Understanding the US - Again

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 08 Dec 2019 07:54

In remarks at a gathering of top U.S. defense and military officials on Saturday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper was asked whether he could say definitively that the shooting was an act of terrorism.

“No, I can’t say it’s terrorism at this time,” he said, adding that the investigation needs to proceed. He declined to discuss details of the investigation so far.

President Trump also declined to say whether the shooting was terrorism-related.

https://apnews.com/75a8adc71422596a54052540fabb7230

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 08 Dec 2019 09:10

Yes, this Esper dude, remember, is the axe-man for DT who axed the Navy Sec. for refusing to kiss up to the POTUS (OK, I think what they were doing to the SEAL was extreme..). DT is going to face the obvious question: why is he training Saudi terrorists to fly planes in Florida (veraji, this is the 9/11 connection, not whether they actually flew planes into buildings. The GOTUS and DoD in particular is guilty at least of having a complete lack of brains and sensitivity in acceding to this sort of "Saudi-funded" training program, given 9/11 history). They took away the livelihood of the Florida and Arizona Flight Schools who trained the 9/11 "pilots", but then made it a govt. program RIGHT INSIDE a USNavy Base!!!!!!!!!! How smart was THAT?

So he is not waiting for any Investigation: He is just saying that he doesn't have orders from the WHOTUS to call it terrorism. Waiting for His Master's Voice. Or Tweet. And DT will tweet depending on the WHOTUS analysis of political gains. Is it going to play into Democrat anger about Gun Control? Or can be blame Congress for continuing to get Islamists into the US? Doesn't this vindicate DT's Ban on Islamic visas? But did these guys even get conventional visas? Pretty hard to twist this to look good for ANYBODY.

Then again, I suspect that the FBI is going to be the whipping boy here, but they will point fingers at the DoD and Naval Investigative Service. Naval Intelligence. Oh! Its Butt-e-Gig's fault!!

The Navy Secretary is just too new to fire. Maybe they will blame it on the fired Sec. Navy.

The fact that they arrested all the other Saudis is telling about the panic in the DoD and FBI.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 08 Dec 2019 09:17

And this from ... FOXNEWS!!!

Journalist Tareq Haddad said on Satruday that he had resigned from his position at Newsweek because the outlet "suppressed" details -- potentially "inconvenient" to the U.S. government -- surrounding a chemical weapons watchdog's report on the 2018 attack in Syria.

"Yesterday I resigned from Newsweek after my attempts to publish newsworthy revelations about the leaked OPCW letter were refused for no valid reason," Haddad tweeted, referring to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The OPCW is the organization responsible for implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention, enacted in 1997.

Haddad's tweet came as the OPCW defended itself amid concerns about its reporting on the April 7, 2018, chemical weapons attack in Syria -- something that prompted retaliation from the United States and other major powers.

I didn't read the details, but could it be that the White Helmets scams are going to unravel?

"I have collected evidence of how they suppressed the story in addition to evidence from another case where info inconvenient to US govt was removed, though it was factually correct," he said.
Newsweek did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
The release of the details could be delayed, as the outlet allegedly warned about a confidentiality clause in his contract.
"I plan on publishing these details in full shortly. However, after asking my editors for comment, as is journalistic practice, I received an email reminding me of confidentiality clauses in my contract. I.e. I was threatened with legal action," he said.

Haddad's resignation marked what appeared to be the second controversial departure from Newsweek in recent weeks. The outlet previously caught the president's criticism when it published an inaccurate story about his Thanksgiving plans.
Newsweek fired the writer, Jessica Kwong, behind that story. While the details are unclear, Kwong pushed back on the perception that the story was entirely her fault.
Kwong filed the story on Wednesday, well before Trump would surprise the public with a visit to Afghanistan.
"The next day, [writer Jessica] Kwong reached out to the editor on duty and relayed the president's latest actions, after which the story was published," according to the Washington Examiner. "When the president's trip to Afghanistan was announced, that editor then decided to assign another reporter to write a new story about it but neglected to update Kwong's original piece in a timely manner."

The editor involved has been demoted.

Reminds me of the reaction from The Major in "No Time for Sergeants" after Gomer the Permanent Latrine Orderly (PLO) wired up all the toilet seats to stand up in a synchronized salute as the General visited, causing the General to flee in panic:

"Take his name! Take ALL their names! Heads will roll!"

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 08 Dec 2019 09:24

Overall, very bad time for USN Admirals.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 08 Dec 2019 19:59

UlanBatori wrote:Yes, this Esper dude, remember, is the axe-man for DT who axed the Navy Sec. for refusing to kiss up to the POTUS (OK, I think what they were doing to the SEAL was extreme..). DT is going to face the obvious question: why is he training Saudi terrorists to fly planes in Florida (veraji, this is the 9/11 connection, not whether they actually flew planes into buildings. The GOTUS and DoD in particular is guilty at least of having a complete lack of brains and sensitivity in acceding to this sort of "Saudi-funded" training program, given 9/11 history). They took away the livelihood of the Florida and Arizona Flight Schools who trained the 9/11 "pilots", but then made it a govt. program RIGHT INSIDE a USNavy Base!!!!!!!!!! How smart was THAT?

So he is not waiting for any Investigation: He is just saying that he doesn't have orders from the WHOTUS to call it terrorism. Waiting for His Master's Voice. Or Tweet. And DT will tweet depending on the WHOTUS analysis of political gains. Is it going to play into Democrat anger about Gun Control? Or can be blame Congress for continuing to get Islamists into the US? Doesn't this vindicate DT's Ban on Islamic visas? But did these guys even get conventional visas? Pretty hard to twist this to look good for ANYBODY.

Then again, I suspect that the FBI is going to be the whipping boy here, but they will point fingers at the DoD and Naval Investigative Service. Naval Intelligence. Oh! Its Butt-e-Gig's fault!! The Navy Secretary is just too new to fire. Maybe they will blame it on the fired Sec. Navy.

The fact that they arrested all the other Saudis is telling about the panic in the DoD and FBI.

This is because KSA gifted a golden necklace to Trump and agreed to keep oil prices low.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 08 Dec 2019 20:22

Number of House Republicans who voted in favor of:

H.R. 6400, the 1965 Voting Rights Act: 112

H.R. 9, the 2006 bill to reauthorize it: 192

H.R. 4, yesterday’s bill to restore it: 1

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 08 Dec 2019 22:16

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... Gq0xVh6UJw

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 08 Dec 2019 22:38

American version of Greta thurberg?

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 09 Dec 2019 02:12

Interesting item. There is some satisfaction to be derived here, as explained at the end:

NATO seminar canceled as US objects to anti-Trump speaker
The Danish Atlantic Council says it has canceled a U.S. government-sponsored seminar on NATO and transatlantic relations.
By
The Associated Press
December 8, 2019, 12:16 PM
The Danish Atlantic Council says it has canceled a U.S. government-sponsored seminar on NATO and transatlantic relations after the U.S. Embassy in Denmark allegedly banned an American academic known for being critical of President Donald Trump from speaking there.
The Danish organisation said Sunday in a statement that "regrettably" the U.S. ambassador to Denmark, Carla Sands, "did not want Mr. (Stanley) Sloan's participation" in the event that the U.S. government was co-organizing and sponsoring.
Sloan, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council in the U.S., was among several invited speakers for the "Celebrating NATO's 70th Anniversary" conference scheduled in Copenhagen's Frederiksberg Palace on Tuesday.
Lars Bangert Struwe, the head of the Danish Atlantic Council, said "we have all the time known that Mr. Sloan has a critical approach towards President Donald Trump. It is no secret — especially when following his Twitter and Facebook profile." He added, however, that the organisation never doubted that Sloan would deliver “unpolitical and objective lecture.”
The U.S. Embassy said on its Twitter account that the "proposed last-minute inclusion" of Sloan into the conference did not comply with the “agreement that we followed when recruiting all other speakers.”
In his Twitter reply, Sloan said he was sorry that the U.S. Embassy objected to his inclusion, since he was "an experienced public diplomacy lecturer who always represents his country well.”
The State Department did not immediately comment on the situation.

So:

1. The AC Danish tried a last-minute surprise stunt, biting the hand that fed them (GOTUS). The Hand That Fed, was alert and slapped them silly.
2. The "ACUS" long ago (circa 2002) published a report by a Former State Department South Asia Expert on their payroll,

that "India has a history of invading all of its neighbors". Certain ppl on a Rapid Response Team in the US, wrote to them suggesting that letters were going out to all 649 or so COTUS senators and reps asking why GOTUS was funding an organization that had SERVING CHINESE PLA COLONELS ON ITS STAFF.
The President of ACUS wrote back in panic begging not to do that. The said FSDEOSA has not been heard from since.

So these are known traitors and slimeballs. Why the GOTUS continues to fund them is the GOTUS' cross. But at least they have delivered a swift kick in the u-no-where. Karma.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 09 Dec 2019 03:13

Tulsi handled the question very well and laid out her position articulately and intelligently. Far far better than ANY of the other Donkeystanis in the UNPA. Including those running for POTUS.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 09 Dec 2019 03:42

UlanBatori wrote:NATO seminar canceled as US objects to anti-Trump speaker
The Danish Atlantic Council says it has canceled a U.S. government-sponsored seminar on NATO and transatlantic relations. U.S. Embassy in Denmark allegedly banned an American academic known for being critical of President Donald Trump from speaking there.

But but US embassy in New Delhi regularly invites known anti-Modi people, commie sympathizers and Islamist sympathizers (as long as they are anti-Modi).

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 09 Dec 2019 03:57

Indian govt should take a cue and deny vija. A first time for everything. This cancellation must have cost the ACUS dearly, as it was clearly construed by the sponsors as due to contract violation. They may pay an advance if that, but rest of the money is held back. The cost comes out of ACUS' hide.

Now they have to depend more on PLA I suppose.

JFYI, these things are probably handled by the Danish equivalent of Mongolia-YooEss (or YooEss-Mongolia) this-that Forum, and v know from experience that they need the Phoren vijitors (meaning Yoo Ess and other non-Danish) specified with naam pata etc well before the event. So pulling a last-minute sub is clearly a dangerous stunt. My feeling is that SDOTUS tried to sneak in this sh1t, and the WHOTUS / its donkey-osculators in the embassy were watchful and an order came to Amby from WHOTUS. Note that SDOTUS is not commenting: must be all on vacation to claim Al-Li-ByeBye.

No doubt President ACUS is not exactly happy at the PI of this stunt. And SDOTUS is going to get whacked as well by WHOTUS. BTW hu eej the SOS these dins? Musical chairs, hard to follow. Funny thing is that it is an AC-xx event, and the mouth in question is an ACUS See-Near Fellow etc. As bad a blow to H&D as can be imagined.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 09 Dec 2019 04:16

Circus gets worse.

The Pensacola gunman bought his weapon legally.. {Of course, he was there as a KSA rep to buy American weapons and learn how to use them against American taxpayers! If they had been quicker about the course he could have used an F-15}
...Mohammed Alshamrani purchased the weapon from a gun store earlier this year. He obtained a hunting license, which allows a non-immigrant on a non-immigrant visa to purchase a gun, the source said. {Guns don' kill ppl. Terrorists with guns kill ppl}
Alshamrani used a Glock 9 mm pistol he bought "legally and lawfully," FBI Special Agent in Charge Rachel Rojas told reporters.{brings tears to mah eyes! Such a law-abiding terrorist!}
Investigators are trying to determine what motivated Alshamrani to open fire in a classroom building on Friday. The FBI has collected surveillance videos and videos taken by a bystander as part of the investigation, a spokeswoman said.

The bystander videos were taken after the attack had begun and first responders had arrived, FBI public affairs officer Amanda Worford said in a news release. Investigators have interviewed the bystander and are analyzing the videos for clues, she said.
At least one Saudi national filmed the shooting, according to US Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
Friends of shooter Alshamrani were detained after the killing. Esper said one or two of those friends recorded the attack. Esper told "Fox News Sunday" that it was unclear whether they were "filming it before it began or was it something where they picked up their phones and filmed it once they saw it unfolding."
A senior law enforcement official told CNN on Sunday there was one Saudi national who is considered a bystander who captured the aftermath of the attack.
The source says investigators do not believe this person was involved in the attack and was far away from the scene {of course!} when he captured the emergency response after the incident.
A separate law enforcement official familiar with the ongoing investigation says there is currently no indication of anything nefarious regarding any individual who recorded the attack scene. The official says all witnesses to the incident are being interviewed.
Rojas said investigators "work with the presumption that this was an act of terrorism," as they do in most similar cases. It allows "investigative techniques that can help" more quickly identify and eliminate potential threats. No credible threat to the community exists, Rojas said.
Motive still under investigation
Alshamrani was killed after two deputies exchanged gunfire with him. He was a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the Royal Saudi Air Force and a student naval flight officer, according to an FBI spokesperson.

WHEW!!!! Tubelight has gone ON in WHOTUS. Now Esper can also "discover" this:

While the FBI is still determining whether to classify the violence as terrorism, White House national security adviser Robert O'Brien on Sunday said it "appears to be a terrorist attack."

Just minutes before authorities were first alerted to the shooting, a Twitter account aligning with Alshamrani's name posted a message that raises the possibility the attack was inspired by al Qaeda and its founder, Osama bin Laden...
first call alerting law enforcement .. came about 6:51 a.m., according to the Escambia County Sheriff's Office.
Twelve minutes before, at 6:39 a.m., a Twitter account with the handle @M7MD_SHAMRANI posted a message addressed to the American people, declaring hate for Americans because of their "crimes" against Muslims.
CNN has been unable to verify the source of the tweet, which was previously reported on by SITE Intelligence Group. Law enforcement has not commented on it. The message repurposed words used by bin Laden and the American al Qaeda terrorist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
Twitter spokesbeak Aly Pavela confirmed the account was suspended and said, "That's all we have to share."
Before Friday's attack, Alshamrani watched mass shooting videos at a dinner party...
Alshamrani and a small group of Saudi nationals had just traveled to New York City over the Thanksgiving holiday, a law enforcement source told CNN.

{No doubt to confer with NYT netas?}

vijayk · Post by **vijayk** » 09 Dec 2019 06:10

A_Gupta wrote:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... Gq0xVh6UJw

WOW! What a brilliant answer by Tulsi! Obviously it was a set up by parents to trip her up

vijayk · Post by **vijayk** » 09 Dec 2019 06:16

UlanBatori wrote:Circus gets worse.

The Pensacola gunman bought his weapon legally.. {Of course, he was there as a KSA rep to buy American weapons and learn how to use them against American taxpayers! If they had been quicker about the course he could have used an F-15}
...Mohammed Alshamrani purchased the weapon from a gun store earlier this year. He obtained a hunting license, which allows a non-immigrant on a non-immigrant visa to purchase a gun, the source said. {Guns don' kill ppl. Terrorists with guns kill ppl}
Alshamrani used a Glock 9 mm pistol he bought "legally and lawfully," FBI Special Agent in Charge Rachel Rojas told reporters.{brings tears to mah eyes! Such a law-abiding terrorist!}
Investigators are trying to determine what motivated Alshamrani to open fire in a classroom building on Friday. The FBI has collected surveillance videos and videos taken by a bystander as part of the investigation, a spokeswoman said.

The SCUM media NYT/Wapo/CNN have a tough task on hand. They have to blame Trump on this. They have to somehow divert the blame on Islam or Muslims. Can they find RSS link any where?

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 09 Dec 2019 06:55

vijayk wrote:[WOW! What a brilliant answer by Tulsi! Obviously it was a set up by parents to trip her up

Establishment propoganda works best when you start early, no? Just ask them African warlords.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 09 Dec 2019 07:29

Sloan’s intended speech:
https://server2.charityadvantageservers ... single.pdf

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 09 Dec 2019 07:32

The American Left is sour on Saudi Arabia, especially after the Khashoggi murder, but previously with the war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen. The trick for them is how to condemn this Saudi terrorism without condemning Islam.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 09 Dec 2019 07:44

Last year, just before Halloween, Lewis Lukens, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in London, visited a pair of English universities where he spoke about the importance of international cooperation, beseeching students not to “swipe left” on the historic “special relationship” between the U.K. and America. The speeches were—according to a copy of the remarks that Lukens provided to GQ—fairly anodyne, reprising all the things Americans and Brits had learned from each other, all the ways we’ve helped each other over the years, disagreements notwithstanding. At the time, things between the two countries had been strained—in part because President Trump had attacked British leaders, including Prime Minister Theresa May and London Mayor Sadiq Khan—but Lukens, the second-most-senior American diplomat to the United Kingdom, had a request for the students who had gathered to see him: “Don’t write off the special relationship.”

A week later, Lukens says, his boss, the U.S. ambassador Woody Johnson, an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and a Trump political appointee, told him that he was done, firing Lukens from his post seven months ahead of when he was scheduled to leave for a new assignment. After nearly 30 years as a foreign service officer, his State Department career was over. The reason? Lukens says he had unwittingly committed a fatal error in his speech: He had mentioned former president Barack Obama.

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/201 ... ital-again

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 09 Dec 2019 07:48

^^ Awesome. Most of these guys are old-foggies willing to continue the cold war. Trump is basically taking an axe to the deep state infra.

When Rex Tillerson became secretary of state in early 2017, he immediately got to work shaping the president’s distrust into reality. He set about slashing the ranks of the State Department, both through attrition and through proposed budget cuts. The first few months of Tillerson’s tenure was marked by an across-the-board hiring freeze and an exodus of senior, high-profile foreign service officers, people like Victoria Nuland, who had been the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, and Daniel Fried, who designed America’s sanctions on Russia. Much of this—as in the case of Nuland and Fried—stemmed from political disagreement and the officers' not wanting to serve Donald Trump. Other senior foreign service officers, though, had no intention of leaving and were pushed out by the use of State Department regulations.

We have all seen what "promoting American values abroad" means in the case of India. Naked, partisan support of Hinduphobic entities and individuals.

What’s more, the attrition continues unabated. Career foreign service officers work long hours in difficult conditions, making less money than they would in the private sector. Often, they are driven by their sense of mission—say, promoting American values abroad

Perhaps, now there is a chance that the brainwashing may reduce?

The departure of top talent, people who had decades’ worth of wisdom that could have passed on to people below them, as well as the exodus of mid-level officers who had years to go before their retirements, will continue to resonate for quite a while, says Nicholas Burns, a retired career foreign service officer who is now at the Harvard Kennedy School. “That gap will show up years later,” he told me.

And we have all seen the expertise these people have. Often bigots, and with a severe itch to turn their host country into Gungadin-land.

Unlike career foreign service officers who are often experts in the country in which they are stationed, political nominees are usually top campaign donors and lack the knowledge of either the country to which they’re posted or the diplomatic protocols on which host countries insist.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 09 Dec 2019 07:53

Look at the progressive turds (for lack of a more virulent term) commenting on the article:

Oh they want to build relationsips alright. With Hungary, China, Duterte, Boisonaro, et al et al et al

I think Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, Orban, Duda, and Boris Johnson should call their little confab The Cracker International. I guess Duterte, Kim Jung Un and Xi can be Honorary Aryans, er, I mean, observing members.

Bolsonaro holds the Amazon, one of the world's largest carbon sinks, in his hands and wants to destroy it. He is literally a threat to the survival of human civilization. If there were ever a case for CIA-engineered assassination…

These racist, white supremacist bigots masquerading as progressives, are the real threat to world peace, far more than Trump could ever be IMO. They literally believe they have the right to allocate folks to any non/sub-human category based on their own BS criteria, and call for their death. Guardian and NYT publish something on Bolsonaro, and these jokers now decide Bolsonaro needs to be killed. For "human civilization". Because, some hipster 30 year old sitting in a trendy NYC cafe is the arbiter of what "human civilization" should entail. No better than Brit colonialists with guns or the smallpox infected blanket throwers vs the natives.

Apart from Tulsi, and to some extent Trump, no other US leader let alone state supported "analyst" has called out the hypocrisy of the west's wilful genocide of non-white cultures, genocide negationism and then its posturing as a moral beacon.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 09 Dec 2019 08:49

Trouble is, the next gen in Fog-e-Bottom is not going to be any smarter or more honest.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 09 Dec 2019 08:57

Karanji,

That 30 year old hipster is part of the Ivy League cabal who have an educational background in law, business or the liberal arts. None of these people have a math based science degree or engineering background. These Ivy League guys and gals are ALL fcuking a$$holes which includes many PIOs. They all pretend to be “progressives” but in reality are all war mongers.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 09 Dec 2019 09:59

Interview with Robert Kaplan, portions relevant to this thread here:
https://capx.co/robert-d-kaplan-on-the- ... rld-order/
Robert D Kaplan on the coming world order

Emphasis added. Other portions in other threads.

John Ashmore: You’ve travelled in lots of the sorts of countries that people commentate on without necessarily having been themselves. Do you think it makes you a much better analyst having been to so many different places?

Robert Kaplan: Look, people can go to a place and get it all wrong. But what tends to happen is that people who’ve been in country get a deeper grasp of what the place is like. And I find that one of the worst things about Washington is that there’s this assumption of knowledge about distant places where little knowledge actually exists. All things being equal, you should trust the people who’ve had experience working there, and if they haven’t worked there, at least travelled there a few times.

JA: So do you think there has been a bit of a brain drain in American policymaking, in terms of that on the ground experience?

RK: Yes, and it’s been gradual. The 1980s, when George Schultz was in charge, was really the golden age of the State Department, when area expertise was valued, when the ideological arguments were very muted and nuanced. And there was a tremendous value put into what the embassies on the ground reported on. Back then Ambassadors had real power on the ground. That has changed dramatically. A number of things have happened. Number one has been the technology revolution. Now, because of email, decisions can be made centrally and foreign officers are tied to their desks because of all the requests and emails they get from Washington. So there’s less on the ground reporting on the part of the State Department than ever before.

JA: Do you put that down to a sort of post-Cold War complacency?

RK: It’s part of it. One of the things that the Cold War did was make the United States and the Soviet Union compete everywhere in the world. Every country mattered. Because the Cold War was really an ideas battle about which system of governance was better – capitalist democracy, or communism? And because there was a competition over which system was better, every single country could be an example for one side or the other. So the State Department was deeply involved with foreign aid and assistance everywhere. So the Cold War forced America to have an internationalist mindset. And once the Cold War was over, that reason went away. There was no longer a selfish, national security reason to be involved with assistance programmes in Africa, or Asia or Latin America.

JA: Often people get very scared when Trump says something about North Korea or the like. But do you think this is just an another part of his usual negotiating tactic, where he starts high and then comes down?

RK: Yeah, I think Trump never wants to show weakness. He never wants to show that he’s eager for a deal. Because if you sound like you’re eager for a deal, as he puts it, you’re dead in the water. And he sees that as the great flaw of John Kerry’s negotiation with the Iranians – that Kerry and Obama both seemed publicly eager for a deal.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 09 Dec 2019 11:35

All this is good in theory. But lets just take a quick look at the practice of how "progressive" journos behave in India. They are a good proxy for the kind of US folks sent to work with the natives, journos, dog-loving diplos who compare them favorably to Indians etc.

Annie Gowan - "journo" from WaPo who ran a bunch of lurid Hinduphobic articles on India. Never apologized, despite some of them being blatant dog whistles in one she accused Gujaratis of doing eugenics. Turned out to be fake news, no retraction. Turns out to have complained against Christine Fair, in some catfight on grounds of latter not being "Jesuit, and truly X-ian" in Georgetown, because latter posted some vulgrar, quasi-se**ual posts. Lady wanted Twitter to delete Angry Hanuman pics from her followers list. So now you know what kind of bigotry drove her.

Next, the guy who was frontlining NYT in India. Gardiner Harris. Turns out to be connected to some rich US family, and X-ian fundamentalist links.

Third, Ellen Barry, the lady who was spotted at all of Rana Ayyub's dos. Apart from usual trash - recent article on some random Mughal wannabe family had a paean to the Mughals saying something like we were here first, we will outlast everything including Hindu nationalism. Think of the mindset. She literally can't think of a country with 70% Hindus existing before the Mughals came.

NYT, WaPo are the frontline arms of the US deep state, and frequently publish leaks/data buttressing whatever view the US SD etc want published. These are the kind of people infesting their ranks.

Mort - you are living there, so y'll know better. My take is its not elite law/business but the liberal arts gang. They are vicious supremacists and completely compromised due to coffee Marxism. They literally loathe Hinduism because they think upper caste vs lower caste is class warfare and Hinduism deserves extinction. Given Muslim population in US is miniscule, and they dont see what we see with the Owaisis, AIMPLB etc, they are always into virtue signaling wrt Muslims and the Gulf petrodollars are another incentive.

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 09 Dec 2019 14:27

Mort Walker wrote:Karanji,

That 30 year old hipster is part of the Ivy League cabal who have an educational background in law, business or the liberal arts. None of these people have a math based science degree or engineering background.

What does Math background have to do with hinduphobia?

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 09 Dec 2019 20:49

Difficult problem, but apparently DT has enabled ..... whatever.

If you think back to the case about the U. North Dakota faculty member being denied GC due to student activities back in nation of origin, you will see some of the radical changes that have occurred. ND is changing fast from boonies-gora to boonies-Sudan. That part was probably OK with the locals: nice converted workers and all. But with that came the rapid shift towards boonies-Somalia-Pakistan which bodes disaster for the area and its rich historical tradition of Predatory Freedom. Sharia is not far.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 09 Dec 2019 21:30

Cain Marko wrote:
Mort Walker wrote:Karanji,

That 30 year old hipster is part of the Ivy League cabal who have an educational background in law, business or the liberal arts. None of these people have a math based science degree or engineering background.
What does Math background have to do with hinduphobia?

A math based science is a prerequisite to logical thinking. Not always, but most likely.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 09 Dec 2019 23:24

The diff. is that ppl with some math may figure out that "X > y although X is only 100, but Y is as big as 25". Hyoomaneaters will say "X is not as big as Y because Dr. Doo Fuss said that X is ONLY... something, while Y is BIG. And Dr. Doo Fuss is a PeeCheeDee from UNIVERSITY of DungDLite."

The numbers 100 and 25 (or any facts) do not give them any hint on how to use them in the strange business of REASONING. They rely on circular reasoning like who said what and what is their Pe-Digree

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 09 Dec 2019 23:43

How the Cool Kids of the Left Turned on Elizabeth Warren

Millennial socialists’ favorite magazine is breaking up with Elizabeth Warren. But it’s saying: It’s not me. It’s you. That magazine is Jacobin, the nine-year-old publication that has become the de facto voice of the young socialist movement in America. Its favorite candidate all along has been Bernie Sanders, the only self-proclaimed socialist to mount a major campaign for the presidency of the United States since Eugene Debs almost 100 years ago. But for many months, as the 2020 campaign began to unfold, Jacobin treated Warren as the next best thing.,... No more

At some level, the picks and pans of an activist magazine with only a fraction of the readership of, say, pre-2016 Breitbart might not seem of much consequence as America heads into its next presidential election. But as the Democratic Party faces its intramural battle over how best to respond to the Trump presidency—with measured centrism, or an opportunistic and disruptive lurch to the left— Jacobin has emerged as a hard-to-ignore voice in defining what the latter should look like.

And in many ways, it’s winning its corner of the battle. Six years ago, the New York Times called the niche, neo-Marxist publication with a mere 2,000 subscribers at the time “an improbable hit.” Three years later, Vox dubbed it “the leading intellectual voice of the American left.” At that time, Sanders was still seen as a gadfly in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary; since then, his style of socialism has become its own kind of improbable hit in American politics, and Jacobin has grown to a paid circulation of more than 40,000 and draws more than 2 million unique visitors to its website every month. It has found fans not just in Bernie Sanders, who has shared almost a dozen of Jacobin articles on social media over the past couple of years, but also in liberal celebrities like John Cusack and even right-wing commentators like Tucker Carlson—who said he reads Jacobin because he appreciates that it isn’t fixated on Trump but rather on “ideas and principles.”

One easy theory is that Jacobin, beneath the clever historical name and the hip graphics, is essentially a house organ for the Democratic Socialists of America, the grassroots political organization that grew out of the now-defunct Socialist Party of America and has expanded from around 5,000 members before 2016 to more than 50,000 now. Bhaskar Sunkara, the magazine’s 30-year-old founding editor and publisher, has been a member of DSA since he was a teenager, and he was recently vice chair of the organization. DSA endorsed Sanders in 2016 and did so again this past March.

“We can’t directly convert people,” he said. “What we can do is try to cohere together—from all these different strands and threads—some sort of left opposition to liberalism, give it a name and call it democratic socialism, and create a debating grounds for these broad sets of ideas.”

That broad set of ideas has included everything from the proposals now commonly referred to as Medicare for All and a Green New Deal to more radical concepts like prison abolition—all of which are also components of the Democratic Socialists of America platform.

The change in the publication’s treatment of Warren, Sunkara told me, was not a conscious decision or directive from higher-ups like himself. The publication, as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, cannot formally endorse political candidates.

But it does reflect, he said, what Jacobin’s mostly young left-wing writers and contributors, many of whom are open Sanders supporters and even campaign volunteers, are thinking. Where a previous generation might have been more than satisfied with a candidacy that would have been a socialist dream a mere decade ago, a younger generation tired of tempering its hopes is hungry for what it thinks could be a more revolutionary outcome.

Jacobin isn’t the only young lefty publication to turn on Warren. Nathan Robinson, the 31-year-old editor of the smaller but similar Current Affairs, wrote last week in a column in the Guardian that “progressives no longer need to wonder whether she’s with us or not. She’s not.” Regarding the Warren versus Sanders comparisons, he wrote: “She is not just a more wonkish and pragmatic advocate of the same politics. The politics themselves are very different.”

As Robinson’s piece suggests, the new leftist energy isn’t really a reaction to Trump—it’s a reaction to Obama and Clinton and a whole Boomer-era approach to liberalism.

This all-or-nothing approach does not sit well with the older guard of American leftist thinkers. “If the plutocrats themselves think she’s just as dangerous as Bernie, why does Jacobin doubt that?” asks Rich Yeselson, a labor historian and journalist who’s written for Jacobin in the past and is a contributing editor of the leftist publication Dissent.

Yeselson admires Jacobin and its success. “Bhaskar is kind of a genius,” he says. “He’s a venture capitalist of socialism, and I mean that as a full compliment.” But he counts himself among those starting to have reservations about the magazine’s approach to the 2020 presidential election, and especially its treatment of Warren.

“If she were to be elected president, she would be the most leftist president in American history,” Yeselson said.

“If Sanders is elected, he’s going to draw from the same pool of left technocrats to people his administration as she will,” Yeselson added. “Is it liberal left? Is it socialist? Whatever. It’s to the left of Biden; it’s to the left of Obama; it’s to the left of Clinton. Neither of them is going to appoint officials from Goldman Sachs.”

Minor differences in the most ambitious legislative proposals—like Medicare for All payment schemes or different approaches to a Green New Deal—from Sanders and Warren are immaterial, Yeselson suggested, because neither will be able to get those programs through Congress. That said, there are real differences between Sanders and Warren on foreign policy, he said. “There should probably be more discussion of that.”

John Judis, author of The Populist Explosion, credits Jacobin as an important intellectual force, but says that the fine distinctions the magazine’s writers are drawing between Sanders and Warren are more “sectarian” than ideological. “They recall the battles among Lutherans and Baptists,” Judis said.

Michael Kazin, the co-editor of Dissent and a professor of history at Georgetown, points out that neither Sanders nor Warren is a true socialist, at least by international standards. Bernie calls himself a “democratic socialist,” but he also likens himself to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Still, Kazin says, both Sanders and Warren are “two of the most obviously left-wing candidates in American history.” (Sunkara said he disagrees, calling it “a strange and ahistorical claim,” though he concedes that “she’d be one of the best presidents in modern time.”)

Although his party and his publication are all-in for Sanders, Sunkara, who is also the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, said he doesn’t see a Sanders win in 2020 as the only barometer of the movement’s—and the magazine’s—success. “If it wasn’t bigger than Bernie, we would be really screwed,” he said. “I hope he wins, personally, but he’s a 78-year-old candidate, and we need to create something that extends far, far beyond him.”

To Sunkara, his magazine’s 2020 coverage is unremarkable—comparing and contrasting candidates is part of the primary process. “You air criticisms, you challenge people on their record, and the best politicians adapt and improve and make themselves stronger candidates as a result,” Sunkara said. They aren’t spreading falsehoods or making bad-faith critiques, he added. And they’re definitely not “getting together in a room and seeking to tank Warren.” They know there are far worse candidates, he said. Jacobin is publishing a full book about Joe Biden’s record and why he’s unfit to be the next Democratic president. “We don’t have a book on Elizabeth Warren.”

But as the 2020 election gets closer, others fear there won’t be a progressive politics after Bernie, much less a socialist future, if the rift between Democrats and democratic socialists stays this wide. Kazin, who wrote a history of the left in America and is currently writing a history of the Democratic Party, worries that Jacobin’s current strategy could hurt the cause in the short term as well as the long one. “I’m not someone who thinks that we should never criticize anyone on the left,” he said. “But right now, I think a big danger actually is a divided Democratic Party.”

Sunkara countered, “You can make an argument about holding punches for any centrists—center left or even center right if you hold that perspective.” He added, “You can take that logic to any extreme,” and “you would end up criticizing no one but fascists.”

But for some, this election is so important that it’s worth erring on the side of caution. “The final outcome is what, in the end, really matters,” Kazin said. “When Trump is president, we won’t have time to say: ‘Well, let’s fight another day. Too bad we didn’t win, but I’m glad I didn’t support Warren, because that would have been a betrayal of my principles.’”

He added, “You can’t change society unless you win elections.”

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 09 Dec 2019 23:54

Jacobin Editor Bhaskar Sunkara Makes His Case for Socialism

kit · Post by **kit** » 10 Dec 2019 00:46

vijayk wrote:
A_Gupta wrote:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... Gq0xVh6UJw

WOW! What a brilliant answer by Tulsi! Obviously it was a set up by parents to trip her up

I can see why she is indeed POTUS material !

kit · Post by **kit** » 10 Dec 2019 00:51

UlanBatori wrote:Yes, this Esper dude, remember, is the axe-man for DT who axed the Navy Sec. for refusing to kiss up to the POTUS (OK, I think what they were doing to the SEAL was extreme..). DT is going to face the obvious question: why is he training Saudi terrorists to fly planes in Florida (veraji, this is the 9/11 connection, not whether they actually flew planes into buildings. The GOTUS and DoD in particular is guilty at least of having a complete lack of brains and sensitivity in acceding to this sort of "Saudi-funded" training program, given 9/11 history). They took away the livelihood of the Florida and Arizona Flight Schools who trained the 9/11 "pilots", but then made it a govt. program RIGHT INSIDE a USNavy Base!!!!!!!!!! How smart was THAT?

So he is not waiting for any Investigation: He is just saying that he doesn't have orders from the WHOTUS to call it terrorism. Waiting for His Master's Voice. Or Tweet. And DT will tweet depending on the WHOTUS analysis of political gains. Is it going to play into Democrat anger about Gun Control? Or can be blame Congress for continuing to get Islamists into the US? Doesn't this vindicate DT's Ban on Islamic visas? But did these guys even get conventional visas? Pretty hard to twist this to look good for ANYBODY.

Then again, I suspect that the FBI is going to be the whipping boy here, but they will point fingers at the DoD and Naval Investigative Service. Naval Intelligence. Oh! Its Butt-e-Gig's fault!! The Navy Secretary is just too new to fire. Maybe they will blame it on the fired Sec. Navy.

The fact that they arrested all the other Saudis is telling about the panic in the DoD and FBI.

Where they trained to do the plane bombings elsewhere in the world. how convenient for the CIA, after all the US is paki on steroids

ArjunPandit · Post by **ArjunPandit** » 10 Dec 2019 01:01

Mort Walker wrote:
Cain Marko wrote: What does Math background have to do with hinduphobia?
A math based science is a prerequisite to logical thinking. Not always, but most likely.

i thought it was the other way round...just the folks that took non hard sciences based courses stink everywhere in the world..based on my experience with such folks, they think that science is linear and there are answers and solutions to that problem. There was a Geehardee madame on twitter that actually was 'smart' enough to tweet that too.
Long story short. Hard science courses sharpen your axe while making you realize your individual limitations (most encounter a subject which they scrape through)..keeps them humble. These guys write stories in exams and get carried away..and think they're infinitely genius in finite bodies. These guys are esp found in courses like random philosophy courses.

i know i am nitpicking...

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 10 Dec 2019 02:48

A_Gupta wrote:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... Gq0xVh6UJw

This girl does get around

https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/ ... -abortion/

vijayk · Post by **vijayk** » 10 Dec 2019 03:48

A_Gupta wrote:Interview with Robert Kaplan, portions relevant to this thread here:
https://capx.co/robert-d-kaplan-on-the- ... rld-order/
Robert D Kaplan on the coming world order

Check this too

RK: India now has the most geopolitically minded Prime Minister since independence. He’s a whole different personality profile than previous Prime Ministers. He’s very willing to band with the United States to balance against China, but he would like India to be more autocratic in order to emulate China’s economic growth.
I interviewed Modi in Gujarat state in 2008. And he said to me, ‘Look, I want to make Gujarat like South Korea or Singapore. That’s my model.’ Well, that’s a good model to have for a single Indian state on the Arabian Sea that was always open to trade and commerce. But India is not Gujarat. It’s big. It’s unwieldy. Its diverse. It has powerful individual state interests. It has a very muscular parliamentary system. So it’s hard even for an autocratic type like Modi to dramatically change things. So India will continue to go in the right direction, but the pace is going to continue to disappoint people.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 10 Dec 2019 05:19

ArjunPandit wrote:
Mort Walker wrote:
A math based science is a prerequisite to logical thinking. Not always, but most likely.
i thought it was the other way round...just the folks that took non hard sciences based courses stink everywhere in the world..based on my experience with such folks, they think that science is linear and there are answers and solutions to that problem. There was a Geehardee madame on twitter that actually was 'smart' enough to tweet that too.
Long story short. Hard science courses sharpen your axe while making you realize your individual limitations (most encounter a subject which they scrape through)..keeps them humble. These guys write stories in exams and get carried away..and think they're infinitely genius in finite bodies. These guys are esp found in courses like random philosophy courses.

i know i am nitpicking...

You're right, logical thought processes are needed for math based sciences. That said, math based sciences force you quantitatively evaluate everything. The one thing you can't quantitatively evaluate is human behavior. However, many times human behavior follows patterns like rats going through a maze. Many progressives and liberals are just that - rats. They follow a pattern and a group herd mentality. Often times they are functionally innumerate too.

In the US these progressives and liberals will pile on to India. On the right, the racist xenophobic evangelical jihadis will also pile on to India. The difference being some, those who are not functionally innumerate will see economic opportunity due to growth.

Y. Kanan · Post by **Y. Kanan** » 10 Dec 2019 05:41

A_Gupta wrote:The American Left is sour on Saudi Arabia, especially after the Khashoggi murder, but previously with the war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen. The trick for them is how to condemn this Saudi terrorism without condemning Islam.

The American Left cannot dump Saudi because they cannot dump Israel. So, blame the Jew Lobby. Isreal is pro-Saudi, and their influence over US politics is so pervasive that even Saudi Arabia has now become sacred, just by extension, putting them effectively beyond reproach or recrimination. Isreal loves Saudi therefore USA loves Saudi. The most anti-Saudi thing you'll see is some grumbling by talking heads in the western news, and that's it.

Why does Isreal love Saudi Arabia so much? It's simple: the Saudis are Israel's most useful ally in containing Iran and destabilizing Isreal's opponents (Syria, Iraq, etc). Saudi's brand of Wahabbi Islam is perfect for the Israelis, because ideally, Isreal would prefer every muslim govt to be run by hardcore Islamists, because this is the best way to guarantee that no capable opposition to Isreal can ever arise. The Isrealis don't like to see moderate, relatively secular muslim states in their neighborhood, because these are the nations competent enough to actually challenge Isreal's territorial expansion. Isreal needs to continuously expand into the Palestinian territories and into the Golan\Lebanon region. They need breathing room! The only governments that had ever stopped them were Syria and Iran. Iraq and Libya had also opposed them. Why do you think Isreal wanted the US to invade all those countries? They got their wish on all but Iran, and they may by next.

My point is, the American Left will not dump Saudi until they dump Israel, which will never happen. For the Left to dump Isreal would require them to have their own internal civil war ideologically. It would tear them apart, so they'll never do it. It's political suicide for anyone on the Left to even try this: just look what happened to Tulsi Gabbard, and you can see how the Left is permanently chained to both Saudi and Isreal, even though it conflicts with their own ideology. The Republicans are even worse, the only difference being at least the Republicans are not institutionally anti-Hindu, nor are they overly friendly to China.

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 10 Dec 2019 05:54

Saudi's brand of Wahabbi Islam is perfect for..
..
Why does Isreal love Saudi Arabia so much?..

And how's it became perfect .. It's like saying that I am "dwarf" because that information is from "primary source" so should i blame primary source now.

How many times have Israel lobby come in the way, just to play blame games based on race/religion in USA.

It's the same bunch of radicals that seem to push out blame (to our allies, Russia somewhere or Israel somewhere or maybe Taiwan/Japan in future who knows).

Better to be a *dwarf" than make problems for allies diplomatically.

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 10 Dec 2019 06:40

Mort Walker wrote: The one thing you can't quantitatively evaluate is human behavior.

Hainji? You wan't to just throw out all them pscyhologist types into the deep sea eh?

Be that as it may, Laagical thinking is naat wonlee mathematical. Neither inductive nor deductive reasoning is necessarily math dependent. In my personal experience I have often seen engineering types being rigid and dogmatic about issues that they might want to relegate to the "Non real", quite illogical. I think there is definitely space for the liberal arts and philosophy in a civlized world.