COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, May 15, 2017

Stop the Presses: Hot Steaming Bullshit and Trump Discussing Lap tops with the Russians

1. I have been taking my laptop out for inspection for 12 years. I assume they were not looking for Tootsie Rolls

2. Common Sense:

    A. There is a threat from laptops on airplanes
    B. There is no threat
    C.  If there is no threat, there is no story
    D. If there is a threat, there is no story

Here is the real story. If the US knew something and did not say something to the Russians and a Russian plane was downed, who would know how it happened? Who would be blamed? Could it be plotted, enacted, and then spun as as a false flag?

What would be the consequences of that?

Total bullshit. If we knew anything, we had an obligation to tell the Russians  and it would be good business.

Do any of these assholes have a clue? The answer is no. There is only one story here and that is Trump's enemies in the press are trying to destroy him and it is working, because we are the Kardashian  Nation of naive dummies.

Want to hear a real presidential fuck up, ask me about Lyndon Johnson outing our most accurate and front line top-secret missile detection system, at a time that it really mattered.  It never made a wimp, not even a womp.

Gee, where did I get that from? Because having had the Forrest Gump life like I have, I happened to be there when it happened.

BOTTOM LINE

Everytime I think I'm done with Trump, the cocksuckers from the  MSM drag me back in





82 comments:

  1. Excellent post.

    We all hope THE QUIRKHEAD will read it.

    Here is an 'insiders' comment on the matter:

    BobMon May 15, 08:03:00 PM EDT
    For Christ Sake Quirk, the subject was bombs in laptop computers.

    How sensitive is that ?

    From what I've been hearing The Compost made it all up.

    Even if it happened the President didn't do anything illegal.

    Get a life, dude.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the Kardashian Nation of naive dummies

      :) heh

      Quirk's got his passport. He can come and go from that nation !

      He really does hate Trump's guts, cause he isn't really that stupid.

      The hatred just overcomes the poor fellow.

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. I still suspect crass sexual jealousy lurks behind his whole attitude.

      After all, he really doesn't give much of a shit about politics.

      Delete
  2. That last Nork missile went 1,000 miles up, so someone on Fox said.

    THAT should be the subject of discussion, not laptop computers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. And Quirk, you were the guy that brought Quist up.

    QuirkMon May 15, 07:26:00 PM EDT
    .

    While the Twins worry about some guy named Quist, their boy in the White House once again proves he is felony stupid.

    Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian diplomats

    Your Crooning Cowboy Commie is going to lose.

    His entire campaign is geared to sell his concert tickets, that's all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Christ, Bob, can't you remember the posts you put up on the last stream?

      Take your meds.

      .

      Delete
  4. Are Ash and Quirk in danger of going cult ?

    You decide.

    May 15, 2017
    The Mass Media Cult Goes Pathological
    By James Lewis

    In the five months since the election, the media haven't been able to get over getting Trumped. They've gone through the five stages of grief, some of them over and over again, and still The Donald drives them crazy. Hillary was one of the worst candidates in history, but it didn't matter. In our Mass Cult mind, she couldn't lose.

    This is a mass media pathology, as we can see from their uncontrolled emotional outbursts. The latest is Comeygate, which looks like a trap Trump laid for James Comey, who came out of the White House babbling that the president had demanded Comey's personal loyalty – a no-no by Watergate standards. But Comey has no Oval Office tapes, so it's his word against Trump's. Comey has no evidence, while making an "impeachable" allegation against POTUS.

    Where's John Dean when they need him?

    Every time they lose another power player in D.C., like Clapper and Comey, they have to go through the five stages of grief. First denial. Then tears. Then asking God to make it not so. On and on.

    If these people weren't so malignant, I'd feel sorry for them.


    This is a kind of death anxiety for the American ruling class, which is also why they constantly fantasize about killing Donald Trump. For psychiatrists, it's an interesting mental disorder, and it's too bad that millions of Americans still depend on Mass Cult for their daily news. This is not a college textbook; it's America today.

    (Today this experiment is illegal, but it has been repeated in other countries with low-level shocks given to animals.)

    History books have been written about crazy cult behavior, especially utopian cults. But we think they have no real lesson for our lives because we aren't crazy.

    Most people don't realize that "media concentration" – a functional news monopoly, day after day – has the same effect as cult indoctrination. It doesn't matter if Disney Corp. has a different name from the New York Times. It matters only that they tell the same "news" story every day. For a mental mass monopoly, you don't need to violate anti-trust law. All you need is mass media that make up the "news" by consensus, not by empirical reality. Dr. Michael Barone actually looks up facts for his political column, but he is a rarity in the media business today. The Big Media are basically playing telephone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Closed cults like Jim Jones and Scientology do some very nasty stuff, and when it gets to the Kim Jong-un level they build nukes and fire ICBMs over countries like Japan. Today, Kim III is pushing his WMD program as fast as he can, and where Kim goes, the mullahs follow. Iran and North Korea co-develop those weapons and test the bombs underground in Korea, but the mullahs get the same technology.

      The bottom line is that any ideological monopoly creates cults.

      Where the United States used to have about 80 different newspaper owners in 1980, today we have fewer than a dozen conglomerates, with only one storyline.

      The JournoList scandal showed that 400 "journalists" (propaganda liars) were able to drive the "news" in the U.S. and Europe. They are still doing it, because nobody can stop them.

      What we are seeing is cult pathology on a mass basis. That is pathogenic (it makes people genuinely crazy), because cults that hear only one mental channel become delusional. (The "Russian election hack" scam is a classical mass delusion.) Fear gets amplified enormously by the headline rumor machine, which cult followers can no longer distinguish from reality. The old 24-hour news cycle is now every hour on the hour, and human beings can easily get flooded with too much information, so their judgment is impaired. We are seeing all of that in the media today.

      Everybody has defense mechanisms, even healthy people, but healthy folks tend to ward off anxiety by rationalizing danger, both real and imagined. But medical students, for example, can become hypochondriacs with whatever disease they are studying this week. You study heart attacks twelve hours a day without enough sleep, and you start wondering if your heart is okay. Medical students are physically very healthy, but med school is what it is.

      Healthy people do get over all that, but if you're caught up in the Mass Media Cult, every single day, and you don't get enough time to recover, you become stressed out and ultimately dysfunctional.

      Historians will look back at this time as a case of mass hysteria on the national level. Ph.D. dissertations will be written about the Trump Mass Hysteria of 2016-17, but by that time the grad students will be lolling in easy chairs and chatting about the Third Millennia Frenzy, like Orson Welles's radio drama of 1938, The War of the Worlds.

      Technology gets faster and more powerful, but human beings don't change.

      I suppose it's a kind of poetic justice, the biter being bit, but it's sad to see. Maybe conservatives should get together and send them all a good supply of cheap whiskey, the traditional newsman's medicine. I'm sure it'll work for newswomen, too.

      http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/05/the_mass_media_cult_goes_pathological.html

      Delete
    2. One now begins to understand why Doug seems to have given up on following the news, and has turned to the Live Downtown Truckee Webcam, and now, The Soggy Dollar Bar Live Webcam too. They are, at least, connected to reality.

      Delete
    3. .

      American Thinker. Ah, that explains it.

      This guy sounds as dumb as Doug. Admittedly, having drunk the kool aid this guy may know something about cults.

      Trump is in the headlines every day because he demands to be. He can't help himself. He has to be the center of attention even if he has to force his way there.

      Weird ass tweets designed to solicit a response all day every day.

      The media concentrating on the Russian connection? How can they help but do it. Trump won't let it go. The Comey firing? Trump says it was about the Russian investigation. As if that would make it go away rather than force the media in asking more questions. Trump couldn't even avoid mentioning it in the firing letter he sent to Comey, mentioning the '3 times Comey said Trump wasn't being investigated.

      Wake up.

      .

      Delete
  5. .

    :o(

    It amazes me you guys don't see anything wrong with this.

    The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

    The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency...


    The faux farmer screams 'it's not even illegal'.

    Of course, it's not illegal you nitwit. As president, Trump can declassify anything he wants. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it.

    Doug does his usual evasion. Instead of addressing the message, he attacks the messenger.

    We had an obligation to inform Russia? Bullshit. Get with the program. At this point, Russia is an adversary not an ally. The report indicates we haven't even given the info to key allies. Why would Russia be the first one you give it too?

    The info Trump provided to an 'adversary' was highly classified. It isn't even widely shared within the US intelligence agencies.

    How many times have we seen officials come out and say they can't talk about things even those in the public domain because it might jeopardize sources and methods. If true, Trump not only jeopardized sources and methods he violated understandings with a key security ally.

    Did Trump do anything illegal. No. That's why my initial post said he was ONCE AGAIN guilty of being FELONY STUPID.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We don't even know what happened, if anything at all.

      And, if one wishes to turn an adversary into an ally, what better way than to warn them of the dangers of laptops on airliners ????

      The Rooskies are so drunk on vodka they would have never ever even thought of that.

      Bwahaha

      Delete
    2. The current news cycle should be focused on the Nork missile that went 1000 miles up into the atmosphere, IMHO.

      I just think it might have been swell if it had landed in Russia.

      Delete
    3. NORTH KOREA'S MISSILE TEST PUTS REGION ON EDGE
      Nuclear threat reaching point of no return.
      May 15, 2017 Joseph Klein


      North Korea test fired yet another missile on Sunday. This time the test did not end in a fiasco. The missile was fired somewhere between 430 to 500 hundred miles, staying aloft for about 30 minutes at an altitude exceeding 1,240 miles, before landing in the Sea of Japan 60 miles south of Russia's Vladivostok region. It exceeded in distance and altitude an intermediate-range missile that North Korea successfully tested last February. While reportedly not an intercontinental missile, North Korea is demonstrating with this successful test, according to at least one expert, a missile with a range as far as 3700 miles, putting Hawaii potentially at risk. The North Korean regime’s missile program is firing on all cylinders, including the use of mobile land-based and submarine launch platforms. It is only a matter of time before North Korea also conducts another, more powerful nuclear test in its relentless march towards achieving a strategic nuclear deterrence that would provide it with the leverage to extort its neighbors and threaten the U.S. mainland at will.

      The White House issued a statement noting the proximity to Russia of the landing of its latest tested missile, and reiterating the U.S.’s firm commitment to protect its interests and those of its allies against North Korea’s provocations: “With the missile impacting so close to Russian soil - in fact, closer to Russia than to Japan - the President cannot imagine that Russia is pleased. North Korea has been a flagrant menace for far too long. South Korea and Japan have been watching this situation closely with us. The United States maintains our ironclad commitment to stand with our allies in the face of the serious threat posed by North Korea. Let this latest provocation serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against North Korea.”

      South Korea’s newly elected President Moon Jae-In, while indicating more receptiveness to diplomatic talks with North Korea than his predecessor, called the missile test-launch a “clear” violation of UN Security Council resolutions, adding that “we should sternly deal with a provocation to prevent North Korea from miscalculating.”

      North Korea’s leader Kim Jung-un appears oblivious to such condemnations and rhetorical threats....

      https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266701/north-koreas-missile-test-puts-region-edge-joseph-klein

      Delete
    4. We know everything: Quirk tells us after gleaning it from the MSM.

      In this case, even better: THE Washington Post!

      Pure Gold.

      Delete
    5. He's like the Alky that refuses to go to AA:

      Won't even TRY a week or two off the Tube.

      Delete
    6. Ash and Quirk both need a week or two of nothing but the Live Downtown Truckee Web Cam to chill.

      'If I'm not here I'm in Truckee'

      Delete
    7. I watched carefully to see if that woman that went into the Truckee gas station ever came back out.

      She went in at mid-night, and I gave up at about 7a.m.

      Maybe she had an 8 hour shift.

      Delete
  6. When the Russians told us about the Boston Bombers, Comey, Obama, et-al performed as expected.

    ...and the MSM didn't make much of a fuss at all:

    Nowhere near the Nuclear reaction to the non-story of Russian collusion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      What's wrong with you, Doug?

      You seem to lack the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time. You want to call Obama an asshole do it. But what the hell does that have to do with Trump being an asshole?

      Do you think Trump get some kind of get out of jail free card for every fucked up thing Obama ever did?

      You people are pathetic.

      .

      Delete
    2. MSM is trying to make a big mountain out of a molehill.

      It's their MO.

      It just ticks some of us sensitives off, is all.

      Delete
    3. .

      You are about as sensitive as a rock.

      .

      Delete
    4. I've only told you about 10 times:

      You keep converting what I say into what you want to argue.

      I talk about the MSM using Trump, Obama, Hillary, etc as the examples, you are stuck on Trump and project that on me.

      I'd say get help, but getting help without turning off the Tube would be like attending AA after 6 Martinis.

      Delete
    5. You are about as sensitive as a rock.

      Rocks have consciousness, however highly veiled.

      MSM cultists live in illusions.

      Delete
    6. .

      :o)

      You are also dumb as a rock.

      .

      Delete
  7. Why would co-operating the Russians in some ways suddenly be described as collusion ?

    If the Democrats were doing it they would describe it as building community.

    Super K, who played the China card, said one day we would need to play the Russian card against the Chinamen.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Researcher sees possible North Korean connection to Wanna Cry ransomware
    POSTED AT 9:21 PM ON MAY 15, 2017 BY JOHN SEXTON


    A researcher at Google announced Monday that he had identified some common code in the Wanna Cry ransomware and hacking tools used by the Lazarus Group. The Lazarus Group is believed to be connected to North Korea and was involved in the 2014 hack of Sony Pictures. Here’s the cryptic tweet highlighting the similarities:

    Follow
    Neel Mehta @neelmehta
    9c7c7149387a1c79679a87dd1ba755bc @ 0x402560, 0x40F598
    ac21c8ad899727137c4b94458d7aa8d8 @ 0x10004ba0, 0x10012AA4#WannaCryptAttribution
    10:02 AM - 15 May 2017
    119 119 Retweets
    From Ars Technica:

    The tweet referenced identical code found in a WCry sample from February and an early 2015 version of Cantopee, a malicious backdoor used by Lazarus Group, a hacking team that has been operating since at least 2011…

    WCry’s creators may have deliberately added code found in Cantopee in an attempt to trick researchers into mistakenly believing Lazarus Group is behind the ransomware. Researchers at antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab said such a “false flag” is plausible but improbable. The Cantopee code snippet, the researchers explained, was removed from later versions of WCry, making it hard to spot and hence ill-suited to act as a decoy…

    “This opens a lot of possibilities for everyone to find other similarities between all versions of WannaCrypt that have been found so far, and the tools used by Lazarus,” Maarten van Dantzig, a researcher at FOX-IT, told Ars.
    Another clue that Wanna Cry was the work of a government: It contained a killswitch in the form of a hidden Url that, once registered, stopped the ransomware from spreading. Jazz wrote about the cyber researcher at Kryptos Logic who discovered the Url yesterday. Ars Technica notes, “Such ‘killswitches’ are highly unusual for malware developed by financially motivated criminal groups. By contrast, they’re much more common in malware written by nation-sponsored hackers.”

    In addition to the Sony Pictures hack, the Lazarus Group has been implicated in the theft of $81 million dollars from Bangladesh’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York last year. The theft actually attempted to take nearly a billion dollars but most of the transactions were canceled after an alert banker noticed a typo.

    http://hotair.com/archives/2017/05/15/researcher-sees-possible-north-korean-connection-wanna-cry/

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Do you think Trump get some kind of get out of jail free card for every fucked up thing Obama ever did?"

    I said plainly that the differential treatment has consequences.

    The consequences of the Corrupt MSM/Democrat Cabal are NEGATIVE.

    ReplyDelete
  10. FOR THE RECORD:

    in 2013, following the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people and injured some 250.

    Two brothers from the Russian republic of Chechnya, Dzokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, had organized the attack, and it became known soon afterward that the Russian FSB had sent messages in 2011 to the FBI and CIA about Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

    Though these letters were not real warnings—the FSB asked for information on him, fearing he could join a militant group—the information inflamed public opinion in the United States, and there were calls for more cooperation between Russian and American intelligence agencies.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama spoke twice by phone in the wake of the bombing. A White House statement said Obama praised the “close cooperation” Washington received on counterterrorism from Moscow, and that “both sides underlined their interest in deepening” it. Congressmen rushed to Moscow praising FSB’s willingness to work together.


    OOrah Assholes

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Let's see 2013.

      A year before the US started fighting in Syria.

      A couple years before the Russians entered the fight on what has been argued by many as the opposite side.

      The brothers were Chechnyan a much bigger worry to the Russians than to the US. The Russians send a letter to US officials...

      Though these letters were not real warnings—the FSB asked for information on him, fearing he could join a militant group...

      One has to ask if there was anything in the letter that had the potential to compromise Russian sources and methods or assets.

      .

      Delete
    2. .

      I said plainly that the differential treatment has consequences.

      Bullshit. Your like an enabler to a drug addict. Always rationalizing and justifying the guy's actions.

      The thing that used to drive me crazy about Obama was that for eight years he would blame every damn thing that went wrong on Bush rather than accepting the responsibility that goes with the job.

      Trump continues the tradition. How many friggin times do we have to hear him blame Obama for every thing that's screwed up in this country.

      Now, you take it beyond that and argue that...what...that Trump really wouldn't be doing the dumb things he does if the MSM wasn't against him? Or are you simply arguing that we wouldn't know how stupid Trump is if it wasn't for the MSM?

      .

      Delete
    3. Turn off the Tube.

      Take a reading class.

      At present, you're hopeless.

      Delete
    4. .

      I said plainly that the differential treatment has consequences.

      The consequences of the Corrupt MSM/Democrat Cabal are NEGATIVE


      What are the consequences?

      .

      Delete
    5. No accountability, more corruption and lawbreaking.

      Delete
    6. .


      And that has what to do with the Trump story?


      .

      Delete
    7. .

      I put up a story about Trump doing something stupid again.

      You criticizes me for having the audacity to put up a story by the WaPo. I get it. You don’t like the MSM. You don’t like people quoting stories from the MSM, well, unless it's you.

      Is that it, the same old bullshit meme. You have nothing to say specific to the Trump story?

      You just wanted to whine about the MSM again?

      Or, are you denying the story is true?

      If so, why not just come out and say it instead of leading with the silly preamble?


      Then you take it further and posit a Media/Democratic cabal that's treats presidents differently depending on party.

      Again, if the cabal exists does it negate any of the details in the WaPo story?

      If not, why bring it up when talking about the Trump story?


      Then you take it further talking about the consequences of this cabal, negative consequences, 'no
      accountability, more corruption and lawbreaking’.

      Did any of that effect this Trump Story?

      The question remain, Doug.

      Are you saying the Trump story isn’t true? If so, why not just say so and save us wasting time on all this extraneous bull?

      .

      Delete


    8. Much of what you just wrote is extraneous bull.

      You posted a story about security leaks and Trump.

      I wrote:

      Doug Mon May 15, 07:37:00 PM EDT

      Definitely a fuck up, but the Post didn't have a problem endorsing the criminal, nor condemning the President when he communicated with the criminal on her unsecure, illegal server, did they?

      Maybe there would have been different outcomes had they not been part of the corruption.

      Like there are different consequences for Trump.

      ===

      You again turn it into something else, many times over.

      Somehow easier for you than just admitting there would be better behavior and better outcomes if the Post and the rest of the MSM held everyone equally accountable.

      Delete
    9. .

      And I contend your constant harping on the MSM reaches the point of fixation. You use it as excuse and as diversion. Trump or the GOP screws up. Blame the MSM. Things don't go right. Blame it on the MSM. Hillary walks. Blame it on the MSM. Obama isn't criticized enough. The MSM. Forget Drudge or Breitbart or frontpagemeag or FOX or the NY Post or the Washington Examiner
      or the dumbass fox5dc or heatst Bob put up below. It's the MSM.

      Trump's problems are caused by Trump not the press. Trump is the guy with the daily tweets. Trump is the guy who throws the shit in the game daily and more than daily. Trump is the guy who fires Comey one day because of the Russian investigation and the very next day invites the Russian ambassador and the foreign minister, the guy who is up to his neck in the investigation, to the White House for a photo op with a Russian photographer, no US press allowed.

      The man's a drama queen. He demands center stage. He can't even fire a man without threats of possible taped conversations. Now, that he brought that up even GOP senators are asking to hear any tapes of his conversations with the Russkies.

      How the hell can you blame the press for talking about Trump when he would be bitching if they didn't? The man can't keep his mouth shut and what comes out is usually stupid or controversial.

      You want to whine about the press not being harder on Obama? Go ahead and boohoo. That has zero, nada, ziltch to do with what's going on with Trump right now.

      Every problem Trump's got right now is self-inflicted.

      .

      Delete
    10. "You want to whine about the press not being harder on Obama? Go ahead and boohoo. That has zero, nada, ziltch to do with what's going on with Trump right now."

      ===

      Bullshit.



      Delete
    11. "Trump's problems are caused by Trump not the press."

      Quirk's black and white view of the World.

      NOTHING would be different if they covered their eyes in see no evil fashion like they did for Obama.

      Delete
    12. NOTHING would be different if every Obama crime and lie had been fully aired...

      Delete
    13. .

      NOTHING would be different if they covered their eyes in see no evil fashion like they did for Obama.

      The only thing that would be different is if we never say Trump in an interview or pep rally or is none of his tweets were ever published.

      What he does doesn't require commentary.

      You don't need someone to tell you that a tweet threatening Comey if he doesn't keep his mouth shut is bullshit.

      Doug, the mushroom, would rather everyone be kept in the dark and shit on rather than be told any ugly truths.

      .

      Delete
    14. .

      NOTHING would be different if every Obama crime and lie had been fully aired...

      Every Obama crime and lie was fully aired just not in the media you want it to be aired in. Obama's not here anymore. If you want to keep whining about it do it.

      However, Obama's gone and Trump is the problem now; yet, you seem to be arguing for the very thing with Trump that you condemn with Obama.

      .

      Delete
  11. Replies
    1. Heh, Welt of Wankers is good.

      Delete
    2. I do my best when I drink malbec first, shoot second, think about it third

      Delete
  12. Clapper, that egg head, has said none of the intelligence agencies could find any evidence at all of any 'collusion' between Trump, the Trump Campaign, and the Roosians.

    Hannity just played the clip.

    He could not have been clearer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So the idea is the result of collusion between the MSM and the Democrats.

      Delete
    2. .

      The investigation involves two things.

      First, the level if any of Russian attempts to interfere in US elections.

      Second, any coordination that might have occurred between the Trump team and the Russians in that effort.

      Trump may not have been being actively investigated when Comey or Clapper said he wasn't. However, Trump was the leader of the Trump team, and depending on where the investigation leads he could be a target of the investigation in the future.

      .

      Delete
    3. There were Roosian agents out this way offering big rubles if we'd vote absentee and allow them to watch us mark our ballots for Trump.

      Like a fool I mentioned I was voting for Trump anyway, and blew the opportunity.

      Delete
  13. ...Congressmen rushed to Moscow praising FSB’s willingness to work together.

    Any bet on who is first out of the gate pop eyed, gob smacked and frothing mad for the press?

    ReplyDelete
  14. OOHHH oooooo....

    DEAD DNC STAFFER 'HAD CONTACT' WITH WIKILEAKS....DRUDGE RED BANNER HEADLINE


    Family's private investigator: There is evidence Seth Rich had contact with WikiLeaks prior to death

    By: Marina Marraco
    POSTED:MAY 15 2017 10:41PM EDT
    UPDATED:MAY 15 2017 10:55PM EDT

    WASHINGTON - It has been almost a year since Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was murdered in the nation's capital. There have been no solid answers about why he was killed until now.

    Rich was shot and killed last July in Northwest D.C and police have suggested the killing in the District's Bloomingdale neighborhood was a botched robbery. However, online conspiracy theories have tied the murder to Rich's work at the DNC.

    Just two months shy of the one-year anniversary of Rich's death, FOX 5 has learned there is new information that could prove these theorists right.

    Seth Rich Family's private investigator: There is evidence Seth Rich had contact with WikiLeaks prior to death
    Rod Wheeler, a private investigator hired by the Rich family, suggests there is tangible evidence on Rich's laptop that confirms he was communicating with WikiLeaks prior to his death.

    Now, questions have been raised on why D.C. police, the lead agency on this murder investigation for the past ten months, have insisted this was a robbery gone bad when there appears to be no evidence to suggest that.

    Wheeler, a former D.C. police homicide detective, is running a parallel investigation into Rich’s murder. Wheeler said he believes there is a cover-up and the police department has been told to back down from the investigation.

    "The police department nor the FBI have been forthcoming,” said Wheeler. “They haven't been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both.”

    When we asked Wheeler if his sources have told him there is information that links Rich to Wikileaks, he said, “Absolutely. Yeah. That's confirmed."

    Wheeler also told us, "I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said, ‘Rod, we were told to stand down on this case and I can’t share any information with you.’ Now, that is highly unusual for a murder investigation, especially from a police department. Again, I don’t think it comes from the chief’s office, but I do believe there is a correlation between the mayor's office and the DNC and that is the information that will come out [Tuesday].

    http://www.fox5dc.com/news/local-news/254852337-story

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It should be obvious to all thinking people that Hillary had him bumped because he was leaking DNC documents to Wikileaks on behalf of the Sanders Campaign.

      At least that is what the conspiracy folks have been saying.

      Social media sleuths are pointing to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s suggestion that Rich gave Wikileaks the DNC documents, and to Assange’s suggestions that Hillary Clinton herself may have somehow been involved in Rich’s death.

      Amid Russia Row, New Conspiracy Theories Swirl Over Murder of DNC’s Seth Rich

      https://heatst.com/politics/amid-russia-row-new-conspiracy-theories-swirl-over-murder-of-dncs-seth-rich/

      Delete
  15. Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to rewrite world trade rules and cast himself as a champion of globalisation as he capitalises on a US retreat into "America First" policies, analysts say.

    ...

    Many doubt the motives behind its latest plan.

    "I don't think many people are buying the spin that this is all in the name of free trade and global prosperity," said Andrew Gilholm from global risk consultancy Control Risks.

    ...

    The summit comes ahead of a crucial Communist Party congress later this year.

    Regarded as the most powerful Chinese leader in a generation, Xi will secure a second five-year term at the congress and will have the opportunity to promote his favoured allies to the country's ultimate decision-making body.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I think if I were in Montana I might well vote for the Cowboy Commie Quist myself.

    In fact, I'm sure I would, because nothing means more to me than OUR national forests.

    Go Quist !

    Here Quirk:

    ACT LOCALLY » MAY 15, 2017

    The Folk Singer vs. the Millionaire: A Berniecrat Aims for Montana’s House Seat
    Rob Quist’s House campaign draws on Montana’s populist spirit.

    BY JOSEPH BULLINGTON

    The Montana special election is a chance for Montana to show its stubborn independence and confound national expectations.

    I first heard of Rob Quist last fall, when I saw him play in White Sulphur Springs, Mont., the conservative ranch town of 900 people where I grew up. Until recently, this is how most Montanans knew him: a folk musician they had seen in bars, gymnasiums and fairgrounds across the state. Quist grew up on a ranch outside the small town of Cut Bank, on the border of the Blackfeet Nation, and has made his living playing music since the 1970s.

    Today, Quist tours the state in a different role—as a populist Democratic candidate to fill Montana’s sole House seat. He’s campaigning on a simple message: “You shouldn’t have to be a millionaire to hunt, fish and hike in our great outdoors, get a good education or be able to support your family.”

    The May 25 special election—triggered when Republican Ryan Zinke resigned the seat to serve as Donald Trump’s secretary of the interior—will pit Quist against an actual millionaire. Greg Gianforte moved from the East Coast in 1995 to Bozeman, Mont., where he founded the software company RightNow Technologies. In 2011, he sold RightNow for more than $1.8 billion. He has poured money into conservative causes, including $6 million into his own failed gubernatorial campaign last year.

    Many national commentators characterize Quist’s campaign as a quixotic longshot in “deep red” Montana. In a state that Hillary Clinton lost to Trump by 21 points, the conventional thinking goes, a Bernie Sanders-style Democrat stands little chance.

    But Montana’s distaste for establishment Democrats like Clinton does not make it “deep red.” Of the Western states that went for Trump in November—Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Arizona—all except Arizona went for Sanders in the primary. In Montana, it was not only urban liberal enclaves that voted for him. Of the state’s 45 counties with fewer than 10,000 registered voters, Sanders won 28.

    On the same ballot in which they voted for Trump, Montanans also reelected Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock over Trump enthusiast Gianforte. In 2008, Barack Obama lost the state by only two points.

    One good way to understand Montana’s political complexity is through the issue of public lands, which reflects class interests more than party loyalty. Despite a libertarian tendency to distrust the federal government, Montanans overwhelmingly support federal public lands. These lands—National Forests and National Parks, wilderness areas and Wild and Scenic Rivers— comprise more than 27 million acres in Montana, 29 percent of the state’s land base. And almost all of them are free to access, camp on, hunt and fish. Public land is one of the last egalitarian institutions in Montana—land where people of modest means can live as free as rich people, and fill their freezers for the price of a $20 elk tag and some bullets.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. A post-election survey of Western states found that 88 percent of Montana voters favored “improving access to public lands.” Only 38 percent favored opening up new areas of public land to oil and gas drilling. Given such popular support, it wouldn’t seem that public lands are in need of much defense. But they are. Trump intends to increase oil and coal extraction on federal lands, and on April 26 signed an executive order that threatens national monuments. Nationwide, moneyed conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Heritage Foundation are pushing to transfer federal public lands to the states, with the ultimate aim of privatization and ramped-up resource extraction.

      Gianforte’s charity foundation has donated to three think tanks that advocate federal land transfer, and he contributed to the campaign of Montana state Sen. Jennifer Fielder (R), CEO of the land-transfer advocacy group the American Lands Council. The state GOP’s platform supports land transfer.


      In 2009, Gianforte sued the state to block a public access easement to the East Gallatin River near his property. The issue was resolved, but the incident cast Gianforte in the role of that most despised Montana character: the rich out-of-stater who buys up land and then locks Montanans out.

      Quist, by contrast, has put public land defense at the center of his campaign. Sensing the threat, the GOP’s Congressional Leadership Fund has spent $700,000 on TV attack ads. One shows Quist—weathered face, mustache, cowboy hat—while a voiceover calls him “too liberal and out of touch for Montana,” an interesting charge from a D.C.-based super PAC against a man raised on the Montana Hi-Line.

      National Democrats were slower to get involved, though they announced April 20 they would start putting money into the race. Their hesitance may actually help, says popular Montana politics blogger Don Pogreba, because Montanans are often skeptical of candidates with too many national party fingerprints. “To win in Montana, authenticity is really important,” he says.

      He does worry that, with journalists failing to dig into Gianforte’s record, his high-dollar ad campaigns may prevail over Quist’s smaller budget and face-to-face campaigning style.

      This is where Our Revolution, the advocacy organization that grew out of Sanders’ presidential run, comes in.

      The group endorsed Quist, and Sanders himself said he’d campaign in Montana. According to board chair Larry Cohen, many of the 20,000 Montanans who have signed on to Our Revolution are making phone calls, texting and knocking on doors for Quist. The group has also connected Quist to the nationwide network of small donors that powered the Sanders campaign, helping raise nearly $1 million in March alone from more than 20,000 individual donations averaging $40 each.

      The Montana special election, then, is a chance for Montana to show its stubborn independence and confound national expectations. It’s less a referendum on Trump and more a test of the radical idea behind Sanders’ run: that a volunteer-powered, small-donor-funded, populist campaign can overcome one backed by big money and a national party apparatus.

      http://inthesetimes.com/article/20117/the-folk-singer-vs-the-millionaire-rob-quist-gianforte-public-lands

      Delete
    2. Quirk, can we be friends again now ?

      Delete
  17. We’re Edging Closer To Nuclear War
    Experts are worried about India, Pakistan and North Korea.

    By Milo Beckman
    Filed under WAR
    Published May 15, 2017

    ....Second, the world’s strongest military power, under its new, more nationalist government, has signaled interest in renegotiating the security agreements that help ward off war — nuclear and conventional — in Europe and East Asia. “All of a sudden there is a questioning of the commitments that the United States has made and the leading role that the United States has played in multilateral diplomacy,” said Kane. “It hasn’t been said so publicly, but … there’s been a realization that maybe the Europeans need to do a bit more for their own defense.”

    “We’ve seen this movie before,” said Narang. “The Eisenhower administration went to tremendous lengths to establish essentially nuclear sharing agreements with [West] Germany … to stop them from getting the weapons … so that we and we alone could control nuclear use and escalation.” Removing the nuclear umbrella and encouraging allies to go it alone can only complicate the picture. “The more countries that have nuclear weapons, the more nuclear weapons there are in the system, the more actors have the ability to use them … the probability of use just accumulates,” he said.

    Bunn put it bluntly: “It would be disastrous for the U.S. to withdraw its protection from these countries.”

    If there’s any cause for optimism on this front, it’s Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who in 2016 criticized both President Obama and then-candidate Trump for their shared view of American allies as military “free riders.” On his first international trip as secretary of defense, Mattis went to Japan and South Korea to reassure leaders that American nuclear commitments remained strong. “There is apparently already a repositioning of the United States which is not exactly aligned with the statements that President Trump made initially,” said Kane. “That, to my mind, is also significant.”

    Whether Mattis can check the president’s instincts and preserve the “Washington playbook,” though, remains to be seen. “I do find comfort in the fact that Mattis is extremely experienced and has a lot of respect,” said Bronson. “But Mattis is one voice in an administration with a lot of competing perspectives. It’s unclear how it will eventually be organized, or what the administration’s worldview will be.”....


    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/were-edging-closer-to-nuclear-war/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      “I do find comfort in the fact that Mattis is extremely experienced and has a lot of respect,” said Bronson. “But Mattis is one voice in an administration with a lot of competing perspectives.


      Saw an article today saying that because of the competing factions in the administration and Trump's impetuousness some of these guys take to putting fake news stories in front of Trimp so as to sway him the their way of thinking on certain issues.

      .

      Delete
  18. QuirkSun May 14, 08:53:00 AM EDT.

    The neocons and the MIC won the day when Bush declared a 'War on Terror' a telling phrase that launched the US into the long war...nay, the eternal war as terrorism as a tactic has been used for millennia and shows no signs of disappearing.

    QuirkSun May 14, 08:55:00 AM EDT

    Trump promised to end the continuous state of war but as with most of his promises that one amounted to another fart in the wind.


    DougSun May 14, 05:45:00 PM EDT

    Obama was not involved.

    In QuirkMSMWorld

    ===

    8 years of Bush's Wars, 8 years of Obama's Wars, 3 months of Trump.

    Quirk names Bush and Trump, but not Obama.

    Programmed Much?

    ReplyDelete
  19. LT. GEN. H.R. McMASTER, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I have a brief statement for the record. There is nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people. The story that came out tonight as reported is false. The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation.

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/05/15/mcmaster_the_story_that_came_out_tonight_as_reported_is_false.html

    At no time, at no time, where intelligent sources or methods discussed. And the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known. Two other senior officials who were present, including the Secretary of the State, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on the record accounts should outweigh anonymous sources. I was in the room. It didn't happen.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Well the piss and vinegar is on the floor in the latest attempt by the media to destroy Trump.

    Anyone with any now too un- common sense and everyone with a clue about real intelligence knew this was rubbish.

    Not one of these lying turds happened to remember that it was a Russian civilian passenger plane that was brought down by a bomb in Egypt's Sinai peninsula on October 2015, killing all 224 people on board, a bomb put on the plane by some Islamic.

    Pathetic scum.

    ReplyDelete
  21. .

    I saw McMaster deliver his denial. It might have taken a minute and was pretty much as described above.

    As soon as he finished he turned and left refusing to take questions, questions such as...

    Did Trump actually mention the city where the information was coming out of?

    Does he deny that 'confirming' information out there even already in the public domain is substantially different than saying 'I can't comment on ongoing operations so as not to endanger our sources and methods'?

    Why did the White House immediately call the CIA and NSA after the meeting to explain details of what was said in the meeting?

    This morning Trump doesn't deny what was said in the WaPo article he justifies it.

    As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

    The story wasn't about Trump talking about a general security threat that was shared with another country. It was about specifics shared on sources and methods. So far they haven't been denied by the president.

    My initial comment on this story was that once again Trump proves he is felony stupid. The timing and the optics of the Russian meaning are enough to confirm that opinion. The WaPo story takes it beyond that and alleges the president is painfully indiscreet.

    The media considers Trump tweets as a gift, a valuable present hand delivered by the President of the United States. Some here argue that the media shouldn't open that gift.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  22. Before you guys dig too deep a hole, remember that WaPo is the mouthpiece of Bezos. Bezos is a smart dude. He buys a big East Coast liberal newspaper, makes it more liberal, and feeds it anti Trump fake news. Bezos never has to say a word publicly, he just lets his paper do it for him.

    Trump early on warned Amazon about monopolizing. Bezos didn't like it. Bezos is revengeful. Bezos returns fire. End of story. If it is from the WaPo and it is anti Trump, it has been personally approved for publication by Bezos. If this is not painfully obvious to you, you are felony stupid. Bezos hates Trump, almost as much as some here.

    FAKE NEWS.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Iceland of all places -

    May 16, 2017
    Anti-jihad crusader Robert Spencer poisoned in Iceland
    By Thomas Lifson


    Political violence by leftists is on the rise – not only in the United States, but in Iceland as well, it appears. Robert Spencer, who has devoted his life to combating the global jihad, was poisoned by a political antagonist, it appears. Writing in Front Page Magazine, he reports on his brush with assassination:


    Last Thursday, I gave a lecture on the jihad threat at the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland. Shortly thereafter, a young Icelandic Leftist registered his disapproval of what I said by poisoning me.

    It happened after the event, when my security chief, the organizers of the event, and Jihad Watch writer Christine Williams, who had also been invited to speak, went with me to a local restaurant to celebrate the success of the evening.

    At this crowded Reykjavik establishment, I was quickly recognized. A young Icelander called me by name, shook my hand, and said he was a big fan. Shortly after that, another citizen of that famously genteel and courteous land also called me by name, shook my hand, and said "[F---] you."

    We took that marvelous Icelandic greeting as a cue to leave. But the damage had already been done. About fifteen minutes later, when I got back in my hotel room, I began to feel numbness in my face, hands, and feet. I began trembling and vomiting. My heart was racing dangerously. I spent the night in a Reykjavik hospital.

    What had happened quickly became clear, and was soon confirmed by a hospital test: one of these local Icelanders who had approached me (probably the one who said he was a big fan, as he was much closer to me than the "[F---] you" guy) had dropped drugs into my drink. I wasn't and am not on any other medication, and so there wasn't any other explanation of how these things had gotten into my bloodstream.

    For several days thereafter I was ill, but I did get to Reykjavik's police station and gave them a bigger case than they have seen in good awhile. The police official with whom I spoke took immediate steps to identify and locate the principal suspects and obtain the restaurant's surveillance video.

    Iceland is a small country. Everyone knows everyone else. And so as it happened, I was quickly able to discover the identity, phone number, and Facebook page of the primary suspect, the young man who claimed he was a "big fan." I don't intend to call him. Icelandic police will be contacting him soon enough, if they haven't done so already.

    You can expect our American mainstream media to completely ignore this horrifying tale of an attempted political assassination.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/05/antijihad_crusader_robert_spencer_poisoned_in_iceland.html

    ReplyDelete
  24. National Security Adviser McMaster is blabbering along about 'a perverted version of Islam'....fuck it, it's hopeless, nothing ever changes.

    I'm about ready to go Coulter....

    ReplyDelete
  25. Preakness this weekend !

    2017 Preakness Stakes Odds

    HORSE POST* ODDS
    Always Dreaming -- 4/5
    Classic Empire -- 3/1
    Gunnevera -- 8/1
    Looking at Lee -- 10/1
    Hence -- 15/1
    Conquest Mo Money -- 15/1
    Lancaster Bomber -- 18/1
    Cloud Computing -- 20/1
    Multiplier -- 20/1
    Senior Investment -- 25/1
    Term of Art -- 40/1
    *post positions will be revealed Wednesday, 5 p.m. ET

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now we're friends, Quirk, you want to fly in and watch the Preakness with us at The Coeur d'Alene Casino ?

      You could stay at Sun Meadow, and check it out.

      Here is a property for sale there -

      http://www.sunmeadow.org/Properties4sale.htm

      It's a family oriented nudist resort, Quirk-O, you could spend Christmas and other holidays with the extended family at Sun Meadow, live there yourself year round.

      You might learn to love the place and leave the evil ways of Greater Detroit behind you....



      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. .

      Visiting Idaho is a little too dangerous a place for me to be visiting at my age. Armed militias, sovereign citizens, wanky old 'America firsters,' raging packs of wolves, no, I don't think so.

      .

      Delete
    4. It's the survival of the fittest out here, for certain.

      That's why I've prospered.

      I think you'd fit right in, too.

      Think it over, maybe some other time.

      Delete
  26. .

    Saw McMaster's presser. Though his story shifted somewhat from last night, he still merely talked around the issues raised by the WaPo story. And he said (not unsurprisingly) that Trump hadn't been formally briefed on the specific info he shared with the Russians indicating that Trump's indiscretion (my word, McMaster says everything is 'fully appropriate') was more a matter of Trump's overall cluelessness rather than purposeful intent.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  27. .

    Trump met with Erdogan and then had a very brief press conference.

    He didn't offer anything new on the Russian meeting brouhaha.

    Erdogan complimented Trump on his 'legendary' election win. Trump threw Erdogan a bone in saying we are glad to be teamed with Turkey in fighting terrorism from groups like ISIS and the PKK.

    Since Erdogan considers the Syrian Kurds group YPG the same as the PKK and the US is supplying the YPG with arms it would be interesting to here what they had to say about it in their meeting.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  28. .

    From Doug's other favorite news outlet...

    Israel Was Source of Secret Intelligence That Trump Gave to Russians, Officials Say


    WASHINGTON — The classified intelligence that President Trump disclosed in a meeting last week with Russian officials at the White House was provided by Israel, according to a current and a former American official familiar with how the United States obtained the information. The revelation adds a potential diplomatic complication to the episode.

    Israel is one of the United States’ most important allies and a major intelligence collector in the Middle East. The revelation that Mr. Trump boasted about some of Israel’s most sensitive information to the Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries. It also raises the possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russia’s close ally and Israel’s main threat in the Middle East.

    Israeli officials would not confirm that they were the source of the information that Mr. Trump shared. In a statement emailed to The New York Times, Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, reaffirmed that the two countries would maintain a close counterterrorism relationship.

    “Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump,” Mr. Dermer said.
    In the meeting with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister, Mr. Trump disclosed intelligence about an Islamic State terrorist plot. At least some of the details that the United States has about the plot came from the Israelis, the officials said.

    The officials, who were not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Israel previously had urged the United States to be careful about the handling of the intelligence that Mr. Trump discussed...


    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Israeilis have great intelligence services.

      They've been on to The Laptop Threat for decades.

      It's why I was always fly El Al.

      Plus, their is no fighting in the aisles, AND I've never been bumped from a flight.

      Delete
  29. Interesting to see that Deuce still stands behind his man Trump!

    ReplyDelete