By The Last Boy In Line
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Dear White Supremacists:
Sincerely,
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Dear White Supremacists
Dear White Supremacists
By The Last Boy In Line
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Dear White Supremacists:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Dear White Supremacists:
Sincerely,
Monday, August 5, 2019
The Poverty Pimps’ Poem
The Poverty Pimps’ Poem
By Thomas Sowell
August 05, 2019
Let us celebrate the poor,
Let us hawk them door to door.
There’s a market for their pain,
Votes and glory and money to gain.
Let us celebrate the poor.
Their ills, their sins, their faulty diction,
Flavor our songs and spice our fiction.
Their hopes and struggles and agonies,
Get us grants and consulting fees.
Celebrate thugs and clowns,
Give their ignorance all renown.
Celebrate what holds them down,
In our academic gowns.
Let us celebrate the poor.
By Thomas Sowell
August 05, 2019
Let us celebrate the poor,
Let us hawk them door to door.
There’s a market for their pain,
Votes and glory and money to gain.
Let us celebrate the poor.
Their ills, their sins, their faulty diction,
Flavor our songs and spice our fiction.
Their hopes and struggles and agonies,
Get us grants and consulting fees.
Celebrate thugs and clowns,
Give their ignorance all renown.
Celebrate what holds them down,
In our academic gowns.
Let us celebrate the poor.
Friday, August 2, 2019
Dear Poverty Pimps
Dear Poverty Pimps
By The Last Boy In Line
Friday, August 2, 2019
Dear Poverty Pimps:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Friday, August 2, 2019
Dear Poverty Pimps:
Sincerely,
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Dear Russiagate
Dear Russiagate
By The Last Boy In Line
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Dear Russiagate:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Dear Russiagate:
Sincerely,
Monday, July 29, 2019
Who’s Afraid of William Barr?
Who’s Afraid of William Barr?
By Stephen F. Cohen
Information Clearing House
Monday, July 29, 2019
William Barr, a two-time attorney general who served at the CIA
in the 1970s, would seem to be an ultimate Washington insider.
According to his Wikipedia biography, he has—or he had—“a sterling
reputation” both among Republicans and Democrats.
That changed when Barr announced his ongoing investigation into
the origins of Russiagate, a vital subject I, too, have explored.
As Barr explained, “What we’re looking at is: What was the
predicate for conducting a counterintelligence investigation
on the Trump campaign.… How did the bogus narrative begin
that Trump was essentially in cahoots with Russia to interfere
with the U.S. election?”
Still more, Barr, who is empowered to declassify highly sensitive
documents, made clear that his primary focus was not the hapless
FBI under James Comey but the CIA under John Brennan.
Evidently this was too much for leading Democratic Senator Charles
Schumer, who assailed Barr for having “just destroyed…the scintilla
of credibility that he had left.”
Not known for a sense of irony, Schumer accused Barr of using “the
words of conspiracy theorists,” as though Russiagate itself is not
among the most malign and consequential conspiracy theories in
American political history.
More indicative is the reaction of the generally liberal
pro-Democratic New York Times and Washington Post,
the country’s two most important political newspapers,
to Barr’s investigation.
Leaning heavily on the “expert” opinion of former intelligence
officials and McCarthy-echoing members of Congress such as
Adam Schiff, both papers went into outrage mode.
The Times bemoaned Barr’s “drastic escalation of [Trump’s] years
long assault on the intelligence community” while rejecting “the
president’s unfounded claims that his campaign had been spied on”
even though some forms of FBI and CIA infiltration and surveillance
of the 2016 Trump campaign are now well documented.
Unconcerned by the activities of either agency, the papers warned
ominously that Barr’s probe “effectively strips [the CIA] of its most
critical power: choosing which secrets it shares and which remain
hidden.”
It “could be tremendously damaging to the C.I.A. and other
intelligence agencies.”
Not surprisingly, given the Times’ three-year role in promulgating
Russiagate allegations, it preempted Barr’s investigation by
declaring that US intelligence agencies’ covert actions were part
of “a lawful investigation aimed at understanding a foreign power’s
efforts to manipulate an American election.”
Considering what is now known, this generalization seems
a whitewash both of the Times’ coverage and the agencies’
conduct.
Hillary Clinton, also not surprisingly, agreed.
As paraphrased by Matt Stevens in the Times on May 3, she accused
Barr of diverting attention “from what the real story is. The real
story is the Russian interference in our election.”
According to the defeated Democratic candidate, “the Russians
were successful in sowing ‘discord and divisiveness’ in the country,
and helping Mr. Trump.” But who has actually sowed more “discord
and divisiveness” in America—the Russians or Mrs. Clinton and her
supporters, by still refusing to accept the legitimacy of her
electoral loss and Trump’s victory?
Unfortunately, but predictably, Barr’s investigation has become
polarizing, with Fox News, for example, bannering each new
unsavory Russiagate revelation and the Times and the Post mostly
ignoring them altogether.
In particular, the Democratic Party, once traditionally skeptical
of intelligence agencies, is becoming the party of an intel cult
and thus of the new US-Russian Cold War.
Only a few of the party’s leaders, notably presidential candidate
Tulsi Gabbard, demur from this dangerous folly.
Might Democratic reticence also be due to the circumstance that
the intelligence chiefs now under investigation were appointees
of former President Obama, who has been remarkably silent about
the entire Russiagate saga?
What, as I have asked previously, did Obama know, when did he
know it, and what did he do?
Everyone who cares about the quality of American political life,
no matter what they think about Trump, should encourage Barr’s
probe.
To resort to a familiar cliché, Russiagate allegations have become
a spreading cancer in American politics, with Democratic
congressional candidates raising funds by promising, despite the
exculpatory findings of Robert Mueller regarding “collusion,” to
fight evil “Trump-Putin” forces in Washington.
Meanwhile, some Republicans, despite ample contrary evidence,
preposterously blame Russia itself—for the infamous Steele Dossier,
for example.
By the way, for more irony, Trump is regularly accused in the
above-cited news accounts of “siding with” Russian President
Vladimir Putin in denying that any “collusion” determined the
outcome of the 2016 presidential election, a conclusion also
reached by Mueller, thereby putting Trump, Putin, and Mueller
on the same “side.”
Ideally, we would have an investigation of the intelligence agencies
entirely independent of the White House and headed by an eminent
political figure who is not a presidential appointee, as was the 1975
Senate Church Committee.
For now, we have only Trump’s attorney general, William Barr.
Nonetheless, we should support him, however conditionally.
Rogue intelligence agencies subvert democracy, and the next
candidate they target—as they did Trump—may be yours.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51941.htm
By Stephen F. Cohen
Information Clearing House
Monday, July 29, 2019
William Barr, a two-time attorney general who served at the CIA
in the 1970s, would seem to be an ultimate Washington insider.
According to his Wikipedia biography, he has—or he had—“a sterling
reputation” both among Republicans and Democrats.
That changed when Barr announced his ongoing investigation into
the origins of Russiagate, a vital subject I, too, have explored.
As Barr explained, “What we’re looking at is: What was the
predicate for conducting a counterintelligence investigation
on the Trump campaign.… How did the bogus narrative begin
that Trump was essentially in cahoots with Russia to interfere
with the U.S. election?”
Still more, Barr, who is empowered to declassify highly sensitive
documents, made clear that his primary focus was not the hapless
FBI under James Comey but the CIA under John Brennan.
Evidently this was too much for leading Democratic Senator Charles
Schumer, who assailed Barr for having “just destroyed…the scintilla
of credibility that he had left.”
Not known for a sense of irony, Schumer accused Barr of using “the
words of conspiracy theorists,” as though Russiagate itself is not
among the most malign and consequential conspiracy theories in
American political history.
More indicative is the reaction of the generally liberal
pro-Democratic New York Times and Washington Post,
the country’s two most important political newspapers,
to Barr’s investigation.
Leaning heavily on the “expert” opinion of former intelligence
officials and McCarthy-echoing members of Congress such as
Adam Schiff, both papers went into outrage mode.
The Times bemoaned Barr’s “drastic escalation of [Trump’s] years
long assault on the intelligence community” while rejecting “the
president’s unfounded claims that his campaign had been spied on”
even though some forms of FBI and CIA infiltration and surveillance
of the 2016 Trump campaign are now well documented.
Unconcerned by the activities of either agency, the papers warned
ominously that Barr’s probe “effectively strips [the CIA] of its most
critical power: choosing which secrets it shares and which remain
hidden.”
It “could be tremendously damaging to the C.I.A. and other
intelligence agencies.”
Not surprisingly, given the Times’ three-year role in promulgating
Russiagate allegations, it preempted Barr’s investigation by
declaring that US intelligence agencies’ covert actions were part
of “a lawful investigation aimed at understanding a foreign power’s
efforts to manipulate an American election.”
Considering what is now known, this generalization seems
a whitewash both of the Times’ coverage and the agencies’
conduct.
Hillary Clinton, also not surprisingly, agreed.
As paraphrased by Matt Stevens in the Times on May 3, she accused
Barr of diverting attention “from what the real story is. The real
story is the Russian interference in our election.”
According to the defeated Democratic candidate, “the Russians
were successful in sowing ‘discord and divisiveness’ in the country,
and helping Mr. Trump.” But who has actually sowed more “discord
and divisiveness” in America—the Russians or Mrs. Clinton and her
supporters, by still refusing to accept the legitimacy of her
electoral loss and Trump’s victory?
Unfortunately, but predictably, Barr’s investigation has become
polarizing, with Fox News, for example, bannering each new
unsavory Russiagate revelation and the Times and the Post mostly
ignoring them altogether.
In particular, the Democratic Party, once traditionally skeptical
of intelligence agencies, is becoming the party of an intel cult
and thus of the new US-Russian Cold War.
Only a few of the party’s leaders, notably presidential candidate
Tulsi Gabbard, demur from this dangerous folly.
Might Democratic reticence also be due to the circumstance that
the intelligence chiefs now under investigation were appointees
of former President Obama, who has been remarkably silent about
the entire Russiagate saga?
What, as I have asked previously, did Obama know, when did he
know it, and what did he do?
Everyone who cares about the quality of American political life,
no matter what they think about Trump, should encourage Barr’s
probe.
To resort to a familiar cliché, Russiagate allegations have become
a spreading cancer in American politics, with Democratic
congressional candidates raising funds by promising, despite the
exculpatory findings of Robert Mueller regarding “collusion,” to
fight evil “Trump-Putin” forces in Washington.
Meanwhile, some Republicans, despite ample contrary evidence,
preposterously blame Russia itself—for the infamous Steele Dossier,
for example.
By the way, for more irony, Trump is regularly accused in the
above-cited news accounts of “siding with” Russian President
Vladimir Putin in denying that any “collusion” determined the
outcome of the 2016 presidential election, a conclusion also
reached by Mueller, thereby putting Trump, Putin, and Mueller
on the same “side.”
Ideally, we would have an investigation of the intelligence agencies
entirely independent of the White House and headed by an eminent
political figure who is not a presidential appointee, as was the 1975
Senate Church Committee.
For now, we have only Trump’s attorney general, William Barr.
Nonetheless, we should support him, however conditionally.
Rogue intelligence agencies subvert democracy, and the next
candidate they target—as they did Trump—may be yours.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51941.htm
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Dear Attorney General William Barr
Dear Attorney General William Barr
By The Last Boy In Line
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Dear Attorney General William Barr:
Sincerely,
By The Last Boy In Line
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Dear Attorney General William Barr:
Sincerely,
Thursday, July 25, 2019
What Goes Around
What Goes Around
By James Howard Kunstler
Information Clearing House
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Just how dead is the RussiaGate story — and how brain-dead are
the House Democratic Committee chairmen, Nadler (Judiciary
Committee) and Schiff (Intelligence Committee) to haul
RussiaGate’s front-man, Robert Mueller back into the spotlight
where the next thing to roll over and die will be Mr. Mueller’s
evanescent reputation?
The entrapment operation that was the Special Counsel’s covert
mission has turned out to be Mr. Mueller own personal booby-trap,
prompting the question: is it possible that he’s just not very bright?
Though Mr. Mueller’s final report asserted that the Russian
government interfered in “a sweeping and systemic fashion” to
influence the 2016 election, the 450-page great tome contains
zero evidence to support that claim, and the discrepancy was
actually noticed by Federal Judge Dabney Friedrich who is
presiding over the case against the alleged Russian Facebook
trolls that was one of the two tent-poles in the RussiaGate
fantasy.
The case is now blowing up in Robert Mueller’s face.
In early 2018, Mr. Mueller sold a DC grand jury on producing
indictments against a Russian outfit called the Internet Research
Agency and its parent company Concord Management, owned by
Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin for the so-called election
meddling.
The indictment was celebrated as a huge coup at the time by the
likes of CNN and The New York Times, styled as a silver bullet in
the heart of the Trump presidency.
But the indicted parties were all in Russia, and could not be
extradited, and there was zero expectation that any actual trial
would ever take place — leaving Mueller & Co. off-the-hook for
proving their allegations.
To the great surprise of Mr. Mueller and his “team,” Mr. Prigozhin
hired some American lawyers to defend his company in court.
Smooth move.
It automatically triggered the discovery process, by which the
accused is entitled to see the evidence that prosecutors hold.
It turned out that Mr. Mueller’s team had no evidence that the
Russian government was involved with the Facebook pranks.
This annoyed Judge Friedrich, who ordered Mr. Mueller and his
lawyers to desist making public statements about Concord and
IRA’s alleged “sweeping and systemic” collusion with Russia,
and threatened legal sanctions if they did.
Judge Friedrich’s rulings were unsealed in early July, after Messers
Nadler and Schiff had already scheduled Mr. Mueller’s testimony
before their committees.
And now they’re stuck with him.
The only purpose of his appearance was to repeat and reinforce the
narrative that the Russian government interfered in the election,
which he is now forbidden to do, at least in connection to the
Concord and IRA’s activities.
But the other tentpole of the two-year-plus inquisition has also
collapsed: the allegation that Russian intel hacked the DNC servers.
It’s now a matter of public record that the DNC servers were never
examined by federal officials.
They were purportedly scrutinized by a DNC contractor called
CrowdStrike, co-founded by Russian Dimitri Alperovitch, an
adversary of Vladimir Putin, active in US-based anti-Putin lobbying
and PR. CrowdStrike’s “draft” report on their review of the server
was laughably incomplete, and the Mueller team’s lawyers took no
steps to validate it.
It would be interesting to hear Robert Mueller’s explanation for
how come US computer forensic experts were never dispatched
to take possession of the DNC servers.
Surely a ranking member on either House committee would have
to ask him that, along with many other embarrassing questions
about the stupendously sloppy and disingenuous work of the
Special Counsel’s team.
It was only one glaring omission among many.
The whole affair now takes on tragic contours of Shakespearean
dimensions.
The Attorney General, Mr. Barr, is said to be an “old friend”
of Mr. Mueller.
They clashed pretty publicly after the release of Mr. Mueller’s
long-awaited final report.
Mr. Barr must at least be dismayed by the bad faith and deliberate
deceit in his old friend’s final report, and he really has to do
something about it.
The entire Mueller episode smacks of prosecutorial misconduct.
In retrospect, it can only be explained as a desperate act
undertaken by foolishly overconfident political activists.
If Mr. Mueller thought he was being enlisted to play an historically
heroic role to help get rid of an elected president detested by the
Establishment, then he made the blunder of a lifetime.
It was not the first blunder of his long career, but it was the final
and fatal one.
It is not out of the question that Mr. Mueller himself may eventually
be the one indicted and convicted of real crimes against the people
of the United States.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51969.htm
By James Howard Kunstler
Information Clearing House
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Just how dead is the RussiaGate story — and how brain-dead are
the House Democratic Committee chairmen, Nadler (Judiciary
Committee) and Schiff (Intelligence Committee) to haul
RussiaGate’s front-man, Robert Mueller back into the spotlight
where the next thing to roll over and die will be Mr. Mueller’s
evanescent reputation?
The entrapment operation that was the Special Counsel’s covert
mission has turned out to be Mr. Mueller own personal booby-trap,
prompting the question: is it possible that he’s just not very bright?
Though Mr. Mueller’s final report asserted that the Russian
government interfered in “a sweeping and systemic fashion” to
influence the 2016 election, the 450-page great tome contains
zero evidence to support that claim, and the discrepancy was
actually noticed by Federal Judge Dabney Friedrich who is
presiding over the case against the alleged Russian Facebook
trolls that was one of the two tent-poles in the RussiaGate
fantasy.
The case is now blowing up in Robert Mueller’s face.
In early 2018, Mr. Mueller sold a DC grand jury on producing
indictments against a Russian outfit called the Internet Research
Agency and its parent company Concord Management, owned by
Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin for the so-called election
meddling.
The indictment was celebrated as a huge coup at the time by the
likes of CNN and The New York Times, styled as a silver bullet in
the heart of the Trump presidency.
But the indicted parties were all in Russia, and could not be
extradited, and there was zero expectation that any actual trial
would ever take place — leaving Mueller & Co. off-the-hook for
proving their allegations.
To the great surprise of Mr. Mueller and his “team,” Mr. Prigozhin
hired some American lawyers to defend his company in court.
Smooth move.
It automatically triggered the discovery process, by which the
accused is entitled to see the evidence that prosecutors hold.
It turned out that Mr. Mueller’s team had no evidence that the
Russian government was involved with the Facebook pranks.
This annoyed Judge Friedrich, who ordered Mr. Mueller and his
lawyers to desist making public statements about Concord and
IRA’s alleged “sweeping and systemic” collusion with Russia,
and threatened legal sanctions if they did.
Judge Friedrich’s rulings were unsealed in early July, after Messers
Nadler and Schiff had already scheduled Mr. Mueller’s testimony
before their committees.
And now they’re stuck with him.
The only purpose of his appearance was to repeat and reinforce the
narrative that the Russian government interfered in the election,
which he is now forbidden to do, at least in connection to the
Concord and IRA’s activities.
But the other tentpole of the two-year-plus inquisition has also
collapsed: the allegation that Russian intel hacked the DNC servers.
It’s now a matter of public record that the DNC servers were never
examined by federal officials.
They were purportedly scrutinized by a DNC contractor called
CrowdStrike, co-founded by Russian Dimitri Alperovitch, an
adversary of Vladimir Putin, active in US-based anti-Putin lobbying
and PR. CrowdStrike’s “draft” report on their review of the server
was laughably incomplete, and the Mueller team’s lawyers took no
steps to validate it.
It would be interesting to hear Robert Mueller’s explanation for
how come US computer forensic experts were never dispatched
to take possession of the DNC servers.
Surely a ranking member on either House committee would have
to ask him that, along with many other embarrassing questions
about the stupendously sloppy and disingenuous work of the
Special Counsel’s team.
It was only one glaring omission among many.
The whole affair now takes on tragic contours of Shakespearean
dimensions.
The Attorney General, Mr. Barr, is said to be an “old friend”
of Mr. Mueller.
They clashed pretty publicly after the release of Mr. Mueller’s
long-awaited final report.
Mr. Barr must at least be dismayed by the bad faith and deliberate
deceit in his old friend’s final report, and he really has to do
something about it.
The entire Mueller episode smacks of prosecutorial misconduct.
In retrospect, it can only be explained as a desperate act
undertaken by foolishly overconfident political activists.
If Mr. Mueller thought he was being enlisted to play an historically
heroic role to help get rid of an elected president detested by the
Establishment, then he made the blunder of a lifetime.
It was not the first blunder of his long career, but it was the final
and fatal one.
It is not out of the question that Mr. Mueller himself may eventually
be the one indicted and convicted of real crimes against the people
of the United States.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51969.htm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
