Another Glass Menagerie

1.  I have contemplated Marie Y.  (all day yesterday)  IMO she did very well.  This lady reminds me of women I have known who were basically secular nuns.  Conservative everything; hair do, clothes (tasteful), carefully limited comments, no sniveling , a willingness to smile at them after the Republicans decided that the best thing would be to praise her.  She is a winsome creature of obviously high intellect.  I have looked around the internet and see no one who claims she is gay.  She seems to live alone, alone with her work.  She tried living with her 88 year old mother three years ago but that did not last.  What would the old girl have done with herself in Kiev with her daughter working all the time?   So, the maman went home to the States.  Marie is still employed as a Career Ambassador (a high rank) in the Foreign Service of of the United States  She is currently assigned at Georgetown U.   It is too bad for the Dems that she is ineligible to be president because of her foreign birth.   What is her gripe?  She lost the love of her life, diplomatic work.  A word about the Foreign Service in general might be needed.  To hear these stuck up creatures praised  for their resolute service in "dangerous hardship posts" is funny.  Whatever can be shipped in for their comfort is sent.  Ask Ambassador William Taylor, a once upon a time infantry company commander, or Ambassador Ron Neumann (rifle platoon leader in VN) if he believes the Foreign Service suffers much except from thwarted ambition.

2.  Adam Schiff.  The GOP should work on weaponizing his nasty little personality against the Democrats.  The spectacle on TeeVee yesterday of Schiff repeatedly gavelling  GOP members into silence was most instructive.  He is from Burbank?  Land of Johnny Carson?  How does that happen?  Tell me.

3.  IMO the Dems have an entertaining but ineffective set of candidates for president;  Joe Biden - senile, corrupt and nasty, Bernie - a hypocritical member of the rentier class, a man who reminds me of the early American communists who flocked to the USSR to fight for the revolution (John Reed, etc.), We are all just waiting for Bernie's physical collapse,  Warren, while waiting for Bernie to go, is burdened by her history of obvious falsehoods and a lack of understanding of basic economics.  If she gets the nomination, she will lose because there are just not enough dummies who can't do arithmetic,   Bloomberg - Nah!  Deval Patrick, the man who is an enemy of capitalism and is now employed by a hedge fund?  Nah!  Buttigiege is their best bet.  His gayness, cuteness, smartness, veteranness,  "family" manness, moderateness, all point to He bein' da man.  If he were smart enough to pick the lovely Tulsi for VP, he might well win

4.  Trump.  A NY City junk yard business dog  incapable of real feelings for other people.  He sees them all as tools to advance his agenda, namely himself.  His pretensions to patriotism or nationalism are unconvincing for me.  Policy positions are just public relations for him, but he knows he must perform on these implied promises or fatally lose support.  He said recently that his major failing in his first three years was "personnel."  I would agree with that.  He is really an empty suit.  People do not give their all for empty suits.  Trump can be beaten but not by running dotards, communists or obvious phonies against him  pl

Comments

[blue peacock]

"Lately I vote Republican mostly because that party seems to honor our fine Constitution more than the Democrats do..."

I could stand to be corrected, but I believe the Republicans were the prime movers in both warrantless mass surveillance of ALL Americans and the unPatriot Act. Which are both the antithesis of the principles that gird our Constitution. Let's also not forget the lies behind Iraq WMD and the Mushroom Cloud that they peddled. The propaganda that if you didn't support the invasion of Iraq you were an Al Qaeda sympathizer was quite reminiscent of what Goebbels would have done.

I'm not saying the Democrats are any better. But let's not be under any illusion that the Republicans honor the Constitution.

[blue peacock]

All

Some believe that Tulsi is a one issue candidate. Whatever one's opinion on that, her signature issue is hugely important from a financial perspective and the cost to the US.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/

The estimate that the Brown University researchers have come up with for the financial costs of our bipartisan regime change wars during the period FY2001-FY2020 is $6.4 trillion. Think of what those expenditures within the US would have accomplished??

In his 3 years in office, while Trump has thankfully not initiated any new wars, has he actually reduced any? Have DoD expenditures reduced?

[Upstate NY'er]

Trump may very well be an empty suit.
As a retired SES and military, you must have had plenty of experience with the swamp empty suits.
Prefer them?

[Upstate NY'er]

Bernie - never picked up a paycheck in the private sector.
Has THREE houses (one a lakefront on Lake Champlain) and is worth a couple of million dollars - years of public "service" pays off.
"Works"for Vermont....really???
What has he done for Vermont except to make it a (deserved) laughing stock?
As for the Vermont voters:
The state has been run for at least 30 years by left wing transplants and their spawn.
As for beating Trump, even America doesn't have enough stupid voters to elect this America-hating ignoramus.

[Factotum]

My apologies, b, I was referring the present Chinese population which does cover from pretty much the stone age to the modern era ...as we speak. Ever been to the Kashgar Sunday market? I am well versed in Chinese history. No problems. I was just observing their present internal political challenge with their wide range of population experiences and expectations.

[blue peacock]

Ben Hunt is spot on.

One day we will recognize the defining Zeitgeist of the Obama/Trump years for what it is: an unparalleled transfer of wealth to the managerial class.

Not founders. Not entrepreneurs. Not visionaries.

Nope … managers.

Fee-takers.

Asset-gatherers.

Rent-seekers.

Rakes.

https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-rake/

This is part and parcel of what you call systemic issues and neither party nor any of the current presidential candidates are willing to stake political capital to end this gravy train. But....as Ben Hunt believes this blatant wealth transfer will loom large and at some point an effective demagogue will show-up. Could be from the left or the right. In any case someone claiming to cut the Gordian Knot will show-up and the Constitutional precepts of the 18th century will be put aside.

[Upstate NY'er]

What would you prosecute "Wall St." for?
Trading mortgage backed tranches is still done there.
Trading credit swaps perfectly legal.
Rating agencies (not "Wall St") guilty of incompetence, not law-breaking.
And, BTW, pretty hard to prosecute a "street."
Need specific individuals doing specific and provable criminal acts.

[Factotum]

Trump does get the expense side and his attempts to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were greeted by the Democrat's 2018 howls Trump is going to take away your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That is why they rode to victory in 2018 and will use those same lines again in 2020.

Reform is exactly what these three budget suckers require, which means "something" will need to be taken away, so the Democrat howls were factually accurate. If disingenuous. Not fair to blame Trump for not paying attention to both sides the balance sheet. That fault lands squarely on the Democrats and the voters who want to give up nothing.

Personal feeling: all three need serious reform and taking away would be the best possible course, but also guaranteed to lose elections for anyone who tries. So then what do you have?

Political third rails destroy anyone who tries to touch them. That describes SS, Medicare and Medicaid - the political third rails. Ironic how unhealthy our perceptions are about our nation's "health care". Money means quality; quality does not mean quality.

Voters will have to bring about these "balance sheet" reforms; not just a president. Voters have to finally do the math and reject the Democrats siren call ..they'll find the money and you can have whatever you want.

[Factotum]

divadeb, ever consider the role government employee unions play in our endemic government corruption?

Why does Bernie demand all workers still must become unionized in his soon to unfold socialist paradise. Why should union bosses continue to harvest money off the top of worker paychecks when the New World Order spreads only truth, beauty and light.

[Factotum]

When was society not stratified - civilization only came about after creating "elites" and the rest of us who found ourselves as lesser forms of worker bees from professionals, craftsmen, drones and layabouts. Nothing draconian; just the natural order of things since the beginning of time.

America is great because we have more mobility within this inherent structure than most other systems of government. Elites can and do become layabouts, and vice versa. I have no time to either envy or resent the "elites". Because America still does open doors if/when you push hard enough.

[Porkupine]

Cortes—
I think that you are right.

[b]

The trips to war zones that Pete Buttigieg rarely talks about

But what the 37-year-old South Bend mayor didn't mention, and virtually never discusses in his run for the nation's highest office, were other trips to Afghanistan and Iraq years prior to his military deployment, when he was a 20-something civilian contractor for the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
...
The task force also awarded McKinsey an $18.6 million contract for a wide range of services in Afghanistan, from conducting training workshops to helping it define its "strategic focus" in the country, according to watchdog report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
...

2018 Congress election

Of the 102 primary elections to choose the Democratic nominees in these competitive districts, 44 involve candidates with a military-intelligence or State Department background, with 11 districts having two such candidates, and one district having three.

The Daily 202: Ex-CIA officers running for Congress as Democrats

Alarmed by President Trump and galvanized by Russian interference in the 2016 election, Democratic alumni of the Central Intelligence Agency are challenging Republican incumbents from Virginia to Michigan and New York.

[jd hawkins]

I agree completely.

[longarch]

Dear sir,
I regard the original-intent Constitution as my political ideal. However, although I have tried to persuade my fellows to take up this stance, almost everyone I talk to regards the Constitution as an outdated relic. I believe that America could be revitalized if some persuasive orator, some latter-day Chrysostom, could persuade ordinary young Americans to return to the old wisdom.

As Jack has written, the culture of America has changed greatly. White men are no longer the center of society. The 14th and 19th Amendments have greatly altered the nature of voting. The Federal Reserve has usurped the power of the Treasury. Society and culture are mired in degeneracy. In these degenerate times, where do we even begin to lead people back to the Constitution?

[TonyL]

Colonel,

The economy is not booming. It's far from it (GDP growth is not that great). Now, if you own stocks or stock mutual funds that mainly hold stocks from the large companies in Dow 30 or SP 500, you would feel that way. In reality, Trump tax cut benefits only large companies, they all used the money to buy back their shares and thus increase the values. No substantial investments were made by those companies. Furthermore, they also borrowed cheap money from the Fed and issued dividents using that leverage.

For small companies, not so much, we can look at the Russell 2000 performance this year for indicators for the smallcap stocks.

Low income people are struggling to make end meet. If Walmart ever needs to increase prices as the result of the trade war, that will open their eyes to see how disastrous Trump's economic policy has been for the country as a whole.

[Petrel]

Colonel, your description of Ambassador Yovanovitch as "a secular nun" is spot on. Congratulations !

On the other hand, why is a nun continuing a civil war with 1% predatory oligarchs and Bandera thugs on our side, versus 99% of un-armed local nobodies who want a return to normalcy?

Then again, since when does a Presidential emissary not only criticize him and the President of her host country, but also instruct local law enforcement on which oligarchs he may investigate and which oligarch's (admittedly ours) he may not.

Lastly, note that Representative Stefanik caught Ambassador Marie in a lie about Hunter Biden and Burisma. Marie claimed under oath that she had never encountered the issue pre-arrival in the Ukraine, while she had admitted earlier that Obama staff coached her about Hunter / Burisma responses for her Senate Confirmation Hearings.

To take your cue, Ambassador Marie is a secular nun with very bad ideas, who wandered to a profession she is not at all suited.

[srw]

Ah, the old "she claims she is part native American" stuff. Read she had her DNA analysed and said results show her to have native ancestry six or so generations back. I can believe it. I was amazed at joining the military in my teens from SD back in the mid 60's, the number of people I met who claimed to be part native American. Probably true but so what. Well the people I knew who claimed it were proud of it as she probably is. Reminds me of all those who claim Pilgrim heritage which has to be back at least 12 generations. They are proud of it but again, so what. By the way, genealogists figure that up to 12% of the American population can trace their ancestry back to the Pilgrims (the wonders of exponential growth and time). Harvard by the way says she didn't claim native American ancestry when she joined there. Another meme to bite the dust?

[BrotherJoe]

Perhaps Bloomberg shouldn't be counted out so quickly. Although I wouldn't vote for him I was impressed by his take-charge attitude at the presser during the then unfolding 2009 "Sullenberger" emergency landing in the Hudson. His three terms as mayor of NY city have given him a seasoned edge. He and Tulsi seem to be the only adults on the Dems side.

[turcopolier]

BrotherJoe

He is too old and he is Jewish. There is still a large hidden vote in the US that will not answer polls truthfully on issues like his, Mormonism, gayness, etc.

[turcopolier]

srw

You must be a lot younger than I. My five Mayflower ancestors are 9 generations back. Want me to name them? Warren claimed Indian ancestry on other papers over the course of her wondrous rise from primary school teacher to US Senator. Remember the false clsims that she was fired for being pregnant? I hope he gets the nomination. She will be easy meat.

[turcopolier]

confusedponderer
"telling an inconvenient witness that speaking 'will have consequences' I do not remember that he tweeted that. Quote us the whole tweet.

[Fred]

Srw,

Ah, the it's not affirmative action fraud when a woman does it. What was the disparate impact on those denied the job at Harvard because they were considered separate but equal applicants?

[J]

Appears the axe dropped on Roger Stone Friday. He was found guilty on all counts in a trial stemming from the Mueller probe. Obstruction, witness tampering, and making false statements to the Congress. Stone was charged with providing false statements in the House Intelligence Committee regarding communications having to do with Wikileaks, obstructing a Congressional Investigation of Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election, and witness tampering.

Stone was released on his own recognizance until sentencing February 6, 2020. The judge imposed a gag order on Stone earlier in the year, and has not been released from it. Trump railed against the verdict minutes after it was announced.

President Trump's exact words:
"So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come. Well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself? Didn’t they lie?" he tweeted. "A double standard like never seen before in the history of our Country?"

[turcopolier]

IZ

"Raven" has been writing to me for ten or twelve years. He was drafted into the Army during the VN War and spent some time there apparently in a logistics job. He writes every couple of days to insult me "war hero" etc. I usually do not publish him but I thought his response to you was interesting.

[J]

Oh, one other thing regarding the [D.C.] Jury pool that convicted Stone, seems that 90.9% of them voted for Hillary.