Quote of the Day -- Devastating Version

I just ran across this today out on social media. On President Donald J Trump.

It made wonder--and search--for who this Evan McMullin is:

David Evan McMullin (born April 2, 1976) is an American political activist and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operations officer who ran as an independent during the 2016 United States presidential election.

He labeled himself as the only true conservative running for President at the time, too.

You can see his original post here:

http://www.twianon.com/twiuser/EvanMcMullin

Link:

Evan McMullin

Now This President Wants to Adjourn Both Chambers of Congress--So He Can Stack the Courts

And now this Republican Party Gestapo agent--President Donald J Trump, in case you've been buried in sand for 3 years, wants to actually adjourn BOTH CHAMBERS OF CONGRESS so he can stack the courts with yet more Right Wing, no doubt inexperienced judges. He actually said it.

Trump threatens to adjourn 

both chambers of Congress

What part of this is not Fascist?

fascism
[ˈfaSHˌizəm]

NOUN
an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.
synonyms:
authoritarianism · totalitarianism · dictatorship · despotism · autocracy · absolute rule · Nazism · rightism · militarism · nationalism · xenophobia · racism · anti-Semitism

(in general use) extreme authoritarian, oppressive, or intolerant views or practices.

We're in the middle of a killing, international pandemic that, by the way, has most of the nation rightly shut down so we don't spread the virus and he declares he wants to, again, adjourn both houses of Congress so he can stack the courts.

Oh, and his claim yesterday that the WHO, the World Health Organization, didn't notify us all, the world, that there was a pandemic out there and that they were irresponsible so we should actually cut their funding---in the middle of this pandemic?

'We Alerted The World' To Coronavirus On Jan. 5, WHO Says In Response To U.S.

So much for that claim. Not this his followers and supporters will agree or understand or accept this.

Naturally, this President didn't do his homework. "The Constitution does grant the power to adjourn the House and Senate, but only if the two chambers are in disagreement over when to adjourn, which is not currently the case." (With thanks to Gabe Fleisher at "Wake Up to Politics" for that last bit).

Not done there, check this out.

CIA: Please Ignore Trump’s Medical Advice On Coronavirus

Now even his own, our own CIA is saying ignore this President.

God help us.

And thanks, Republicans! Thanks again. So much. That's quite the guy you've foisted on us all, on the nation.

Link:

Wake Up To Politics

The Trump Presidency and the End of Intelligence

There are two excellent, even important articles in today's New York Times it would be terrific if every voting age American would read today.

Here's the first.

The End of Intelligence

A bit from the article:

It is..."no accident that the Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year in 2016 was 'post-truth,' a condition where facts are less influential in shaping opinion than emotion and personal belief. To adopt post-truth thinking is to depart from Enlightenment ideas, dominant in the West since the 17th century, that value experience and expertise, the centrality of fact, humility in the face of complexity, the need for study and a respect for ideas.

President Trump both reflects and exploits this kind of thinking. It is fair to say that the Trump campaign normalized lying to an unprecedented degree. There was the candidate’s claim that legions of Arabs celebrated wildly in New Jersey as the World Trade Center collapsed. He defended his calls for the intentional killing of the Sept. 11 terrorists’ families because 'they knew what was happening' and had 'watched their husband on television flying into the World Trade Center,' something for which there is zero evidence. He insinuated that Senator Ted Cruz’s father had a hand in John F. Kennedy’s assassination and that the Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia had been murdered.

When pressed on specifics, the president has routinely denigrated those who questioned him, whether the 'fake' media, 'so called' judges, Washington insiders or the 'deep state.'”

The second article is on not President Trump but someone from his political party, Devin Nunes, the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chief.

How Devin Nunes Turned the House Intelligence Committee Inside Out

In inquiries on Benghazi and Russia and beyond, the California congressman has displayed a deep mistrust of the expert consensus on reality — a disposition that has helped him make friends in the current White House.

I submit that this is a truly twisted man we have as President of our United States presently, making these potentially dangerous times. I also submit that this is not an over-reaction, in any way.

This, third article is from last year, last July and is equally important and, again, even frightening on what has been happening to our State Department.

How Rex Tillerson Is Wrecking 

the State Department

Finally, the "end of intelligence" is a double-entendre on my part. I mean it as both the end of some of our nation's intelligence communities, like the CIA and FBI and DoJ as well as the end of some human intelligence.

I hope people are reading.

How Bizarre the Trump Pre-Presidency Already Is

Check this out.

Donald Trump isn't even president yet, isn't yet sworn in, he's still only president-elect and already, his presidency just keeps getting more and more bizarre.

Already, he's thrown a broadside at China--twice, and now this. The following is absolutely what has already taken place, in the last few days.



Really.

God help us, folks. God forgive his voters, his supporters and God and the Heavens above help the rest of us.



Link:  How 2016 is turning into George Orwell's '1984'

Quotes of the Day, Donald Trump Edition

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool." --William Shakespeare

"A wise man knows he knows nothing."    --Socrates

Donald Trump says he doesn't need intelligence briefings

The actual quote is that he says he doesn't need daily intelligence briefings because--his words--he's "...like, a smart guy."

Fact is, he's not even LIKE a smart guy.

If you're Vladimir Putin, wouldn't YOU want this guy as your opponent?

Most Dangerous Nation In The World?

There is a terrific article out today over on TomDispatch. It's all about America--what we've been doing for some time, across the globe, what we're capable of and what we may yet do.

The Most Dangerous Country on Earth

It ain't Russia, kids.

The article poses the possibility of whether we, the United States, are, very likely and literally, the most dangerous nation in the world.

Honestly, no hyperbole, I think it's unquestionable.

Given our "yooge" army, our military and all our weapons and what we spend on what we call "defense" alone, that can be argued. Then, when you add in how many nations in the world we have military bases in? Over 700? All interfering in other nations' internal affairs?

Oh, yeah.

We think ourselves the most peaceful, peace-loving people in the world, sure. Standing up for peace and justice and fairness and right and equality. Sure we do.

But the truth? What we actually do? What we've done? What we're doing?

Read the article.

As it states, we just had the head of our own "..leading domestic investigative outfit...", the FBI, interfere in our own national election for our president.

Karma is most surely a bitch, isn't it?

And then, consider these facts. First, we spend more, as a nation, on what we call defense, than any other nation and in huge numbers.

Secondly, we supply more arms to the world than any other.



After repeatedly interfering in other nation's elections, at times assassinating one here or there and just "taking others out", our own investigative unit guides our own election.

The irony is virtually dripping.

You can go way back, at least decades, into what America has done in other nation's affairs or you can go to far more recent history with the Republican Party's and George W. Bush's very chosen war in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein. And then there's all over the Middle East, of course, and Southern and Central America.

So, yeah, America, get over yourself. Look around. You are the biggest threat to world peace in the world.

And you have been for some time.

And you have no intention of stopping.

On This Election, Donald Trump and Russian Intervention

A Facebook friend of mine and area resident, one Kent Hartland wrote and posted the following on Facebook today. I thought it worth the time and thought.

The CIA says they have clear evidence Russia is hacking into American servers in an attempt to alter the apparent outcome of a presidential election. Twenty states have also reported evidence of Russia attacking servers in an attempt to overthrow state-wide elections for congress. Yet most folks here seem oblivious or complacent.

If Russia assassinated one of our candidates or launched a strike against us to eliminate the person we chose as our leader, we would all be down at the recruiting station to enlist. But that is what they are doing. The 21st century equivalent of a Regime Change. A political assassination.

No matter what your politics, if you claim to be an American, a patriot, then this should be your line in the sand. Do not facilitate, accept, brush aside or look away from what is currently happening.

Russia has launched a cyber attack on America. Our president has promised a proportional response. Russia is warning it's citizens and America of the growing risk of nuclear war.

Nuclear war.

This from CNN:

"It is now clear that the illegal hack of my personal email account was -- just like the other recent, election-related hacks -- the work of the Russian government," John Podesta said in a statement. "This level of meddling by a foreign power can only be aimed at boosting Donald Trump and should send chills down the spine of all Americans, regardless of political party."

Trump has called on Moscow to hack into Clinton's computers, downplayed criticism of Putin's authoritarian tendencies, tried to suggest that Russia hasn't hacked US systems and promoted foreign policy positions that jibe more closely with Moscow's than Washington's. He's relied on aides with ties to Russia and most recently, quoted an incorrect Russian news report to raise questions about Clinton.

"Russia, are you listening?" Trump said from the stage of a rally, calling for a foreign country to interfere in an election, an unprecedented moment in presidential politics.

Trump has taken foreign policy positions that analysts say would please Russia, declaring in March that he would consider pulling the US out of NATO because it's "obsolete." The 28-member organization, founded in 1949 to defend against the Soviet Union, is the core US-Atlantic security mechanism.

Trump campaign advisers have had ties to Russia. Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort lobbied on behalf of Russian-backed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich. Carter Page, described at one point by the campaign as an informal policy advisor, reportedly had investments in Russian gas company Gazprom and has publicly criticized the US in a speech in Moscow.

A Trump security adviser, Lt. General Mike Flynn, the retired head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, attended a December gala for the the state-backed Russia Today television network, placed two seats away from Putin, according to Politico.

Trump's refusal to release his tax returns makes it impossible to get a full sense of his investments and whether he has any in Russia, but he does have business ties to Russians.

Trump has also written about trying to build a Trump property in Moscow since 1987 in his book "The Art of the Deal," signing his most recent deal to build in Moscow in 2013, according to the Washington Post.

The Republican candidate worked with Russian oligarchs to stage the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013. And his son Trump Jr told a real estate investment conference in 2008 that "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets," adding that they "see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."

"I've been there many times, I've spent quite a bit of time in Moscow looking at deals," Trump Jr. said.

---

If Russia doesn't want Clinton or the Democrats in power and DOES want Trump and the GOP in, that should tell you who to vote for.

Stand. Take a strong and immediate stand against these attacks. Russia cannot see a divided America, where some of the citizens are cool with Russia literally trying to overrule our choices for elected officials.

Back to me:

I don't think this, he, is overstating the situations. Seems like good to great food for thought.

Additionally, this story broke yesterday.

Trump's refusal to accept intelligence briefing on Russia stuns experts

I hope this is all only fascinating.

CIA Whistleblower, Missouri-born, In Prison

I hadn't heard this story but one CIA whistleblower, Jeffrey Sterling, "...an American lawyer and former CIA employee who was arrested, charged, and convicted of violating the Espionage Act for revealing details about Operation Merlin to journalist James Risen."  

Mr. Risen you may remember:

,,,is the author of the book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (January 2006). The book conducted important investigations into Central Intelligence Agency activities. It states that the CIA carried out an operation in 2000 (Operation Merlin) intended to delay Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program by feeding it flawed blueprints for key missing components—which backfired and may actually have aided Iran, as the flaw was likely detected and corrected by a former Soviet nuclear scientist the operation used to make the delivery. In early 2003, the New York Times refrained from publication of the story after an intervention by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice with the NYT Executive Editor Howell Raines.

So Mr. Sterling "blew the whistle" on the CIA over their own illegal activities and now he's in jail. 

He's originally from our own Cape Girardeau. He also got his Juris Doctor degree from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling was being investigated during the Bush administration. In 2010 he was indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917, one of the few people in US history whose alleged contact with a journalist was punished under espionage law.

In May 2015, Sterling was sentenced to 3½ years in prison.

So one more time, our government is found doing things illegal---against our own laws---as with Edward Snowden, it seems, someone blows the whistle, so to speak, and they end up in jail, no one else.

And check this out. According to the Wikipedia entry on Mr. Sterling:

Sterling was convicted of espionage charges on January 26, 2015. Sentencing was originally scheduled for April 24, but after learning of the sentence of no more than two years’ probation plus a fine given one day earlier to David Petraeus for the felony of providing classified information to an unauthorized person, Sterling's lawyers submitted a plea that Sterling "not receive a different form of justice" than Petraeus, asking for a similarly lenient sentence instead of the 19 to 24 years imprisonment sought by the federal prosecutors.

So the white General "provides classified information to an unauthorized person" and gets probation. 

The black guy in the CIA gets 3-1/2 years?

Really?

That's what passes for justice in America?

Link:  How Jeffrey Sterling Took on the CIA — and Lost Everything

What we didn't know, what we need to learn

And what we need to be sure we never repeat.

From Ezra Klein