It's not
about being liberal or conservative anymore y'all. That is a hype offered by the fascist whores who want to confuse the people with lies while they turn this country into an aristocratic police state. Some people will say anything to attain power and money. There is no such thing as the Liberal Media, but the Corporate media is very real.
That is Trump with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (on the left) and the Russian Ambassador
Sergei Kislyak (on the right). Look at the faces y'all. Look how insecure Trumps face is, and look
how the two Russians are obvious laughing together at Trump. Read the eyes people. The Russian
eyes are confident and connected. Trump's eyes are distant, insecure, and worried.
If there was any doubt as to where Trump's loyalty lies, yesterday's hastily arranged Oval Office
meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov should confirm it: it lies with Russia.
Trump, even after firing James Comey the night before, decided to hold his first (and only) meeting
the following day with Russia.
No US media were allowed into the Oval Office, just Russian State Media. Really.
Think about the fact that the president allowed the Russian government to bring a load of
electronic equipment into the Oval Office today.
— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) May 11, 2017
Kremlin outmaneuvers White House over the dissemination of photos of a rare Oval Office meeting:
https://t.co/AXLQgd6UFI (Screenshot) pic.twitter.com/cG3Spo6u2S
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) May 11, 2017
And now the White House is whining that the Soviets "tricked" them.
White House says Russia "tricked" them. Tick was letting state media bring a lot of
electronics into the Oval Office https://t.co/xDMGlgGoz7
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) May 11, 2017
Even worse, The Hill reports that this meeting was set up at the request of Putin. OMG. Could this
look any worse?
Yes. Ordinarily, Foreign Ministers NEVER meet the President in the Oval Office. They meet with the
Secretary of State and other fellow diplomats. This was pure propaganda for Putin, to prove to the
world that he could get Trump to do anything.
The Hill reports that during Trump's last call with his "boss," Putin specifically requested this
meeting.
The White House spokesman said “He chose to receive him because Putin asked him to. Putin did
specifically ask on the call when they last talked.”
What else is Trump doing at the request of Vladimir Putin?
The man is so fucking obtuse. Self-proclaimed snake charmer aided by the well funded right-wing
media that funnels bullshit into the ears of vulnerable ignorant, insecure, ideologically-blind
persons. Which is only about 25% of the country by the way.
In case you did not know, the constitution was written by thoughtful people, James Madison being one
of the most thoughtful of historically political thinkers in our times. The Checks and Balance of
Powers that our forefathers created was by design to inhibit Despotism. The constitution is
imperfect due to the political realities at the time (the slavery issue, the power of big versus
small states, along with some ambiguity
of the courts of law) but it was conceived of by thoughtful persons.
In the year after the construction however, the various states and factions within each state had to
be convinced to vote for the document. Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe, and John Jay all put to
pen various essays that got published in the various newspapers and weeklies throughout the states.
There were 85 essays in all, and were collected and published as one in a 1788 book. At that point
they became known as "The Federalist Papers".
Here is James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 51 explaining why there is a need for the Checks and
Balance of Power.
But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department,
consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and
personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as
in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to
counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the
place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the
abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human
nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men,
neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
Indeed. If only humans were selfless, thoughtful angels.
~~hat tip to Charles Pierce who writes at Esquire, and is an amazing writer and distributor
of reliable information. Read. Him. Daily.
Thursday, 11 May 2017 at 1h 51m 51s
Thank You Al Franken
This man is a true patriot. Back when the GW Bush administration was bumbling and fumbling
everything, he was behind an effort to push back called "Air America", which was a national radio
station effort to put out the message and the information necessary to mobilize and coordinate the
truth.
Yes he also worked with Saturday Night Live back in the 80's and 90's and is a comedian too, but the
intellect was never compromised.
God bless you Al. I was there the very first day that Air America inaugurated. I heard that very
first show. God bless.
Thursday, 11 May 2017 at 1h 27m 26s
Keith Olbermann on the Comey firing
You cannot fire the man who is investigating you.
The best 8 minute summary on the topic that you will get in my opinion.
Thursday, 11 May 2017 at 1h 7m 25s
Chris Cuomo is a good TV journalist
I especially love his acute poignant sharp pithy sentences and the suave irrefutable way Chris tends
to make the obvious facts. But in this video, Independent Senator from Maine Angus King does the
heavy lifting.
To this day, many people still do not understand the significance and purport of the Nixon
administration and the eventual scandal that unwound the utterly corrupt and moral despicable
political individual that was Richard Nixon. Person's who lived in the period experienced the time
frame from the first Kennedy assassination until the resignation of Nixon as a complete
disintegration of trust and faith in the political system. Nixon is seen as responsible for
co-opting many of the movements during his presidency ... EPA and OSHA for instance. Environmental
Protection Agency is an executive cabinet level agency. The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration however is an agency within the Department of Labor. These departments of the government
were really due to pressure from Legislation by Congress, and Nixon's moves were really just brazen
political maneuvering. OSHA was created by a law passed by Congress and signed by Nixon in
December 1970; but the EPA was created by an executive order that same month -- as a political
maneuver to take some of the bite out of what Congress was legislating. Do you think Nixon actually
gave a shit about pollution? No. He wanted to make sure that decisions made were still in control
of the executive department. And so OSHA was split off from the EPA. Simple as that.
Which is why appointing thugs like Scott Pruitt to the EPA are worrisome, but no one ever hears
about OSHA ?
You are the god damn president of the god damned United States and your acting attorney general
tells your White House counsel that your national security advisor was quote "compromised with
respect to the Russians" quote "could essentially be blackmailled by the Russians" and quote "you don't
want him to be in a position where the Russians have leverage over him" ... and you fire the
acting attorney general ... not the national security advisor?
[SOURCE:Keith
Olberman | GQ Magazine | 8 May 2017]
Indeed WTF. By the way, it took them 12 days to fire Flynn, and then only a day after the Washington
Post broke the story about Flynn. Would they have fired Flynn were it not for the Post story? Good
question. (Obvious answer).
Trump has also been funded by Russia for a long time now.
James Dodson has played golf since childhood. As a reporter and author he’s won numerous awards for
his writing about the game, and he has been associated with many of golf’s greats. He co-wrote
Arnold Palmer’s memoir.
That’s no doubt why Dodson was sought after as a playing partner and luncheon guest by the man who
said until quite recently that one of his primary jobs was making golf great again.
'Donald Trump Loves Your Books'
Though they hadn’t met, Dodson was aware of the fellow’s impact on the game.
"I knew Trump was very interested in golf," Dodson says. "I knew he was buying up golf courses. His
M.O. was to find a financially distressed property, buy it, keep it in bankruptcy, do a
half-a-million-dollar renovation, fire the entire staff and hire a third back."
So James Dodson, who grew up a Republican but currently describes his political stance as "radical
centrist," knew that. And maybe he thought that’s all there was to know about Donald Trump. But that
was before they’d met. Which, as I’ve suggested, wasn’t Dodson’s idea.
"This PR guy kept calling me and inviting me," Dodson says. "And he kept saying things like, 'Oh,
Donald Trump loves your books.' And I kept saying, 'Donald Trump doesn’t read books, I’m told. And
he hadn’t a clue who I am.' Anyway, he called three or four times. Finally, I said yes."
...
When the big day arrived, a dark, gray sky provided the first sign that all would not go as planned.
Dodson was a little late arriving, and by the time he entered the Trump National Charlotte
clubhouse, his host was already holding forth.
"Trump was strutting up and down, talking to his new members about how they were part of the
greatest club in North Carolina," Dodson says. "And when I first met him, I asked him how he was —
you know, this is the journalist in me — I said, 'What are you using to pay for these courses?' And
he just sort of tossed off that he had access to $100 million."
$100 million.
"So when I got in the cart with Eric," Dodson says, "as we were setting off, I said, 'Eric, who’s
funding? I know no banks — because of the recession, the Great Recession — have touched a golf
course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last
four or five years.' And this is what he said. He said, 'Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We
have all the funding we need out of Russia.' I said, 'Really?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah. We’ve got
some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go
there all the time.' Now that was three years ago, so it was pretty interesting."
[SOURCE:Bill Littlefield | WBUR NPR
radio | 5 May 2017]
And now it appears the Trump family is trading favors for VISA's to the United States.
Nicole Kushner Meyer, the sister of White House adviser and President Trump's son-in-law Jared
Kushner, spoke at an event in Beijing on Saturday. She was marketing a Kushner-owned property in New
Jersey -- invest in the development and get into the United States on a so-called EB-5 visa.
The EB-5 visa allows immigrants a path to a green card if they invest more than $500,000 in a
project that creates jobs in the United States.
An ad for the event, held at a Ritz-Carlton hotel, said "Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United
States."
[SOURCE:Jackie Wattles and Serenitie Wang | CNN
news | 7 May 2017]
Dear lord, the chutzpah of these fuckers. Build a wall and issue a travel ban against certain
immigrant populations, meanwhile all but selling VISA's to other immigrants.
Out here in San Francisco, the entire Sunset district was out sourced to Chinese VISA's, bringing
money and buying houses with cash since the 1980's when Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush
allowed the Chinese
immigrants to muddy the waters of the voting population. Irish Americans were not reliable
Republican voters it seems, so all of the George Schultz people enabled the stirring of the melting
pot in order to manipulate politics and elections. Funny thing is that it failed because the Chinese
as a whole are ambivalent to ideology, and they won't vote for nonsense draped in the majestic robes
of conservatism. Especially when it's bad for business.
If you are shocked then you don't know your American history, because this kind of shit has been
going on
since before
the civil war. The sudden rise and fall in the early 1850's of the "Know-Nothing" party in the upper
Northeast was a response by "nativist" Americans (ie, not a recent immigrant, which were
predominantly Irish and German at that time) fed up with the manner that the party system used
immigrants for their own political gain. The movement died quickly because the two party system
itself was disintegrating by the larger issues of slavery and free labor.
After the civil war, and up to the first world war, ward and urban politicians manipulated
immigrants in the same way all over the United States. Ward heel-ers would work the incoming ships
and railroad depots, offering services and assistance in exchange. It was such a system that
propped up the infamous Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed in New York City, but various shenanigans
occurred all throughout the United States.
However, it was more brutal and violent in the Western periphery of the United States. Eureka,
California had a pogram or two of the chinese and native americans that lived there in the 1870's.
Ethnic violence in the Los Angeles basin occurred at different times before the 1900's. In some
parts of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, and Washington State, the settlements of tribal peoples
and chinese settlers were attacked, burned to the ground, and the inhabitants viciously mauled and
hunted down like animals. Much of this strain lies behind the 1920's Chinese exclusion acts and the
Japanese interment camps during World War Two.
Political integration of "immigrants" by the self-proclaimed "nativists" occurred much later (if
ever) on the West Coast. Mainly because all but the Indians were immigrants and the Spanish were
everywhere, so it was the more obvious foreign strains that were initially targeted as scapegoats
for the fragile social order by the self-proclaimed "nativists" -- Chinese.
The history of imported Chinese coolie labor is despicable. I will spare you the details, but these
people were treated with such utter disrespect it is honestly hard for me to convey the horror. The
imported black slaves actually had a better deal, because once they were purchased by a master, they
at least had a guarantee of some semblance of a permanent residence (despite the obvious other
horrible issues).
For instance, if you killed a slave, the case would go to court, because at the very least, the
slave owner wanted some restitution for his property. But if you killed a whole town of chinese
coolies barely managing an impoverished existence -- because the out of state corporation no longer
needed their labor and the local citizens didn't want them living in their locale -- nothing
happened, no one was arrested, no court was convened. In fact, the only reason why these matters
are even known historically to this day is on account of the voices of conscience by a few who wrote
testimony to such incidents that became first-hand sources to the historical record.
If a butterfly flaps its wings, does anyone listen? Well, that depends.