Had a front row seat as 4 RU diplomats were PNG's yesterday out of LAX. Pretty much a non-event with zero fanfare. The RU folks were cordial and professional and we maintained distance. No press no asshats asking questions other than "Can you tell me where the Swiss Air counter is??" The LAX ID card is a moron magnet.
Posted by Bangkok Billy 2017-01-01 21:03
#3
Saw a statement reportedly from Trump:
"If you want to send a secure message, write it down on paper and send it by courier. My ten year old can find anything on the Internet."
If a message you sent by courier leaks, it doesn't take much to find the leakier. If you use a bonded courier the leak is probably going to be on one of two ends.
[Politico] A little over a year ago, on a pleasant late fall evening, I was sitting on my front porch with a friend best described as a Ukrainian freedom fighter. He was smoking a cigarette while we watched Southeast DC hipsters bustle by and talked about ’the war’ -- the big war, being waged by Russia against all of us, which from this porch felt very far away. I can’t remember what prompted it -- some discussion of whether the government in Kyiv was doing something that would piss off the EU -- but he took a long drag off his cigarette and said, offhand: "Russia. The EU. It's all just more Molotov-Ribbentrop shit."
His casual reference to the Hitler-Stalin pact dividing Eastern Europe before WWII was meant as a reminder that Ukraine must decide its future for itself, rather than let it be negotiated between great powers. But it haunted me, this idea that modern revolutionaries no longer felt some special affinity with the West. Was it the belief in collective defense that was weakening, or the underlying certitude that Western values would prevail?
Months later, on a different porch thousands of miles away, an Estonian filmmaker casually explained to me that he was buying a boat to get his family out when the Russians came, so he could focus on the resistance. In between were a hundred other exchanges -- with Balts and Ukrainians, Georgians and Moldovans -- that answered my question and exposed the new reality on the Russian frontier: the belief that, ultimately, everyone would be left to fend for themselves. Increasingly, people in Russia’s sphere of influence were deciding that the values that were supposed to bind the West together could no longer hold. That the world order Americans depend on had already come apart.
From Moscow, Vladimir Putin has seized the momentum of this unraveling, exacting critical damage to the underpinnings of the liberal world order in a shockingly short time. As he builds a new system to replace the one we know, attempts by America and its allies to repair the damage have been limited and slow. Even this week, as Barack Obama tries to confront Russia’s open and unprecedented interference in our political process, the outgoing White House is so far responding to 21st century hybrid information warfare with last century’s diplomatic toolkit: the expulsion of spies, targeted sanctions, potential asset seizure. The incoming administration, while promising a new approach, has betrayed a similar lack of vision. Their promised attempt at another "reset" with Russia is a rehash of a policy that has utterly failed the past two American administrations.
And if they won't to blame someone. Blame the United Nations. They are the ones proclaiming national borders fixed for all time (because African kleptocrats like it that way), but do nothing when they get redraw.
#4
Russia has s demographic problem. If I were Putin I'd be trying to really stoke Russian pride hoping to get Russians from around the globe to move back to mother Russia.
[PJ] On CNN, liberal activist Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones said that "the Clinton days are over" in the Democratic Party, and pointed to two emerging leaders as the future of a more progressive political party focused on identity politics. Naturally, he chose two racial minority members of Congress -- and the extremely controversial first Muslim congressman.
"You have to understand, I think that the Clinton days are over," Jones told CNN's Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "This idea that we're going to be this moderate party ... those days are over." Jones called for a new generation of Democrat leadership, touting California Attorney General Kamala Harris (an anti-free speech activist) and Representative Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress and a candidate for the Democratic National Committee chairmanship.
"I think that Keith Ellison is very important because he is somebody who represents the progressive wing of the party," Jones declared. "On thing that happened, when Hillary Clinton had a chance to make a VP pick, she didn't pick someone from the progressive wing, which made it much harder to heal the wounds with the [Bernie] Sanders and Elizabeth Warren wing. Keith Ellison represents that wing very, very well." Insightful, profound, what more can be said ?
#3
The last year I've been hearing about the 3rd party that would result from the splits in the Republican party.
If this actually is the direction that the 'rats choose to go I think that a 3rd party becomes very likely with a combination of what passes for moderate Dems and Rinos.
#5
Logical evolution to the Liberal "Beltway" Party. Leaving the Socialist and Chamber of Commerce Parties to their own agendas.
Posted by: P2Kontheroad
Unmasked as it were, for those who could not recognize the voices.
#7
In 1973-75 I saw the demographic shift in the "Rainbow Coalition" Democratic future alliance: the Dixiecrats were out, good riddance, but every white male in Flyover Country got the boot unless they passed the new GroupThink tests. Logically, Politics is a Zero-Sum Game and after the Coastal Elites paid off their immediate cronies a yokel like myself living in the cultural wasteland of Oklahoma would get to lick the empty bowl, maybe, but only after a grovel or two. I registered (R) and voted "For" Ford.
Seems like '73 all over again, McGovern Clinton lost and the New Coalition is a subset of the old Coalition.
Background info:
A landmark bill allowing for the prosecution of climate change dissent effectively died Thursday after the California Senate failed to take it up before the deadline.
Senate Bill 1161, or the California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act of 2016, would have authorized prosecutors to sue fossil fuel companies, think tanks and others that have “deceived or misled the public on the risks of climate change.”
The measure, which cleared two Senate committees, provided a four-year window in the statute of limitations on violations of the state’s Unfair Competition Law, allowing legal action to be brought until Jan. 1 on charges of climate change “fraud” extending back indefinitely.
The measure was introduced amid a national push by Democrats and activist groups to use the legal system to prosecute climate change “fraud,” prompting a backlash from skeptics who have denounced the campaign as an assault on free speech.
A coalition of 17 state attorneys general, including California Attorney General Kamala Harris, have joined forces to pursue climate change skeptics. At least four prosecutors reportedly have launched investigations into Exxon Mobil for climate change “fraud.”
#9
That bill would have been wonderful to watch as folks went after Mann for his deceptive hockey stick and emails suggestion they had to exaggerate the threat to ensure compliance.
I suspect it is this potential embarrassing blow-back that caused California's super-liberal judicial blokes to let it slide.
#12
The last year I've been hearing about the 3rd party that would result from the splits in the Republican party. If this actually is the direction that the 'rats choose to go I think that a 3rd party becomes very likely with a combination of what passes for moderate Dems and Rinos.
Aside from the traditional GOP, a significant portion of the 'moderate' (and much of the Establishment) wing of the GOP are what would have constituted the 'conservative' wing of the Democratic Party some forty years ago.
Things could get very messy, nasty and dangerous.
Likely. The question is how quickly a third party gets formed. I suspect politicians of both parties will wait until they see how the political winds blow before they jump ship.
Meanwhile, the media is dragging Evan McMullin to pontificate before the cameras. It'd be interesting to see if they bring Jill Stein on stage as well.
#13
Will American Jewish Democrats finally leave the democrats with move toward Ellison? Will be interesting to see already elected Jewish dems response.
[IsraelTimes] Diamond and Silk pronounce Secretary Kerry to be ‘trippin” over recent spat with Jerusalem: ‘Israel is our ally, so that means we have to have their backs!’
#2
Now you may laugh but I'm telling you, 'click-finger' RSI is painful and in some cases debilitating. It can also cause temporary loss of trigger control with flinching.
[Daily Caller] Some small-town residents of Rutland, Vt., are upset at their mayor’s decision to resettle 100 Syrian refugees throughout 2017 in the area.
Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras defended his decision, saying the town’s demographics are declining, and they are having trouble recruiting younger workers. He also thinks refugees will bring cultural diversity.
"We need people," Louras declared to The New York Times.
Louras’s decision sparked outrage among some residents who say they had little say in the mayor’s decision, which would effect them all. They formed an advocacy group called Rutland First to pressure Louras to reverse his decision.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/02/2017 10:10 Comments ||
Top||
#2
So, workers who are able are leaving your little patch 'o sunshine, and your solution is to import as much slave labor as you can make other people pay for?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/02/2017 10:27 Comments ||
Top||
Except you're not getting people. You're getting masters. You just don't know it yet.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
01/02/2017 12:23 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras defended his decision, saying the town’s demographics are declining, and they are having trouble recruiting younger workers.
#6
Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras defended his decision, saying the town’s demographics are declining, and they are having trouble recruiting younger workers.
If five of those 100 are 'working', I'd be shocked.
#9
1980 Refugee Act gives the Feds the right to resettle refugees.
Govs and Mayors and NGOs may make this go smoothly or not and Govs and Mayors may ask the Feds for more refugees but the 'decision' is not theirs. It is the Feds.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/02/2017 15:17 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Time to repeal the 1980 Refugee act, then. Replace it with the 2017 Stay In Your Own Cesspool Act.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
01/02/2017 17:13 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Yes. Shut it down. I like RC's working title, but would add some "save the children" wording to the name of the actual act.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
01/02/2017 18:46 Comments ||
Top||
#12
How fraught are the ethical quandaries
Of melting pots, liberty's bigotry's foundries!
Let's act for the migrants,
Protecting their vibrance,
And call it "Respecting Their Boundaries."
#13
Empirical souls put in peril
By facts -- fertile, footloose, and feral --
Are tempted to query,
But critical theory
Stays crystalline, pristine, and sterile.
#14
And speaking of souls, and going all racist...
So sad that most coloreds play roles
(thick Coates, or the dullardly Knowles),
Convinced by brown wrappers
And cynical yappers
To doubt their avuncular Sowells.
"Some" might be truer than "most" (maybe... I hope... for a while yet), but dammit, I need that long O.
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.