An aquarium accident may have given this crayfish the DNA to take over the world Science
Models Coming into Agreement on Widespread Effects of Arctic Sea Ice Loss Weather Underground
Stocks crumble in vicious sell-off as ‘goldilocks’ trade unravels Reuters
Dealing with Stock Market’s Moments of Terror Safal Niveshak (Barry Ritholtz). With handy chart.
What on Earth Happened to Stocks? Here’s Where to Cast the Blame Bloomberg
Why An Economic Acceleration Is Slamming the Markets WSJ
Shorting volatility: its role in the stocks sell-off FT
Moving Pieces Tim Duy’s Fed Watch
Market Update Calculated Risk
Why a Dip in Asset Prices Might Be a Good Thing Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg
As Bitcoin Bubble Loses Air, Frauds and Flaws Rise to Surface NYT
Sex, Drugs, and Bitcoin: How Much Illegal Activity Is Financed Through Cryptocurrencies? SSRN
Head of BIS calls for clampdown on bitcoin FT
Money and trust: lessons from the 1620s for money in the digital age Bank of International Settlements
SpaceX nears launch of Falcon Heavy, facing a changing market for heavy-lift rockets LA Times (KW).
Brexit
Ireland border ‘fudge’ threatens to pull apart Brexit talks FT
Syraqistan
What the Turkish Invasion Means for Syria Der Spiegel
Arab Neoconservatives And Peace In The Persian Gulf Lobe Log (Re Silc).
China
China’s ageing population is creating a new debt crisis for Beijing as pension shortfall widens South China Morning Post
India
The Government’s Previous Health Insurance Schemes Failed. Why Should the New One Work? The Wire
New Cold War
The right way to manage nuclear competition with Russia WaPo
Controlling the Chief Charlie Savage, NYRB
The Dangers (and Opportunities) of 2018: Views From the Democratic Sideline Foreign Policy
* * * Committee Greenlights Democratic Intelligence Memo Roll Call
Nunes memo raises question: Did FBI violate Woods Procedures? The Hill
Nunes Is So Dumb He Missed the Most Likely Way the Trump Campaign Might Have Been Wiretapped emptywheel
Trump’s Lawyers Want Him to Refuse an Interview in Russia Inquiry NYT
Who’s worse, Trump or Nixon? LA Times
Trump Transition
GOP to play hardball with Dems on funding bill The Hill
Public health workers find surprise cuts in paychecks Politico
At Republican Retreat, Protest Power Was on Display as Progressives Eye Midterm Elections The Intercept (Re Silc).
Guest Post: Stephanie Kelton Introduces A New Candidate For Congress Down with Tyranny
State official wants study of government ‘jobs for all’ Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Health Care
Nursing homes sedate residents with dementia by misusing antipsychotic drugs, report finds CNN. Ka-ching.
After approving Medicaid work requirements, Trump’s HHS aims for lifetime coverage limits McClatchy
Newest GOP stopgap includes Medicare extenders, DSH delays, health centers funding Modern Health
Our Famously Free Press
Meredith in a hurry to take down Time Inc. signage Page Six
What the hell is going on at Newsweek? The Outline
Robert Parry: When ‘Independent’ Journalism Meant Something The American Conservative
Imperial Collapse Watch
Meet the Believers: The Afghanistan War’s US Commanders are Ready For a Reboot DefenseOne
The Pentagon’s ‘Logistics Agency’ Lost Track of More Than $800 Million New York Magazine (Re Silc).
Useful Only for Scrap Paper LRB. Michelangelo’s drawings.
The #MeToo conversation is making people uncomfortable. That’s okay. Vox
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
149 comments
Comments are closed.
Is Trump worse than Nixon?
I pride myself on having propagated the “Nixon was the last liberal president” meme for years now. That said, it is shocking (but not at all surprising) that an article comparatively assessing the Nixon presidency would have 6 mentions of the word “Watergate” (0 bombs, 0 murdered, 0 displaced) whilst completely omitting the word “Cambodia” (2.7m tonnes of bombs, 500k+ killed, millions displaced).
This of course raises the obvious question: in the Blob’s mind, is Nixon better than Trump in spite of Cambodia or because of it?
Although Nixon started out as the worst of the two because of his liberal policies and his attempts to bring Vietnam to an end, the Blob no doubt came to view him in a better light once their coup attempt against him succeeded via the bogus Watergate scandal. They even had Ford give him a pardon, a very nice sending away gift. On the other hand the attempted Russiagate coup against Trump failed and is in the process of being turned around on the globalist Blob perpetrators, no doubt making him their number 1 bad guy today.
And Cambodia? Well, it seems that in modern history issues of foreign wars are largely out of the hands of US presidents so I don’t think military adventures during a regime’s reign would factor much into blob assessments.
Perhaps the ‘blob’ is nice to Nixon because he resigned and went quietly, took his pardon and moved on?
Trump will likely do no such thing. His poll numbers are starting to creep up.
Anyone catch the open threats from this ex-CIA guy? Is this battle escalating?
Jimmy Dore made a point yesterday that these folks seem to have a problem taking orders from a democratically elected official.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/04/phil_mudd_warns_trump_in_war_with_intelligence_community_were_going_to_win.html
Yes, I believe that not taking orders from elected officials is the point of an oligarchic technocracy.
Yes, I saw that. Mudd is totally unhinged. Check this out (and make sure you watch the video):
The weirdest, slur-laden response to Trump’s ‘shithole’ remarks Washington Examiner
As to Mudd’s recent comments that the rank and file at the intelligence agencies are all devoted to their corrupt superiors and will fight alongside them against Trump to the metaphorical(?) death, well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
RabidGandhi
February 6, 2018 at 7:11 am
jgordon
February 6, 2018 at 7:56 am
==========================================
Why I read the comments – some actual novel, original, critical thinking….
And Laos too. It still makes my blood boil that the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in two countries (Cambodia and Laos) were slaughtered in a war that was never even declared, let alone be in any way legal or morally justifiable. Neither country have come close to recovering from it. And Kissenger is still seen as a stateman by the Democrats. He and Nixon were, by any reasonable moral standards, guilty of mass murder on a scale rarely seen in history. That article quite clearly shows that for respectable academic opinion, harming the US constitution is a much worse crime than the mass slaughter of brown people.
Couple quick points…
I think the Khmer Rouge leaders are on record somewhere saying they were making no headway in getting popular support until after Nixon bombed the living daylights out of them. After that, lots of people were radicalized and got behind the crazies like Khmer Rouge.
Also, for all Bernie’s faults on foreign policy, and he often makes me wince when talking about it, he seems to understand on a visceral level, that Kissinger is a horrible person and doesn’t belong anywhere near the levers of power. He made a point of saying this at length in the debates with Clinton.
a more pertinent question is whether mr. trump is worse that messrs. obama, bush, clinton, bush, reagan, carter, ford, and/or nixon (no farther back because my fingers would get tired!).
every single one is/was a homicidal sociopath.
mr. trump is probably the best of them all because at least he is in the wwe hall of fame.
Yes!
I keep wondering how Obama’s “legacy” doesn’t include the 19 million homes stolen by Wall Street.
Oh but it was all & solely the “fault” of the home owners that they “lost” their homes bc they were – one & all – greedy and took out loans that they couldn’t afford, including those who had bought their homes decades ago.
I am quoting almost verbatim from numerous Obama supporters I know. Wall St? Pfft. The Banks? Pffft! Obama? Pfffft. It’s only the fault of the greedy grubby lousy home owners, who clearly deserved to lose their homes. Sainted Obama, who is such a nice man with a gorgeous wife and beautiful daughters, did what had to be done, and yay verily it was a good thing.
got it?
Don’t even bring up all the brown people Obama is responsible for killing, either. They deserved their fates as well, except when it was GW Bush who killed them.
got it?
How about the hundreds of thousands deported by the Deporter-in-Chief?
9 million, not 19. But still…
The author, David Rothkopf, has quite the resumé. Here’s a sampling:
As for this specific article, it is based on the faulty premise that the institutions (i.e. “the Department of Justice, our independent judiciary, the FBI, our intelligence services”) that Trump has purportedly “undermined in unprecedented ways” have a constitutional right to continue to practice unaccountable corruption.
Yes, Rothkopf is one of the soothing voices on the Foreign Policy podcast. From the heart of The Blob!
Yep. Sometimes I am tempted to save myself some time and just write “Neocon alert!”.
Another day, another neocon taking potshots at Trump. Sigh.
The most depressing thing about Nixon is that he was the worst President from 1933 to 1974, and best from 1969 to the present.
LOL!
I doubt many fathers threw an impromptu celebration party on August 8th 1974, such as my dad did. He loathed Tricky Dick, as he thought he resembled the worst facets of fascism, communism and capitalism, all in one tidy package.
He softened his stance on Nixon decades later, when confronted with even more onerous ogres in the oval office.
I simply cannot and will not soften my stance on Nixon. In the post-WWII age, Nixon got the ball rolling on corruption that just snowballed to where we are now.
No rose colored glasses for me vis Nixon.
But what about the ‘improvements’ he did to the basement of the white house?
(potentially the only person ever to have worn a tie, in the act of hurling)
https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/us-president-richard-nixon-bowling-everett.jpg
The problem is that the Presidents to follow were so bad:
* Ford, pardoned Nixon, creating the expectation of impunity.
* Carter: War criminal who bought the Afghan civil war, created the Savings and Loan Debacle, unwound Glass Steagall, etc.
* Reagan: Too many to list.
* Bush I: Willy Horten, greenlighting Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and then going to war over it, covering up Iran Contra, Pardoning Weinburger, McFarlane, Abrams, etc. to cover his own butt.
* Clinton: Didn’t care about genocide (Rwanda) until it was white people (Bosnia), completely Repealed Glass Steagall, betrayed labor unions, flipped to support NAFTA, relentless expansion of excessive IP licensing.
* Bush II: ‘Nuff Said.
* Obama: Not trying corrupt banksters, terrorizing nations with drones, normalizing Bush II excesses, betrayed labor unions, sucked up to health insurance companies iwith PPACA, selling out homeowners to protect corrupt banksters, protecting torturers, pursuing whistleblowers with a mania that makes Nixon look like Julian Assange.
*Trump: Nixon, hold my beer.
The S&Ls resulted from an average bank scandal run wild after Reagan (not Carter) deregulated them so they could “grow their way out of trouble.” One the other hand, Carter showed Reagan how to deregulated when he did so to trucking and airlines, and not incidentally threw the unions under the bus when it occurred. Teamsters endorsed Reagan in the next presidential election.
Clinton…don’t forget his was the last budget surplus. See this for what comes next. Hint: a Great Depression-sized hole in the economy.
Also, Clinton’s “end of welfare as we know it” threw a half million adults off of food stamps. Before that “end,” 76% of those needing public assistance got it. After: 26%. There’s a special place in hell for Clinton, IMHO.
…and don’t forget that, in addition to not prosecuting what’s arguably the largest theft in human history–the sub-prime/derivatives meltdown–Obama didn’t prosecute Bush 43/Cheney’s war crimes.
Reagan engaged in salutory neglect. Carter actually signed the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act.
Even ignoring that, the fact that he is a f%$#ing war criminal bent on deregulation, that he created the 4 year long presidential campaign, his signing the Hyde amendment when it was first proposed, and the fact that he reversed the Nixon/Ford military draw down makes him (a bit) worse than Nixon
Sorry, if you want to see some earlier corruption try Robert Cato’s Means of Ascent describing LBJ’s theft of his Senate seat from Coke Stephenson. LBJ taught Karl Rove everything needed to win an election no matter what the votes were (and Nixon was corrupt too, but a little later, although arguably in response to Joe Kennedy stealing W. Virginia and Mayor Daly’s Democratic machine stealing Chicago after Eisenhower retired).
Meanwhile, it was Boss Tweed (a Democrat) who said “I don’t care who people vote for as long as I can pick the candidates.”
Making this a contest between team red and team blue is playing Tweed’s game.
Then: Boss Tweed
Now: Boss Tweet
That’s pretty funny.
+100
Matthew G. Saroff
February 6, 2018 at 9:39 am
great insight!
“great insight” gets moderation?
Of course. The modifier “great” is not at all moderate.
ambrit
February 6, 2018 at 8:45 pm
from now on, mediocre insight! or perhaps kinda good insight
Here’s a trip down memory lane from HST – an excerpt:
And that was one of the nicer passages. Trump has a lot of work to do if he hopes to merit such a scathing obit.
Trump worse than Nixon? What a bovine excrement question!
When it comes to absolutely worst president (in my lifetime anyway} neither come close to George “Dubya” Bush & his puppet master Cheney. Nixon did hold that spot but Bush/Cheney plumbed new depths. They should be given a fair trial as war criminals & promptly executed.
It is to be hoped that Trump will be no worse than Nixon.
I think what I want in a president is for him/her just to be what we think he or she is.
With Nixon and Reagan it was clear to see exactly who they were and what they’d do. Fair enough. And with the
CheneyBush regimes you knew exactly what you were getting: snarling corporo-fascist Big Business types.Which is why I still award Obama my coveted Worst_President_Ever Award (and yes, I’m counting Millard Fillmore and Andrew Johnson). His deeds in office were at the furthest point of absolute opposition to his words and to the person “we thought he was”. The nation thought we were getting something completely different from just an extension and normalization of 100% of Bush’s policies (OK, OK, he did try a rapprochement with Cuba).
Very funny: the YouTube video going around last week where people are asked to comment on State of the Union quotes. Everybody trashes them, until they’re informed the quotes come from Obama’s last SOTU, not Trump’s.
Surprise all of the above have missed this one:
Blame Nixon for the obesity epidemic
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/27/news/la-ol-nixon-obesity-epidemic-corn-20120627
along with Earl Butz and fear of pre-election food inflation.
The reason why we, “the ignorant masses”, need economists is because they clarify technical terms for us that we would otherwise misunderstand. For example, economists refer to something called “recovery” that the uninitiated might easily mistake for something more benign. This can clearly be as Brazil’s economy wallows in what those unfamiliar with the jargon might call “misery”; but thankfully we have the technocratic cognoscenti to set us straight. A few examples from just this last month (links available on request):
Unemployment is a lagging indicator everywhere. Not sure what’s included in Brazil’s leading indicator (the US leading indicator has ten component series), but stocks invariably are one component:
Brazilian stocks bottomed in Jan 2016. Olé!
I’m not sure I buy that logic. In the Folha article above, Laura Carvalho (no pinko by any means) spells out Brazil’s predicament quite clearly.
Unemployment–> lower real wages–> lower aggregate demand–> slowed growth. That makes unemployment (especially viz. formal labour contracts) a leading indicator dragging down the economy as a whole. And here’s how even neo-classical Folha sees that playing out:
Brazil’s ‘jobless recovery’ will look just like West Virgina’s and Ohio’s, only more so.
Kellyanne Conway’s ‘opioid cabinet’ sidelines drug czar’s experts [Politico]
Opioids. Infrastructure. Good jobs. None of the promises on these are being delivered.
Even the 30% base will eventually get restless.
At what point will distraction by means of a foreign adventure become Plan A?
Remember this?
In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets.
—–
The new law makes it virtually impossible for the DEA to freeze suspicious narcotic shipments from the companies, according to internal agency and Justice Department documents and an independent assessment by the DEA’s chief administrative law judge in a soon-to-be-published law review article.
—–
Besides the sponsors and co-sponsors of the bill, few lawmakers knew the true impact the law would have. It sailed through Congress and was passed by unanimous consent, a parliamentary procedure reserved for bills considered to be noncontroversial.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/dea-drug-industry-congress/?hpid=hp_hp-banner-main_deanarrative-hed%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.dd850cca0209
“Senator” shelley moore capito should just stfu and start doing her job instead of whining that Kelleyanne Conway, fer chrissakes, won’t do it for her.
“……. I’m from the worst state for this,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito….. Then maybe you should start acting like it.
Thank you for the link. From the same story:
Marino’s nomination died after the story appeared. Only the best people.
“I’m from the worst state,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito.
Fixed it for her …
The reign of error’s efforts @ stopping the opioid scourge seem to be: “please hurry up and die so you won’t be a burden on society”.
“hurry up and die” appears to be the M.O. for the new Medicaid lifetime caps and work requirements as well. Since U.S. life expectancy has fallen for 2 years in a row, it appears to be working.
Dear God liberals are insane.
Yeah, Trump is the one going nuts about Russia. smh.
Are all liberals by definition liberal because they are called liberal; or are there different shades of liberal or, maybe, even different types of liberal? Does a liberal interpretation of economic liberty make one a liberal? – or, as so often seems the case, a conservative? Can one be a liberal culturally and a conservative in matters of economics? If one can be both, how do we label that individual or groups who think similarly?
The word’s used in so many different ways. I prefer to focus on the views of 19th century figures like Bentham, James Mill, and J S Mill. They were reformers, seeking change for what they considered the better, especially in economics, where they supported the use of state power to create conditions favorable to industrialization, chiefly self-regulating markets for labor, land, and money (or so argues the author of The Great Transformation). They were also, by and large, champions of individual liberty (for Europeans anyway), with their position best stated, I think, by J S Mill in his book on the subject. His basic claim is that the use of coercion against adults is impermissible except in cases where one person harms others without the consent of the latter.
I can’t say very much about the twists and turns of the term ‘liberal’ in the 20th and 21st centuries, except to note that the much criticized (in these parts) conflation of Left and Liberal is a sign of our times. It’s a sign that the limits of respectable political discourse are now very narrow, so narrow that views quite similar to those of the 19th century liberals are readily accepted as one of two extremes. Progressive neoliberals are considered and consider themselves to be the Left. Yet, they’re committed to the economic agenda of the old liberals in new circumstances. They’re certainly different from the other neoliberals, the ones who like to call themselves, quite misleadingly, conservatives. The progressives have different positions on public bathrooms. They’re free and easy with terms like ‘intersectionality.’ They have doubts about the wisdom of conducting an uncontrolled experiment on the entire biosphere. After all, they believe in science, and like to tell you as much, as often as possible. But, for all their progressiveness, they’re still just new liberals.
But who might be Left if not Liberals? Lots of different people, no doubt. But mostly, I think, people who believe that markets ought to serve the interests of society, rather than society servicing markets, people who think that adults ought to manage their own affairs, as opposed to being managed, as resources, by others. Devil’s in the details, of course.
I like Dave Rubin’s general sentiment that, in America today, the Left is no longer liberal. It generally sums up my feeling about where things lie presently. People who would qualify as liberal by any reasonable measure are cast as anything from center-right to alt-right by the most vociferous elements of the left if they deviate from the narrative around certain social issues. NC alludes to this a lot as well, particularly the ways in which the DNC uses the worst aspects of identity politics to shame people into supporting its neoliberal economic policies, which is why I am a daily reader.
The terms can be used in different ways, for different ends. I proposed one way of using them, based on some history, some contemporary uses, and what I perceive to be a need to distinguish between the people I called ‘progressive neoliberals’ and those I’d prefer to call ‘leftists.’ I’d like to isolate the former, set them apart from those with whom they shouldn’t be confused. But perhaps other uses are better, such as those you suggest.
Thanks for your excellent comment and those of the other NC commentariat on this topic.
I would generally agree with you about the historical antecedents of liberalism and what it then meant or might mean today. Being of the Left myself and eschewing many of the liberal nostrums of the present day variety, I still find the liberty aspect appealing but also find that those countries who adopt any sort of liberal attitude often do so to forward or project a certain economic agenda. Liberty on a personal level, imo, is difficult to practice if the liberty of the market place is paramount to the individual – but that is just my particular take on liberal philosophy.
What I find somewhat disconcerting is the use of the term, as John Michael Greer might say, as a thought stopper. Liberalism, for all it possible frailties, still plays an important role in our Western thought and when aligned with hard-headed pragmatic programs can be a very potent force – for good or ill.
If the liberal philosophy is aligned with specific contemporary programs, it seems to me that it would be more worthwhile to look at the programs and discuss the relative merits of the programs rather than the underlying philosophy for the moment. By discussing the programs it might be possible to glean new insights into the philosophy as it morphs; or maybe identify new interpretations of liberal philosophy that have emerged as a counterweight to Leftist thought during most of the twentieth century up till the present day. (Just a passing thought.)
Again, thanks for the comment – food for thought.
The Blathering Superego at the End of History
If you fight fire with fire, they call you an arsonist?
In 1954, after a commercial message for Alcoa, a televised Joseph McCarthy oozed, “twenty years of treason. Not the hard fact is…the hard fact is that those who wear the label…those who wear the label ‘Democrat’ wear it with the stain of a historic betrayal.” McCarthy took some cheap shots, “Strangely, Alger — I mean, Adlai”, and deployed rhetorical gimmicks, “Why? Why do Hiss and Coe find that Adlai Stevenson is the man they want representing them at this conference? I don’t know. Perhaps Adlai knows.” Who’s that sitting next to McCarthy, why it’s his dewy 27 year-old counsel, Roy Cohn.
64 years later, some people are still trying to skate on Roy Cohn’s stale material.
GOP to play hardball with Dems on funding bill
I suspect that this will all be yet another case of the Republicans drinking the Democrats milkshake. As British police used to say, they have form-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5d9BrLN5K4
Paul Simon has just announced his retirement tour. To commemorate I spent the evening pealing foraged peaches to a background of his musical legacy. And what a legacy it is, the quintessential US poet, so many memorable lines. Two memes stick out, ‘going home’ and ‘silence’, comfort in hard times, like a bridge over troubled water. As an antipodean who has recently travelled on the west coast, he in many ways captures the spirit of longing in the land of the free. Maybe it is just the drop to the relative minor. I am not surprised that Bernie Sanders used one of his tracks in his campaign.
Meh. Paul Simon soothed the souls of the neo-liberal baby boomers that destroyed the country.
Just look at the first lines of “America”;
It’s about money and real estate! Let’s just forget all that hippie stuff and get rich.
not actually.
The song is a dream about him and girlfriend Kathy at the time hitchhiking from Saginaw to Pittsburgh.
Doubt they would have hitchhiked if they had mucho coinage…”real estate” is weed.
The truth of art, and how it is interpreted, reflects the desires of the observer. The symbolism it represented in the Sanders ad was closer to my interpretation. I am sure people were not thinking “weed” when they heard “real estate”.
Paul Simon was wealthy enough in 1964. His father was a professor and Simon was in Law School for a month. He drove with his lady (didn’t hitchhike) to Sagninaw before moved to London.
Whenever we’re in NZ in spite of having a rental car, I always like to hitchhike somewhere there, simply because I can. It’s legal to do so, unlike here where you might get arrested.
Utilizing just my larger digit poised sideways, I can stop a 2 ton vehicle in it’s tracks~
Simon has been a bit of a jerk backstage. He played at a Berklee Music School graduation years ago and insisted that NO ONE could EVEN LOOK at him backstage. Took the fun out of the whole thing for the kids. Feet of clay.
That trip was Paul on the road campaigning for JFK.
i didn’t know mr. simon wrote “oh, hillary, i’m so, so sorry.”.
Paul Simon allegedly wrote Homeward Bound on Widnes Station while touring Britain. Widnes itself is, or was, a chemicals industry town, with overspills from Liverpool, a few miles along the River Mersey. Widnes Station is as bleak as the town and bound to make anyone homesick, even if home was only a slightly less grotty version of Widnes.
Wigan Pier is just down the road from Widnes Station, a few hitches and a hike.
Yikes, Other James, it would appear your nostalgia is not appreciated.
For what it’s worth, I share your sentiments. Some things are just too good to look for a reason to tear them down. I’m goin’ to Graceland.
Hear, here.
Once upon a time we celebrated troubadours that combined poetry with verse, but now it’s mostly for the worst.
Could you name just one song in the top 100 charts in any music genre currently?
Reminds me of Sunday’s halftime Superbowl performance by Justin Timberlake, especially the first, super-high-energy part.
I found myself wondering how many people were out there thinking, “Gee, I really love this ‘song’. ”
Now get off my lawn.
I kept wondering when the music would begin.
Poetry and verse changes with each generation. While I could not name one song in the top 100, I know my 25 year old niece could.
Paul Simon is insanely wealthy ($45 million at least). All he taught people is that you can make a ton of money playing music for people. He is a capitalist first and foremost, troubadour is second.
So, if Paul Simon was now a pauper, his musical talents would be more appreciated by you?
That is a wrong question. If he were less rich, he may have written different songs… Perhaps less soothing and more pointed, and/or more applicable to people’s lives. Money changes a person; a lot of it, changes person a lot.
He’s ‘worth’ $45 million now, what was he ‘worth’ in 1956 when he wrote his first of many amazing ballads?
See Croatoan’s comment above.
Sorry, that’s weak tea that needs more steeping, try harder.
yeah let’s hear some whinging about the ceo of spotify net worth 1.6 billion,http://time.com/money/5088416/daniel-ek-spotify-ceo-net-worth/ and I doubt he’s written any songs for that pretty penny. I won’t bother looking up how many kajillions artists such as paul simon have lined tim cooks pockets with. 45 million sounds like chump change these days. That he was for hillary isn’t surprising especially, he’s got 45 mil, he’s her base
Help me. Professors were not rich in the 1960s and law school was not expensive when he was young. They aren’t even rich now unless they are Bschool or top law school profs who do a lot of consulting. That was frowned on back then, save maybe expert witness gigs, which would nevah be a steady diet.
Gucci gang, a classic by any measure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfJnj66HVQ
Paul Simon’s Under African Skies video concert (1987), filmed in Zimbabwe with luminaries such as Miriam Makeba and the late Hugh Masekela, is one for the ages.
+100. And for the record, the cross is in the ballpark.
I am not saying his music was not good. Even a good thief can be appreciated. But he is still a thief.
What did he steal aside from our rapt attention?
As I said above, his net worth is $45 million at least. Music is a con and/or a drug.
Some know the worth of everything, but are hazy on the details of value.
maybe he bought bitcoin.
Stop it. Payoff in entertainment is a power curve. A very few at the high end make a lot and the rest starve. I don’t resent paying for the work of other people, and as an author, am appalled by your attitude towards people trying to make a living off their output. You think people like me should work for you for free? Go to hell.
good musicians borrow, great musicians steal, but almost none have a good credit score.
I’ll just leave this here:
Paul Simon performs ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ at Democratic National Convention
I do like some of his music, but accepting this gig was a textbook example of extremely poor judgement.
he shoulda played “fifty ways to frame a giant orange gargoyle”:
ya’ just call up the deep state,
blame a few russians,
whip up collusions,
and fisa courts, see.
get a nice steele archive,
no need to correct much!
just drop off the leak, see,
and set yourself free..
OK, this is very good.
Laugh about, it shout about it, when you’ve got to choose. Every way you look at it you lose.
I don’t know which of his songs they are from, but these lines have always stayed with me:
“Half the people are drowned, half the people are swimming in the wrong direction.
Half the people are stoned, half the people are waiting for the next election.”
Re: Brexit
I really don’t see what sort of deal could possibly address the Irish border. The UK has backed itself into a situation where it must withdraw entirely from the free market and Customs Union. These are not in any way compatible with keeping the border open. They have ruled out any ‘special’ status for Northern Ireland. Opposition from France and other EU countries would not allow the Irish Republic to take a ‘see no evil hear no evil’ approach to the border. And the Irish government, while not as deluded as London, is still dragging its heels over putting in place emergency provisions for a chaotic exit with all that means for the border areas, as they seem to hope that something will turn up, something will be agreed.
An article yesterday in the Guardian suggested that private briefings to the hard Brexiters in the cabinet ‘sobered them up’ about the Irish border issue, and this is one reason they did not rebel against the December agreement. But being sobered up about the issue is not the same thing as being willing to compromise or change. So far as I can see, the chance of a chaotic exit is increasing by the day, not decreasing.
Thanks for that. Insightful as always.
Things getting interesting around here with Anna Soubry making threats. It would be unwise to assume these are empty threats – she is clinging on by her fingertips as a Conservative anyway (in terms of her majority at the last election – by rights she should have lost but people round here like her for being a big-mouth who tells the establishment where to go). She really doesn’t have much to lose.
el-tel,
To put it bluntly, Anna Soubry is but a mouth on a stick, she complains bitterly, but that’s about it. I suggest you actually check out her voting record as an MP – essentially, like many of her kind in the Tory ranks, namely, women who express concerns, her voting record paints a different picture, basically she’s never rebelled – although, all this talk again of a new Centrist Party is intriguing, but don’t think somehow that a Macron-style neoliberal/neoconservative political party has wings in the UK presently
Fair enough regarding her voting record….I’m just going by what people round here in Nottingham think of her, how she radically bucked the trend in terms of swings in the Nottm and outlying districts at the last general election, and voting intention data (pre-GE) I have access to. Yeah she might have been all-mouth-no-trousers in the past, but ultimately she knows what side her bread is buttered on regarding her constituency….and when push comes to shove, all those “loyal lobby-fodder” Tory MPs who are afraid of losing those lovely perks have a nasty habit of turning on a leader when the chips really are down. We’re in uncharted waters here.
I’ve been wondering about the possibilities of a new centrist party in the UK. I’m sure lots of the Blairites would go for it. I guess the failure of the old SDP is still in their minds – the UK election system is particularly harsh on third parties. I would guess the opportunity will arise if and when the Conservatives start coming apart under the strains of Brexit.
I hate to say it, but I do think that there is a potential opening there, although the big question is whether it would do more damage to the Conservatives or to Labour. My feeling is that there are more opportunists in the Labour benches (basically, the class of 1994), who would make the jump – Tories are more likely to run than jump I think. But I’m not sure about their respective voters.
PK,
My issue with your suggestion that space exists for a new ‘centrist’ party is that we already have a centrist party, namely the Liberal Democrats, and, given the fact that said new centrist party will be a neoliberal haven, with a fair number of interventionist warmongers among their ranks, I don’t see where they belong in the grand scheme of things. Indeed, more than 80% of the UK electorates that voted last June in the GE voted for the main two parties that were committed to honouring the Brexit vote – the LibDems were 100% anti-Brexit and their vote collapsed – just look at their polling in Wales.
I’m quite happy having an actual Left-of-Centre grouping, which would include the Greens, together with Plaid Cymru and the SNP, with the LibDems in the middle ground and Conservatives actually centre-right, which economically speaking would mean a majority of MPs actually all moving to the Left if we were to achieve this. That’s how far the nation and its politics moved to the Right economically speaking, never mind support for such institutions as NATO, Brussels and no end of supranational bodies that seem to engender War, rather than peace.
At the end of the day, I think politically speaking the UK is in a state of flux, similar indeed to the twenty years following the death of Robert Peel (1846-1866) – the Corn Laws being equivalent to Brexit today, never mind the fact that many are now awakening to the fact that neoliberal economic prescriptions just don’t work, unless of course your in the top 5% of income brackets.
From my vantage point, I think the future lies with eco-socialists and democratic syndicalists. Of course I’m probably wrong and certainly never underestimate the Conservative Party, which has a uncanny knack for survival.
The problem with the LibDems is that they have precisely failed to take the centre space for all sorts of reasons. They have too much historical baggage to take the cosy consensual soft neoliberal middle ground of somewhere between NuLabour and One Nation Tories, which I suspect is where around a third or so of the electorate sit. And apart from anything else, they lack the sort of charismatic leader they’d need to grab the countries attention.
I think the nature of the UK electoral system is such that such a party would only succeed it if consisted of several dozen existing MP’s, i.e. was made up of a split from both main parties who could then portray themselves as a ‘fresh’ alternative. But you need a particular alignment of circumstances (as happened in France) for this to occur. I think a vicious Tory in-fight in which the hard Brexiters win would be one such circumstance.
“I think the nature of the UK electoral system is such that such a party would only succeed it if consisted of several dozen existing MP’s, i.e. was made up of a split from both main parties who could then portray themselves as a ‘fresh’ alternative. ”
So basically like Macron’s party in France. That actually makes sense.
Thank you, PK, and well said, especially your last sentence.
I am in Madrid and Paris this month, helping with the transfer of business booked, serviced etc. in London to these branches / balance sheets.
The first wave of redundancies at my German TBTF is this summer. If I have not found something Brexit proof by the summer, I expect to be unemployed by the end of next year.
There have been Brexit related redundancies since last summer, but they have been salami slicing here and there, nothing significant enough to attract media, political or voter attention.
Cicero, one of the bigger and better known lobbyists in Brussels, is scaling back from London in favour of Dublin as business goes west from the City and its outposts around the UK.
Thanks, CS, I had to look up Cicero, I’d never heard of them, and I found a link to suggest they are not the first PR company to shift focus to Dublin. Much as any jobs are welcome, I can’t help but feel a cringe at the thought of a wave of PR and ‘corporate communications’ consultants hitting my city (and its finer pubs). My neighbour is one (the nicer sort), I must ask her if she’s been hearing any rumours.
Meet the Believers: The Afghanistan War’s US Commanders are Ready For a Reboot
A little history. Back in WW2 there use to be a group of US Army Air Corp officers who were true believers in the potency of the bomber. I think that they were nicknamed ‘airdales’ but the point was that they believed that their prized B-17s were so well armed that they did not need fighter escort. In fact, the bombers would bomb Germany to rubble after which they would land to accept the surrender.
The results was of course whole formations of bombers were shot out of the sky and even when they got their long-range escort fighters, the Germans refused to let the bombing defeat them. That took an army of a couple million men to achieve. I know that this is a defense magazine article but this strikes me as more of the same. Their belief in the technological terror that they are constructing shows a faith that I find disturbing.
When it says that the Taliban can negotiate and reconcile what that means is that the US will stay in Afghanistan forever so they had better be reconciled to that fact. This force can kill a lot of them but like in Vietnam, the birthrate for their opponents will always outmatch this loss rate. In any case, the Taliban doesn’t need to do pitch battles. They only have to outlast their enemy which is classic guerrilla doctrine.
Nice to read you channeling a Sith Lord.
And, as for LeMays’ infamous “bomb them back to the stone age,” assertion, well, many parts of the world are already nearly back to stone age conditions, or soon will be due to neo-liberal economics. The only strategy left then is pure outright genocide.
Time to warp the Death Star over to Afghaniron, my Lords?
Waging war in the ‘stanbox would be akin to the Russians invading Nevada, with it’s seemingly endless basin and range terrain that resembles Afghanistan perfectly. Largely useless land that if you were successful in conquering, the logistics of keeping it, would bankrupt your army.
“Bomb them back to the stone age.”
Can’t remember where I read this story but here it is.
An american in Afghanistan was sitting on a hill with several Afghans on a dark night, gazing at a brilliant moon. The american mused to the others about how remarkable it was that man had landed on the moon.
The Afghans refused to believe that it had ever happened, and could not be convinced.
Such fearsome, worthy “adversaries.”
Good point insomuch as todays’ American political ‘discourse’ seems to be stuck in just such a ‘refusal to believe’ loop. Just look at the downthread comments on many “popular” websites for examples of such purely confirmation bias sourced ‘thinking.’
Your last sentence actually is an accurate description of “fearsome, worthy “adversaries.”” I read somewhere that, during the British colonial wars against the nineteenth century iteration of jihadis, sergeants would tell their rankers to begin firing at attacking “hostiles” at extreme range, and continue doing so until the engagement ended. The idea being that these hostiles were “true believers” who would keep coming despite wounds, all powered by their fanatical ‘belief’ systems.
Apply the above to American politics and we have a pretty grim prognosis for the next three years, at the least. Probably the next seven years, absent some major blunder by the present administration.
The above comment by the Rev has it correct. War materials production in the Reich actually increased during the Allied bombing campaign up until just before the end of the war. The Soviet Army won WW2. The proof of that lies in the continuous aid sent to Russia from the West during the war. It is one of those ‘inconvenient truths’ that the Western Allied armies, (ie. less Russia,) were fighting the Wehrmachts’ ‘second string’ troops in western Europe. Also pertinent is that many believe that “Bomber” Harris’ led air campaign against Germany was really revenge for the Blitz. Why else obliterate cities not important to German war materials production, like Dresden? Terror was the real reason for this. However, as any sane person will eventually come to realize, terror is useless against properly lead and psychologically conditioned populaces.
The wonderful endless circle jerk continues. What came first? The jihadi ‘terrorism’ or the ‘State sponsored’ terrorism? Meanwhile, innocent people die. As someone elsewhere commented, this makes the idea of divine retribution against evil people in this world, or in a next one, a seductive source of comfort.
Yes, the ‘airdales’ have been replaced by the Air Heads but the silly theory that “shock and awe” has any truth to it lives on.
Money and trust: lessons from the 1620s for money in the digital age Bank of International Settlements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I remember being shown a coin from that kipper und wipper era when I was in my teens, and what an impression it left upon me, as coins from previous and subsequent times were honest money, and if anything the period was more akin to the cryprocurrency craze currently petering out.
Mints popped up everywhere across Europe to cash in an odd arbitrage, the coins heretofore were made of silver, and the replacements looked very similar, yet they were all made out of copper and many were silver-washed to give the appearance of being the real thing, just as the Roman Empire had resorted to with denarii some 1,400 years prior. The efforts were often crude compared to what was possible just a few years prior.
A Bohemian silver thaler (where the word ‘dollar’ emanates) from 1614, before kipper und wipper:
http://www.coinfactswiki.com/w/images/thumb/6/65/Austria_K293-1567.jpg/550px-Austria_K293-1567.jpg
Here’s a Bohemian thaler from 1622 that’s made out of copper and silver-washed. The details are all fuzzy:
http://libertystreeteconomics.typepad.com/.a/6a01348793456c970c01901bdfaf97970b-450wi
The FBI Targeted the Left with Devious Tactics for Years—Now Trump Is Giving the Agency the Same Treatmen. The conservative Bureau is stunned to face its own anti-democratic tactics.
https://www.alternet.org/trump-and-allies-give-fbi-cointelpro-treatment
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
Carter Page was quite possibly an FBI informant.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/7vj9qv/more_information_on_carter_page_being_an_fbi/
That looks kind of interesting.
Carter Page as as mole or ‘Trojan Horse’ to open surveillance into Trump campaign?
The court document linked is broken, though. That’s kind of important.
Carter Page’s letter says ABC and Buzzfeed outed his involvement in a 2015 case where FBI broke up a Russian spy ring which was trying to find out about sanctions and energy development.
It does seem curious that Page was involved in the case, yet never charged, and subsequently allowed to travel to Russia a few times.
From the look of it, Page might have proven useless for intel gathering as the Russians didn’t think much of him, but perhaps Page became useful to establish a link between the Trump campaign and the Russians? Note that one of the trips was July 2016, around the time that Russia-gate was getting underway.
Obviously, far from bullet-proof, but it’s an interesting way to make sense of an otherwise curious chain of events.
I think this is the document:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/2015_0126_spyring2.pdf
Nothing (with a lot of credible evidence) would surprise me. He did once serve as a navy intelligence analyst. That said… Why would they seek a FISA warrant on one of their own? Would they even need one to monitor their own employee?
I think the argument would run that Carter Page had outlived his usefulness as they’d already prosecuted the case that he was directly involved in and gotten the bad guys they’d wanted to nail. It would appear the feds were trying to use him as bait for additional intel in Russia. It didn’t work out as the Russians didn’t trust the guy.
So what does the FBI do with their play-thing ‘asset’? Well, it’s possible they decided to turn him into a mole in the Trump campaign.
The reports suggest Page seemed to kind of ‘appear out nowhere’ in the campaign. It’s certainly possible Page was cut loose by the FBI after a job well done in breaking the previous case and he decided to get involved in the Trump campaign of his own accord, even on an unpaid basis.
It’s also possible the FBI said, “good job, but we’ve got more work for you to do”. Again, no evidence that they did that, but it seems like it could help make sense of the current fact set, which seems awkward.
I recall reading questions about why the Boston Marathon bombers were allowed to come and go from Chechnya a few times after the FBI had been tipped off by the Russians. One answer would be because they tried to turn the guy into an ‘asset’. Again, no evidence of course, all speculation. But, it’s a way of making the fact set fit together better than just “FBI was stupid and ignored warnings”.
Sorry, misread the question. Why would they need to monitor their own asset (he was an informant, not an employee)?
They didn’t. He was a mole.
Was he smuggling sex toys for the feds?
That was part of his testimony.
Anyone who puts him at, or anywhere near a spy scandal has lost their mind.
Big purple dildo pointing *that way>>>*
I started watching these interviews with Carter Page, but couldn’t get very far before my brain was like WTF. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/carter-page-speaks-says-little-explosive-memo-152703608.html I’ll force myself to try again later.
OK, watched the videos. My brain can only stand so much cognitive dissonance – I was expecting this Carter Page dude to be one sly fellow for the FISA to slap warrant on him.
This guy is anything but. You don’t even need to understand the words coming out his mouth. Simply the way he speaks tells you he’s in waters that are way over his head. Talk about being a fish out of water.
As Laura Ingraham says, who would want to be part of any presidential campaign if you knew that the FBI could be pulling this type of stuff. Any one of us could be a patsy like this guy. Unbelievable.
Fish out of water
Lamb to the slaughter
I’m not sure how Trump’s actions on this matter could be regarded as anti-democratic. Perhaps my memory is failing, but I was under the impression he was recently elected President.
The right way to manage nuclear competition with Russia
But would any American negotiators talking with their Russian counterparts be accused of collusion? Especially by the Washington Post? I find it hilarious that Michael McFaul is the lead author for this article. He was the U.S. ambassador to Moscow from 2012 to 2014 and he helped sour relations with the Russians no end, especially when he was found secretly ‘colluding’ with Russian opposition groups.
In fact, Russia banned him ever going back about a year or so ago for taking an “active part in ruining bilateral relations [between the US and Russia] and persistently promoted the idea of exerting pressure on Moscow”. The article also forgets to mention that Bush pulled the US out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty back in 2002 which I would call a significant step in nuclear negotiations. Is McFaul really a person worth listening to on the subject of negotiations?
“The Right Kind of Arms Race and MAD!” am I the really only person who finds this to be insane?
No.
Speaking of McFaul, Natalia Veselnitskaya was pictured sitting behind him in a 2014 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in 2014. Anyway, looks like Veselnitskaya is coming under the spotlight again, regarding Loretta Lynch issuing her an unusual “parole” VISA in September 2015 after she was denied a standard VISA earlier that year. The whole Russiagate thing is coming apart at the seams.
Major US stock indexes are green at 9:45 am.
VIX briefly rose over 50 at the open as inverse funds are obliged to follow the ancient rule of Wall Street:
The bit about “prison” is pure hyperbole, of course.
VIX went as high as 80 in the Oct 1987 crash. But values above 40 are never sustained for long. They represent a “blood in the streets” buying opportunity.
Now the Dow’s up 250 at 9:55 am. BOING!
“And poor Mr. Bix!
Every morning at six,
poor Mr. Bix has his Borfin to fix!
It doesn’t seem fair. It just doesn’t seem right,
but his Borfin just seems to go shlump every night.
It shlumps in a heap, sadly needing repair.
Bix figures it’s due to the local night air.
It takes him all day to un-shlump it.
And then…
the night air comes back
and it shlumps once again!
So don’t you feel blue. Don’t get down in the dumps.
You’re lucky you don’t have a Borfin that shlumps.”
theodor geisel, who rumour has the true voice behind paul simon’s musings..
And don’t forget the recent reboot of one of Gissels’ early film ventures, now retitled; “The 5000 Finagles of Hillary C.”
Oh well. Time to get on out and look for work. I got laid off last week. My unemployment cheque works out to $4.40 per hour, so…..
“Welcome to da Sout!” (The template for the rest of the country if certain “powers and dominions” have their way.)
Sorry to hear that ambrit. Good luck out there.
x2. Good luck.
Thanks to all. I’m learning lots about being a ‘deplorable’ these last few years. Updates as anything interesting happens. (Where is that “Worlds Smallest Violin” when I need it?)
IIRC, the company that used to manufacture the World’s Smallest Violins™ was bought out by a private equity firm in a hostile takeover, hollowed out, and ended up filing for bankruptcy. No wonder you are having a hard time locating one.
In all seriousness though, allow me to echo the sentiments of others here and send you my best wishes.
i’m surprised she agreed to do that after the nineties disastrous rehash, “the gingrich who sold christians”.
Yes, I was sorely disappointed at the ending of the ‘rehash.’ Instead of the gingrichs’ heart growing ‘three sizes that day,’ the very heart itself was redacted away!
Not to quibble, but wasn’t it Saint Ronnie who ‘sold christians’ to the mullahs back in 1980? (Along with assorted munitions.) To their credit, the mullahs in Tehran actually did display signs of having hearts by releasing the christians from durance vile after Saint Ronnies’ apotheosis.
That sucks. Best of luck.
As above, so below. ‘Moral’ support is as important as material in times of stress. Thanks again.
I’ve also heard that this is an ancient rule of wall street:
In a downturn, money is not destroyed. It is transferred.
To us.
It’s arbor day here, a box laden with a dozen from an internet nursery via UPS, showed up on our front doorstep yesterday. Fruit trees all seem to run around $25, no matter how rare of a variety they are.
One of the new arrivals is a Flower of Kent apple tree, the very same that Newton figured out that gravity thing, watching an orb descend from on high.
To keep them from harm’s way, it runs about $50 a tree for 3 metal posts and 7 foot high chicken* wire surrounding said triangular
enclosure.
* A few years ago I was in OSH and asked the clerk where their chicken wire was?
He gave me a pouty look and said “Sir, it’s called poultry wire now”. Political correctness to the nth degree, ha!
THE oPIOD crisis wILL bE OVER very sOON
Had to smile while reading the Vox rebuttal, with its petty sniping over Roiphe’s Twitter references, mocking her implications of “thought policing” while proving her point with the same sentence and damning with faint praise — “Roiphe has certainly never let criticism stand in her way,” indeed. Movement politics is a messy business. Certainly no more so when you attempt to represent the views and opinions of roughly fifty percent of humanity.
The Vox article was a study in verbal violence……… pretending to be just the opposite. I.e.:
“Roiphe’s piece is part of a larger strain of #MeToo backlash, one that casts survivors and their allies as repressive agents eager to punish anyone with whom they disagree. This view conflates criticism with prosecution and discomfort with oppression. The current conversation around sexual harassment and assault is new for many people, and it’s no surprise that some are uncomfortable.”
Note the manipulative language throughout: every accuser is a ‘survivor’; every critique comes from the ‘uncomfortable’. It’s an Orwellian Newspeak tour de farce. The writer knows quite well that when ‘criticism’ is managed so that the ‘criticized’ aren’t allowed to present a defense, it is de facto prosecution. The sneering, condescension in the last sentence is particularly extreme, and begs for condemnation. It is a bit of wholly pretentious hauteur, devoid of balance, from a writer reveling in contempt for the whipping boys du jour.
You know who is notably missing from this arch little piece? The women who — for decades — walked off of these ‘creative’ jobs rather than put up with this crap. Or the ones who continued within these businesses after taking a hit when they told some big guy to shut the **** up. The current Sturm und Drang is being whipped up primarily by the complicit, who want to horn in on some absolution now, not by those of us who ever stood apart and fought one by one against it over the years…. before it was fashionable. Before there was an elegant little mob action to revel in.
Lol GUESS WHERE THE ZOMBIE CRAWFISH IS FROM?
Florida.
An editing error in the Emptywheel article: ” The Trump Administration’s deviation from past practice in destroying improperly obtained data would be responsible for any harm to Trump.”
Shouldn’t “destroying” be in scare quotes? Is there the slightest evidence they really did it?
Dear JHB;
I know from relatives who live there that in Florida, they are not averse to pinchin da tails.
Trump represents those who OWN USA.
They have been unhappy with the Deep State, who manage the USA for them! Trump is not Deep State, he is there to trim them down and allow the newer crowd to take over.
US citizens are to continue to be farmed by their landlords, but under newer management.
Oh, sorry, did I interrupt all that clever chatter? Please continue to obscure the reality….
o “As Bitcoin Bubble Loses Air, Frauds and Flaws Rise to Surface | NYT” — Hey, NYT, here’s some news for you: beneath that ‘surface’, there’s nothing but more frauds and ‘flaws’. IOW, there’s no ‘there’ there.
o “The right way to manage nuclear competition with Russia | WaPo” — Um, not engaging it it? Yah, I know, that’ll never work because all those key members of WaPo subscriber and ownership base can’t massively enrich themselves by grifting off it. Sorry!
o “Trump’s Lawyers Want Him to Refuse an Interview in Russia Inquiry | NYT” — Sound advice – let’s hope Trump’s ego doesn’t get in the way of him acceding to it. Mueller’s open-ended fishing expedition is bad enough, this would be a classic perjury trap – just ask Gen Flynn!
o ““We are the death merchant of the world”: Ex-Bush official Lawrence Wilkerson condemns military-industrial complex | Salon” — After having made a well-paid career and cushy retirement nest egg from playing an important part in the same merchantry, naturally. I mean it’s good to recognize the error of one’s former ways, but really now, this sort of too-late-to-actually-do-anything-about-it chest-beating and evil-decrying seems to been perfected by our Overload class into a kind of late-life sin-expiation performance art. (Yeah, I’m also looking at you, Alan Greenspan).
o Meet the Believers: The Afghanistan War’s US Commanders are Ready For a Reboot DefenseOne” — But will it be a thinking-outside-the-box disruptively smart reboot? Can any of our military Thought Leaders comment on this?