BLUF:
(Guardian) "We know that there are big fishes out there that wanted the death and are part of the plot to kill the president ... There are more powerful people behind this," the 54-year-old politician added.
Pierre admitted the identity of those conspirators remained unknown: "But we do believe that the president had a lot of enemies — people who didn’t agree with his plan and programs, and certainly with his agenda. And we believe they might be linked to this crime."
[VDH] Too many elites on the coasts don’t live in the real world. They have these grand ideas about how society should function, but they don’t suffer the consequences of their own ideology. For this podcast, Lisa speaks with a true renaissance man who has a foot in both worlds — an academic and a farmer — Professor Victor Davis Hanson. A classicist, military historian, and one of the nation's most respected political commentators, Professor Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a farmer in the San Joaquin Valley of California. He and Lisa dig into the state of America today culturally, economically, and politically. Plus, they discuss how elites insulate themselves from the country's problems in a cocoon of their money, fancy degrees, and self-righteousness.
[American Thinker] The news out of Cuba and South Africa has been pretty gruesome this last week, what with anti-regime riots in Cuba and general looting in the ANC’s South Africa.
But Communist Cuba has been for over half a century the darling of our socialist friends, and South Africa has been the darling of our anti-racist friends. How could it be that these darling regimes are staring into the abyss, with no food and no medicines when all the good people were agreed that they were the wave of the future?
It all makes sense when you accept my maxim that all government is force plus loot and plunder.
But, I realized, my maxim violates the Einstein principle to make things as simple as possible but no simpler. It seems to me that there is a difference between the loot and plunder practiced by our beloved ruling class here in the USA and the loot and plunder practiced by the Castro family. The key question is who gets a share of the loot and plunder. Rather obviously, in Cuba, very few people get to share in the loot. Beyond the Castro family, I suppose that the drug lords in and out of the Cuban armed forces need to be included in the handout. In South Africa, it seems that the ANC politicians are in cahoots with the billionaires. In Chávez’s Venezuela, it has been necessary to deal in the armed forces, although we are told that "Children of Venezuela’s elite including ex-leader Hugo Chavez’s daughter flaunt wealth."
But whatabout the US? It seems to me that the recipients of loot and plunder are more broadly based than in the avowedly socialist countries. Here the recipients of loot and plunder seem to include the corporate elite, the politicians and their families, the educated class, and the vote-bank oppressed peoples. Here the Average Joe still gets his Social Security and the Average Jane still gets her Medicare, but that may change, because Whiteness.
So let us categorize the various socialist systems of loot and plunder.
Stalinist Communism. Only the ruler himself gets the loot, and what he wants is T-34 tanks. Even the ruler’s family members are lucky to get a share.
Latin-American Communism. The ruler and his family get the loot. Others in the "ruling clique" may share if they behave themselves.
Tribal Communism. The members of the ruler’s tribe get to share in the loot. Others need not apply, unless they get desperate.
Chinese Communism. All members of the "ruling clique," understood as the CCP, get to share in the loot. Factory Girls, not so much.
Democratic Socialism. All members of the ruling class get loot and plunder, and if there is anything left over, the constituents of Bernie Sanders in Vermont and AOC in New York City get free health care.
Viking Socialism. Head over to Britland in the Autumn. Share out the grain and silver and women and slaves among the warriors.
Enough of the socialists: whatabout us?
Whiteness Countries. The "ruling clique" gets first dibs at the loot, but all members of the educated ruling class get their share, from woke corporations to woke academicians to green energy capitalists to climate-change scientists to grant-fed activists. Non-whites are much fussed over, but the rulers usually Make Things Worse for them. Peasants better get vaccinated, or else.
By "ruling clique" I mean, after Gaetano Mosca, those "who monopolize the management of the state and occupy the more important offices." By "educated ruling class" I mean the ruling class in general, the equivalent of an army’s officer corps.
#1
Fidel Castro, lawyer and politician, at the time of his death had an estate worth S900 million. Profitable, eh? Not so different in other Statist societies or those heading in that direction.
Translated via Google Translate. Edited by Aleksandr Kots
[KP] Impressive, but still "not set off." There is a golden toilet, but no golden loaf. And his own full-length portrait in a carved gold frame is also missing. And he was stingy on a pond with swans.
Whenever we are shown the abode of another "burned out" corrupt official, suddenly taken by the sciatic nerve, we go numb with "Spanish shame."
You have stolen many, many millions. Well, do you really feel sorry for throwing over a normal designer? Where does this passion for "gypsy baroque" come from with its massive gold stucco moldings, white marble, giant crystal (seemingly) chandeliers, "Botticelli-like" canvases all over the wall, baths on "lion legs".
Decorators, who can be entrusted with the stolen wealth, only have a little imagination with them. So they sculpt kitsch from the 90s in the palaces of bribe-takers, under the “new Russians”. And a rod of them "Versailles" in the suburbs (like the arrested vice-rector of Moscow State University Grishin).
No mind, no imagination. Grab and hide a billion under the plinth. Greed has ruined the frayer. As it is sung in the song of the Circle: it is not a "point" that usually ruins, but a golden toilet bowl.
A case was initiated against members of a criminal group led by the head of the UGIBDD in Stavropol
It is also always interesting to find out, but how did the investigators come up with all this luxury? Here lived a man, for almost ten years. He headed the regional State traffic inspectorate, stole to the best of his strength and appetite. It was said he called on New Year's and birthdays only the faithful accomplices, tied up with only bribes and one designer, left work by bus, and then transferred to a sports BMW, smelling of expensive leather, and drove to a country residence. And no one, no one except the most dedicated, knew about him?
Although, as practice shows, in any region there is a public figure or journalist-truth-bearer who will take you on local rubles with an excursion, tell you which minister, prosecutor or colonel the mansion belongs to. And from the inconsistency of their scale with the salaries in their positions, (from ostentatious impunity, let's say more simply) conspiracy theories about circular corruption are born among the people, originating from Moscow itself. These people will clap their tongues after looking at the photo: "What kind of palace should the head of the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs have then?" And that one is quickly dismissed from his post. The bribes are smooth.
"And to us, to us, when will the investigator arrive in the blue helicopter?", raced in social networks throughout the country, delighted with the scale of the covered gang of "werewolves in uniform" in Stavropol.
"It is no longer surprising to be arrested by a wealthy official. It is a common thing. But, 35 traffic cops at a time is just a miracle!" said another on social media.
"Is it possible that they have declared war on corruption?" The people look hopefully on TV. But out of habit he adds, "or the campaign before the elections?" Reference to the upcoming federal Duma elections in September.
Aleksandr Kots is prior service Russian airborne and a writer/photographer for Komsomol Pravda
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.