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."

Friday, November 03, 2017

Now the Fun Begins in Syria

What will happen in Syria following IS defeats?


A soldier from the Syrian government forces flashes the 'V' for victory sign in the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor during an operation against Islamic State (IS) group jihadistsGetty Images


Civil wars that spread devastation and suffering across a whole country have no real victors. But one war in Syria - that against the Islamic State (IS) group's so-called caliphate - is well on the way to being won. 

Earlier this week IS's last urban bastion in eastern Syria, Deir al-Zour, hard up against the Iraqi border, fell to Assad government forces. IS will remain in some form or another as an insurgency and source of ideological inspiration but as a territorial entity or physical caliphate, it is finished. 

But what of Syria's other war, the uprising against the Assad regime and its efforts - aided by Iran and Russia - to crush the opposition? 

The current situation on the ground means that forces from the above countries will be in close proximity to United States troops, who are supporting some of the anti-Assad groups.

Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and professor at Oklahoma University, summed it up in simple terms. "Assad has won the Syria war militarily," he told me. "He has defeated the original uprising or revolution. The rebel groups that remain have been pushed to the margins of Syria. 

"The international community has all but abandoned them as a lost cause. The rebel militias," he argues, "still have some teeth in defence, but cannot mount a credible offensive against Assad's military." 

Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, and another close watcher of Syria, has a slightly more cautious assessment. "President Assad," he notes, "sits more comfortably in Damascus than at any time since 2011."


2017 

Area controlled by Islamic State group at the end of October 2017

2015 

Area controlled by Islamic State group in January 2015
But having said that, he argues that "it would be inaccurate to suggest Assad had won the war. He's simply avoided losing it."

"The Assad regime has a stated intent to recapture every inch of Syria. If that goal is to ever be met, we're talking years at least," he explained.

But the crucial take-away from all this is that Syria is entering a new phase of conflict. The territorial defeat of IS, says Charles Lister, "will throw an awful lot of potential sources of hostility up into the air and nobody really knows right now how they'll land".

What is emerging is a new strategic map with Syria divided into different zones: One controlled by the Assad regime (with the support of Russia and Iran), another controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (an amalgam of Kurdish, Arab and other groups supported by the US), and others run by various elements of the Syrian opposition, backed to varying degrees by Turkey and Jordan.
Having helped Assad restore his control over a significant part of the Syrian population, Moscow has also manoeuvred itself into holding the best cards in the putative diplomatic end-game. 

As Joshua Landis told me, the Astana peace process, led by the Russians, "is the only one worth anything at the moment. 

"The Geneva process, led by the US," he notes, "has been about grandstanding and sticking to talking points that no longer have any relevance on the ground, such as demanding that Assad step aside and that democratic elections be held in Syria. Everyone knows this will not happen."

With the demise of IS, Syria's future will continue to be determined by a variety of external players, fighting out their own strategic battles and seeking local advantage. 

The four key actors are the US, Russia, Turkey and Iran.
  • The United States 

Western special forces, supporting the US-backed Kurdish-Arab forces, deploy on the frontline, one kilometre from the Syrian town of Ain Issa, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Raqa, on November 6, 2016 as they launched an offensive on the Islamic State group's de facto Syrian capitalGetty Images
Special forces from Western countries, including the US, have supported Kurdish-Arab forces in Syria

Its initial half-hearted efforts to galvanise a democratic opposition to defeat the Syrian regime failed dramatically. Its focus has largely been on the defeat of the IS caliphate. 

But now, Joshua Landis says, Washington must make a decision: "Will it stay in Northern Syria to defend the gains of the Syrian Democratic Forces that it has armed, trained and propelled to victory in Raqqa and the region north of the Euphrates River?"

The difficulty, as Charles Lister told me, is that "beyond fighting IS, it is sadly very hard to determine whether the US really has a Syria policy." 

And he says that what policy there is is full of contradictions. For example, Washington continues to say Assad must leave and that his days are numbered, and yet the US has ceased all support to anyone opposed to Assad.
  • Turkey 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoganGetty Images
Turkish President Erdogan's main concern is with the Kurds

If US policy could be said to be in a mess, so too could that of Turkey.
Ankara's goal, says Joshua Landis, is to retrench. "It seriously overreached in Syria," he told me, "almost to the point of destabilising Turkey."

He believes that President Erdogan "must make sure that the Kurdish question in Turkey does not lurch toward civil war. He will increasingly normalise relations with Assad in order to contain the independence of Syria's Kurds." Turkish troops have moved a small way into northern Syria to achieve this goal. 

Indeed, after posing as a champion of the opposition against the Assad regime, Charles Lister says, that "at times, Turkey has directly betrayed the opposition groups it had stood by for so long, merely to secure a more favourable position against the Kurdish YPG, which it views as a terrorist organisation.
  • Iran

Iraqi PMF fighters on the Iraq-Syria border in Nineveh, Iraq in June 2017Getty Images
Shia militias, backed by Tehran, have played a prominent role in the campaign against IS

In backing the Assad regime (and offering significant support to the Shia-dominated government in Iraq) Tehran has had one clear goal - to secure its hegemony in the northern Middle East: the lands stretching from Lebanon through Syria and Iraq, all the way to Iran's own borders. 

"This," says Joshua Landis, "is the new security architecture that Iran has fought so vigorously for and it is within its reach today. This means that Iran can counter-balance Israel. It means that Iran can establish oil pipelines running to the Mediterranean coast, trade routes, highways, and pilgrimage routes." 
This, he says, means "Iran is no longer cut out of the Middle East."

And Tehran has troops to back up its position. Charles Lister notes that Iran "commands tens of thousands of Shia militiamen inside Syria, which gives Tehran more influence than any other actor, bar none."
  • Russia

Russian soldiers standing guard in a central street in Syria's eastern cityGetty Images
Russian troops have been on the ground in Syria

Russia, after Iran, is the other great winner from the Syrian conflict, reviving its role in the region, securing important military bases, and making itself a key diplomatic player. 

It wants to "solve" Syria on its terms and with its favoured actors ending up the victors and it seems to be well on the way to achieving this goal.

But the growing proximity of Russian and Iranian-backed pro-regime forces and those backed by the US raises the possibility of some dangerous encounters. The US and Russia can agree on the need to defeat IS but on little else. Moscow's "side" has the military and diplomatic advantage on the ground. 

Will the US seek to bolster its position in Syria, perhaps as part of a broader policy to "roll back" Iranian influence, as US conservatives are hoping? This may be easier said than done and might require many more resources and boots-on-the-ground than the Trump administration is prepared to put in harm's way.

90 comments:


  1. Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor Guardian

    Friday 3 November 2017 08.58 EDT Last modified on Friday 3 November 2017 09.14 EDT
    Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he will not allow Iran to take control inside Syria with any sustained strategic presence such as retaining militias, airbases close to Israel or access to sea ports.

    He claimed in a speech at Chatham House in London on Friday that “Iran had come into the Syrian war to Lebanon-ise Syria economically and militarily”.

    “They want to leave their army, their airbases and fighter aircraft within seconds of Israel and we are not going to let that happen. We do not say that lightly. We mean what we say and we back it with action.”

    Israel has already bombed what it regards as Hezbollah bases inside Syria in the belief arms were being smuggled in that may pose a threat to Israel. It was reported on Wednesday that Israeli jets targeted a weapons depot situated in rural areas around Hisya, south of the Syrian city of Homs.

    But Netanyahu’s latest, more comprehensive message about Iranian intentions in Syria suggest Israel is prepared to set wider red lines and prepare for a deeper confrontation with Iran to ensure it is not a beneficiary of any end to the civil war in Syria.

    Iran, he said, citing the veteran American diplomat Henry Kissinger, “is a cause not a country”. He said it “was devouring one nation after another either directly or by proxy” and, in Syria, had imported tens of thousands of shia militia fighters.

    He said a “dramatic shift” in Israeli-Arab relations was under way, leading to an understanding with moderate authoritarian states opposed to Iran. “The good guys are getting together with Israel in a new way, forming an effective alliance to counter the aggression of Iran. It has a great promise of peace,” he said.

    “It used to be said if you make peace with the Palestinians you make peace with the rest of the Arab world. It may as well be that if you make peace with the Arab world you make peace with the Palestinians.”

    He claimed attitudes to Israel were mellowing not just among the elites in the Arab world, but across Arab social media.

    Speaking in the midst of the commemoration of the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, Netanyahu also welcomed the Trump administration’s approach to seeking peace between Israeli and the Palestinians, but hinted at his doubts about the US team, saying: “To think out of the box, you have to know the box.”

    He also suggested strict limits on any sovereignty for a future Palestinian state saying: “I think it is time we reassess the model of sovereignty and whether that is applicable everywhere in the world.”

    ReplyDelete
  2. Turkey is reinforcing the armored columns it started deploying last month in the northern Syrian province of Idlib, the stronghold of an increasingly fractious al-Qaida-linked group, in what analysts describe as a phased incursion.

    The campaign to pacify Idlib, which has been coordinated with Russia, has been accompanied by a string of assassinations of jihadist commanders who have been unwilling to collaborate with Ankara, according to analysts and Syrian rebel commanders. Other jihadist commanders, eager to avoid an all-out fight with the Turks, have been negotiating both with Turkey and Russia.

    Seven Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) commanders have been slain in apparently targeted killings in recent days — the latest being Monday when a commander by the name of Abu Ali Dumar was killed near the town of Ma'arat al-Nu'man.

    Turkish officials deny involvement in the killings and no group has claimed responsibility.

    An additional column of Turkish soldiers, along with tanks and armored personnel carriers, crossed the Turkey-Syria border near Iskenderun on Thursday.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The ISIS fight is nearly over, military leaders say. Is the United States ready to lead what happens next?

    1) How long will Washington back Syrian rebel fighters?

    Will the U.S. stay engaged with its Syrian Kurdish and Arab allies who fought and lost brothers- and sisters-in-arms to liberate Raqqa? What will America supply? Guns? Money? Legitimacy?

    Last week, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford convened a second meeting of roughly 75 of his foreign counterparts: defense chiefs who are combining their efforts to fight violent extremism. “The key takeaway is we realize that the most effective action against these groups is local action,” Dunford said. “And that’s what we spoke about today, is enabling these local coalitions to deal with the challenge.”

    U.S. special operations forces on the ground in Syria say they want to keep supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, they have trained and fought alongside. Indeed, they see these forces as a bulwark against rising Iranian influence and a secular force in the region. Now, Raqqa has fallen, and the Syrian rebels have won the respect and praise of U.S. leaders of the ISIS war, who crowed last week about how well they performed but also how the fight against extremism is expected to continue in Syria and beyond.

    “I was in Syria last week,” said Brett McGurk, special envoy to the ISIS war, following the defense chiefs’ meeting at Fort Belvoir, in Virginia. “You can really get a sense of the momentum that’s really building now. Our training classes for the forces we’re training are all full. We have more recruits than we can train. So, it’s really kind of taken on a really positive momentum, a snowball effect, so we feel pretty good about that.”

    But what comes next, in Syria?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. False story. We have interfered in Syria since the start of the rebellion in 2011. Whether providing “non-lethal” aid or supplying night optics or turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s and Qatar’s reviving and sponsoring al Qaeda or turning a blind eye to Turkey’s permission of arms, money, and foreign jihadists that help create ISIS or encouraging Jordan to become a rebel base or ignoring Israel’s help to terrorists, we have been knee deep in Syria.

      The SDF were not the first group we trained to fight “ISIS.” The support now being talked about is contradictory to what we claim.

      Damascus is the legitimate government. It has the only right to permit non-Syrian actors on their land. The cabal of Mideastern states alongside NATO nations have done everything possible to destroy the country. If Iran or Hezbollah or Russia are there, it is at the request of the legitimate government. Our presence and those of our “friends” are not. We are illegally there.

      The concern about the Kurds is also false. Iraq has just completed pushing the Kurds out of territory they held—AND WE DID NOTHING. This false concern about Kurds in Syria is a lame excuse to remain in Syria and continue undermining the government.

      The false tale of fighting terrorism omits that the biggest supporters of jihadism is not Iran, but Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Without their money and Turkey’s permission to act as a pipeline of guns and Muslim radicals and OUR COMPLICITY with all this, there would NEVER have an al Qaeda branch in Syria and ISIS would NEVER have taken root in Syria.

      If DC’s policymakers were really concerned about getting “local” actors to take on radical Islam, we would have backed the Syrian government. But we did not.

      Everything Americans were sold on and told about the war on terror in the wake of 9/11 is undercut by our collaboration with those nations that gave a renewal to al Qaeda in order to destroy a stable government in order to continue a war with Iran.

      The ignorance displayed by both civilian and military decision-makers about Syria is astounding. May be someone should a basic book like that of Patrick Seale. We just might learn something.

      If there is so much concern about the rebels, then how about this. Let all those rebels “yearning for freedom” come to the United States? NO. Well how about having them find homes in “democratic” Saudi Arabia, or Qatar, or Kuwait, or the UAE, or Oman, or Jordan, or Egypt? NO. Well how about Israel accepting these rebels into their land as they did their Lebanese surrogates? NO.

      The reason has little to do with freedom and a great deal with the fact these elements are terrorists.


      WE DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHO RULES IN DAMASCUS. We have done enough damage in the Middle East. Our presence and our allies and our support for rebels have magnified the death and destruction in Syria. Syria has the right to reclaim all of its borders and to try to recreate some sense of unity without unwanted outside interference.

      Delete
    2. .

      “I was in Syria last week,” said Brett McGurk, special envoy to the ISIS war, following the defense chiefs’ meeting at Fort Belvoir, in Virginia. “You can really get a sense of the momentum that’s really building now. Our training classes for the forces we’re training are all full.


      I suspect Baghdad was saying the same about their forces just before ISIS arrived. It's probably pretty easy to get people sign up for a steady paycheck when there's not much chance of being killed.

      .

      Delete
  4. BOTTOM LINE

    The U.S. has no business being in Syria. Never did, but I feel another disaster in the making. Netanyahu thinks he has a sucker in Trump. He is likely correct. Sad.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What this country needs is more Bowie Bergdahls to just walk away from it all.

    ReplyDelete
  6. What we should do is support the Kurds as best we can without our ground troops becoming deeply involved.

    It's very doubtful whether we will really support the Kurds though.

    But we should.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't see The Donald getting much involved in Syria.

      He has already declined the opportunity.

      Trump says U.S. not going to get involved in Syria
      World Apr 12, 2017 9:03 AM EDT

      WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is appearing to rule out deeper American military intervention in Syria beyond the airstrikes he ordered based on U.S. evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad attacked civilians with chemical weapons.

      “Are we going to get involved with Syria? No,” Trump told Fox Business News in an interview that aired Wednesday....


      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/trump-says-involved-syria

      What I hope is some progress concerning North Korea emerges from his trip to Asia.

      Delete
  7. The big Antifa uprising is supposed to start tomorrow in 20 USA cities, I read.

    I hope it doesn't interrupt any sports broadcasting.

    ReplyDelete
  8. .

    Answer me this, grasshopper. Has there ever been a conglomeration of double-dealing, duplicitous, mendacious regimes as those that now populate the ME? The only thing you can be sure of about those states is that anyone who is your ally today will be your enemy tomorrow. The golden rule there is, 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend...until he is not.'

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The answer is yes, locust.

      The China of the long time of the warring states comes to mind.

      Some eras of European history might qualify.

      Perhaps the India of the Mahabharata.

      The Aztecs, the Incas and their neighbors ?

      Indian tribal wars in the USA ?

      In your contemporary area, how about the gang wars of Detroit, etc ?

      How about Poland grasping something of its little neighbor to the south immediately before being carved up itself between the Germans and the Russians of which Churchill wrote ?

      Things have been the real shits in much of human history.

      Admittedly the muzz are in the running for 1st place as to double-dealing, duplicitous, mendacious regimes.

      Delete
    2. I don't know what your question is trying to point out. The Donald doesn't seem about to get involved in Syria in any big way, and he doesn't look to be sticking up for the Kurds. His attitude seems somewhat similar to your own.....fuck it, it isn't worth it.

      Delete
    3. Read Toynbee's A Study of History if you need more examples.

      Delete
    4. It's only twelve volumes and you can read it over the weekend.

      Or, if you are a lazy ass, as everyone here suspects, you having been in the advertising game, you can get D.C. Somervell's abridgement, in two volumes.

      This would reduce your reading time something like, say, 80%, a good move for those of your attention span.

      Delete
    5. You can get this for $4.95 used from Amazon.

      Delete
    6. I was reading about Pervez Musharraf last night.

      Pakistan qualifies for consideration.

      It's about the muzz, but not the muzz from the Middle East.

      Your formulation might have been better if you had just said:

      Has there ever been a conglomeration of double-dealing, duplicitous, mendacious regimes as those that now populate the world's muzz areas ?


      Delete
  9. .

    Fight FISA 702 Reauthorization

    ...How many Americans are affected by the law? We literally have no idea – because the government refuses to disclose it. But we do know it’s likely unconstitutional. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have been challenging the constitutionality of the law for years, but so far the government has thrown up so many procedural and catch-22 secrecy hurdles, there’s never been a definitive ruling on the law...

    Trump Pushes to Expand and Make Permanent Egregious Surveillance Law

    ...Right now, there are so many competing bills in the Section 702 reauthorization fight that it’s hard to keep track. First, there’s the Senate intelligence committee’s proposal to reauthorize the law in full and forever – which they marked up and passed out of committee in complete secrecy last week. Not only does it codify the existing rules as they are now, but it would even allow the government to expand some of its capabilities.

    Then there’s the “USA Liberty Act”, which pretends to reform the law, but leaves so many loopholes it’s just barely a step up from what exists now.

    And finally, there is the gold standard: the “USA Rights Act”, written by Democrat Ron Wyden, Republican Rand Paul – and co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren – which provides several robust reforms while keeping the least controversial parts of the program intact.

    Wyden and Paul have been asking for years for the NSA to give Congress and the public just a general estimate of the amount of Americans who have their communications swept up under this law. The NSA first steadfastly refused for years. Then, during the waning days of the Obama administration, they finally said they would give an estimate. And the Trump administration has now backtracked on that promise.

    Think about it: the Trump administration is demanding that Congress reapprove an expansive spying law but won’t be upfront about how many Americans it even affects.

    The USA Rights Act would force the government to release this information. It would also force the government to get a warrant before conducting what are known as “backdoor” searches, where the FBI goes into the NSA’s vast Section 702 databases and mines the data for all sorts of other crimes that aren’t related to national security. In addition, it provides several other commonsense oversight and transparency provisions while not hampering national security.
    This is the bill everyone should support. The EFF has an easy-to-use tool that allows you to contact your member of Congress to make your voice heard. I would implore everyone, no matter what state you live in, to do so immediately.

    Here’s why it’s important that you do it now: the last time Congress had to reauthorize Section 702, they waited until the very last possible moment – just a few days before the law was to expire – and used the holiday season, when most people were with their families on vacation and phone calls to the Capitol would be at a minimum, as cover. Many members of Congress then lamented the lack of time to work on reforms. They had known about the deadline for years, and there had been sensible, modest reforms on the table for months – but they still voted against them.

    You can expect surveillance defenders in Congress to do the same this year. If the Trump administration gets its way, the NSA will have expanded surveillance powers extended indefinitely, so the time to act is now.



    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is the bill everyone should support. The EFF has an easy-to-use tool that allows you to contact your member of Congress to make your voice heard. I would implore everyone, no matter what state you live in, to do so immediately.

      Have you done so ?

      Delete
    2. Does sound like a good bill. I will put it on my to-do list for next week.

      Delete
  10. From an intelligent point of view

    "The Cosmos is our school, The Intellect our Faculty, Truth the first Principal"

    onecosmos.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  11. Forgot about ol' Joshua:

    http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sam Farah is full of shit.

      http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/will-usher-middle-east-era-peace-sam-farah/

      Delete
  12. I had to laugh or cry, I forget which, listening to a report that the NSA needs a facial recognition system that monitors everyone, everywhere as they drive.

    Look at the face of our latest, culturally enriching, diversity strengthening, Home Depot, truck renting, mass killer. You don't need a new trillion dollar, 300,000 federal employee boondoggle to see this son of a goat fucker doesn't belong here.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Big Kahuna in Hawaii:

    http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/36742113/presidents-visit-to-spur-road-closures-during-afternoon-rush-hour

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks Quirk for your kind words on the banner restoration project as we begin our 12th year. I continue to ask myself: Why?
    :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That quote by George really is a knee slapper !

      12th year - Why ?

      You have been 'called' and have answered the call.

      And we all appreciate it.

      Thank you.

      Delete
  15. Teen Vogue Shutters Shortly After Publishing 'Guide to Anal Sex' for Teen Girls

    Teen Vogue is caput. Conde Nast announced today that Teen Vogue is getting the axe.

    The New York-based publisher, which has instilled a hiring freeze, will slash about 80 jobs, equal to a decrease of about 2.5 percent of its 3,000-person workforce. Budgets across departments are also expected to get a haircut, with the worst-performing divisions and magazines getting cuts of up to 20 percent. As part of that mandate, Condé is reducing the frequencies of most of its titles and will shutter Teen Vogue in print.
    There's no mention of the controversy that most likely caused the huge dip in sales: the pushing of explicit and dangerous sexual practices on children. The Activist Mommy led a boycott of Teen Vogue that seems to have done the trick. Good riddance. The last few months have brought us these scintillating headlines from Teen Vogue.

    "The Beginners Guide to Healing Crystals"
    "10 Couples Get Real About Painful Sex"

    "Chrissy Teigen's Nipple Showed on Snapchat and She's Not Sorry"

    "The Trump Administration is Trying to Control Women's Bodies and We Can't Let Them"

    Not only is Teen Vogue pushing disgusting sexual practices on teens but they are pushing their stupid politics on them too.

    Since the presidential election, Teen Vogue has emerged as a critical voice for Gen-Z and Millennials to rail against the Trump administration, as well as a platform to highlight diversity issues.


    https://pjmedia.com/parenting/teen-vogue-shutters-shortly-publishing-guide-anal-sex-teen-girls/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ALTA VISTA, Iowa (AP) - Authorities have charged an Iowa couple with murder in the death of their 4-month-old son, whose maggot-infested body was found in a baby swing in the family's home.

      Twenty-year-old Cheyanne Harris and 28-year-old Zachary Koehn (kayn) were arrested Wednesday on charges of child endangerment and first-degree murder in the death of their son, Sterling Koehn. Court records don't list attorneys for either of them. Their preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 2.

      Authorities say in court records that deputies and medics called to the couple's Alta Vista apartment on Aug. 30 found Sterling dead in the swing. A medical examiner found maggots in his clothing and skin that indicated he hadn't had a diaper change, bath or been removed from the seat in over a week.

      Alta Vista is about 125 miles (200 kilometers) northeast of Des Moines.

      http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/36690722/parents-charged-in-death-of-infant-found-rotting-in-swing

      Delete
  16. Today is November 4th, Antifa Revolution Day - put things in perspective -

    A ‘Marxist’ explanation for the Trump revolution
    By F.H. Buckley November 3, 2017 | 7:33pm

    A ‘Marxist’ explanation for the Trump revolution
    Getty Images

    ‘Red October” was the name for a great Cold War movie. It’s also the name for the Communist takeover of the Russian government on Oct. 26, 1917, when Bolshevik forces stormed the Winter Palace in today’s St. Petersburg. That’s according to the old-style calendar; in the new calendar, the 100th anniversary of the Revolution is Tuesday, Nov. 7.

    We had our own revolution, a year ago. Which makes it a good time to compare Red October with red-state America, the Trump revolution in American politics.

    I got a heads up about the comparison at a 2015 dinner, when I heard a congressman complain about the members of the House’s rambunctious and very conservative Freedom Caucus. “Right-wing Marxists,” he called them. Aha, I thought. That’s me.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m as aware as anyone of all the misery communism gave us, the murders, the twisted lives. I don’t even buy the idiotic notion that this was justified by good intentions. But in one respect Karl Marx understood something about America, something that explains the Trump revolution.

    With all the horrors of communism, with all the misery it unleashed on the world, Karl Marx still has something to tell us. Something about the problem he had with America. It didn’t fit with his theories. He said society progressed in stages: first feudalism, then capitalism, then socialism. But in 1852, when he wrote “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,” the most advanced capitalist society was that of the United States, and it was nowhere near socialism.

    That was a bit of an embarrassment for Marx, but then he had an explanation for what he might have called American Exceptionalism.

    There were social classes in America but no class-consciousness because the country was so mobile. Throughout the 20th century, this was the answer sociologists gave to “why it didn’t happen here.” Income mobility explained why we didn’t have a Labor Party as Britain did, why socialism never took hold in the United States.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But now we’ve become immobile. We’ve grown an aristocracy, a class of smug bicoastal liberals who look down at the deplorables who voted for Trump, who can’t even accept that Trump won the election. And in last year’s election we saw what Marx would have predicted, a revolution of the underclass. There was no tsar, but there was a tsarina who thought herself entitled to the presidency.

      The revolution sought to restore the American Dream, the idea of a country where all may rise, where our kids will have it better than we did. Today the dream has been betrayed, and we all know it. We also know that what would make us mobile again is a good K-12 education system, sensible immigration laws, an end to the barriers erected by the regulatory state, all the things elite liberals oppose.

      The election was thus a struggle between one set of voters with a revolutionary consciousness against a counter-revolutionary class that denied that any change was possible. It was like 1917, with the difference that now it’s the Left that is counter-revolutionary, that wants to keep things as they are — unjust, unequal.

      And that’s why, of the different kinds of Marxism, mine is right-wing. It wasn’t free-market capitalism that made us immobile. Instead, it was all the barriers to advancement that liberals created, through statutes and regulations that place a stumbling block in the path of those who seek to rise. Today it’s the socialist who is objectively counter-revolutionary, for there’s nothing more truly revolutionary than a capitalist system that opens its doors to talent and industry, that erases unearned privileges.

      There’s another sense in which I’m a Marxist. I see public policy questions through an economic prism. I don’t deny that culture matters, children need two-parent families, drug dependency holds people back. I simply don’t think the state can do much to change things, except make it worse, and believe that David Hume wasn’t far off when he observed, “all plans of government, which suppose great reformation in the manners of mankind, are plainly imaginary.”

      Today, the only moral rearmament crusade we need from the government is one that gives people jobs. After that we can take care of ourselves.

      F.H. Buckley teaches at Scalia Law School. His next book, “The Republic of Virtue,” is due out in December.

      http://nypost.com/2017/11/03/a-marxist-explanation-for-the-trump-revolution/

      Delete
  17. Video of munching Maduro included -

    November 3, 2017

    Venezuela's dictator Maduro chomps down an empanada during a long, windy TV speech

    By Monica Showalter

    Venezuela's people may be starving, but that isn't stopping the country's dictator, Nicolás Maduro, from eating in front of them.

    Thursday, Maduro was in the midst of a long-winded national speech known in Venezuela as a "cadena." He paused, pulled a sandwich-like object out of his desk, and took a bite, chomped it down, and then continued his speech. He was eating what looked like a Venezuelan arepa, a tasty cornmeal-based snack with probably some meat inside, although the Latin press accounts identified it as an empanada, a dish more commonly associated with Argentina and Chile.


    VIDEO


    It comes at a time when the Venezuelan daily minimum wage, just raised for the sixth time this year, won't even cover the cost of an empanada, let alone an arepa, given that inflation is running at close to 3,000% and Maduro has just introduced the new 100,000 bolivar note.

    Efecto Concuya, via Google Translate, reports:

    For the sixth time in 2017, President Nicolás Maduro announced a new increase in the minimum wage that placed the daily salary at Bs. 5,916, but the number of products that can be purchased with that amount is increasingly reduced.

    In a sale of breakfast and lunch located in the municipality of Libertador, a pie costs 5,500 bolivars and a filled arepa exceeds Bs. 12,000. There was Rodolfo Gutiérrez, who bought two empanadas and a malt for an amount of Bs. 15,500. That is, someone who only receives a minimum wage, nothing else could pay for a pie.

    In a restaurant located in El Cafetal, municipality Baruta, it is impossible to even buy a pie, because it has a price of Bs. 7,500. A large coffee is also inaccessible since it is sold above 8,000 bolivars.

    What it shows is the Venezuelan elites' complete indifference to the suffering of Venezuela's people. They mark their superiority over the masses – not by flashing Rolexes anymore, but by eating in front of them.

    And don't think such a message didn't get out. Cadenas in Venezuela break into every TV set, every radio show, every program without warning, no matter what's playing. You don't have the option to flip the channel, because the cadena is on every channel.

    And cadenas can last for hours. The logic was that the president's announcements were so crucial, so important, and so necessary that every other broadcast could just be broken into, like the emergency broadcast system. The late, unlamented Hugo Chávez rapidly put paid to that logic, discussing his airplane rides, his diarrhea, his weight problems, his woman problems, all in addition to his ravings on Meester Boosh.

    Maduro, a former bus driver, is colossally stupid and may have been doing just what came naturally to his uncouth self in taking the bite out of the empanada, having no sense of propriety or sense of the office he holds. But the message sent to Venezuelans is clear enough: the elites eat. The poor don't.



    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/11/venezuelas_dictator_maduro_takes_a_bite_out_of_an_empanada_during_a_long_windy_tv_speech.html#ixzz4xT9TjrKd

    ReplyDelete
  18. Meanwhile, Catalan President Puigdemont is hiding out in Belgium, a warrant for his arrest having been issued by Madrid.

    I find myself pleased, whatever the reason, that he was able to get out of Spain.

    He, like Quirk, can always avoid arrest by hiding out at the farm, if need be.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You would be pleased by a man that ran from his responsibilities.
      Who left others holding the bag while he ran from what he started
      A moral coward.



      Delete

    2. Guess, from what you wrote, "Draft Dodger" Peterson, about allowing Puigdemont to live on the farm ...

      You will sponsor his visa and Green Card application?

      Delete
  19. You ought, at the very least, to be living in prison, War Criminal.

    Now, kindly do not interact with me again.

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Even when I interact with you and egg you on.

      .

      Delete


    2. .


      You are an angel of the highest elevation, Quirk.


      .

      Delete

    3. No Respite, "Draft Dodger" Peterson



      Stand Tall

      Delete


    4. .


      Even though it has long been speculated here you may have some undiagnosed brain damage.


      .

      Delete
    5. It's what you do, War Criminal.

      Pester people.

      Whit
      Trish
      WiO
      etc

      It may have been why your 'wife' fled from you immediately after 'dropping the kid' in the USA.

      Delete
  20. .

    Trump - An Angel of the Highest Elevation


    My wife likes the YouTube channel and while I'm sitting here having a little lunch in the background I hear the this story about a 71 year old Catholic priest in Boston that was brought back to life after being declared clinically dead for 48 minutes. I guess paramedics hooked him up to some new technology Lucus 2, a machine that kept blood flowing to his brain until blocked arteries to his heart were surgically opened.

    Doctors feared he might have suffered some measure of brain damage after being on the machine for so long. However, he seems to be recovering normally.

    Father O'Neil said that while he was out he met God who he described as a soft, welcoming, and comforting light this "despite being a woman". Father O'Neil also said that while there it was revealed to him that Donald Trump is actually an angel of the highest elevation sent to save the world.

    Father O'Neil, who looks more like 91 than 71, says he wants to resume his parish work and also spread the word of God, the Son, and Holy Ghost to Christians around the world. Officials in the diocese are arguing he should probably think about retiring.

    In conclusion, let me repeat, Doctors feared he might have suffered some measure of brain damage after being on the machine for so long.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. If the fellow had suffered brain damage he would have come back saying Hillary is an angel of the highest order sent to save the world, not The Donald.

      That is obvious to all.

      He is quite sane.

      Delete
  21. FBI turns over new Clinton investigation documents to Congress
    BY JOHN SOLOMON - 11/04/17 11:36 AM EDT 739


    The FBI has begun turning over to Senate investigators hundreds of pages of memos regarding the bureau's probe into Hillary Clinton's private email server, sources told The Hill.

    The sources said the Justice Department notified the Senate Judiciary Committee late Friday and the FBI began transmitting memos soon after to assist Congress in its review of former Director James Comey's handling of the Clinton email case.


    The memos detail how and when the bureau's leadership declined to pursue criminal charges against Clinton for transmitting classified information on her private email server as secretary of State, an investigation that has remained controversial since the 2016 presidential campaigns.

    FBI officials declined to comment. "We don't have any information for you," spokeswoman Carol Cratty told The Hill.

    The Senate committee has been seeking the memos for some time as it investigates whether Comey chose to absolve Clinton of criminal liability before the election-year probe was complete and before she was even interviewed. Comey ultimately concluded that while Clinton's handling of classified emails was careless, there was not enough evidence of intent to warrant criminal charges.

    Comey had announced in July 2016 that the FBI was declining to pursue charges against Clinton for what it called the careless transmission of classified documents on her private email server. The FBI then re-opened the email case in late October 2016, shocking the political world because it was so close to Election Day, after a new trove of emails was found on an associate's computer.

    Comey then announced a second time he did not plan to pursue criminal charges, a move that came just two days before Clinton lost to Trump in the election. The FBI's handling was roundly criticized by both Clinton and Trump, and was one of the reasons cited when Trump fired Comey as director earlier this year. Clinton has also blamed Comey in part for her loss in the election.

    The new documents being transmitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee are expected to shed light on how the FBI made those decisions, who was involved and whether the decision to clear Clinton was made before she was even interviewed by FBI agents in spring 2016.

    The release of the new documents comes as new FBI Director Christopher Wray attempts to build his own relationship with Congress amid multiple oversight investigations.

    The release also comes hours after new documents came to light in a federal lawsuit showing exactly when FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe recused himself from the Clinton email investigation, which was codenamed "Mid Year." McCabe was forced to step aside due to questions about a possible conflict of interest involving hundreds of thousands of dollars of money that flowed to his wife's political campaign from a Clinton ally.

    Those documents (below), released under a FOIA lawsuit to the conservative group Judicial Watch, show McCabe did not recuse himself from the long-running investigation until Nov. 1, 2016, just six days before the probe was officially ended and eight days before Donald Trump was elected president over Clinton....

    http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/358762-fbi-turns-over-new-clinton-investigation-documents-to-congress

    Ciao.

    Cheers to all except SCWC.

    ReplyDelete

  22. Former President George W. Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, both criticize President Trump in a new book to be released this month, with George W. Bush admitting that, despite Trump’s political affiliation, he’s worried “that I will be the last Republican president.”

    George H.W. Bush also calls Trump a “blowhard” in the book, “The Last Republicans,” by Mark K. Updegrove, which was previewed by The New York Times and CNN on Friday

    "I don't like him. I don't know much about him, but I know he's a blowhard. And I'm not too excited about him being a leader,” the senior Bush said, according to the author. He also commented on Trump’s “ego.”


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete

    2. Now pay attention, boobie, the exPresident will explain how a citizen does not vote for a candidate he cannot, does not support.

      George W. Bush said he left the top of his ballot blank and did not vote for Clinton because she has “bad judgment.”

      You need to understand, Farmer Fudd, that if you do not think that B. Obama would be a good President, do not vote for him.

      When your vote went to Mr McCain, you voted FOR Mr McCain.
      You endorsed Mr McCain.

      That is how personal responsibility for YOUR decisions works, in our electoral system, boobie

      Delete
    3. That is clearly ridiculous.

      In order to vote against a she devil or a he devil you don't need to find a perfect angel to vote for.....in order to defeat a she/he devil one should vote for the best person with a chance to defeat her, as long as that person is better than a devil.

      You voted, for instance, for a disfunctional dope smoker who couldn't find Aleppo on a map, clearly a truly irresponsible vote.

      Approximately 90% of the time you don't make any sense at all, and are a real pestering nasty, as well.

      What have you been smoking, or were you just born that way?

      Delete
    4. He was just born that way, Hank.

      Delete

    5. The multiple pathologies of "Draft Dodger" Peterson are, once again, exposed.

      It many regards .. It may just come down to a failure to take peraonal responsibility for his actions, or lack there of.

      Delete

  23. The United States conducted two separate airstrikes targeting ISIS militants in northeastern Somalia for the first time on Friday, US Africa Command said in a statement.

    While the results of the strikes are still being assessed, Africa Command said "several" terrorists were killed.
    A US official told CNN the strikes were carried out by an unmanned drone.

    "US forces will continue to use all authorized and appropriate measures to protect Americans and to disable terrorist threats,"
    Samantha Reho, a spokesperson for Africa Command said. That includes partnering with the African Union Mission in Somalia and Somali National Security Forces,

    "targeting terrorists, their training camps and safe havens throughout Somalia, the region and around the world."


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/03/politics/us-airstrikes-isis-somalia/index.html

      Delete

  24. GOP Tax Plan Puts Billions in Muni Market Savings at Risk


    State and local stakeholders were blindsided by an aspect of the tax bill that would eliminate tax-free financing for many large government projects.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-gop-republican-congress-trump-tax-reform-muni-market.html

      Delete

    2. ... tbe Republican tax plan released on Thursday contains a proposal that finance experts say would be devastating for governments trying to find money for economic development projects.

      The bill would eliminate all private activity bonds, which allow tax-exempt municipal bonds to be issued on behalf of a government for a project built and paid for by a private developer. Tax-exempt bonds fetch lower interest rates in the municipal market and therefore lower the overall cost of financing. The projects financed with this type of debt are typically things in the public interest, such as low-income housing, hospitals or airports.

      The proposal caught the infrastructure finance community completely off-guard.

      “It’s been a big surprise to the entire public finance community,” says Will Milford, a tax attorney at the firm Bryant Miller Olive. “For months, we’ve been hearing that munis were safe.”

      Milford added that targeting private activity bonds is especially confusing because those types of bonds are the “logical way” to stimulate private investment in infrastructure -- a hallmark of President Trump’s campaign. In fact, during his confirmation hearing, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin suggested that private activity bonds could be expanded.

      “It goes against everything we were hearing would be a focus,” Milford says.

      Delete
    3. .

      The key is getting 'something' passed on tax cuts, something that contains huge corporate tax cuts and doesn't cut deeply into any of the perks enjoyed by the wealthy. They will do what it takes, cooking the books, sticking it to the states, sticking it to the middle class, in order to get the reported cost to $1.5 trillion so that they can use the reconciliation process without which the plan hasn't got a chance of passing.

      We'll see more of this kind of stuff as the numbers keep shifting.

      .

      Delete
    4. Shifting ... That's an interesting term for it.


      “This bill puts us at risk of a housing recession, and we are gravely concerned about it,” said Granger MacDonald, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders. While current home-owners won’t lose their deduction for mortgage interest, MacDonald said there are 7 million homes now on the market over the $500,000 price point. “Those 7 million homes lose value. They can’t be sold,” he said. “That means the people moving into those homes can’t sell their homes, so their homes lose value, and the chain continues downward.”


      Delete
    5. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/have-republicans-abandoned-the-ownership-society/544955/

      Delete
  25. Without an Asst Sec of State for Africa ..

    Mr Trump better be on the phone ...

    Or the "Africa Command" better be mobilizing

    American woman, 25, jailed for calling 93-year-old African dictator a 'sick man,' faces 20 years in prison

    http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/11/04/american-journalist-accused-calling-mugabe-sick-man-to-stay-in-zimbabwe-jail.html

    ReplyDelete
  26. Muzzie News ServiceSat Nov 04, 04:20:00 PM EDT

    Saudi Arabia intercepts ballistic missile over capital

    By Tim Lister, Ammar Albadran, Hakim Al-Masmari and Eric Levenson, CNN
    Updated 4:13 PM ET, Sat November 4, 2017

    The Riyadh airport tweeted that it hadn't been affected by the attack.

    (CNN)Yemen's air force on Saturday targeted an airport in Saudi Arabia's capital with a ballistic missile, according to Yemen's Houthi-controlled Defense Ministry.

    But the missile was intercepted over northeast Riyadh, the Saudi Ministry of Defense said in a statement carried on government-backed Al-Arabiya television.


    Yemen's Defense Ministry said the missile attack "shook the Saudi capital" and the operation was successful. It said the attack was conducted using a Yemeni-made, long-range missile called the Burqan 2H.
    Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of states against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who toppled Yemen's internationally recognized government in 2015.

    The missile launch on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh was the first time the heart of the Saudi capital has been attacked and represents a major escalation of the ongoing war in the region.
    The Riyadh airport tweeted that it hadn't been affected.

    "Travelers across King Khalid international airport in Riyadh, we assure you that the movement is going on as normal and usual, and trips going according to time," the airport said in Twitter.

    "We previously warned that capitals of countries attacking Yemen will not be safe from our ballistic missiles," Houthi spokesman Mohammed AbdulSalam said. "Today's missile attack comes in response to Saudi killing innocent Yemeni civilians."

    A senior Yemeni air force official told CNN that the claims that Saudi Arabia intercepted the ballistic missile is false.

    "The Saudi regime cannot hide the heavy fires that was seen by thousands of Saudi nationals in the King Khalid Airport premises as result of the Yemeni missile," the official said.

    "This is not the end. Saudi cities will be a continuous target. We are entering a new phase," he said

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/04/middleeast/saudi-arabia-ballistic-missile/index.html

    ReplyDelete
  27. Where is Riyahd ?

    Where is Yemen ?

    What's a houthi ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. houthi ?

      A new Japanese dog food ?

      Like Alpo ?

      Delete
    2. Some kind of new Arabian hash I haven't tried yet ? Houthi Hash ?

      Delete
    3. Anybody got any ?

      Jack Hawkins, you got any ?

      Wanna share ?

      Delete
    4. By the way, Jack, your campaign contribution check bounced.

      Delete
  28. Sorry to interrupt:

    The FBI has begun turning over hundreds of pages of memos regarding its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server to Senate investigators, according to a new report.
    The Justice Department notified the Senate Judiciary Committee late Friday and began transmitting the memos soon after to aid in the committee’s review of former FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the Clinton case, according to The Hill.

    Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley revealed earlier this year that Comey drafted a statement exonerating Clinton before interviewing her and more than a dozen key witnesses.

    The memos reportedly detail how and when the bureau’s leadership decided not to pursue criminal charges against Clinton for transmitting classified information on her private email server.

    Comey concluded that although Clinton was careless, there was no criminal “intent.”

    Senate investigators are also interested in the role that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe played in the investigation. New documents on Friday revealed that McCabe recused himself from the Clinton investigation only about a week before the election.

    McCabe recused himself over a possible conflict of interest since hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Clinton ally had flowed to his wife’s political campaign.

    Before then, he had supervised the Clinton investigation for months, despite Clinton ally Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe donating nearly $700,000 to McCabe’s wife’s Virginia State senate campaign.

    McCabe provided resources to the case as assistant FBI director of the Washington Field Office and formally began supervising it in February 2016, when he became deputy director.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Drudge put up a story about the real Martin Luther King. I have an unimpeachable source and have something to add to that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am glad you interrupted.

      I was even getting bored with myself.

      I am going to check out Drudge.

      Delete
  30. Replies

    1. .


      All the politicians are dicks, and, like Ash, deserve a scary yet basically unharmful mugging.


      .

      Delete

    2. Back to your normal warped sense of reality, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson

      Delete
    3. Poor cathected Jack. Round and round he goes, unconsciously compelled, always the boring same.

      Delete
  31. Isn't this the guy that is finally allowing Saudi women to drive as long as they have a minder with them ? Maybe he has an English mistress who has influenced him.

    Sounds like this might be a step forward -

    In Shocking Purge, Saudi King Arrests Billionaire Prince Bin Talal, Dozens Of Others In Cabinet Crackdown

    Tyler Durden's picture
    by Tyler Durden
    Nov 4, 2017 5:42 PM
    1.2K

    In a shocking development, Saudi press Al Mayadeen reported late on Saturday that prominent billionaire, member of the royal Saudi family, and one of the biggest shareholders of Citi, News Corp. and Twitter - not to mention frequent CNBC guest - Al-Waleed bin Talal, along with ten senior princes, and some 38 ministers, has been arrested for corruption and money laundering charges on orders from the new anti-corruption committee headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, while Royal princes’ private planes have been grounded.



    Among those fired and/or arrested are the head of National Royal Guards, Miteb Bin Abdullah, the Minister of Economy and Planning, Adel Fakeih, and Admiral Abdullah bin Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Sultan, the Commander of the Saudi Naval Forces.


    View image on Twitter
    View image on Twitter
    حسن سجواني 🇦🇪 ✔@HSajwanization
    #BREAKING Several Princes & Saudi businessmen are arrested for #MoneyLaundering and #corruption charges in #KSA 🇸🇦https://sabq.org/Spn3jq
    1:32 PM - Nov 4, 2017
    3 3 Replies 113 113 Retweets 82 82 likes
    Twitter Ads info and privacy
    As the local press further adds, the supreme committee chaired by Crown Prince and billionaire stops "on charges of money laundering."

    RELATED VIDEO
    Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince: Three Things to Know
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    al-Waleed bin Talal is perhaps best known not only for his periodic CNBC appearances, but for his recurring on and off spats with president Trump:


    According to al Arabiya, among those sacked and/or arrested are Moteib Bin Abdullah, Minister of the National Guard, and Prince Khalid bin Ayyaf has been appointed as his replacement. A second Royal Order was issued to relieve Minister of Economy and Planning, Adel al-Faqieh, from his duties, and the appointment of Mohammed Al Tuwaijri as Minister of Economy and Planning.

    According to a Royal Decree issued by King Salman on Saturday the anti-corruption committee is chaired by the Crown Prince with the membership of: Chairman of the Monitoring and Investigation Commission, Chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Authority, Chief of the General Audit Bureau, Attorney General and Head of State Security.

    As Saudi analysts were quick to point out, the purge by the Saudi King means that King Abdallah’s last remnants (Riyad firmer gov. & head of Nat. Guard); media moguls; SAGIA & financial policy officials have been purged.

    As Bloomberg notes, changing the head of the National Guard, an institution that’s been controlled by the clan of the late King Abdullah, “is not like changing the minister of oil,” said Kamran Bokhari, a senior analyst with Geopolitical Futures and a senior fellow with the Center for Global Policy. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this leads to greater fissures within the royal family.”

    Arabiya adds that King Salman also issued sacking and replacement orders for Admiral Abdullah bin Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Sultan, the Commander of the Naval Forces, is to be terminated and be retired; his replacement is Vice Admiral Fahd bin Abdullah Al-Ghifaili, to be promoted to the rank of admiral and be appointed as Commander of the Naval Forces.....

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-04/shocking-purge-saudi-king-arrests-billionaire-prince-bin-talal-others-anti-money-lau

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe it's the beginning of a Saudi civil war. Maybe the Shia in their, what is it, southeast ? will get restive. Maybe all hell will break out, maybe the place will break up, who knows ?


      Delete
  32. Whao .... it's possible Quirk has Trump Anxiety Disorder - TAD.

    Watters has a shrink on now who diagnoses and fixes up such people.

    Tune in now or later, Quirk !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Always looking out for you.

      I do think you have a slight TAD, though it is not like, say, R. Maddow. You have shown the good discriminating sense to recognize they are all dicks, some just worse than others.

      Delete
  33. Suicide by Chainsaw

    70-year-old man kills himself with chainsaw after attacking wife with hatchet


    http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article182828641.html

    ReplyDelete
  34. Panic Begins To Take Hold As A New Clinton Investigation Looms
    Posted at 4:00 pm on November 4, 2017 by streiff

    Several interesting threads seem to be coming together this weekend.

    Thanks to the efforts of The Hill, the Uranium One scandal came back to light. Charles Grassley is putting pressure on Justice to investigate the Clinton’s criminal enterprise. President Trump, himself, took up the call on Thursday.

    The FBI, now under new leadership, seems intent on building bridges to Congress. The Comey-run FBI seems, more and more each day, to have been an adjunct of the Democrat party. It tried to prevent Congressional knowledge of the Uranium One investigation by tying one witness up in a non-disclosure agreement that put his very liberty in jeopardy if he violated it and it had stonewalled Congressional demands for key documents. A week ago, the FBI removed the NDA. Yesterday afternoon, the FBI delivered documents to Congress concerning the decisionmaking process, to the extent that there was one other than “we can’t indict Hillary Clinton,” that led to the FBI decision to not prosecute anyone for stealing and slinging about the Internet national security information.

    The FBI has begun turning over to Senate investigators hundreds of pages of memos regarding the bureau’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, sources told The Hill.


    The sources said the Justice Department notified the Senate Judiciary Committee late Friday and the FBI began transmitting memos soon after to assist Congress in its review of former Director James Comey’s handling of the Clinton email case.

    The memos detail how and when the bureau’s leadership declined to pursue criminal charges against Clinton for transmitting classified information on her private email server as secretary of State, an investigation that has remained controversial since the 2016 presidential campaigns.

    FBI officials declined to comment. “We don’t have any information for you,” spokeswoman Carol Cratty told The Hill.

    The Senate committee has been seeking the memos for some time as it investigates whether Comey chose to absolve Clinton of criminal liability before the election-year probe was complete and before she was even interviewed. Comey ultimately concluded that while Clinton’ handling of classified emails was careless, there was not enough evidence of intent to warrant criminal charges.

    A lawsuit by Judicial Watch may help explain the FBI’s actions. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was conflicted out the wazoo in the Clinton investigation and in any investigation concerning the Democrat party, kept himself firmly in charge of the Hillary Clinton investigation until Novemeber 1, 2016, despite being under investigation for a rather open and notorious violation of the Hatch Act:.........

    https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2017/11/04/panic-begins-take-hold-new-clinton-investigation-looms/

    ReplyDelete
  35. David Brooks: Our Elites Really Do Stink

    But those of us who are trying to rebut populists like Trump have the disadvantage that our elites really do stink. And this is an advantage — example of that.

    It was sort of an open secret that the DNC was on Hillary Clinton’s side. We saw it from the schedule of the debates all through the year. They didn’t want to have them, because they didn’t want to give Sanders the platform.

    But this goes beyond what even I imagined was the level of collusion. It’s a pretty sleazy economic takeover of a party apparatus, against the bylaws of that apparatus....


    https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2017/11/david-brooks-elites-really-stink/

    ReplyDelete
  36. Quirk !

    Get on Fox.

    Judge Jeanine is following The Donald's meet and greet in Japan !

    It's all very exciting and the enthusiasm is wonderful !

    The Donald is heading to the hanger to make an address to the troops !

    Live bands, The Donald loves that. The 1st Lady looks wonderful !

    What great representatives of the USA !!

    Taking selfies, signing autographs, everyone is wonderfully happy !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ambassador Bolton is with Judge Jeanine, explaining the importance of this trip, insights you can internalize !

      Also former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz is on !

      Delete
  37. So far I haven't heard a word about Antifa's scheduled overthrow of the US Government today.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Trump is speaking to the troops at Yokota Air Base soon !

    Former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz is talking of the close relationship between and Japanese Prime Minister Abe.


    TRUMP IS AT THE PODIUM !!!

    The troops are shouting USA USA USA !

    ReplyDelete
  39. Tell the truth:

    Wouldn't you love to grab Mike Lindell's "My pillow" from his hands and suffocate him with it, just to shut him up?

    ReplyDelete
  40. Fit Mike up with an Indwelling Red Rubber Urinary Catheter without the collection bag and see if he smiles.

    ReplyDelete