The Army Corps of Engineer's decision on the Dakota Access Pipelines will last until, well, today. The word, today, from Trump land is that Trump - he who must be obeyed - would consider the Corps decision and then make a determination once he is in office. And this is but one of multiple disasters we will soon face, both domestically and in foreign affairs. Watch this space.
The only missing elements are the names of Les Moonves (?) of CBS, who thinks Trump is great for the corporate profits , and the Trump-sounding/and acting, blow-hard, Chris Matthews of MSNBC who has given free time - all the time - to Trump, and then is so proud of himself for having criticizing him.
On the Democratic side: much sound, fury, and money expended for nothing. Iowa's caucus saw 186,795 Republicans voting, to a MERE 1,402 Democrats (repeat that, 1,401) that is just .0075% compared to the Republican turnout. Huge turnouts at the rallies, but nobody showed up to caucus - not the students, not the elderly, etc. Neither HRC (who fraudulently crowed -claimed- victory), nor Sanders were winners - the Democratic Party and its apparatus LOST. Yes, Iowa is unique, and hardly representative of America, but the candidates and the media are playing to a Disneyland, Mel Brooks' "Rock Ridge" 1950's fantasy land. If ever we saw why a new system of primaries is needed, this was it.
In her replay of the race against Obama, Hillary has again played the entitlement card too forcefully and too long, with the manipulative support of Party leaders like Debby Schultz. I'm reminded of the old childish refrain: "nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna go eat worms".
Yes, Chuck Schumer has now openly said he will oppose the nuclear deal. Given his influence and future power in the Senate, Schumer's explicit position helps to clarify why Obama now - only a day or so before Schumer's announcement, which he surely now knew of - finally spoke up and fought back. It was clear that it is not only the Republicans who are destroying the multinational agreement and fostering attacks on Iran and a war. It is also the Democratic leadership in the Senate and (with Debby W Schultz) in the House - both fully tied to the right-wing mind set and program in Israel of Netanyahu et al, the policy and lobbying apparatus of AIPAC - all contrary to the voice and mentality of the vast majority of American Jews and many progressives in Israel - who are undermining peace and stability in the region and the world at large. They are bringing on another Churban ( holocaust). For all the talk by those on the right that we are seeing in Obama's position another Munich, it is Paris - not Munich - that should be our vantage point in all this. The failure of the Senate, long ago, to ratify Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations project ( with all his and its failings ) precipitated much of the horror, wars, and killings through the end of the second world war, and beyond. The failure to create a structure and architecture of peace; a hard heartedness toward defeated foes; failure to live up to the rhetoric and hopes of the Paris accord; and the resulting bitterness of colonized peoples in Africa, China, South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East to the betrayal of the hopeful promises of the Paris accord led to a cascade of disasters that were generated by our Senate's failure to ratify the treaty and support the President. America's presumption of the moral high ground is undercut by the fact that we overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in the early 1950's, that we dropped two nuclear bombs on civilian cities in Japan, and to recently invaded Iraq by both Bush I and II. Today, the Republican Party as a whole, the centrist-right wing of the Democratic Party - the Democratic Leadership Council of the Clintons, Gore, and people like Schultz and Schumer are once again precipitating another cycle of long-term disaster. The President has, and had, reached the end of his rope; he began to admit our errors. We must carry it further.
While I applaud his domestic agenda, I need more information on his foreign policy positions. Can anyone clarify what Bernie's positions are [other than being opposed to further wars], on the Middle East, Africa, China, etc; Will he support the Iran "deal"?
Thom Hartmann might have seen glaring examples of this on MSNBC as Chris Matthews regularly trivialized Sanders, and about a week ago Steve Kornacki not only marginalized but ridiculed Sanders. The bipolar mind-sets of MSNBC capture well the establishment and wanna be mind set vs the critical views of Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes (with others mired along the spectrum.
Two observations: (1), pure speculation: Is Sen Feinstein's sudden indignation and alarm merely a function of her being spied on by the CIA, or is it a response to what may be anger and a potential revolt by her own staff at being attacked by the CIA?; (2), the Panetta Review should be published widely; it is the Pentagon Papers of today.
note last evenings broadcast of "Sherlock" for a comparable figure to Murdoch with his blackmailing of political figures in Britain; and also J. Edgar Hoover
Editing and selection in foreign policy decision making is paramount.
It might be useful to be reminded that while this is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, it is also the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missle Crisis. What was both remarkable at a critical juncture during the crisis, and a valuable opportunity and resource to turn off the then imminent threat of nuclear war, was Nikita Krushchev's sending two - contradictory - messages to Kennedy: one threatening war, the other calling for restraint and peace. While JC may correctly point to the internal divisions within the current Iranian power structure, more to the point is that what we may be seeing -in the divergent recent statements by Rouhani, coupled with Rafsanjani's critique of Syria and the use of chemical weapons, and Ali Khamenei's UN representative (Khazaei) - is a potential opportunity to select which of the divergent messages to respond to. Obama's failure has been his narrowly tactical vision of what diplpmacy is and entails. If he were to reach out to Iran - as did Krushchev - and embrace diplomacy over war threats and military strikes, he could strengthen the hand of Iranian "moderates"; he could undercut the hawks in the US and elsewhere bent on attack and imperial dominance. The recent British undercutting of a ready bought-and-paid-for US attack coalition, and a political delay by Obama to entangle the Congress in his project, may be just the opportunity for Obama to forge a different, potentially more robust and peaceful path that that advanced by his advisors and the military. He just might create a game changer scenario that would recast the global political terrain, enable efforts for peace and reconsiliation, provide room for maneuver domestically, and justify his too early awarding of the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Recently I looked for pants at an online shopping website. A short while later I was looking at a Hungarian website and there was an add for the very pants company I had previously looked at. Which is to say that most of the discussion we hear about "data mining" and "metadata" has been off the mark and misses the real point. Data mining and metadata are marketing tools that use "network analysis" to build up a picture of what a buyer's interests, desires, and behaviors are. By aggregating not only the many - many - sites, books, journals, newpapers, articles we go to, read, and listen to in any day; and by linking these to who we contact by pnone, email, etc., all these allow a point by point picture or 3 dimensional scupture to be constructed of what any individual thinks and acts on - we can easily see who that person is. The surveilance state - the panopticon - is now able to create profiles of potentially "dangerous". We are being "profiled", and sadly we are readily acquiescing in that project.
"The central reveal " - what of revelation?
M. Hulot - does he ride a bicycle and smoke a pipe? Sorry, I couldn't resist.
The Army Corps of Engineer's decision on the Dakota Access Pipelines will last until, well, today. The word, today, from Trump land is that Trump - he who must be obeyed - would consider the Corps decision and then make a determination once he is in office. And this is but one of multiple disasters we will soon face, both domestically and in foreign affairs. Watch this space.
The only missing elements are the names of Les Moonves (?) of CBS, who thinks Trump is great for the corporate profits , and the Trump-sounding/and acting, blow-hard, Chris Matthews of MSNBC who has given free time - all the time - to Trump, and then is so proud of himself for having criticizing him.
On the Democratic side: much sound, fury, and money expended for nothing. Iowa's caucus saw 186,795 Republicans voting, to a MERE 1,402 Democrats (repeat that, 1,401) that is just .0075% compared to the Republican turnout. Huge turnouts at the rallies, but nobody showed up to caucus - not the students, not the elderly, etc. Neither HRC (who fraudulently crowed -claimed- victory), nor Sanders were winners - the Democratic Party and its apparatus LOST. Yes, Iowa is unique, and hardly representative of America, but the candidates and the media are playing to a Disneyland, Mel Brooks' "Rock Ridge" 1950's fantasy land. If ever we saw why a new system of primaries is needed, this was it.
In her replay of the race against Obama, Hillary has again played the entitlement card too forcefully and too long, with the manipulative support of Party leaders like Debby Schultz. I'm reminded of the old childish refrain: "nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna go eat worms".
Yes, Chuck Schumer has now openly said he will oppose the nuclear deal. Given his influence and future power in the Senate, Schumer's explicit position helps to clarify why Obama now - only a day or so before Schumer's announcement, which he surely now knew of - finally spoke up and fought back. It was clear that it is not only the Republicans who are destroying the multinational agreement and fostering attacks on Iran and a war. It is also the Democratic leadership in the Senate and (with Debby W Schultz) in the House - both fully tied to the right-wing mind set and program in Israel of Netanyahu et al, the policy and lobbying apparatus of AIPAC - all contrary to the voice and mentality of the vast majority of American Jews and many progressives in Israel - who are undermining peace and stability in the region and the world at large. They are bringing on another Churban ( holocaust). For all the talk by those on the right that we are seeing in Obama's position another Munich, it is Paris - not Munich - that should be our vantage point in all this. The failure of the Senate, long ago, to ratify Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations project ( with all his and its failings ) precipitated much of the horror, wars, and killings through the end of the second world war, and beyond. The failure to create a structure and architecture of peace; a hard heartedness toward defeated foes; failure to live up to the rhetoric and hopes of the Paris accord; and the resulting bitterness of colonized peoples in Africa, China, South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East to the betrayal of the hopeful promises of the Paris accord led to a cascade of disasters that were generated by our Senate's failure to ratify the treaty and support the President. America's presumption of the moral high ground is undercut by the fact that we overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in the early 1950's, that we dropped two nuclear bombs on civilian cities in Japan, and to recently invaded Iraq by both Bush I and II. Today, the Republican Party as a whole, the centrist-right wing of the Democratic Party - the Democratic Leadership Council of the Clintons, Gore, and people like Schultz and Schumer are once again precipitating another cycle of long-term disaster. The President has, and had, reached the end of his rope; he began to admit our errors. We must carry it further.
Question: did chuck schumer vote for Bush II's war, and did Debby W Schultz vote for that war?
While I applaud his domestic agenda, I need more information on his foreign policy positions. Can anyone clarify what Bernie's positions are [other than being opposed to further wars], on the Middle East, Africa, China, etc; Will he support the Iran "deal"?
Thom Hartmann might have seen glaring examples of this on MSNBC as Chris Matthews regularly trivialized Sanders, and about a week ago Steve Kornacki not only marginalized but ridiculed Sanders. The bipolar mind-sets of MSNBC capture well the establishment and wanna be mind set vs the critical views of Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes (with others mired along the spectrum.
Two observations: (1), pure speculation: Is Sen Feinstein's sudden indignation and alarm merely a function of her being spied on by the CIA, or is it a response to what may be anger and a potential revolt by her own staff at being attacked by the CIA?; (2), the Panetta Review should be published widely; it is the Pentagon Papers of today.
note last evenings broadcast of "Sherlock" for a comparable figure to Murdoch with his blackmailing of political figures in Britain; and also J. Edgar Hoover
Editing and selection in foreign policy decision making is paramount.
It might be useful to be reminded that while this is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, it is also the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missle Crisis. What was both remarkable at a critical juncture during the crisis, and a valuable opportunity and resource to turn off the then imminent threat of nuclear war, was Nikita Krushchev's sending two - contradictory - messages to Kennedy: one threatening war, the other calling for restraint and peace. While JC may correctly point to the internal divisions within the current Iranian power structure, more to the point is that what we may be seeing -in the divergent recent statements by Rouhani, coupled with Rafsanjani's critique of Syria and the use of chemical weapons, and Ali Khamenei's UN representative (Khazaei) - is a potential opportunity to select which of the divergent messages to respond to. Obama's failure has been his narrowly tactical vision of what diplpmacy is and entails. If he were to reach out to Iran - as did Krushchev - and embrace diplomacy over war threats and military strikes, he could strengthen the hand of Iranian "moderates"; he could undercut the hawks in the US and elsewhere bent on attack and imperial dominance. The recent British undercutting of a ready bought-and-paid-for US attack coalition, and a political delay by Obama to entangle the Congress in his project, may be just the opportunity for Obama to forge a different, potentially more robust and peaceful path that that advanced by his advisors and the military. He just might create a game changer scenario that would recast the global political terrain, enable efforts for peace and reconsiliation, provide room for maneuver domestically, and justify his too early awarding of the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Recently I looked for pants at an online shopping website. A short while later I was looking at a Hungarian website and there was an add for the very pants company I had previously looked at. Which is to say that most of the discussion we hear about "data mining" and "metadata" has been off the mark and misses the real point. Data mining and metadata are marketing tools that use "network analysis" to build up a picture of what a buyer's interests, desires, and behaviors are. By aggregating not only the many - many - sites, books, journals, newpapers, articles we go to, read, and listen to in any day; and by linking these to who we contact by pnone, email, etc., all these allow a point by point picture or 3 dimensional scupture to be constructed of what any individual thinks and acts on - we can easily see who that person is. The surveilance state - the panopticon - is now able to create profiles of potentially "dangerous". We are being "profiled", and sadly we are readily acquiescing in that project.