Getting some perspective.
Archive for October, 2016
State of the species: globally there are as many abortions as there are deaths per year
October 31, 2016How Clinton/Abedin “laundered” and leaked confidential information?
October 30, 2016The Hillary Clinton/Huma Abedin relationship may have hidden depths beyond just the great tolerance shown to perverted and erring partners. However the combination was a very badly leaking sieve. I don’t doubt that the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis and the Japanese and maybe even the Saudis (but probably not the British) have copies of everything Hillary and Huma sent to each other and themselves. It seems the main reason that Huma Abedin sent encrypted, unprintable messages to herself on 3rd party email addresses was essentially for “confidentiality laundering” so that they could be printed (and passed on in unencrypted form).
On page 3 of their 11-page report, the agents detail how they showed Abedin a classified paper on Pakistan sent from a State Department source which she, in turn, inexplicably forwarded to her personal Yahoo email account — an obviously unclassified, unencrypted, unsecured and unauthorized system. The breach of security was not an isolated event but a common practice with Abedin.
“She (Abedin) routinely forwarded emails from her state.gov account to either her clintonemail.com or her yahoo.com account,” the agents wrote. Why? “So she could print them” at home and not at her State Department office.
Even if without any malign purposes (which itself is not very credible) it is remarkably irresponsible for a Secretary of State and almost certainly a felony. The convolutions involved in laundering away the confidentiality suggest that the intentions were not entirely benign.
Hillary leaking
Humagate: As with Nixon, FBI comes too late and Hillary Clinton could be next “criminal” US President
October 29, 2016Deja Vu.
Huma Mahmood Abedin is to Hillary Clinton as H R “Bob” Haldeman was to Richard Nixon. Part Svengali and part monster. Humagate now and Watergate then. Huma Abedin was not even born then. The Hillary Clinton connections with Saudi Arabian money facilitated by Huma Abedin are probably the skeleton in the closet being inadvertently exposed by the “careless” use of a personal server.
Wa Po October 10th 1972
On October 10th 1972, the Washington Post ran with the story of the conspiracy – established by the FBI – behind the Watergate cover up. Yet Richard Nixon won reelection – by a landslide – on 11th November 1972.
Now on October 28th 2016 it seems that the FBI have found enough to have to announce that the investigation of Clinton’s emails has been reopened. The announcement is so unusual, with just 10 days left before the election, that criminal activity by Clinton is almost certain. Yet it comes too late, I think, to bring Clinton down. The world is much more “instant” now than it was in 1972. But the astounding reopening of Hillary Clinton’s (and of Huma Abedin’s) emails may take some time to penetrate the US electoral psyche. The alternative being a buffoon increases the resistance to the absorption of the revelations.
It took almost 2 years till August 1974 for Nixon to finally bite the bullet and resign.
- October 10, 1972: FBI agents establish that the Watergate break-in stems from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of the Nixon reelection effort, The Post reports.
- November 11, 1972: Nixon is reelected in one of the largest landslides in American political history, taking more than 60 percent of the vote and crushing the Democratic nominee, Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota.
- ………
- August 8, 1974: Richard Nixon becomes the first U.S. president to resign. Vice President Gerald R. Ford assumes the country’s highest office. He will later pardon Nixon of all charges related to the Watergate case.
My expectation now is that Hillary Clinton will win and become the next President of the United States. And some two years hence she will probably be impeached and resign for her past criminal activities.
Diwali 2016
October 29, 2016Little Diwali in South India today and the main celebrations tomorrow.
Western backed rebels/terrorists in East Aleppo are holding civilians hostage just as ISIS is doing in Mosul
October 26, 2016The rebels and terrorists in East Aleppo are largely financed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, the US and the EU. They are holding civilians hostage and as “human shields” against Assad’s forces supported by Russian air power just as ISIS is preventing civilians from leaving Mosul. The media rhetoric about ISIS and Mosul is equally applicable to East Aleppo, but the difference which changes the media narrative is that the loss of Aleppo by the Western-supported rebels would be a very visible confirmation of the failure of the US/EU strategy of fomenting regime change in Syria.
Virginia Senator Richard Black
The Russian view of things in this interview with Virginia Senator Richard Black makes interesting reading. Even discounting the propaganda factor, the regime-change objectives in Syria have demonstrated the shallowness and wishful thinking that has dominated the US/EU strategies.
RT:The US and its allies could order their terrorist proxies in Aleppo to allow civilians to leave, but instead use them as hostages to escalate anti-Russia rhetoric in a bid to prevent the fall of the rebel stronghold, Virginia Senator Richard Black told RT.
…… The fact is when he (John Kerry) gave that speech, he was sitting next to Saudi Foreign Minister al-Jubeir, and Saudi Arabia has funded ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and Al-Nusra – which is Al-Qaeda in Syria, a coordinating group within the Aleppo pocket in East Aleppo.
They have forbidden the civilians from leaving, using the civilians as a human shield, because they know that it forces Syria and Russia to be much more cautious with the bombing. You know, the hyperbolic language used by Secretary Kerry is really outrageous, because the United Nations Office of Human Affairs announced that in the two weeks between September 23 and October 8, there have been about 406 civilians killed.
No one wants any civilians killed, but I’ve got to tell you, if you compare that to the American casualty figures during our invasion of Iraq, during that first year period, we killed approximately 100,000 civilians. So you’re talking about 406 versus 100,000. Frankly, I don’t know whether they taught arithmetic at Yale University, but Secretary Kerry, his rhetoric is terribly overblown.
There’s no doubt that the civilians are being killed in the east, there are significant numbers being killed in the west, and the civilians killed in the west are being deliberately killed and deliberately targeted as civilians. Whereas those in the east are simply being killed because they happen to be on the battlefield.
The combatants who are holding out in east Aleppo are financed and controlled by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and the United States. These powers have the ability to pressure the rebels to, say, get the civilians off the battlefield. Syria has allowed seven exit points, and made it very clear that they will care for, give medical attention, food, housing to all civilians who leave. It is what I call the axis power, the axis of evil – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar. These are the people who are holding the civilians as human hostages, so that they can force Syria and Russia to take additional casualties as they conquer this final pocket of rebels within Aleppo. …….
……… The heart and soul of the Army of Conquest is Al-Nusra, which is Al-Qaeda in Syria. The Army of Conquest was set up by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, they have joint command headquarters in Idlib, Syria, and they command the whole operation in east Aleppo. If Saudi Arabia and Turkey gave order that the civilians were to leave, then the civilians would be allowed to leave, they would be welcomed by the Syrian government and be cared for. …..,
Is the US election all over?
October 26, 2016Some of the polls are now predicting a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton. The media are overwhelmingly convinced that Trump has shot his bolt (though I still question why – if the result is so certain – they take such a vituperative tone in their Trump coverage and don such rose-coloured glasses to view Hillary’s shortcomings and transgressions).
It does seem that even with the now expected Clinton win, the US political divide is going to be wider and more clearly delineated than it has been for a long time. A sharply divided US probably means that the muddle in the Middle East will be compounded rather than eased. Hillary’s track record as Secretary of State does not hold out much hope for any great improvement in foreign policy and strategies. Four years of increasing Russian influence can be expected.
On domestic policy, I suspect a Hillary Clinton term will be much of the same slow, gradual decline under Barack Obama. I am not sure which hole Obamacare will end up in but whichever road Clinton chooses is filled with pot-holes.
I suppose election night still contains some suspense and there is still a chance that the polls are wrong again (a la Brexit). Probably Clinton wins but with a result much closer than is being predicted by some.
What value an EU/Canada agreement if Wallonia has to be coerced to accept it?
October 24, 2016It is reported that the EU is putting intense pressure on Belgium and its regional parliament of Wallonia to coerce them to accept the trade deal with Canada (CETA). Maybe they will suicceed, but it only emphasises for me that the EU is built on oppression of minorities “for the greater good” as defined by Brussels.
EU democracy has degenerated to be the oppression of minorities – and whole countries can constitute such minorities. Minorities are coerced wherever there is a majority even if it is a majority of fools. If Brexit succeeds in putting a break on this rampant disregard for local opinions it would have achieved a great deal for the future of Europe.
Pressure has mounted on the Belgian government to save a landmark EU-Canada free trade agreement after the small French-speaking region of Wallonia essentially torpedoed the deal by voting to reject it. ….
Belgium’s Prime Minister Charles Michel was left scrambling to find a solution after Wallonia’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to reject the agreement on Friday, but officials stressed that it was local governments rather than parliaments that would have the final say. Under Belgium’s complex political system, the government cannot approve the deal without support from assemblies representing the country’s three regions and three linguistic communities.
“I will not give powers to the federal government and Belgium will not sign CETA on October 18,” Paul Magnette, the Socialist head of Wallonia’s government, declared on Friday. “I do not intend this as a burial but as a demand to reopen negotiations.”
The move has threatened to derail CETA, which is backed by Canada and all 28 EU national governments, including Belgium’s. The deal is due to be voted by European trade ministers on Tuesday, who must unanimously approve it before it can be officially signed by EU leaders and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
France also stepped up pressure on its neighbor to the north by inviting Magnette to talks in Paris later on Friday with fellow Socialist, President François Hollande. After the meeting, Magnette hinted he was ready for a solution. “I am a natural optimist and very willing. What we are asking for is very reasonable,” he said.
Personally, I think CETA is a good thing but many people don’t. It is the EU method of suppressing minority views that I find despicable. Far better if Wallonia/Belgium could opt out and make their own agreement.
Corporateeurope: Behind the PR attempts by the Canadian Government and the European Commission to sell CETA as a progressive agreement, it remains what it always has been: an attack on democracy, workers, and the environment. …… Over the past weeks, to salvage CETA’s ratification process, the European Commission, the Canadian Government as well as some EU governments and MEPs had gone into a massive propaganda mode. ……. The latest PR move is a “joint interpretative declaration” on the trade deal hammered out by Ottawa and Brussels and published by investigative journalist collective Correctiv last Friday. It is designed to alleviate public concerns but in fact does nothing to fix CETA’s flaws.
As costs go up in flames, time to pull Obamacare off the market?
October 24, 2016Obamacare costs are no longer affordable. So even Barack Obama is comparing his Affordable Care Act with Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7.
“When one of these companies comes out with a new smartphone… [and] it has a few bugs, what do they do, — they fix it, [they] upgrade it. Unless it catches fire – then they pull it off the market”.
And Obamacare is clearly on fire.
obamacare-premiums-2017-graphic-zerohedge
Obamacare’s Collapsing. That Was Always The Plan.
On Thursday, President Obama attempted to defend the skyrocketing costs of Obamacare by comparing them to the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, a smartphone that was banned on airplanes because it had a nasty habit of spontaneously combusting. …. Obama put the responsibility on the states for not expanding Medicaid, thereby avoiding picking up the costs of Obamacare. The vast majority of people who have enrolled in Obamacare have done so at point of government gun, and have done so as part of the Medicaid expansions Obamacare attempted to incentivize; as of October 2015, nearly all of the “newly insured” enrollees were Medicaid enrollees. Obama tried to claim that the federal government would pick up the tab for expanded Medicaid, but that neglects that over time, the states pick up more and more of the tab – and that the federal government is $20 trillion in debt.
Now, Obama’s pushing the public option, using George W. Bush’s egregiously awful Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit expansion. Part D has led to massive increases in healthcare costs, as well as to rejection of Medicare itself by health providers thanks to government restrictions on costs. As Mark Levin writes in Plunder and Deceit, “the impracticability of Medicare’s centralized management and archaic decision-making practices…significantly impairs the broader private sector.” …
….. I told Fox News back in August 2013 that Obamacare was designed to fail, thereby necessitating a government option. That option would bankrupt insurance companies – the government doesn’t have a necessity for profit margin, and therefore, for decent service – and lead to the complete government takeover of healthcare Obama has always sought. In other words, Obamacare was created with designed obsolescence – it’s as though Samsung had designed their phones to melt down so that they could then market the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, Government Edition.
Obamacare is not the shining example some people would like to pretend it is.
Western media treatment of East Aleppo and Mosul is hypocrisy in action
October 23, 2016The Western media (US and Europe) have views about the Middle East which are more than a little coloured by the self induced delusion that the US and Europe are on a righteous crusade against oppression and for the promotion of democracy. That has been and still is the overwhelming view from the time of the first Iraq war, the overthrow of Gaddaffi and all through the Arab spring uprisings in North Africa and now in Syria and Iraq again. That Europe and the US have not just encouraged and supported, but also instigated rebel groups to the prevailing regimes, to the point of recklessness is completely forgotten. Many of the rebel groups (including ISIS and Al-Nusra) would not have dared to begin their blood-letting without the false hopes raised by the Saudi money and the US/NATO/EU support. (It is the same pattern of reckless EU/NATO expansionism – but without the Saudi money – which prevailed in Ukraine and led to the Russian aggression and annexation of the Crimea). This “political correctness” is now blatantly apparent in the difference of media treatment to the assaults on East Aleppo in Syria and on Mosul in Iraq.
Patrick Cockburn has this in The Unz Review (originally in The Independent):
In Libya, Gaddafi was demonised as the sole cause of all his country’s ills while his opponents were lauded as valiant freedom fighters whose victory would bring liberal democracy to the Libyan people. Instead, as was fairly predictable, the overthrow of Gaddafi rapidly reduced Libya to a violent and criminalised anarchy with little likelihood of recovery.
In present day Syria and Iraq one can see much the same process at work. In both countries, two large Sunni Arab urban centres – East Aleppo in Syria and Mosul in Iraq – are being besieged by pro-government forces strongly supported by foreign airpower. In East Aleppo, some 250,000 civilians and 8,000 insurgents, are under attack by the Syrian Army allied to Shia paramilitaries from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon and supported by the Russian and Syrian air forces. The bombing of East Aleppo has rightly caused worldwide revulsion and condemnation.
But look at how differently the international media is treating a similar situation in Mosul, 300 miles east of Aleppo, where one million people and an estimated 5,000 Isis fighters are being encircled by the Iraqi army fighting alongside Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia and Sunni paramilitaries and with massive support from a US-led air campaign. In the case of Mosul, unlike Aleppo, the defenders are to blame for endangering civilians by using them as human shields and preventing them leaving. In East Aleppo, fortunately, there are no human shields – though the UN says that half the civilian population wants to depart – but simply innocent victims of Russian savagery.
Destruction in Aleppo by Russian air strikes is compared to the destruction of Grozny in Chechnya sixteen years ago, but, curiously, no analogy is made with Ramadi, a city of 350,000 on the Euphrates in Iraq, that was 80 per cent destroyed by US-led air strikes in 2015. Parallels go further: civilians trapped in East Aleppo are understandably terrified of what the Syrian Mukhabara secret police would do to them if they leave and try to pass through Syrian government checkpoints. ……
…….
The advance on Mosul is being led by the elite Special Forces of the Iraqi counter-terrorism units and Shia militias are not supposed to enter the city, almost all of whose current inhabitants are Sunni Arabs. But in the last few days these same special forces entered the town of Bartella on the main road twelve miles from Mosul in their black Humvees which were reportedly decorated with Shia religious banners. Kurdish troops asked them to remove the banners and they refused. An Iraqi soldier named Ali Saad was quoted as saying: “(T)hey asked if we were militias. We said we’re not militias, we are Iraqi forces and these are our beliefs.”
It may be that Isis will not fight for Mosul, but the probability is that they will, in which case the outlook will not be good for the civilian population. Isis did not fight to the last man in Fallujah west of Baghdad so much of the city is intact, but they did fight for Khalidiya, a nearby town of 30,000, where today only four buildings are still standing according to the Americans.
The extreme bias shown in foreign media coverage of similar events in Iraq and Syria will be a rewarding subject for PhDs students looking at the uses and abuses of propaganda down the ages.
This has been the pattern of reporting of the wars in Syria and Iraq over the last five years. Nothing much has changed since 2003 when the Iraqi opposition to Saddam Hussein had persuaded foreign governments and media alike that the invading American and British armies would be greeted with rapture by the Iraqi people. A year later the invaders were fighting for their lives. Misled by opposition propagandists and their own wishful thinking, foreign government officials and journalists had wholly misread the local political landscape. Much the same thing is happening today.
Paradoxes for our times / 4
October 22, 2016
The k2p blog 