Sic Semper Tyrannis

The Collapse of Deterrence with Iran by Christopher J. Bolan

Earlier this month, the U.S. administration announced its decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).  Just this week, the Trump administration said that it will no longer exempt any country from U.S. sanctions if they continue to buy Iranian oil.  These moves are justifiably sparking renewed debate about U.S. strategy for Iran. 

The White House portrays these steps as a natural progression in its ‘maximum pressure’ campaign to deprive Iran of “funds that it has used to destabilize the Middle East for decades.”

The reaction among policy pundits has been mixed but imminently predictable.  Supporters of regime change in Iran, like Mark Dubowitz at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, have long pushed for such moves.  On the opposing side, advocates of rapprochement such as Trita Parsi have sounded alarmist assessments indicating that the IRGC designation alone represents a dangerous escalation that might well lead to war.  Still others see the combination of the IRGC designation and the imposition of crippling new sanctions as part of an orchestrated public information campaign to build a U.S. case for war against Iran. 

Meanwhile, others in the analytical community including Suzanne Maloney at Brookings have characterized the IRGC designation as an action that will ultimately prove to be of little consequence.  Similarly, while the threat of additional U.S. sanctions on countries importing Iranian oil have already predictably led to a short-term increase in oil prices, some oil analysts have suggested that the U.S. drive to get Iranian oil exports to zero will ultimately fail and characterize such policies as more “feel-good rather than strategy-driven.”

Whichever side of this debate you find yourself, it is imperative to recognize that – whether by happenstance or design – these steps are dangerously degrading the pillars of a successful U.S. deterrence strategy against Iran. 

Random Tuesday thoughts- 23 april 2019

• Marcus, my avatar and muse seems in good voice today.  This reminds me of the scene in "Tears of the Sun" in which the column passes under a jungle tree limb on which sits a magnificent male mandrill.  I have seen many baboons but, alas, never a mandrill.
• Bernie Sanders says that Bibi is a racist and that the US should treat the Palestinians as though they were equally human in their captive nation plight.  Heavens!  Such statements will never do!  Perhaps he should be de-circumcised, or at least deprived of any support from the righteous.
• The US government, having failed thus far to uproot Hizbullah from its home territory in Lebanon now proposes a reward for suggestions as to how to accomplish this.  The Israelis want Hizbullah, a Lebanese Shia movement, army and political party to be gone but are at a loss as to how to achieve that goal.  The IDF ground forces got a bloody nose in 2006 when the Gucci generation of Israeli conscripts were sent to fight in the Tabbouleh Line complex of fortified villages, tank traps and canalized killing zones.  They do not want to do that again, but the tens of thousands of Hizbullah missiles and artillery rockets that threaten Israeli counter-value targets (towns) are a true strategic threat for which the IDF has no solution.  Well pilgrims, Occam's Razor provides the only viable (irony) answer to the problem.  This would be a heavy bomber stream provided by USAF proceeding to devastate a strip of south Lebanon  for the purpose of eradicating Hizbullah.  What would this suggestion be worth in dollars to some think tank like RAND or IDA?
• I suspect that what Trump wishes to conceal in his financial records and tax returns is that he is nothing like as rich as he pretends to be.  One of the elements of the psychology of entrepreneurial hustlers like him is a relentless need to exaggerate his own importance and to puff himself up and preen like a tropical bird in mating season.  He is probably cash poor.
  
• The Democrats surely know that they have zero chance of impeaching Trump before 2020.  Only dimwits and fanatics can think otherwise.  No, what they are aiming for in their campaign of harassment is to diminish the man enough in the public mind to beat him in that election.  This tactic may well backfire on them.  They look incredibly petty in doing this.
• The Sri Lanka jihadi attacks on Easter Sunday are not something that should surprise.  The jihadis see themselves as waging war against Christianity.  They foolishly hope to break the will of Christian believers.  What better place to find Christian believers than at Easter services?  Expect more of the same.
• I have asked TTG to keep track of the emerging desperation of Pompeo/Bolton in their hostility to Iran.
• French anti-clericalism has been a major theme in their history since the Revolution.  It used to be a feature distinguishing those devoted to Republicanism, but that, thankfully, is gone.  There are not many monarchists in France these days.  The time when the Vendee rebellion of Catholics against the revolutionaries is gone as is the event in which General Thiers broke the back of the Communards by shooting tens of thousand of them in 1871.  A coalition of leftist political parties gained power in France in 1905 and produced a law that confiscated much Church property including Notre Dame and exiled all religious orders (Jesuits, etc) from the country for a time.  Sine that time the country and the government have been relentlessly secular.   Secularism is a feature of the national curriculum in the public schools. Notre Dame is viewed solely as a cultural monument and tourist attraction by the French government.  Should they leave it in ruins?
  
• My genealogist wife tell me that a question regarding citizenship has been historically frequent in US census taking.
• My eldest dog, Lola the Magnificent, A Norwich Terrier bitch, is almost 16  years old.  She went through a bad patch yesterday.  She went comatose for four hours and then suddenly woke up, walked around the TeeVee room and then peed in the middle of a 120 year old Kazak Caucasian Soumak rug.  She is bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning.  She gobbled up her breakfast and went for a stroll around the landscaped back garden in a survey of her domain.   Ah, well, rugs can be cleaned and I like her better than the rug.  She is pretty frisky today.  pl

The theme song of the New Democratic Party

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

Be happy!  pl

RSS feed

I received a query from a correspondent about problems with the RSS feed from SST.  I contacted Typepad and got the following response:

"Thank you for reaching out to us. I would be happy to help. First, we want to make sure they are using the correct RSS Feed. We recently updated to include an SSL certificate and if they are using the feed URL without that may be the issue.

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/atom.xml

If they are still having issues, we can work directly with the reader.

Have them email us at support@typepad.com. Have them include this ticket number (6J76DRXZFA2F) so we can connect it to your account."  pl

Levin on Mueller

"“There’s no collusion, says the Special Counsel. That takes one sentence. It doesn’t take 200 damn pages. It doesn’t take $35 million dollars,” Levin said, referring to Vol. 2 of the report.

Despite the Democrats warning of a "Saturday Night Massacre" like President Nixon during Watergate, President Trump never asserted executive privilege to prevent documents or people around him from talking to Mueller. He was an open book," Levin argued."  Levin

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

 

This is entertaining stuff.

 

Mark Levin, the ranter, looks to be approaching apoplexy in parts of this peroration on the dastardly natures of the Mueller Report and its principal author.

 

I find it hard to disagree with his points even though he bears a disturbing physical resemblance to "Chuck," the NY State Attorney General character now played by Paul Giamatti on the excellent TeeVee series "Billions."  One can only hope that Levin does not share poor "Chuck's" need for masochistic relief from the pressures of the empowered life.

 

This is fun.  You will enjoy.  I can hardly wait for Mueller's inevitable testimony before the House and Senate Judiciary committees. 

 

pl

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mark-levin-on-the-greatest-scandal-in-american-history

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billions_(TV_series)

Salvator Mundi

A collapse in the House of Bolton?

"The Baghdad Summit is scheduled to take place on April 20th with several Middle Eastern countries set to participate in this conference organized by Iraq.

The list of countries participating in the Baghdad Summit are as followed: Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, and Syria."  AMN and Reuters

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

Unless I am seriously mistaken, this meeting is a major setback for the John Bolton view of "the direction" of history in the ME.  These countries are supposed to be obeying Bolton's rules of international order in which peoples and governments are easily manipulated through intimidation and/or bribes to line up neatly into blocs that are on one side stooges of the US and on the other implacable and deadly enemies who must be pursued across all the world's oceans until they "spout black blood and roll fin out."  They can then be added to the US controlled blocs.

Perhaps I have missed something here but these folks do not appear to be playing their assigned roles.  pl

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/iran-turkey-syria-saudi-arabia-set-to-meet-for-first-time-at-baghdad-summit/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-parliament/iraq-to-host-regional-rivals-iran-and-saudi-arabia-at-conference-idUSKCN1RW08B

Red Gelatin Salad Night By Richard Sale

          Ben Falls, 36, had been administrator of the prison's Diagnostic and Receiving Center since last August. “It was the opinion of the prison administration and the Department of Corrections that a qualified person was needed for the position,” and Ben got the job. He was good at it.

          One early Monday morning, he was talking to his inmate clerk, Jute, who was doing time for embezzlement.

          Atop a gray metal desk, a boxy radio was blaring. A wiry, dark-haired man, balding and undersized, sat in Ben’s chair, his cheek bulging out as he ate. He chewed happily in time to the music.

          Ben Falls opened the door. His red face was moist with sweat.

          “Hey – Sparky,” Jute sang out happily, chewing. When he saw his boss, he stood up in haste, brushing off crumbs. “Could you turn that down, please?” Ben said coldly.

          Jute looked like a startled raccoon caught rummaging in the trash. “Thought you were Sparky.” He moved quickly to quell the concert.

          As the prison psychologist, Ben Falls was known as a man who would listen before he would judge. Custody officers saw the convicts as the most depraved, vice-hardened and desperate set of men ever to disgrace the face of the Earth, but to Ben the inmates were human beings pretty much like himself, and he took their side against custody.

          There were exceptions – there were murderers who would kill you if they chose to. He knew that there was a small hard core among the inmates who were sullen, ignorant and even fanatical, but the majority were simply ordinary people who had made bad mistakes. His goal was to help them regain their lives, and he deeply cared for their welfare. As a result he was widely popular with them. Therefore, his inmate clerk enjoyed a certain esteem and prestige. More importantly, the two men had liked each other from the first, and a strong, affectionate respect had grown between them, even though, according to prison rules, Jute was required to address his boss as “Mr. Falls.”

Happy Passover

Today is Friday by Ernest Hemingway

Three Roman soldiers are in a drinking-place at eleven o’clock at night. There are barrels around the wall. Behind the wooden counter is a Hebrew wine-seller. The three Roman soldiers are a little cock-eyed.

1st Roman Soldier—You tried the red?

2d Soldier—No, I ain’t tried it.

1st Soldier—You better try it.

2d Soldier—All right, George, we’ll have a round of the red.

Hebrew Wine-seller—Here you are, gentlemen. You’ll like that. [He sets down an earthenware pitcher that he has filled from one of the casks.] That’s a nice little wine.

1st Soldier—Have a drink of it yourself. [He turns to the third Roman soldier who is leaning on a barrel.] What’s the matter with you?

3d Roman Soldier—I got a gut-ache.

2d Soldier—You’ve been drinking water.

1st Soldier—Try some of the red.

3d Soldier—I can’t drink the damn stuff. It makes my gut sour.

1st Soldier—You been out here too long.

3d Soldier—Hell don’t I know it?

1st Soldier—Say, George, can’t you give this gentleman something to fix up his stomach?

Hebrew Wine-seller—I got it right here.

[The third Roman soldier tastes the cup that the wine-seller has mixed for him.]

3d Soldier—Hey, what you put in that, camel chips?

Wine-seller—You drink that right down, Lootenant. That’ll fix you up right.

3d Soldier—Well, I couldn’t feel any worse.

1st Soldier—Take a chance on it. George fixed me up fine the other day.

Wine-seller—You were in bad shape, Lootenant. I know what fixes up a bad stomach.

[The third Roman soldier drinks the cup down.]

3d Roman Soldier—Jesus Christ. [He makes a face.]

2d Soldier—That false alarm!

1st Soldier—Oh, I don’t know. He was pretty good in there today.

2d Soldier—Why didn’t he come down off the cross?

1st Soldier—He didn’t want to come down off the cross. That’s not his play.

2d Soldier—Show me a guy that doesn’t want to come down off the cross.

1st Soldier—Aw, hell, you don’t know anything about it. Ask George there. Did he want to come down off the cross, George?

Wine-seller—I’ll tell you, gentlemen, I wasn’t out there. It’s a thing I haven’t taken any interest in.

2d Soldier—Listen, I seen a lot of them—here and plenty of other places. Any time you show me one that doesn’t want to get down off the cross when the time comes—when the time comes, I mean—I’ll climb right up with him.

1st Soldier—I thought he was pretty good in there today.

3d Soldier—He was all right.

2d Roman Soldier—You guys don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not saying whether he was good or not. What I mean is, when the time comes. When they first start nailing him, there isn’t none of them wouldn’t stop it if they could.

1st Soldier—Didn’t you follow it, George?

Wine-seller—No, I didn’t take any interest in it, Lootenant.

1st Soldier—I was surprised how he acted.

3d Soldier—The part I don’t like is the nailing them on. You know, that must get to you pretty bad.

2d Soldier—It isn’t that that’s so bad, as when they first lift ’em up. [He makes a lifting gesture with his two palms together.] When the weight starts to pull on ’em. That’s when it gets ’em.

3d Roman Soldier—It takes some of them pretty bad.

1st Soldier—Ain’t I seen ’em? I seen plenty of them. I tell you, he was pretty good in there today.

[The second Roman soldier smiles at the Hebrew wine-seller.]

2d Soldier—You’re a regular Christer, big boy.

1st Soldier—Sure, go on and kid him. But listen while I tell you something. He was pretty good in there today.

2d Soldier—What about some more wine?

[The wine-seller looks up expectantly. The third Roman soldier is sitting with his head down. He does not look well.]

3d Soldier—I don’t want any more.

2d Soldier—Just for two, George.

[The wine-seller puts out a pitcher of wine, a size smaller than the last one.

He leans forward on the wooden counter.]

1st Roman Soldier—You see his girl?

2d Soldier—Wasn’t I standing right by her?

1st Soldier—She’s a nice-looker.

2d Soldier—I knew her before he did. [He winks at the wine-seller.]

1st Soldier—I used to see her around the town.

2d Soldier—She used to have a lot of stuff. He never brought her no good luck.

1st Soldier—Oh, he ain’t lucky. But he looked pretty good to me in there today.

2d Soldier—What become of his gang?

1st Soldier—Oh, they faded out. Just the women stuck by him.

2d Roman Soldier—They were a pretty yellow crowd. When they seen him go up there they didn’t want any of it.

1st Soldier—The women stuck all right.

2d Soldier—Sure, they stuck all right.

1st Roman Soldier—You see me slip the old spear into him?

2d Roman Soldier—You’ll get into trouble doing that some day.

1st Soldier—It was the least I could do for him. I’ll tell you he looked pretty good to me in there today.

Hebrew Wine-seller—Gentlemen, you know I got to close.

1st Roman Soldier—We’ll have one more round.

2d Roman Soldier—What’s the use? This stuff don’t get you anywhere. Come on, let’s go.

1st Soldier—Just another round.

3d Roman Soldier—[Getting up from the barrel.] No, come on. Let’s go. I feel like hell tonight.

1st Soldier—Just one more.

2d Soldier—No, come on. We’re going to go. Good-night, George. Put it on the bill.

Wine-seller—Good-night, gentlemen. [He looks a little worried.] You couldn’t let me have a little something on account, Lootenant?

2d Roman Soldier—What the hell, George! Wednesday’s payday.

Wine-seller—It’s all right, Lootenant. Good-night, gentlemen.

[The three Roman soldiers go out the door into the street.]

[Outside in the street.]

2d Roman Soldier—George is a kike just like all the rest of them.

1st Roman Soldier—Oh, George is a nice fella.

2d Soldier—Everybody’s a nice fella to you tonight.

3d Roman Soldier—Come on, let’s go up to the barracks. I feel like hell tonight.

2d Soldier—You been out here too long.

3d Roman Soldier—No, it ain’t just that. I feel like hell.

2d Soldier—You been out here too long. That’s all.

CURTAIN

Ave Maria

"A gutted roof, blackened stone and a gaping hole where the spire once stood.

The scale of the damage caused by a devastating fire that tore through Notre Dame cathedral on Monday has been revealed by dramatic images shot from a drone above the 850-year-old church.

The pictures, taken by Lana Sator, show the interior of the medieval Catholic church exposed to the elements, and the impact caused by the dramatic collapse of the structure's spire.

French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to rebuild the cathedral, one of Paris' most-famous landmarks."  CNN

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

The miracle of what remains is astonishing.  Those who criticize les pompiers de Paris are just bitching against brave men and women who did their best.

The flying buttresses held under all that pressure from heat and stone expansion.  What a marvelous thing!  The Rose windows survived!  Another miracle!

And then there was the hero priest, the chaplain of the firemen, who led some of his flock into the burning medieval building with tons of dried wood above them to save holy relics but most importantly for them the consecrated Host from the altar.  We Catholics believe that the consecrated Host is the actual Body of Christ transformed at the Consecration through trans-substantiation.  To die in the attempt to save that was surely to be saved.

And then there was the spectacle of so many young French people gathered in the streets to mourn and sing the praises of Jesus' mother for whom the cathedral is named.

This was nothing like defeat for France and her remaining Christian people. No, it was a moment of renewed hope.  pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/world/gallery/notre-dame-aerials-intl/index.html

The Lost Comments

For those suffering from Lost Disqus Comments Anxiety (LDCA), I will write again that I have arranged with Disqus for them to send me a message containing all those comments.  It is queued up and when I receive it, I will do something to make them available on SST.  Bless your hearts.  pl

Open Thread 15 April 2019

pl

al-Sisi is evidently not impressed with Trump

"The reasons behind the decision, according to the sources, is that Egypt doesn’t wish to harm its relations with Iran, as well as it doesn’t believe that US President Donald Trump would be elected for a second term. If Trump is gone that jeopardizes the entire “Arab NATO” idea since the next POTUS may decide not to follow through.

On April 9^th, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi visited the US and met with Donald Trump. Trump said that they spoke of security issues, but neither the Arab NATO nor Iran were mentioned in the press conference following the meeting.

Both leaders praised the warm relations between the countries, which could presumably be spoiled if the reports of Egypt giving up efforts are true.

In addition to the US and Saudi Arabia, the MESA proposed participants include the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Jordan.

Two anonymous sources also told Al Jazeera that the project would be moving forward and that Egypt would be pressured into not revoking its membership. The project was initially proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2017, and was perpetuated by US President Donald Trump.."  SF and al jazeera

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It surprises me that Egypt has rather brazenly walked away from the Boltonesque fantasy of an "Arab NATO."  I would have thought that the paychecks Egypt receives every year from the American taxpayer and the Saudis would have kept Sisi in line, but apparently  the prospect of other sources of funding affected the decision to defy the Amiirkaan.

With the exception of Jordan's small but competent armed forces, Egypt is the only  country among the members that possesses significant military power,  The armed forces of the other countries are mere playthings for princes.  Egypt's withdrawal from this alliance makes the farcical nature of the plan quite clear.

This is a humiliation for the US in that it demonstrates the waning power and influence of the US in the region and most especially of Donald Trump who has demonstrated his indifference to the interests of the Arabs in repeated slavish support of Israel against the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians.  pl

https://southfront.org/egypt-pulled-out-of-u-s-efforts-to-form-arab-nato-to-combat-iran-reports/

Musk does it again. Bravo!

"Payload fairings are the nose cones that surround and protect satellites during launch. SpaceX has yet to re-fly any fairings, but doing so has always been part of the plan. The company outfits each fairing half with an avionics system and thrusters, which it uses to steer itself to a soft, parachute-aided ocean splashdown. 

SpaceX has gone to such trouble because fairings are expensive and therefore worth reusing. Each one costs $6 million, Musk has said — about 10% of the cost of a launch of one of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rockets. (The two-stage Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy use the same payload fairing. The Heavy is basically three modified Falcon 9 first stages strapped together; the central booster is topped with a single-engine second stage and the payload.)

Yesterday's recovered payload fairing will be reassigned to a launch for Starlink, Musk added. That program is SpaceX's huge internet-satellite constellation, which will ultimately consist of thousands of spacecraft. The first operational Starlink launch is planned for next month; it will lift off atop a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

It's unclear if the recovered fairing will top that Falcon 9; Musk didn't specify which Starlink mission the hardware will fly on."

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

Yet another major step in the reduction of spaceflight costs.  pl

https://www.space.com/spacex-reuse-payload-fairing-starlink-launch.html

Disqus

I am thinking of disabling Disqus on SST.  Many commenters here find them difficult to deal with and lately they have stopped posting approved comments on some basis that is obscure.  Disabling the service will cause some loss of posted comments, but it may be worth it.  Opinions?  pl

Falcon Heavy landed all three boosters last night

Mission Arabsat 6A carried  a major communications satellite into a high geosynchronous orbit last night.  This bird will provide service all over the Arab World and East Africa.  This was a commercially funded mission.  Watch the tape.  Enjoy.  pl

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/11/livestream-watch-spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-launch-and-landing.html

" ... Six US Agencies Conspired ..."

"Here is what we now know, per intelligence gleaned form federal law enforcement sources with insider knowledge of what amounts to a plot by U.S. intelligence agencies to secure back door and illegal wiretaps of President Trump’s associates:

• Six U.S. agencies created a stealth task force, spearhead by CIA’s Brennan, to run domestic surveillance on Trump associates and possibly Trump himself.
• To feign ignorance and to seemingly operate within U.S. laws, the agencies freelanced the wiretapping of Trump associates to the British spy agency GCHQ.
• The decision to insert GCHQ as a back door to eavesdrop was sparked by the denial of two FISA Court warrant applications filed by the FBI to seek wiretaps of Trump associates.
• GCHQ did not work from London or the UK. In fact the spy agency worked from NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, MD with direct NSA supervision and guidance to conduct sweeping surveillance on Trump associates.
• The illegal wiretaps were initiated months before the controversial Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
• The Justice Department and FBI set up the meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner with controversial Russian officials to make Trump’s associates appear compromised.
• Following the Trump Tower sit down, GCHQ began digitally wiretapping Manafort, Trump Jr., and Kushner.
• After the concocted meeting by the Deep State, the British spy agency could officially justify wiretapping Trump associates as an intelligence front for NSA because the Russian lawyer at the meeting Natalia Veselnitskaya was considered an international security risk and prior to the June sit down was not even allowed entry into the United States or the UK, federal sources said.
• By using GCHQ, the NSA and its intelligence partners had carved out a loophole to wiretap Trump without a warrant. While it is illegal for U.S. agencies to monitor phones and emails of U.S. citizens inside the United States absent a warrant, it is not illegal for British intelligence to do so. Even if the GCHQ was tapping Trump on U.S. soil at Fort Meade.
• The wiretaps, secured through illicit scheming, have been used by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 election, even though the evidence is considered “poisoned fruit.”

Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who spearheaded the Trump Tower meeting with the Trump campaign trio, was previously barred from entering the United Sates due to her alleged connections to the Russian FSB (the modern replacement of the cold-war-era KGB)"  True Pundit.

-----------.

Someone left this link in a comment to LJ, but as  ringmaster of this circus, I choose to publish this as the best summary of all the threads of the supposed conspiracy that I have seen thus far.  pl

https://truepundit.com/exclusive-six-u-s-agencies-conspired-to-illegally-wiretap-trump-british-intel-used-as-front-to-spy-on-campaign-for-nsa/

Can Pompeo really be this goofy?

"“Lebanon and the Lebanese people face a choice: bravely move forward as an independent and proud nation or allow the dark ambitions of Iran and Hezbollah to dictate your future,” he said while standing next to the foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, after an afternoon meeting. Mr. Pompeo added that it would “take courage” for Lebanon to stand up to what he called Hezbollah’s “criminality, terror, and threats.”

Mr. Bassil, who is an ally of Hezbollah, countered Mr. Pompeo in his own post-meeting statement, saying: “For us, Hezbollah is a Lebanese party, not terrorists. Its members of parliament were elected by the Lebanese people, with high popular support.”"  NY Times

*********

"Lebanese President Michael Aoun reportedly received a US-Israeli document detailing plans for creating a civil war in Lebanon, during US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Beirut, Lebanon on March 22^nd.

The document outlines covert false flag operations and a possible Israeli invasion, Lebanese TV station, Al-Jadeed reported.

According to the report, the source of the document is Israeli and it was created in partnership with the US, it is unclear who exactly presented it to President Aoun."  SF and al Jadeed

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

Well now, pilgrims, the trick in looking at this story is to figure out how much of this can possibly be true.  "Al Jadeed" has a long history of tilting at windmills, but ... there is a certain madcap consistency in this story with the Trump/Bolton/Pompeo view of their role in history and willingness to "think big."

I don't think anyone would have been foolish enough to actually give the Lebanese a document that laid out this scheme, but that does not mean that Pompeo the Great did not verbally press this evidence of his mastery of the world on Aoun and company.

For him to do that would have required a presidential "finding" under the US National Defence Acts for what would undoubtedly be covert warfare, but that could be.  There must by now be a number of findings signed by Trump to authorize such efforts as the march of freedom toward Caracas, etc.

Would the Israelis be goofy enough to have suggested/ordered such a plan?  As I have written here before, Hizbullah's massive rocket and missile capability poses a strategic problem to Israel all the way down to Tel Aviv.  This capability is protected from Israeli attacks by the Tabbouleh Line of entrenched Hizbullah militia, many of them very combat experienced in Syria.  The Israelis do not want to repeat their 2006 experience against what was then a weaker TL but they yearn for an end to Hizbullah's retaliatory capability against Israel.

How much easier or possible it might be to take down Hizbullah by fomenting an anti-Hizbullah civil war within Lebanon.  

Unfortunately for this hope Hizbullah is a fully integrated part of Lebanese society and government.  President Aoun, a Maronite Christian, and his foreign minister made that clear to the Pomp.  The notion that Lebanon can still be split like a melon by spreading a bucket full of money around is typical of the arrogance and ignorance with which Israeli policy still views its neighbors.

My SWAG is that this Al-Jadeed report represents the decision of some Lebanese politician to debrief  to the TeeVee station concerning the verbal statements made by Pompeo in Lebanon. 

pl

https://southfront.org/secret-document-outlines-us-israel-plan-for-syria-style-civil-war-in-lebanon-report/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/world/middleeast/mike-pompeo-lebanon-hezbollah.html

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

If the IRGC is a Terrorist army the AUMF applies

"Washington is planning to designate the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group, the Wall Street Journal reported on April 5, citing unnamed U.S officials.

According to the officials, the decision will be officially announced by the U.S. State Department as early as April 8. This will be first time Washington to formally designate another country’s military a “terrorist group.”

The President Donald Trump administration reportedly hopes that this decision will increase pressure on Tehran. However, some U.S. officials believe that this step could endanger U.S. troops deployed near IRGC forces in the Middle East."  WSJ and SF

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

The AUMF on terrorism has been used far and wide as a hunting license to attack any armed group that could even distantly be thought a terrorist enemy.  The anti-terrorism AUMF makes such attacks legal under US law.

The official designation as "terrorist" of the IRGC which is a 125000 man army with its own navy and air force makes it legal for the US Armed Forces to attack the IRGC and its people wherever they are found and under any circumstances that may occur.  It is a declaration of war.

The neocon nitwits (Pompeo, Bolton, Hannah, etc.)  may think that Iran's reaction to this declaration of war will be submission to their will but IMO that is very unlikely.  IMO it is more likely that the IRGC will absorb the new reality and will prepare for war with the US. 

https://southfront.org/u-s-to-designate-irans-revolutionary-guard-corps-as-terrorist-group-report/

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

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

Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

"Dan, Thanks for the reference, which I will follow up. Unfortunately, although Bongino has produced a lot of extremely valuable material, a lot of it is buried in the ‘postcasts’, searching through which is harder than with printed materials. It would greatly help if there were transcripts, but of course those cost money. I am still trying to fit the exploding mass of information which has been coming out into a coherent timeline. Part of the problem is that there is so much appearing in so many different places. In addition to trying to think through the implications of the information in this post and the subsequent exchanges of comments, I have been trying to make sense of evidence coming out about the British end of the conspiracy.

Yet another piece of Kushner's "Deal of the Century"

"The king said that the plan was dangerous and not simple to implement, in particular the part relating to the land swaps in Tzofar, a moshav in the Arava desert, and Naharayim, where Jordan conquered in 1948 the Island of Peace and a hydroelectric power-plant that belonged to Israel. According to the Trump proposal, Jordan would receive from Saudi Arabia an area equal in size to these territories which Israel would reacquire.

In addition, Jordan has been asked to take in a million “Palestinian” refugees in several stages, in return for $45 billion in investments. Jordan’s entire GDP is only $40 billion. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states will finance these investments."  Jewish Press

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

The full "good deal of the century" will evidently be revealed after the Israeli election. 

Pieces of the "good deal of the century" have previously been revealed.

The move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem has been followed by endless Palestinian waves of self immolation along the Gaza "dead line."  This will continue indefinitely unless the Beebster or his successor decide to  re-occupy Gaza to stop Palestinian rockets reaching Tel Aviv.  Now, that  would be a spectacle.

Another piece of "The Kushner Plan" was the cession by the US of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to Israel.  The justification for this was that the Israelis hold it by force of arms.  Syria, of, course does not accept the US transfer of title deed to part of its territory.

These two things are typical of Trump's NY City real estate methodology.  In his mind he is systematically taking points of contention off "the bargaining table" so that he can "close" over what's left.

This latest "offer" made to Jordan is part of what is left.  Perhaps some savant can explain what the various parts of this "partial good deal" mean. " A million Palestinians?"  Where would they come from?  Would they be round up for transportation to The East?  Saudi Arabia would transfer land to Jordan?  Where?  On the Gulf of Akabah coast near Tabuk?  Really?  The Saudis and Gulfies would cough up $45 billion for investments in Jordan?  To do what?  Tourism?  Really?  And who would own these enterprises?  Lebanon will give its citizenship to the hordes of Palestinian descended people who inhabit the country?  They have firmly resisted this for decades. 

Explain all this, someone.  pl

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/al-akhbar-trump-wants-jordan-to-take-in-1-million-palestinians/2019/04/05/

"... and he's pushing down, and pushing down."

" ... And he’s pushing down and pushing down,” she said through tears. “I honestly didn’t know what was going on. And then the next thing I know, like, my head is, like, literally in his crotch … And I’m choking and gagging. And, you know, I couldn’t say anything ‘cause I’m choking and gagging.”

Tyson also believes that Fairfax took advantage of her past as a survivor of incest, about which she recalls telling him 2004. At the time of the alleged assault, she was counseling other survivors at a rape crisis center, which was then “the biggest part of [her] life.”

In early February, Tyson came forward after a right-wing website reported a private Facebook post she wrote, claiming that Fairfax had sexually assaulted her; a day later, she made her name public and claimed that he had “forced [her] to perform oral sex on him,” after which she “suffered from both deep humiliation and shame.” In the time since, a second woman, Meredith Watson, has accused Fairfax of raping her in a “premeditated and aggressive” fashion."  The Cut

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

I am not sure what rape in a "non-aggressive fashion" would be, but, no matter.   Tyson's experience as recounted by her cannot be described as other than rape.  Forced oral sex is rape without any doubt at all.  This attack occurred in  Boston, MA and the statute of limitations has not run on it as yet. 

Joe Biden, he of many hands, has said of the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearing long ago that Hill was poorly treated at the hearing.  Biden, was then chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and presided at the hearing.  He now says that her ill treatment was caused by the application of legal concepts derived from ancient British common law by the "old white guys" on the committee.  They being he, Edward Kennedy, etc.  I am not sure what he means by the concepts thingy.  Perhaps he means that actual evidence of physical or spiritual assault should not be required in the face of female accusations  and assertions of distress.  In other words lynch law should apply and the process should take place in televised autos da fé.

Well, pilgrims, the two women who have accused Fairfax are willing to testify under oath about these events before the Virginia General Assembly, so, public humiliation and the Biden rule of New Law can apply.

Would Fairfax sit in the chair of the president of the senate during this testimony?  All the world wonders.

pl

https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/justin-fairfax-accuser-vanessa-tyson-details-alleged-assault.html

40 Martyrs Cathedral reconsecrated in Aleppo

"The Forty Martyrs Armenian Cathedral in Aleppo was re-consecrated on Saturday, four years after the jihadist rebels ransacked the building.

His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, visited the historic church after its reconstruction meant it could be opened again after Jabhat Al-Nusra razed parts of the compound back in April 2015."  AMN

----------

Let us remember that the Syrian Arab Republic's recovery of Aleppo City after ferocious and prolonged combat made possible the re-construction of this ancient Armenian cathedral.

The Syrian Arab Army's front against al-Nusra just west of Aleppo City protects this cathedral and all the good people of Aleppo while re-construction continues.

Let us remember that al-Nusra is the Syrian branch of al-Qaida.  They destroyed as much of this cathedral as they could manage while they held that part of the city.  The al-Nusra were John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman's good friends.  The three senators often visited them as well as the other FSA unicorns who were under al-Nusra's control.  According to these three fools anything was better than the Syrian government.  Now, who would have given then that idea?

And then there is the matter of the Borgist and neocon insistence that the US and our SDF allies defeated IS in Syria all by our selves.  The fierce fighting done by the Russians and the SAA/allies is simply ignored by the swampies in DC.

Well, pilgrims, Reuters says that Bolton torpedoed the Hanoi meeting by persuading Trump to stiffen his terms at the last minute.  Bolton is also leading the US toward a major geopolitical defeat in a failed attempt to remove Maduro in Venezuela.  How long is Trump going to put up with this fool and his sidekick "ole first in his class" at State? 

Perhaps a change in faces might result in different policy.  pl

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/600-year-old-aleppo-cathedral-re-consecrated-after-jihadist-destruction/

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

Who thinks Chris Wallace is a conservative?

"On October 11, 2006, The Washington Post reported that Wallace had been a registered Democrat for more than two decades. Wallace explained his party affiliation in terms of pragmatism, saying that being a Democrat is the only feasible means of participating in the political process in heavily Democratic Washington, DC."  wiki

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

I have linked here to Chris Wallace's interview with Kelley Anne Conway yesterday.

Does anyone think this man is either a conservative or a gentleman? Ah, sorry, I had forgot that "gentleman"  is a term of lost meaning, something like "gay."

He attacks this gallant woman by questioning the solidity of her marriage?  He did that because he could shake her responses or poise on any of his earlier policy questions.

Why would anyone watch this man's Sunday morning puffery?

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Fox+News+Sunday+with+Chris+Wallace&&view=detail&mid=191BC37B990782F836AE191BC37B990782F836AE&&FORM=VDRVRV

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

AOC, FDR and the 22nd Amendment

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was lambasted on Twitter and in the media for confusing the facts while waxing lyrical about the Democratic golden age of the 1930s and 1940s—but was she actually right?

“When our party was boldest, the time of the New Deal, the Great Society, the Civil Rights Act and so on, we had, and carried, supermajorities in the House, in the Senate. We carried the presidency,” Ocasio-Cortez said Friday while speaking on MSNBC with Chris Hayes.

“They had to amend the constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt did not get reelected. There were so many extraordinary things that were happening at that time that were uniting working people,” she continued.

The New York congresswoman’s comments divided Twitter users, with detractors accusing her of fiddling with the facts around the 22nd Amendment and the fourth term served by 32nd President Franklin Delano Roosevelt."  newsweek

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

I could read when I was four years old.  My father taught me using the comics section of the newspapers as a first text.  I particularly looked forward to Sundays and the multi-colored, multi-paged section.  Soo, pilgrims, I remember FDR's death and the banner headlines.  1945 it was and the specter of Harry Truman as president left a lot of people breathless.  It is true that there had been talk of the need to find a way to restore the Washingtonian tradition of not more than two terms for a president.  I remember listening to my parents discuss the matter while we sat around the giant wooden cabinet of the big living room radio of the time.

Roosevelt died.  His ill health had always been well concealed, so his death was unexpected.  The war was still a going thing in the Pacific and it was just ending in Europe.  Nuclear weapons appeared on the historical stage and after VJ Day hordes of servicemen returned home.  The country was busy but by 1947 someone(s) in Congress was ready to act in favor of the two term tradition.

The amendment passed in both houses of Congress and the ratification process was completed in 1951.  There was general bipartisan  agreement throughout the country.  There have been several attempts at repeal.  None have gained much traction.

Clearly, the country has not wanted the emergence of presidents who serve for life. 

AOC evidently has not bothered to inform herself of the basic constitutional history of the United States.  She insisted in the course of a media event that the Republicans in Congress had changed the constitution to prevent FDR's re-election.  How on earth did she get such an idea?

The Republicans tried hard to defeat FDR's desire for a fourth term in 1944 but the feeling was strong in the country that he had somehow magically ended the great depression, that he was the ultimate war leader and that was enough to re-elect him.

Why doesn't this woman who presumes to have a grand vision for the re-organization of our lives know the basic history of the country?  Why?

https://www.newsweek.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-attacked-twitter-constitutional-mistake-was-she-1381693

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

What does "humanitarian crisis" mean for the Democrats?"

The Democrats in the US Congress claim they support "Border Security."  Apparently they believe that the public will accept the idea that they support the US government's right to limit immigration however it chooses to do so.  Their unwillingness to reinforce the CBP on the border and to change the Asylum Law to make treatment of Central Americans equal to that of all others, including Mexicans, makes that assertion an absurdity.

The truth IMO is that with few exception. the national Democrats seek the collapse of US government control of immigration and an inundation of illegal immigrants that they hope will give them permanent voting majorities in elections across the country. 

The tactic used in California of illegally voting illegal immigrants through control of local election boards and devices like "motor voter" registrations was shown to be effective in HC's popular vote win in California.  This is why California resisted so strongly the proposal for an audit of the election after 2016.

The Democrats have become a minority and left Globalist Party hostile to the traditional American structure of government and to the people who built this country, and I don't mean by laying bricks when the WH was built.

The behavior and statements of the Democrats demonstrate that what they really want in the SW is a collapse of US government authority.

Seeking agreement with them is futile.  pl

A few thoughts

1.  My gums have healed nicely.  I had NY Strip steak and eggs with grits for breakfast this day at Bob and Edith's Diner.  That was about $15.  A good day.The temperature in the back yard is around 80 degrees Fahrenheit and my chipmunks have come back to the surface.

2.  Trump ought to consider trying to get GM to sell or lease Lordstown to General Dynamics as a place to build some of the Army's new family of vehicles.  The place employs 4500 people from all over that part of Ohio when at full capacity.

3.  A border closure will hut Mexico badly and might force Mexico to impede these migrants but the back-pressure from businesses in the US is going to be very tough to face up to.  Cutting off aid to Central America won't do much.  We have been funding CA economic development since 1960 with n0 visible effect.  The local elites just soak up the money.  That is unlikely to change.  The elites are glad to see these people leave.  They are a distraction from the process of stealing American money.  Since the Congress will not change the asylum law, we have no choice but to build a barrier system strong enough to keep a lot of them outside the country until the poss arrives.  The Democrats want open borders so that a flood of illegals can be voted eventually after they are disguised by things like motor voter laws.

4.  Trump should follow the advice he is getting and de-classify and disclose every single thing that Barr, Mueller and Rosenstein can manage to do.

5.  The Deep State villains in the US and the UK should be pursued and punished.  pl

Open Thread 29 March 2019

pl

The GOP will be "the party of health care?"

"“Secretary Azar fully supports the Administration’s litigation position in the ACA case, which bears his name,” HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said in a statement. “Any insinuation that Secretary Azar has ‘butted heads’ with Mulvaney on this issue is false.”

Barr also opposed the decision, and now finds himself in the uncomfortable position of running the department that leads the new charge against Obamacare. His opposition was based in part on skepticism among conservative lawyers about the wisdom of seeking to overturn the law, officially known as the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court in 2012 upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare's individual mandate, which the current lawsuit is once again challenging. The attorney general, who was confirmed only a month ago, was overruled by the White House.

The lawsuit at issue seeks to invalidate the entire health care law. Previously, the Trump administration had only supported challenges to parts of Obamacare without backing its complete invalidation — an outcome that would throw the U.S. health care system into chaos if an alternative system is not put into place by Republicans who have so far been unable to agree on a plan. The current challenge to the law was brought by a group of state GOP attorneys general.

Monday's Justice Department letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said federal lawyers would file a brief in support of a district court judge’s finding that the individual mandate included in the Obama-era law is now invalid as a tax because the GOP Congress reduced to the fine to zero dollars, and the government cannot levy a zero-dollar tax."  Politico

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

Secretary Azar and AG Barr opposed this statement that the United States will not seek to defend the ACA against the decision of a US district court that the disappearance of the personal mandate in the ACA invalidates the whole law constitutionally.

I can see why they opposed this policy.  Azar is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  He and Barr know that the GOP does not have a substitute law waiting to take the place of a fallen ACA.  For Trump to say that the Republicans will take charge of health care as an issue seems an act of bravado motivated by the Democratic Party's effective use of this as a weapon in the 2018 election.

Well, pilgrims, if the Republicans cannot produce on this over the objections of the Democratic House of Representatives, they will be hurt badly in 2020.  pl

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/26/trump-obamacare-reversal-cabinet-1238359

Mueller Madness at the New York Post

" ...  Wittes is followed, in the second spot, by Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, who traded his stellar academic reputation for anti-Trump crankery. In July 2017, he tweeted that when senior Democrats say, “There is evidence of both collusion and obstruction, you can take that to the bank. Trump beware!” But Tribes’ collusion checks bounced.

Finally, there are the Network collusion peddlers. The top seed is Alec Baldwin. Baldwin’s cringey impersonations of a clueless, jail-bound Trump revived his battered career and kept hope alive for liberals and Trump haters across the land. Will he reprise the role now that Trump isn’t heading for jail or impeachment?

The second seed goes to Joy Behar, who confidently predicted that Trump is “going to end up in prison.” The live audience at “The View” cheered. They should ­demand a refund."  NY Post

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

Donna Brasile, somehow now of Foxnews, said today that the Dems believe that the Barr/Rosenstein letter to Congress should be read for its esoteric meaning rather than the plain text.  This seems reminiscent of the neocon/Leo Straussian view of Platonic textual exegesis.  Perhaps this is just coincidence.

The exoteric words of the Barr/Rosenstein letter state that evidence could not be found of treasonous conspiracy with the Russian government and obstruction of justice.  Pivoting off that, the Straussian/Brasile view is that Barr and Rosenstein were signalling that the hidden meaning in the text is that guilt can still be found in the data by the adepts now in charge of the House of Representatives.  All the world wonders!

There seem to be missing names in the Posts's chart above.  Where is Chris Matthews?  Where are Brennan, Clapper and Comey?

I told SWMBO the other day that Jimmy Clapper would quickly cave under pressure and seek to throw someone under the bus to save himself from the possibility of being expelled from USAF if eventually sentenced to confinement.  Flynn faces the same possibility.  Clapper would be a big prize for prosecutors from Barr's DoJ.  He was Director of National Intelligence, Obama's third or fourth choice, but, nevertheless...  Such a big prize would require a large substitute as a distraction "under the bus."

Soo ... Jimmy the Clap has now stated on world TeeVee that Obama ordered him, Brennan and all the other Midgets on Horseback who headed the IC back then to make a study of Russian attempts at intervention in the election, and that this "study" led to a resolve to investigate Candidate Trump as a potential traitor and a Russian agent of influence.  pl

https://nypost.com/2019/03/25/mueller-madness-the-media-pundits-who-got-it-most-wrong/

http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title10-section1161&num=0&edition=prelim

Authorship

Any and all articles not signed are written by me.  pl

Thoughts on the Mueller-Barr report.

1.  Trump and his people did not conspire with the Russian government to fix the outcome of the 2016 election.

2.  In the absence of a conspiracy there could not have been obstruction of justice by the president.  There was nothing to obstruct because there had been no crime.  Trump knew that. 

3.  IMO a great opportunity has been lost for improving relations with the Russian thermonuclear power.  Only hyper-nationalist madmen like Brennan and Clapper and ignorant Jingos like Bolton and Pompeo can imagine that an improvement in relations with a country which can destroy you was not a good idea. Trump hoped for that and the Russiagate hoax blocked any possibility for improvement.  The Russian government unsuccessfully sought to tinker with our election?  Yes, and they will again.  That is part of the Game of Nations.  Grow up, Americans!  It is our responsibility to foil such attempts. We have done similar things since we first emerged on the world stage.  We can make a list of those events if you like.

4.  I will say again that Barr should hold a presser at which he stands Mueller and Rosenstein up next to him to outline the report themselves and to answer extensive press questions. 

5.  Nadler,  Schiff and Elijah Cummings wish to continue the farcical pursuit of Trump on all sides of earth until he "spouts black blood and rolls fin out."  As has been said, the House committees headed by these people lack the funds, personnel and authorities to dig up the masses of data which Mueller's office possessed.  It is for this reason that they want all the Mueller data.  They hope to sift through it to find things that they can claim constitute grounds for a plausible bill of impeachment.  Well pilgrims, Barr would be wise to remember that the Mueller report AND all its supporting documents are Executive Branch assets, not assets of the Congress.   There is no reason to give the Congress anything that is classified (secret), Grand Jury testimony or information that should be concealed to allow for the functioning of the presidency (Executive Privilege).  So, don't give it to them!  Let them sue you.  Let the Supreme Court decide.

6.  The Mueller investigation and the Barr/Rosenstein review and summary stated that their conclusions were reached without regard for the constitutional controversy over whether or not a sitting president could be indicted.

" ... the accountability that must follow Mueller's report." The Hill

      " 1.President Trump was not indicted, nor did Mueller recommend an indictment against him for collusion or obstruction.

2. There were no major disagreements between Mueller and his managers at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

3. The Russians who tried to interfere in the 2016 election were exposed and charged — but no American was charged with any effort to conspire with Moscow and hijack the election.

4. While nearly three dozen people were charged, including a few close to the president or who worked for his campaign, no one in proximity to the president was formally charged with colluding with Russia. Most, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn or campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, were charged with process crimes or felonies unrelated to the main case, as in Paul Manafort’s secretive, multimillion-dollar foreign lobbying spree through Ukraine.

*********

• the “Steele dossier” that was the main FISA evidence was paid for with funds from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party;
  
  
• Christopher Steele, the dossier’s author, had told a senior DOJ official he was desperate to defeat Trump;
  
  
• most of the dossier was not verified before it was used as evidence of alleged Trump-Russia collusion; and
  
  
• agents collected statements from key defendants such as Papadopoulos and Carter Page during interactions with an FBI informant that strongly suggested their innocence.

Such omissions are so glaring as to constitute defrauding a federal court. And each and every participant to those omissions needs to be brought to justice.

An upcoming DOJ inspector general’s report should trigger the beginning of that accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials. "  The Hill

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

Pilgrims, the seditious conspiracy to depose the elected president of the United States for conspiracy to commit treason with the Government of the Russian Federation has been defeated.

The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections.

At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign.  They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the  erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York.  There must be retribution for this.

The leftist press is already discounting the results of Mueller's investigation while gloating over how long the Democratic held House of Representatives can continue to search through Trump's life trying to find criminality.

AG Barr should stand Mueller up next to him at a press conference to make clear the results of his report and to answer questions about it.  After that the prosecutions should begin.  pl

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/435394-the-wisdom-of-trumps-lawyers-and-the-accountability-that-must-follow

The McCains - re-posted 21 March, 2019

In the context of the recent remarks by President Trump and the state funeral given to Senator (Captain, USN) John McCain this earlier piece is worth a re-read.  pl

**********

 "Since his birth, it had been assumed that John Sidney McCain III would follow his ancestors' paths, something he sought to do for 23 years following his graduation from the Naval Academy, until shortly after his father's death in 1981. As he has risen in elective politics toward the Republican presidential nomination, his speeches and writing have illuminated the careful attention his parents paid to planning his life's mission: No other presidential standard-bearer during the past half-century ever had an early adulthood as thoroughly mapped out for him as John McCain.

His Navy career, like his choice of college, was a function of his parents' wishes, and his early life had a foreordained quality rare even among precocious political wunderkinds."  Michael Leahy

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

The McCains are an interesting family, interesting in the sense of the Chinese aphorism.  This essay appeared in the Washington Post in April, 2008.  It is worth reviewing.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/30/AR2008083001786.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._McCain,_Sr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._McCain,_Jr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberta_McCain

Flash! US Gives Syrian Golan Heights to Israel

"President Donald Trump on Thursday overturned longstanding US policy regarding the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, announcing "it is time" for the US to "fully recognize Israel's sovereignty" over the region.

"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability," Trump tweeted."  CNN

 

_______

 

This sounds like the Mustachioed Menace (Bolton) and his All Star team at work.   1. Help Bibi. 2. Weaken the Syrian government.  3.  Demonstrate to the Lebanese that parts of their strange little country could experience something similar in the south.  4.  Show everyone that the US is in charge of  - everything.

 

State sovereignty means nothing to these people.  The post-Westphalia international system means nothing to them.

 

Trump does not have a clue about the ME but Ivanka and Jared are pleased I am sure.  pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/21/politics/trump-golan-heights-tweet/index.html

Trump Backs Public Release Of Mueller Report - NPR

"Amid signs that special counsel Robert Mueller will soon complete his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, President Trump says he looks forward to seeing the report and that it should be made public.

Answering questions from reporters on the South Lawn of the White House prior to traveling to Ohio Wednesday, Trump said of Muller's report, "let it come out. Let people see it, that's up to the attorney general."  NPR

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

Well, he has to say that the AG is in charge.  The Democrats are waiting for an opportunity to accuse Trump of suppressing the report or parts of t.  Having watched Barr testify I would say that he will not take orders from Trump in this matter if it is clear that Trump wishes to suppress evidence.

On the other hand if Trump chooses to direct a somewhat reluctant Barr to de-classify it all, including US classified information IMO he will be entirely within his legal power to do so and should do so.  So far as I can understand the Russiagate collusion and conspiracy fraud would be exposed by such exposure to the light of public knowledge.

Indictments for conspiracy to commit sedition might result?  Good!

Foreign intelligence relations may be damaged because of their cooperation in this fraud?  So what!  Everyone involved in this fraud should pay a high price for their duplicity.  pl

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/20/705162788/trump-backs-public-release-of-mueller-report

Could We Agree On A New Constitution? - Revised 19 March 2019

This question has recently re-surfaced in the context of Democratic candidates' for 2020's evident desire to make serious changes to the US Constitution with regard to the electoral college, the supreme court and similar matters.

The US Constitution can legally be changed in two ways:

-By amendment.  We have done that throughout our history, choosing to change the document paragraph by paragraph after a deliberately difficult process of Congressional approval and state ratification.  (2/3 of each house of Congress agreeing and 3/4 of the states ratifying) Many, many amendments proceed only part way through the process and then fail, never becoming part of the constitution.  Think of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).  Has it been 45 years that it has waited for state ratification?

-By Constitutional Convention, like the first time in 1789.  This will not happen.  Why?  The states would be free to ratify or not ratify the new document and those that did not would be out of the Union.  (If that is not true, tell me why.) Who will risk that?  Who will risk the possibility that the Red/Blue divide in this country is not so serious that it would produce such a result.  Already there is much talk of polarization to the point of alienation.  What would be the result if Red Staters could rid themselves of Blue Staters or vice versa without an overt penalty.

IMO, if a constitutional convention were convened it would effectively become the supreme law of the land.  That is what happened with the convention that created the USA as we know it.  The convention in Philadelphia was convened to "adjust" the Articles of Confederation.  Once convened, the delegates seized control and created a completely new system of government.  The states are the contracting parties to the constitution and so the new constitution had to be submitted to the states for ratification. Two states, Rhode Island and North Carolina voted to reject the new government before Virginia, by the slimmest of margins, voted yes to "close" the deal.  It took several years and the Federalist Papers to obtain that final ratification.  RI and NC then changed their minds rather than be left isolated with the Europeans still on their "doorsteps."

Would not the large states wish to end the "great compromise" that gives each state (however small) two seats in the senate?  To do that would require the acquiescence of the small states in a process of ratification.  Would Wyoming  or Vermont or any of the other "small" states do that for California or Florida?  If frustrated in this process would Texas or any of the other big states leave the new country by rejecting ratification?

How many other provisions of the present constitution would be challenged?  Name a few.  How about the Income Tax Amendment?  How about popular election of US Senators?

Spare me any cant about "economic viability."  All over the world we have examples of states which are anything but economically viable but which exist because people there just couldn't "stand" being bound to some other group of people within the loving embrace of a constitution.  In any event, trade is not limited to national territory.

The accepted wisdom in the USA has been that regional cultural differences are disappearing under the influence of migration and the universal prevalence of a "national" (read Northern) culture.  It is mostly Northerners who say this.  They have been saying it since the 1830s.  Places like Atlanta and northern Virginia seem to support this view, but if you ask you will find that most of the proponents of that view who live in the metropolitan areas rarely leave those areas except by air or rail.  They don't feel "comfortable" wandering around the countryside.  Why is that?

The contrarian view is that, in fact, the regions and their cultures are actually growing farther apart, and that the values of places like New York City and the Piedmont region of the Upper South are farther apart than ever before.  This time it is not just a question of the culture of the South being "different."  Look at the Red/Blue Map by counties all over the country for the last two elections.  Look at places like California and Oregon.  Look at New York State.  The rural areas are Red if the population there is not a minority or solidly "labor" like the Masabi Iron Range in the far north, while the cities are Blue just about everywhere.  These divisions are deepening, not disappearing.  It would seem that now the split is rural/urban, as well as regional.

Let's not have another constitutional convention, not ever.  We are not Canada.  The Canadian government said years ago that a Quebec decision for "sovereignty" would be accepted.  I can't imagine that happening here and I would fear the result if it were attempted.  pl 

Saudi Arabia - an absolutist tyranny

"The Rapid Intervention Group also appears to have been involved in the detention and abuse of about a dozen women’s rights activists, who were detained last spring and summer. The activists, who had campaigned for lifting the kingdom’s ban on driving by women, included several well-known figures: Loujain al-Hathloul, who had been jailed for trying to drive her car into the kingdom from the United Arab Emirates; Aziza al-Yousef, a retired computer science professor; and Eman al-Nafjan, the linguistics lecturer.

At first, the women were not held in a prison, but were detained informally in what appeared to be an unused palace in the Red Sea port city of Jidda, according to Ms. al-Hathloul’s sister, Alia. Each woman was locked in a small room, and the windows were covered. Some of the women were frequently taken downstairs for interrogation, which included beatings, electric shocks, waterboarding and threats of rape and murder.

In an Op-Ed article for The New York Times, Alia al-Hathloul wrote that Mr. al-Qahtani was “present several times” when her sister was tortured, and that he threatened to kill her and throw her body in the sewer.

Loujain al-Hathloul, who was jailed for trying to drive her car into the kingdom from the United Arab Emirates.CreditReuters

Image

The treatment was so harsh that Ms. al-Nafjan tried to commit suicide, according to a United States intelligence assessment.

The women were later moved to the Dhahban Prison in Jidda, where the physical abuse stopped and their relatives were allowed to visit, Ms. al-Hathloul said.

Their trial opened in Riyadh on Wednesday, but journalists and diplomats were not permitted to attend, and the government did not announce the charges against them."   NYT

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Hello?  Trump thinks that a government that treats women like this is a desirable ally?  I understand that the Israelis will stop at nothing in seeking allies against their favorite demons, the Iranians.  You remember them, pilgrims, they haunt the dreams of Israelis, neocons and evidently the Trump family.  Should they so haunt the dreams of us ordinary folk that we link our fates to that of a medieval tyranny like Saudi Arabia?  I think not.  pl

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/world/middleeast/khashoggi-crown-prince-saudi.html?emc=edit_th_190318&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=4051510318

The Black Velvet Band

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Irish+music&&view=detail&mid=18F6F35EB8A883CD003918F6F35EB8A883CD0039&&FORM=VRDGAR

pl

Manafort's Ukrainians were actually pro-West? - Habakkuk

Unfortunately, I have been taken up with the doings of another Christopher – surnamed Donnelly – whose antics with the ‘Institute for Statecraft’ and ‘Integrity Initiative’ seem just as ludicrous as those of Steele, and equally destructive.

I hope to come back to the implications of what has been coming out on your side about the dossier attributed to Steele in more depth in the none-too-distant future, particular if in fact the depositions made by him and David Kramer are unsealed reasonably promptly, but some background remarks may be worth throwing into the discussion.

It cannot be repeated often enough that an enormous amount of damage has been done as a result of people forming their impressions of MI6 from David Cornwell, aka John Le Carré, rather than Graham Greene.

A critical point is that, while if ‘humint’ is pursued by competent people, it can be invaluable, if pursued by incompetents, like so many of those Greene had known in his time in the wartime MI6, and portrayed so marvellously in ‘Our Man in Havana’, it is common for an ‘echo chamber’ to be set up, where people are told what they want to hear.

Those providing the ‘echo’ may genuinely share the delusions involved – or they may cynically exploit these, as part of a deliberate strategy of making the incompetents instruments of their own agendas (as MI5 and the Naval Intelligence Division did with the Abwehr during the war. MI6, largely incompetent apart from the section Philby ran, was marginal.)

That precisely this kind of ‘echo chamber’ had been set up by the Berezovsky group with people like Steele was the thrust of a pointed remark made by Andrei Lugovoi in the press conference on 31 May 2007 where he responded to the Crown Prosecution Service request for his extradition.

Singer's clients actually received discounts on admissions

Well, pilgrims.  It has always been the case that if you give a college or university a lot of money or real estate for some purpose like a building or an endowed chair, you acquired a lot of leverage with that school in the matter of admissions of interest to you.  Higher education is a form of business.   A wag recently said that Harvard is basically a hedge fund with a university held as a subsidiary.  How big is the Harvard endowment?  How many Harvard Clubs are there in the Boston area? 

It matters not if the schools is public or private.  They all want the money.  The service academies don't need the money but they still want it in order to gold plate their athletic programs. Students at the academies are chosen for admission by the institutions, not by the people who nominated them.

A building given as gift will cost you millions.  An endowed chair will cost you millions.  

The people who participated in Singer's scheme paid far less than that.  They actually got a discount compared to the more traditional way of paying for admissions.  pl

Senator, Colonel (ret.), Martha McSally vs the rapists

"UCMJ art. 43(a). Offenses without a statute of limitations include: absence without leave, missing movement in a time of war; murder, rape and rape of a child, and any offense punishable by death. In Willenbring v. Neurauter, 48 M.J. 152 (C.A.A.F. 1998), aff’d, 57 M.J. 321 (C.A.A.F. 2002), the Court found that the statute of limitations under Article 43 does not bar trial for rape, as any offense “punishable by death” may be tried at any time without limitation, even if it is referred as a no..."  Michael Waddington

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"On March 6, 2019, during a hearing on Sexual Assault and Misconduct in the Military at the United States Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, McSally informed her colleagues that she had been raped by a superior officer while serving in the Air Force: "I also am a military sexual assault survivor, but unlike so many brave survivors, I didn’t report being sexually assaulted. Like so many women and men, I didn’t trust the system at the time. I blamed myself. I was ashamed and confused. I thought I was strong but felt powerless. The perpetrators abused their position of power in profound ways. In one case I was preyed upon and raped by a superior officer." McSally did not name the officer, but said she shares the disgust at the failures of the military system and many commanders to address sexual violence. Her revelation came over a month after fellow Senator Joni Ernst revealed that she was raped while in college."  wiki on McSally

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_McSally#Military_career

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Well, pilgrims, Colonel (ret.) Martha McSally is a US Air Force Academy graduate (USAFA).  In other words she was not just another pilot/aviator.  She was an insider in the USAFA insiders club in the USAF.  Just as there is a West Point graduates insiders club in the Army, the same thing is true in the Air Force. 

She is now an appointed US Senator from Arizona and a member of the powerful Armed Services Committee of the US Senate. 

There is no statute of limitations with regard to the crime of rape in the system of US military justice as created by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Well???  Where is it?  Where is the criminal prosecution for the person or persons (her plural) who she says abused her and in one case raped her?  Where is it?  The man or men involved are probably either retired from the USAF or dead.  That would mattes not.  Retired officers can be recalled to active duty for prosecution.  That is what it means to be "retired" as opposed to "former."  Was the alleged rapist her rater, i.e., the man who wrote her ticket for advancement?  Curious minds want to know.  pl

" ... higher pay and better jobs." Washpost

"Workers are receiving the fattest wage increases since the Great Recession as employers struggle to find enough people to fill their ranks and employees have more leverage to demand higher pay and jump to better jobs.

Wages grew 3.4 percent in the past year, the government reported Friday, the fastest pace in nearly a decade and well above inflation, suggesting that employers are hustling to lure and retain workers. Many are slashing requirements for jobs and are hiring workers quickly to prevent them from being scooped up by competitors, a far cry from the days when job seekers felt lucky to even get a callback.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent in February, marking one year of sitting at or below 4 percent, a level many economists regard as “full employment” — when there are few people left who want jobs and cannot get them."  Washpost

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Interestingly, the Washington Post print and online editions seem to be run by two quite different groups of people.  This article was above the fold and right side in today's print paper.  This indicates the editorial staff's opinion as to what is the most important story in the paper.  In contrast the online edition does not even mention the story.  I had to go to the print edition to recover the story.

I do not know what you were taught, but in Economics 101 or whatever it was I was taught that 4% unemployment is FULL EMPLOYMENT because the 4% or less of those still unemployed have significant structural obstacles to employment, health, age, etc.

It seems to me that both Trump and Obama should get some credit for this situation in the minds of working men and women.

Do they?  pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/workers-suddenly-have-more-power-to-demand-higher-pay-and-better-jobs/2019/03/08/6668659c-41bc-11e9-9361-301ffb5bd5e6_story.html?utm_term=.24450d0f9161

Chapter Meeting in New Guinea

Our correspondent, "The Virginian" now resident in Papua, New Guinea sends us this scene from a meeting he recently attended in Hela Province.  The old SF men here will find the scene familiar.

Download IMG_0089

pl

Crew Dragon has returned.

NASA TV

"SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule splashed into the Atlantic Ocean after completing its test flight for NASA.

SpaceX splashed its Crew Dragon capsule into the Atlantic Ocean safely on Friday morning, completing the company's test flight to the International Space Station and moving the U.S. one step closer to being able to launch astronauts again.

This was the first time a privately-built spacecraft capable of carrying humans has visited the space station. Additionally, it has been nearly 50 years since the splash down of Apollo 9, which was the last spacecraft built for humans to return to the Atlantic Ocean.

Known as Demo-1, the mission is one of the final steps for Elon Musk's space company to receive NASA approval to fly astronauts on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon. While Demo-1 did not have any crew, in one of the seat's was a "lifelike" test device called Ripley in a SpaceX flight suit. Ripley, named after the main character of the 1979 movie "Alien," was equipped with sensors to provide SpaceX and NASA data about the spaceflight experience.

Scheduled for July, SpaceX mission Demo-2 will carry the company's first two NASA astronauts. The U.S. has not launched its own astronauts since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, relying on Russian rockets and capsules instead.

Under NASA parameters, SpaceX has one hour to recover Crew Dragon from the ocean. The capsule will then be returned to Port Canaveral, Florida, where inspections will begin ahead of SpaceX's next key test: an "in-flight abort," which will happen before the Demo-2 mission."  CNBC

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Enough said.  pl

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/08/spacex-crew-dragon-splashdown-in-the-atlantic-ocean-for-nasa.html

Just gone fishin' ...

"Nadler on Monday issued the first round of document requests as part of a sweeping investigation into President Trump's campaign, business and administration. The investigation will focus on three key areas, Nadler said: obstruction of justice, public corruption and abuses of power.

Trump, who over the weekend railed against Democratic oversight efforts, said Monday that he cooperates "all the time with everybody," when asked if he would comply with Nadler's requests. He went on to decry the investigation as a "hoax."

Nadler defended his committee's actions, arguing it's part of the panel's constitutional duty to conduct oversight. 

"We’re simply exercising our oversight jurisdiction, and he doesn’t understand it, or he’s not willing to concede to Congress that we have an oversight jurisdiction," Nadler said. 

He reiterated that he believes Congress is still "far from" impeachment proceedings. Nadler would oversee such proceedings as chairman of the Judiciary Committee." The Hill

******

"Congressional oversight is oversight by the United States Congress over the Executive Branch, including the numerous U.S. federal agencies. Congressional oversight includes the review, monitoring, and supervision of federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation."  wiki on Congressional Oversight

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"Executive privilege is the power of the President of the United States and other members of the executive branch of the United States Government to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of information or personnel relating to the executive. The power of Congress or the federal courts to obtain such information is not mentioned explicitly in the United States Constitution, nor is there any explicit mention in the Constitution of an executive privilege to resist such requests from Congress or courts."  wiki on Executive Privilege

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Eric Trump is not a government employee or official.  Neither is his brother, Donald Junior.  Eric Trump said on Fox today that Gerald Nadler, the Captain Ahab of the Judicial Committee of the House, sent him a letter asking for all transcripts of his telephone conversations with Vladimir Putin.  He states that he has never spoken to Vladimir Putin.

I ask YOU, pilgrims, by what legal right does Nadler demand private records from someone who is not a government official or consultant?  Eric's sister Ivanka and her husband Jered Kushner ARE a dollar a year type consultants for President Trump.  The record of their government actions are, I think, fair game for Nadler's inquisitional proceedings.  Ah, that is probably not a reference he would like. "You never know when to expect the Spanish Inquisition!"  But, I question whether or not Nadler will be too interested in the record of Ivanka and Jared's interventions in the ME in Saudi Arabia or Israel.

This "oversight" proceeding reminds of the old, old, Tee Vee show called "This is your life" in which some hapless victim was seated supposedly unexpectedly on stage while various figures from his youth and maturity came out from behind the curtain to tell all about him.  A lot of it was acutely embarrassing to an adult.  I, for one, do not want the world to be told of my youthful boorishnesses however stupid they may have been. Trump's high school and college conduct is now called into question.  He evidently sought to protect the privacy of school records by suppressing them.   He didn't want his high school grades to pass into the hands of his enemies?   What a surprise!  He probably was a poor student.  I was an excellent student but I don't want my transcripts to be made public.

What the Democrats led by Nadler are doing reminds of "Moby Dick."

For Captain Ahab cried,  "Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look brave." pl

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/432575-nadler-says-ivanka-trump-others-could-quite-conceivably-be-contacted-in-house

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

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

Looks like the Democrats are falling apart.

" ... other lawmakers, including a group of Jewish members who pushed to pass the resolution focused on anti-Semitism, remain convinced that the House needs to act in response to Omar’s remarks. Twice in the previous two months, Omar has apologized for past remarks perceived as anti-Semitic, but she has publicly defended the most recent episode as a valid criticism of Israel’s influence in American politics.

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), who is among the Jewish members involved in crafting the initial resolution, rose to defend the resolution and, according to one member present, grew emotional. He said his colleagues needed to understand that these sort of words were hurtful to people like himself who had dealt with them all their lives.

Hanging over the internal debate among Democrats is political pressure from Republicans eager to position their party as the more reliable ally of Israel — and a more appealing choice for Jewish voters who have long trended Democratic.'

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Will Rogers once said from the stage (presumably while doing rope twirling tricks) that he belonged to no organized party, because he was a Democrat. 

FDR revolutionized the Democratic Party.  He managed to combine Southern conservative segregationists with Union Labor and Northeastern liberals into one voting mass.  That was a neat trick, but the season for that coalition seems to be ending.

Bernie Sanders "screwed the pooch" on that by appealing directly to the Millennial crowd and wistful Leftists with a platform that was openly marxist in its assumptions about money, banking and the economy in general (I wish I had taken that particular course).  This was naturally appealing to youngsters saddled with a mountain of college debt who had spent several years as captive audiences for professors who were basically refugees from the '60s and still unfulfilled in the hope of realization of the kind of wisdom displayed in the stage production "Hair" which blighted the country's dinner theaters in those long ago times. 

Malcontents of all kinds have flocked to the Bernie Banner.  These include; ethnic minorities still searching for 4,000 acres a mule  and someone who will buy them, people like Ilhan Omar who evidently think movements like Shabab deserve sympathy, people like AOC who somehow graduated in economics without absorbing much of anything except the Labor Theory of Value.  She is cute but funny.  She evidently thought that incentives for Amazon, NYC would be paid out of a pot of Leprechaun's Gold hidden somewhere ,somewhere...  Having negotiated with state governments over such incentives I believe she should be told that what they were talking about were future reductions in taxes to be paid by Amazon. 

The caucus revolt described in this argument is impressive.  IMO Pelosi and Chucky boy will preside over the destruction of the donkey party.  No more can it be said that the GOP is the special province of disunion.

And, of course, the Republicans are doing everything they can to pour fuel on the fire.  Lin Cheney?  Puhleese!  pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-democrats-erupt-in-protests-over-indirect-sanction-of-rep-omar-for-alleged-anti-semitism/2019/03/06/c06bcd18-4022-11e9-85ad-779ef05fd9d8_story.html?utm_term=.32dbc76a6e6f

What is HAMAS?

"When Hamas was created, with the aided influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization was not at first much of an armed group, that came five years later in the form of the Izz Ad-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades (Armed wing of Hamas).

Hamas however was far more radical than the Mujamma, had a Palestinian nationalist flavor to its Islamic ideology and attempted to follow in the footsteps of the likes of the Islamic revolution in Iran.

A famous speech, delivered by former US representative for Texas, Ron Paul, is often used as reference point for claiming that Hamas was an invention of Israel and hence prompting the idea that Hamas must be controlled by them still.
Ron Paul stated that, “if you look at the history, Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel, because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat”.

This speech seems to be the reference point for many today, when it comes to their allegations of Israelis controlling and starting Hamas.

Although what Dr. Paul said, was very close to the truth, it was extremely broad and is often misinterpreted into something entirely false.

For some time, Israel still allowed for Hamas to operate, taking a hands off approach as it did with the Mujamma. It is completely true that Israel was utilizing Hamas as a counterweight to the Fatah movement, although there is no proof of any further cooperation with Hamas than this.

In 1984, the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Yassin, had already been imprisoned – until his release a year later as the result of a prisoner swap – for weapons smuggling. Israel was not the same partner that it had been to the Mujamma and was a lot more aware of its [Hamas] ambitions to reclaim Palestine."  AMN

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I was the head of liaison between DoD (DIA) and IDF General Staff intelligence for nine years (1985-1994).  As such I was the "minder" for the IDF reps in Washington based in their embassy.  The CIA tried continuously to acquire this task but without success.  They were not content to nurture their long standing relationship with Mossad, the Israeli civilian intelligence service.  In Israel, IDF intelligence is the senior service and the national estimator.

The brigadiers who seriatim were the chief military attache in the embassy spent a lot of time in my office consulting, being given guidance as to their sometimes arrogant and unacceptable behavior with regard to the DC police, and just chatting.  There were a lot of lunches and dinners with wives.  It was a very friendly set of relationships.  I used to take them to WBS battlefields both for the educational benefit for them concerning the US and to have a day in which to study them as individuals.

One day, sitting in my Pentagon office, the head man from the embassy began to tell me of his concern with regard to what was happening in the 2nd Intifada, then ongoing.  He told me that Israel had sponsored the growth of Hamas as a rival to the PLO, then in exile in Tunisia, believing that a religiously based resistance movement would attract many Palestinians, splitting them off from the PLO and generally weakening the Palestinian resistance.  Instead, the al-Qassem Brigades of Hamas were proving to be daunting opponents in the rebellion.  "Sometimes we outsmart ourselves," he said with a sad smile.  He was a very skilled man.  He was one of a small number of IDF officers trained as an Arab affairs specialist from secondary school onward. At one point he was Military Governor of the occupied West Bank.  I believe him.  pl

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/was-hamas-really-created-by-israel/

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization#Tunis

Nadler is the kangaroo in chief?

"House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, who would eventually lead any impeachment proceedings, on Sunday signaled a significant escalation into congressional inquiries into the President.

The New York Democrat plans on Monday to request documents from 60 people and entities close to Trump, including from the Department of Justice, the White House and the Trump Organization.

The document trawl will be used "to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, about corruption and abuse of power," Nadler said on ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday.

Nadler stuck to the House Democratic position that impeachment "is a long way down the road," apparently in order to avoid Republican arguments that the decision has already been made to try to oust Trump. The document requests are not taking place under the auspices of an official impeachment investigation."  CNN

 

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Nadler could not be more clear.  He and the other kangaroos in the Democrat herd (flock?) will search through every aspect of Trump's life for the purpose of finding something that will cause a revulsion against Trump among the American people.  If they can find that, their allies among the press and TeeVee agitprop apparatchiks will make judgments evident as to whether or not a bill of impeachment would result in a conviction in the senate.

 

This method is reminiscent of the attempt to impeach President Andrew Johnson.  Remember him? The Radical Republicans hated this Southern War Democrat simply because he was Southern without regard for his well demonstrated hatred for the planter class in the greater South as opposed to his east Tennessee anti-slavery home.

 

So, pilgrims, American tradition is to be reversed.  The Democrats will seek for confirmation bias of Trump's "crimes" because of their "progressive" hatred of his perhaps cynical leadership of a popular revolution against them and the idiot college kids.  pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/04/politics/trump-mueller-report-nadler-investigation-impeachment/index.html