Geez. Tell the Krauts to pony up a few miserable marks, and they go off on the guy.
[Spiegel] Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. He does not possess the requisite intellect and does not understand the significance of the office he holds nor the tasks associated with it. He doesn't read. He doesn't bother to peruse important files and intelligence reports and knows little about the issues that he has identified as his priorities. His decisions are capricious and they are delivered in the form of tyrannical decrees.
He is a man free of morals. As has been demonstrated hundreds of times, he is a liar, a racist and a cheat. I feel ashamed to use these words, as sharp and loud as they are. But if they apply to anyone, they apply to Trump. And one of the media's tasks is to continue telling things as they are: Trump has to be removed from the White House. Quickly. He is a danger to the world.
Trump is a miserable politician. He fired the FBI director simply because he could. James Comey had gotten under his skin with his investigation into Trump's confidants. Comey had also refused to swear loyalty and fealty to Trump and to abandon the investigation. He had to go. And then there's the downside... Witnessing an American Tragedy
Trump is also a miserable boss. His people invent excuses for him and lie on his behalf because they have to, but then Trump wakes up and posts tweets that contradict what they have said. He doesn't care that his spokesman, his secretary of state and his national security adviser had just denied that the president had handed Russia (of all countries) sensitive intelligence gleaned from Israel (of all countries). Trump tweeted: Yes, yes, I did, because I can. I'm president after all.
Nothing is as it should be in this White House. Everyone working there has been compromised multiple times and now they all despise each other - and everyone except for Trump despises Trump. Because of all that, after just 120 days of the Trump administration, we are witness to an American tragedy for which there are five theoretical solutions.
The first is Trump's resignation, which won't happen. The second is that Republicans in the House and Senate support impeachment, which would be justified by the president's proven obstruction of justice, but won't happen because of the Republicans' thirst for power, which they won't willingly give up. The third possible solution is the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which would require the cabinet to declare Trump unfit to discharge the powers of the presidency. That isn't particularly likely either. Fourth: The Democrats get ready to fight and win back majorities in the House and Senate in midterm elections, which are 18 months away, before they then pursue option two, impeachment. Fifth: the international community wakes up and finds a way to circumvent the White House and free itself of its dependence on the U.S. Unlike the preceding four options, the fifth doesn't directly solve the Trump problem, but it is nevertheless necessary - and possible.
No Goals and No Strategy
Not quite two weeks ago, a number of experts and politicians focused on foreign policy met in Washington at the invitation of the Munich Security Conference. It wasn't difficult to sense the atmosphere of chaos and agony that has descended upon the city.
The U.S. elected a laughing stock to the presidency and has now made itself dependent on a joke of a man. The country is, as David Brooks wrote recently in the New York Times, dependent on a child. The Trump administration has no foreign policy because Trump has consistently promised American withdrawal while invoking America's strength. He has promised both no wars and more wars. He makes decisions according to his mood, with no strategic coherence or tactical logic. Moscow and Beijing are laughing at America. Elsewhere, people are worried.
In the Pacific, warships - American and Chinese - circle each other in close proximity. The conflict with North Korea is escalating. Who can be certain that Donald Trump won't risk nuclear war simply to save his own skin? Efforts to stop climate change are in trouble and many expect the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris Agreement because Trump is wary of legally binding measures. Crises, including those in Syria and Libya, are escalating, but no longer being discussed. And who should they be discussed with? Phone calls and emails to the U.S. State Department go unanswered. Nothing is regulated, nothing is stable and the trans-Atlantic relationship hardly exists anymore. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Norbert Röttgen fly back and forth, but Germany and the U.S. no longer understand each other. Hardly any real communication takes place, there are no joint foreign policy goals and there is no strategy.
In "Game of Thrones," the Mad King was murdered (and the child that later took his place was no better). In real life, an immature boy sits on the throne of the most important country in the world. He could, at any time, issue a catastrophic order that would immediately be carried out. That is why the parents cannot afford to take their eyes off him even for a second. They cannot succumb to exhaustion because he is so taxing. They ultimately have to send him to his room - and return power to the grownups.
#2
Behold the latest version of "The American president is a cowboy," from those powerless to do anything about it and constrained to cope with the results. You'll note they fervently believe everything they read in the leading American news media.
Betcha the heads of state and their staffs were polite to him during the recent confab, though. Hopefully they were reassessing their preconceptions... and the poisonous "information" fed to their people by CIA and State Department staffers.
#3
They all wanted to talk Climate Change. He wanted to talk NATO, responsibilities and $, Islamic threats. Guess what they discussed.
Yeah, they're bitter. Losers
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/27/2017 9:55 Comments ||
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#4
They were "losers" long before they were bitter. Just my opinion, I could be wrong. I thought it would rain yesterday, it didn't. I'm frequently wrong about the weather.
#5
'Does not possess the requisite intellect...', where's your billion dollars and world class model wife, Klaus? Oh, and stunning way to prove up your foreign policy creds, you know quoting from Game of Thrones plots. Anyway, thanks for self identifying as an utter schmo.
#8
Well, I can understand the EUropeans' chagrin: after 8 years of Obama, and with Hillary as a certain win (yes, these people always drink their own ink), EUropenization of USA seemed to be within their grasp. And then, boorish Yankees elected this, this, this...
#11
He is our duly elected President. I suggest that Der Spiegel go do unnatural things to themselves. You know nothing about Trump, you are just mouthing leftist bilge.
#12
Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States
And the Euros have shown they're unfit to preserve Western Civilization. When the wall came down, we should have returned home and let them to their own wretched fate.
Former US president Obama was in Berlin for panel discussion as Trump reached NATO summit in Brussels; German Chancellor Merkel was all smiles as she joined Obama on panel, 2 hours before she was obliged to deal with Trump, as he demanded Europeans pay off debts.
It should be noted that the panel discussion was part of is the Kirchentag, the biennial congress of the Lutheran Church in Germany, a subject Mr. Obama is remarkably incompetant to discuss. This year 140,000 of them are celebrating the 500th anniversay of the Reformation. Mr. Obama was scheduled for the panel a year ago.
#17
I don't know that Obama has anything to bring to their table, but IIRC the German Lutherans get their budget from the state--a religion tax (similarly for the Catholics, etc). You'd expect the result to be churches that care more about the fashions of the state than the faith of their flock, and I gather you'd be correct.
The concept of domesticated churches may appeal to him. Our pesky first amendment gets in the way, but we've already heard the opening salvos of "Why the first is a bad thing."
Posted by: james ||
05/27/2017 21:20 Comments ||
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Next week I'll do the quarterly ammunition price reports. Without peeking, my guess is that ammunition, like AR-15 have been on a steady decline since the first of the year.
The damned fools on our side of the line will crow about the Trump Effect or similar nonsense, when in fact gun rights are in greater danger than ever before.
For example, David Cordrea reports that even more firearms restrictions are being pushed in the New York legislature, which would require all fire arms to have heavy triggers to prevent children under the age of five from firing pistols. Cordrea suggests the new trigger requirement will make such firearms more, not less dangerous because the greater amount of force used in pulling the trigger will cause greater difficulty in firing the gun accurately.
Pistol ammunition prices were steady. Rifle ammunition prices were mixed.
Prices for used pistols were mixed. Prices for used rifles were mostly higher.
The nationwide average price for a used AR-15 pattern semiautomatic has dropped to yet another historic low at $445, the second drop in two weeks. The decline continues the trend begun in March, 2017.
New Lows:
None
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (1Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: East Carolina Trading, Own Brand, FMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .23 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: FedArm, Own Brand, TPMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .20 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (7 Weeks))
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Ammo Mart, Own Brand, RSFP, Brass Casing, Seconds .18 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Ammo Valley, Own Brand, FMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .19 per round (From Last Week: +.01 Each
9mm Parabellum, 115 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2016)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .15 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: FedArms, Own Brand, RN, Reloads, Brass Casing, .14 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks))
.357 Magnum, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (1Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: Ammunition to Go, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .23 per round (From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (1Q, 2017))
.38 Special, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Highland Lakes Ammo, Own Brand, RN, Brass Casing, Reloads .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: Western Arms and Ammo, Own Brand, TMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads .24 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (6 Weeks))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Wolf, FMJ, Steel Casing, .20 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .20 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks))
.308 NATO 150 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (1Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .32 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .32 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (6 Weeks))
7.62x39mm AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (1Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .20 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .20 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (1Q, 2017))
.30-06 Springfield 145 Grain. From Last Week: Unchanged (10 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .54 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: United Nations Ammo, Wolf WPA, Steel Casing, FMJ, .54 per round (From Last week: Unchanged (1Q, 2017))
.300 Winchester Magnum 150 Grain, From Last Week: -.03 Each After Unchanged (1Q, 2017)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Selway Armory, Prvi Partizan, Brass Casing, SP, .83 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Target Sports, Prvi Partizan, Brass Casing, SP, .88 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (7 Weeks))
.338 Lapua Magnum 250 Grain, From Last Week: +.13 Each After Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Federal Eagle, Brass Casing, JSP, 2.30 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 200 rounds: Target Sports USA, Federal American Eagle, Brass Casing, HP, 2.50 per round (From Last Week: +.35 Each After Unchanged (4 Weeks))
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Ammo Men, Aguila, RNL, .04 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Ammo Men, Aguila, RNL, .04 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks))
#1
What are the main priorities? If we, as white South Africans, have a choice to say what our most urgent crisis is..Jacob Zuma or the Islamic migration to Italy, one need not think too long on what our answer will be. Why then do we expect the Austrian and the Frenchman and the Italian to put their own crisis aside to address ours first?
Pigs circling in formation then landing at Smuts Airport. Quite unlikely I say.
[Dhaka Tribune] Before we get into a debate over the difference between an idol and a sculpture, the fundamentalists among us should be asked whether they acknowledge and recognise the Supreme Court in the first place. My guess is that they'd demand shariah.
Indeed several Islamist attacks have been directed against courts and judges precisely because the holy men said judges and courts uphold and represent an un-Islamic dispensation, if not a godless one. Um... The symbolism of Lady Justice is that she's blindfolded -- meaning she's neutral. She holds scales to weigh evidence. She holds a sword, representing the power of the state. She's not a goddess, as the camel's nose Islamists insist, she's an allegory. Ptui.
The Supreme Court, where Lady Justice stands with her scales, is dedicated to upholding the constitution of Bangladesh. This constitution, in true democratic spirit, upholds and embraces the illusory sovereignty of the citizen. It is the citizen who is the source of all power. Not too long ago -- I'm too lazy to look it up, but we had it here -- Bangla officially disavowed secularism, regarding itself as Islamic.
This philosophy directly contradicts with that of the Islamist parties, and hence the conflict between a democratic system and one prescribed by Islamists. Having disavowed secularism they're now inching their way toward caving in to the plausibly deniably Pak-affiliated Islamic bastards that opposed the establishment of Bangladesh in the first place. However, women are made to be loved, not understood... when holy men talk about Lady Justice and not the iconic Aparajeyo Bangla or any of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s busts, it can only be presumed that they attach more significance to this statue than the others. Or that they haven't come for the others yet.
Now, if they do not even recognise an institution then they cannot comment on it. If Bangladesh does not recognise a country, then our government cannot urge that government to behave responsibly. But such reasoning can only be expected to work with a reasonable and rational quarter, which the Islamists have shown little evidence of being. Rationality is a western construct, not applicable to proper Third Worlders.
Soon after getting an assurance from the prime minister that Lady Justice would be removed, the holy mens were out with the demand of removing all statues. Including the representations of gods of the native Hindoo population.
One cannot presume any longer that the prime minister was just trying to placate a room full of holy men when she assured them of having a word about the sword wielding, scale bearing Banglicised Lady Justice. I guess placating is just another word for caving in, unless she shares the same stupid beliefs.
But the mullahs then demanded removal of all statues. ... and the suppression of the Hindoo minority, and any Jains or Buddhists or Bacchantes inhabiting the country. And Shiites and Ahmadis, even though they're not big on statuary.
That would include all statues and sculptures like Aparajeyo Bangla, Raju Bhashkorjo, and the hundreds of busts of the prime minister’s father, not to mention the millions of idols of deities that are worshipped around the country. That's what I just said.
This is a perfect example of why one should not relent to communal pressures, no matter how insignificant they might seem. The neutrality represented by the blindfold and the scales is an aspect of secularism.
And as regards the debate of whether it is an idol or a statue, it is pointless. The gods can be regarded as allegories. Is there an actual Lady Lakshmi inhabiting some ethereal abode? Or is Lady Luck a concept? Having been her plaything a few times in the past seventy years, I lean toward the latter interpretation.
Those saying it is not an idol but a sculpture are treading a very dangerous path. Even agreeing to take up such a line of argument would suggest one is worse or better than the other. I'd say that those who regard Lady Justice as a goddess are the ones treading the dangerous path, one leading toward ignorance and superstition. The professionally indignant are continually treading that same path, whether the offending statue be Lady Justice or Lady Lakshmi or the late Robert E. Lee.
There is the suggestion that perhaps it would have been OK for the holy men to make the demand if this were an idol that people worship. It is not. I've never seen anyone bow down to the location of Lady Justice, nor even bring her flowers. She is the Roman goddess Iustitia. She remains a poor, often violated allegorical goddess. There are a few people who worship her, a lot more who prefer to have her forbidden, banished, arrested in some Gethsemane and crucified on some Golgotha because having her strong and healthy would be dangerous to their grasp for power.
So what if this is the Roman goddess of justice? It is this concept of justice being blindfolded that we have embraced. Bengali, Buddhist, agnostic, bigot or buffoon, Lady Justice doesn’t see the difference. Only clerics and the professionally indignant do. Dhaka is no different from New Orleans in that respect.
She has her scales to test the strength of one’s argument and evidence against another, and she has her sword to deliver swift justice. Removal of the statue of Lady Justice now, will threaten the idols and statues everywhere forever. ... and with them tolerance and rationality. And, of course, justice.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/27/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Hefajat-e-Islam
[Iran Press TV] US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... is using Japan as a foil to pressure both North Korea and China with the threat of a military response that could result in a great tragedy, according to Professor Dennis Etler, an American political analyst who has a decades-long interest in international affairs.
Etler, a professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Friday while commenting on a statement of Trump about North Korea.
On Friday, Trump assured Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that the question of North Korea "will be solved," ahead of a G7 summit that will discuss a series of missile tests carried out by Pyongyang.
"We will be discussing many things including of course North Korea which is very much on our minds," Trump said in the Italian town of Taormina where he held a meeting with Abe at the start of the two-day G7 summit.
’US waged genocidal war against North Korea’
Etler said, "When it comes to tensions on the Korean peninsula both the US and Japan have been hoisted by their own petard. Ever since the beginning of the US initiated Cold War against the spread of Communism after WW2, the US has done everything in its power to push back against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (aka North Korea) in order to contain the People’s Republic of China."
"The US at first waged a genocidal war against North Korea in which it leveled the country and killed 20 percent of its population. When it met defeat at the hands of the Korean people and their Chinese allies it refused to sign a peace treaty and ever since has settled for an uneasy truce along the 38th parallel," he said.
"The US and its surrogates in South Korea and Japan have wanted to use the Korean Peninsula as a spearhead directed against China, as Imperial Japan did prior to and during WW2. The North having suffered immensely from the depredations of US imperialism is rightfully consumed with concern for its defenses against any renewed aggression directed against it by the powers that laid waste to it in the past," the analyst said.
This article starring:
Professor Dennis Etler
Posted by: Fred ||
05/27/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
a professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College
I am amazed at the number of colleges that are in the news these days I have never heard of before. Starting from when I followed College Bowl as a kid and college football ever since and looking for a school for myself and then my kids gave me a feeling that I had a fair vocabulary of such things.
But "professors" from all these weird schools of which I've never heard seem to warrant mention in publications world wide as experts in everything.
Given the existential threat by China and their Yappy Dog, they'd have been foolish to not have a little something "that's not quite a usable Nuke", but could become one in about 5 minutes
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/27/2017 12:58 Comments ||
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#4
College Bowl used to always disappoint. College Bowl isn't the same as College Bowl TBA, the season was well and truly over.
[Ricochet] The choices Europe faces today are stark. They can either engage in acts of collective punishment, up to and including mass deportations and strict controls on the nature of Islam that is allowed to be practiced or they can face a dark future of terrorism and the slow erosion of their way of life. There are no easy solutions or solutions that don’t involve ugly actions and consequences.
America does not yet face these choices. Our Muslim population is too small and our country and population too large to force us to make the kinds of choices the nations of Europe are being forced to make. If, however, we continue to allow mass immigration and allow the America Muslim population to reach a critical mass, we will face the same choices Europe is facing now. That is not something people want to hear. It is much easier to tell ourselves lies about how we can keep calm and carry on and it will all go away if we just are understanding enough. Sadly, the longer we cling to these illusions the worse our choices will be when reality finally forces us to give up these illusions.
Posted by: Secret Master ||
05/27/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#3
too large to force us to make the kinds of choices the treasonous leaders of the nations of Europe are foisting on their citizens being forced to make...
#4
When your lawn sprouts a couple of dandelions you can either pull them out, roots and all; or you can let them develop until they take over large areas.
Then you can either poison them or plow the whole lawn.
Pulling the first few is easier and has less impact on the health of the entire lawn.
#5
Had it not been for radical Islam, the Manchester bomber would have been just another maladjusted and perhaps violent person. He likely wouldn’t have lived a good life and would have done harm, but he wouldn’t have done this.
More to the point, if the Brits hadn't let his father into the UK then it wouldn't have happened in Manchester.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/27/2017 13:38 Comments ||
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#6
Yes, it's true they are not all terrorists. But if you can't tell the ones who are from the ones who are not, why risk your daughters by letting any of them into your country? What is to be gained?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/27/2017 13:40 Comments ||
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#7
Had it not been for radical Islam
Had it not been for Communism, or Nazism, or take your pick
[DAWN] On the Islamic Modernism of Pakistan's founders that kept the ulema far from government influence, and the pivot made by the execrable General Zia-ul-Haq.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/27/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
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.
[Dhaka Tribune] Before we get into a debate over the difference between an idol and a sculpture, the fundamentalists among us should be asked whether they acknowledge and recognise the Supreme Court in the first place.
North Korea
