1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

As a Slovenian-American, (my mother's parents emigrated to the U.S. from Ljubljana in 1905) I finally have to break my four year silence about my Slovenian home girl, Melania.

I'm disappointed with her.   My hunch is that most Slovenes feel the same way.  They recently burned down a statue of her in Slovenia.

My mother's family were New Deal Democrats, like former Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) whose mother was Slovene.

They all loved FDR and, as Roman Catholics, they thought JFK practically walked on water.

Melania probably knows very little about the history of Slovenian immigrants to the U.S.  Demographically, they are most similar to Italian-Americans, (and, in fact, many Italians from northeastern Italy are ethnic Slovenes.)

My favorite Slovene...Goran Dragić of the Miami Heat!

Where’s the outrage from DiEugenio?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/melania-trump-faces-backlash-for-rose-garden-renovation-she-cut-down-jackies-trees/ar-BB18hK2A

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/new-gop-platform-authoritarianism/615640/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

1) The most important mechanism of economic policy—not the only tool, but the most important—is adjusting the burden of taxation on society’s richest citizens. Lower this level, as Republicans did in 2017, and prosperity will follow. The economy has had a temporary setback, but thanks to the tax cut of 2017, recovery is ready to follow strongly. No further policy change is required, except possibly lower taxes still.

2) The coronavirus is a much-overhyped problem. It’s not that dangerous and will soon burn itself out. States should reopen their economies as rapidly as possible, and accept the ensuing casualties as a cost worth paying—and certainly a better trade-off than saving every last life by shutting down state economies. Masking is useless and theatrical, if not outright counterproductive.

3) Climate change is a much-overhyped problem. It’s probably not happening. If it is happening, it’s not worth worrying about. If it’s worth worrying about, it’s certainly not worth paying trillions of dollars to amend. To the extent it is real, it will be dealt with in the fullness of time by the technologies of tomorrow. Regulations to protect the environment unnecessarily impede economic growth.

4) China has become an economic and geopolitical adversary of the United States. Military spending should be invested with an eye to defeating China on the seas, in space, and in the cyberrealm. U.S. economic policy should recognize that relations with China are zero-sum: When China wins, the U.S. loses, and vice versa.

5) The trade and alliance structures built after World War II are outdated. America still needs partners, of course, especially Israel and maybe Russia. But the days of NATO and the World Trade Organization are over. The European Union should be treated as a rival; the United Kingdom and Japan should be treated as subordinates; and Canada, Australia, and Mexico should be treated as dependencies. If America acts decisively, allies will have to follow whether they like it or not—as they will have to follow U.S. policy on Iran.

6) Health care is a purchase like any other. Individuals should make their own best deals in the insurance market with minimal government supervision. Those who pay more should get more. Those who cannot pay must rely on Medicaid, accept charity, or go without.

7) Voting is a privilege. States should have wide latitude to regulate that privilege in such a way as to minimize voting fraud, which is rife among African Americans and new immigrant communities. The federal role in voting oversight should be limited to preventing Democrats from abusing the U.S. Postal Service to enable fraud by their voters.

8.) Anti-black racism has ceased to be an important problem in American life. At this point, the people most likely to be targets of adverse discrimination are whites, Christians, and Asian university applicants. Federal civil-rights enforcement resources should concentrate on protecting them.

9) The courts should move gradually and carefully toward eliminating the mistake made in 1965 when women’s sexual privacy was elevated into a constitutional right.

10) The post-Watergate ethics reforms overreached. We should welcome the trend toward unrestricted and secret campaign donations. Overly strict conflict-of-interest rules will only bar wealthy and successful businesspeople from public service. Without endorsing every particular action by the president and his family, the Trump administration has met all reasonable ethical standards.

11) Trump’s border wall is the right policy to slow illegal immigration; the task of enforcing immigration rules should not fall on business operators. Some deal on illegal immigration must be found. The most important Republican priority in any such deal is to delay as long as possible full citizenship, voting rights, and health-care benefits for people who entered the country illegally.

12) The country is currently gripped by a surge of crime and lawlessness as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement and its criticism of police. Police misconduct, like that in the George Floyd case, should be punished. But the priority now should be to stop crime by empowering police.

13) Civility and respect are cherished ideals. But in the face of the overwhelming and unfair onslaught against President Trump by the media and the Deep State, his occasional excesses on Twitter and at his rallies should be understood as pardonable reactions to much more severe misconduct by others.

delete

One of the most persistent myths about modern American politics: the MSM is anti-Trump.
 
https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-campaign-hopping-mad-at-cbs-and-abc-for-gifting-trump-bonus-airtime?ref=home

https://fair.org/home/trump-bad-for-america-good-for-cbs/

Here’s one McGovern and the rest of the Useful Idiot Brigade missed.

From the 2018 Trump-Putin Helsinki press conference:

REPORTER (Jeff Mason from Reuters): President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?

PUTIN: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the US/Russia relationship back to normal.

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/16/17576956/transcript-putin-trump-russia-helsinki-press-conference

29 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Let us hear from McGovern and the late great Bob Parry on the NY TImes latest attempt to fortify RG:

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/21/ray-mcgovern-catapulting-russian-meddling-propaganda/

The cognoscenti and the big fish themselves may be guessing that Trump/Barr/Durham will not throw out heavier lines for former FBI Director James Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for example. But how can they be sure? What has become clear is that the certainty they all shared that Hillary Clinton would be the next president prompted them not only to take serious liberties with the Constitution and the law, but also to do so without taking rudimentary steps to hide their tracks.

So James Comey and the “Deep State” threw their collective weight behind the Clinton campaign by re-opening the bogus Clinton e-mail “scandal” 11 days before the election — which turned the 24-hour cable news cycle into non-stop Hillary bashing?

Meanwhile, this same “Deep State” conspiracy put the Russia-hacked-DNC story and the Steele Dossier in a cable news blackout over the last 70 days of the campaign!

McGovern, DiEugenio and all the other apologists for Trumpian fascism couldn’t “deep analyze” their way out of an open paper bag.

28 minutes ago, Mathias Baumann said:

A sharp, high-quality image of Oswald would've exonerated him even if he were dead. The plotters certainly expected a great number of photographers to be in Dealey Plaza that day. I just don't think they would've taken this risk.

Your faith in an independent press and honest law enforcement in Dallas in 1963 doesn’t strike me as realistic.

30 minutes ago, Mathias Baumann said:

How would it benefit the conspirators if Oswald had an alibi? 

How would it hurt the conspirators if Oswald were murdered?  Which he was.

45 minutes ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

That might be true if the lone-nut scenario was part of the original plan. But this scenario was imposed on the investigating authorities after the event by political administrators like Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover in Washington 

And who imposed the Lone Nut scenario on Lyndon Johnson?

McGeorge Bundy called AF1 to inform Johnson the lone assassin was in custody.  As soon as LBJ got to the White House, Averell Harriman came in to tell him that the US government’s top experts on the Soviets were unanimous in the conclusion the Soviets had nothing to do with it.

One little problem — there was no conference among top US Kremlinologists that day.

Harriman was Skull & Bones 1913; Bundy was Skull & Bones 1940.

Harriman had sacrificed his greatest ambition — to be Secretary of State — in order to overthrow Diem and maintain American military presence in South Vietnam.  Little surprise he’d sacrifice Kennedy for the same outcome.

26 minutes ago, Mathias Baumann said:

Cliff,

did any of the tramps visit the Soviet embassy just 2 months before the assassination? I think that was an important part of the plot. Oswald was carefully chosen for his role.

I think there were contingency plans to blame the assassination on right wingers if they couldn’t pin it on Oswald.

What if Oswald hadn’t shown up for work that day for any number of reasons?  Fell sick, car accident, cold feet.

I wouldn’t assume the folks tasked with the Kennedy assassination had the exact same priorities as the folks tasked with the Oswald assassination.

The primary goal was the elimination of JFK — pinning it all on Castro was a secondary concern quickly jettisoned when Oswald was captured.

All I know for a fact is that JFK had a shallow wound between his third thoracic vertebra and the upper margin of his right scapula.  6.5mm FMJ rounds don’t leave shallow wounds in soft tissue, which bolsters Oswald’s stated alibi that he went outside to watch the P. parade.

On 8/17/2020 at 11:27 AM, Jeff Carter said:

. Wikileaks detractors and now persecutors represent exactly these self-serving elites, with an attendant track record of lies and mendacity. 

Why hasn’t Jeff Carter denounced the Trump Justice Department for its intensified persecution of Julian Assange?
 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorses Joe Kennedy in race against Ed Markey
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/08/20/metro/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-endorses-joe-kennedy-race-against-ed-markey/

24 minutes ago, Mathias Baumann said:

So Oswald had to be the fall guy.But for that the conspirators needed to have some control over him. And they surely could not allow him wandering around outside the building.

Because they could count on everyone watching the motorcade with few paying attention to the rest of the crowd.  
 
They could count on controlling any post-assassination narrative by way of witness intimidation.
 
That’s how they got away with multiple shooters.

Besides, Oswald didn’t have to be the fall guy. There were plenty of back up patsies like the Three Tramps.

On 8/17/2020 at 11:27 AM, Jeff Carter said:

The Wikileaks project established a radical non-violent direct action platform designed to level the playing field between the people at large and self-serving elite interests. It has been, in other words, a rather “punk rock” activity.

Which is why it’s so disappointing to see those who pretend to champion Assange slander, libel and defame him when they claim Seth Rich leaked the DNC e-mails.

Is there a more egregious smear of a journalist than to claim they revealed the name of a confidential source?

We can rule out Seth Rich as the source for the e-mails.  No way does Assange offer up the name of his sources, or anyone at the DNC since Assange would never reveal the methods by which the material was obtained.

Assange has stated he received the material from “non-State actors.”  Damn straight!  Roger Stone and his merry band.

Quote

Wikileaks detractors and now persecutors represent exactly these self-serving elites, with an attendant track record of lies and mendacity.

Yes!  The self-serving elites in this case are the Theological Fascists behind Trump.  The Trump DOJ piled on 17 counts in its persecution of Assange.

Quote

It is therefore disappointing that you have, by choosing to endorse the narratives of Assange’s persecutors,  allied yourself with such retrograde evidence-free positions.

You have allied yourself with Fascism, sir.

2 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Cliff,

I've always said, it's not too bad when you talk to yourself.

And, it's even not too bad when you start answering yourself.

It's when you start ignoring yourself that you have a problem.

"What did you say?"

"I'm not talking to you."

Steve Thomas

 

Steve, there’ve been times I’d been better off if I’d put myself on ignore — handicapping sports.

Jeffrey Epstein showed off 14-year-old victim to Trump at Mar-a-Lago: lawsuit
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/jeffrey-epstein-showed-off-14-year-old-victim-to-trump-at-mar-a-lago-lawsuit/

On 8/15/2020 at 11:17 AM, Jeff Carter said:

Any pretence to progressive or enlightened standing by CV has been cancelled

We’re all students of hidden history here.

I actually pulled one off.

My legacy will stand when the names of my detractors are but dust in the mouths of the dead.

I would never compare Wheeler to Hitler.

It’s said that during WW1 as a soldier Hitler demonstrated great personal bravery, an attribute Wheeler has none of.

Pure human scum.

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/16/1969779/--Let-them-rot-The-supposed-U-S-president-retweets-attack-on-Democrat-cities

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/08/mypillow-guy-gets-trump-to-trade-in-his-advocacy-for-hydroxychloroquine-for-a-flower-oil-to-cure-19/
 
Why listen to doctors when there’s a pillow pitchman with the cure?

I understand putting people on ignore.  I’ve done it.  But what I’d never do is take cheap shots at people I don’t want to engage.

These snowflakes are gutless.

On 8/16/2020 at 5:58 PM, Chris Barnard said:

Yes, it seemed very logical but, it lost me a little bit at the end. I can see how those shots could be made, how for an assassin to slip away undetected would have been easy from there while all of the chaos ensued elsewhere. The point made about the throat wound being intended as a kill shot and the sniper waiting for a second chance makes sense, and I am sure military men would say that the head shot is a possible shot, not miracle of a shot. It was all very clear and sensible thinking but, toward the end it was entirely clear in regard to the false flag / blame it on the Cubans thing thats suggested is going on. I have read a couple of threads on here about Tosh Plumlee and it could be I didn’t understand them properly, they didn’t make sense to me. You fly an abort team in to stop the assassination, with a mob/CIA go-between on the flight (Roselli) and the way you try to abort the operation is by standing about?! Perhaps I missed something.

Tosh said it was a routine operation, the “abort team” was often deployed as back up security.  They weren’t working on hard intelligence, and what information they got on the ground was faulty,

He said Dark Complected Man looked like a team member code-named Gator.  In an exchange with Tosh I sketched out an interpretation of Gator’s actions in that light — he was carrying a radio, and immediately after the shooting he sat down next to Umbrella Man because, I speculated, he was struck by UM’s behavior and wanted to check him out.  Add DCM holding up a fist during the early shooting sequence — a military signal for “hold fire.”  After sitting down at the curb, DCM sauntered off. 
  
Would a perp stick around Dealey, or get out quickly as possible?

The Most Tremendous Reelection Campaign in American History Ever

Inside the chaotic, desperate, last-minute Trump 2020 reboot.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/donald-trump-reelection-campaign-2020.html

Trump's attack on the Post Office is drawing more fire than any past scandal, and for good reason
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/1969521