Some News this Sunday - October 5, 2019

The Plot

"A second whistleblower is now considering filing a complaint about President Donald Trump’s conduct regarding Ukraine, the New York Times reported Friday.

This whistleblower has “more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower,” according to the Times. It’s a claim that, if true, could bolster the credibility of the initial complaint that triggered the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into whether Trump solicited election interference from Ukraine.

The first whistleblower’s complaint, which was released in redacted form to the public in late September, alleged that on a July 25 phone call Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to push for investigations into potential 2020 rival Joe Biden."  Vox

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The lawyer representing this person states that he has "multiple whistleblowers" as clients.  Ah! How clever!  Are all these public spirited citizens career employees of the CIA?  Little birds still twittering in the trees in my back garden tell me they are.  This sounds like a CIA conspiracy designed to force Trump from office.  The WH and NSC staffs are peopled by some political appointees and a horde of career people detailed from various departments of the Executive Branch; CIA, Defense, State, Justice , Treasury, etc.  The lending agency selects the people who are lent.  The opportunity for someone like Brennan who still has a lot of faithful followers at CIA to plant a group of informants and operatives in Trump's WH has been evident and remains so.

My instincts and the application of Occam's Razor lead me to the conclusion that there is an "operations room" somewhere that is coordinating the efforts to remove Trump from office in what does amount to a "soft coup d'etat."  A fair minded person looking back over Trump's term will see that the attempts to undermine and bring him down began the day after his inauguration and have continued ever since in wave after wave of accusations and press induced frenzies.  This cannot be accidental and it will continue through his second term if he has one.  Trump is leader of a counter-revolution of the Deplorables.  From the point of view of the Globalist Left Trump must be removed and prevented from doing things like packing the federal judiciary with pro-Deplorable judges.  Stay tuned. PL

https://www.vox.com/2019/10/5/20900088/trump-ukraine-impeachment-second-whistleblower

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Married Priests

The Vatican conference supposedly focused on the ecology of the Amazon River basin opens this week.  The shortage of priests in that region has led the conference to raise the subject of ordaining married men as priests.  The "old guard" of ancients who supposedly spent their lives in celibacy and chastity (doubtful in many cases) are in an uproar about it.  The Catholic Church in spite of being an absolute monarchy in structure in fact functions most of the time on the basis of consensus among the "good old boys" at the top of the pile of black, purple and red robed old men.  If Francis wishes to make a change that big he will have to act like the successor of Peter in fact, as well as in title.  pl

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-opens-debate-on-celibacy-requirement-for-catholic-priests-11570352167

The Wealth Tax Proposals

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have the same two outside advisers to thank for shaping their wealth tax proposals: University of California, Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

Each Democratic presidential candidate wants to tackle wealth inequality by raising trillions of dollars in revenue from taxing the wealth — in addition to the income — of millionaires and billionaires, an idea that is backed up by research from Saez and Zucman.

There are competing explanations for the rise in inequality. Those on one side argue that wealth concentration is natural as a result of globalization, technology gains, and economic growth, which give enormous rewards to the smartest, innovative, and most hardworking people. Drastically increasing tax rates, they say, would discourage innovation and hurt the economy.

The other camp sees rising inequality as unfair, immoral, and a threat to society.

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Say what?  A couple of imported lefty French professors are the gurus on which Sanders and Warren base their insistence that one's possessions be confiscated as well as one's income?   One of them is 35 years old.  Well, pilgrims, this may be thought of as a grand idea in Europe but it will not sell well in the US.  Americans like the idea of BECOMING rich.   Most people want that rather than re-distribution of other peoples' money.  A smart Trump would want to run against the Confiscators rather than against Biden, someone who IMO wants to be really rich.  If that is what Trump wants he is quite perceptive of the realities of the 2020 election.  pl

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/the-berkeley-economists-advising-both-warren-and-sanders-on-their-groundbreaking-wealth-tax-proposals

Comments

[Rick Merlotti]

By all means, impeach him for high crimes. I don't know what those would be, and neither do you. The Borg wants him gone because he is a disrupter to the established corrupt status quo of both parties. I didn't vote for him in '16, but plan to in '20. Tulsi Gabbard is the only Dem I would consider voting for.

[emboil]

I think this comes down to his motivation. He is not running against Biden's son, so Hunter should be fair game. Knowing the partisanship which has overtaken the courts, I would be more careful if I was Trump. It would probably also help if this wasn't the only case of corruption he had asked a foreign leader to help with. If it wasn't, he should release those records.

[elaine]

Does anyone know when the Dems started investigating Trump? Was it during the campaign? Or the day after the election? Did they receive help from a British
intel operator? Silly me I've just assumed all of the lead contenders investigate
the competition.

[srw]

If you raise the bar for impeachment, you lower the bar for acceptable behavior

[Diana C]

According to us deplorables, the economy under Trump has improved in a remarkable way, especially in comparison to the stagnation we felt in the economy under the deplorable Obama administration.

I have been a Christian since I was first introduced to Sunday School when I was five. I was confirmed in my family church, an Evangelical Congregational church, at the age of fourteen. I still attend that church and our numbers have not decreased really.

As for income inequality, I have no envy in my heart over the money of the super rich. I do not lust after their lifestyles or their money. (I do remember a Bible story about the possibility of a camel going through the eye of a needle.) And I have found that I always had good jobs--though I am now comfortably retired--doing work that made me feel competent, capable, and proud. I attended college in my home town on a full ride scholarship since I graduated from that college's laboratory high school as valedictorian. I graduated with honors and then went on later for my MA and graduated with the Dean's citation for excellence. I had no debt when I came out of those programs. And I had an actual academic education--not one in which I had to spout Marxist, Feminist, or other sociological blather in order to graduate.

I have been pleased with my two sons' abilities to grow up, graduate, and get good jobs and then to be able to purchase homes with their wives in which to raise my grandchildren.

The many, many mis-educated younger people nowadays do not have it so good BECAUSE of the leftist ideologies that have ruined our educational systems and brainwashed younger generations into thinking socialist/Marxist blather is brilliant, despite the fact that Marx and Nietzsche are both indeed dead, while the Father,Son, and Holy Ghost still live in the hearts and are felt in the lives of many, many, many people. The only people who seem to have "taken the last train to the coast" (Simon and Garfunkel) are the homeless and the drug addicts who prefer the policies of the leftist, clueless politicians who allow them to exist in trash-filled, rat infested encampments on the West Coast and in many Leftist-run cities.

As for married Catholic priests, I leave that idea to the Catholics to decide. I do know that Eastern (Greek?) Orthodox priests are allowed to have wives. I won't take a stand on that issue, other than to say that as far as my belief is in regard to that issue it is simply that I hope a person who decides to take that position in any sort of a Christian denomination should take it with the full intent to follow the doctrine of his denomination, as the doctrine is what the congregants are taught is the righteous way to live.

The lefties like to feel they are judging from some higher wisdom, but mostly I feel the only wisdom they think is high is what comes out of their individual beliefs in their own individual ideas of superior knowledge. (I think that would be called "hubris," especially by the ancient Greeks.}

[JamesT]

Colonel

You once made essentially the same point to me about Costa Rica (when you said that they are more ethnically/culturally homogeneous than the surrounding countries). I must admit these are very valid points.

[Anonymous]

Is it losing or loosening.Cia is fully behind trump in removing zelensky from power,which what this bs ukrainegate disinfo campaign is about.

[artemesia]

Stephen Cohen told John Batchelor that Trump's mistake was surrendering the transcripts. He should have insisted on keeping conversations with foreign leaders private, as is the right of the sitting President.

https://www.unz.com/scohen/unasked-questions-about-us-ukrainian-relations/

[turcopolier]

Eric Newhill

It was never a "university gone to war." The first generation were OSS men from the elites. The next generation of leaders were former military intelligence enlisted operatives whom the elites recruited from the services as people who would do the hard work for them. Want me to name them? The present generation are antifa types who have infiltrated the system. They are Brennan and Clapper's natural allies. You do remember that Brennan voted for Gus Hall?

[turcopolier]

Lars

There is no "line" in this case. Trmp is not a threat to the constitution. He has done nothing to threaten the constitution. You leftists are simply attempting to eject him from office qlong with your allies in the Deep State and the media, some of them in Fox News.

[Petrel]

Re Wealth Tax:

The US had a substantial wealth tax imposed at the death of family farmers, engineers who organized profitable businesses, families who had managed major downtown stores, lumberyards, city newspapers and so on.

The effect of death taxes was the purchase of these family businesses by large investment funds -- at fire-sale prices. The purchasers, who had no background in such operations, in turn sold the factories, stores, newspapers etc. to consolidating corporations, which destroyed competition. More often than not, these consolidating corporations then off-shored operations and fired American labor.

What is so extraordinary is that Great Britain indulged in a comparable social experiment from 1890 on. The nation that led the world in manufacturing creativity, became in short order second-tier and could not even manufacture ball-bearings for their defense in WWI and WWII. To purchase these ball bearings and other stuff, Britain nationalized foreign assets of private citizens and sold them in order to buy war materiel.

[divadab]

@Stephen W: "Marriage was permitted in the early church and it seems that the main objection was that marriage might reduce the church's accumulation of wealth."

Not so. The idea of forbidding priests to marry was to avoid the passing down of Church positions to offspring - to keep the Church from becoming a family business.

Incidentally, although priests have been forbidden to marry and expected to be celibate since the 11th century papacy of Gregory VII, it is common for priests to live with "housekeepers", at least to my knowledge of how it works in Quebec. I have it on good authority that in the home for retired priests and nuns at the Seminary are also housed and kept the retired "housekeepers", which seems just and right to me.

Isn't it better for priests to have healthy sexual outlets with adult women? Consider the disgraceful alternative which has bankrupted many parishes.....

[J]

Lars,

It's a war of Globalists Vs Nationalism/Populism.  And Trump is in the way of the Globalists who wants their Totalitarian Iron Fist Rule over all humanity.

Trump and Putin both advocate Nationalism Vs Globalist Tyranny.

I'm a 'deplorable' and damn proud of it!

[Anonymous]

Nice summary of the Ukrainegate wobbly

https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-allies-said-to-have-eyed-takeover-of-ukraine-gas-firm-for-lucrative-deals/

[Christian J Chuba]

Regarding Biden
I keep hearing the talking point 'that everyone, the EU, IMF (and of course God Almighty), wanted Shokin removed because he was corrupt, that this was not Biden's idea'. Have any of these elite stepped up and publicly said, 'I wanted Shokin dismissed'? I wish someone in the MSM would ask Biden how he got the idea to pressure for Shokin's removal, who else did he discuss this with.

Regarding the Deep State
By that I mean the permanent bureaucracy in our Intelligence Community that believes they have a right/duty to enforce orthodoxy on neer-do-well elected officials; not a hidden govt. (IMO they are incapable of governing, they can only destroy).
Their main weapon is, surprise, information warfare, selectively leaking partly true info to a compliant MSM. This is extremely effective. How would a President combat this?

Why doesn't the President use his power of declassification to either release the full context of the leak or to declassify past operations that the IC would find embarrassing. I would never, under any circumstances, favor releasing info that would harm the security of the U.S., especially for political reasons. My belief is that many things are classified for the benefit of the IC Community. The guy from Judicial Watch said as much.

[JerseyJeffersonian]

OT: Sultan Erdogan tells Trump that they are ready to invade NE Syria, Trump says "You're on your own".
https://publicpool.kinja.com/subject-statement-from-the-press-secretary-1838832808

[The Beaver]

Colonel

Ça va brasser dans le Nord de la Syrie!
The sultan is "invading" the NE .

https://apnews.com/456d16ba55284c0f8ab73b0467e02e53

[David Solomon]

Colonel Lang, This question probably does not belong to this posting, but I was unsure of where to post it, so here goes:
=============================
Colonel Lang,
Does this morning's announcement of the withdrawal of US support for the Syrian Kurds mean that Pompeo
still maintains an influential position with Trump, and if so, is that good or bad.

[prawnik]

I claim no special knowledge of the CIA, but Ukraine is a place that I know well.

Everyone in the Ukrainian government is corrupt, from the postman and the fire department all the way up to the president. Everything there is for sale, everything, everywhere, all the time.

Of course Shokin, the fired prosecutor, was corrupt. Everyone knows it.

In fact, I would not be at all surprised if Shokin were investigating Burisma Holdings simply to shake down the owners. That's just business in Ukraine. Things have only gotten worse since the 2014 coup.

That said, there is no reason to hire a cokehead failson like Hunter Biden for a $600K a year no-show job, except for the political cover he provides.

And when Shokin was fired - his replacement was just as corrupt, but the replacement left Burisma Holdings alone. The Ukrainians got the message. And as soon as that happened, Joe Biden suddenly stopped caring about corruption in Ukraine. In other words, the political cover (the "krysha" as they call it there) worked exactly the way it was supposed to work.

For that matter, Trump doesn't care about corruption in Ukraine, either. Anyone who thinks otherwise should not buy bridges. The only thing Trump cared about was getting the Ukrainians to provide him with a stick to beat his political opponents with.

The consideration for Ukrainian assistance was more weapons to use to sell surreptitiously or to butcher the civilians on Donbass with. And Zelensky sounded like he was auditioning to be Trump's prison bride.

As far as I am concerned, none of the parties come out of this looking good at all.

[Lars]

I think the act of throwing the Kurds under the bus is a prime example of not trusting Trump on anything. It should send a powerful signal to anyone allied with him.

But I don't think Trump will be around too much longer. He is a real fight now and he has always been a coward, as evident early with his effervescent bone spurs. Being impeached will be like having "loser" tattooed on his forehead.

[Terence Gore]

The difference in my mind is that in 'Russiagate' the evidence was a frame up to get Trump impeached. The 'evidence' in this particular case seems more in what I assume almost every political entity from the local school board on up in trying to dig up dirt on the opposition. He does not appear to be asking anyone to 'fix' the evidence.
The 'whistleblower' feels to tale be more in the 'tattletale' category than someone at real risk for their job and safety.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/whistleblower-ukraine-trump-impeach-cia-spying-895529/

[Bob L]

I live and attend mass outside of Boston. The neighborhood surrounding the parish I and my wife belong to has been repopulated with yuppie heathen couples. Most of the pews are empty and about 50% of attendees at mass are Filipino or African. This past weekend I was out at The Great Pacific Airshow in Huntington Beach, CA and went to mass out there. Wow. The church— huge modern-style— has two Saturday vigil masses and six Sunday masses. The pews were completely filled. Approximately 80% of the parishioners were Vietnamese, Filipino, Korean, Chinese, and Hispanic. The priest’s homily focused on the culture of life and how we must fight against the culture of death that pervades our society. He cited the CCC and St. Pope JPII. As my wife pointed out, you never hear this stuff in the Northeast parishes we’ve attended.

While Christianity— and civilization— is waning in the West it is burgeoning in the East. From Africa to Korea. It reminds me of a somewhat cryptic statement in a talk by Fulton Sheen a half-century ago, where he lamented about the coming decline of the Church in the West and how we must look to the East for the future of the Church.

[divadab]

Does this mean the Empire has abandoned the Kurds again as they did in Saddam's day? In favor of the enemies of Christendom, the Turks? Also supporting the Turkish expansion at the expense of the Greek Cypriots?

This dog in the manger foreign policy in the Mideast is disgraceful.

[Fred]

Lars,

Darn, Trump won't get into yet another war in the midEast? How's that vote in the Senate going to go? McConnell is going to go full Adam Schiff and hold secret hearings with selected leaks curtesy of the CIA sedition ring and complicit allies in the media?

[artemesia]

""taken the last train to the coast" (Simon and Garfunkel)" --

Pretty sure that line was by Don McLean in Bye Bye Miss American Pie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yHTpGog0IY