Well, boys and girls (pilgrims), I do believe that unless there is a yuuge hidden vote out there for him and/or against her, she will receive the post inaugural oath salute of all the armed forces in the traditional march past behind the capitol. A saluting battery will be there and the US Army Band, "Ruffles and Flourishes" will sound across capitol Hill, and there will be 21 guns for the Commander in Chief. The troops will grit their teeth and do eyes left as they and the 3rd Infantry Regiment's colors pass her. For those who do not know, this regiment is colloquially known as "The Old Guard" and is the ceremonial regiment of the Army. As he watched this regiment march into Mexico City, Winfield Scott told his staff "Hats off, gentlemen, this is the Old Guard of the United States." They have the singular privilege granted by Congress to pass in review with fixed bayonets. They had swept the field at Cerro Gordo and Churubusco with the bayonet.
This symbolic march past will go down hard for many. I remember that little Chelsea when required to accept a ride in General McCaffery's staff car stared at him and said "in my family we don't like the military." That's what McCaffery said afterward and who am I to doubt the story? He must have been shocked. C in C Hilly will have the power to send these deplorable deployables whom she despises out to some god awful place to fight other poor dumb bastards.
IMO her best chance in office will be a continued retention of control of both houses of Congress by the GOP.
The country is in a state in which the level of alienation between the coastals and the rest is as bad as any state of alienation seen since the 1850s.
Bahzad wrote here that France is protected from the scourge of internal strife (French on French) by the emotional and political safety valve offered by Marine Le Pen and the Front National. In this country civil strife can be avoided if Hilly has the ability to say to her sans culottes (including the coastal smarties) that she would have accomplished their Jacobin dreams if the nasty constitution and the GOP Congress had only let her.
Her actual backers in finance do not give a s–t at all about the sans culottes but as long as the money rolls in …
Therefore she needs to win without much in the way of coattails. pl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_U.S._Infantry_Regiment_(The_Old_Guard)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Four_ruffles_and_flourishes,_hail_to_the_chief_(long_version).ogg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War
"The Marine Battalion assigned to Scott's army numbered less than 400, but when it was employed in battle or used for other duties the Marines would earn the praise of the Army's highest officers." That's for you, Mike. pl
My recommendation is to push every one of our Senators and Representatives to revoke every AUMF in existence and get a tighter control on covert actions immediately. In other words, shame the shameless into doing their job. I have only the slightest hope that the Congress will do its duty, but what the hell, we have to do something. FIDO
The elites who run this country have jammed Hillary down our throats thinking we have no choice but to accept. But we do have a choice. I, for one, will never accept this crooked, Wall Street toady as my president.
And, frankly, I think their are a lot of people who feel the same.
Should HRC win, thank goodness we’ll have McConnell and co to prevent Scalia’s seat from getting filled and prevent her from taking advantage of the opportunity to borrow at historically low interest rates in order to rebuild the country.
Edward Amame
What a great idea! She can borrow more money! pl
Colonel, would you mind sharing what you see as Clinton’s sans culottes’ “Jacobin dreams”?
It ain’t over yet. I notice she is letting her surrogates campaign for her. Is that out of fear of having another health attack before the election in public?
Somewhat O.T., but perhaps of a similar nature: I notice that Putin has a habit of cancelling many foreign trips at the last minute. Do you suppose he gets intelligence of domestic or foreign intrigues that are being hatched against him? I would expect the plots. Perhaps the Bear has finely tuned ears.
Wall Street has been so successful in grabbing all the money that they are starving the country and poisoning themselves. Its as if one exceedingly small organ of the body suddenly developed the ability to consume 99% of all nutrients and energy. The result is the death of everything.
Social communities, political parties, capitalism, government, the country.
Col Lang
I think so.
We can use cheap borrowing to invest in priorities that may never be this affordable again. The American Society of Civil Engineers give our U.S. roads, bridges, dams, rail lines, etc a D+. When bridges collapse on main highways, they’ve gotta get fixed immediately. Unexpected emergencies will mess up budgets. Or we can anticipate them and fix them now while borrowing is cheap. Which will create jobs and pump some more $$ into the economy. That’s how fiscal conservatism ought to operate, IMO.
And do you like the idea of an eight person SCOTUS?
Col. Lang
The alienation you speak of is real and deep. Crooked Hillary will not have much legitimacy to those in flyover country. The Deplorable despicables will not accept her. The GOP establishment is no different than her. IMHO, they will acquiesce to her Jacobin dreams. Congress will find a coalition of the GOP establishment and the Democrats to pass her agenda and SCOTUS nominees. They will give us all the drama of opposition however which the MSM will lap up. The GOP will for all intents and purposes splinter.
The next person that rallies the despicables will make Trump look like MLK! The Borg wars will come home!
walker
IMO she and her coastal cohorts aim for a country in which the states are reduced to administrative districts, the citizenry is disarmed, organized religion is discounted and oppressed by the federal government (see Podesta e-mails), Gayness is held up as an ideal of humanism, Wars of world homogenization are to be fought under the “flag” of progress and to be fought under executive order. The American working class are to be kicked into line to accept the idea that they are nothing special, and the world masses are her children. If not minorities they can join the military to be slaughtered in a Borg War. Did this work for you for talking points? Quotable enough? My wife made me take some of the harsher stuff out.l
Great point about the alienation. The idea of what it means to be an American is breaking down, and so lacking the basic consensus De Tocqueville identified as the precursor to American success, politics will become ‘war by other means’ rather than a problem solving mechanism.
Almost half of Republicans view Russia and Putin positively now. Those ‘deplorables’ are starting to understand they have more in common with Europeans nations that still preserve a degree of the traditional mode of life than with their ‘fellow American’ democrat voters in Minnesota.
Col. Lang,
I feel as if I live in a different world from “those people.” They seem to look down on, if not despise our culture. Making matters worse, they appear intent on destroying the things that hold us together. The institutions that sustain our way of life.
– Eliot
Speaking as an immigrant from England, (came over in the steerage hold of a Constellation as a nipper,) I am seeing a lot of complete disgust with the entire “ruling elite” on the part of the ‘working classes.’ People are volunteering commentary of a negative nature concerning the elites. Basically, as one middle aged woman checking me out at a boxx store put it, “No one is promising to make everyone’s lives better.” There it is; people are fed up with continuing negative messaging. Whoever comes out with a program of national renewal of more than vague generalities will meet up with a vast untapped source of civic power.
One can hope.
Sir,
Ain’t even worried. You wouldn’t see the level of panic among the Left if Hillary was “ahead” and the MSM wasn’t engaged in full court gas lighting.
Thanks for the reply. Are any of these points based in part on the recently released James O’Keefe / Project Veritas videos?
I haven’t been able to figure out if you are serious, or just trolling. The economic output from each dollar of government input is by far the worst possible investment that can be made. Just look at the aggregate growth in the economy as a result of the debt that has been put on since 2010. It was a horrible investment.
The better option is to lower the corporate tax rate, but eliminate loopholes.
To all,
This is an interesting article about the polling firm “TIPP” (Investors Business Daily):
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/50-politicos-to-watch-raghavan-mayur-094188
They were purported to be “the most accurate” in 2004, 2008, & 2012 (the famous Nate Silver, once a critic, conceded this as well). The article touches on polling methodology. Which seems to be quite the hot topic this election…because Trump is such an unprecedented candidate.
Speaking of unprecedented…IBD/TIPP currently places him 1 point ahead of Clinton nationally:
http://www.investors.com/politics/ibd-tipp-presidential-election-poll/
But the more thought-provoking numbers reside in their “Intensity” & “Zeitgeist” sections. If you play it out, those numbers are actually capable of repressing either candidates turnout. It all depends on how each camp rationalizes what is being played out.
The implication being, there is actually a scenario where Trump wins – without a “hidden monster vote”.
Best,
Paul
I think we will all end up being quite surprised by what gets done and what doesn’t, what changes and what doesn’t.
The people — speaking through the votes for Sanders and Trump — have said they’ve had enough and they want something different. They are tired of being controlled and denied.
Now of course the people in charge are very fond of having their own way — and of telling themselves that those who disagree are not just wrong but morally inferior at the very least, if not too dumb to have their opinions count for anything.
Having alternatives to the usual drivel has made people start to think, which of course is a dangerous thing for the people in charge. God knows what we’ll all be saying by the next election in 2020. I hope things are better.
Col.,
The troops may grit their teeth, but the musicians will be smiling. It takes all kind to make a nation.
Yes, we only need to barrow more and question less, and pass on the debet, what a great idea.
Colonel –
The Battle of Chapultepec was reportedly where Marine Officers and NCOs earned the ‘blood stripe’ on the trousers of their dress blue uniforms.
“The Pentagon said that an American service member was killed in a bomb blast while supporting the Iraqi forces’ advance. It was the fourth time American service members have been killed in Iraq over the past year.”
“As the frustration with the operation mounted, one senior Kurdish official complained that the Americans had not provided nearly as many airstrikes as the pesh merga had expected, a criticism that may have reflected the need to simultaneously provide air cover for the Iraqi counterterrorism service assault.
“We didn’t get anything like what we were promised,” said the Kurdish official, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Col. John I. Dorrian, a spokesman for the United States-led military coalition, insisted that cooperation between forces was still close. “Coalition air power is certainly in demand, and we try to provide fires in a timely fashion when called upon,” he said. “Given the size and scope of the operation to liberate Mosul, there may be times when we are unable to fully meet the demand as quickly as forces on the ground would like.””
I guess the Kurds are learning the difference between shampoo and real poo.
I invite anyone reading this to explain to me why it was necessary for an American soldier to die in this war. And why is America still at war in Iraq?
I believe Trump finally brought up heroin in New Hampshire. It comes from Afghanistan where we are also at war and where we carefully protect the farmers who grow the poppies.
Will all this continue under President Clinton? Yes. Will a Republican Senate and House do a single solitary thing to stop it? No. The Supreme Court. Interest rates. The national debt. All very very important. Very important. But not very important to the soldier who died or to his family.
Fyi, a nice cartoon.
Is The System Rigged? You Betcha
‘Big Media is the power that sustains the forces of globalism’
By Pat Buchanan
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45701.htm
mike allen
You are funny. The USMC has manufactured its own legend. So the marines captured Chapultepec? All 400 of them? When I was a kid lieutenant, my battalion hosted the regimental museum of the 2nd Infantry Regiment. In a case was the staff of the regimental sergeant major broken in half over the head of a Mexican soldier on the walls of Chapultepec. I guess he did not know that he was not there. pl
Freudenschade
You do know that the musicians in the Army band are solders also? Or don’t you? pl
eakens
He is just a troll. pl
walker
Ah! Another troll! I had never heard of O’Keefe until yesterday. So, you too think he faked the tapes. Wonderful. pl
@Walker The O’Keefe videos are nothing compared to the Wikileaks emails. Clinton should be doing what General Cartwright is doing right now. Praying…
So, dear friends, is the USA finished?
Patrick Armstrong
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more or close the wall up with our English dead.” Harry at Harfleur. pl
I think with either candidate, impeachment is a near certainty.
With Hillary, I think the odds are close to 100% that it would happen within her first year or two in office. The Constitution says the President can be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, however, it doesn’t specify that only crimes committed while in office are impeachable offenses. GOP congressmen are baying for indictment; it seems obvious they will immediately press for impeachment. For what? At this point, take your pick among dozens of possible criminal acts.
With Trump, it would more likely be for a self-inflicted wound, which it seems likely he will commit in abundance.
The only thing that might prevent such scenarios is the idea that Pence or Kaine might be far worse alternatives.
I think Trump has is absolutely correct on the taxes and use of legally earned write offs ” you question and don’t want me to use my earned legal $970 mill tax write off, then you should have changed it when you were in congress” he is absolutely right a business person must be out of his mind not to use his absolutely legal earned write off.
Some credence to theory that Wikileaks source is not Russian ….
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/10/really-really-upset-foreign-office-security-services/
FYI, government is not a business, and should never be run as a business.
jerseycityjoan,
The Clinton-Left ( if it even is a Left) may be panicking at Clinton’s not-yet-putting-this away. But the Bernie-Left is, I think, torn between panicking and gloating. Many Bernie-Lefters are still working through in their minds whether Trump is something to panic about or not. And many other Bernie-Lefters stopped panicking about Trump some time ago. They already consider Clinton the more effective evil. What they don’t know is what to do next. Vote for Trump ( eeeww! ick!) or Stein ( we are so pure.)?
The Greenie-Weenies lean towards Stein. Some of the Bitter Berners are edging towards thinking about Trump maybe. Their ultimate decision will be driven by just how deadly a threat and a menace they do or don’t consider a President Clinton to be.
Outrage Beyond,
I think the Establishment would try keeping a President Clinton unimpeached until she had served her Establishment purpose. I believe that purpose being to get TTP, TTIP, TISA, etc. ratified, voted for and signed into law. Also to get Social Security put on a stealth slow-death-path to future abolition and total privatization of all the money therein. Also to get Medicare stealth-privatised and set up for voucherization and subsequent flushing down the ObamaCare toilet. Once she and Ryan and McConnell and the “Coffee Club” ( opposite of “Tea Party” ) Republicans and all the Wall Street/ Cat Food Democrats have conspired together to achieve the Goldman-Sachs-Blackstone agenda, only then will Clinton be allowed to pursue her cultural-political agenda. Then she will be allowed to knock herself out and get nowhere.
If Trump wins, the Establishment will try to remove Trump absolutely soonest and turn the Presidency over to Pence. Because Pence supports Free Trade Agreements. (I don’t know how Pence feels about the various Catfood Plans for Social Security and Medicare)
I’m not in disagreement that everybody should take every legal deduction available to them, even if that means they can carry a NOL forward for 15 years.
My point is that you take the corporate tax rate from 35% to 15% and eliminate loopholes (i.e. simplify the tax code) so that large Fortune 500 companies don’t spend $600M with Ernst & Young to account their way around a $2B tax liability. Instead, they pay $850M in taxes and reduce the need to hire an army of lawyers and accounts to exploit the laws.
I think the same thing should be done with personal taxes. I also think state income tax processes should be simplified. Everybody files a 1040, why do I need to do a separate CA tax return. Just take the 1040 income and multiply by 10% and be done with it for CA. It’s all bureaucracy and red tape.
Government should be limited to providing for core functionality. Our current government has gone way beyond that, so either those non-essential functions need to be run efficiently, or not run at all.
We Marines, like many others in this country, are sometimes full of ourselves. But we never said we were the only heroes there.
Lee, Grant, Jackson Thomas, Hill and many other Civil War generals made their bones in the Mexican War. Zach Taylor ended up as President for his role.
I have never understood the shortsightedness of this argument of “borrow now while interest rates are low.” The interest will be low only until it is time for the debt to be rolled over, and rates will inevitably be higher when that happens. The debt, then, is no longer cheap. The alternative is to redeem the notes and not replace them, thereby paying down the debt, which is vastly more costly. “Eat drink and be merry, because the future will never come.”
Mike Allen-
FYI, look who is warning the Turks for bombing syrian Kurds, It’s Assad’ Syria and not the supposed best friends of Kurds US.
“The Syrian military has warned to intercept and bring down any Turkish fighter jets entering the country’s airspace, nearly a day after Turkish warplanes bombarded 18 positions of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, and killed up to 200 Kurdish fighters.”
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/10/21/489981/Syria-target-Turkey-jets-airstrike-YPG-positions-Aleppo
Impeachment is a political action of one branch vs another. It is not a judicial function in the formal sense, only in its appearance. A high crime &/or misdomeanor is whatever a House majority wishes to believe. An out-of-power Party with a House majority can rig an impeachment… no big deal. Given how functional Congress has been in recent years, I suppose one could view impeachment as dynamism.
The media are deliberately trying to depress turnout for Trump because they believe that some of his low propensity voters are discourageable, Trump has a slight lead, let us hope turnout and undecideds go his way as he needs a fraud proof margin.
You are making the assumption that there are actually two parties. The evidence speaks differently. She has enjoyed the support of both parties, the administration, the executive branch and the judicial branch. Add in the complete corporate and media onslaught so it is not an exaggeration when Trump says it is him against the world.
Also keep in mind the tit for tat support from Wall Street and media moguls to include Google, Facebook, Amazon etc. It is a grand conspiracy to control everything in the US all the while trying to convince us we actually have a functioning democracy and they care for the common citizen. My prediction is now we will start new wars in Asia beginning with the Philippines who cannot be permitted to betray us. The ME mess will continue and we will now begin to focus on new assaults against Russia via Central Asia. Then we have Africa and a few resistant nations in South America that need to be taught a lesson on who is in control. Those in the military are going to be exhausted.
eakens, thanks, looks interesting.
I followed the back and forth argument concerning “the Russians are behind the leaks”. Wondering a bit about TTG’s support of the claim. Thus I followed his links more carefully than other’s.
There was one that alluded to German services in connection with, to the extend I recall, Russia targeting the Ukrainian energy structure. The link to the German document did not work, but once you reduced it to the linked pdf file it did. A very, very short document relying on experts in the security field and a 2015 Trend Micro analysis. There was indeed an allusion to the energy market. It said that 0,3% suggested a targeting of the energy “info-structure”/market. If you looked at the Trend Micro report/analysis of the tool used, these 0,3% may have resulted from an attack on a Polish website connected to their energy distribution network, as I recall it. I could go into this from a German perspective related to EU laws, but I don’t think that is necessary. At least that’s what I associated. I am also too lazy to go back and give you more precise information.
*****
But who are the 17 secret service agents/officers Clinton referred to that were targeted “by the bear” in this context?
as foreign outsider I wondered what turnout and numbers the respective third party candidates would get, had they been on stage in all three debates.
My more personal and never seriously studied impression is, it doesn’t matter if one or the other party “reigns” for too long on a communal level as far as corruption is concerned. Both traditional dominating parties are heavily losing voters over here. But we have a different setting.
On the other hand we have one party that doesn’t fit the earlier patterns of slowly getting more votes, or occasionally loosing them too, concerning a newcomer an “upstart crow” that gets lots of votes that don’t fit into earlier patterns.
Nitwit comment: As far as I am concerned, Tyler, and please don’t misunderstand. He feels like an empty shell that can be filled easily by special interests.
open borders, to start (and finish?) with.
I don’t think we have anything to worry about in that direction Tony.
I, for one, would like–at long last–and accurate assessment on what “cheap borrowing” actually ‘costs’. Me thinks it cost a ‘lot’. The word “Ponzi” keeps appearing in my mind.
Joan, from my earliest days on the American web on, there was always a high level of dissent. It was no doubt the driving force behind both Sanders and Trump. Partly a response to the “change” president on the side of the democrats? The tea-party integrated into the larger GOP structure after a while? But the “sans culottes” will never be able to do something essential without support from at least a part of “the elite”. Also: Revolutions tend to devour its people, history tell us. …
Among us females, concerning the issue of abortion in the last debate, I was a bit puzzled, only vaguely familiar with the American-up-to-the-third-trimester-debate. How many days before the calculated birth in the third trimester? As female, I find this no doubt utter freedom demand* that seems to reign on the issue on one side highly disturbing. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing else to loose”?
* if I understood Clinton’s claim correctly. Maybe I misunderstood. I had to watch the debate in German since a friend misses to much in the original American, which I am not particularly fond of.
mike allen
I was suffering from too much to eat last night. Sorry about Chapultepec. the big story there is the ninos heroicos (the cadets of the Mexican military academy) who joined the garrison to fight on the walls. Actually, the Mexican War is a rather amazing thing. The Mexicans and Americans were rather evenly matched in numbers and equipment. Scott’s amphibious landing at Vera Cruz to begin the campaign up to Mexico City always amazes me as a planning achievement. pl
Issue Greenbacks like Lincoln did to fund the Union army.
Col. Lang,
Wonder what she had to give for this 12 million.
http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/day-debate-wikileaks-strikes-hillary-pay-to-play-shocking/
If the wicked witch from the east ascends her coveted throne, expect to feel unbearable government intrusion on your everyday life, right and left alike.
Along with even heavier use of Executive Orders and direct attacks on Constitutional Law and any other thing counter to the current Borg agenda.
Pat Lang,
I was about to remind you of the cadets. Good catch.
WPFIII
You are making the assumption that there are actually two parties.
Excursus: Correct me, if I am wrong. But I had the rather superficial scanning impression that you and TTG were “tag teaming”, as I recall the recent usage on the web, on the issue of Russian a Cyberwar against from opposite camps*.
I also noticed that one issue you brought into the debate from my highly limited perspective made headlines recently … just as it was used by Trump.
* correct me if I am wrong.
********
all the while trying to convince us we actually have a functioning democracy and they care for the common citizen.
That seemed to surface as suggestion in a highly short book review in the German weekly “Die Zeit” around the time of 9/11. I may be misguided about before. But at what point exactly? A book by a journalist that after having been a correspondent in Russia for a very, very long time was sent to the US. … It was a mistake to not make at least a note. That’s why it surfaces time and again. Maybe I would have been disappointed, maybe not. In any case it would need serious digging …
LeaNder,
Clinton claimed that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies agree that the Russians are behind the hacks. That is saying that the entire Intelligence Community agrees on this, although there are probably less than a half dozen agencies with the capabilities to properly investigate this. It’s a consensus judgement. She did not refer to any specific individuals. You may have misheard her.
Bill H
That was the idea during Clinton I. To pay down the debt with the surplus. Then Bush II and his tax cuts came along, along with a historic recession that we still haven’t recovered from.
So here we are now. Interest rates are extremely low. We face an very low interest burden. We can buy back debt at a discount if interest rates rise.
Col.,
“ninos heroicos” That’s a story I am certain most American’s know nothing about. Similarly Jackson’s meeting with the Archbishop of Mexico is a story known by few.
Outrage Beyond – Impeachment in the House of Representatives requires a simple majority of those present and voting. All of these people are up for election right now, and it is not yet certain which party will have a majority although chances are it will stay with the Republicans. Would it help their party to remove Hillary, if they could? And could they, given that the Senate requires a 2/3 majority for conviction? Recall that Bill was not removed. My guess is that impeachment won’t happen if Hillary is elected. If Trump is elected, which would be surprising but not impossible, we would be entering uncharted territory. Or maybe we are already in uncharted territory – as Yogi Berra said, it’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.
GOP retaining control of both houses is becoming less likely. The Senate always was the most likely to switch with the vagaries of timing that has the GOP defending 24 seats to the Dems 10. Saw Pelosi the other evening chortling that she had “more than 20” of the roughly 30 seats she needs to retake the house, with prospects increasing for the rest.
The greater Trump’s collapse, the further the damage spreads down ticket and the more likely the Dems gain control of one or both houses.
The Senate is especially scary with Schumer poised to become majority leader. With Hillary in the White House and him running the Senate US foreign policy will be even more wholly owned by Netanyahu.
It’s nonsense. The fact that they have emails from various groups (on various systems) indicates they have what is probably a zero day exploit, which means they can pretty much access anybody’s email. This means there is a good chance it’s homegrown. This also means that they probably, as I’ve predicted before, have the 33K emails Hillary had wiped.
They’ve been scraping this info for sometime most likely.
Certainly not deliberate. I comment where I feel a comment is necessary. I do not believe that we have any separation of powers at all anymore. The failure to even mention impeachment for any one of the vast number of Obama abuses of power indicate to me an acceptance if not complete agreement. The only time a very rare veto was over-ridden was over the Sabudi involvement in 9/11. The fact that Obama in almost 8 years has only vetoed 3 times speaks volumes. Ryan’s budget exceed the POTUS requests in ways that should boggle any conservatives mind but went basically unchallenged. The SCOTU has been vocal about Trump which is extraordinary by otself indicating they are politically aligned. The FBI and DOJ have failed in their duties and no one has been impeached. The same for the SEC and the list goes on. The very clear conspiracy between the media and the administration goes back to the beginning and they only report what originates in the White House or with tacit approval. Any dissent is orchestrated. However, there are small venues such as Wikileaks etc. whic still deadly report the news. My last work in DC was back in 2010 and I asked about the Wikileaks and was told to shut up with a lot of pointing at the ceiling as it is against the law for government employees to even read Wikileaks. So I rest my case on that.
I generally agree with Different Clue’s assessment of where the Bernie Lefties will go. I also believe there are many people who won’t admit to pollsters that they’re considering a vote for Trump, and that therefore the pollsters’ numbers may be under-predicting what his vote will be.
Col.,
I do know. In fact, I know a few of them.
I don’t yet know the detail of this particular episode, but O’Keefe’s track record as a gotcha truth-teller is far from spotless:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe
AFAIK O’Keefe doesn’t outright fake his audio and video tapes; instead what he’s done on many occasions is “selectively edit” them and/or record them under false pretenses — this in order to create the impression of wrongdoing that he wishes to create.
Larry Kart
“and/or record them under false pretenses” How would this alter the veracity of what is said? pl
Thanks OM, sorry, I have to pay more attention to proofread or at least finish a line of thought in print, if I am once again in the babbling mode.
Certainly not deliberate.
Ok, no serious desire to go back and check. 😉 But usually these tools are known in the larger scene no matter if white/gray/or black hats. Concerning the evidence given that surfaced in TTG’s links: I could setup a system in Russian and shift to an English keyboard. Thus the little evidence given that surfaced doesn’t convince me at all. Ditto IP/VPN network. … No doubt they may have more evidence they don’t discuss openly, as TTG suggested somewhere. But that’s all that surfaced. And the extend to which matters are used polemically makes me wonder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Western_Sahara
Also the Battle of Churubusco where US Army deserters known as the St Patrick’s Battalion (honored in Mexico as”San Patricos”) fought with Mexico. Composed mostly of new immigrants to the USA and of Catholic faith, they deserted to Mexico over conflicts with their faith, Mexico offering higher pay, and promise of 320 acres. Largely composed of Irish and German immigrants, but also Canadians, French, and other nationalities. I have read accounts of US Army burning down Catholic churches as they advanced and forcing the Protestant faith upon soldiers of the Catholic faith–this likely a large motivating factor for the desertions.
If I might interject, the central problem of the two party system as practiced in US today is that vast ranges of issues that are of concern to the mass public are systematically kept out of policy debate by elite consensus: trade, foreign policy, immigration, and “culture-and-identity” issues among others. The parties are indeed sharply polarized on certain issues, but again only on the terms of common consensus. In other words, the elites operate by agreeing to disagree publicly on some issues that they want to be seen disagreeing on, but ignore many issues of concern to many outside the political class. There are agitators who are clamoring from both the alleged left (Sanders being their chief spokesperson in 2016) and the alleged right (who have lined up behind Trump), but they have been systematically marginalized as being “outside the norm,” quite literally.
In other words, by one set of metrics, Democrats and Republicans are polar opposites, because they are constantly disagreeing on the things that they have agreed to be seen publicly disagreeing on, but their leaders are all agreed to keep quiet on many issues where many people want to see debated and change the status quo, i.e. they are all the same on the topics that are kept off the table. Forcing them off the status quo and starting a consequential debate about these suppressed issues, however, is not easy: Perhaps all the discontented people, combined, may even make up the majority of the US electorate, but they are divided: as a case in point, the leftist anti-SQ crowd would not support Trump, for example, and Trump’s supporters don’t seem to want their support, and vice versa (one can see this from the tired moralizing from both camps.), not necessarily for unreasonable reasons. As the saying goes, the people who are happy with the status quo are all alike and they can stick together more readily, even if some call themselves Democrats and others Republicans, while the unhappy are all different for their own reasons and they can’t be brought together without a heroic effort, if at all possible, and neither Sanders nor Trump is heroic enough to bridge the many gaps among them.
This has happened before in American politics: the populist movement in late 19th century, particularly in the South, where the discontented poor whites, including many former Confederate supporters, and the former slaves formed a formidable political coalition to challenge the status quo, only to be betrayed by their “leaders” most of whom were corrupt and opportunistic politicians who saw a rabble they could coopt and fell apart from their own mutual suspicion and distrust.
Trump further added fuel to the fire bringing him down at the Al Smith Charity dinner last night. If only the Repubs had offered a viable candidate, Clinton would be toast by now, rather than toasted!
“A poor player struts and frets and then heard no more, It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Shakespeare in MacBeth
Niños Héroes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni%C3%B1os_H%C3%A9roes
(You find them called “Niños Héroes” and “Niños Heroicos” in about equal numbers. Hero Lads vs Heroic Lads.)
gowithit
Also in my regiment’s museum was a punch bowl made in Mexico City from looted altar silver from somewhere back along the road to Vera Cruz. It was hand beaten and had some suitable inscription. I guess they were on occupation duty for a while. There was a punch cup for every officer then in the regiment. I remember the one with Lt. George E. Pickett’s name engraved thereon. I suppose that 1/2 Infantry has these things now. pl
When it’s combined with “selective editing.” That is, you pretend to be someone or something you’re not in order to elicit, or lure someone into making, certain sorts of responses (that is you engage in a form of entrapment), and then you also edit those responses, and your side of the “conversation,” so that the other parties’ responses “mean” just what you want them to mean. I’m not saying that that is what happened in this case, but per the Wikipedia article (FWIW) that’s the sort of behavior that O’Keefe has engaged in in the past.
To put it another way, we’re all at least anecdotally aware of what goes on, and what can go wrong, in say an FBI or DEA sting operation. The agency has reason to suspect that a dangerous criminal act is being contemplated, its undercover agents contact the supposedly likely perpetrators in a “sympathetic,” “We’re on your side in this'” manner, saying and doing whatever is necessary to encourages the supposedly likely perpetrators to make incriminating statements or even to engage in criminal acts, and then “gotcha.” One hopes that the FBI or DEA or any other law enforcement agency operates carefully on such occasions, but opportunities for abuse and error are obvious.
Well, O’Keefe is functioning as though he himself were the FBI or DEA on a sting operation, but without the checks and balances that one would hope are in place in a law enforcement agency and with a partisan agenda (and partisan financial support) to boot.
Thanks Kooshy. I had seen that. There is some discrepancy in the numbers. YPG claimed 10 SDF fighters and four civilians killed by the Turkish airstrikes. Perhaps the remainder of the 200 figure were wounded??? Or perhaps the YPG is wrong? Too early to tell.
Assad or the Russians should have targeted those Turkish aircraft instead of pissing and moaning about it afterward. They would have if SAA or its allies had been attacked instead of the Kurds, wouldn’t you think?
Scott, a Virginian, was a damn fine general. At the battle of Fort George his achievements were considered one of the best-planned and best-executed U.S. operations of the war of 1812. He wrote some of the earliest US manuals on tactics.
He must have been a good judge of men also, because just before secession in 1861 he offered command of the Army to Robert E Lee.
And a good diplomat. As military governor in Mexico he was reportedly well liked by Mexicans for his fairhandedness. In 39 he calmed down both sides in the so-called Aroostook War so that no shots were fired between Maine militia and the Canadians in New Brunswick. My mother’s ancestors were on both sides of that dispute, I am glad it was a non-war.
mike allen
I would say that Scott was the best US general of the 19th Century. Wellington thought that as well. He had thought that when Scott cut loose from his base at Vera Cruz he was finished. pl
Mike you’re monday morning quarterbacking, fairly, look at what condition Syria, her legitimate legal government and her army is befor spin your quarterbacking on in my judgment your wrong stand with regard those who are legitimately fighting the terrorism that includes Syrian government and her allies including Syrian Kurds, and I personally hope they win against all others including US’ ONLY geopolitical consideration.
Kooshy –
As I have said before on this blog: I wish the Syrian people a stable government and a thousand years of peace and a prosperity. I believe you feel the same way.
Mike perhaps you can tell us why US is not warning the Turks to bomb her Kurd allies, especially when US’
SF are on the ground and fighting alongside the Kurds, would Turks somehow know when and where US SF are accompanying Kurds before they proceed with bombing and killing Kurd fighters.
Edward Amame,
Then came Obama and his conspiracy with Boehner and McConnell to make the Bush Tax Cuts permanent, and here we are now.
Interesting book I came across re mid 1800s in the southwest, Blood and Thunder, by Hampton Sides. Largely focus on Kit Carson, who I previously thought just a pulp fiction character, but now see in a larger awareness. A lot of history in the 1840s-1850s that seems largely ignored in the morning shadows of the Civil War.
Colonel –
I am a big fan of General McCaffrey. His heroism in Vietnam speaks for itself and his left hook in the 1st Gulf War was brilliant according to a Marine general that wrote about it. I for one do not believe the hit piece on him of war crimes that Seymour Hersch wrote. Hersch did well in publicizing Calley’s crimes, but his attacks on McCaffrey were unwarranted and misguided.
Bill Clinton made McCaffrey head of the war on drugs. And we would be a lot better off if more of Mac’s recommendations had been approved by Congress.
I do not doubt your Chelsea story but would respectively point out McCaffrey’s opposition to a Trump presidency. Mac called him unfit to serve and a disgrace for insulting the military.
Agreed. A 19th Century Marshall perhaps?
There is some dispute about his Anaconda Plan during the Civil War, but from what I have read it made Grant’s victories possible. The Anaconda Plan was the strategic conception with which the North won the war and re-united the country. pl
mike allen
I have heard McCaffery recount what CC said to him in the car while he was trying to be pleasant, not all that easy a task for him. the story is not about McCaffery, it is about the attitude that Chelsea Clinton had acquired from her parents. People want to tell me that what a child says is not indicative of anything. I do not accept that any more than I accept the idea that HC’s Wellesley graduation speech is not representative of the woman today. pl
mike allen
Neither Marshall not Eisenhower ever commanded anything in battle. I do not consider that theater command is a combat command. People in such jobs are really strategic thinkers and diplomats. Marshall had a great character but he never had a chance to command anything in combat. pl
Respecfully, it is about McCaffrey’s opinion on Trump as well as the Clintons. I heard him speak a few months ago when he came to Seattle. He was talking about Trump’s attitude towards the military, and he called it despicable.
Thanks, TTG, I had to watch it in the German translation and felt forced to explain matters to a friend all the time, when he asked. After that I started to explain even if he hadn’t asked. Meaning I was sometimes distracted.
But thanks TTG, that either escaped me or it was badly translated.
mike allen
I don’t care what trump’s attitude toward the military is. He is not going to be president and commander in chief as HC correctly says. She will be and so her attitude toward the military and foreign policy matters. pl
>i>”We can buy back debt at a discount if interest rates rise.”
Please explain the meaning of that and the result of it. It sounds suspiciously like a Tar Baby to me.
After French Belgium answer to CETA i think one can assume TTIP is death. And after the Philippian “Pivot to Asia” i think you can say the same of TTP (it is useless if only the usual suspects are in it)
Some of their evidence is just pure BS and looks planted to me. Suspect insiders rather than Russians. Even if it were some form of state sponsored “hacking” the US started it with attacking Iran with the Stuxnet virus. But an insider certainly fits, and I forget the guy’s name, but he was killed the next day which fits in with the Clinton modus operandi.
Regarding Congress, some recent studies have shown that they follow public opinion roughly 5 percent of the time but support campaign donors 96 percent of the time with a tiny bit of overlap. The other thing I notice is that rhetoric means nothing. I believe it is a lot like the Ralph the coyote and George the sheepdog who battle it out after clocking in and and go home arm in arm after clocking out. It is all show and nothing else.
It is what gets into Bills, what makes it through committee and finally reaches a vote, then must be massaged between House and Senate versions before making it to a final Bill which often has so many riders attached or is once again edited after it has been voted on, that actually counts. Our democracy is obviously and irreparably broken. The changes necessary require a Constitutional amendment (or IMHO a new Constitution) and these guys will never do anything to reduce their ability to steal money. Our forefathers failed to recognize just how bad it might get but obviously in the back of their minds they foresaw the possibility and included the Second Amendment which I believe the intent is for citizens to overthrow an abusive government by force if necessary. Perhaps we are on the verge of realizing this now?
Better would be a 15% flat rate with no deductions for anything which applies equally to personal and businesses. We could eliminate the IRS completely and make filing taxes very easy and eliminate every loophole at the same time. Russia did this and their tax revenue increased dramatically. It screws over the poor but they don’t have much anyway so no big deal. However, it would attract a lot of businesses back into the US.
MB, you don’t need Stuxnet, the post 9/11 ‘cyberwar-awareness’ initiatives and programs suffice for me. Once you start to consider and put resources into a field, it goes both ways. Possible application and whatever someone else could do. At that point the other always necessarily becomes a mirror of yourself.
But an insider certainly fits, and I forget the guy’s name, but he was killed the next day which fits in with the Clinton modus operandi.
I spare you my comment on that. My thought always follows experience on a deeper level and there seem to be a lot around here that are not open to this as basis of interpretation. It surely is mine to a certain extend.
Two cases we are talking about. One ruled a suicide, one a murder. … the suicide triggers private associations one on the surface, another one more deeply buried. In the latter case the family objects to the misuse of their son’s murder. I can understand that. Who wouldn’t like to know what happened. And what can we accept as private and thus none of our business today? In the earlier case too, maybe the family knows maybe it doesn’t what the hell could have led their son to kill himself. The suicide case on the top of my mind, by the way, is a former prof….
*********
I wasn’t necessarily a antagonist of Hillary Clinton before the 2008 campaign. But yes, I realized the business can be reduced to “winners versus losers”, just as in Machiavelli’s times.
every AUMF in existence
I was a bit distracted by OM. But yes to the extend I got matters, not sure if before or after my friend surrendered and ‘retired’ allowing me to shift to English, it looked like as if Clinton opted for covert action.
But maybe that’s not what AUMF means?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists
LeaNder
An AUMF is an authorization by Congress for war. it is a declaration of war without the dignity of the wording in the constitution. An AUMF authorizes the use of the armed forces as though a declaration of war had been voted by Congress. The AUMF only applies under the conditions named within. For example it may only be valid for named areas. Without it the use of the armed forces in combat is not legal with the exception of the provision in the War Powers Act for the use of the armed forces in an emergency for 60 days. Covert Action is a different thing. the National Defense Acts of1947 and 1958 allow the use of force, trickery and propaganda for policy reason, but the instrument to be used is the CIA directed by what is called a “presidential finding.” Can units or personnel of the armed forces be “loaned” to CIA to provide capabilities they do not have? Yes. pl
Ha, this is the standard liberal line of attack on O’Keefe’s work. His work is unassailable and there’s not selective editing (you can compare edited to unedited and see). And that’s why it ends with the liberal groups disbanding (ACORN) and the liberal operative being fired (Foval, Creamer). Geez, getting information under false pretenses. They use to call this Jimmy Rockford-style of uncovering info “investigative journalism”. I’m an investigator and I use little lies/bluffing/distraction all the time to get info. Doesn’t mean the info I get is inaccurate. Heck, I lost a good job with another major (state) organization because in the interview I said that in the scenario presented, I wouldn’t precede with something if I wasn’t sure it was entirely legal. They wanted a Jimmy Rockford kind of investigator. The investigator’s job is to be a good actor. And when you do the same acting role for years you know all the lines that get results and you know all of the antagonist’s lines as well.
LeaNder
I would say that the existence of large numbers of Republican members in Congress who favor a belligerent and hyper-nationalist foreign policy ensures that whatever power the Congress has to put a stop to presidential warmongering is made moot. pl
But an insider certainly fits, and I forget the guy’s name, but he was killed the next day which fits in with the Clinton modus operandi.
OM, I am aware of the specific case in Bill Clinton’s time, consider me skeptic on this issue. Beside consider me as basically someone that realizes that some riddles in our personal life cannot ever be satisfactorily resolved.
Someone around here alluded to the recent case. What mattered to me most in this context, admittedly, to the little extend I checked, was that the family objected to the partisan misuse of their son’s murder. In a case of murder, its easy to understand a family member wants to know, cannot ever be satisfied with easy explanations or fast partisan explanations, it is also easy to understand: They want to understand. Beyond fast given partisan explanations that is. That indeed is a misuse of their son’s murder.
To the extend I recall the earlier case it was ruled suicide* and there was quite a bit of partisan dirt digging and evidence production with quite a few rather dubious characters involved in the larger political context. Meaning/Question: didn’t it only draw public attention because of the larger dirt digging production going on at the same time? Can it be ruled out the suicide would have escaped public attention without this attention context?
* suicide and mystery always reminds me of a private story, a former prof that had offered me a deeper more serious exchange on a specific topic. Maybe because there is another deeper story below it? When the friend mentioned below, finally pushed me to pick up on the offer after quite a while, it took me several phone calls to find out he had killed himself. This fact was just as mystifying as his suicide, really. Why wouldn’t the lady responding to my call have given me the desired knowledge? Sorry, you cannot talk to him he killed himself. What was the reason behind her first answer: He doesn’t work here anymore? Is the only reason we censor those matters in our society usually?
********
If there hadn’t been this 98% number by you, at one point in time, maybe I wouldn’t have written this. Is as far as I understand my “intrinsic motivation” …
Once again not seriously proofread.
thanks, kao.
Doesn’t this piece suggest that HC in recent years has become indecently cozy with some current or former high-ranking members of the U.S. military, including our old friend Jack Keane? If so, I’m not sure that this change of heart, on her part, if it is one, is at all a good sign.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html
Larry Kart
IMO she sees Keane as a politically useful means of bullying the armed forces leadership. A lot of the “Walmart managers” who are now in charge are easily bullied. They don’t understand personal sacrifice for the honor of their profession. pl