[National Review] The professionally written and admirably researched IG report is in some sense a hall of mirrors, with all sorts of reflections that are contorted and warped, and into which all parties claim to see reality.
Often the euphemistic conclusions are not supported by the data produced. The only constant to Obama-era FBI and DOJ behavior is the universal assumption that Hillary Clinton would be president, and what might be assumed as improper or illegal conduct in the present, would likely in the future be excused or rewarded.
On the question of "bias," the report exhaustively catalogues communications in which government investigators and attorneys systematically deprecate Trump, and the Trump voter, and in explicit terms boast about stopping him.
Apparently the IG can conclude that there is not actionable bias (although at times admitting he could not rule it out), because he did not find something such as "documentary" memos or texts outlining explicit behaviors, or some fantasy such as an admission that "the Trump voter is a POS who smells and therefore that fact is going to unprofessionally guide my investigations" ‐ as if bias and prejudice are ever in professional life so clumsily documented in a formal, self-incriminating manner.
Instead, bias in government is manifested through cynicism about the objectivity of an investigation, in personal animus for those under investigation, and with disdain for particular and entire classes of perceived inferiors ‐ precisely the themes of various texts in the IG report. And, of course, bias shows up in results: Almost none of the DOJ and FBI agents in the IG report will ever face serious legal consequences for running a warped investigation quite unlike any of those they typically conduct on average Americans. What the IG often terms "improperly" would be considered "illegally" for most Americans.
#1
We have not yet even seen a smidgeon of any IG report on the abuses of the FISA court, the government trafficking in the Clinton-bought dossier, or the insertion of an “informant” into the Trump campaign. But this particular IG report mostly follows the pattern of those conducted about Fast and Furious, the Lerner IRS mess, and other scandals of the prior eight years:
[Washington Examiner] Rudy Giuliani doesn't regret saying that FBI agents and federal prosecutors involved in the Trump-Russia investigation were "wackadoodles" who cried when Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election and require psychiatric assessments.
"I'm sorry but I had to put prosecutors, not FBI agents but other law enforcement, in jail when I was a prosecutor," Giuliani said Sunday during an interview on CNN's "State of the Union" of the remarks he made Saturday to a crowd of supporters.
"The ones I was talking about were instances where people were described as crying when Hillary lost," he continued. "I said if you're an FBI agent or prosecutor that's crying and you work for me, I'm sorry, I would send you for a mental evaluation. You shouldn't be working on a case where you have such a severe bias."
[CNBC] Jeremy Grantham, the longtime investor famous for calling the last two major bubbles in the market, is urging capitalists and "mainstream economists" to recognize the looming threat of climate change.
"Capitalism and mainstream economics simply cannot deal with these problems. Mainstream economics largely ignore [them]," Grantham, who co-founded GMO in 1977, said Tuesday in an impassioned speech at the Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago. "We deforest the land, we degrade our soils, we pollute and overuse our water and we treat air like an open sewer, and we do it all off the balance sheet."
This negligence is due in large part to how short-sighted corporations can be, Grantham said. "Anything that happens to a corporation over 25 years out doesn't exist for them, therefore, as I like to say, grandchildren have no value" to them, he said.
#5
This negligence is due in large part to how short-sighted corporations can be, Grantham said.
Blithering Ass. Two Words: Absentee Landlord. If the person in charge just collects rent from some far away place most don't care what happens as long as money keeps rolling in. Whether its a priest-bureaucrat of Old Kingdom Egypt, a apparatchik of the Soviet Politburo, or an MBA like Grantham it is all the same. Capitalism as bupkis to do with it, Moron.
#7
Now an abstract (capitalism) is responsible for climate change (conditions caused bu continent location, amount of solar output, ocean currents, etc.)! Whats next, the color choices offered by Crayola?
[SUN] South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has criticised his very own government for failing to meet the expectations of citizens when it comes to governance.
The president, speaking at the launch of the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation's Inclusive Growth Conference in the Drakensburg, said it was time for South Africa "to return to work".
He said public institutions had lost credibility and trust in the eyes of those they were meant to serve.
"When hospitals run short of medicine, when housing projects remain unfinished, when schools run out of books we know that our institutions are failing our people and we want this to come to an end. That must end," said Ramaphosa to loud applause.
The president described occurrences in some provinces as "abuse of people".
Recently the entire North West government ground to a halt as residents called for then premier Supra Mahumapelo to step down. The platinum-rich province's heath department had completely collapsed, with facilities running out of medicine and workers going on strike for several months.
[Human Events] The Swiss franc is the national currency of scenic Switzerland, a country that is known for its neutrality in international conflict, for its clockwork-like efficiency and for its reputation as a safe haven for protecting assets.
Investors who are extremely wary about the volatility of the stock market may opt to try to safeguard some of their money by purchasing Swiss francs through an exchange-traded fund (ETF), such as PowerShares CurrencyShares Swiss Franc Trust (NYSE:FXF). However, currency investing is a zero-sum game in which one form of money rises at the expense of another, so the usually modest gains and losses of currencies typically are fairly minor compared to the wide swings that can occur in a topsy-turvy stock market.
Unlike the U.S. dollar, which has been trending up in recent weeks, the Swiss franc has been losing value lately. The retreat of the "Swissie," the nickname for the currency not only of Switzerland but of neighboring Liechtenstein, had "gone largely unnoticed" by the market, particularly against the backdrop of rising tensions around global trade and protectionist policies of industrialized countries, according to a recent Bank of America research report.
[Mercer] In 2008, Iceland collapsed under the weight of its banking industry’s federal-reserve like excesses.
In 2018, Iceland’s is a red hot economy. The highly able population has shifted from finance to technology and tourism. No bailout‐allowing the banks to collapse and a natural recovery take place‐has a lot to do with it.
"... rather than stepping in with taxpayers’ money like the British and Americans did, the Icelandic government let its banks go bust."
Likewise did Chile cope reasonably well with what was "one of the most powerful earthquakes in history." We hear nothing of Chile’s struggles to recover.
Not so Haiti, the Africa of the Western Hemisphere.
Haiti is forever convulsed by political and natural disasters. It remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, where four out of five people live in poverty and more than half in abject poverty (NYT).
It’s nearly two decades since a pair of earthquakes struck El Salvador in 2001. The US government granted Salvadoreans a generous grant of privilege in the late 1990s, in the form of a temporary protected status (TPS) for nearly 200,000.
Ditto the "Haitians who were stranded after an earthquake in 2010."
To the din of protest, "the United States’ Department of Homeland Security had only recently revoked the so-called temporary protection (it lasted nearly 2 decades).
#1
"... rather than stepping in with taxpayers’ money like the British and Americans did, the Icelandic government let its banks go bust."
Iceland is too small for the size of a elite cabal to deceive the country that bailing out friends and fellow donors is justification to sell the population into involuntary servitude (see - debt and inflation) to suck up the losses.
As before, just a snip, click through for the whole thing. Part III tomorrow.
French President Emmanuel Macron is a bit aggravated these days. He went out of his way to court a personal relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump with the belief that chumminess would enable him to tilt American policy decisions. Between the Iran nuclear deal, steel and aluminum tariffs, the Paris Climate Accords and now the G7 debacle, Macron has learned otherwise. Social lubricant in international politics can be important, but it rarely trumps policy and national interests. The Americans have shifted from an alliance-based to a transactional foreign policy, and a parade followed by a firm handshake and a nice dinner just isn’t strong enough currency.
So, atmospherics aside, let’s talk about the French strategic position.
The French think of the European Union as theirs, and with good reason. They are, after all, the people who made it. With the end of World War II the Austrians, Germans and Italians were occupied, the Low Countries were rebuilding from rubble, the Swedes and Swiss were neutral, the Spanish were languishing under a local despot, and all Central Europe was locked away on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The strategic competition that had dominated the past millennia of European history was on hiatus, and the French found it almost too easy to force their political will on a shattered continent. And so Paris pulled together Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg to create the European Coal and Steel Community, which a dozen treaties later evolved into what we now know as the European Union.
But for the French it was never about economics. The French metropolitan territories are rich. Phenomenally productive farmland. A wealth of inhabitable climate zones. Great rivers for industry and internal transport. A population far younger and aging far more slowly than the European norm. The French economy has always been held mostly in house, and the Cold War era was no exception.
France also boasts easy access to the North Sea, Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, giving France ‐ and France alone ‐ fingers in every pot that matters to Europe. France’s position near the westernmost extreme of the European Peninsula even grants it good strategic depth, even if that "depth" belongs to other countries.
French strategic isolation freed up French defense planning to focus on the far horizon, as evidenced by France’s nuclear aircraft carrier and nuclear missile force. Nearly alone among the European states, the French do not need someone to defend them. It all means that the French didn’t really see a huge attraction to the Americans’ Bretton Woods plan.
The French know full well that should the Americans walk away from Bretton Woods, the global security that enables the European Union ‐ which is at heart a union of exporters dependent upon global access ‐ would no longer be possible. That obviously upsets Macron, but it doesn’t overly hurt France. Just as the Americans designed the world order for strategic reasons and so never lashed their economy to Bretton Woods, the French designed the EU for strategic reasons and so never lashed their economy to Europe.
Any global breakdown, even a European breakdown, is one that France can survive without the sort of catastrophic and transformative economic, political, cultural and strategic shocks that will so ravage almost everyone else.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
06/17/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
What they wont survive is the influx Islamists hell bent on destroying from within.
#3
Never fall into the trap of believing that the Holocaust was only possible in Germany. Germany and Russia are still the most fearsome of France's potential enemies. When push comes to shove, they will deal with the Arabs.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/17/2018 18:35 Comments ||
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During the early weeks after the USS Fitzgerald was speared by a lumbering Philippine container ship, it was noteworthy that the captain and a couple of admirals were publically named, but not the actual officer in charge, the officer of the deck. (OOD) The other person who should have kept the Fitz out of trouble is the person in charge of the combat information center, the Tactical Action Officer. That individual is supposed to be monitoring the combat radar, which can detect a swimmer at a distance of two miles.
Not until a year later, when the final reports are made public and the guilty parties have been court-martialed, does the truth come out. The OOD was named Sarah, and the Tactical Action Officer was named Natalie, and they weren’t speaking to each other!!! The Tactical Action Officer would normally be in near constant communication with the OOD, but there is no record of any communication between them that entire shift!
Another fun fact: In the Navy that won WWII, the damage control officers were usually some of the biggest and strongest men aboard, able to close hatches, shore up damaged areas with timbers, etc. The Fitz’s damage control officer was also a woman, and she never left the bridge. She handled the aftermath of the accident remotely, without lifting a finger herself!
Look it up: The OOD was Sarah Coppock, Tactical Action Officer was Natalie Combs. . . .
When I noticed last year that they were doing all they could to keep the OOD’s name out of the headlines, I speculated to my son that it was a she. Turns out all the key people (except one officer in the CIC) were female!
[Townhall] Have you ever wondered why rage seems to be "all the rage" with liberals these days? Every time you turn around there’s another march for this or protest against that; recycled chants about how something "has got to go," and a fawning media all too happy to report it as if it were news. It’s not news, of course, it’s a mass temper tantrum by political activists still unhappy their fellow Americans chose to reject Hillary Clinton in 2016. But there’s more to it than that, something strategic is at play.
Have you ever stubbed your toe and cursed in front of someone you otherwise would never consider using that kind of language in front of? Or gotten so mad while trying to fix something that you’ve ended up slamming it and making it worse? It’s likely you’ve done this or something similar because of one simple fact: emotion overrides logic.
When you’re angry or when you’re scared you aren’t thinking straight, you’re acting on emotion. That’s the state liberals have been keeping their base in since Donald Trump won the presidency.
To one degree or another, modern liberals have always used fear and anger to motivate their voters. After 9/11, Democrats ran on variations of "Republican policies are making us less safe." With the terror attacks of that September morning still fresh in people’s minds, that was not designed to inspire.
To hear liberals tell it, this country is fundamentally racist and killing the planet. They, however, are the gatekeepers of fixing it all. (Never mind the fact that cities where they’ve had complete control for generations ‐ Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, etc. ‐ are used for backdrops for movies about post-apocalyptic futures because they require so little set construction.)
#2
Because of an insatiable lust for power? (More Power! - Tool Time Tim.) Ever see a hard drug addict who wasn't mad or angry when in deep need of another fix?
#3
The greatest irony by far is that if the marxists ever actually achieve their goal of total control, virtually all of the professional whiners will find themselves on the wrong side of the firing squads.
"Thank you for doing your part, comrades! But the State no longer requires your existence. Your ashes will be buried with honors at the Tomb of the Unknown Useful Idiots."
#4
Because life is hard. it's harder if you are a liberal because you are stupid.
You are stupid because everything you believe in is stupid and will never work.
You are angry with yourselves liberals.
#5
Well, I've not seen this one before, but here's Barry making a speech about simple people surrendering their rights to an all-powerful sovereign. As much as I "like" Soetoro, I don't know why I don't trust this video. In any case:
https://mobile.twitter.com/KBMAGAFL/status/1008386945905504256/video/1
[Guardian] Four years ago the state of Illinois suspended the driver’s license of James (not his real name) for failing to fully meet his child support obligations, which he was not earning enough to pay. Now, unable to drive to work, he lost his full-time welding job. He found a lower-paid job he could reach using Chicago’s patchy suburban public transport system, which makes commuting difficult for people in some of the city’s economically isolated and racially segregated communities.
Today, James’ wages are still insufficient to pay off his mounting arrears, so he remains barred from driving. Ironically, his lack of driving privileges makes it impossible for him to cast a net for a better-paying job that would allow him to meet these payments. That paradox illustrates the regressive, counterproductive policies I have encountered during two decades of working with low-income black fathers in Chicago. The vast majority of these men desperately want to be good fathers, but the system seems to punish them for even trying.
In the US, a vexing confluence of historical, racial and economic inequalities prevents many such fathers from fulfilling their paternal roles. Yes, some men are unwilling to embrace their parental obligations. However, our social policies should not treat all low-income black fathers as deadbeat dads, nor suggest this is the norm or adopt this belief as the default position that should be assumed with respect to these fathers.
#4
Baby mama couldn't drive him to the job? Or someone from the extended family? A friend? Co-worker?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/17/2018 10:43 Comments ||
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#5
the state of Illinois suspended the driver’s license of James (not his real name) for failing to fully meet his child support obligations
Massachusetts does the same thing with their CSE (Child Support Enforcement) and regular income tax debts. This has to be the most counterproductive things to do implement, which explains why lefties / feminists came up with it.
[Jerusalem Post] The director of the American Civil Liberties Union has now acknowledged what should have been obvious to everybody over the past several years: that the ACLU is no longer a neutral defender of everyone’s civil liberties; it has morphed into a hyper-partisan, hard-left political advocacy group. The final nail in its coffin was the announcement that for the first time in its history the ACLU would become involved in partisan electoral politics, supporting candidates, referenda and other agenda-driven political goals.
The headline in the June 8 2018 edition of the New Yorker tells it all: "The ACLU is getting involved in elections ‐ and reinventing itself for the Trump Era." The article continues: In this midterm year, however, as progressive groups have mushroomed and grown more active, and as liberal billionaires such as Howard Schultz and Tom Steyer have begun to imagine themselves as political heroes and eye Presidential runs, the ACLU, itself newly flush, has begun to move in step with the times.
[Daily Caller] Pope Francis likened abortion doctors and advocates to Nazis on Saturday in a statement that is rocking the world with its fiery tenor.
"We do the same as the Nazis to maintain the purity of the race, but with white gloves on," the head of the Catholic Church said in an address to the Forum of Family Associations on its 25-year anniversary, according to USA Today. "It is fashionable, or at least usual, that when in the first few months of a pregnancy doctors do studies to see if the child is healthy or has something, the first idea is: ’Let’s send it away,'" the pope also said.
Francis remained silent following Ireland’s May 26 vote to legalize abortions in the Catholic country until Saturday. The pope’s home country, Argentina, is also moving towards legalizing abortion. Its lower chamber of Congress voted Thursday to legalize abortion up to 14 weeks in pregnancy and will require ratification by the Senate to become law.
[American Thinker] As we celebrate Father's Day, I thank God that I had a mentor in my life, the kind of man who understood what it means to be a father. Not everyone is so lucky. So let's chat about the "father crisis" in many communities in the U.S.
Ten years ago, I cut out this article from the Wall Street Journal paper edition. I saved it and look at it from time. It was written by Juan Williams, author and Fox News contributor. It is "The Tragedy of America's Disappearing Fathers":
The extent of the problem is clear.
The nation's out-of-wedlock birth rate is 38%.
Among white children, 28% are now born to a single mother; among Hispanic children it is 50% and reaches a chilling, disorienting peak of 71% for black children.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, nearly a quarter of America's white children (22%) do not have any male in their homes; nearly a third (31%) of Hispanic children and over half of black children (56%) are fatherless.
This represents a dramatic shift in American life.
In the early 1960's, only 2.3% of white children and 24% of black children were born to a single mom.
Having a dad, in short, is now a privilege, a ticket to middle-class status on par with getting into a good college.
Kids suffer without a father, no matter their color or last name.
Father's Day is here. Let's remember a simple truth: we need men to be responsible fathers.
[American Thinker] A new study by the Washington Times shows that 90% of the broadcast coverage of President Trump remains negative, even after the accomplishments of his first 500 days. Certainly, the so-called intelligentsia hate Donald Trump, but they hate Trump not just as an individual ‐ they hate him because he sides with us.
They've hated us ‐ those heartland Americans clinging to our guns and religion ‐ long before Trump came along and will do so long after he is gone. The Justice Department's I.G. report has confirmed widespread prejudice among top Justice and FBI officials, but it's a mistake to think this bias is directed against Trump per se. Officials like Peter Strzok were intent on "stopping" Trump, but stopping him from doing what? Stopping him from restoring the right of ordinary Americans to govern their country?
There exists among progressives a widespread culture of intolerance and hatred directed at the middle class. I'm not the only one, I'm sure, who finds the behavior of Robert De Niro, Jimmy Kimmell, Joy Behar, and the rest of them repellant.
With the Trump presidency, everyday citizens have gained a voice in Washington. At exactly the same time, media attacks on these Americans have exploded. The inference is clear: Hollywood, the mainstream media, and academe believe that ordinary Americans must be silenced. Only the "smart" ones, as leftists consider themselves, have a right to be heard. The left is attempting to silence the opposition and has been doing so for a long time.
The problem is that, in the end, silencing the opposition involves the use of force. It's bad enough to "censor" one's opponent, as the fake news does every minute with lies and omissions and outrageous claims.
The media were hoping Trump would fail at the Singapore summit. Now that he has succeeded, that success is not being reported. All that CNN could say of the historic success is that Trump's achievement "appeared to upend decades of US policy in Asia." The suggestion that the U.S. may "eventually" remove troops from the DMZ "will likely spark concern in Tokyo and Seoul," CNN opined. That's it? It's better to stick with the status quo and allow North Korea to assemble a large nuclear arsenal and the ICBMs to deliver it than to change U.S. policy? (This wisdom, by the way, was the work of Joshua Berlinger, a 2012 graduate of Tufts University and "video editor," among other titles, at CNN. Not exactly Walter Cronkite.)
There are many ways of silencing the opposition, including the covert activities of the FBI and DOJ. If they hate us that much, they feel justified in using any means necessary, no matter how improper or illegal. All of this is driven by the contempt progressives feel for "lesser" Americans.
This essay lays it out. Basically we're the Left's outgroup, so they can do anything they want to us. That's why nobody gets fired for calling black Republicans coons or Melania a cunt. The rules they make don't apply to themselves.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
06/17/2018 7:04 Comments ||
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#2
Deplorables = Untermensch
Socialist never change, just the terminology they employ.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Human Events] The Swiss franc is the national currency of scenic Switzerland, a country that is known for its neutrality in international conflict, for its clockwork-like efficiency and for its reputation as a safe haven for protecting assets.
[Guardian] Four years ago the state of Illinois suspended the driver’s license of James (not his real name) for failing to fully meet his child support obligations, which he was not earning enough to pay. Now, unable to drive to work, he lost his full-time welding job. He found a lower-paid job he could reach using Chicago’s patchy suburban public transport system, which makes commuting difficult for people in some of the city’s economically isolated and racially segregated communities.
[Daily Caller] Pope Francis likened abortion doctors and advocates to Nazis on Saturday in a statement that is rocking the world with its fiery tenor.
