Robert Mueller testifies before the House Judiciary and the House Intelligence committees. I have shut off almost all cable news. I cannot stomach the relentless hype about tomorrow's supposed "big day."

Any doubt I had about what Mueller might say was removed last night when I read the letter the Department of Justice sent in response to a missive from Mueller. This is an important point that has been largely overlooked by most of the so-called reporting. What I heard initially on both radio and TV was that DOJ sent Mueller "orders" governing what he could and could not say. The "reports" pushed the implication that DOJ was acting unilaterally to pre-empt Mueller.

But that is not what the letter says. Mueller asked for guidance. The DOJ letter from Assistant Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer makes this clear:

I write in response to your July 10, 2019 letter concerning the testimonial subpoenas you received from the House Judiciary Committee (HJ C) and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). Your letter requests that the Department provide you with guidance concerning privilege or other legal bars applicable to potential testimony in connection with those subpoenas.

What does the letter mean?  Mueller will stick strictly to what his report concludes and, when pressed to go outside of that, will blame DOJ guidelines for preventing him from adding anything else to his testimony. 

If Mueller says anything else he then exposes his initial report as a fraud. He already concluded, there was no collusion between the Trump team and the Russians. He will not do a 180 tomorrow and say there was. 

Mueller did not indict on obstruction of justice. Mueller and Barr are both on the record that the decision was NOT repeat NOT because of the DOJ guideline against indicting a sitting President. I am sure you have heard several morons on TV state otherwise, but the fact on this point is clear. Notwithstanding those guidelines Mueller did not indict.

So what can you expect tomorrow? Imagine Barney Fife, an 85 year old man (yes, I know, he's dead) naked. That will be more exciting than watching Robert Mueller say nothing for three hours.

"Hong Kong: The Crisis Deepens" by Frank Ching

"The Hong Kong administration is facing a deepening governance crisis as mass protests continue over the extradition issue and violence escalates. While the bill allowing extradition to mainland China has been suspended, the government refuses to withdraw it and now, protesters have added to their demands, such as a commission of inquiry to look into mounting clashes between police and protesters. 

The government has shown an inability even to discharge routine, yet highly symbolic, functions with an international impact. Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng, who was billed as the guest of honor at the celebration of Canada’s national day, failed to show up for the event. She did not notify Jeff Nankivell, Canada’s consul general, of her inability to attend until after the reception had begun.

Appearances at such diplomatic events are rotated among the top four officials in Hong Kong: the Chief Executive, the Chief Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the Secretary for Justice.

That day, June 27, the Department of Justice was literally under siege, with hundreds of protesters encamped outside urging the secretary not to prosecute those who had been arrested since June 9, when a million people took to the streets to oppose the extradition bill, which had been initiated by Chief Executive Carrie Lam. Ms. Cheng, who had strongly supported the bill, declined to meet the protesters.

Staff in the department who left for lunch did not return and reportedly were told to work from home in the afternoon. But the secretary was not seen to leave the building.

The reception was to celebrate the 152^nd anniversary of Confederation July 1 and, coincidentally, to mark the 22^nd anniversary of Hong Kong’s unification with the People’s Republic of China.

In her absence, Consul General Nankivell had the stage to himself. He delivered a lively talk, shifting deftly from English into French or Cantonese, eliciting much applause. At the end, he raised his glass and declared, “… and I now have the solo privilege of asking you to join me in a toast to the people of the People’s Republic of China and the people of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Cheers!”

While the support rating of Chief Executive Lam has fallen to lower than that of any other Chief Executive since the handover in 1997, that of the Justice Secretary has dropped even more.

According to a survey held between July 2 and 8, while Lam’s rating was at 33.4 out of 100, Cheng’s was 21.6, with 68 percent of respondents opposed to her remaining in office. Similarly, only 21 percent of respondents wanted Secretary for Security John Lee to remain. Cheng and Lee were the two officials responsible for shepherding the bill through the legislature.

The surveys were taken in the week immediately after the storming of the Legislative Council building, during which there was widespread criticism of protestors for causing property damage.

Almost anywhere else, a government with such numbers would fall, or at least the key officials would resign. In Hong Kong, however, it isn’t that easy because the Chief Executive is appointed by Beijing and, according to media reports, the Chinese government has rejected her offer to resign, telling her to remain in office and clean up the mess she made.

But the Lam administration may not be up to the task. In fact, it is avoiding sensitive issues. A national anthem bill, making it a crime to disrespect China’s anthem, has also been suspended.

The civil service can run on autopilot but police morale is a grave concern. While protest marches are still peaceful, they are often followed by clashes between protesters and the police, often leading to injuries on both sides.

The Junior Police Officers Association, which represents the bulk of the 31,000-strong police force, has in a statement said that management “should not assign them tasks that may result in injuries or deploy them to dangerous places to minimize their occupational risks.” Otherwise, the association said, it would “seek legal advice to find solutions that will better guarantee the safety of officers.”

Last Sunday, [July 21], another massive anti-extradition march was held. Protesters’ main demand was a commission of inquiry to look into the background and reasons for growing clashes between police and protesters. Former chief justice Andrew Li is one of its proponents, but Chief Executive Lam has rejected the idea.

Lam’s closest advisers, including Bernard Chan, convenor of the Executive Council, have said in recent days that the chief executive would make no more concessions. Evidently, an inquiry to seek the truth is considered a concession by Lam and her advisers."

HARPER: BELT AND ROAD--A MARSHALL PLAN WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS

Beginning in 2013 with President Xi Jinping's speech at Astana University in Kazakhstan, China has embarked on a multi-billion dollar investment program stretching across Eurasia, into Africa, and South America.  Xi Jinping's signature Belt and Road Initiative, referring to maritime and overland transportation investments, has transformed economic relations impacting on more than half of the world's population.  Today, there are dozens of rail corridors linking cities in the heart of China with markets in Western Europe.  The Chinese investments have reduced both costs and travel times.

In a similar fashion, China has invested in port modernization from the Indian Ocean into the Mediterranean Sea.  Gwadar port in Pakistan, a new deep water port in Sri Lanka, port modernization in Djibouti, warehousing and industrial free zones in the Suez Canal and modernization of the Greek port of Piraeus have given China maritime access to the same European and African markets.

After the International Monetary Fund failed to make long-overdue reforms, giving greater voice to leading emerging market economies, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa formed the BRICS alliance and established a New Development Bank to provide coordinated capital investments in infrastructure projects throughout the South.  China launched the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which now has over 80 charter member countries and an international staff and board that assure international lending standards are fully met.

At the time Xi Jinping launched what some have called "a new Marshall Plan with Chinese characteristics" the Obama Administration in the United States refused to participate and pressured allies to boycott the AIIB.  European governments refused to boycott, and only Japan among Washington's leading allies stayed out of the bank.  But recently Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has agreed to collaborate with China's BRI, while retaining strong security ties to the United States.

Critics of the Chinese global economic investment program have charged that China is employing "debt trap diplomacy"--lending to countries that cannot pay for the large infrastructure projects in order to exert future economic and political influence.  Others charge that the maritime "Silk Road" is linked to Chinese naval expansion, and the ports built up by Chinese investments will eventually house Chinese submarine and surface ship bases.

Belatedly and on an initially small scale, Washington is waking up to the fact that China has stepped into a vacuum created by the failure of Western nations to invest in urgently needed infrastructure projects throughout the developing world.  Where would the United States itself have been without the investments in canals, roads, the Trans-Continental Railroad, electrical power, including from more than 100 nuclear power plants, largely built during the 1950s and 60s?  Infrastructure investment is one critical component of national economic development and sovereignty.

Last year President Trump signed the BUILD Act, which merged the Overseas Private Investment Corporation with USAID's Development Credit Authority to form the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, with $60 billion in initial capital.  It is a small first step towards the United States returning to the business of investing in overseas economic expansion.  Even if the U.S. initiative is taken to counter a "threat" from China, it is a step in the right direction.  

If there is legitimate basis for worry about China's BRI, then the best answer is to provide alternative financing for urgently needed infrastructure in the Southern Hemisphere.  An even better alternative is to join in the Chinese effort, to assure it does not become a Chinese geopolitical trump card.  Beijing has urged the United States to join the AIIB and participate in the investments, also proposing to invest China's $1 trillion-plus in U.S. Treasury holdings in a national infrastructure bank to redress America's crumbling infrastructure.

One way or the other competition, cooperation or conflict between the United States and China will frame the global future.

Another "good" jihadi

"Anas Diab, a photographer for the White Helmets organization, was killed in a pinpoint airstrike by the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) on July 21.

According to several pro-opposition sources, Diab was visiting his hometown, Khan Shaykhun, in southern Idlib when a precision Syrian airstrike leveled his house. No one other was reportedly killed or injured in the airstrike.

Anas Diab, Click to see full-size image

Syrian Military Capabilities, a pro-government Facebook page that’s known for its sources in the Syrian intelligence, claimed that Diab was assassinated due to his role in the alleged 2017 Khan Shaykhun chemical attack.

“He had a big rule in mobilizing the staged Khan Shaykhun CW attack,” a Twitter account affiliated with the Syrian Military Capabilities claimed.

The U.S. had accused Damascus of carrying out the alleged chemical attack and targeted Shayrat airbase with more than 50 cruise missiles as a response. The missile strike killed several Syrian service member and civilians, including children."  SF

-------------

Don't cry for this guy.  IMO he is a "used" member of one of the most sophisticated information operations in history.  Under British and US sponsorship these guys successfully and falsely portrayed the SAG in the worst possible light.  It is abundantly clear that these "civil defense" volunteers were and are jihadis dedicated to this task who have in the past killed Christian and other minority adults and children to use them as props in their film productions.  After all, why would a few infidel lives matter?  This creep was from Khan shaikoon?  How ironic that the Syrian Air Force killed him with some precision at the very place where he filmed local officials sitting in the road with their feet in the crater where a sarin bomb had supposedly exploded. 

mabrook quwat jawia suria!

https://southfront.org/army-eliminated-white-helmets-photographer-linked-to-2017-khan-shaykhun-chemical-attack/

Dinner - 21 July, 2019

In the interest of "sharing" on SST, I just want to tell you what I cooked tonight. It's too hot outside (100F) to cook at my outside kitchen. Soo, I had a 1.25 pound prime ribeye that had been hanging around for just about enough time. I fried it, like in Spain or France. Heavy, well seasoned cast iron skillet, mixture of canola oil and butter in it. Lots of salt and black pepper on all sides of the steak. Start at high heat and sear the beast on all sides including the edges. Reduce the heat and cook until desired doneness. Result - a lovely medium rare.  pl

Will Donald Trump Kill His Presidency Over Iran by Larry C Johnson

Donald Trump appears to be on the verge of doing what the "Never Trumpers" could not--destroy his Presidency and make re-election impossible. It all boils down to whether or not he decides to launch military strikes on Iran. The bottomline is this--if Trump launches military strikes against Iranian military targets it is very likely he will ignite a series of events that will escalate beyond his control, expose him as a paper tiger full of empty bellicose threats and risk a war with other countries, including Russia and China.

The "War" class in Washington and the media are exhorting tough action and doing all within their power to portray Iran as an imminent threat to the West. The mantra, "the must be stopped," is being repeated ad nauseam in all of the media echo changers. President Trump, regrettably, is ignorant of military history and devoid of strategic intelligence when it comes to employing military force. He reminds me of Lyndon Johnson during the early stages of the Vietnam War--i.e., being exhorted to take action, increase forces and not back down rather than lose face on the international front. 

The media is busy pushing the lie that Iran launched an unprovoked "attack" on a British flagged ship. They ignore the British action two weeks ago, when the British Navy seized an Iranian flagged tanker heading to Syria. Britain justifies its action as just keeping the sanction regime in place. But it is more likely the Brits intended this as a provocation, in coordination with some members of Trump's team, that would bait the Iranians to respond in similar fashion. Iran has taken the bait and given the Brits what Iran sees as a dose of its own medicine.

There is a dangerous delusion within the Trump National Security team. They believe we are so dominant that Iran will not dare fight us. I prefer to rely on the sage counsel of Colonel Patrick Lang--the Iranians are not afraid to fight us and, if backed into a corner, will do so. 

I see at least four possible scenarios for this current situation. If you can think of others please add in the comments section.

From Diana to LightSail 2 - TTG

The Sunjammer

By Arthur C. Clarke | Illustrations by Robert McCall

“T minus two minutes,” said the cabin radio. “Please confirm your readiness.”

One by one, the other skippers answered. Merton recognized all the voices—some tense, some calm—for they were the voices of his friends and rivals. On the four inhabited worlds, there were scarcely twenty men who could sail a sun yacht; and they were all here, on the starting line or aboard the escort vessels, orbiting twenty-two thousand miles above the equator.

“Number One, Gossamer—ready to go.”

“Number Two, Santa Maria—all O.K.”

“Number Three, Sunbeam—O.K.”

“Number Four, Woomera—all systems go.”

Merton smiled at that last echo from the early, primitive days of astronautics. But it had become part of the tradition of space; and there were times when a man needed to evoke the shades of those who had gone before him to the stars.

“Number Five, Lebedev—we’re ready.”

“Number Six, Arachne—O.K.”

Now it was his turn, at the end of the line; strange to think that the words he was speaking in this tiny cabin were being heard by at least five billion people.

“Number Seven, Diana—ready to start.”

“One through Seven acknowledged.” The voice from the judge’s launch was impersonal. “Now T minus one minute.”

Merton scarcely heard it; for the last time, he was checking the tension in the rigging. The needles of all the dynamometers were steady; the immense sail was taut, its mirror surface sparkling and glittering gloriously in the sun.

To Merton, floating weightless at the periscope, it seemed to fill the sky. As it well might—for out there were fifty million square feet of sail, linked to his capsule by almost a hundred miles of rigging. All the canvas of all the tea-clippers that had once raced like clouds across the China seas, sewn into one gigantic sheet, could not match the single sail that Diana had spread beneath the sun. Yet it was little more substantial than a soap bubble; that two square miles of aluminized plastic was only a few millionths of an inch thick.

“T minus ten seconds. All recording cameras on.”

Something so huge, yet so frail, was hard for the mind to grasp. And it was harder still to realize that this fragile mirror could tow them free of Earth, merely by the power of the sunlight it would trap.

“. . . five, four, three, two, one, cut!”

Seven knife blades sliced through the seven thin lines tethering the yachts to the mother ships that had assembled and serviced them.

Until this moment, all had been circling Earth together in a rigidly held formation, but now the yachts would begin to disperse, like dandelion seeds drifting before the breeze. And the winner would be the one that first drifted past the moon.

(The story continues here.)

————

I read this short story by Arthur C. Clarke in 1964 when it came out in Boys’ Life. Our manned space program was still young. Shepard and Glenn have done their things, but there was so much before us. There was plenty of literature for young readers who wanted to keep up with the space race. Reading “The Sunjammer” struck a chord. The idea of sailing across the universe riding the solar winds thrilled me. Even at that young age, I was occasionally scooting an old wooden dinghy around Long Island Sound with a scrap canvas sail. I knew the freedom of the wind and the water. The idea of scooting across the solar system in a single handed “space dinghy” tethered to a massive gossamer sail was exhilarating. 

In a few days, The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 is scheduled to unfurl its solar sail. It launched into orbit on 25 June aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket and has undergone extensive testing and tweaking of its navigation and flight control systems. In another month LightSail 2 will maneuver into a higher orbit under solar sailpower. The purpose of this craft is to demonstrate a viable propulsion system for other CubeSats. This could be a very cost effective propulsion system for these CubeSats. Not only is there no need to carry fuel, but acceleration is cumulative. Although initial velocity is slow, the longer a solar sail flies, the faster it goes…. far faster than a conventional rocket engine can go if the voyage is long enough. All this was explained clearly in Clarke’s “Sunjammer” over fifty years ago.

This is not theoretical and certainly not just a science fiction story. In 2010 the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency launched IKAROS (Small Solar Power Sail Demonstrator). This craft sailed past Venus in six months. In 2013 it reached a velocity of 400 meters per second. By 2014 it was in a ten month orbit of the Sun. The last signal received from IKAROS was in 2015. 

Both IKAROS and LightSail 2 are a far cry from Clarke’s sun yachts, but give it time.

TTG

https://bookzone.boyslife.org/arthur-c-clarke/#comments

http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/lightsail-solar-sailing/

https://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/ikaros/topics.html

"... Not the men we thought we were ..."

Newt Gingrich once explained to me whilst sitting in my map room in the Pentagon how it was  that Japan decided to go to war against the United States in World War II.

He recounted that the decision had much to do with US embargoes of sales to Japan of strategic commodities such as; scrap steel, rubber and oil.  Japan in the late 30s was resource poor and skills rich.   The government was then in the hands of a clique of militaristic nationalists intent on winning lebensraum for their island empire.  To accomplish that, the Tojo government needed the instruments of war as well as a lack of effective US and British resistance to their ambitions.

The embargoes of the materials needed for Japanese industry were seen by the government as a major obstacle to territorial expansion and a profound indication of the permanent hostility of the United States, a country that was the only other serious Pacific Ocean naval power as well as the possessor of a major land base in the Philippine Islands, then an American territory.  With these beliefs as background, the Imperial War Council met in 1941 to consider options.  The Navy tended to believe that it could not win a protracted struggle with the US, but the Army insisted that whatever the risk Japan must fight the US to find its place "in the sun."  After long discussion the council recommended war to the Emperor in the belief that unless they were willing to fight the US and Britain they "would not be the men they had thought they were." 

IMO we are creating an analogous situation in US-Iranian relations.  The neocon imperialists present in both parties are riding high in the foreign policy apparatus of the United States.  As part of their program of gaining a thinly disguised global hegemony they are steadily squeezing Iran into a smaller and smaller "box."  The abandonment of JCPOA and the demand for a new agreement that would require Iran to abandon any effort to be a regional power is at the core of that effort.  The insistence that Hizbullah, Hamas and the IRGC are terrorist groups that may not be maintained or supported is a direct challenge to Iranian sovereignty.  As I have previously written, the terrorist designation of these groups makes them legal targets for military action under the US AUMF.  Add to these things, the effort to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero and you may well have a situation in which the Iranians decide that they must hit back or accept that they are not the men they thought they were.  pl

Open Thread 19 July 2019

pl

Boeing - Sleazy Deal Confirms Downfall By Walrus.

I have been a lifelong fan of Boeing commercial aircraft. I’ve done business with them, watched them build aircraft, benefitted from their wonderful product support and generally enjoyed working with a great bunch of guys.

I was less than thrilled when they bought/merged with McDonnell Douglas, sad when I heard about the headquarters move, sadder when the dreamliner program had hiccups and downright horrified by the B737MAX debacle, especially after the management role in the matter was revealed. 

Just when I thought that the B737 mess couldn’t get much worse Boeing has now allegedly made an offer to the victims of the two African tragedies as follows according to zerohedge: - $50 million to the victims and $50 million to the two governments concerned for “community development and education”.

Folks, I’ve had shitty deals like that put to me. The $50 million to government is a straight out bribe. It’s designed to make them shut up and also pressure the victim families to take the deal. Naturally, most, if not all, of the government share will be siphoned off by corrupt officials. Boeing must know that.

I now relegate Boeing to the list of sleaze merchants. They have now demonstrated a completely cynical approach to aircraft production which is utterly opposed to the pursuit of real aviation safety - something Boeing used to be famous for. Not any more.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-17/boeing-thinks-human-life-worth-just-150000

Alex Acosta let the cat out of the bag: the Justice Department knew all about the Jeffrey Epstein Florida plea deal

By Robert Willmann

A taboo in our culture that is also a crime is sexual contact with a child or young person -- usually less than 17 or 18 years old -- by an adult or older person.  An exception is sexual experimentation during the struggle of adolescence, when the persons are no more than around two or three years apart in age, as long as there is consent. A greater age difference creates the crime often called "statutory rape", in which a statute (a law passed by a legislature) says that legal consent for sexual contact cannot be given by the underage person.

This taboo is a strong one, even more so than homicide, about which there are various levels and justifications, such as self-defense.  All over the country on a regular basis, underage sex crime cases are tried to a jury, even without medical or forensic evidence.  And with just one complainant and victim.

But then Jeffrey Epstein is named as a suspect in underage sex crimes in Palm Beach County, Florida, with not one complainant, but with at least 20.

What was the local State Attorney, Barry Krischer, going to do? Apparently, not very much. Attention shifted to the federal U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alexander Acosta, and the FBI. Was a federal prosecution pursued?  No.  Nothing.

A secret plea bargain and non-prosecution agreement with the federal government is what happened. It shifted the public face to the Florida state court system with Epstein pleading to two state prostitution crimes, which implied, of course, that the complainants were prostitutes. The public is now aware that the result was Epstein sleeping at the county jail and then going to his office during the day, for 13 months. Registering as a sex offender has not curtailed his travel or daily activity.

The whole nasty business disappeared from view and would have stayed hidden in its nicely wrapped package except that two civil lawsuits have pulled some of it into the light.

The sky will be full of internet satellites

"In its attempt to keep pace with SpaceX and other competitors, Amazon is seeking FCC approval to put 3,236 interconnected broadband satellites into orbit.

Amazon’s prospective broadband satellite constellation, called Project Kuiper, was announced back in April, as first reported by GeekWire. Not much was known about the project, aside from the number of satellites involved and the intended orbits. Late last week, however, Amazon filed paperwork with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requesting approval to launch thousands of satellites into space, thereby providing a slew of new information about Project Kuiper.

In its FCC filing, Amazon claimed that 3.8 billion people around the world still don’t have reliable access to broadband internet, and that 21.3 million Americans don’t have access to fixed broadband.

“The Kuiper System will deliver satellite broadband communications services to tens of millions of unserved and underserved consumers and businesses in the United States and around the globe,” wrote Amazon in its application. The “non-geostationary satellite orbit system” will use the Ka-band frequencies, according to the company, and offer “fixed broadband communications services to rural and hard-to-reach areas.” The application also states the system will provide “high-throughput mobile broadband connectivity services for aircraft, maritime vessels and land vehicles.”"  Gizmodo

-------------

As part of Amazon's drive toward becoming the world's economy  Bezos and company are going to contest Musk's Starlink project with the goal of providing broad band internet service to the entire world.

Splendid!

Not by bread alone does man live.  He also needs Amazon.

The difference in function between Bezosnet (Kuiper) and Musk's Starlink is not clear to me.  The competition will be fierce.  This is always a good thing for the consumer.

The losers in all this satellite communications activity will be the present internet providers who will be cut out as unnecessary middle men.  pl

https://gizmodo.com/keeping-up-with-spacex-amazon-seeks-to-launch-more-tha-1836212485

Follow Up on the Flynn Plot by Larry C Johnson

I have obtained new information that may offer some new insights into the Obama Administration's covert action to entrap General Michael Flynn. This builds on my last piece--The Obama Administration Manufactured the Case Against General Flynn. When this story is finally told, I think we will learn that Flynn's FARA problems may have started with a CIA officer, acting on the direction of then CIA Director Brennan, who enlisted the Israelis  to ask Ratio Oil Exploration (an Israeli company) to commission their partner, INOVO BV, to hire Flynn's company. INOVO BV, out of the blue, asked the Flynn Investigative Group aka FIG, to do a study of Turkish dissident Fethullah Gülen. 

What Flynn did not know when he accepted the work is that INOVO BV apparently had operational ties to the Government of Turkey and that all communications by INOVO's chief, Ekim Alptekin, with the Government of Turkey were being "collected" by the NSA and disseminated in U.S. intelligence channels. The FBI was monitoring these communications and used their inside knowledge to pressure Flynn into a FARA filing which they could claim was "false."

The truth of the matter is that General Flynn did not know he was doing work for a Turkish Government cutout. A basic due diligence search would show that INOVO was partnered with an Israeli oil exploration company. No need to file under FARA given those facts. Michael Flynn's consulting firm, Flynn Investigative Group, was hired by Inovo BV: 

Inovo BV, the Dutch corporation, is owned by Ekim Alptekin and is the sole Turkish representative in Ratio Oil Exploration, which is the Israeli firm exploring the Leviathan gas field in the Mediterranean Sea.

To appreciate the diabolical nature of this plot, let us re-read the Mueller indictment of General Flynn:

Socialism and its roots

"The modern political marxist communist movement was created when the social democratic parties of Europe split between their rightist and leftist tendencies during World War I. The leftists, led internationally by Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, to distinguish their brand of socialism from the "reformist" social democrats, were called "communists". However, after Luxemburg's and Liebknecht's murders the term communist became generally associated solely with the parties and organisations following Lenin, along with their various derivations, such as Stalinism or Maoism.

There is a considerable variety of views among self-identified communists. However, Marxism and Leninism, schools of communism associated with Karl Marx and of Vladimir Lenin respectively, have the distinction of having been a major force in world politics since the early 20th century. Class struggle plays a central role in Marxism. This theory views the formation of communism as the culmination of the class struggle between the capitalist class, the owners of most of the capital and the working class. Marx held that society could not be transformed from the capitalist mode of production to the communist mode of production all at once, but required a transitional state which Marx described as the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."  wiki on "Varieties of Socialism"

"The French Revolution was preceded and influenced by the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose Social Contract famously began: "Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains".^[39] Rousseau is credited with influencing socialist thought, but it was François-Noël Babeuf, and his Conspiracy of Equals, who is credited with providing a model for left-wing and communist movements of the 19th century."  wiki on "History of Socialism"

------------

SST has been besieged in recent days by socialist agitprop people evidently seeking to waste as much of my time as possible.  They are obvious provocateurs and I do not publish most of their scribbles and will not.  I have no intention of EVER providing a propaganda platform for them.

I am somewhat surprised to learn from your comments how many SST regulars are sympathetic to socialist goals and proposed measures in society and government, but your opinions are your opinions.

I am dismayed that some of you claim that it is "not helpful" to equate socialism to communism.  I don't think I have equated the two.  Perhaps those who think I have done that can provide a citation.  If you do, I will deal with it.

OTOH, it is my opinion that any attempt to claim that most forms of socialism are not related to the communist variety of socialism are deluded or uninformed.  There have been forms of socialism that were not related to the movement's Marxist history.  The Baath Party in Iraq was one such but the great majority of socialist parties have their roots in Marxist analyses or history.

IMO this is a subject worth discussing.  Those who make serious comments rather than propaganda statements will have their comments posted.  pl

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

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

"Man dead after attacking immigration detention facility in Washington state ..." Reuters

"A man armed with a rifle attacked an immigration detention facility in Washington state early on Saturday, throwing incendiary devices at the building and cars in theInnsley parking lot before dying after police opened fire, authorities said.

An employee at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma reported one vehicle on fire and said the suspect was also attempting to ignite a large propane tank outside the facility, the Tacoma Police Department said in a statement.

When four officers arrived at about 4 a.m., shots were fired and the suspect was later determined to be deceased at the scene.

"Officers noted that in addition to the weapon, he was wearing a satchel and had flares on his person," the statement said, adding that no officers were injured.

"This morning's attack at the ICE detention center in Tacoma was a horrific act of violence that has shaken us all," Washington Governor and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Jay Inslee wrote on Twitter."  Reuters

---------------

Governor Inslee of Washington State says he is "shocked and shaken" over this first instance of  violence directed at a federal law enforcement facility (DHS/IC).  IMO this is only the first instance of violent resistance to federal authority inspired by the utterances of people like Governor Inslee who has stated that if he is elected president he will ask Megan Rapinoe to be Secretary of State.  Perhaps she would then be willing to visit the "fucking" White House.  A suitable replacement for Hillary Clinton as SECSTATE?

Yesterday a disloyal mob tore down the US flag at another DHS facility in Colorado and raised the Mexican national flag in its stead.

A price will eventually be paid.  pl

https://news.yahoo.com/man-dead-attacking-immigration-detention-213845312.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista_(Mexico)

The Obama Administration Manufactured the Case Against General Flynn by Larry C Johnson

New revelations in court cases involving Donald Trump's former National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn, provides one more piece of evidence that the entire claim that Trump campaign was collaborating with the Russia was a set up. It was a manufactured story. It is important that you understand that upper echelons of the CIA, the DNI and the FBI conducted  a massive covert action against Donald Trump, his family and members of his campaign team.

Traps were set. FBI Confidential Human Sources and CIA and British MI-6 assets were deployed in a variety of schemes designed to implicate Trump and his campaign as agents of foreign governments, Russia in particular.

The newest piece of information comes courtesy of Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse in his piece, Flynn Case Highlights Multiple Insurance Policy Motives by DOJ and FBI Operatives. Up to this point, I confess, I bought into the story that Michael Flynn was working on behalf of Turkey and failed to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. In short, he was guilty of a FARA violation. But that's not the real story. Flynn was set up. What do I mean?

There is no evidence that Michael Flynn sought out Government of Turkey representative and asked to go to work for them. That has been the conventional wisdom. But it turns out that Flynn was not working for the Government of Turkey. Flynn's firm was hired by INOVO in September 2016. Here is what USA Today reported in March of 2017:

"AOC's chief of staff comments just killed the Green New Deal" Washington Examiner

"Chakrabarti had an unexpected disclosure. “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal,” he said, “is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.” Ricketts greeted this startling notion with an attentive poker face. “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti continued. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

The Green New Deal has always rested on deception. Ocasio-Cortez and her backers have argued that we are facing catastrophic emergency and that if we don't act immediately the looming devastation will be unavoidable. But at the same time, the plan is a wish list of ideas that American socialists would be pushing regardless of the climate issue, and they are in no way necessary to address the global emergency: free college, more union jobs, free healthcare for all, economic security, and "guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States."

The resolution on the Green New Deal, by the way, was co-sponsored by six 2020 presidential candidates: Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar.

Ocasio-Cortez and her allies are of course free to make the case for why the U.S. should move toward a socialist economy. But they don't get to use the pretext of a global emergency to do so. You can make a case that scientists have warned of disastrous consequences without action to curb carbon emissions, and try to shame those who are blocking action. But it's another thing to define "serious action on climate change" as requiring people to embrace AOC's economic vision."  Byron York

----------------

It doesn't get better this.  The clown admits that what he and AOC want is to kill capitalism and create  a commend economy.   pl

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/aocs-chief-of-staff-just-killed-the-green-new-deal

Mueller Does Not Have Evidence That The IRA Was Part of Russian Government Meddling by Larry C Johnson

In the criminal case against alleged Russian operatives--Internet Research Agency and Concord Management and Consulting LLC--a Federal judge has declared that Robert Mueller has not offered one piece of solid evidence that these defendants were involved in any way with the Government of Russia. I think this is a potential game changer. 

The world of law as opposed to the world of intelligence is as different as Mercury and Mars. The intelligence community aka IC can traffic in rumor and speculation. IC "solid" intelligence may be nothing more than the strident assertion of a source who lacks actual first hand knowledge of an event. The legal world does not enjoy that kind of sloppiness. If a prosecutor makes a claim, i.e., Jack shot Jill, then said prosecutor must show that Jack owned a firearm that matches the bullets recovered from Jill's body. Then the prosecutor needs to show that Jack was with Jill when the shooting took place and that forensic evidence recovered from Jack showed he had fired a firearm. Keep this distinction in mind as you consider what has transpired in the case against the Internet Research Agency and Concord Management and Consulting.

To understand why Judge Friedrich ruled as she did you must understand Local Rule 57.7. That rule:

restricts public dissemination of information by attorneys involved in criminal cases where “there is a reasonable likelihood that such dissemination will interfere with a fair trial or otherwise prejudice the administration of justice.” It also authorizes the court “[i]n a widely publicized or sensational criminal case” to issue a special order governing extrajudicial statements and other matters designed to limit publicity that might interfere with the conduct of a fair trial. . . . The rule prohibits lawyers associated with the prosecution or defense from publishing, between the time of the indictment and the commencement of trial, “[a]ny opinion as to the accused’s guilt or innocence or as to the merits of the case or the evidence in the case.”

In short, the US Government cannot come out and declare that Concord Management, for example, was acting on behalf or or in collaboration with the Russian Government without presenting actual evidence. A prosecutor cannot simply claim that Concord is a Putin Stooge.

The lawyers for Concord Management read the Mueller report and noted significant discrepancies between what was alleged in the original complaint and what was asserted as "fact" in the Mueller report.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 11 JULY 2019 by Patrick Armstrong

THE HEARTLAND. The problem with Mackinder's "heartland" is that moving around in it is so difficult: there are too many mountains, too many deserts and too much distance. Consequently, for 500 years sea travel has been both easier and, most of the time, faster; this reality has been a decisive power advantage for Mackinder's "islands". But China's working hard at overcoming that. Another link in the OBOR is starting – Russia has begun work on a highway on its section of the Shanghai-Hamburg route. High-speed rail in China is about a decade old: 29 thousand kms now. (California has several dozen kms. Remember when the West, especially the USA, did everything first?) The sea will probably maintain its advantage for high-volume items but OBOR will change everything else.

LIBERALISM. Putin's interview has stimulated some (more) silliness among people who probably haven't read it. "What is happening in the West? What is the reason for the Trump phenomenon, as you said, in the United States? What is happening in Europe as well? The ruling elites have broken away from the people. The obvious problem is the gap between the interests of the elites and the overwhelming majority of the people... Our Western partners have admitted that some elements of the liberal idea, such as multiculturalism, are no longer tenable... [the liberal idea] has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population." Well, what's incorrect? Putin has a better understanding than all the op-eds about populism. Western elites respond with a barrage of clichés.

CORRUPTION. "Nearly one in six Russian mayors have faced criminal prosecution over the past decade". Is that a lot of corruption or a lot of corruption detection and punishment?

SUBMARINE FIRE. A fire in, we are told, the battery compartment killed a number of rather high-ranking sailors. Speculation that it was a very deep diving submarine. Back to the cutting cables scare.

RUSSIA INC. Only last month the NYT told us that Russia's "economy suffers from flat growth and shrinking incomes", now Russia has "The World’s Top Stock Market". Hard to keep up, it is.

NEW NWO. The head of Rosobornexport says that Moscow has stopped using SWIFT or USD in arms transactions. So that's the number three export taken out of Washington's control, I don't know about the other two but I would be surprised in Russia weren't moving away from those as much as possible. India and Russia are talking about moving their trade to their own currencies.

DOUMA. How the OPCW’s investigation of the Douma incident was nobbled.

AMERICA-HYSTERICA I. The Myth of Russian Media Influence by Larry C Johnson. More below.

AMERICA-HYSTERIA II. To Mueller's surprise, the IRA actually showed up in court. A judge has just ruled that Mueller's indictment "does not link the defendants to the Russian government". Once again, Moon of Alabama was far ahead of the mighty MSM: eighteen months ago, he said it was a click-bait operation; nothing to do with the Russian government or election interference.

S500. Being manufactured – adds an outer space defence capability to the family.

WESTERN VALUES™. British media freedom conference bans RT and Sputnik but is held conveniently near Assange's prison. So he could attend. If he could.

PESKY RUSSIANS. Another whiny official document about how those nasty Russians are dissing the USA's impeccable position of respect in the world. (Usual pseudo-psychiatry: "Russia exhibits a deep-seated sense of geopolitical insecurity" and a whole new meme to accompany the "hybrid war" projectionism: "gray zone".) Here's the paper itself. I guess it must be that malign Russian influence that makes a fifth of the world regard the USA as a force for bad in the world.

EUROPEANS ARE REVOLTING. The EU mechanism for trade with Iran (INSTEX) is now declared operational. Too little, too late? We'll see. Berlin and Amsterdam reject Washington's request to send ground troops to Syria but London and Paris do not.

UKRAINE. Definitely some rumblings in Year Six of the Revolution of Dignity. First we have money movement revelations: Kolomoisky and IMF money; the Bidens, father and son. A documentary including Katchanovski's findings that the "heavenly hundred" were murdered by their own side wins a prize, but will it be quietly disappeared and never be seen? More Israelis notice: Israelis protesting arms sales to the nazi groups. Helmer discusses two interesting polls that show that Zelensky's party is way in front, and the Galicians way behind, in the parliamentary elections ten days away and that the population is sick of the civil war and wants settlement. US poll in May, Dutch poll in June.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer

HARPER: WHERE DID JEFF EPSTEIN GET HIS MONEY... REALLY?

 

In 2002 and 2003, long before Jeffrey Epstein's name became equated with The Lolita Express, St. Jeff's Island and a child sex ring that stretched from the U.S. Virgin Islands (sic) to Manhattan to Palm Beach to Arizona, Vanity Fair and New York Magazine made a valiant effort to unearth the source of Epstein's vast wealth.  They both came up with more questions than answers.  Yes, he managed the funds for Leslie Wexler, the Cleveland-based billionaire owner of Victoria's Secret.  Yes, he had shady dealings with Ponzi Schemers back in his early days in finance.  But nothing in any of those pretty deep digs into his finances have come close to accounting for the vast and still-unknown quantities of money he accumulated and their origins.

The mystery surrounding Epstein's financial career begs some questions:  Was his source of wealth kept so secret because he was a money front for some intelligence service?  Not the first case of such a story.  Recall Marc Rich, the Swiss-based metals trader who purportedly had strong ties to Israeli intelligence.  And more to the point, recall the case of the late Robert Maxwell, who was also believed to have been initially bankrolled by the Israeli secret services.  The one constant in Jeffrey Epstein's bizarre career has been the daughter of Maxwell, who was one of Epstein's early entry points into the world of New York glitz.

I make no claim to insider information about Epstein's wealth.  But the lack of documentation on Epstein's finances in the era of internet and hacking is noteworthy in itself.  If I am right, regardless of Attorney General Barr and the moves against President Trump's accusers, some of the President's friends like Sheldon Adelson can be expected to weigh in if I am even close to being right.  Stay tuned...

AOC has a point about DHS

IMO AOC is a revolutionary subversive sitting in the House of Representatives after having insincerely sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the US and laws legally enacted under it.

BUT, she can be right on some issues.  It IS within the bounds of possibility that she could be correct on a few things.

She says she wants to see the Department of Homeland Security dis-established.  If by that she means the department rather than its component parts, then I agree with her and always did. 

This monstrosity was cobbled together in the same wave of hysteria following 9/11 that saw the enactment of the Patriot Act, massive illegal wiretapping of Americans and the subsequent  "unleashing" upon the American people of such creatures as Comey, Clapper and Brennan.

All the significant parts of DHS existed and functioned well before 9/11.  The successful surprise attack on the US was not caused by a failure of coordination among these groups.

It was caused by massive HUMINT collection failures in the IC and the FBI.  The reason these failures occurred was simply a lack of courage and imagination in the bureaucratic leadership of these agencies.

And guess what!  None of the significant IC agencies were placed under DHS when it was created.  The directors of these outfits simply told GW Bush that they would go public against the move if he tried to bring CIA, State INR, NSA, etc. under this "elephant created by a committee."

DHS has an analytic bureau?  Sure it does!  It is yet another analytic bureau duplicating the functions of all the others in, CIA, FBI, etc.  The DHS analytic outfit has NO authority over any IC unit including the FBI.

Get rid of DHS and return its components to their prior "owners."  pl

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

23 million lifetime page views now

pl

Is Epstein's arrest and indictment part of Barr's counter-offensive?

IMO AG Barr is conducting a general counter-offensive against "the resistance."  He has his bulldog Durham organizing indictments for the former underground in DoJ and the FBI.  He has DoJ IG Horowitz' report on malfeasance coming out soon.  He has that fellow out in Utah who must have done something in all this elapsed time.  He has various cats and dogs in DoJ running down a variety of blood trails looking for dead men walking.

And then there is Jeffrey Epstein (the man who loved childwomen).  The timing is interesting as a part of the putative Barr counter-offensive.  Is Trump vulnerable?  Probably not unless he was so self-indulgent as to let Epstein ("a great guy") loan him one of these girls in days of yore.  On the positive side Trump did ban Epstein from Mar a Lago a while back for an assault on a young woman.  No.  the vulnerables would seem to be mostly on the other side, especially the Clintons.  Bill is a prospective figure of interest no matter what his spokesman said of his innocence and her majesty is toast if it can be shown that she was knowledgeable of adventures in Epsteinland.  She doesn't have to have participated in the Epstein child care program.  She merely has to have been contemporaneously knowledgeable.

Epstein flew back into the US aboard his private 727 (aka The Lolita Express).  He must have thought he had the situation "wired."  Apparently the AG did not accept the terms of the old Florida deal.   IMO Barr is following his own program in this.  Trump is merely a pleased spectator.  pl

HARPER: TRUMP MOVING TO WAR WITH IRAN OUT OF IGNORANCE

President Trump is deeply confused by Iran's refusal to make a deal.  The Dealmaker-in-Charge has made it clear to the Supreme Leader that if he sits down with The Donald, there will be rich rewards.  Iran will be welcomed back into the community of nations, given full access to international trade and investment, and all that the Iranians have to do in JCPOA 2.0 is pledge to forever forego a nuclear bomb and greatly reduce their arsenal of ballistic missiles, which they have stashed inside Iran, in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

What the President lacks is any understanding of the internal dynamics in the Islamic Republic and the growing power of a hardline faction of clerics and the top leaders of the IRGC.  They are Iran's equivalent of the worst of the American neocons.  They never wanted the JCPOA, they want out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and they believe that they can wipe out the reformist and centrist opposition to their total consolidation of power.  Recently, one of the most hardline former IRGC commanders was elected as chairman of the powerful National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian parliament.  Mojtaba Zonnour's election was a significant step towards the IRGC internal power coup.

In the minds of this apparatus, the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA proved that President Rouhani, Foreign Minister Zarif and all those who backed the negotiations with the P5+1 were naïve and were deceived by those seeking regime change in Tehran.  They believe that Iranians have already suffered greatly under the American sanctions, and things can't get much worse economically.  They also believe that the United States does not have the will to conduct a full-scale invasion and will resort to missile strikes, cyber attacks and other sabotage.  The strategic goal is to survive the Trump presidency with the new regime, led by the IRGC, intact.

President Trump does not understand these critical internal dynamics.  He simply cannot fathom why the Supreme Leader won't bite on the deal of the century.  Sooner or later, barring a change in the dynamic, he will strike.  Whether out of confusion, frustration, or in response to a deliberate provocation by the IRGC, the momentum towards war is accelerating.

Interesting Developments in the Russiagate Saga by Larry C Johnson

There are a couple of new articles out in the past week that merit your attention if you have not already read these. The first is from Fox News--Strzok-Page texts debated whether to share details with DOJ on key London meeting in 2016.  I am surprised this has not garnered more attention.

The texts between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in this release (I'm referring to the documents posted on the Fox website) start in the evening of August 1, 2016. Strzok, responding to Page, comments on a canceled brief for Andy McCabe from FBI Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa and says it is probably a good thing because "Bill may need a little saving from himself."

Bill refers to Bill Priestrap, the head of FBI's counter intelligence operations. Important to remember that Strzok worked for Priestrap at this point. Yet, it appears that Strzok is operating under some other authority.

Lisa Page then writes:

"Also, Andy spoke to ?????. He was out, he has a POC for you over then when you need it."

Strzok was on his way to London. My informed guess is that the ????? was CIA. POC means Point of Contact. Andy had a name of a CIA officer. The Chief of Station in London was Gina Haspel. I do not have a name for her Deputy. The nature of this case means that at least Haspel would have been witting.

The byzantine Jeffrey Epstein criminal sex case breakout: a federal appeals court orders documents unsealed and Epstein is arrested in a new case

    

[Pictured above:  Utah attorney, law professor, and former federal judge Paul G. Cassell, who, with Florida attorney Bradley Edwards, have represented females in civil cases against Jeffrey Epstein, including under the federal Crime Victims' Rights Act targeting Epstein's plea bargain in the Florida sex crimes case.]

By Robert Willmann

With more byzantine intrigue than a story by Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie, the sordid and ongoing machinations around the sexual misconduct by "billionaire financier" Jeffrey Epstein against underage girls have fortunately in the last four days broken out of the tightly woven coverup in both the federal criminal justice system and in assorted civil lawsuits through confidential settlements and sealed court papers. 

Quietly issued on Wednesday, 3 July 2019, by the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York was a 26-page opinion and decision in a civil case relating to Epstein (although he was not a party to it) that ordered the unsealing and disclosure of around 2,000 pages of documents that were part of a request (motion) for "summary judgment" during the civil lawsuit.  Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56, summary judgment is a procedure in a civil case in which one party tries to get a ruling in its favor on one or more issues in the lawsuit without a trial, because there is no genuine issue of material fact about the particular issue.  If no genuine factual dispute exists from the evidence about an issue, there is no need to have a trial to decide the particular fact.  Thus, the name:  summary judgment.  If successful on all issues, a party can succeed and get a final judgment without a trial.   It is a procedure done all on paper, with the evidence being documents and other proof and exhibits relating to the written request filed in the court clerk's file.  If there is a court hearing on the motion, no new evidence is introduced; it is already in the clerk's file.  At such a hearing which is only to the judge, arguments will be made about the summary judgment request and response to it by the lawyers for the parties [1].

As a further twist in the Epstein matter, the appeal was about attempts to intervene in the case by parties who wanted some of the sealed documents in the lawsuit released, and not about the merits of the lawsuit itself!

 

Turkey, NATO and Russia

Let's have a discussion of what is going to happen with regard to Turkey in light of:

1.  The S-400 sale

2.  The F-35 sale

3.  Pom-pom and the 'stache.

4.  Putin's amused trouble-making

5.  Trumps unpredictability

6.  Erdo's recent defeat in the Istanbul municipal election.

7.  Neo-Ottoman irredentism

Whatever ...   pl

What happened to the signers?

 

"Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or hardships resulting from the Revolutionary War.

These men signed, and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor!

What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants. Nine were farmers and large plantation owners. All were men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty could be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags."   "What really happened?"

------------

I had a lot of ancestors in that war, some Continentals, some militia.  One man in Boston raised his own regiment of militia at his own expense.  He commanded it throughout the war.  A lot of the soldiers among the signers were old broken down grunts by the end, They made new lives for themselves.  I revere their memory.  pl 

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/DOCUMENTS/the_signers.html

Confessions of a latent SJW - TTG

A while back we were discussing the merits of a liberal arts education and the sad state of our current education system. As part of that discussion, I looked at the current curriculum of my old prep school to see if it changed much from when I was there. To my surprise and joy, it changed very little. Students are still required to take four years of theology… good Jesuit theology. I was struck by the entry for the current theology department at Fairfield Prep and now present it below.

In light of the current discussion about the rise of the new bolsheviki in the Democratic Party, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the Ignatian approach to Roman Catholicism. I’m pretty sure many of you will consider the black robes to be quite red. I, on the other hand, find the teachings and example of Saint Ignatius of Loyola to be far more profound and worthy of emulation than anything Marx or Lenin ever dreamed of.  

——————

What is theology? Fundamentally, it’s about conversation.

The Greek word Theós (God) combined with logos (word, or reason) describes what happens in theology classes at Fairfield Prep. Talking about God, discovering God in the person of Jesus Christ, asking questions, having discussions and debates, and exploring the truths of other world religions are some of the many things that happen in theology. Through exegetical analysis of Scripture, learning the philosophies of the Saints (in particular, St. Ignatius of Loyola), contemplation, and reflection, theology students at Fairfield Prep are drawn to a more intimate experience of the Divine in their own lives.

In the classroom, students are exposed to the teachings of Christ regarding the Gospel imperative – the care of the poor. Theology students are inspired to work for equality and social justice in their local and global communities.

In the spirit of Christ, through Ignatian practices, students are encouraged to grow spiritually and religiously by orienting themselves towards others. Practically speaking, students are called to “Find God in All Things.” By recognizing the presence of the Divine within others and the universe we live in, students may be inspired to develop a deeper appreciation and love for Creation – in particular, care for our environment.

Morality, ethics, philosophy, history, science – they are all present within discussions of theology. Regardless of faith background (or lack thereof) all students are encouraged to express their beliefs and share their life experiences in their own ways. In theology, we are constantly working towards discovering Truth in our lives. Through science, history, literature, Scripture, and the Sacraments, we understand that God can be found in all things and in all ways here at Fairfield Prep. Join us as we continue the discussions, the questions, the reflections, and the actions that will make this world a more loving place for all.

- Mr. Corey J. Milazzo

Chair of the Theology Department

——————

It’s still there, the call to find God in all things and to be a man for others. I graduated a few years before Father Pedro Arrupe presented his dissertation and made his presentation which became known as his “Men for Others” thesis. But his ideas already ran through the halls and faculty of Fairfield Prep by the end of the 60s. Community service was an integral part of the curriculum back then as were frequent retreats based on the Ignatian spiritual exercises. They still are. The Jesuits molded us into men for others, social justice warriors, but with a keen sense of self-examination (the examen). When we graduated in the rose garden of Bellarmine Hall under a beautiful June sun, we were charged with the familiar Jesuit call “ite inflammate omnia” (go forth and set the world on fire).

That phrase in itself is provocative. It goes back to Saint Ignatius of Loyola himself. It may go back much further, back to Saint Catherine of Siena. One of her most repeated quotes is “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” Setting the world on fire must have a different meaning back then. It sounds down right revolutionary these days.

In more recent times, Jesuits participated in the development of liberation theology, a blending of the Church’s professed preference for the poor and Marxism that is unsettling to many both in and outside the Church. This expression of strident social justice was never supported by the Vatican, especially when liberation theologists aligned themselves with armed Marxist revolutions. Even Pope Francis was not a fan although as Father Bergoglio he said,  "The option for the poor comes from the first centuries of Christianity. It's the Gospel itself. If you were to read one of the sermons of the first fathers of the Church, from the second or third centuries, about how you should treat the poor, you’d say it was Maoist or Trotskyist. The Church has always had the honor of this preferential option for the poor.” Pope Francis seeks reconciliation with rather than expulsion of the liberation theologists. This doesn’t surprise me considering the Jesuits' firmly held faith in the primacy of conscience, the belief that an informed conscience is the ultimate and final authority on what is morally permissible, and it is the obligation of the individual to follow their conscience even if it contradicts or acts against Church teaching. I believe that, but I also believe the liberation theologists could benefit from a more rigorous examen to reach a higher sense of discernment and a truly informed conscience.

I think the 1986 film “The Mission” captured some of these ideas and struggles very well with the interplay of Father Gabriel, Roderigo Mendoza and both the secular and religious authorities of that time. As  a product of a Jesuit and Special Forces education, this film resonated with me.

TTG

DOL - AMDG

You Put The Lime In The Coconut........ by Fred

Overture

You put the lime in the coconut,  drink 'em bot' up
You put the lime in the coconut,  drink 'em bot' up

 

Act 1

You put the lime in the coconut, drink 'em bot' up
You put the lime in the coconut, call the doctor, woke 'I'm up

Time for a new party? "The Global Progressives?"

The AOC/marxist wing of the present Democratic Party seems to have little in common with the rest of them; the Blue Dogs, Yellow Dogs, Zionist liberals, other liberals, true Greens, etc.  The AOC led wing of the party refuses cooperation with one and all.  They have virtually paralysed the Pelosi/San Francisco leadership.  Last week they would not vote for a supplemental appropriation that included money for HHS use on the border to support the human wave washing up on our desert shore.  Yesterday, 15 of the neo-bolsheviki went as a Congressional Delegation to a Border Patrol facility and emerged screaming (literally) that women and children were being starved in filthy conditions by the Border Patrol fascists.  Today, a delegation of evangelical Hispanic pastors visited the same facility and said that conditions were nothing like that and that the BP was doing the best job it could with the money it has.  So, my conclusion is that the AOC neo-bolsheviks are interested in agitprop for the revolution to come and not in legislative compromise to improve the present situation.

As I have written before, IMO this extreme left group are forsworn in that they falsely and with an intention to deceive took the oath of office to enter Congress swearing to uphold the Constitution of the US and laws legally derived from it.  IOW, they are a revolutionary subversive group like Antifa.

Does the Democratic Party really want them? 

It seems clear that the neo-bolsheviks do not want the rest of the Democrats.

They should form a new party.  This would enable them to dump all the embarrassing (for them) baggage of Democratic Party history as the old-timey party of the slave holding South and such people as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.

I suggest that the name could be the "Global Progressive Party"  This would be more truly representative of their ultimate goals. pl

Tour d'horizon - 1 July 2019

1.  Canada Day - Everyone wears shorts - It probably won't snow today in Canada.

2.  China Trade - IMO the Chinese Communist Party and China have no intention of accepting a future in which the Middle Kingdom is other than the dominant world power.  In that context the Chinese will probably make some sort of deal with the US to take the heat off their declining economy- more Chinese purchases of US goods - paper agreements on Chinese underhanded trade practices but nothing that amounts to a basic Chinese change of policy.

3.  North Korea - Look to see a limited US/NOKO agreement on a freezing of nuclear status rather than a removal of NOKO nuclear weapons.  Trump is a practical man who wants apparent success before 2020 bites him.  He correctly, IMO, sees that a North Korea flooded with foreign capital, investment and consumer goods will be set on a path that the North Korean Communist Party will not be able to control.  It is interesting how much more control Trump has over Korean policy than he has over Cuba policy or the evolving disaster in the ME.  Why?  There is no Korean-American pressure bloc, nor the Zionist juggernaut.

4.  Hong Kong - The Chinese Communist Party will suppress autonomy in Hong Kong.  It is just a matter of time.  Socialist governments inevitably become more and more repressive and are required to rule through fear and police coercion.  A Hong Kong that defies centralized Communist rule is a threat to the party throughout the country.  It is just a matter of time.

5.  Turkey - The Neo-Ottomans are in the process of devouring large parts of northern Syria.  This process is something like an anaconda slowing engulfing a large animal.  We are now in the phase of this devouring in which there is a lot of nonsense about de-militarized zones, supposed cease fires, entrenched Turkish "observation posts" placed so as to keep the SAA and friends from getting at HTS and the other jihadis in Idlib Province.  If successful this will be followed by plebiscites and petitions by local puppet government for annexation.  This Turkish process of acquiring northern Syria is  greatly assisted by the continuing Bolton/Pompeo/neocon policy of regime change in Syria.  Under the sway of this policy we continue to do our best to impede the reconstruction of Syria and refugee return with all sorts of baloney in the MSM about Syrian government atrocities against returning Syrians.  We also are doing everything possible to discourage a Syria Kurd-Syrian government rapprochement.  IMO Trump has delegated attention on this to the neocons in his house and should take this function away from them in this area.

5. Iran - We continue  to squeeze Iran into a smaller and smaller space  in the belief that their knees will buckle and that they will then accept an Israeli view of their future, one in which they are rug manufactures and pistachio growers for the world under Israeli tutelage.  IMO this is nonsense.  They will not accept that any more than the Palestinians will accept Jared Kushner's vision of a re-birth of King Solomon's mythic realm in which Palestinians are perpetual serfs.  Eventually, the Iranians will fight us.

6.  Tucker  Carlson as a replacement for the 'stache?  Good idea!  Make the 'stache ambassador to Turkey or Israel.  pl