Tag Archives: Donald Trump

The Donald Trump Effect – Conservatism Seeking Future Victories

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Submitted by Steven Kaszab

The American Republican Party may very well welcome back President Trump as Leader. Former President Trump has actually never left the leadership since this past election cycle. Many Americans hoped Trump would pass into the lecture cycle so many ex-legislators do, but people in the know surely believe that Trump will not leave the national stage until he is pressured to do so. 

What makes Donald Trump such a force of political and economic persuasion? Why will he not just go away gracefully? Does Canada’s Pierre Poilievre,  who is seeking The Canadian Conservatives Party Leadership share similar characteristics  with Trump?

-So called grass roots movements that often employ undemocratic means to achieve a win.

-makes promises that are attractive to the electorate but maybe not good for the nation.

-Will appear with just about anyone to promote themselves (Truck Protest in Ottawa).

-Their political platforms are based upon -Make America Great Again – Make Harperism Great Again.

-Both platforms are based on returning to “past moments in time”, lacking new concepts-new promises.

-Both men are tied to The Right Wing politically and economically, dependent upon their wealth and     influence to achieve a political win. 

-Both men are tied to foreign national influences and crisis…Trump to Russia, Pierre to USA.

– Both men are destructionists, tearing down regulations, public organizations and governmental   regimes such as Environmental Protection Agency and CBC.

-“Freedom” has become a state of mind for these men and their followers, not knowing exactly what   that means. A umbrella like statement encompassing a great deal.

– Both men’s ideologies support a greater and more powerful military complex.

If you look for any form of imaginative, creative and new political, economic or public concepts you will be dumb founded to fine any. Remember Conservatism Lives in the Past. Conservatives overall fear change, the unique and different. Well not in Ontario, where The Ford Government has shown a unique ability to seek out and work with all their citizens, Conservatives that spend money when needed(Pandemic) while managing their budgets realistically. Trump simply cancelled many social programs, and redirected the funds to places that satisfied their back room supporters needs. Pierre will certainly do everything he can to bring back Alberta’s Energy Industry, and forget all about Climate Change because “its all about the economy” and the pocket books of his supporters.

In America, President Biden may very well retire and not run due to his health, leaving Vice President Harris to face a up surging Republican crescendo. The primary’s are showing Republicans who do not support Trump are falling by the way side, and Capital Hill may have many more Republicans to deal with, creating a “yellow Brick Road” for Trump onto a Second Presidency. Pierre Poilievre has pretty well decaled himself The Conservatives new leader while still fighting the leadership campaign. 

Liberals. Environmentalists, those dependent upon public funds, those seeking a new frontier may all need to quake where they stand, as Conservatism is on the march towards future victories. 

Conservatism means to conserve what was, not what will be. Conservatism does not present hope for better, new approaches to politics and governance. Oh the good old days eh!

2020 US Presidential Election

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If the late great Gladston Holder were alive he would take the opportunity to remind us that it does not matter who is elected to the White House, it the wealthiest families in the USA where the power is located- the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers et al. That said many will agree party colours aside, Trump’s legacy will be remembered as being one of the most bigoted and divisive.

Let it be no secret this blogmaster cannot wait to see the back of the man. He has disgraced the office of president of the USA and by extension the human race.

Discuss for 2 marks.

JOE BIDEN, SO-CALLED ‘PROGRESSIVES’ AND THE REARRANGEMENT OF THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

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Submitted by Pachamama

As the coalition of forces gather with their vested interests of displace the American fascist dictator, Donald Trump, on a civil warlike political battlefield, it is becoming quite clear that people who call themselves ‘progressives’ will only awake to the machinations, political tricks, being conjured and to the tectonic shifts under the battlefield when it is far too late. Such a re-imagining of American politics, as neoliberalism was the remixing of economic policies, must of necessity, leave ‘progressives’ out in the cold.

We are estimating that this Democratic-led coalition which is likely to emerge from a possible victory will lurch much further rightward than progressives are generally imagining. For Joe Biden is merely running as a Democrat but intends to rule as a Republican. This is all he has known all his life. Being a conservative Democrat means being a Republican. Same as Obama, there are few differences between factions within the duopoly. Biden has never been known to instinctively done anything progressive in his whole life. Above all, politics is about slicing and dicing as an acceptable method of gaining power, not being a fountain of virtue. Not interfering with the hideous structural infirmities on which the country has been built. This is representative of Joe Biden to the bone!

Therefore, it would be irrational to expect a man like Biden to approach, for example, the misanthropically inspired symbology represented by the ‘Star Spangle Banner’, the national anthem, which glorifies slavery in one of its verses. Or revisit the 13th Amendment of the constitution which still legalizes slavery for people in America’s dungeons, 80% of whom are of colour. Need we go on?

Then, the question which progressives will never get answered is – how could he ‘Build Back Better’ on such a flawed foundation? All Biden really wants to do is to get back to how things were before Donald J. Trump was thrown up by the political culture as if those represented halcyon days for Afrikan-Americans, supposedly his most dependable bloc. That’s all!

But, who are these people generally referred to as ‘progressives’? Well, they could be any motley bunch of political gradations from the far-right to the far-left and in-between. To the far-right they may include Republicans who support the logic of climate change and even never-Trumpers. To the far-left they may be communists, antifascists, socialists or even Trotskyists influenced by the lesser of two evils logic.

In this scenario, Joe Biden would, in effect, be the ‘unwitting’ savior of the Republican Party which is likely to be devastated by a massive defeat, if current polling holds true and in the event Trump is unable to complete that well-planned dastardly act currently underway. Should Biden be buoyed by the winds of a fierce national and overwhelming determination which forces Trump into having no other choice but to leave the White House, even to the point of duress if deemed necessary he saves the Republican Party. In so doing, he would be serving the hordes of Republicans seeking asylum within the Democratic Party as a way of making sure the indispensable other half of the American political duopoly survives Trumpism – the Republican Party.

When we look back at the presidency of Trump, in this scenario, it might appear as though a level of master planning, by hidden hands, paved the way for Biden. He could have the prefect landing to enable him to jettison feckless progressive operating under the assumption that this Democratic Party’s ‘donkey’ will take them somewhere. In addition, Biden could have a highly conservative Supreme Court; a Senate which could be Democratic led but more than willing to serve his less than obvious conservative agenda and a House of Representatives acting likewise with muted or sporadic objections from its progressive caucus.

In these circumstances, the LGBTQ identity politicos, who played such an enormous role during the Obama administration, would not be able to co-exist with the Republican elements within the Biden Coalition, absent the few Log Cabin Republicans. If Biden is faced with a choice between these political forces, there is little doubt that he will go with his new-found friends for the fear about defections of the Republicans may cause too much imbalance within his coalition. He will seek to equalize that action by resting on the logic that the LGBTQ forces generally have nowhere else to go.

The same thinking holds true for Afrikan-Americans, Hispanics, and other progressives who will have nowhere to go notwithstanding the presence of a fledgling Green Party with a presidential candidate, Howie Hawkins, and up to maybe a 100 other people seeking the presidency. Defections of progressives are likely to be deemed as merely a temporary setback. Afrikan-Americans should not expect this reformulation of political forces within neoliberal capitalism will deliver any of Biden’s promises about ‘Building Back Better’ and so on. Nothing will happen but talk, until after the election when the drift to the right becomes public. Observers however, can see what a Biden administration will look like right now by the examination of his teams of advisers. To us such expectations are the equivalent of asking a dead man to change his will and expecting it to happen.

One good thing about Biden is that he has dared to locate himself as it to remove the scab from the old festering wounds making America the fascist state it might have always been and/or to which it has now degenerated for all to see. Of course, he was well assisted by the ongoing demonstrations throughout the country and being a politician there was a need for a response that made sense in order to garner the votes of Afrikan-Americans, women, progressives, young people etc.

In some ways Biden has been sheltered by Whiteness and a hyper focus in the country on what is wrongly seen as a cultural anomaly, the Trump presidency. However, the deeper truth is that Biden will never fix, or even start to fix, in eight (8) years, what was consolidated over four centuries.

Guided by history, only the total and complete destruction of American empire can satisfactorily settle these deeply divisive issues, correct all the fundamental social problems that have been termed ‘original sins’. Some contend that this fatal option maybe better that Biden’s return to an abnormal normalcy. Progressives should have long recognized the existential forces at work and found ways to insert someone more able to deal the rebuilding that has to happen and therefore avoid this Biden misdirection.

How Donald Trump is Stealing the 2020 Presidential Elections

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Submitted by Pachamama

We write as the New York Times has finally found damning evidence that Donald Trump is not the billionaire, successful businessman, he has always presented himself to be – some of us were long aware of this. He may be nearer to being a tax cheat. On the other side of the electoral ledger, Trump has fortuitously found Amy Barrett to buttress his position when (not if) the elections are thrown into the Supreme Court.

Currently, a range of polls have Joe Biden leading almost everywhere. Nationally, he leads Trump by between eight (8) and ten (10) points. In the six (6) to eight (8) battleground states, Biden has leads greater than the margins of error in about five (5) to six (6) of them. Trump leads in one (1) or two (2) and there are a few where there are statistical ties. There is some significant enlargement of the electoral map (battleground states) as states like Texas and Georgia beckon as if ‘fool’s gold’ for Democrats. These are where every election is won or lost.

Presidential elections in America, in recent times – yes, but throughout their history, have been bedevilled by all manner of fraud – on all sides, at different times, but particularly by Republicans, currently, so as to compensate for being the less populace of the two major parties, which it has become. Exit polling, the gold standard for elections, as the highly reliable measure for predicting outcomes and detecting fraud have often failed to avoid the opposite results within the American context. Unlike pre-election polling, no guesswork is required for exit polling which is globally deployed.

In the 2000 presidential elections George Bush, number two (2), was able to defeat Al Gore when the Supreme Court, which Trump has now stacked with loyalists, intervened and threw the elections to Bush. Of course, the Florida Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, had already prepared the ground by removing tens of thousands of Afrikan-American voters from the rolls in strategic areas – they could not vote. If you were Black, with a criminal record, and your name was Brown all the Browns in your immediate areas were therewith removed from the voter rolls. This remains a central Republican voter suppression tactic.

This preparation of the battleground, as if for war, has been, all this time, going on behind the scenes by well-paid soldiers who know that their boss, Trump, never wants to be seen as a ‘loser’. Trump as the out-and-out fraudster and well aware of all the historic electoral shenanigans will be hard to be persuaded by what he sees as meaningless traditions. It should not be doubted that new systems of election rigging are being hatched as an ongoing project.

Trump should be believed when he contends that the only way he could lose is if the elections were unfair. We must see his attempts to manipulate the postal system; his inordinate control over Republican governors, like Ron DeSantis in Florida, a battleground state; and in the absence of a possible clear defeat, the reliability of a Supreme Court to appoint him, an easy ask. We concede though, that the court may not be as dependable as he would like it to be.

The 2004 elections were stolen based on electronic manipulation by George Bush or people acting on his behalf – essentially Karl Rove, who Bush called the ‘architect’. Rove and his fellow architects, again in Florida, were able to program voter machines so that votes for John Kerry were recognized, by the machines, as votes for Bush.

In Ohio, Ken Blackwell, a Black republican and former mayor of Cincinnati, oversaw the same kinds of built-in irregularities in certain counties as he certified numbers of electors inconsistent with actual registered voters. Bush’s approval ratings days before the election was 48%, with political momentum going against him. Normally when an incumbent president is below 50% he/she tends to lose. But Bush ‘won’ 51-48% in Ohio as the voting machines supplied by republican outfits included Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (DESI), Election Systems & Software (ESS) and Sequoia Voting Systems did the job intended. These are the companies which conspired with Karl Rove to steal two elections in a row and were the suppliers of 80% of all voting machines within the USA.

Notwithstanding the underlying election fraud by Bush, CNN had called the 2004 election for Kerry. But soon after and based on one of sixteen statistical impossibilities, a few thousand additional votes produced a five (5) point swing for Bush. This was also inconsistent with the exit polling results in the decisive states of Florida and Ohio. CNN then reversed itself and began calling the elections for Bush instead of Kerry. This action wiped out Kerry’s three (3) percentage points lead which he had gained up to 01:36 am and had Bush now leading by 2 percentage points in Florida. Only in America!

Pennsylvania also played a similar role in these fraudulent 2004 elections.

Enter Mitt Romney, and the 2012 elections, with Barack Obama seeking a second term. Romney comes along with the serial election fraudster Karl Rove. Maybe it was John McCain, given the man which he was said to be, who declined to participate in an election fraud against Obama in 2008. Donald Trump could never be depended upon to behave in such ways. History may indeed show that McCain created a break in the historic fraudulence of Karl Rove during the 2008 presidential elections – Obama v McCain.

Readers may recall Karl Rove, appearing on Fox News as commentator, in the 2012 elections, delaying a concession long after all indications were that Obama was being projected to be the winner of Ohio and thus would have garnered the 270 electoral votes to be the next president. Rove knew something only few others would have known.

It was Willian Skinner who alerted us about a report in the press concerning a motley group of hackers who were claiming to have discovered the planned electronic theft of Karl Rove and his associates and succeeded in blocking them, putting Rove’s agents into an electronic trap. As a result we are left to presume that Rove’s actions coupled with Romney’s long delayed concession was their way of giving the hidden and fraudulent hands more time to manifest this massive election fraud once more.

As we approach the first question and answer session on Tuesday (these could hardly pass for debates) Trump will see them as an opportunity to destroy Biden using his belligerent, uncouth, style. Biden’s handlers will be happy if they can get him out of there with at least a credible draw. There will be hardly any machinations, hopes, about winning given the damaged goods with which they have been handed. However, for Trump, less so than for Biden, the real game is taking place elsewhere and conducted by the forces of darkness from whence the whole panoply of American electoral fraud will be in a heightened state of readiness.

We have estimated that even if Joe Biden were to win the popular vote, win the Electoral College by a significant margin, win the exit polling, have all major media projecting him as the winner, by some chance have the Supreme Court declare him as winner, these will not be enough to convince Donald Trump that he is indeed anything less than the winner. Biden will then have to get Trump to concede and exit the White House, still. A dependence of the military brass is ill-advised. These may prove more difficult than winning the election as Trump has already prepared a case indicting the Democrats for engaging in massive election fraud. And as irrational as that maybe, we’ve seen this play reenacted for four years, Trump winning more often than not.

Biden the dependable nationalist, like Al Gore and John Kerry before him, may even find a way to capture defeat from the jaws of victory in order to preserve the republic and avoid a decent into civil unrest, even if the Supreme Court acted in his favour and against an adamant Donald Trump.

Of course, there will be demonstrations in the street regardless of final outcome..

There can be no daylight between the high-handed nomination of Amy Barrett and the election fraud being perpetrated by Donald J. Trump and those acting on his behalf. As this looming crisis to empire takes us on a slow march to a near unavoidable disaster it maybe high time for American policymakers to rethink all the structures on which this experiment was constructed. Certainly, an ‘exceptional nation’ should not have produced a Donald Trump, let alone have him elevated to the seat of power. A power position which then transforms a fraudster into a neo-fascist with the perceived power to say who, in the case of Venezuela, is to be that country’s president. The power of the presidency may be the one thing keeping Trump out of jail, Should he lose all bets are off. And Trump knows this too well.

Strengthened by the fraudulence of empire he can now do to America what the United States has for two hundred and fifty (250) years done to the rest of the world. One man, Donald J. Trump, has in a mere four (4) years done more damage to the United States of America than all the armies ever seen and not even a thousand Joe Bidens could recover it.

Fascism – The Capture of the Republican Party by TRUMP

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Submitted by Pachamama

By the end of the business day, Thursday 27 August 2020, political history of the world would have been written by one Donald Trump. This grifter would have achieved total and unquestioned controlled over the Republican National Convention (RNC) apparati and inserted his brand in such a way that there would be no recognizable differences between man, family and party. The former Republican Party would have become an integral part of the ‘family businesses.

The current coming-out ‘party’ convention has been so organized so that not a whisper of dissent could be given voice. Every ‘man jack’ chosen to speak was to be a reliable Trumpeter. Only Hitler was this exacting. Dissidents were either skillfully sidelined, assigned to the political wilderness in search of uncertain futures or made to join the growing numbers of ‘never-Trumpers’ in groups like the Lincoln Project, in exile as outside supporters of Joe Biden, a man who himself, is less than compos mentis.

As Trump plays for keeps, the clear intention is the deployment of the party organization for the maximization of personal and generational wealth. He and he alone must be the richest man in the world. This is Trump’s personal party! This is all happening, while the Democratic congressional leadership is running around talking about passing this bill, and that bill. But none of this matters to Trump. For Trump, they provide good cover for him to reshape the political structure, under their feet, and in his own image, his brand. The Republican leadership, on the other hand, has been mere lapdogs to this new ‘King’ of America!

We would be unsurprised should Trump emerge from this convention gaining the added bonus of reducing the margins between himself and Biden, a post-convention bounce. This is the normal bounce expected, which Biden failed to obtain from his own theatrical displays of last week.

At the end of the day we would fail to see, if Trump is as successful as we assess he will be, the circumstances under which the current political duopoly formations could resist the type of transformation similar to that as imposed on the Whig Party of the early 19th century. The real question here is whether the Republican Party, as we have known it, is now dead or not? Given demography, some may wonder how it could have existed for so long. History may find that this has been achieved through systemic electoral fraud. This is a history of fraud with which the Democratic Party (DNC) has willingly colluded to ensure that the status quo is maintained.

Trump must be well-pleased with himself for getting away with the incessant moral and legal challenges he has mounted to the system. For example, no president has thus far, been subjected to an impeachment conviction but continued to successfully seek the party’s banner in a coming election. But nobody even mentions this fact. Such is the gravamen of existential challenges to the duopoly as presented by Trumpism.

Maybe, he was right when he voiced his truism that the president’s power is ‘total’. Evidently, his most loyal supporters, the fascist-Christian-evangelicals; court systems well populated by Trump loyalists; that critical mass of Euro-Americans whose every sinew is racist; the silent corporate elites who support both duopoly factions; and a bevy of supine congressmen and senators are now well-prepared to set-sail any remaining notions about ‘democracy’, ‘liberty’, ‘freedom’ down the Potomac River. The Potomac two-step on full display!

Trump has instilled such a perverse party ‘discipline’ that a Martian visiting Earth and landing on this convention would not believe that there is currently a pandemic and that north of 200,000 Americans, based on excess deaths statistics, lay dead. Even as a coterie of buffoons feels confident enough to compel a populace to believe that what is real is indeed fiction and that fiction is reality. Oh, where is George Orwell when needed most!

Internationally, the Dictator-in-Chief has wielded his fascist powers with ruthless efficiency. We could list the countries. They include Bolivia, Venezuela, Guyana, Belarus, Palestine, Syria and more. In the case of Guyana he, with hidden hands, was able to deploy CARICOM and the OAS to overturn an election and install the PPP on the basis that one of his associates in Washington was a paid consultant to the Jagdeo gang. What is currently happening at the so-called Republican National Convention has more to do with the future of empire and the fortunes of the Caribbean than anything happening in this region currently.

Of course, we expect Trump will be the next president. This we see as highly possible regardless to who wins the most votes, who gains the larger number of delegates in the Electoral College or what the exit-polling may suggest. A Biden victory will merely delay the inevitable. The American fascist dictator has already laid the predicate in order to question any adverse result. Before that, we are guaranteed an enhanced panoply of uniquely American electoral fraudulent measures, maybe by both sides, measures already in play. Will CARICOM and the OAS interfere like they did in Guyana or Bolivia?

Even if by some miracle Biden were to win, it would be another significant hurdle to get Trump out of the White House, physically. Biden is wrongly persuaded that the military brass will expel Trump under these circumstances. Given recent events outside this very White House and the irrational refusal of all elements of the military to arrest Donald Trump and subject him to a military tribunal on treason charges, we are not inclined to concur with Biden.

Trump has never followed any tradition or lawful requirement. He breaks more laws before breakfast that the criminals in his dungeons, it has been said. Also, he is much too fearful of going to jail, like he must, if a sense of political decency is to be re-established in Washington DC. We are therefore left to loiter on the good graces of ordinary citizens in an unlikely quest of removing a political carbuncle from the body politic.

We have been reminded that the Constitution requires the Speaker of the House, Pelosi, to assume the interim-presidency should there be long-lasting election uncertainty going beyond January 20th, 2021, as Trump is threatening with blatant interference in the USPS. But even if it were to come to this, we would fail to see any circumstances where the incumbent, Donald J. Trump would recognize her (Pelosi’s) existence. He may even have her arrested should she venture anywhere near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The fatal flaw is the American political culture requiring the presumptive loser to accept defeat will serve merely to ignite deeper social discord and further the aims of the fascists. This is an environment Trump lives for and is clearly willing to ignite a civil war if necessary.

The classical definition of fascism has been the conjoining of political and economic forces, an unholy alliance. However, what we see emerging here through the use of processes to further disempower the masses and enrich the few is a more virulent formation than understood by the traditional definition. Lewis and Long argued well that when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag. However, this writer is still left in wonderment that such a monster, from the cesspool of American fascism, would arise in our own lifetimes, at the centre of empire, even as we have always been acutely aware of the very nature of American political culture, which has always been fascistic at its core. We are left to wrestle with the internal contradictions.

Feel the Bern

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Submitted as a comment to another blog by Caleb Pilgrim – Blogmaster

@ Blogmaster:

Back to Trump, in the days preceding The South Carolina primary this coming Saturday, February 29th, and Super Tuesday, next Tuesday, March 3, 2020. …

Sometime ago, Dr. G.P in an overly zealous and passionate defense of POTUS, exclaimed “Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!”. G.P was apparently seduced by and so enamored of the officious showman, erstwhile host of “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice”.

We are now approaching a significant milestone in the Presidential elections. Former VP Biden (a/k/a “Sleepy Joe”); – Blogmaster described his performance thus far as being like “warmed over soup”; Trumpf’s campaign spies must also have noticed something “sleepy” about Joe – expects to win. He (Biden) describes it as “a firewall”, Super Tuesday. But, like all other candidates he is still far from the winning tape. Also, Biden lacks money, compared to Sanders, and billionaires Bloomberg and Steyer.

Moreover, as I have often noted, there are certain rumblings going on in the bowels of American body politic. The body politic is in ferment, if not disarray. Like your stomach, sometimes, after a heavy meal?

How else do we, objectively, explain the Obama two term Presidency in a still predominantly racist society? The backlash of the rather strange Trump Presidency? The phenomenon of angry white men”; (blacks apparently have nothing to be angry about)? The rise of the Me-too movement and its profound repercussions, e.g Cosby, Weinstein and many others rich and once powerful? Legalization of same sex marriages, in itself, a quiet revolution in values, and the so far relatively successful Presidential candidacy of the first openly gay, same sex married, South Bend Mayor, Pete Buttigieg? Legalization of recreational marijuana in almost a dozen states including all west coast states, Colorado, and some East coast states; legalization of medical marijuana in more than 30 states, etc, etc?

But, first, why should all this matter to the BU reader? Some nativist, insular, navel gazers dismiss such inquiries as irrelevant because they “vote in Barbados”. This is myopic, however. These navel gazers simply ignore the fact that there may well be several hundred thousand Barbadians and persons of Barbadian extraction (there are no realistic figures) presently living in North America). Are we simply to ignore the legitimate concerns and the welfare of such Bajans on the ground that “I don’t vote in America. I votes in Barbados”? “Fluck them”!

Secondly, for better or worse, in mere geopolitical terms, the American Empire still remains, for the time being at least, the world’s richest economy and the world’s most powerful military. We never live in a vacuum.

In the circumstances, it behooves us to think a little, even a little outside the box. In this vein, there has recently been talk of Former NY Governor Bloomberg offering former candidate Andrew Yang the VP slot should he become the Democratic nominee.

The gist of my argument here is that barring a successful repeat performance by the Democrats’ 2016 “superdelegates” (if Senator Bernie Sanders, does not win by a clear majority on the Convention’s first ballot), Sanders, a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist”, favoring a Scandinavian type democratic “socialism”, can not only win the Party’s Nomination this coming November. He can also win the Presidency in November.

Even if the “superdelegates”, or “supercrooks”, depending, can somehow derail and thwart Sanders, they will never be able to unify a highly fractured Democratic Party, far less form a National Unity Government. If they are seen as having robbed Sanders yet again, many of his supporters will predictably defect and may well guarantee Trump another term in office. The Democrats might even suffer a trifecta, losing the House, the Senate and the Presidency.

Despite Trump’s predictable name calling, Sanders can nevertheless defeat Trump. Trump has already called him a “Communist”. Strange that he (Sanders), a so/called “communist”, should be supported by millionaire businessmen like Tom and Jerry, Jeff Weaver, and on several issues by billionaire Tom Steyer, et al. These, after all, are hard headed businessmen, not Communists. With such support, the “Communist” smear rings hollow. It is simply reminiscent of Trump’s Attorney, Roy Cohn, Whittaker Chambers and Senator Joe McCarthy. Red baiting might appeal to some voters well over 60 years and who lived through the Cold War. However, beyond frightening the uninformed, it does not really resonate with the changing electorate. Sanders could go on to win the US Presidency.

Also, surprise, surprise, Sanders’ “democratic socialism” is no different from the democratic socialism in Norway, (don’t forget that Trump prefers new U.S immigrants “from Norway”). Call it “democratic socialism”, “Scandinavian democracy”, (Sweden, Denmark, Finland), whatever. The problem here is to educate the electorate, admittedly a sometimes formidable task.

But, should Senator Sanders choose a younger, former Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate, Stacey Abrams, a black, female, Yale trained lawyer and former Minority Leader in the Georgia Senate, with very substantial political, business, industry and community experience, a Sanders-Abrams ticket could win, absent interference by the “super-delegates”.

A Sanders-Abrams ticket wins the black vote throughout most of the United States. (As an aside, a female Black Vice Presidential candidate will also be a first. It would add more energy and excitement to Sanders’ already highly motivated supporters; it would also break the mould and position Abrams to run for the Presidency the next time around, the first black female since Shirley Chisholm of Barbadian lineage). Relatively few black voters, except perhaps for some black recidivist legatees of the Confederacy, a specie of mentally defective Clarence Thomas, “Blacks for Trump”; “Woke”; will decline to support such a ticket.

Abrams is also almost certain to demolish Pence in the Vice Presidential Debates.

As to immigration, Sanders’ promise of a moratorium on all deportations within the first 100 days of his Administration, guarantees support among the Latino and immigrant communities in the USA. Hence, his very substantial support among Latinos in the recent Nevada caucus.

Further, Sanders’ promise of a minimum wage of $15 resonates with the poor and the working class. Hence, his support among blue collar workers and trade unions.

Time and space do not allow for a detailed discussion of ever increasing and extreme inequality in the U.S; or examination of proposals such as “Medicare for all”; student loan forgiveness and free college tuition; climate change – “a Chinese hoax” per Trump; (but just ask Dr. Leonard Nurse his opinion on climate change, as a more capable expert witness); the economic and social impact of the corona pandemic on the much vaunted Trump economic “successes”. ….

Notwithstanding predictably ritual denials, we should also not underestimate the role and impact of the U.S Intelligence Community (IC) or some disaffected agents in re-paying Trump’s generosity in dissing the 17 Intelligence Agencies, throughout his Presidency. Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold.

Also, this will be the first election in which tens of billions ($$$$$) will have been spent by the candidates. On the Democratic side, we can expect that Bloomberg himself may spend a few billions if per chance he is the nominee. Steyer himself may also contribute a few billion. Jeff Bezos of Amazon, an avid Trump fan, should also be most comfortable in putting in a few billion to anyone opposing Trump. George Soros should also be good for a few billion. How easy it is to spend Other People’s’ Money (“OPM”)?

To the Trump Choir, I therefore say – even though it is still early, “come over to Damascus”! We would never want you to be the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.

Finally, don’t forget that you first heard it (this murky analysis and prediction), here on BU. Uh gone!

TRUMP: A Pre-mortem? Or, Death By A Thousand Cuts?

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Submitted by Caleb Pilgrim

To return to Trump ….Today is day 1075 since President Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. According to the Washington Post, by December 16, 2019, he, Trump, had made a mere 15,413 false or misleading statements (otherwise known as lies). Some claim that he even lied about his father, Fred Trump’s place of birth.

Arguably, the Post’s figures might well have been inaccurate. We do not know and we will never know the exact number of lies Trump would have told family, friends, acquaintances, strangers, his Cabinet members individually or collectively, or even lies he might have told himself during the period. The Post’s figures might therefore have been limited to his “public” lies, and the Post’s estimate far too low.

Such has been POTUS’s achievement here – a far cry from President George Washington who allegedly never told a lie – that American social scientists have now developed a new category pertaining to lies: awarding politicians, such as Trump, “the bottomless Pinocchio”. He is clearly unable to control his lying; a medical condition sometimes known as “mythomania”.

By contrast, a pastor friend, a diehard Trump supporter and a black evangelical here in the N.E USA, like another friend and former Barbados unsuccessful political candidate in last year’s May 24, 2018 election; these see Trump, notwithstanding his “truthful hyperbole” as a great man of destiny. To be fair, the Pastor’s wife, more wise, more discerning, early intimated that as far as she could see “God is not the author of confusion”.

The die, however, has now been cast; the Mueller Report completed; the transcript made available; the Whistleblower’s report publicized; ditto the IG’s report; the respective House Committees have done their inquiries and Reports. and the House has voted its two Articles of Impeachment. The Senate reconvenes in short order.

It now remains for the Senate under Chief Justice Roberts to schedule and conduct its impeachment trial of the President, a rarity, in the context of looming Primaries and a 2020 Presidential election. Senators McConnell and Graham, prospective jurors in any impeachment trial, have said that they already decided the matter. What happens if or when Senator Schumer and the Democratic Senate minority somehow file with C.J Roberts a motion to disqualify McConnell and Graham and any other juror who has already prejudged the matter? And, witnesses such as Bolton and Mulvaney? Remember that for many Republicans Trump remains the only game in town.

It is therefore appropriate to essay some brief, if random, remarks on POTUS, his Administration, certain of its policies and his prospects at this juncture.

In using the term “pre-mortem”, I do not mean to suggest that Trump’s defeat this November is a foregone conclusion. We have been here before with disastrous consequences, as former Secretary of State Clinton belatedly discovered. In a sense, he must harp on the economy. and his apparent “success” …. the economy stupid”?

Yet, there is an inescapable law of diminishing returns. Just ask any older man. (Even King David, 1 Kings 1, when he was old and cold). This law, it seems, applies in almost every sphere, including politics.

Consider a politician, a man not unlike Trumpf who thinks one way. He then speaks a second way. He then acts a third way. He trifles, obfuscates, deflects, dissembles, even lies. Bullshit and trivia persist as standard, daily political fare. His public, usually fickle, often misinformed, uninformed or even dis-informed. But, as Lincoln remarked, you can trick them some of the time, but not all of them all of the time.

As reasonable people, we must therefore resist the idea of The Idiot Posing as Intellect, or some Trump (The Tramp-in-Chief), a renegade bolshevik businessman and Putin stooge masquerading and declaring himself (soi-disant) a man of high IQ and “a very stable” geni-ass. (Cf. his late Wharton School Professor, William T. Kelley, a nonagenarian, who described him as “the dumbest goddam student” he, Professor Kelley, ever had in more than 40 years teaching at Wharton; Kissinger’s reference to him as not having “a very orderly mind”; or Tillerson’s description of him – unretracted – as a “moron”; his former lawyer, Attorney Cohen’s testimony that he pressured Fordham and Wharton not to release Trump’s academic transcripts; his absence from the Dean’s list at Wharton despite his boast that he had graduated “top of his class” at Wharton; all in the context wherein he (Trump) demanded to see President Obama’s transcripts and academic materials). Truly, a man of seemingly impregnable, untouchable ignorance, with legions of rats of all varieties scurrying around upstairs.

Perhaps, Republican Senator Romney, when he was thinking more clearly, had Trump’s measure, when he counseled Trump against releasing his tax returns, and then subsequently described him as a “fraud” and a “conman”. Thus, by way of example, Trump has always proclaimed his love for the military. Yet, beyond his serial draft dodging, and whatever his personal demons, the only war he (Trump) seems ever to have fought may well have been limited to some gilded boudoir with relatively expensive “toys” such as “Stormy” Daniels and Karen McDougal, going rate between US $125K and $150K.

No one can say that he (Trump) had been in the US Air Force; then exiled himself to Canada, Sweden, Denmark, the U.K., or elsewhere, rather than kill so-called “gooks” in the “swamps” and muddy/paddy fields of Vietnam. He made the great escape. He now poses as a “chicken hawk”, like many another draft dodger.

The Reader might still note that in terms of re-election strategy, it is still open to Trump and his advisers to start a war, if necessary, and before the elections, if this will gee up his domestic support. E.g in the case of Iran. Many a red blooded American would then rally to “the cause”, with typical shouts of “USA” “USA”. The problem will be one of graduated response and escalation? In response, the Ayatollahs and the Iranian National Guard may have to decide on the feasibility of shutting down the Gulf – following up on their attack on Saudi oil infrastructure some time ago. Beyond profiteering by armaments manufacturers, the military-industrial complex, billionaire investors, what would be the implications for the world economy, OECD and LDC countries and the least developed countries?

As to the issue of race, Trump’s re-election strategy, the Black, Latino and minority vote.

Fortunately, many no longer deny the fact that POTUS is a racist. For too long, the naive denied this fact, despite the overwhelming evidence, (his spawning of birtherism, his notorious ads about the Central Park Five after their sentences had been vacated and all criminal charges against them withdrawn; the EEOC housing discrimination complaints against him – I would not be surprised if there was not at least one Barbadian family allegedly victim of his housing discrimination; his abuse of African countries and Haiti as “s—hole” countries; his attacks on the inner city as “rat and rodent infested”; his own admission that he is a “white nationalist”).

As to his palpable disdain for Mexicans, rumor once did percolate that his daughter, Tiffany, had dated a wealthy Mexican young man while at Wharton. Imagine some Mexican with his grubby paw on his beautiful, pristine, blonde, blue-eyed daughter! Enough to make a “nationalist” nauseous! Who knows the source(s) of his animus against Mexico and Mexicans?

To my mind, to deny that President Trump is a good old fashioned racist largely surrounded by white supremacist advisers, such as Stephen Miller, is like witnessing a man in a bank, pointing his gun at employees and customers on the bank’s floor, and denying that the gunman was a bank robber. What stupid poppy cock!

Yet, Trump can still make inroads into the Black Vote (with “Blacks For Trump” and some of his allies). What if Trump and his advisers, including Secretary Carson, following the reparations advocates decide to expend some political capital and give black families some sort of money (not “40 acres and a mule”, far less will do), or even Yang’s “Freedom Dividend”? Many a hungry belly black may well be seduced by such an obvious political ploy and vote for Trump.

As to his foreign policy, unlike the Kennedy Doctrine, the Johnson Doctrine, the Nixon Doctrine, and others, the Trump doctrine seems at best a series of ad hoc, incoherent, non-sequential non-points, never going beyond slogans such as “MAGA” and “America First”, reflecting Trump’s typical, torrential nonsensical tweets.

Several decades ago, the British Yearbook of International Law kindly published an article that I had written on some aspects of trade in the natural resources of Namibia (1990?). The French Revue des Revues subsequently dismissed the article in two words “tres interessante”. However, we all got it wrong. There was/is no such country as Namibia, per Trump in one of his recent addresses to the UNGA, He should be forgiven for not knowing the name of such a namby pamby “s–hole” country. And, thank God for small mercies insofar as he did not confuse Namibia with NAMBLA.

Imagine, also, that iyou were an immigrant, a green card holder, and a veteran who had been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria. You return “home” to the USA. You find yourself in conflict with the law, felony or misdemeanor. You are convicted in a court of law. You are then deported to Mexico courtesy of a Commander-in-Chief who never served. (ICE officials who might never have served either). And, there are several hundreds such deported veterans in limbo in Mexico, a country they would have left in their very early childhood when their parents brought them to the US as minor children.

We need not speak of the moral obloquy involved in Trump’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents and caging them, with resulting psychological problems.

In the final analysis, in Trump, we have a man singularly classless, embarrassingly clueless, uninformed and unfathomably uncouth. Bristling with hubris, fire and brimstone, he is more the common man’s” Lord Haw Haw”. But, give him credit. He has normalized the abnormal…He has successfully weaponized unspeakable, mass ignorance and intellectual dishonesty in the U.S. No wonder he says he loves “the poorly educated”). He has so consolidated his leadership of the Republican Party, and might yet demoralize his divided 2020 democratic opposition, all with untold implications.

Caveat: As I have said, always beware of any politician who promises that he will end corruption and “drain the swamp”. Experience teaches that he merely brings in his own new, personal swamp, a la Trump.

A second term, however, is no picnic. Just as Nixon defeated George McGovern overwhelmingly and was then driven from Office, early in his second term; just as Bill Clinton’s Presidency was almost derailed early in his second term by the Lewinsky affair, so too Trump’s chickens may come home to roost before any second term or early in his second term if he should win. Few, if any, at any rate, can indefinitely survive a thousand cuts.

Impeached – Donald Trump TRUMPED

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President Donald Trump has suffered the ignominy of being the third President of the United States to be impeached by the House of Congress. The vote was along party lines – when the matter is kicked to the Republican controlled Senate the Articles of the Resolution to impeach is anticipated to be rejected.

What cannot be refuted is that Donald J Trump is now recorded in history as the third president of the United States to be impeached.

Donald Trump you are fired!

 

The Four Horsemen: Augmented Reality of White Supremacy in the White House

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Submitted by Terence M. Blackett

How Malthus, Darwin & Galton Sowed the Epistemological Seeds of Modern Race Hate That Will Lead to WWIII

“It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable…” Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

It was once said that if you told the truth, you would shame the Devil. Others believe in Protagoras’ famous maxim that says: “man is the measure of all things”. However, conventional wisdom has being turned on its head, as far too many have suspended the veracity of reality, for an alternative, augmented fake version of a narrative that says: ‘white privilege and white superiority have been the harbinger of progress, development & freedom given the white man has made more of a contribution to the development of the Western ideal than anyone else in the last 2000 years’ – yet sadly, the words of Scripture breaks through the stifling amnesia and mindless paranoia to remind us all: “Men would rather believe a ‘LIE’ instead of truth,” resulting in a world where strong delusions exist – perpetuating ongoing cycles where the mighty oppress the weak; the rich & powerful dole out the bread the devil kneads – creating a febrile, toxic, warlike atmosphere, as human beings lob from one crisis to another! Meantime, we are falling like flies from STRESS, OPIOID USE & a world in utter turmoil & the wanton wretchedness of the elites – a form of sheer madness that has morphed beyond palpable.

University of Connecticut philosopher Michael P. Lynch argues that the creation of modern, mainstream media socio-construction makes the ambit of societal understanding that much more vague and complex given the vagaries of fake news v true; authentic, reported news that is fair and balanced. Professor Lynch acknowledges that we have entered the era where the glass ceiling of objective reality has been shattered to bits and what we are left with is a circus side show (as we are currently witnessing in Britain with the BOZO government) of what he calls “the slide into despotism” based on our shared knowledge, the shenanigans of political intrigue & the negative effects of technological advancement.

In 1963, during those difficult years of the Civil Rights Movement, author, activist & scholar James Baldwin was prompted to respond forceful to Yale philosophy professor Paul Weiss on the Dick Cavett show, amplifying what it means to be Black in AmeriKKKa – with what can only be described as a masterclass in the art of debunking malicious subterfuge, while offering up an education in the matter of what it means to be a Black man in today’s so-called, white, privileged world. Actor Joe Morton’s clip here [55] years later, patently spells out the socio-politically engineered dilemma currently seething within the bowels of the (DIS) United States of Amnesia & Paranoia – where an age-old diabolicus of imperialistic tyranny still runs amuck in the dishevelled halls of the US government, but more so, within the Executive Branch, run by notably, the most “LYING, BIGOTED, RACIST, & CORRUPT” president ever selected to that office.

White privilege has become a pandemic virus ruminating within US society and infecting Britain, Europe, Australia et al! These social conditions can only lead to one set of individuals who refuse to own their behavioural attitudes to others – different from themselves. Therefore, political incorrectness would dictate that in putting an apocalyptic spin on Messrs. Bolton, Pompeo, tRUMP & Pence (BPTP) only shows the cataclysmic nature of what ‘hatred of others’ eventually creates.

As this current US Administration is the latest circus in town and its principal players are all globalists with a penchant for imperialist-type polyTRICKS – where weaker nations get labelled #Sh*tholes; Latinas are rapists and Muslims – the scourge of the earth!

In The Atlantic, a piece on ‘Augmented Reality’ brings home this poignant issue of white supremacy in Donald Trump’s White House – where the author cites Brian Wassom, who regularly writes on augmented reality – notes: “if apps can recognize a particular shade of melanin, and replace it with another, racists could one day live in their own version of…utopia.“

Today nations are spending over £1.2 trillion every year on weapons of mass destruction just to kill innocent people – while millions go to bed hungry for lack of basic provisions. As one reads the news wire in social media, it is pretty much like reading the prophecies of Scripture – as you must understand them before they happens. Hence the reason why we must read & understand the history before it actually happens based Ecclesiastes 1:9!

If World War I & II meant anything to folks like my grandfather (WW2 Vet) who lived through those PRE-APOCALYPTIC crises – yet they felt the world was witnessing Armageddon and YESHUA – The Messiah would soon follow in His return to earth. That time has since passed and today we are living on the brink of World War III.

We are standing on the THRESHOLD of great and solemn events! The current, ongoing dubious war against terrorism, rages on many fronts and in many countries with the constant threats of engineered terrorists’ attacks – notwithstanding a “DIRTY BOMB” in the wrong hands could plunge the world into #WW3, causing profound fear to enshroud humanity, that men’s hearts would literally fail them. Yet we know (even if in denial) the world is about to be plunged into such a catastrophic abyss that it has never before seen or imagined and from the Scriptures comes undeniable PROOFS staring most of GOD’S people in the face but Satan has done such a job of keeping us in a tragically obtuse mindset of “PEACE & SAFETY” – when sudden destruction finally comes, it will take us completely unawares.

Emerging phenomena and unexplainable calamities will bring about such morbid fears (no words can express); unbelievable upheavals and dizzying financial & economic stress that our insecurity levels& the emotional tectonics will mirror the “PERPLEXITY” that Messiah spoke of in (Matt. 24:4-51; Luke 21:25).

As we have just witnessed another circus that is the G7 there in France – the end of August 2019 patently mirrors the 1 September 1939 when the first bombs began to fall in WWII. Any social historian worth his salt sees the correlation between our current TRADE WARS, CURRENCY WARS & GREAT DEPRESSION brought about World War 2! Today, trade wars, currency wars & another looming GREAT DEPRESSION stalks earth’s horizon and few are truly prepared for WWIII.

Drawing from apocalyptic literature, the FOUR horsemen paints a truly minacious picture of a kind of dystopian future world which makes HollyWeird films like 2012 look like child’s play. Our ongoing fascination with Sci-Fi movies: war & violence will one day soon come home to roust – as the nation’s fold themselves together like thorns for war (Nahum 1:10).

Amongst the principal architects of this fast approaching WORLD WAR are those Luciferian emissaries mentioned at the top of this piece: BOLTON, POMPEO, tRUMP & PENCE – a gaggle of devils hell-bent on imperialist global control based on the Kabbala wizardry of those who occupy the hell-hole that is the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN aka THE DEEP STATE!

Why does AmeriKKKa keep attacking other nations remain the fundamental question that must be asked given what General Wesley Clark exposed in 2007. The general’s expose strikes at the heart of the US military industrial complex and their fomentation of perpetual wars appear to be the governing ethos of both AmeriKKKa and her proxy allied fighters like Israel who has just dropped bombs on Lebanon. Did Lebanon attack Israel causing provocation?

Professor Peter Beinart, in a piece in The Atlantic challenges the stereotypical nonsense being spewed by certain apologists whose penchant is to justify war & aggression by any means necessary (case in point, John Bolton). Of all the Washington Hawks – he is undoubtedly the worst. Bolton wants a war with Iran and he is itching for it (maybe Israel will scratch his itch). However, the Pentagon is looking further afield to China & Russia as the next axis of evil given Trump’s tweets & comments about both Russian & Chinese moves away from sanctions (as in Russia’s case – who is creating GOLD BACKED CRYPTOCURRENCY to side-step US sanctions) and China’s decoupling from the US trading dollar platform – all reasons to foment war!

In a 241 page book document by the Brookings Institute, it cites the prevailing logic behind the US strategy towards Iran where “Bolton’s main objective, designed to start WWIII by falsely blaming Iran for nuking Israel” (while the MSM refuses to cite the many instances of Israeli attacks on Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi & now Yemini targets. Bolton is looking to justify use of the Samson Option in response, like Hitler before him, who exterminated Ghazaryan “ENGRAFTED” Jews & others – while Aryans form the elite face of the planet – the nemesis race of both Luciferian Ashkenazi Jews & freeloading Freemasons – both of whom are inherently Neanderthals by nature – all coexisting within the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN!!!

Like Bolton, Mike Pompeo has done himself a huge favour by clearly outlining publically that he is a LIAR, CHEAT & THIEF: what he calls the “GLORY OF THE AMERIkkkAN EXPERIMENT”! What a clutse! Thankfully, Pompeo has merely highlighted what some have always known about US poLIEticians & the elites who comprise the “DEEP STATE” – a cabal of loyalists, lobbyists & LIARS; powerbrokers who fund & control the houses of Congress – DEMOCRAPS & REPULSIVEKINS (to cite Gerald Celente).

Trump & Pence are LIARS – they know what they are doing. This is not a game! These FOOLS makes up that Chrono-Genealogy-Caricature of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse! These two men posits a veneer of religiosity only to act in ways that upend their so-called faith – for “faith without good works” is just meaninglessness CRAP wherever you find it. To prove these vile characters know what they are up to: according to the 6th meeting of the National Space Council, Pence cites that Outer-Space is now a war-fighting domain. Is this the same Pence that believe that “I AM MY BROTHER’S KEEPER”? Surely those brothers are not Palestinians or South Americans but fellow JESUITS & FREEMASONS. So we’ve been warned in 2019, that all future wars will involve stratospheric weapons of mass destruction – while he announces the first leader of the United States Space Command. In one word: CRAZINESS! But then, the “Crazies” are out due to full moon & full spectrum dominance, with one goal in mind – removing 4 billion people from the planet, by any means necessary.

How did we get here? As I examine the totem pole of evil in our world, my firm belief centers around much of the post-enlightenment literature espoused at the time by racist philosophers & thinkers like Malthus, Darwin & Galton. Today social Darwinism, which is at the root & branches of postmodern racial & ethnic tensions in AmeriKKKa, Canada, Britain, Europe, Australia, New Zealand (90% clearly are English-speaking countries) who have expanded their so-called Enlightenment ideas about “survival of the fittest” in commerce, poLIEtics, reLIEgion, entertainment and human societies as a whole – leading to claims that social inequality, sexism, racism and imperialism had suitable justifications for their existence – given the linkages with nationalism we are seeing amongst the FAR-RIGHT in Europe & AmeriKKKa’s, coupled with fiendish imperialism, chanting (AMERIKKKA FIRST) which in reality, is a chant for: “ISRAEL FIRST” as we witness more & more regime change being floated by US hawks.

Francis Galton believed eugenics was the answer to a master race of human beings (ALL CAUCASIAN OF COURSE) who would have supremacy over the other races. Galton proposed to better mankind by propagating the notion that British elites was the epitome of racial purity. What a nefarious croq! He argued vociferously that social institutions such as welfare and mental asylums allowed inferior humans to survive and reproduce at higher levels than their superior counterparts in Britain’s aristocratic & wealthy classes. If you follow the bread crumbs, all roads lead to a form of philosophical indoctrination that remains at the heart of social engineering.

In a piece by the Scientific American entitled – “Why Malthus Is Still Wrong: Why Malthus makes for bad science policy” – Michael Shermer suggest that: “the belief in the inevitability of a Malthusian collapse. The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race,” Malthus gloomily predicted. Although Malthus’ served in several capacities over his career – he will go down in history as a white supremacist having left a similar legacy as Charles Darwin & his cousin Francis Galton who adopted much of their theorizing on “Natural Selection”.

In AmeriKKKa, Trumpian theatrics dress rehearses toxic rhetoric via Twitter about other countries & their native peoples – likening them to #Sh*tHoles while locking kids in cages and deporting their parents. Trump’s racist ideologies have been handed down through time by men like Francis Galton et al who felt that “INFERIOR RACES” were a drain on society as cited by Dr Howard Markel.

So, as a result, scientific racism in the words of Edward Burmila suggests that “Scientific Racism Isn’t ‘Back’ – It Never Went Away” – especially in the age of Trump, believers of the once-popular tenets of scientific racism are feeling “emboldened”. This type of populist tyranny is also raising its ugly head in Europe, Britain & across the world but especially in places like Palestine where Israel seeks to wipe the Palestinians off their land and off the face of the earth! This is all down to Galtonian, Malthusian & Darwinian theoretical gobble-de-gook that Caucasian folks (enlightened & ignorant alike) find themselves confronted with in the last few months of the 2nd decade of the 21st centuries – yet clueless of that spurious form of brainwashing!

Finally, “a speaker of truth has no (real, true) friends” (African Proverb). Why? Simple! For those of us living in domains like the US, UK, Canada & elsewhere – our foreparents didn’t go through the last 400 years (1619 -2019) to let unpatriotic weaklings like Trump, Pence, Pompeo, Bolton & now Boris “BOZO THE CLOWN” Johnson to end the freedoms, privileges, financial prowess & benefits these countries have provided – becoming our homes! In all the rhetoric, combined, these FOOLS have served a grand total of 37 days in the military – yet they push our sons & daughters to war, to return in body bags, scarred, mutilated & maimed for life! These bastards have never had to fight for anything beyond their bank accounts & business interests. In Daniel 2:21 & Psalms 75:7, we are warned that ELOHIM is THE ONLY ONE who sets up gov’ts & takes them down! It is God who judges: He brings one down, He exalts another. He removes kings and sets up kings; He gives wisdom: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the BEAST: for it is the number of a MAN; and his number is 666!

THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA – A COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN SEARCH OF A REVOLUTION

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Submitted by Pachamama

The preeminent American historian, Gerald Horne, has argued persuasively that the events of 1776 were not what the preponderance of historical narratives suggest. They were the exact opposite he contends! In more recent times, Professor Horne has bookended his first assertion by further contending that the emergence of a Donald J. Trump was anathema to these imposed and popular historical accounts. This professional historian boldly calls for a truthful rewriting of the entire historical accounts of the United States of north America.

On this 4th of July, American empire fashioned as a counter to the Glorious Revolution of Great Britain (1688-1689) finds itself in existential peril. For alas, it is titularly headed by a Caligula type figure reminiscent of that period in Roman history when a horse (Incitatus) could have been chief counsel to the emperor.

As we watch the descent of this new Rome under Donald J Trump, his family, the people around him – in the cabinet, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the pantomime passing for Democratic Party ‘debates’, the media whores expert at disinformation, other world leaders, the peoples of the world, most importantly the American peoples themselves and judge the interrelationships between and among these forces, it is difficult to avoid a range of obvious conclusions.

Donald Trump does not even project the pretense that he maintains any abiding interest in the day-to-day management of an empire which boasted, for all those years, to be that ‘exceptional’ ‘city on the hill’. It seems pellucid that this Trump is totally satisfied to continue to play the game of faux master marketer/manipulator/negotiator as every domestic and foreign encounter is primarily predicated on the advancement of the ‘family’ business. This is what oligarchy has come to. And everybody now knows that American foreign and domestic policies can be bought and by not necessarily the highest bidder either. Empire has degenerated into no more than a cheap whore! After 40 wars and the deaths of 20 million since WW2 alone, Trump gives us a military parade, dictator-style, at the centre of the blackened heart of empire.

Not even big Don has any illusions about the lack of mental capacity of little Don. So big Don looks to Jerad Kushner, the son-in-law, as brain trust in the White House, but there is no there, there either. And the recent debacle with his Deal of the Century is proof positive. Ivana Trump, we guess, is seen by some as attractive, we presume, but we would be hard-pressed to understand why this empty-header, snotty-nosed, president’s daughter could be made to believe that she has a role rubbing shoulders with the likes of Angela Merkel at the G20, a woman of immense substance, a formidable figure and the political cache to go with it.

There has never been a president who has assembled a cabinet exclusively of oligarchs – millionaires and billionaires; all with very narrow interests. All of whom are using government to enrich themselves, in the light of day. And no institution within the American government can do anything about such decadence. A decadence not dissimilar to the ethos of bulling brought by Obama. There is no time for what use to be called ‘the people’s businesses’. There is not one member of this mafioso-styled Joint Commission (Cabinet) who has any pretense of serving the broader American public. To the contrary, only people who believe that the nature of government is not to serve the masses but the very privileged alone need apply. This is your America of 2019 – ‘the home of the oligarchs, the land of the unfree.’

The most obvious sign of imperial decadence must be the fecklessness of a Congress unable to bring a walking talking lawbreaker to heel. Donald Trump breaks more laws before breakfast than all the criminals in America’s dungeons have for decades. Yet, the so-called checks and balances which were supposed to be hoe and basket of this Congress have been no countermeasure to this normalized culture of high crimes and misdemeanors, even treason, in every government department. Trump makes the criminal Bill Clinton look like a Sunday school choir boy in comparison.

The Supreme Court has historically been the institution to reinforce the thinking of the long-dead slavers – the so-called founding fathers. In trying to understand the future through the eyes of the most regressive human beings of all times they have legislated the most perverse form of fascism in the United States of north America. It is a court at the apex of a system which is deeply political, racist, corporatist and anything but just.

Over the past two (2) weeks we have seen a few ‘public gatherings’ of leading ‘democrats’ that some have referred to as ‘debates’. If we didn’t know better or feared being labeled a ‘conspiracy analyst’ we would have concluded that these congregations were aimed at securing a second term for Trump. These useless Democrats, and the progressives in their ranks, could only approach issues like reparations, universal health care, the demilitarization of the economy and free education for university students when made to stare into the abyss of four (4) more years of Adolf Hitler reborn. Should this backward party of Nancy Pelosi manage to escape this political bullet, normal service will certainly be resumed, immediately. We will continue to see a Democratic Party with its mindless progressives ignoring their most loyal supporters – African Americans. But, they will not! The re-election of Trump will guarantee the present trajectory.

We must remember that Donald Trump is primarily a media creation. They gave Trump the equivalent of four (4) billion dollars in free promotion. Thinking it would have been a win-win as they gamed a Clinton v Trump contest as an easy win for Clinton while they make their billions and still get their Clintons. The defeat of Sanders in the primaries baked-in, of course. Those same media, the so-called progressives, are at it again as they try to impose a Biden on the American people to supposedly erase the Trump legacy from the body politic. Not so fast, to do such to a political system is no different than trying to take the wet out of water. And then we have some other people playing games with the American people. Not even Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris, the ‘progressive’ criminal prosecutor, well-known for incarcerating Black people without mercy, or the two or more that are making limited political sense, can redirect the arc of empire from the burning house which MLK so eloquently prophesied.

Other world leaders smell blood and are fixing to consume the carcass of empire. We always find it necessary to remind readers that there is nothing normal about the existence of empires. That during the last century maybe 20 empires collapsed. In fact, empires are inherently unstable and fall all the time. Therefore, China, India, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Germany and other are fielding at first slip, waiting for the edge. How’s that empire!

Some peoples of the world are coming to recognize a new and emerging reality. A lot of people are laughing at America in the same way they laughed at the madman Nero nearing the end of the old Rome. The thinking people of the United States of north America themselves have spent centuries marching; voting; pleading with elected officials; calling congressional offices; being fooled by district, city, state and federal elected officials; letter writing; complaining on call-in programs; investing trust in the democratic and republican parties; relying on a ‘misleadership class’. None of this has worked in avoiding the fascism America has always supported in foreign lands from coming home to ruse. We judge that the American people, unlike the peoples of France or Sudan, who are in open rebellion, are tired, dumb down and lack the will to confront Trumpism in the streets and deliver the real revolution this country never had. Nevertheless, with or without a revolution empire dies anyway. And maybe, just maybe, that’s a good thing.

Open Letter to Donald Trump from Ireland’s Emigration Museum

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Submitted by Mervyn Greene, Managing Director, EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum

Thursday, 30th May

County Clare, Ireland

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OPEN LETTER INVITES TRUMP TO CHANGE HIS VIEWS ON IMMIGRATION.

Ireland’s Emigration Museum offers the US President the opportunity to see immigration from a different angle.

President Donald Trump’s stance on immigration is well documented and debated, so when EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum heard about the POTUS visiting Irish shores, they felt a responsibility to extend an invitation. Through a full page open letter, they asked him to visit and reframe his views on immigration.

Over 10 million people emigrated from Ireland over the centuries – in many cases escaping famine, political unrest and civil war, others seeking opportunity and change. They settled all over the world as immigrants, and EPIC documents the stories of the impact they’ve had.

“EPIC represents an alternative voice on the global movement of people.  We have documented the positive impact that Irish emigration has had on the world, and we think it’s time the conversation on emigration changed.  This invitation goes out to President Trump with sincerity – come experience a different viewpoint on immigration and it might just change your perspective” says Mervyn Greene, Managing and Museum Director of EPIC.

The letter asks the President to consider his family’s own emigration story from Germany, and points out a number of examples of how Ireland’s emigrant stories have impacted his own life.

An excerpt from the letter:

“Allow us to share a few of our stories that might hit close to home for you. Irish emigrants played a huge part in shaping the Manhattan skyline. Descendants of Irish emigrants have held your very position in the Oval Office. The White House itself was designed by James Hoban, an Irish architect. Your Vice President Mike Pence is the grandson of an Irish emigrant who escaped war and poverty in 1923. You might even come across descendants of his great-grandmother, who hailed from Doonbeg.“

EPIC’s open letter was placed in the Clare Champion Newspaper, the biggest newspaper in County Clare, where President Trump will be staying at his family-owned golf club in Doonbeg during his visit to Ireland.  As a final enticement to the President, the letter suggests his visit would take less time than a round of golf.

 

EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum is a state-of-the-art interactive experience located in the beautiful vaults of the 1820 Custom House Quarter building in Dublin’s Docklands, the original departure point for so many of Ireland’s emigrants. Featuring personal stories of love, triumph, adventure and adversity, it highlights and celebrates the positive impact and influence of Irish emigrants around the world.  https://epicchq.com/

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

Dear President Trump,

We’d like to extend an invitation to visit EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum during your upcoming visit.

We know your itinerary isn’t as flexible as most, but hear us out.

Your stance on immigration is well documented. As one of the world’s only museums dedicated to the emigrant experience, we’d like to offer a different point of view. At EPIC, the positive impact emigrants have had on the world is told through an Irish lens; it’s a narrative we’re proud to share with countless other countries.

Allow us to share a few of our stories that might hit close to home for you. Irish emigrants played a huge part in shaping the Manhattan skyline. Descendants of Irish emigrants have held your very position in the Oval Office. The White House itself was designed by James Hoban, an Irish architect. Your Vice President Mike Pence is the grandson of an Irish emigrant who escaped war and poverty in 1923. You might even come across descendants of his great- grandmother, who hailed from Doonbeg.

Your own family story has been shaped by emigration, when your grandfather Friedrich left Germany at age 16 to pursue opportunity in a new land. And the First Lady is another example of how a recent immigrant has made the most of a new opportunity to one day become FLOTUS. Needless to say, our invitation is open to Melania as well.

What we’re saying is that everyone has a connection to the story of emigration, and people often change their perspective once they see it told from many angles, both past and present.

We know you’ll have a busy presidential itinerary, but we promise you an enlightening experience in less time than it takes to play a round of golf.

 

Sincerely,

 

Mervyn Greene,

Managing Director,

EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum

The Mueller Investigation

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Received from a US correspondent – David, blogmaster

There are not too many individuals in the USA space who have commanded media attention to match President Donald Trump. One person that qualifies is Robert Mueller, special counsel to oversee the department’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

TRUMP – A MAN CORNERED ON ALL SIDES – A DEAD MAN WALKING

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Submitted by Pachamama

As Donald Trump enters the lion’s den this night all bets are off that he could escape with no further damage to his already tenuous hold on power. Indeed, if there was ever a textbook case as to how not to run a country Trump has thusly so provided.

In these short notes we will show that on all sides Donald Trump is a cornered beast. We will demonstrate this on the political, the economic, the social, the technological, the physical environment, the legal, the military, trade, intelligence and the diplomatic. We will argue that anybody able to avoid this, a certain fate waiting, would be rightfully deemed the political Houdini of all times.

The speech itself, and this was news to Trump, could have only have been scheduled, in the first place, with the acquiescence of the Speaker. This ‘detail’ needed to make Trump’s acquaintance. Recall though, that Trump’s political problems extend well beyond mere scheduling difficulties.

Even while he held control of all the levers of government he was unable to secure funding for his signature promise – the wall. In addition, his approval ratings have been stagnant at best and he has not been able to hire or retain the critical number of competent senior level aides to bring the required competence to his administration.

In economy, it was also news to Trump that he was not in dominant control of the Federal Reserve. As a result of this duality we had the Fed implementing a policy which his administration suggested was inappropriate. More worrying for Trump is that leading economic figures are now joining the bandwagon of those who have suggested a recession this year. This has implications for his political fortunes in 2020, should he run.

Trump is also encumbered by the social environment. His intelligence briefings would no doubt include the dislocations occurring in France – the Yellow Vest demonstrations and the disquiet in the UK which may lead to riots depending on the outcome of the Brexit imbroglio. These may be coming to a city near him sooner than later as the economic situation within the USA is far worse than the erroneous government statistics are leading on. Expect contagion! Riots in the land, you say!

On the technological front, Trump has created problems or found difficulties with which he has not been able to show any measurable progress in last two (2) years. These relate to the rights of subscribers. Whether companies like Facebook, Google and others should be public utilities.

Of course, on the legal side, we already know the world of hurt he has been in. We also presume that Mueller is likely to bring down some more indictments in the coming months – landing not too far from his cold heart. These to add to a growing number of Trump acolytes already ensnared in a dragnet intended to only allow the small fry and the cooperators to escape.

Maybe Trump entered the White House with the expectation that on the military front he could deploy America’s might to frighten the nation’s foes into easy concessions. Thus far, there have been no thunderous breakthroughs with the DPRK, Syria, Iran, Russian or anybody else. In all circumstances, conditions are far worse than when Trump entered 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The master negotiator he has not been!

As one of the first orders of business was the exit from the Climate Accords. Since then there has been no American sponsored successor agreement. This action still seems like an anti-Obama reaction with no intension whatsoever to offer another plan.

To say diplomacy is not Trump’s or his senior official’s forte would be an understatement. But when you add Bolton, Abrams, Pompeo and Kushner to the jambalaya you have a recipe for a Venezuela, another Vietnam, a murder in the Saudi Embassy in Turkey. The UN sponsored JCPOA with Iran was also unceremoniously dispensed with. All of America’s ‘former’ allies under Trumpism have been strained. Trump and statements relating to America’s exceptionalism have been laughed at by hundreds of world countries at the UN.

Even on another thorny issue – trade. Trump has not made any breakthroughs with China or Europe or anybody else. All he’s done this far is to make minor changes to the agreement with Canada and Mexico. And Mexico is not paying for his wall as promised, by him.

Again, nobody was looking for too much ‘intelligence’ from Trump. But a war with the Deep State apparatus can never be won. Kennedy knew that. Even if you could win, you still come out the loser. In this environment Trump is in multiple wars with the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and all the other 17 alphabet-soup of spy agencies.

Of course, Donald Trump has never been known to pay much attention to all of these concentric circles of analysis. Therefore, is most likely to wing-it in the vain hope that somehow he, the master-salesman, could deliver this horrible situation to his wider audience with a PR victory. However, we are getting the feeling that a critical mass has now seen the ‘con which has always been Don’ and that additional damage, to his position, will be inflicted this night.

There may well be several books in this presidency that could withstand the vagaries of time and political science. However, if there were to be a single case study in how not to run an administration that may be the monograph which could be the one to be well-compared with that classical work by Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), this would be it.

Collusion a Crime – Judge in Mueller Case Upholds Legal Theory

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Is collusion a crime? Since the beginning of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, allegations of “collusion” have dominated the debate. President Trump regularly claims there was “no collusion” with the Russians seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election. His attorneys and other supporters also have repeatedly argued that even if collusion took place, that would not be criminal. But last week, in a case brought by Mueller, a federal judge upheld the legal theory under which “collusion” may indeed be a crime.

I’m not sure how the term “collusion” became so central to discussions of the Mueller investigation. It really should be banned altogether. (I know, I know — this from the guy who just wrote a blog post with “collusion” in the title, right? But hey, I can’t unilaterally disarm.) All it does is breed confusion and lead to diversionary arguments about whether collusion is criminal.

It’s true there is no criminal statute titled “collusion.” But as I’ve noted in several places (here and here, for example) the relevant crime is conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. 371. Collusion refers to an agreement with others to achieve some improper end. In criminal law, we call that a conspiracy – a partnership in crime. And the breadth of the federal conspiracy statute makes it particularly well-suited for cases like Mueller’s probe of Russian interference with the election.

Read full text – COLLUSION / MUELLER INVESTIGATION

2018 US Midterm Elections

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Barbadians have a strong interest in what unravels in the United States. We may debate why this is the case- an abundance of US news feeds streaming into our homes via FLOW, DIGICEL and Internet devices 24b hours a day, family members living in the USA, we travel there to further our studies and on recreation the list is long.

The BU household also has a keen interest in the outcome of the midterms later tonight, it will be a referendum on Trump’s tenure for sure.

US 1US2

Source: Two Charts Show Trump’s Job Gains Are Just A Continuation From Obama’s Presidency

TRUMP the PEACEMAKER, NOT!

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“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” – Matthew 5:9 New International Version (NIV)

It is amazing the more educated we have become the more the beatitudes that should inform Christian behaviour and values are seemingly forgotten. For the evangelicals and the Conservatives Donald Trump is right because he conforms with the pro-life view and has aligned the SCOTUS to achieve this end, he ‘supports’ the Jews reflected in his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Other examples abound.

Does it matter that President Trump is a card carrying adulterer?

That his imperfections have been recorded for world citizens to hear AND see?

His blatant disrespect for women?

His mocking of the differently able and on it goes. Clearly he is a man and therefore not perfect. What is missing from these so called Christians that support Trump is the unwillingness to hold him accountable for his behaviour that contradicts Christian teachings.

Given the influence Trump has as  president of the USA domestically and geopolitically,  the blogmaster as a world citizen worries how it will all translate in time to come. The latest news about the unexploded bombs addressed to prominent actors who are critics of Trump AND the shooting of Jews worshipping in a Pittsburg synagogue support a reasonable conclusion that words uttered by Trump matter.

Monitoring the two stories in the US media over the last couple of days it seems political commentators are reluctant to blame Trump as the person who must bear some blame for Cesar Altier Sayoc and the other nut job for feelign emboldened to terrorize the US space.The blogmaster is not so inhibited. He has been an immature, incompetent and bombastic political leader who has done nothing to improving the lot of mankind given the influence of the USA on world affairs.

Trump should watch the following interview with Rabbi Jeffrey Myers and by guided.

 

 

White House Insider Trumps Trump

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Today (5 September 2018) the reputable New York Times published an Op-Ed with the titled ‘I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration’. The Op-Ed piqued the interest of the blogmaster NOT because it exposes a kind of chaos swirling in the White House BUT that it was credited to an anonymous source. In a nutshell the vaunted traditional media admits it sees the benefit to protect its source by posting the Op-Ed under an anonymous byline.

#carlmoore

Opinion

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration

I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

President Trump at an event in August at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. CreditCredit Tom Brenner for The New York Times
The Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here.
President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. 

Read full article – I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration

Michael Cohen Flips on President Trump

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  • Extracted from CNN

BREAKING: Michael Cohen, President Donald J. Trump’s former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, the sources said. https://cnn.it/2LoPrXK –  

The Jeff Cumberbatch – A Hostile Environment

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The three-ring circus currently playing in Washington to nominate an individual to replace the retiring Justice Kennedy appears to be less about the jurisprudential acuity or judicial temperament pf the candidate and to be more about their politic and degree of opposition to liberal values such as those expressed in the Roe v Wade decision. This confirmed the female’s autonomy over her body by finding a right to individual privacy in the Constitution. It is tantamount to what the conservative jurist Robert Bork once termed the “political seduction of the law” at a time when the boot of Congressional power was firmly placed on the other foot.

The decisions of the US Supreme Court (hereafter the SCOTUS) are not merely exercises in legal reasoning, Essentially, they are, rather, expressions of political philosophy, wrapped in the legalese of constitutional interpretation. In such a context, a President in office seeks to nominate for approval candidates who are partial to his politics and thus likely to concretize his governance agenda for the foreseeable future. Thus a court is not assessed so much for its forensic skills but as to whether it is majority conservative or liberal. It is an issue that is fought over with as dogged a determination as the political elections themselves. Recall the legally baseless, though politically successful, insistence of the Republicans that the outgoing President Obama should not be permitted to nominate a justice to the SCOTUS.

History records though that sometimes the expectations of the nominator are dashed when the nominee turns out to be other than the conservative or liberal he or she was assumed to be. Justice David Souter disappointed the conservatives as did Justice Byron White the liberals, appointed by President Kennedy and yet a dissentient in Roe v Wade. It appears that one tends naturally to assert his independence when granted a guarantee of lifetime tenure.

This rather lengthy prologue might well serve to explain the recent decision of the SCOTUS, in which by a 5-4 majority, it upheld until full argument from both sides in October the legitimacy of what has come to be known as the Trump travel ban. While I do not claim any special expertise in US Constitutional law and I accept that there might have been a partisan political element to the decision, I am still able to assess the decision for the cogency of its legal reasoning and the respective allures of the competing arguments.

The travel ban involved a proclamation by the President of a restriction on the entry of foreigners from the predominantly Muslim states of Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

The arguments of the claimants/respondents in this matter, the state of Hawaii, three individuals and the Muslim Association of Hawaii, challenged the legality of the Proclamation, principally on the ground that it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, because it was motivated not by concerns pertaining to national security but by animus toward the Islam religion.

In response, the Government argued that the matter was not justiciable or subject to judicial review because aliens have no “claim of right” to enter the United States, and, because exclusion of aliens is “a fundamental act of sovereignty” by the political branches, review of an exclusion decision “is not within the province of any court, unless expressly authorized by law.”

Chief Justice Roberts in his written majority judgment was prepared to assume without deciding that the ban was reviewable, notwithstanding consular non-reviewability or any other statutory non-reviewability issue and proceeded on that basis.

As to the substantive arguments that the Proclamation was not a valid exercise of the President’s power since the relevant provision of the law conferred only a residual power to temporarily halt the entry of a discrete group of aliens engaged in harmful conduct and that it was in further violation because it discriminated on the basis of nationality in the issuance of immigrant visas, he was of the opinion that the President possessed the power to restrict the entry of foreigners to the United States based on national security concerns. The Chief Justice held that the text of the relevant provision granted the President a broad discretion to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States and found that The President had lawfully exercised that discretion based on his findings—following a worldwide, multi-agency review—that entry of the covered aliens would be detrimental to the national interest.

He quoted the relevant provision-

“Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

And he reasoned as follows, “By its terms, it exudes deference to the President in every clause. It entrusts to the President the decisions whether and when to suspend entry (“[w]henever [he] finds that the entry” of aliens “would be detrimental” to the national interest); whose entry to suspend (“all aliens or any class of aliens”); for how long (“for such period as he shall deem necessary”); and on what conditions (“any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate”). It is therefore unsurprising that we have previously observed that [it] vests the President with “ample power” to impose entry restrictions in addition to those elsewhere enumerated.”

This reasoning comes pretty close to arguing that the discretion of the President in this regard is absolute,  although it seems that he may not discriminate on grounds of religion. Indeed, this limitation was the basis of Justice Sotomayor’s dissent. She referred to the President’s anti-Muslim sentiments as expressed in various communications and dismissed the majority’s opinion that the ban was a matter of national security. According to her judgment,

“The United States of America is a Nation built upon the promise of religious liberty. Our Founders honored that core promise by embedding the principle of religious neutrality in the First Amendment. The Court’s decision today fails to safeguard that fundamental principle. It leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” because the policy now masquerades behind a façade of national-security con cerns. But this repackaging does little to cleanse Presidential Proclamation No. 9645 of the appearance of dis crimination that the President’s words have created. Based on the evidence in the record, a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus.

Cataloguing a number of circumstances where the President’s communications had exhibited animus towards Muslims, she concluded-

“…the issue before us is not whether to denounce” these offensive statements. Ante, at 29. Rather, the dispositive and narrow question here is whether a reasonable observer, presented with all “openly available data,” the text and “historical context” of the Proclamation, and the “specific sequence of events” leading to it, would conclude that the primary purpose of the Proclamation is to disfavor Islam and its adherents by excluding them from the country… The answer is unquestionably yes…”

Ironically, in the same judgment the majority overruled its earlier  decision in which it had upheld the forcible relocation of US citizens to concentration camps, based solely and explicitly on race. However, CJ Roberts considered it “wholly inapt to liken that morally repugnant order to a facially neutral (sic) policy denying certain foreign nationals the privilege of admission…”

There exists in law the concept of indirect discrimination. According to the Australian Human rights Commission,indirect discrimination occurs when there is an unreasonable rule or policy that is the same for everyone but has an unfair effect on people who share a particular attribute,…for example: It could be indirect disability discrimination if the only way to enter a public building is by a set of stairs because people with disabilities who use wheelchairs would be unable to enter the building.

Indirect discrimination is unlawful if the discrimination is based on certain attributes protected by law, such as a person’s race, sex, pregnancy, marital or relationship status, breastfeeding, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status. Some limited exceptions and exemptions apply.

To my mind, while the proclamation did not fit neatly into this category, as it was not the same for everyone, it nevertheless constituted a kind of reverse indirect discrimination, if you will,  whereby on the ostensible basis of national security, an exclusion had an unfair effect on people who shared a particular attribute-the Islamic faith.

The Policy of a Superpower that Separates Children from Parents

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The story unfolding in the USA where children of undocumented immigrants are being separated from their parents continues to choke global newsfeeds. There is not much the blogmaster can say except that children are innocent. The question seems to be whether lawmakers need to amend an existing law which is being enforced by the authorities or whether President Trump should use the power given him to exert an executive prerogative.

The BU household hopes that the leadership in the US will resolve the matter soon!

Investigation into Russian Meddling in US Election

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The following links were sent to share with the Barbados Underground family. In this forum like others there is a healthy interest in the spectacle unfolding in the USA with the Robert Mueller led special investigation of alleged Russian meddling in the last US presidential elections. Where will it lead nobody knows.

Link #1

Click to read the The Moscow Project Account

Link #2

Click image to read Medium’s Trump, Putin and the mob story

Donald Trump Declared Persona Non Grata

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President Donald Trump

DECLARATION OF THE PEOPLE OF THE CARIBBEAN


(A Declaration that was authored by the Pan-Africanist and Socialist popular forces of

  the Caribbean nation of Barbados at Bridgetown, Barbados on Saturday 13th January 2018, and

  submitted to the people and civil society organizations of the Caribbean for their endorsement and adoption)

 

U S PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HAS BEEN DECLARED

  “PERSONA NON GRATA”  IN THE CARIBBEAN


We, the under-signed representatives of the sovereign people of the Caribbean, hereby declare that President Donald Trump of the United States of America is “Persona Non Grata” in our Caribbean region!

We further declare that as a “Persona Non Grata” President Donald Trump is NOT welcome in any territory of the Caribbean, and we hereby confirm that we – the Caribbean people – will petition our Governments, vehemently protest against any Trump visit, and engage in popular demonstrations designed to prevent President Donald Trump’s entry into any portion of the sovereign territory of our Caribbean region.

As sons and daughters of the Caribbean, we hereby affirm that the continent of Africa is the revered Motherland of a sizable majority of our people and that the Republic of Haiti — the seminal architect of the destruction of the system of chattel slavery that held our ancestors in bondage — is the foundational cornerstone of our Caribbean Civilization, and we therefore consider that any insult or attack that is directed at the African continent or at the Republic of Haiti is intrinsically an insult and attack that is directed at us as well.

We further affirm that we Caribbean people — in light of our history of experiencing, resisting, and surviving the most horrendous forms of enslavement and colonialism — consciously regard ourselves as champions and defenders of the dignity and fundamental human rights of all Black or African people, and that we are guided by an over-arching and non-negotiable principle of zero tolerance of any manifestation of anti-Black or anti-African racism or discrimination.

It is against this background that we, the people of the Caribbean, have determined that by describing the nations of Africa, the Republic of Haiti and the Central American nation of El Salvador as “shithole” countries, U S President Donald Trump has committed a despicable and unpardonable act of anti-Black, anti-African, anti-Brown racism that has served to further energize and fortify the vile White supremacy system that the said President Trump has self-consciously sought to champion and lead.

We — the sovereign people of the Caribbean– hereby declare to the entire world that we vehemently and unreservedly denounce President Donald Trump and the evil and inhuman White supremacy value system that he represents!



ENDORSED AND SUPPORTED BY THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS :


1. Clement Payne Movement of Barbados


2. Pan-African Coalition of Organizations (PACO)


3. Israel Lovell Foundation of Barbados.


4. Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration (CMPI)


5. Caribbean Chapter of the International Network in Defense of Humanity


6. Global Afrikan Congress


7. Caribbean Pan-African Network (CPAN)


8. Peoples Empowerment Party (Barbados)


9. Pan-African Federalist Movement–Caribbean Region Committee


9. International Committee of Black Peoples (Guadeloupe)


10. Jamaica/Cuba Friendship Association


11. Jamaica LANDS


12. SRDC Guadeloupe / Martinique Chapter


13. Ijahnya Christian  (St. Kitts and Nevis)


14. Dorbrene O’Marde  (Antigua and Barbuda)


15. NswtMwt Chenzira Davis Kahina  (Ay Ay Virgin Islands-US)


16. Ivana Cardinale (Venezuela)


17. Emancipation Support Committee of Trinidad & Tobago


18. Organization for the Victory of the People (Guyana)


19. Gerald Perreira (Guyana)


20 Black Consciousness Movement of Guyana


21. Conscious Lyrics Foundation  (St. Martin)


22. Myrtha Delsume  (Haiti)


23 Anthony “Gabby” Carter (Barbados)


24. Cuban /Barbadian Friendship Association


25. Friends of Venezuela Solidarity Committee (Barbados)


26.  Maxi Baldeo (Barbados)


27. Dr. Nancy Fergusson Jacobs (Barbados)


28. Ayo Moore (Barbados)


29. Haiti / Jamaica Society


30. Anthony Reid (Barbados)


31.Cheryl Hunte (Barbados)


32. Hamilton Lashley (former Barbados Minister of Government)


33. Erica Williams (Guyana)


34. Kilanji Bangarah (Namibia / Jamaica)


35. International Movement for Reparations  (Martinique)


36. Alex Sujah Reiph (St Martin)


37. Thelma Gill-Barnett  (Barbados)


38. Khafra Kambon (Trinidad and Tobago)


39. Margaret Harris (Barbados)


40. Jacqueline Jacqueray  (Guadeloupe)


41. Garcin Malsa (Martinique)


42. National Committee for Reparations (Martinique)


43. Officers and Members of the Global Afrikan Congressuk  (GACuk)


44. Jamaica Peace Council


45. Ingrid Blackwood (Jamaica)


46. Glenroy Watson (President, RMT’s London Transport Regional Council / Jamaica)


47. Paul Works (Jamaica)


48. Abu Akil (United Kingdom / Jamaica)


49. Kwame Howell  (Barbados)


50. Ian Marshall  (Barbados)


51. Michael Heslop  (Jamaica)


52. Andrea King  (Barbados)


54. Cikiah Thomas  (Canada / Jamaica)


55. Bobby Clarke (Barbados)


56. Trevor Prescod, Member of Parliament (Barbados)


57. David Denny (Barbados)


58. John Howell (Barbados)


59. Lalu Hanuman (Barbados / Guyana)


60. Onkphra Wells (Barbados)


61. Rahmat Jean-Pierre (Barbados)


62. Philip Springer (Barbados)


63. Cedric Jones  (Guyana)


64. David Comissiong (Barbados)


65. Selrach Belfield  (Guyana)


66. Kathy “Ife” Harris  (Barbados)


67. Andrea Quintyne  (Barbados)


68. Felipe Noguera  (Trinidad & Tobago)


69. Suzanne Laurent  (Martinique)


70. Line Hilgros Makeda Kandake  (Guadeloupe)


71. Kerin Davis  (Jamaica)


72. Delvina E. Bernard  (Africentric Learning Institute, Nova Scotia, Canada)


73. Muhammad Nassar  (Barbados)


74. Anthony Fraser  (Guyana)


75. Troy Pontin  (Guyana)


76. Nigel Cadogan  (Barbados)


77. Ras Iral Jabari  (Barbados)


78. Nicole Cage  (Martinique)


79. Robert Romney  (St Martin / Guadeloupe)


80. Anne Braithwaite  (Guyana)


81. Icil Phillips  (Barbados)


82. Marie Jose Ferjule  (Martinique)


83. Errol Paul  (Guyana)


84. Erskine Bayne  (Barbados)


85. Robert Gibson  (Barbados)


86. Alister Alexander  (Barbados)


87. Mark Adamson  (Barbados)


88. Junior Jervis  (Guyana)


89. Lee Bing  (Guyana)


90. Akram Sabree  (Guyana)


91. Rudolph Solbiac  (Martinique)


92. Stephane Eveillard  (Haiti)


93. Suzy Sorel (Martinique)


94. Luciani Lanoir  (Martinique)


95. Ras Bongo Wisely  (St Lucia)


96. Caribbean Rastafari Organization


97. Dr. Rodney Worrell  (Barbados)


98. David Bannister  (Barbados)


99. Ismay Griffith  (Barbados)


100. Edson Crawford  (Barbados)


101. Guy M A Vala  (Guadeloupe)


102. Urielle Guillaume


103. Laetitia Fernandez


104. Fraiderik Jean-Pierre


105. Vivi Romney (Guadeloupe)


106. Emmanel Fleurant (France)


107. Colette Galiby


108. Monique Ravenet


109. Djaka Apakoua


110. Laura De Lacaze


110. El B Gourdin


112. Joseph Jacques


113. Bella Nazaire  (Martinique)


114. Jean-Claude Dorvil  (Haiti / Canada)

115. Walter Thermidor  (Haiti)
116. Eugene Norden
117. New National Vision (Trinidad and Tobago)
118. Hope McNish (Jamaica)
119. Graham Bannister (Barbados)
120. Sandra Richards (UK /Caribbean)
121. Renette Joachim (Haiti)
122. Winifred Galvan
123. Jean Assoua Anoh
124. Fleurime Remax (Haiti)
125. Herold Jean- Francois (Haiti)
126. Arthur Hatstant (Haiti)
127. Max Tanic
128. Baptiste Snel

129. Emmanuel Cherilus
130. Carl Innov
131. Abel Nazaire (former Minister of Youth and Sports – Haiti)
132. Lucien Beaugendre
133. Guillaume – Emmanuel Quitman
134. J. R. Danglades
135. Sara Diane
136. Modelyne Djoby
137. Hilo King (Benin)
138. Colette Galiby (French Guiana )
139. Dordy Desmornes (Canada)
140. Victorin Alex
141. Serge Bellegarde (Haiti)
142. Keith Ellis (Jamaica)
143. Zilpha Ellis (Canada)
144. Arnold Minors (Bermuda /Canada)
145. Laurent Titus
146. Odney Odly
147. Marie- Frantz Goram
148. Samuel Joseph (Haiti)
149. Bernadette Edne
150. Le Comite Directore de la Solidarite des Jeunes Progressistes d’Haiti
151. Pompous Frantzcell
152. Danielle Edmond
153. Joycelyn Jaubert (Martinique)
154. Gilberte Garo
155. Laura De Lacaze (Guadeloupe)
156. Ajani Ausaru (Jamaica)
157. Guy Joseph (Haiti)
158. Yoyi
159. Isaac Vincent
160. Noee Degbe
161. Noura Jernidier
162. Martine Fourcand (Haiti / Canada)
163. Siba Pascal Guilavogui
164. Mylene Lackmy
165. Front Unifie de Liberation Nationale d’Haiti
166. Wendell Claude (Haiti)
167. Tanoh Kwa Frederic


168. Keturah Cecilia Babb  (Dominica / Barbados)


169. Jacques Yvon Pierre  (Haiti)


170. Pendant Felix


171. Sylviane Basileu


172. Gaelle Choisne


173. Groupe d’intervention en development local et durable  (Haiti)


174. Alexendrite Delilac


175. Jacky Joseph


176. Manuel Morvan


177. Alann Fils Aime


178. Jean Pierre Raynold


179. Unite de Protection et de Defenses de Droits Humains  (Haiti)


180. Jean Jacques Feliho


181. Dieujuste Beby


182. Jainor Delor


183. Rudolph Amisial


184. Pierre Smith Jean Louis


185. Gerard Fidelin


186. Hernandez Sicard  (Haiti)


187. Jean Claude Henri


188. Danielle Valere


189. Pierre Mary Audate


190. David Abdulah, Movement for Social Justice, Trinidad and Tobago


191. Florvilus Patrice  (Haiti)


192. Francois Adren of Pikilz.com (Haiti)


193. Rev. Lejean Louis (Haiti)


194. House of Professions and Trades  (Haiti)

Hold President Trump Accountable Before UN General Assembly

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From the INTERNATIONAL  NETWORK  IN  DEFENSE  OF  HUMANITY (CARIBBEAN  CHAPTER)

President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela

There is no such thing as “American Exceptionalism”! And therefore, the President and Government of the United States of America (USA) are just as subject to the rules of International Law as are the President and Government of any other country.

Thus, when– on Friday the 11th of August 2017 — President Donald Trump of the USA threatened a unilateral military strike against the sovereign and independent Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela he was breaching a rule of International Law that is so fundamental that it is enshrined in Article 2 of the United Nations (UN) Charter.

Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter stipulates that “all Members (of the UN) shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

But this was not the first or only time that President Trump and his Administration had committed a flagrant breach of the said Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter !

Indeed, ever since taking up the office of President of the USA in January of 2017, Mr. Trump has attacked the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on no less than four occasions by issuing Executive Orders and inflicting punitive and damaging sanctions against the Government and people of that sovereign, politically independent nation.

President Trump also went on the public record on Tuesday the 8th of August 2017 threatening the Government and people of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if — according to him — the Government of North Korea makes “any more threats to the United States”. This –it is clear — is a threat of a nuclear conflagration that will be much more horrific than the “atomic” decimation that the USA inflicted on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 !

And, as if to further emphasize his utter contempt for the precepts of International Law, Mr. Trump used the podium of the General Assembly of the UN on Tuesday the 19th of September 2017 to issue a further threat to “totally destroy North Korea”, and to publicly parade his arrogant determination to defy the many U N resolutions that have denounced the USA’s illegal and genocidal blockade of the Republic of Cuba and demanded its termination.

In light of the fact that the USA has proven itself to be, perhaps, the most aggressive and warlike nation in the history of the World — with a record of having initiated or participated in well in excess of two hundred major military assaults or wars against other sovereign, independent countries during the 241 years of its existence as an independent state–the international community of nations would be well advised to take President Trump’s illegal threats and attacks very seriously.

It is against this background therefore that we, the Members of the Caribbean Chapter of the International Network In Defense of Humanity, would like to remind all member states of the United Nations of their Constitutional power to bring the issue of President Trump and his flagrant and dangerous breaches of International Law before the UN General Assembly for collective discussion and for the prescribing of an appropriate response by the World community.

Article 11 (2) of the UN Charter establishes that “the General Assembly (of the UN) may discuss any questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and security brought before it by any Member of the United Nations…..and……may make recommendations with regard to any such questions to the State or States concerned or to the Security Council or to both….”

Furthermore, Article 20 of the Charter provides that “special sessions (of the General Assembly) shall be convoked by the Secretary-General at the request of……. a majority of the Members of the United Nations.”

In light of the foregoing, we — the Members of the Caribbean Chapter of the International Network In Defense of Humanity now hereby:-

(1) CALL upon the responsible and peace-loving Member States of the United Nations to join together in a collective effort to bring the issue of President Trump and his flagrant breaches of Article 2 of the UN Charter before the General Assembly of the United Nations ; and

(2) REQUEST that all responsible and peace-loving members of the human family support this CALL by:-

(a) attaching their signature, name and address to this CALL ; and

(b) forwarding this CALL to the Head of Government and Minister of Foreign Affairs of their country either via e-mail or by printing and sending a hard copy.

SIGNATURE :

NAME  IN  BLOCK  LETTERS :

ADDRESS:

The ‘Immorables’ | Speaker Michael Carrington and President Donald Trump

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President Donald Trump
Michael Carrington
The Right Honourable, Fruendel Stuart

In the aftermath of the Charlottesville protest in the USA President Donald Trump offered a strange explanation that equated the moral right of a White supremacist group to demonstrate in public to another group exercising a moral right to protest against the hate group.

In recent days there has been elevated chatter in the social and traditional media space concerning another contentious issue tracked to the mouthing of the President of the United States. Those of us eavesdropping on the US Cable newsfeeds continue to be bombarded by sound bites including terms like ‘moral equivalency’, ‘moral agency’, ‘moral authority’ to list three popular ones.

Of interest to BU was the point made by Trump that the White supremacist group was issued a license to demonstrate and therefore had a LEGAL right to demonstrate.

Moral authority is authority premised on principles, or fundamental truths, which are independent of written, or positive, laws. As such, moral authority necessitates the existence of and adherence to truth – Wikipedia

It seems unfathomable a president of the United States in 2017 would be less than equivocal in his condemnation of a White supremacist group even if they had a legal right to protest in Charlottesville last week.

This issue although raging in the US should bring into focus for onlookers the extent  a political leader must combine political, intellectual skills with moral leadership to be effective. There is voluminous writings on the subject. Wonder what former President Obama is thinking when he reflects on throwing Reverend Wright under the bus.

In this intellectually engaging book [The President as Leader], Hargrove argues that successful presidents are those who combine political skills with intellectual and moral leadership. He examines three distinctively different presidencies—Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan—in revealing, exceptionally well written profiles. Strongly recommended – Choice

What if the same arguments are used to criticise Trump to explain Prime Minister Freundel Stuart handling of the Michael Carrington matter? Speaker of the House Michael Carrington was forced to respond to a court order to pay monies owed to a 70 year old client. Monies that should have been routinely transferred to his client WITHOUT any need to resort to court litigation. Here is one of many memorable responses at the time uttered by Prime Minister Stuart:

Clients can complain for you about almost anything . . . A client once reported me to the disciplinary committee because he said that whenever he called my office I was in court, and I wondered whether instead of being in court he wanted me to be in a brothel. So you really cannot control what clients can complain about – Barbados Today

From all reports Speaker Michael Carrington complied with the court order and therefore satisfied the legal ask of him. However the BU household has promoted the view that there is a moral component to the transaction that has not been satisfied given the Prime Minister’s unwillingness to sanction Carrington in his role as Speaker of the House of Assembly.

The concern about the escalating gun violence should not be discussed in a vacuum.  A wholesome society must be defined by adherence to relevant laws AND a moral code of behaviour. There can be no dispute that the Speaker of the House violated a basic moral code of behaviour. What message did the Prime Minister send to the country?

Caribbean Governments Asked to Approach UN Security Council to Stave Off War Between US and North Korea

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Submitted by Bobby Clarke, Vice President, Clement Payne Movement

Caricom

The Clement Payne Movement call upon the Caricom Secretariat to call a meeting of the Caribbean Heads of Government to impress upon Donald Trump, President of the United States of America and to Kim Jong Un, the Democratic Republic of North Korea President, to settle their differences by means of mediation.

The erratic statements by President Donald Trump, which if put into practice will cause the most devastation the world will ever know. Because of the borders of the Democratic Republic of North Korea and China, any error by America’s bombing of the Democratic Republic of North Korea could by error, cause collateral damage to the Republic of China

This will then put the two major countries of the world in confrontation with each and bring about annihilation not only of the United States and to the Chinese Republic but of all of Eastern Asia and North America among others.

The Caribbean Heads of Government need to make a serious approach to the United States of America and the United Nations Security Council to stop any further advancement by the US, the most powerful nuclear power in the world, from starting this war; either by action or a response to the Democratic Republic of North Korea infantile action.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM”

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Submitted by David Comissiong, Clement Payne Movement

Alleged chemical attack on the Syrian people

Who or what gave US President Donald Trump and the Government of the USA the right to set themselves up as the prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner of the Government of Syria? The short and simple answer is that neither President Trump nor the US Government possessed any such right!

International Law stipulates that it is the United Nations Security Council — a body that represents the Will of the entire community of nations — that possesses the right and responsibility to determine whether a breach of the peace or an act of aggression has been carried out by any nation or regime, and whether a punitive armed response is required.

Thus, if it is being alleged that the Assad governmental administration of Syria carried out an inherently illegal chemical weapons attack on the people of Syria, it is the responsibility of the UN Security Council to investigate the matter; to make a determination of innocence or guilt; and if guilt is established, to decide upon the appropriate response and punishment.

Virtually the entire World Community accepts that this is the settled International Law position.  But not the USA!  No, not a country that has wedded itself to the delusional and manifestly fraudulent doctrine of “American Exceptionalism”.  President Trump and virtually every other member of the US Establishment is capable of casually dismissing out-of-hand the settled, positive logic and rationality of International Law by engaging in a form of delusional “pseudo – logic” that goes something like this:-

“The USA is a special and inherently ‘good’ nation. And since the USA is an inherently “good” nation, it means that its actions and policies will always be based on and for “the good”.  Thus, the ordinary rules of International Law do not apply to the USA, and the USA is therefore at liberty to take unilateral action to impose its inherently “good” policies on a backward and wicked world”.

This is the kind of warped “logic” that President Obama used to justify his sending of drones half-way around the world to assassinate men and women who have never been tried and convicted in any Court of law, and to do so even if it means killing dozens of totally innocent children, women and men who simply happen to be in the locality of the assassination target when the missiles come raining down. No doubt,this is also the kind of warped “logic” that Trump used to justify last night’s “punitive” missile strike on Syria. And mind you, this kind of “logic” comes from a nation that has committed genocide against its native people; that enslaved Africans for almost 250 years; that inflicted segregation and lynching on black Americans for over 100 years; that is the only nation on earth to drop atomic bombs on human beings; that used chemical weapons against the Vietnamese and other Asians; and that has illegally intervened in and invaded scores of countries, among a host of other crimes.

As much as we may dislike President Assad of Syria and his Administration we all still need to say loudly and firmly to US President Donald Trump that the USA  is NOT an exceptional country, and that like every other country in the world, the rules of International Law apply to it too! If we fail to do so, we will actually be promoting the “Law of the Jungle” where “might makes right” and small nations like ours have no rights that need be respected.

By  unilaterally launching a missile attack on Syria Donald Trump has actually committed a crime under International Law. And if International Law is to have any meaning or validity all responsible governments of the world must now call upon the United Nations Security Council and the International Criminal Court to launch  War Crimes investigations against both Presidents Trump and Assad and their Administrations.

It’s All About Asia, As Trump Becomes A Dud

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Submitted by Pachamama

trumpWe’ve spent considerable time trying to understand the meanings for the election of Donald Trump. And while he has been talking loud but saying little, we refused to relocate our primary foci as trained on the ‘deep state’ forces surrounding him.

Yes, anyone calling himself POTUS must have some influence. But we’ve had presidents before who made all kinds of grandiose claims while foreign and domestic policy continues, on autopilot. Continued as if guided by an imperceptible, invisible force of nature. The adage of an invisible hand, you may say?

Trump’s own domestic policy, casted in broad strokes, has not gotten off to a very auspicious start. On both domestic and foreign policy Trump’s mouthings have a number of commonalities with the establishment agenda. It may be a matter of who is really boss. Trump or the ‘deep state’ forces. Is he capable of recognized the differentials in relative power.

There are no higher levels of analysis than the readings of what is to happen within the ‘deep state’ apparati. Trump maybe no more worthless or fails to work less than any of his predecessors but this old man river keeps rolling on. His grandiosity however, may leave a larger gap of failure as misplaced expectations quickly deflate, as with a busted hot air balloon.

This last week has shown us that Trump is largely a figurehead. It was a week where his National Security Adviser (NSA), Mike Flynn, was forced out under heavy fire from ‘deep state’ agents controlling the media – the ‘presstitutes’. The presstitutes in the mainstream cannot take any of these concerted actions unless supported by their bosses and these bosses have ‘deep state’ infrastructures throughout networks – CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, etc. So when we see the mainstream behaving this way we must see the hand of the ‘deep state’.

On occasions when the ‘deep state’ does not support the leaking of information you should expect them, the media, to focus on the leakers or whistle-blowers, not the contents of the leaks.

And based on our reading of the intent of the continuing invisible government, other Trump acolytes will be forcibly removed in the coming weeks. These will include Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. What we are witnessing are essentially military manoeuvres. Chess pieces are being carefully re-positioned. They have little to do with Trump or Flynn or Bannon or Conway, per se. These are movements for war. War with Russia and Iran, but eventually China aimed at the stupendous prize – Asia.

And ‘deep state’ forces are re-asserting the battle field, at home and abroad, for foreign military confrontation. Enforcing the militaristic discourses in media. Demonizing Russia and other alleged foes. Replacing would-be ‘doves’ with genuinely reliable ‘hawks’. Replacing the impending secondary role for America in global affairs with an expansion of dominance, hegemony, empire.

And should Trump, himself, fail to continue to make the required concessions or properly recognize ‘the powers that-be’ he too will be impeached within a few years and may even end up in prison, or worse. The forces to which we refer have never been afraid of the presidency. Unlike Trump’s dreams, they see it as a figurehead standing in for the real power.

Another example of ‘deep state’ operations would be the role of Victoria Nulands as former assistant secretary of state under Hillary Clinton. Both she and her husband are original neocons of PNAC fame. Yet, there are joined at the hip with democrats to advance a war agenda. The neo-cons transcend party tribalism. Obedience to the ‘deep state’ is primary. And the ‘deep state’ wants endless war for resources.

Nulands is now a Ukrainian citizen and a senior member of the Ukrainian government. As an American citizen Nulands engaged in a conspiracy to bring down one Ukrainian government as preparation for the advance of NATO to Russia’s border and a wider hot war where nuclear weapons could be used.

All these are ‘deep state’ preparations for war on Russia but within the context of the larger objective – Asia. In collusion with George Soros, billions were expended in this massive conspiracy against Russia. These are the transcendent operations of the ‘deep state’. And Trump thinks that any president of the USA could stop this through a personal ‘friendship’ with Putin and Russia! What a pipe-dream!

The deep state and its military-industrial-security-intelligence-complex will not risk the possibility of a peace dividend. It will never risk the curtailment of its trillion-dollar budgets. It will not risk the end of US dollar supremacy. It will not risk the possibility of playing second fiddle to China and the massive New Silk Road projects planned. Not even the spectre of nuclear war will temper western greed for Asia’s resources.

This struggle for ‘eternal’ global supremacy is complex. So much so that ‘allies’ like the United Kingdom seem willing to forego their historical alliances for the promise to be ‘banker to the Chinese’. They’ll need trillions for their world-altering physical expansion in Central Asia. Successive British conservative governments have been convinced that the Chinese ‘horse’ is the right bet.

This was a week where talk about the normalization of relations with Russia took a back seat. Trump himself sent a twit suggesting that Russia should return Crimea to Ukraine. This represents a significant reversal to his previous position, and in short order, even within the context of his quixotic, chaotic behaviours, policy prescriptions, as mouthed. Writings would be a disadvantage to his fickle nature.

If there was any doubt that the ‘deep state’ forces were re-asserting themselves after the election, it was immediate removed as efforts were made to impose Robert Harward as Flynn’s replacement. Harward being a traditional pair of national security hands. Hands unlikely to depart from the well-developed thinking of the foreign policy establishment in Washington.

To reinforce this shift in perceived power, Harward demanded that, should he take the job, he would have had to be given control over those comprising the membership of the National Security Council (NSC). An obvious attempt at removing Bannon, a Trump acolyte, establishing a direct line to the President and re-empowering the traditional foreign policy establishment types, of which Harward himself derives.

While Trump was sent to the kiddie’s table – in Florida – to stroke his damaged ego, his Vice President Pence was jetted to Europe to reinforce traditional American warring alliances with a still expanded NATO. Nobody remembers anymore the promises made to Russia by Bush, number one, and endorsed by Clinton.

NATO’s main projects currently is to threaten Russia’s western perimeter. Promote the notion that Russia is aggressive in the Baltic states. Engage the Russians in the Black Sea. Limit its access to the Bosphorus Straits. Deny Russia use of its warm water ports in Syria; possibly Libya, Egypt and Lebanon as medium term objectives. This is a policy of total war!

The frightful Trump ‘revolution’ is being aborted by ‘deep state’ forces. Those forces are making it clear that war with Russia is their tactical and immediate objective, not the leap of ‘faith’ Trump represented to some. Trump seems to have forgotten the USA was built on war. And a target of such war cannot be befriended by the POTUS.

‘Deep state’ forces are saying the ‘pivot to Asia’ is their strategic objective, not better relations with Russia. These forces seem to believe that a ‘limited’ war with Russia will defang her; open-up China for a war to decide the future or the fortunes of Asia. Kissinger’s edit has long been ‘whoever controls Asia (Central Asia) will dominate the next century’. That still guides the ‘deep state’.

When Donald Trump burst onto the political scene we discussed all kinds of ideas in attempting to explain this perceived deviation from the mean. Those included the possibility of a fascist American regime. The truth is that the ‘deep state’ will not now sanction such a re-orientation. We are more likely to see an extension of neo-liberalism even as capitalism continues to fail, miserably. There will be no fixes supported by the ‘deep state’. Stealing other peoples’ resources was always the way the West escaped capitalism’s failures.

Less than 30 days into this Trump presidency we have arrived at firm determinations. There will be no departure from the recent governing traditions even if some unsavoury attempts are made to further pressurize populations, at home and abroad. Grand Chessboard priorities will continue to determine our destiny.

The signs have finally started to emerge that Trump is no more than a loud mouth dud. This impotence will leave us in the same relative position that we have always been, may be worse. More wars and rumours of wars. More resource wars at home and abroad. Social disruptions created by Trump will interfere with the world only on the margins but ‘deep state’ forces will continue to be as in control as they have long been.

The Jeff Cumberbatch Column – The Rule of Law and Presidential Authority

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Jeff Cumberbatch - Columnist, Barbados Advocate

Jeff Cumberbatch – Columnist, Barbados Advocate

“A successful president need not have a degree in constitutional law. But he should understand the Constitution’s grant of executive power.” “He should share Hamilton’s vision of an energetic president leading the executive branch in a unified direction, rather than viewing the government as the enemy. He should realize that the Constitution channels the president toward protecting the nation from foreign threats, while cooperating with Congress on matters at home.” –James Yoo, University of California (Berkeley)

I feel almost a sense of compulsion to apologize to readers of the Barbados Advocate for returning for a second week to a commentary on the any matter associated with the ne’er-do-well Trump presidency in the US. This is even more keenly felt when locally there is much fodder for a columnist; last week’s launching of what claims hopefully to be a third political way; an unseemly public disagreement between Board and Governor at the Central Bank; and an overdue determination from the Prime Minister as to the viability of the controversial Bridgetown Hyatt project However, today’s effort is concerned only tangentially with what is swiftly morphing into a U S kakistocracy and pertains rather to the ongoing battle between the Trump administration and the courts for the constitutional governance of the republic.

A few columns back, I had tentatively advanced the thesis that President Trump, having been abandoned by some of the leading lights of the Republican party under whose banner he ostensibly campaigned, might have adopted an attitude of “I-can–and-will-do-it-myself” and thereby assume the role of a latter-day monarch. While I am not prepared to argue whether or not this has become an actuality, his attitude towards judicial rulings that have been adverse to him leads one to conclude that he is behaving less than merely a disgruntled litigant and more like one who regards the prudential application of the law as an officious gadfly to his overweening ambitions.

To bring the point closer home, if this were a game of cricket in the road and the bat and ball were his, he would have long ago taken both up and gone home in a huff after disagreeing vehemently with the umpire’s verdict that he was clearly out.

Readers will be reminded that both the “so-called judge”, as Robart J. was so irreverently termed, and the three judge federal appeals panel have rejected President Trump’s attempt to prohibit entry into the US of nationals from seven largely Muslim nations. These rulings have driven a ZR through a major plank of the president’s efforts to “make America great again”, the appeals court ruling stating that the Trump administration had shown no evidence that anyone from the embargoed nations had committed or were likely to commit terrorist acts in the US. Mr Trump’s bold openly voiced discriminatory threat to ban Muslims as a whole could scarcely have helped his cause since such a sentiment clearly betrays an intention to discriminate on grounds of religious affiliation, a patently unconstitutional act, and relegates to an afterthought the consideration of national security.

The matter now moves to the Supreme Court for consideration. However, an initial hurdle for the governing administration is whether the case will be taken at all by that body. In a brilliant and well researched article, “Controlling Inherent Presidential Power: Providing a Framework for Judicial Review”, published in the Southern California Law Review, Professor Edward Chemerinsky of the De Paul University College of Law argues that “most suits to have a President’s act declared unconstitutional never reach the Supreme Court…” He references in support a number of instances among dozens where this has occurred, including disputes as to the authority of the President to impose wage price guidelines on government contractors and as to his authority to impose a 10% surcharge on most articles imported into the United States.

Even if the Supreme Court should decide to try the matter, however, the current jurisprudence is woefully unsettled. The author notes no fewer than four approaches to the question of whether the opening words of Article II of the Constitution to the effect that “the Executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America’ are to be construed as vesting the President with powers not enumerated in the Article.

There are those, doubtless including Mr Trump himself, who hold fast to the interpretation that the President’s powers are untrammelled and that he is permitted to exercise authority not specifically granted by the Constitution, while others are, contrastingly, of the considered opinion that such plenary authority would be inconsistent with a Constitutional ethos of a government with restricted authority.

According to Professor Chemerinsky’s analysis, the approaches used by the lower Courts range from a clear denial of any inherent judicial power at all and that he must act pursuant to constitutional or statutory authority only, to the existence of a broad and substantial inherent authority, especially, interestingly enough in the current context, in the field of foreign affairs.

In accordance with the first perception, there is no room in US governance for a “presidential prerogative” equivalent to the “royal prerogative” claimed by British monarchs of yore and still claimed by some to extend to the local Governor General, itself an office created by Constitutional provision and thus inherently of limited authority. On this approach, if there is no condign constitutional provision authorizing the president’s action, then it is unconstitutional.

As for the broad authority in international relations approach that the lawyers for the President will doubtless be hewing towards in their arguments, this limits the narrow approach to internal matters only. In one 1936 decision, the judge wrote:

“ The two classes of powers (domestic and foreign are different, both in respect of their origin and their nature. The broad statement that the federal government can exercise no powers except those specifically enumerated in the Constitution…is categorically true only in respect of our internal affairs…”

This approach reminds us “we are here dealing not with an authority vested in the President by an exertion of legislative power, but with such an authority plus the very delicate plenary and exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations…”

Nonetheless, as if presaging the current dispute, after these dicta acknowledge that this power does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress, it concludes ominously for the Trump administration:

“…but which, of course, like every other government power, must be exercised in subordination to the applicable provisions of the Constitution….”

The right to due process before any abrogation of an existing right is one such entrenched therein.

To be continued….

US Federal Appeals Court Upholds Suspension of Trump Travel Ban

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Extracted from Caribbean Trade Law and Development website.

no-banLess than a month after taking office, the Trump Administration received another judicial blow yesterday to one of its major policy actions. The United States’  Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in its decision in State of Washington v Trump dismissed the Government’s motion for a stay pending appeal of […]

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The Jeff Cumberbatch Column – Don Quixote Goes to Washington

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Jeff Cumberbatch - Columnist, Barbados Advocate

Jeff Cumberbatch – Columnist, Barbados Advocate

“In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that every madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame. Already the poor man saw himself crowned by the might of his arm Emperor of Trebizond at least; and so, led away by the intense enjoyment he found in these pleasant fancies, he set himself forthwith to put his scheme into execution…” –Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes

As many others, including apparently the majority of the voters in the United States, I do not care much for the politics of the current president of the United States, Mr Donald Trump. Having myself survived exposure to the nightmare scenario of his Electoral College triumph last November, nothing he has done since persuades me that he is not the narcissistic, temperamental misogynist that he projected himself to be during the campaign to citizens of the United States who, albeit, by fortuitous electoral distribution and for their various personal reasons, did not care enough about these flaws and so elected him to the high office of POTUS, as it is so charmingly referred to.

Most of my readers will be familiar with the epithet “quixotic”. It describes, according to one source, behaviour that is foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals and marked by rash, lofty, romantic ideas. The word derives from the character created in 1605 by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in his novel, “The History of the valorous and wittie (sic) Knight Errant Don Quixote of La Mancha”, to give its full title. There has been a number of musical and film adaptations since, including the 1992 “Man of La Mancha”, featuring the popular hit, “To dream the impossible dream”.

Constraints of space do not permit a fuller discussion today of the adventures of the title character, but the epigraph above offers some information as to the anatomy of his pursuits.

The connection that I seek to make between Don Quixote and Mr Trump lies in the erratic, nay, quixotic nature of the behaviour of each of these individuals. For instance, perhaps the best known escapade of Don Quixote is tilting at windmills, an expression that has found its way into the lexicon as a metaphor for inutility and one that is ideally likened to Mr Trump’s attempts to exclude Mexicans and some Muslims so that America will be “great” again, whatever that coded expression might mean.

“At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that there are on a plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire, “Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God’s good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth.”

“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.

“Those thou seest there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.”

“Look, your worship,” said Sancho; “what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go.”

“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that thou art not used to this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat.”

The analogy is satisfied even further whether we consider Sancho Panza to be Mr Mike Pence, the Vice-President, Ms Kellyanne Conway with her “alternative facts”, or Mr Steve Bannon with his antediluvian views on difference and press freedom; and Mr Trump’s choice weapons of war not to be the lance and shield but his penchant for executive orders and late-night-to-early-morning tweets.

None of this is to ignore the fact that for some unarticulated reasons perhaps best known to them, there are those who support Mr Trump. I will not hazard a guess as to their reasons, although I am prepared to concede that they are certainly entitled to their opinions.

Nonetheless, his obsession with being perceived as the smartest and the most popular incumbent ever, as well as his seemingly facile ignorance of the basic principles of US constitutionalism that he swore to uphold less than a month ago, together with his propensity to speak in superlatives all mark him out as nothing less than…quixotic.

Indeed, Mr Trump’s relationship with matters legal so far has been less than auspicious. First, he chose to dismiss, as was his prerogative, the substantive Attorney General for demurring to a patently discriminatory embargo on certain individuals, even as his proposed replacement awaits Senate confirmation, thus leaving a gap in the governance architecture that would be constitutionally repugnant in most other jurisdictions. Second, he nominates a predictable replacement for Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court; one who, unsurprisingly, comes mouthing the same tired conservative claptrap about the Constitution having a settled meaning, as if time has stood still since the time of Jefferson and the others in the 18th century.

This jurisprudential perception is indeed instructive in the current context, for the original Constitutional text in the US regarded certain individuals, definable by a common characteristic, as being less than whole human beings. Too besides, it is at least passing strange that this so–called “right” meaning seems always to accord with conservative points of view, while those opinions that endorse such progressive values as the autonomy of women and others to guard their privacy are considered matters of regrettable and unconstitutional judicial activism.

The following piece is apposite:

Almost immediately after, Don Quixote runs into some merchants whom he challenges to admit that his lady, Dulcinea, is the most beautiful damsel in the world. Not sure where the situation is leading, they address him as “Sir Knight” but anger him by some facetious comments regarding Dulcinea’s beauty. On hearing these remarks, Don Quixote charges but unfortunately Rocinante slips and our knight ends up beaten by a muleteer. What might be construed as a setback for Don Quixote is easily explained: it was Rocinante’s fault.  But equally important (to him) is the fact that the merchants addressed Don Quixote in chivalric terms.

A Test of Character for Humankind

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Submitted by islandgal

humankind1With all the distraction coming from the White House it is all about distraction. Look at what has been going on in Russia.  The head of the cyber security has been arrested as well as one of the specialists for treason.  They have discovered the mole who leaked the Trump dossier to the West.  Trump is making a lot of noise about crow size while Russia is rounding up suspected moles. I hope the CIA FBI are investigating the moles in their organization and those in the White House. What amazes me is that those people working as advisors for Trump haven’t had a nervous breakdown as yet. They are ordered to go out and lie to the American people about everything Don the Con says.  They are pissing on the American public heads and telling them it is raining.

America is a highly medicated society and Big Pharma has it like that so they can make huge profits. In the heartland many white women and men are dying early many in their 30’s and 40’s all due to opiate addiction.  You go to a doctor and tell them that you are feeling down and sad and you have a prescription for antidepressants. You have a pain  and they prescribe Oxycontin, Percoset  or a similar drug. There are pain clinics set up around the corner to treat these people with more of these types of drugs all made by Big Pharma.  It is like most people who park in disable parking, physically they look able BUT they will tell you that they have a mental disability you can’t see. Now wonder many in the heartland voted for Trump because they are mentally impaired. Teenagers and young people are addicted to meth or heroin become dependent on the state for their survival due to unemployment or are unemployable.

In the black community many are being killed by black on black crime. Many are suffering from drug dependency and like the white heartland folks are unemployed. Their education system is below the national level so they are at a disadvantage.

A technological revolution had taken place in America and many people refused to retool. Many of the older generation who worked in factories felt that they can’t retool because they lack the education or the ability to do so.  The coal miners who suffer with job related diseases such as black lung, still feel that there is a future in coal mining.  Hillary Clinton offered them an opportunity to help develop cleaner energy but all they know is coal so they rejected her. Trump meanwhile who is also of the old school who has not recognized that the tech revolution had taken place and manufacturing has become more and more  robotized so fewer humans will be needed. Most of the GOP are old codgers who are still clinging to the old ways to “Make America Great Again”.

Trump speaks about when he was younger that America was winning wars I asked when did America ever win a war?  The only war I know of they won if you want to call it a war was Grenada. The man is delusional with very thin skin who is more concerned about crowd sizes and losing the popular vote than governing.  He has signed a number  of executive orders but they can only become a reality if they have the support of the congress. If the GOP prefer to have this mentally ill person lead the country then it tells you all about humankind.

As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron.

H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
Henry Louis Mencken was an American journalist, satirist and cultural critic – 1880-1956

Mr. President, There is a Certifiable Madman In The Presidency

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Submitted by Pachamama

donald-trumpDuring the Nixon administration John Dean walked into the Oval Office and told the president of a cancer on his presidency. The long-laboured elevation of the madman, Donald Trump, puts us in a far worse position. For it comes at a time when all the indicators, in all environments, suggest a nearing collapse of human civilization. The Executive Order is the main instrument of this madman, would-be-dictator.

We have here a man who has hardly been able to hire the thousands of political appointees needed to run government. In additional, thousands of civil servants have opted not to work under him or have retired early. What is clear is that Trump never had a plan if he won, gave no consideration to what winning was to mean. As a result the greatest country in the world, so-called, is currently being run like a one-door shop while the Doomsday Clock advances to two and a half minutes to midnight.

Trump talks about a ‘wall’. Building a wall on the Mexican border and having the Mexicans pay for it. Not the Canadian border. Not to keep out illegal Europeans, but Mexicans. Only a racist madman could process the thought of building a defensive wall, 2000 miles long, in 2017. Up to 1200 miles of which would have to be in the middle of the Rio Grande.

The Rio Grande, a river shared by both countries. Normal thinking would suggest that such a border can never be so protected and not since the Great Wall of China, constructed over many years and in parts, has such a feat been attempted. Moreover, environmental conditions may soon be driving Americans to Mexico and beyond, in their droves. If Trump were not insane he could be best advised to leave the ‘back door’ opened for this exit strategy.

He characterizes himself as a builder. He is not. He is better described as a developer. A developer who has no engineering skills. What he does, is to employ others (project managers, engineers, RE agents, general contractors, architects, etc) with a range of skills and he provides the funding to achieve project objectives. Most structural engineers agree that such a wall could be possible but give no guarantees that it would be fit for Trump’s purposes – effectively keeping out Mexicans and others coming from South America.

Trump has threatened executive action to hinder transfers from the federal government to major ‘sanctuary cities’. Cities which have clearly indicated they non-cooperation with his ‘undocumented resident’ policy. The truth is that major cities benefit greatly from the cheap labour of the undocumented. Even Germany tried this recently viz-a-viz Syrian ‘refugees’. Capitalism must have a pool of slave or cheap labour.

His policies will disrupt too many families containing both documented and undocumented members. What’s more, sanctuary cities transfer up to 20% more to the federal government than the feds return to them. They carry (financially) the mainly Republican, largely White, southern, central, mid-western states. Only a madman, power drunken as he clearly is, would challenge from such a position of relative weakness. Trump can only hurt his master race.

As the Economist’s Democracy Index downgrades the USA’s rating, Trump feels able to contend that 4 to 5 million people voted illegally for his opponent. Trump’s madness will not allow him to accept that most Americans did not vote for him, even in his electoral college victory. How could it not be possible for a man who could rise to the highest office in the land not know that 2 million people die between election cycles? What kind of narcissism would preclude Trump from empathizing with a human circumstance where deceased persons are not effectively removed from voters’ lists?

Trump’s executive orders seek to effectuate a promise to create a Muslim ban or registry. Even Madeline Albright, a woman who thought the illegal killing of 500K Iraqi children was ‘worth it’, has offered to be listed as a Muslim on this Schindler’s List. Trump’s order will selectively list the same Islamic majority countries disliked by Obama and Bush regimes.

The executive order does not list Saudi Arabia, the singular country from whence the Wahhabi/Takfiri/terrorist ideology flows. Instead we have countries like Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen serving as stand-ins for the real enemy of us all. The madman, Trump, also leaves off countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Could this be the capriciousness of a lone madman or is the system itself insane? How can a country deliver this man to the highest office if that country is not as he is?

These impulsive, unpredictable madmen/women, and we must include his closest advisers and enablers who seem to believe that they can play with fire without consequences. We are especially thinking about Jared Kushner, the Zionist Jew, who has placed in the mind of the principle madman the idea that East Jerusalem could be formally annexed without consequences. They must know that even a madman with his finger on the nuclear codes could be made to see sense. That action may be seen as minor and as a favour for Jared Kushner’s Zionist friends in the Likud but will instead lead to the final battle of Armageddon, we guarantee you. And Pax-Judaica will not emerge as the world power you seek. Instead the work of Adolf may be properly completed.

We also must take umbrage at some people for whom we’ve had a modicum of respect. People who, with generally just cause, have been supportive of Trump. People like Paul Craig Roberts (PCR), Charles Ortel (CO) and others who seek to maintain a narrative that Trump is somehow the innocent one here.

We are to believe that Trump is the one who comes to give us freedom from an over-bearing government. Yet, especially White men like PCR and CO (both Republicans) would seek to have Black people exchange a history of the deprivations of White supremacy to blindly buy into some newfangled narrative having a madman at its centre. We say to PCR, CO and their White friends, F**k-off!

Today Dr. Guy McPherson masterfully condensed all the climate changes that have been occurring, largely unnoticed, and has concluded that we may have less than 10 years left. Most times, we are too focused on singular climate events but McPherson has estimated what these changes, together, mean for life on planet earth.

He postulates that climate changes will severely impede our ability to grow grains, enough to feed ourselves. Grains have been central in the development of mankind. And instead of facing up to this terrible possibility, we are to deal with a madman who is more confident in his own ability to complete the task of the annihilation of humans sooner than the induced consequences of climate change.

Mainstream Media and the End of ‘Progressives’

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Submitted by Pachamama

Donald Trump declared the winner of the US presidential election by the Electoral College

Donald Trump declared the winner of the US presidential election by the Electoral College

We will contend that what is generally referred to as a progressive socio-economic-political flank, located primarily on the ‘left’ or the ‘left of centre’, but less so on the ‘right’ or ‘right of centre’, has been dead for 50 years. The media fiction, on the left, has been keeping a dead political current alive as master narrative to mek money and mislead publics.

This subject is important because if progressives in North America and Europe are as useless as the evidence demonstrates, there can be no global convergence to protect small island states, like Barbados, from the most rabid Alt-Right forces which are preparing to descend on us all.

The Alt-Rightists will soon be controlling the IMF, the World Bank, the machinery for war, among other power levers. A country like Barbados could expect to surrender any perceived advantage (soft power) accumulated over time. Begging these criminals will not help. It would be encouragement to the enemy.

We will indict these so-called progressives for the emergence of a Donald Trump. The re-emergence of far-right parties in Europe. And the hollowing-out of any gains ordinary people have made in the past. Surely, Trump must signal a new era.

We will cast these ‘progressives’ as a bunch of spineless sycophants who allowed, in the case of the USA, a succession of ignorant, backward, Republican minded idiots, to take power. And do so from minority positions.

Our point of departure could be 1968, you choose. Since then we’ve had Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama and now Trump. So from the height to the nadir of ‘progressivism’, in this recent incarnation, we’ve had less real progressives elected to the highest office than during the period of the first half of the 20th century – FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, for example.

The American ‘progressive’ has acquiesced so much that it is no wonder the best policy to be contrived, recently, had to do with the institutionalization of an agenda against mother nature herself.

The mainly White, highly ‘educated’, progressives are all about form not function. They are cowards, lacking a scintilla of courage. All about an empty rhetoric, as a means to blur the lines between themselves and the Republicans. The progressive agenda has always been a White man’s trick.

The republicans or conservatives play no such games. They see politics as war by other means and are prepared to move heaven and earth to their will.

In the Obama presidency alone, the Republicans have given us government shutdowns; illegal wars; mass defunding of social programs, developed to help the poor; filibustered an Obama Supreme Court nominee for over 300 days; gerrymandered the country to make certain of perennial control of the House of Representatives and the Senate; consistently stole elections by the disenfranchisement of primarily Black and Latino voters.

Not even when confronted with irrefutable evidence progressives have no meaning responses. They possess the worst kind of cowardice.

In North Carolina, a Republican Pat McCrory, the incumbent, was ‘defeated’ by a Democrat, Roy Cooper, in the Governor’s race, 2016. But since November 8th and several recounts, McCrory has failed to concede despite a nearly unassailable 10,000 vote lead by Cooper.

What is more, the Republican State Legislature in NC, in anticipation of the defeat of the Republican Incumbent Governor, has acted to severely cut the constitutional powers of the incoming Governor. Powers the current Governor enjoyed.

In the UK. We are not convinced that the Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn has laid out anything new. He too seems wedded to traditional progressive agendas. But the political environment has markedly changed and requires different responses from hollowed-out labour parties. Maybe the alt-Right of Farage and company will repeat, in the UK, the Trumpism progressives in the US have made flesh.

In Barbados, it may take a decade or more for us to see some official recognition of the death of progressive ‘ideals’ as historically constructed.

All this is happening and there is hardly a whimper from the supine progressives in the Democratic Party, in the USA, or even Barbados. Maybe they are used to being in a submissive position with the ruthless Republicans driving home an advantage no minority should have.

Moreover, the case of the defeat of Clinton is indeed emblematic of the perennial weakness of progressives. With over a billion dollars and an ability to raise much more; possessing a far superior case than Trump; currently having control of the Obama presidency; and with all of these advantages, the pooch-pickers called progressives could not defeat a demagogue, a narcissist, an apolitical madman like Donald Trump.

Progressives, in an age of Trump, cannot be expected to offer any determined, courageous, resistance to the Hitler of our times. Already, we are seeing that they intend to be as supportive of Trump as they were of Bush#2. Even if they had majorities on Capitol Hill, which they do not, they will be just as compliant.

Progressives will be more interested in notions of working with the devil, Trump, than defending their constituencies which are largely anti-Trump. They are sell-outs. It is the progressives who have people of colour voting for agendas for which there is no benefit to the voter. And Black people make no demands of the system. Not even on matters of life and death, like police shootings.

Presently, progressives on popular media are still licking their wounds from the Clinton defeat. When all the sobbing and gnashing of teeth is over, aided by their media bosses, people like Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Matthews, Joy Reid, Anderson Cooper and others on MSNBC, as well as those on CNN, will be brought to heel. It will be unsurprising when the Trump administration demands more favourable coverage, like any dictator has, in return for access, pretenses will have to come to an end. Without access these media houses might as well play dead.

This is how the game is played by ‘progressive’ media bosses, on the left, who are only committed to money, in the final analysis. The same media bosses who gave Trump, in kind, the equivalent of 2.5 billion dollars in free advertising/coverage because ratings were high and the spectacle of the pre-election season meant more to their top and bottom lines, a measure of success! In sum Trump has been, and is more so now, a creature of mainstream media. And the progressives will never apologize for imposing him on us. Their attitude was that Clinton would win, regardless. Now, let them consign themselves to being the anachronistic dead-beats they have long been.

The peoples of the world were, long time ago, sold out by the progressive agenda. It was, of late, essentially a response to Communism and gave yeoman service to right-wing forces thus creating the illusion of political pluralism, mass mobilization around social needs. Now that the Right has discovered that they can create populism, of the Right as well as the left, those alt-Right forces will soon deem left-wing populism and progressives themselves totally unnecessary.

The Audacity of Fear (II)

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Submitted by Heather Cole

Submitted by Heather Cole

In 2014, while addressing the Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama said:

“In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost wilful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!

Three years later, he wrote a book entitled the Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. In that book he calls for a new kind of politics that unites the people and a vision for the political future of the USA. That speech and that theme propelled him on to the national platform eventually paving the way for him to become the 44th President of the United States of America.

The book became a best seller and President Obama brought eight years of growth to an economy that was on the road to disaster. In essence he had brought the hope that the people need there and then to believe that America could be great again. His was not a doctrine of fear but of what the people could achieve united. Though there were many stumbling blocks in his way, his has been the most successful Presidency in living memory.

In the recent campaign running up to the election, Donald Trump ran on a slogan of “Making America Great Again.” Perhaps Mr. Trump did not read President Obama’s book as his campaign was not based on hope. Instead it instilled fear into the Republicans base; fear that they had lost America. Fear was the weapon of destruction used by Mr. Trump to advocate racism, misogyny, bigotry, lies, deceit, albeit successfully to become the President elect of the USA.

That weapon can only be described as a two edged sword because the fear that was propagated by Mr. Trump has now taken hold on the other half of the country who did not vote for him as his campaigning promises will affect their civil liberties. The Mexicans now fear deportation, the Muslims religious persecution, the LGB Community that their rights will be taken away; the black population that again that their lives will not matter and; women that their rights will rescind to the 1950’s. In essence, Donald Trump triumphed because of the audacity of fear.

Since the election Some of the American people, especially the youth are challenging the institutions created by the founding fathers through protests in many cities and online petitions. These actions after a general election are unprecedented as the act by the early colonist of dumping tea in the Boston Harbor. The older people seem to have accepted that it is a done deal while many of the youth are claiming that the President elect is not there President. This has never been challenged before.

Although the Constitution was designed with separation of powers and clear rules for the impeachment of a President, this may not become a reality as both the House of Representatives and the Congress are controlled by Republicans.

More importantly, although the Constitution begins with “We the people” it does not provide the people with any recourse if they wish to remove a president elect. No one knows what will happen if the protests escalate. These groups must unite and state their clear goals.

Like a play in which the writer has only written two acts, this story is far from over. The county has elected a Republican House of Representatives and Senate along with a Republican President; a businessman known as The Donald who comes with an empire and has set the tone for his absolute rule (not that of his Administration) may be headed towards a constitutional crisis.

On introspection if that famous conversation between Mrs. Powell of Philadelphia and Benjamin Franklin were to take place today regarding the status of the country, and she asked “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” One can say with some degree of certainty that his response would be “A monarchy, what a waste of tea!”

Trump Threads the Needle

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trump-pence

What concerned me most during the run up to the election was the planned false reporting by the corporate media and some of the major internet sites. The election was always much closer than they were purposely misreporting, and only folks who had the opportunity to hear or read news from alternative sources that the election would be a dog fight and not a cake walk for Hillary – BU Commenter Bajan in NY

Against the the run of popular opinion Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States of America. What is bodes for the world time will tell. What is reaffirms to the BU household is that the voice of the people is the voice of God.

On behalf of Barbados Underground (for what it is worth) we congratulate Donald Trump and hope he will be able to advance the cause of mankind as President of the United States.

HRC Will Win – But Has to Fight to Avoid Impeachment

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Submitted by Pachamama

President Donald Trump
Hillary Clinton
Bill Clinton

It should be pellucid by now that barring a tectonic disclosure or other intervention Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) will win the USA presidential elections. However, she will immediately come under a massive series of investigations aimed at giving the defeated Republicans, provided they can retain the House of Representatives, a raison detre. Her presidency will provide the conditions for the RNC not to lose its status as a national party, as the legacy of Trumpism has placed it in grave danger so to.

In this piece we will rely, heavily, on the works of Charles Ortel. Ortel is best known for his analytical work, as a citizen, which brought down General Electric (GE) for doctoring financial results; Dadi Cheri a Haitian journalist of newsjunki.org and Utrice Lead, a Trinidadian-American from the Progressive Radio Network (PRN).

For over 20 years a basket of public foundations run by Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton have served as entities for the illegal raising, laundering, commingling and mishandling of over 100 billion dollars. Much of this money coming from dictators and other characters presumably in exchange for favours, quid pro quo, pay to play schemes. The majority from average citizens around the world.

Readers unaware should know that there are very strict rules governing the operations of public charities in the world, even if there is an absence of formal global regulation. Public foundations are required by law to appoint independent trustees; cross-file financial statements with multiple jurisdictions; must be registered variously, should they want to operate in dozens of countries or states like the Clintons; money raised from the public must be deployed specifically for the reason stated. And the foundation’s public filings must so show, amongst others.

These laws are some of the strictest in the world. The legal infrastructure is excessively onerous in order to avoid oodles of tax free money going into the hands of disreputable actors. Money collected from unsuspecting publics, serving as a honey pot for the world’s leading charity fraud criminals.

In the case of the Clinton Foundation/s, an entity purportedly started to build and run a presidential library it has now morphed into a massive trans-national organization, operating tax free internationally and as the source of billions of dollars which we will contend has been an incubator for ‘high crimes and misdemeanour’ by HRC.

In addition to the spider web of entities controlled by the Clintons there is a wider level of intrigue. The Clintons have a cartel of alliances with other private/public foundations; drug companies manufacturing and selling vaccines and pharmaceutical of poor quality, the Red Cross, the UN which appointed Bill Clinton as ambassador to Haiti thereby immunizing him from prosecution there; access to governments around the world with a Clinton State Department as hammer, Bill as anvil, to force deals through for their personal interests.

This scheme is trans-presidential. The Bushes aided and abetted the Clintons and now the Obamas are waiting in the wing to cash in on the action. If it determined that both parties are too compromised all bets are off. No investigations in the House of Representatives. No trial of HRC in the Senate.

The preliminary procedures are already in the system. Marsha Blackburn, the representative from the 7th congressional district of Tennessee in the House of Representatives has already started a probe. Eric Schneidermann, the AG of New York, a Clinton acolyte, has already brought a case in which a Clinton Foundation founding personage and Virginia governor, Terry McAuliffe, has been made to appear.

After the 2010 Haiti earthquake the international community, ordinary people like us, donated 14.3 billion for reconstruction. With the help of the UN, the Clinton Foundation was given total control of these monies. Six years later only 2% of the money has been made available to the Haitian people and government. There are fears that this foundation money is being used in HRC’s presidential campaign.

In Haiti the Clintons are known to have more power that the government and while there are many rumours about where the reconstruction money is, or went, little has changed on the ground, unbelievable!

This is the kind of insidious relationships the Clintons have long had with Haiti. It was Bill Clinton who ran Aristide out of Haiti in the early 1990’s.

This same Bill Clinton forced the Haitian people to stop planting rice and forced them to import it from Arkansas, a state for which he is a former governor. The brother of HRC was able to secure rights to all of Haiti’s gold resources. Nothing could happen in Haiti unless the Clintons agreed.

This is how it has been even before there was a Black man in the White House. Obama, himself, aided the Clintons with massive capital accumulation. These are people who in 2000 were broke and now there are said to have personal wealth in the hundreds of millions while controlling billions in Clinton Foundations funds. The election of HCA could serve to further consolidate this position and offer a degree of immunization for all previous crimes, they hope.

Unless, somebody has cause to walk into the White House and say ‘Madam President there is a cancer on the Presidency”. The Clintons are betting that these crimes can be gotten away with, we doubt. They aim is to enrich themselves under the protection of law and hand billion to a single child, Chelsea Clinton and her heirs.

In the publicly available information on the Clinton Foundations we see highly questionable transfers between and amongst entities. The Clinton Foundations making transfers between themselves and other private foundations making transfers to the Clintons and vice versa. These to us, appear to be attempts at misleading the IRS and creating opportunities for diversion. They seem to be false transactions bordering on the extremes of illegality.

We are uncertain whether the American imperium is able to digest another impeachment. Absent that determination, we judge that there is an abundance of evidence, not proof, that serious breaches of charity law, exceeding the level for which Bill Clinton and Richard ‘Dick’ Nixon were impeached. In these circumstances, many people will be going to jail as Trump suggests but we hardly think Hillary Rodham Clinton will be on that list.

Trump’s View About Women (Grab them by the Po**y)

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Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Trumps has grabbed the headlines across the globe although for the wrong reason. His disparaging exchange with Billy Bush -captured on a hot mike- and exposed by the US media about women is sure to derail his presidential campaign. What it does is to setup tomorrow’s second presidential debate to attract unprecedented viewership.

It also brings into question to what extent should the electorate hold political aspirants/candidates accountable for personal views. Secondly, how active should traditional media be in sharing the personal views of candidates to informed a mostly ‘ignorant’ electorate. Social media cannot be accused of suppressing information.

#theendtimes

 

Political Murder Around Pennsylvania Avenue

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Submitted by Pachamama

AP - Founder and editor of the WikiLeaks website, Julian Assange,

Some weeks ago a blogger on BU asked us whether we were not afraid that the CIA station in the Caribbean may have a file on us.

That blogger seemed to have our welfare at heart. Though we place no more value on our own lives than those who are murdered for political purposes by that very agency, if protecting our lives means consigning us to the generalized cowardice which passes for modern civilization, we must demure.

A fortnight ago a former DNC staffer, Seth Rich, was shot many times in Washington DC. The police seem to be suggesting robbery.

On Tuesday, low and behold, Julian Assange was reported to have said that Seth Rich was his source for the DNC’s leaked email batch. This report is still to be confirmed.

These circumstances give rise to a few possibilities. One, that Rich was punished for his alleged acts of bravery. And in that case we are to wonder who would benefit from such a political murder.Secondly, his murder just happened to be incidental to his recent departure from the DNC.

Thirdly, if reports elsewhere on the internet, that he was in fact the provider of the leaked DNC batch of email, we would then have to estimate the statistical probability of these series of events.

Yesterday, Donald Trump made another statement carrying political murder to a known level. Trump is suggesting that if Clinton were to win the elections, a gun carrying core of his second amendment constituency, may want to do something about it. To undo her election to the presidency. Maybe, he was appealing to a some type of madman, a lone wolf character.

Hillary Clinton herself, during the 2008 elections, made a similarly, thinly- veiled suggestion directed towards Barak Obama.

The truth is that political murder is a central ingredient in the culture of American politics. Why would we expect that the competition for a job to do mass murders in the name of the American people would, itself, not be characterized by political assassinations?

We need not talk about JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X and many, many more even if less well-known. Is it still to be a coincidence that the people who were caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel, the then offices of the DNC, were known to have close ties to the JFK assassination and high level access to the Nixon white house.
Everybody who runs for president seems to have, within a few degrees of separation, access to people who understand what their duty is to be when the nod is given. These ‘wet-work characters’ could have close Mafiosi connections, be professional killers, be ex-military intelligence actors, or psychopaths who just like killing. There are too many of these seeking work and are available for not much.

We are unaware whether Trump is networked into these political intrigues. However, he has a history. His father was a Hitler supporter. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center there has been a marked rise in the number and degree of violence perpetrated by White supremacist groups in the USA. The convergence of these factoids could take political murder to a new level. A level where the veil of secrecy is removed.

The staggering disconnect between mainstream media coverage and reality reminds us of Alice in Wonderland. We have almost all the networks rushing to Clinton’s aid, including the Secret Service. An organization normally shy of public interventions.Clinton who is more hawkish than Trump, by a country mile. A cold woman prepared to continue the American sponsored killings of Palestinian children through its Zionist colony, stunting their growth by the maintenance of an eight-year long hermetic seize around Gaza.

A woman prepared to use nuclear weapons as evidence of having a bigger scrotum than any man. One seeking nuclear war with Russia to satisfy the military-intelligence-industrial-complex grip on taxpayers’ money or bring the Russians to their knees, bring China to her knees. To conquer the whole world for empire.

This is the woman who has to be protected from the missives of a Trump. Not the millions of people both Clintons have killed and will continue to slaughter if she wins.

Singlehandedly, Hilary Rodham Clinton already has the world within a WW3 scenario. Her PNAC neo-conservative foreign policy, leading Obama by the nose, has destroyed Libya, smashed Syria, has Iraq in endless turmoil, brought Egypt into instability, threatens Iran and destabilized Turkey. She is the demonic queen of terrorism!

Not even the vassal states of North-Western Asia, sometimes called Europe, have been able to escape the intentions of this wicked witch from the north. Her policies have directly led to political murders, however caused, in France, in Spain, in Germany and in England.A witch who is presented to us as a loving grandmother, mother. But eminently prepared to commit political mass-murder and after a day’s work returns to her home, drenched in the blood of innocence.

Donald Trump is no less murderous. Though he has not yet had the opportunities to showcase his mass-murdering intent.

He is even more psychologically detached than the wicked witch of the north – pathological. And indeed exhibits many worrisome signs of mental illnesses. But the general argument that he would be more unsuited as a killer through the use of the nuclear arsenal is not borne out by the evidence thus far.

The central question the American people should be concerned with relates to how it has become possible for these two people to emerge as contenders for the office of murderer-in-chief. They must come to accept as truth that the culture has produced these mass-murdering Frankensteins and take urgent actions to stop the killings, at their root.

Contours of American Imperial Politics

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Submitted Pachamama

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton

As the RNC stages its dog-and-pony show in Cleveland, Ohio, with the DNC to follow in a few weeks in Philadelphia, it is necessary to take a look at the real politics on which these ‘democracy’ marketing outings are based as empire struggles to maintain its grasp on our collective throat.

Broadly speaking, the main political forces within the USA give an outward appearance of a philosophical divide between neo-liberals and neo-conservatives. The truth is that there are no hard divisions between these formations.

There are really no democrats, no republicans. Only haves and have nots.

We will ignore other political forces operating at the margins in spite of the fact that the system is ripe for revolution and collapse from internal and external pressures.

Collective memory tends to locate the neo-conservatives at the lunatic extreme, within the era of Bush – the younger, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld – the overt war criminals, of our era.

That Phyllis Schlafly, after 50 years, has been handed, by a lazy Trump Campaign an authority always sought, to write the Republican Platform (manifesto), ensures that the extreme right have included certain social, economic and foreign policy items that even Ronald Reagan rejected.

They also incorrectly place the neo-liberals, or so-called progressives, into the camp of the less aggressive, more humane, more inclusive, as disconnected from the bad and sometimes discredited neo-conservatives.
These political chameleons, posing as ‘liberals’, are able to serve the neocon agenda by getting a Bernie Sanders to surrender to imperial thinking. And thus supporting a Hillary Clinton who is tacitly a neo-liberal happy to do the bidding of the neo-conservatives as the last Clinton was able to pass more neo-conservative legislation and policies than the neo-conservatives themselves.

The political duopoly is a rich man’s trick. And Bernie Sanders has helped them to trick us by corralling 13 million vote for the neocon agenda, as expected.

Under a neo-liberalism or progressivism flag they are able to adroitly inject the legalization of unnatural acts into the public discourses, in order to distract us from iniquitous distortions in the distribution of incomes and wealth. Distortions never before seen in the history of mankind, they are.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump

We will show that the assessments that all is well and that there should be more of the same as wrong. Show that the main players in the neo-conservative camp are intimately connected to the principals within the neo-liberal camp. That there has been a closer consolidation of forces. And that empire is fixing, like old man river, to prevail in spite of whatever the marketing postures of Trump/Clinton may be, the DNC, the RNC.

We will argue that the ‘humanitarian ideal’ of the neo-liberals has morphed into the overt interventionist requirement of the neo-conservatives.

That the dominant class formations within the USA are at a point where they themselves see no difference beyond the misguided perceptions of spiritually dead publics, as they work to make sure whoever wins, they win, despite the publication of the sharpening of their focus.

Those public realignments suggest that Hillary Clinton is the preferred candidate for ‘both sets’ of forces. And Donald Trump, applying his ‘unevolved approaches’, is seen as partially dangerous to the common interests of both camps. He is likely to go off the think tank script and that is a threat, to them.

Persons have been planted at the centre of the Trump camp, this early, so he can be properly guided away from some policies inimical to their ‘national interests’. And Trump has complied, in spite of his loud mouthings. There is no option but compliance to the requirements of empire.

The neocons see Clinton as the perfect armchair warrior of preference to follow their agenda such as the revised PNAC or the ‘’Rebuilding America’s Defenses – Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century’’ clearly argues for.

They have seen that Obama has been no less compliant than Bush, that forces are strategically aligned and only tactically divergent, at times. And as such were encouraged to remove the pretense that a neocon cannot be a neo-liberal or progressive or vice versa. For these are just words, empty words!

With Clinton as Secretary of State and Victoria Nuland, a neo-con, as her assistant, the expanded neo-cons were able to escalate the Bush perverse policy of ‘regime change’, global. Nuland spent billions to overthrow the government of Ukraine. She was, as a soldier, on the front lines as a sovereign government was overthrown as another one, more to the likings of the neo-cons in Washington, took over in Kiev.

And Clinton is in no doubt as to what she wants out of a dynastic presidency. Last time she used money to gain power. This time Clinton will attempt to use power to gain money, billions of dollars, using the Clinton Foundation as the financial vehicle of choice and Bill Clinton as the economic advisor guiding resources thereto.

This rightward movement portends what lies ahead, should she win. The expected and obscene money grab is more to the likings of the neocons even if characterized by a bevy of law suits and investigations Hilary and the Clinton Foundation are likely to have coming from all directions, as last time. That determination may act to protect her from otherwise adversarial legal pursuits.

Charles Ortel has estimated that tens of billions of dollars have passed through the Clinton Foundation – an entity set up originally to build and run a presidential library that has now morphed into a money laundering outfit. That this entity has been misused, that proper audits were never done, for 16 years, and even the Obama administration has prosecuted a Clinton acolyte for financial crimes associated therewith.

And it has had, like Trump, close connections with a university called Laureate. A shadowy outfit from which Bill Clinton received 16 million dollars, apparently in exchange for the Secretary of State’s use of her office to ‘guide’ the internal policies of certain countries. That Clinton, more generally, has used her position as Secretary of State to enrich her husband and their foundation. These are the larger issues email-gate skillfully ignored.

With the RNC having nominated Trump and the DNC, Clinton, it will be very difficult to decipher who is less trustworthy. Both candidates already have sixty-percentile negatives. The highest in the history of American politics. Although highly disliked by the population, the shared intentions are to ram a status quo candidate down the throats of Americans and the peoples of the empire.

Trump has had four bankruptcies and with the country itself going that way there is a perverse sense that a king of corporate bankruptcy is to engage a national economy which survives by printing money and using guns to make sure global colonies accept a fiat currency as legal tender, reserve currency.

As landlord, he has used extraordinary means to evict 80 and 90-year-old people from rent controlled dwellings in NYC. Sometimes by advertising for vagrants to live in these buildings for free, intimidating old people and making living as difficult as possible. He is, no doubt, a corporate tyrant, at least.

It does not matter that Trump displays many signs of ‘mental illnesses’. Many psychiatrists have been indicating, without diagnosing, that his behaviors seem consistent with a range of up to 12 mental conditions found within the PDR.

Someone like this, who believes that he will be able to consistently achieve all his grandiose dreams within a 4 or 8-year period and do so ‘better’ than history has shown practicable is indeed worthy of a visit to those men or women wearing white coats. We see them going for him right now!

At least the American masses should consider why a man who pretends to be all-that would want to get down into the big muddy of politics? For the elites his mental profile opens up opportunities for them to more accurately guide day-to-policy. They are known for this. They’ve done this many times before.

Both Trump and Clinton exist in an environment where a swarm of interest groups, talk tanks, institutes, foundations and lobbyists, control day-to-day imperial politics. These represent the flows of ‘the mother’s milk of politics’ (money) to which policy is ultimately tied. Regardless of the pipe-dreams of Trump or Clinton the cow which supplies the milk must be fed first, and always, is their creed.

We judge that there will be the usual sharp ‘re-evaluation’ of expectations within months, when reality arrives. Especially, in the case of Trump.

For some like AIPAC and the dons of all dons, the corporate elites, the war profiteers, the real owners of the system itself, the banking elites, there can never be any curtailment or lessening in the flow of federal milk. Both Clinton and Trump know well that a certain pound of flesh will be exacted, even from the figurehead boss of empire, the president of the USA, himself. They must always face these interests with fear for their lives, trepidation.

On foreign policy Israel is the Holy Grail for ‘both sides’, and Trump can’t change that, can’t touch it, even if he wanted to. In fact, on foreign policy, Trump may be made to sit at the children’s desk or be sent out of the room while the grown-ups from think-tank-land serves corporate interests, as raison detre.

It was the Clinton appointee, Samantha Powers, at the UN who gave legitimacy to the expansionism of militarism by what has come to be known as humanitarian interventionism. Basically, causing countries to descend into chaos under the pretense that the poor people were to be saved from their government. Only in 1984 could this Orwellian logic make sense!

Both Trump and Clinton are already in intimate relationships with people from the think tanks. They most senior advisers from there come. Obama’s foreign policy was influence, from outside, by the thinking of people like Brzezinski and Kissinger and so will the next president. The neocons take water from the same well. Maybe from one well more than another but water is water. It was written decades ago, though evolving, and anyone familiar with Brzezinski’s thinking or work would immediately make the critical connections.

The ‘Game of Thrones’ manifested by a season of party conventions is no more than a sophisticated propaganda campaign to delude a gullible population. These are no more than attempts to give the impression that the masses are essential for the system to work, that the people are central to a national discourse, that these somehow represent a distilled and collectivist logic, that there are real philosophical differences between neo-liberals and neo-conservatives. These are lies, empire sees mass involvement as mere window dressing and the partying in Cleveland and that to come in Philadelphia are aimed at further anesthetizing a population from the revolutionary spirit rising from deep within the body politic.
The emperor has no clothes!

G.O.P. Who?

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Thomas L. Friedman

Thomas L. Friedman

It is better to share the perspective of the state of politics in the USA from the locals because what do we small island people know except to drink a rum and slam a dom – Barbados Underground

Dump the G.O.P. for a Grand New Party

If a party could declare moral bankruptcy, today’s Republican Party would be in Chapter 11.

This party needs to just shut itself down and start over — now. Seriously, someone please start a New Republican Party!

America needs a healthy two-party system. America needs a healthy center-right party to ensure that the Democrats remain a healthy center-left party. America needs a center-right party ready to offer market-based solutions to issues like climate change. America needs a center-right party that will support common-sense gun laws. America needs a center-right party that will support common-sense fiscal policy. America needs a center-right party to support both free trade and aid to workers impacted by it. America needs a center-right party that appreciates how much more complicated foreign policy is today, when you have to manage weak and collapsing nations, not just muscle strong ones.

But this Republican Party is none of those things. Today’s G.O.P. is to governing what Trump University is to education — an ethically challenged enterprise that enriches and perpetuates itself by shedding all pretense of standing for real principles, or a truly relevant value proposition, and instead plays on the ignorance and fears of the public.

It is just an empty shell, selling pieces of itself to the highest bidders, — policy by policy — a little to the Tea Party over here, a little to Big Oil over there, a little to the gun lobby, to antitax zealots, to climate-change deniers. And before you know it, the party stands for an incoherent mess of ideas unrelated to any theory of where the world is going or how America actually becomes great again in the 21st century.

It becomes instead a coalition of men and women who sell pieces of their brand to whoever can most energize their base in order for them to get re-elected in order for them to sell more pieces of their brand in order to get re-elected.

And we know just how little they are attached to any principles, because today’s Republican Party’s elders have told us so by (with a few notable exceptions) being so willing to throw their support behind a presidential candidate whom they know is utterly ignorant of policy, has done no homework, has engaged in racist attacks on a sitting judge, has mocked a disabled reporter, has impugned an entire religious community, and has tossed off ignorant proposals for walls, for letting allies go it alone and go nuclear and for overturning trade treaties, rules of war and nuclear agreements in ways that would be wildly destabilizing if he took office.

Despite that, all top G.O.P. leaders say they will still support Donald Trump — even if he’s dabbled in a “textbook definition” of racism, as House Speaker Paul Ryan described it — because he will sign off on their agenda and can do only limited damage given our checks and balances.

Really? Mr. Speaker, your agenda is a mess, Trump will pay even less attention to you if he is president and, as Senator Lindsey Graham rightly put it, there has to be a time “when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.”

Will it ever be that time with this version of the G.O.P.?

Et tu, John McCain? You didn’t break under torture from the North Vietnamese, but your hunger for re-election is so great that you don’t dare raise your voice against Trump? I hope you lose. You deserve to. Marco Rubio? You called Trump “a con man,” he insults your very being and you still endorse him? Good riddance.

Chris Christie, have you not an ounce of self-respect? You’re serving as the valet to a man who claimed, falsely, that on 9/11, in Jersey City, home to many Arab-Americans, “thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.” Christie is backing a man who made up a baldfaced lie about residents of his own state so that maybe he can be his vice president. Contemptible.

This is exactly why so many Republican voters opted for Trump in the first place. They intuited that the only thing these G.O.P. politicians were interested in was holding onto their seats in office — and they were right. It made voters so utterly cynical that many figured, Why not inflict Trump on them? It’s all just a con game anyway. And at least Trump sticks it to all of those politically correct liberals. And anyway, governing doesn’t matter — only attitude.

And who taught them that?

But it does matter. I know so many thoughtful conservatives who know it matters. One of them has got to start the N.R.P. — New Republican Party — a center-right party liberated from all the Trump birthers, the Sarah Palins, the Grover Norquists, the Sean Hannitys, the Rush Limbaughs, the gun lobby, the oil lobby and every other narrow-interest group, a party that redefines a principled conservatism. Raise your money for it on the internet. If Bernie Sanders can, you can.

This is such a pivotal moment; the world we shaped after W.W. II is going wobbly. This is a time for America to be at its best, defending its best values, which are now under assault in so many places — pluralism, immigration, democracy, trade, the rule of law and the virtue of open societies. Trump will never be a credible messenger, or a messenger at all, for those values. A New Republican Party can be.

If you build it, they will come.

Obama Trumps Donald, The Royal Wedding Gives Thumbs Up To The Institution Of Marriage – Add The Reported Death Of Osama bin Laden

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Donald Trump (l) President Obama (r)

Along with all that is happening on the world scene minute to minute  two occurrences stood out for BU last week. There was the Royal Wedding and the challenge by Donald Trump to President Obama to produce his birth certificate to prove he is a bona fide American. The fact that both matters have hogged the media space confirm surely we live in times where news is greatly influenced by its celebrity nature, that is fluff over substance. News reports suggest 12,000 media workers were assigned to cover the royal wedding. Most of the USA Cable Networks gave the Donald Trump Obama birth certificate Obama story top billing this past week.

The UK Telegraph reported that the royal wedding will cost the UK economy the unconscionable sum of £5billion. Bear in mind the UK economy is still in the throes of a severe economic depression. The large expense possibly speaks volumes to the importance the English still regard he monarchy. What else could it be?

After the pomp and ceremony was done at Westminster Abbey on Friday, April 29, what resonated for the BU household was the compulsion to reflect on the institution of marriage between a man and a woman. It is a traditional institution which has seen its diminution in a world where cultural relativism has taken deep root. Perhaps the lesser role now played by the Church in modern day society and the bastardization of the institution of marriage has been a natural consequence. If there is one positive BU hopes prevails out of the royal wedding would be to reinforce the importance the institution of marriage plays in building strong family units.

To the other event:

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