Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[RedSpawn]

I suspect you are vastly underestimating the effect here. I am confident that the number of avoidable deaths attributable to the Bush administration through "favours" to campaign contributors dwarfs those from Katrina.

 

One of the places I have lived is Aberdeen. Amongst other things, Aberdeen is the centre of the UK oil and gas industry. One of the guys I met during my time there was in charge of oil rig safety at a large oil company. He described his job as "deciding how many people would die that year". It works like this - the oil companies know the cost of every safety improvement together with the expected number of deaths and injuries it would avoid. From this data they decide which safety regulations to implement and which not to. Lobbying helps to ensure that they only need to implement the ones they want to.

 

Scale this process up to the size of the US oil and gas industry - heavy contributors to GWB's campaign funds - and you have a lot more than 1833 deaths.

Fascinating. So is this the unavoidable collateral damage of lobbying?

 

I don't think our judicial system will adequately address this matter since it is difficult to incarcerate a legal fiction for criminal behavior.

 

Also, corporations are usually prepared for fines, penalties, and legal damages arising from civil suits since their accounting procedures require that they review and adjust accounting reserves (contingency funds) for pending litigation.

[Winstonm]

The issue of concern is why doesn't Donald Trump show any interest in this: (from Bloomberg)

 

In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said.

 

The scope and sophistication so concerned Obama administration officials that they took an unprecedented step -- complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day “red phone.”

 

I can think of a couple of at least two possibilities: Trump is connected to Russia in some way or he is acting like some petulant child due to his immense hatred of Obama and taking a position 180 different from Obama for no other good reason.

[RedSpawn]

And I have shown you without any wriggle room that the developed world was squarely behind the Yeltsin-Kiriyenko government at the time of the transfer. Whether it was a good idea, particularly with the additional benefit of hindsight, is a completely different thing. There was plenty of reason to suspect issues to turn up, not least because the Russian government/economy had been losing an incredible amount of cash every year and not fulfilling various obligations since 1992.

 

But we do not have to worry about that do we? Your assertion is that Clinton was personally pushing for the transfer of funds to Russia due to being blackmailed. You make this claim despite not having a shred of evidence to support it. So you are using the American government being alone in supporting Russia as a proxy for going out on a limb in an unusual position. Except that the government of most developed countries took a similar stance. Now you are saying, "oh but the IMF was only luke warm about it back in June." Well yes, that is true, but it is hardly evidence of the proxy you are trying to make; and the proxy itself is incredibly weak.

 

This is typical conspiracy theory attire - take one thing, restate it as something else, then equate that to something even bigger. So let us lay it out - the American government supported something that Britain, France, Germany, Japan, etc also supported. Given that, please provide evidence, preferably direct evidence, of any blackmail.

 

And finally, talking about blackmail and to bring this back to DT, any comment about his two main blackmail stories - the threats to Comey and the alleged material held by Russia? The latter appears to have only slightly more evidence than your claims against BC; but then again your burden of proof is different to mine so I imagine you are pretty upset about it... ;)

There is no benefit of hindsight. Almost all of the events in the bullets I mentioned occurred before the end of July 1998--before the collapse and before the IMF sent the $4.8 billion wire. The information was there but the Clinton administration chose to ignore it--even the damaging information from Russia's own Inspector General on 06/04/98. That is a month before the IMF sent the money.

 

IMF and others such as the World Bank didn't want to write off these highly impaired loans. It would be a politically unpopular position to declare default so they chose to ignore the economic fundamentals of the situation and give the "dope addict" his "fix".

 

Clinton chose to believe the sweet nothings that Yeltsin whispered in his ear more than the objections of the Inspector General auditing the Russian Federation's accounting books. That's rich!

 

All things considered, the Clinton administration put the financial and political interests of a corrupt failing Russia ahead of the public's interest to protect tax funded bailout money from imprudent and highly speculative investments. He rolled the political dice with reckless abandon and hit snake eyes.

 

So, we lose $4.8 billion which is only the functional equivalent of winning a $1,000,000 lottery 4,800 separate times. Chump change, right?

[Winstonm]

And the hits just keep on coming: Propublica reports:

 

Marc Kasowitz, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer in the Russia investigation, has boasted to friends and colleagues that he played a central role in the firing of Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, according to four people familiar with the conversations.

 

Kasowitz told Trump, “This guy is going to get you,” according to a person familiar with Kasowitz’s account.

 

Those who know Kasowitz say he is sometimes prone to exaggerating when regaling them with his exploits. But if true, his assertion adds to the mystery surrounding the motive and timing of Bharara’s firing.

 

Curioser and curioser.

[barmar]

I suspect you are vastly underestimating the effect here. I am confident that the number of avoidable deaths attributable to the Bush administration through "favours" to campaign contributors dwarfs those from Katrina.

 

One of the places I have lived is Aberdeen. Amongst other things, Aberdeen is the centre of the UK oil and gas industry. One of the guys I met during my time there was in charge of oil rig safety at a large oil company. He described his job as "deciding how many people would die that year". It works like this - the oil companies know the cost of every safety improvement together with the expected number of deaths and injuries it would avoid. From this data they decide which safety regulations to implement and which not to. Lobbying helps to ensure that they only need to implement the ones they want to.

 

Scale this process up to the size of the US oil and gas industry - heavy contributors to GWB's campaign funds - and you have a lot more than 1833 deaths.

Many industries use similar calculus -- they weigh the cost of insurance for settlements of injury claims versus the cost to improve the products to prevent those injuries in the first place.

 

And even when there are safety regulations, they just include the cost of the fines for violations in the calculation.

 

BP is still in business and doing fine despite all they had to pay out due to the Gulf oil spill.

[RedSpawn]

The issue of concern is why doesn't Donald Trump show any interest in this: (from Bloomberg)

 

 

 

I can think of a couple of at least two possibilities: Trump is connected to Russia in some way or he is acting like some petulant child due to his immense hatred of Obama and taking a position 180 different from Obama for no other good reason.

Let's dig deeper....

 

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/309530-state-of-georgia-allegedly-accusing-homeland-security-of-attempted-hack

https://www.trofire.com/2016/12/12/georgia-official-says-homeland-security-tried-hack-states-voter-database

 

Should this story have gained traction? If not, please explain why we should overlook the unauthorized Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hack of the Georgia voter database but pay attention to Russia's?

 

In my crazy world, BOTH of these are very alarming and are too similar in nature to be dismissed as merely coincidental. And we should have an official bona fide answer from the DHS on this matter by now. We are in month seven of the alleged breach.

 

The last I heard was that the DHS Inspector General was investigating this matter, but I haven't heard of any updates.

[PassedOut]

All things considered, the Clinton administration put the financial and political interests of a corrupt failing Russia ahead of the public's interest to protect tax funded bailout money from imprudent and highly speculative investments. He rolled the political dice with reckless abandon and hit snake eyes.

Clinton left office with a budget surplus, so he can't be blamed for the current mess. The final Bush budget had the largest deficit ever incurred. Successive budgets under Obama kept reducing that deficit, but Trump seems to view the Kansas experiment as a success, so I don't have much hope that the deficit reductions will continue.

[Winstonm]

Let's dig deeper....

 

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/309530-state-of-georgia-allegedly-accusing-homeland-security-of-attempted-hack

https://www.trofire.com/2016/12/12/georgia-official-says-homeland-security-tried-hack-states-voter-database

 

Should this story have gained traction? If not, please explain why we should overlook the unauthorized Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hack of the Georgia voter database but pay attention to Russia's?

 

In my crazy world, BOTH of these are very alarming and are too similar in nature to be dismissed as merely coincidental. And we should have an official bona fide answer from the DHS on this matter by now. We are in month seven of the alleged breach.

 

The last I heard was that the DHS Inspector General was investigating this matter, but I haven't heard of any updates.

 

You don't look very hard: http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/309530-state-of-georgia-allegedly-accusing-homeland-security-of-attempted-hack

 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials said Friday they have identified the cause of an incident that led the state of Georgia to accuse the agency of attempting to hack its network.

[RedSpawn]

Clinton left office with a budget surplus, so he can't be blamed for the current mess. The final Bush budget had the largest deficit ever incurred. Successive budgets under Obama kept reducing that deficit, but Trump seems to view the Kansas experiment as a success, so I don't have much hope that the deficit reductions will continue.

Fair enough.

 

Bush increased the federal debt by $5.8 TRILLION and Obama increased the debt by $7.9 TRILLION. That means their budget spending priorities exceeded anticipated revenues by a total of $13.7 trillion! Our current debt is $20 TRILLION. See http://www.usdebtclock.org/

 

$13.7 TRILLION in deficit spending is the functional equivalent of winning a $1,000,000 lottery --- 13,700,000 separate times! Please re-read the accuracy of that statement.

 

There is no permanent place in this world for ugly mathematics.

 

It is unconscionable for both Presidents to blame Congressional gridlock, mandatory entitlement spending, and extended war campaigns as excuses for not getting our financial house in better shape.

 

As long as world oil purchases are denominated in US$ and we are the world's reserve currency, we are okay. However, if and when that economic reality changes...there is no amount of beautiful calculus to safely unwind the amount of leveraged debt we have.

 

Trump will fare no better but he will likely be demonized for our $20 trillion debt because let's face it, he is so damn arrogant, mercurial, and unlikeable.

 

http://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/~/media/infographics/2015/08/sr171/sr-rise-of-renminbi-chart-3.jpg

[RedSpawn]

You don't look very hard: http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/309530-state-of-georgia-allegedly-accusing-homeland-security-of-attempted-hack

No, I didn't miss it.

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-14/georgia-confirms-homeland-security-attempted-hack-election-database-10-separate-time.

 

Last week we noted a letter from Georgia Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, to the Department of Homeland Security questioning why someone with a DHS IP address (216.81.81.80) had attempted to hack into his state's election database on November 15, 2016 at 8:43AM. Now, according to WSB-TV in Atlanta, we learn that Georgia's election systems were actually the target of hacking by DHS on 10 separate occasions.

 

The Georgia Secretary of State's Office now confirms 10 separate cyberattacks on its network were all traced back to U.S. Department of Homeland Security addresses.

 

In an exclusive interview, a visibly frustrated Secretary of State Brian Kemp confirmed the attacks of different levels on his agency's network over the last 10 months. He says they all traced back to DHS internet provider addresses.

 

"We're being told something that they think they have it figured out, yet nobody's really showed us how this happened,” Kemp said. "We need to know."

 

Kemp told Channel 2’s Aaron Diamant his office's cybersecurity vendor discovered the additional so-called vulnerability scans to his network's firewall after a massive mid-November cyberattack triggered an internal investigation.

Meanwhile, Kemp pointed out that all of the attempted hackings occurred around critical registration and voting deadlines calling into question whether "somebody was trying to prove a point."

 

The Secretary of State's Office manages Georgia’s elections, and most concerning for Kemp about the newly discovered scans is the timing.

 

The first one happened on Feb. 2, the day after Georgia’s voter registration deadline. The next one took place just days before the SEC primary. Another occurred in May, the day before the general primary, and then two more took place in November, the day before and the day of the presidential election.

 

"It makes you wonder if somebody was trying to prove a point,” Kemp said. (bold and italics mine)

With respect to DHS responses:

Of course, the Obama administration, a pillar of "transparency" for sure, has confirmed the attacks originated at the DHS but has refused to provide a straight story on why the attempted hackings occurred. Furious with the lack of answers, Kemp has now written a letter to the Trump administration asking for a formal review after his inauguration next month.

 

Last week, the DHS confirmed the large Nov. 15 attack traced back to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection internet gateway. But Kemp says the DHS’ story about its source keeps changing.

 

"First it was an employee in Corpus Christi, and now it's a contractor in Georgia,” Kemp said.

 

Unsatisfied with the response he got from DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson this week, Kemp fired off a letter Wednesday to loop in President-elect Donald Trump.

 

"We just need to ask the new administration to take a look at this and make sure that we get the truth the people of Georgia are deserving to know that and really demanding it,” Kemp said.

 

Kemp says several of those scans came around the same time he testified before Congress about his opposition to a federal plan to classify election systems as "critical infrastructure," like power plants and financial systems. (bold and italics mine)

The DHS said the interim answer they supplied is "subject to change" which is doublespeak. This dubious answer is part of the reason the Georgia Secretary of State didn't buy their 2nd explanation and asked President-Elect Trump to further investigate this matter.

 

The Inspector General (IG) of DHS was hauled into the fray in January 2017. The IG needed to add credibility to a national security matter where DHS is the alleged perpetrator who is doing an awful job of investigating itself.

 

The DHS IG has not released the results of his investigation. Maybe his report will provide a definitive answer since the DHS supplied conflicting narratives about the source of the hack.

 

Curiouser and curiouser. . .

[Winstonm]

No, I didn't miss it.

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-14/georgia-confirms-homeland-security-attempted-hack-election-database-10-separate-time.

 

 

With respect to DHS responses:

 

The DHS said the interim answer they supplied is "subject to change" which is doublespeak. This dubious answer is part of the reason the Georgia Secretary of State didn't buy their 2nd explanation and asked President-Elect Trump to further investigate this matter.

 

The Inspector General (IG) of DHS was hauled into the fray in January 2017. The IG needed to add credibility to a national security matter where DHS is the alleged perpetrator who is doing an awful job of investigating itself.

 

The DHS IG has not released the results of his investigation. Maybe his report will provide a definitive answer since the DHS supplied conflicting narratives about the source of the hack.

 

Why would you quote zerohedge as a source? Do you actually think them credible?

[RedSpawn]

Why would you quote zerohedge as a source? Do you actually think them credible?

Fair enough. . . Let's try WSB-TV which was created on 09/29/1948 and is the ABC news affiliate for the Atlanta region.

 

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/georgia/georgia-secretary-of-state-says-cyberattacks-linked-back-to-dhs/475707667

 

ATLANTA - The Georgia Secretary of State's Office now confirms 10 separate cyberattacks on its network were all traced back to U.S. Department of Homeland Security addresses.

 

In an exclusive interview, a visibly frustrated Secretary of State Brian Kemp confirmed the attacks of different levels on his agency's network over the last 10 months. He says they all traced back to DHS internet provider addresses.

 

"We're being told something that they think they have it figured out, yet nobody's really showed us how this happened,” Kemp said. "We need to know."

 

Kemp told Channel 2’s Aaron Diamant his office's cybersecurity vendor discovered the additional so-called vulnerability scans to his network's firewall after a massive mid-November cyberattack triggered an internal investigation.

 

The Secretary of State's Office manages Georgia’s elections, and most concerning for Kemp about the newly discovered scans is the timing.

 

The first one happened on Feb. 2, the day after Georgia’s voter registration deadline. The next one took place just days before the SEC primary. Another occurred in May, the day before the general primary, and then two more took place in November, the day before and the day of the presidential election.

 

"It makes you wonder if somebody was trying to prove a point,” Kemp said.

 

Last week, the DHS confirmed the large Nov. 15 attack traced back to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection internet gateway. But Kemp says the DHS’ story about its source keeps changing.

 

"First it was an employee in Corpus Christi, and now it's a contractor in Georgia,” Kemp said.

 

Unsatisfied with the response he got from DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson this week, Kemp fired off a letter Wednesday to loop in President-elect Donald Trump.

 

"We just need to ask the new administration to take a look at this and make sure that we get the truth the people of Georgia are deserving to know that and really demanding it,” Kemp said.

 

Kemp says several of those scans came around the same time he testified before Congress about his opposition to a federal plan to classify election systems as "critical infrastructure," like power plants and financial systems.

 

Kemp believes Georgia’s state-run election systems are already secure and doesn't think the feds should be involved.

Says exact same thing (cut and paste news ;) ).

 

Oh and let's throw the State of Indiana into the ring. :rolleyes:

 

http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/21/exclusive-obamas-feds-tried-to-hack-indianas-election-system-while-pence-was-governor/

 

Curiouser and curiouser. . .

[Winstonm]

Mystery solved:

 

Politico

DHS labels elections as 'critical infrastructure'

By TIM STARKS 01/06/2017 06:39 PM EST Updated 01/06/2017 07:10 PM EST

 

The Department of Homeland Security on Friday declared the electoral system as "critical infrastructure," the latest in a series of eleventh-hour responses to alleged Russian election-season hacks.

 

CNBC

Leading up to the election, questions were raised about the security of state computer systems that protect voting data. Homeland Security reportedly considered declaring election systems as "critical infrastructure," which would have given the federal agency the authority to protect the systems

[RedSpawn]

Mystery solved:

 

Politico

DHS labels elections as 'critical infrastructure'

By TIM STARKS 01/06/2017 06:39 PM EST Updated 01/06/2017 07:10 PM EST

 

The Department of Homeland Security on Friday declared the electoral system as "critical infrastructure," the latest in a series of eleventh-hour responses to alleged Russian election-season hacks.

 

CNBC

Leading up to the election, questions were raised about the security of state computer systems that protect voting data. Homeland Security reportedly considered declaring election systems as "critical infrastructure," which would have given the federal agency the authority to protect the systems.

Come on! You are better than this. You wrote that awesome political magazine worthy response earlier.

 

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/01/06/statement-secretary-johnson-designation-election-infrastructure-critical

 

The DHS allegedly hacked Georgia's election voting systems throughout 2016. After the Georgia Secretary of State notified DHS in November 2016 that it was in violation of "18 U.S. Code § 1030 - Fraud and related activity in connection with computers", DHS declared election systems and all related information and communications technology as "critical infrastructure" on 01/06/17. The DHS is effectively converting the state voting systems to a federal property requiring its protection. That's noble, but it's a prospective designation that doesn't provide legal cover for the allegedly illegal and unauthorized activities it perpetrated against state property (in 2016). Therefore, DHS must still adequately explain the alleged hack of the Georgia and Indiana voting systems in 2016.

 

In the wake of the Democratic National Committee breach and increasingly brazen Russian cyberespionage attacks, concern is mounting about the potential for election hacking in the 2016 presidential race and beyond. Voting registries and election board websites have been compromised, security researchers have shown that electronic voting machines are vulnerable, and agencies like the FBI are on alert. For now, the methods and equipment used for voting in America's federal elections—and the responsibility for those maintaining systems' digital security—are established on a state-by-state and county-by-county basis. (bold and italics mine)

See https://www.wired.com/2016/09/elections-loom-officials-debate-protect-voting-hackers/ published on 09/06/16.

 

This means at the time of the alleged DHS breach(es) in 2016 protection of the voting systems was a state-level function.

 

I am not falling for the tricky legal maneuvers DHS is employing to try to mitigate the offense(s) that occurred in 2016. Georgia was well within its rights to decline DHS' offer of protection of its voting systems in 2016, and it did. DHS never obtained Georgia's consent to access, scan, or invade its voting system network. Thus, DHS didn't have a sound legal basis to override the Georgia Secretary of State's wishes and allegedly hack the voting system network.

 

The same applies to the state of Indiana.

 

However, DHS' behavior after the alleged hack is more revealing than the hack itself. It's almost Putin-esque.

[RedSpawn]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/06/13/tsa-airlines-test-fingerprints-facial-recognition-identify-travelers/102812802/

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/13/tsa-fingerprints-boarding-passes-denver-international-airport/

http://www.futuretravelexperience.com/2017/06/artificial-intelligence-robotics-and-biometrics-on-jetblues-technology-watch-list/

http://www.futuretravelexperience.com/2017/06/jetblue-and-cbp-trialling-biometric-self-boarding-at-logan-international-airport/

http://www.futuretravelexperience.com/2017/06/delta-to-trial-fingerprint-recognition-technology-at-multiple-airport-touch-points/

 

I don't blame this one on Trump.

 

However, this is just more of what our Big Brother surveillance state needs--our biometric data to board a plane and fly domestically. No doubt this "pilot program" will eventually become permanent and standard operating procedure. Our biometric data will eventually be shared with the Department of Homeland Security's "intelligence" database and will be used for law enforcement and surveillance activity. I don't even need to read "1984" anymore, we are already heading there.

 

This pilot program also appears to be a "work around" enforcement plan in case all 50 states don't comply with the REAL ID Act by the end of this year. There are A LOT of red and yellow states that are in violation of the Real ID Act. Therefore, bringing this program on board as an alternative to the traveling public caught up in this compliance maelstrom could be seen as a "blessing", but I see it as a curse.

 

See https://www.dhs.gov/real-id compliance by state.

 

Question: I have to give up fingerprints to board a domestic flight? No, not yet.

 

Land of the free**, home of the brave. **Freedom is void where prohibited and good for a limited time only. The State reserves the right to limit quantities and availability is subject to change without notice. Some restrictions may apply and your identification may be valid only at participating airports. <_<

[Winstonm]

Come on! You are better than this. You wrote that awesome political magazine worthy response earlier.

 

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/01/06/statement-secretary-johnson-designation-election-infrastructure-critical

 

The DHS allegedly hacked Georgia's election voting systems throughout 2016. After the Georgia Secretary of State notified DHS in November 2016 that it was in violation of "18 U.S. Code § 1030 - Fraud and related activity in connection with computers", DHS declared election systems and all related information and communications technology as "critical infrastructure" on 01/06/17. The DHS is effectively converting the state voting systems to a federal property requiring its protection. That's noble, but it's a prospective designation that doesn't provide legal cover for the allegedly illegal and unauthorized activities it perpetrated against state property (in 2016). Therefore, DHS must still adequately explain the alleged hack of the Georgia and Indiana voting systems in 2016.

 

See https://www.wired.com/2016/09/elections-loom-officials-debate-protect-voting-hackers/ published on 09/06/16.

 

This means at the time of the alleged DHS breach(es) in 2016 protection of the voting systems was a state-level function.

 

I am not falling for the tricky legal maneuvers DHS is employing to try to mitigate the offense(s) that occurred in 2016. Georgia was well within its rights to decline DHS' offer of protection of its voting systems in 2016, and it did. DHS never obtained Georgia's consent to access, scan, or invade its voting system network. Thus, DHS didn't have a sound legal basis to override the Georgia Secretary of State's wishes and allegedly hack the voting system network.

 

The same applies to the state of Indiana.

 

However, DHS' behavior after the alleged hack is more revealing than the hack itself. It's almost Putin-esque.

 

Your right. I won't be roped into a discussion about a DHS conspiracy. I am better than that.

[RedSpawn]

Your right. I won't be roped into a discussion about a DHS conspiracy. I am better than that.

There is no conspiracy. There is a beleaguered DHS grasping for straws after it got caught violating federal law. You provided an ex post facto explanation for DHS' alleged breach in 2016.

 

You also tried to discredit my source and I provided a more legitimate one that said the EXACT same thing word-for-word as the allegedly disreputable source.

 

The alleged computer hacks occurred throughout 2016 and DHS reclassified state voting systems as federal infrastructure requiring its protection in 2017. I'm not understanding why you would use their 2017 reclassification of voting systems to rationalize their 2016 trespasses? That's neither logical nor legally valid.

 

Keep in mind that DHS has supplied Georgia with two different narratives about the source of the hack. And on the 1st narrative they qualified it and said it was "subject to change" and it did. Who waffles like that?

 

If you want me to believe the McCarthyism computer hacking Russia is doing from their back yard, then it would be wise not to overlook the shoddy job DHS is allegedly doing in our own front yard.

 

WE SHOULD BE ALARMED BY ALL FORMS OF HACKING IN OUR VOTING SYSTEM WHETHER THEY ORIGINATE FROM RUSSIA OR FROM THE DHS!

 

I look forward to the DHS Inspector General report since DHS' story line is dubious and conflicting.

[RedSpawn]

Does anyone understand what's happening in the Gulf? Why Qatar? Why isn't anyone interfering - should they?

There's a lot of interference and support going on with this crisis . . .you called a good one about Qatar.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/qatar-plan-airlift-4000-cows-maintain-milk-supplies

 

Who airlifts 4,000 cows to isolated Qatar to maintain milk supplies? One rich businessman does!

 

A Qatari businessman is planning to airlift 4,000 Holstein dairy cows into the country as part of efforts to maintain milk supplies during the blockade by Qatar’s Gulf Arab neighbours. The proposal – described as the biggest airlift of cattle ever attempted – comes as Qatar moves rapidly to open an air and sea bridge via Iran, Turkey and port facilities in Oman.

It is very interesting to watch this cat and mouse diplomacy between the U.S., Qatar, and its Gulf neighbors.

 

[y66]

From Where Trump Learned to Love Ritualized Flattery by David Margolick:

 

Donald Trump is not, by all accounts, a great reader. But he’s memorized the Roy Cohn playbook, and in his first Cabinet meeting, on Monday, he consulted a page from it: the one on ritualized flattery.

 

Trump was a regular at Cohn’s summer parties, held at his Greenwich, Connecticut, estate. I covered a couple of them, and they were amazing spectacles. They attracted a whole range of movers and shakers and fixers and scoundrels, along with assorted artists and moguls: Carmine DeSapio and Meade Esposito mixed and milled with Andy Warhol and Calvin Klein. But nothing about these gatherings was more fascinating than the peculiar ritual with which they concluded, in which speaker after speaker would get up and praise the host.

 

Most people are lucky to hear such unending encomiums once in a lifetime. More often, they don’t hear them at all; only their children, and other assorted mourners, do. But for Cohn, it was an annual event. He would gaze out over his guests, the grizzled political bosses, lawyers, judges, businessmen, journalists, boyfriends, and other recipients of his largesse, and call on them to speak. Whether it was prearranged or spontaneous I didn’t know, but no one he selected was ever at a loss for words. Instead, each stood up, raised high his plastic cup—adorned with the same menacing caricature of Cohn that he used on his stationery, along with the letters “R.M.C.”—and sang Cohn’s praises, as Cohn, a look of bemused contentment on his face, listened raptly. The routine—in a garden festooned with flags and red, white, and blue flowers and balloons—was so astonishing to me that, having simply watched it one year, I vowed to return the next to see if it happened again, and to record it for posterity. Sure enough, it did, and with the same cast of characters. And I wrote it up for the New York Times, in the summer of 1983. My story preserved only a few flattering fragments. I’m sure there were many, many more.

 

The Mike Pence of the occasion, i.e. the keynoter setting the sycophantic tone, was the former Mayor of New York Abe Beame. “A fighter and a doer,” he called Cohn. Then came State Senator Roy Goodman, who described Cohn as “a very good, very close friend.” But these guys were but the warm-ups. Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail guru and publisher of Conservative Digest, described Cohn as “twenty-four karat, one of life’s great Americans.” Yet more astonishing—and not only because he was a sitting federal judge in Manhattan—was David Edelstein. As he put it, distilling the essence of Roy Cohn was like “attempting to separate the facets that make a diamond sparkle.” And topping even him was the New York lawyer Paul Windels, Jr. “If there’s one person who should be on the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of the United States, that person would be Roy Cohn,” he declared.

 

I remember looking to see if anyone suppressed a laugh as Windels said that, and no one did: it was even more unctuous than anything Reince Priebus might have managed. But, while the sentiments that night on Cohn’s estate were as slobbering as those around Donald Trump’s table yesterday, they weren’t as meretricious. The tone was entirely affectionate; no one appeared fearful, let alone to be hanging on by his fingernails. Cohn, unlike Trump, had lots of friends, on both sides of the aisle, and they clearly liked him. They detected in him a trait that’s rarely, if ever, been ascribed to Trump, a man who once saw fit to tell Chris Christie, in public, to lay off the Oreos: loyalty. One of them, Congressman John LeBoutillier, from Long Island, talked about it that night in his toast: “Loyalty,” he said, “is Roy Cohn’s middle name.” Cohn, like Trump, clearly craved all the praise, but no one offering it seemed coerced or humiliated. While Trump seems to exalt in grovelling, Cohn just needed to be loved. And Cohn guests only had to perform for a finite number of summers; think of how many more meetings Trump’s Cabinet officers must endure.

[RedSpawn]

But how are you going to spend 2% of your GDP on defense if your federal tax revenue is only 0.0008 % of your GDP, as Blackshoe proposed?

 

Rik

Why does it matter?

 

Our government deficit spends to oblivion and afterwards gives excessive tax breaks to the upper crust and legal fictions (corporations). You are implicitly asking a question about financial discipline when the last two Presidents haven't shown any. They have increased the federal debt by $13.7 trillion and our current debt is $20 trillion.

 

Also tax receipts are essentially irrelevant when we are headstrong in following monetary hegemony over world energy purchases. Our monetary hegemony backed by our military might (when necessary) makes us an indisputable and formidable international player.

[RedSpawn]

Does anyone understand what's happening in the Gulf? Why Qatar? Why isn't anyone interfering - should they?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/15/us-signs-deal-to-supply-f-15-jets-to-qatar-after-trump-terror-claims

 

Diana, we are now selling F-15 jets to the country President Trump made terror claims about in May.

 

??????????? Please help me understand this complicated chess game as the US' mixed messaging is confusing.

[Winstonm]

Newsweek is reporting this:

 

A recent National Security Agency memo documents a phone call in which U.S. President Donald Trump pressures agency chief Admiral Mike Rogers to state publicly that there is no evidence of collusion between his campaign and Russia, say reports.

 

The memo was written by Rick Ledgett, the former deputy director of the NSA, sources familiar with the memo told The Wall Street Journal. Ledgett stepped down from his job this spring.

 

The memo said Trump questioned the American intelligence community findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. American intelligence agencies issued a report early this year that found Russian intelligence agencies hacked the country’s political parties and worked to sway the election to Trump.

 

Trump should listen to the adage that when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

[RedSpawn]

Newsweek is reporting this:

 

A recent National Security Agency memo documents a phone call in which U.S. President Donald Trump pressures agency chief Admiral Mike Rogers to state publicly that there is no evidence of collusion between his campaign and Russia, say reports.

 

The memo was written by Rick Ledgett, the former deputy director of the NSA, sources familiar with the memo told The Wall Street Journal. Ledgett stepped down from his job this spring.

 

The memo said Trump questioned the American intelligence community findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. American intelligence agencies issued a report early this year that found Russian intelligence agencies hacked the country’s political parties and worked to sway the election to Trump.

 

Trump should listen to the adage that when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

 

I have to admit, I am torn.

 

Should I believe the American intelligence community who covertly violated our Constitutional rights and still remain in support of mass, warrantless surveillance despite the 4th Amendment or should I believe Trump who is prone to lie by commission and omission as well. I am not liking my choices here. :(

 

See https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fourth_amendment (under Warrant Requirement) or https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/electronic_surveillance and http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/27/us/edward-snowden-interview/index.html

[ldrews]

The anti-Trump contingent seems to have drawn first blood (Scalise). This will get interesting.

[RedSpawn]

The anti-Trump contingent seems to have drawn first blood (Scalise). This will get interesting.

It is very tragic what happened to Scalise. This is a clear reminder how intolerant, divisive, and incendiary rhetoric can incite dangerous if not lethal behavior.