[Babylon Bee] WASHINGTON, D.C.—After Attorney General Barr suggested that the FBI and other agencies spied on Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, former FBI director James Comey fired back.
"We did not spy," he told reporters as he stretched for his morning yoga class. "We just observed and reported secretly without the subject's knowledge or consent."
"See, I've never considered that spying," he added as he formed the "downward dog" pose. "That's just kind of secret watching. It's definitely not the same thing. When you spy, you watch someone without their knowledge. When you secret-watch, you just kind of secretly watch them."
"If we redefined spying to include all secret watching, we would have to include all the watching of American citizens on a daily basis as spying, and that probably wouldn't be good for our public image."
He then asked reporters if they would take a picture of him looking pensively up at the trees.
[Zeihan on Geo-Politics] I’m not going to more than obliquely address the UK elections coming this Thursday (December 12). Polls at this time point to a strong Conservative showing, largely because British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is a sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-Western, authoritarian, unrepentant Stalinesque bigot whose main message to lifelong Labor members is “vote for me because I’m not a Conservative.” Not exactly a winning program, and that’s before you take a look at his economic proposals. Corbyn is also personally for Brexit even if his party is semi-officially opposed.
I’m far more concerned with what will happen in the United Kingdom in the weeks and months to follow. Barring some truly impressive political gymnastics, the UK’s divorce from the European Union has been baked in for some time. And while it has been dizzily entertaining to watch British politics contort in its attempt to alternatively operationalize or deny that basic fact, this particular chapter is almost over and Brexit is about to happen.
As seems to be the case with me these days, looking forward first requires a look back.
Only a century ago, the British Royal Navy was the greatest the world had yet seen. The Brits used that incredible navy and their capable (if small) contingent of land forces to maintain an empire where the sun never set. That isn’t a metaphor, but instead quite literal.
But the ravages of the World Wars shattered the world’s navies and shattered right along with them the British Empire. The British were so desperate at times for war materiel that they signed away to the Americans the rights to many of the bases that made their empire.
What did they get in exchange? Fifty destroyers that were far shy of substandard when they had been built a quarter-century previous, along with a fistful of loans on terms that could best be described as usurious. This was Lend-Lease, the policy discussed in American history textbooks as a gesture of “goodwill.” The near-eradication of British power from the Western Hemisphere and the welding of British fortunes to American strategic desires was the first step in the creation of the American-led international system. Britain didn’t claw its way out from under the debts until the 2000s, and it still hasn’t gotten most of its bases back.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
12/10/2019 17:04 Comments ||
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#5
They paid back Lend Lease?
At 2% interest over 50+ years. Inflation paid for the bulk of Lend Lease. A lot of the equipment was sold to the Brits at 10% of cost (scrap rates). They elected to keep the equipment instead of returning it (at no cost) at the end of the war.
[Jpost] Ottoman Turkish President Recep Erdogan’s utter contempt for the rule of law and public opinion has cost The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund... the moral and symbolic components of the war in Syria. Erdogan has stampeded over all diplomatic niceties.
His style of diplomacy was first put on display in 2017, when his bodyguards beat up peaceful protesters in Washington, DC. The surreal melee, in hindsight, was a harbinger of what was to come to the Kurds in Syria. Instead of using peaceful means to address its security concerns and launching a diplomatic campaign to gain the backing of Turkey’s NATO
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/10/2019 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11124 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[American Thinker] The Democrats' obsession with impeaching President Trump by hook or by crook has devolved into a burlesque. It is as absurd as it is deadly serious.
We are watching the deterioration of the Democrat party as it tosses aside the Constitution and all rules of fairness and decency. Adam Schiff appears to believe he is a monarch who has the power to destroy any person who ruffles his feathers. He began constructing this Ukraine nonsense the minute the Mueller Report failed to find Trump guilty of their Russia hoax.
He is very likely close to Eric Ciaramella, who likely agreed to play the role of whistleblower when in fact he is just another anti-Trump member of the coup cabal. Thanks to a stealthy change of regulations, no longer was first-hand knowledge of a "crime" required to be a whistleblower.
Schiff held hearings in secret and prevented the Republicans from calling their own witnesses. He refused to release transcripts of any witness who undermined his narrative that Trump is guilty of something, anything. During the public hearings his committee held, he refused to let witnesses answer certain questions.
In short, the entire enterprise has been corrupt. That the Democrats let Schiff, Nadler and Pelosi abuse their power so egregiously is the crime. No one but their die-hard Trump-hating base to whom they owe fealty will take them seriously for years and years.
Once the AFL-CIO supported the new NAFTA, the Democrats had no choice but to formally support it as well. Union support now for the Dems is almost all gone.
The timing -- the day the Dems formally decided on impeachment articles -- is hilarious.https://t.co/twLwHDJjWb
Posted by: 3dc ||
12/10/2019 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life,
#1
According too the linked Yahoo News - Pelosi has painstakingly worked to bring labor on board.
All credit to San Fran Nan.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/10/2019 8:49 Comments ||
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#2
They call it USMCA for the initials of the countries involved. They missed a bet: could have called it CAMUS, to give a hint of how depressing it'll turn out to be.
#3
MOTHER died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the
Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP
SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.
[Rudaw] Over the last several years, the State of Israel has become the strongest supporter of Kurdish rights and independence ‐ in a rhetorical sense if not a practical one.
At the time of the Iraqi Kurdish referendum on independence in September 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went on record as officially supporting an independent Kurdistan. He was the only national leader in the international community to do so.
#1
Whole platoons of Israelis were stationed with the Peshmerga
Imagine that...sniff.. Israel. Always heroic. David-like. Altruistic without posturing. Of course they mustn't go overboard helping them overtly. The world doesn't work this way.
It would immediately suit the world if the Kurds were revenged and settled and got their own nation, carved from Iraq and Syria; and a ready military stood to fight any resurgence of daesh or their remnants. I reckon it would still be as lawless and pathetic a state as any the terrorists themselves could run. And with that would come requests for aid. A dark well of slowly growing corruption like Afghanistan and Iraq. Sometimes biting the hand that fed it.
I know some guys who gave up their commissions, their citizenship, packed their bags and went to Iraq and Syria to live with Kurds. They were all deep core Marxist and radical fighters though. And young. 'Biji Kurdistan !' That was the new thingy for them. The peshmerga have been a siren call for armed adventure for some really brave/foolish fighters from everywhere, for some time now.
Naturally, they do get aid. Sympathetic entities that won't be named find multifarious ways and means to aid them. It's very grey, this area though; which is why they would like to remain distant in the media eye. Some ways and means would even raise questions in treacherous lower house committees and a lot of 'whisteblowing', so it's better this way. Traitors are alway ready to tear apart coalitions, topple govts and destabilize their own countries to brab power.
On a funnier note, here's our contribution. Typically Indian. Not a penny spent or even arm lifted.
'All ye, seek the uninterested gods with a fervent mind now.'
#3
But...but Dron, they are darlings of the media!
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/10/2019 12:46 Comments ||
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#4
I know. I like them too, if only for their courage and hatred for salafists. I like the pasthuns fighting against Taliban too. And the Balochis. Of course I pity them more, because eventually they'll die of Allan one way or another.
[CNBC] Lockheed Martin is the top-grossing defense firm in the world and the U.S. government supports that business to the tune of more than $37.7 billion.
In 2018 alone, that business from government contracts represented 70% of Lockheed Martin’s $53.7 billion revenue for the year, as it beat out its contemporaries Boeing and Raytheon.
These funds are granted by Congress to provide equipment that enables the U.S. military to protect the country at home and abroad. To ensure that, politicians work with defense contractors to provide equipment to the military. This partnership creates a unique opportunity for private corporations to execute the will of the government and requires a delicate balance.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/10/2019 11:26 Comments ||
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#6
So lets all hate LM. That's the ticket. LM get $50 billion dollars, OK lets see where that goes. First they make products for the military, probably accounting for 30% of their intake is materials. Materials bought in the US of A. Then there is the labor and G&A costs at about another 40-45%. This leaves 25 -30% for profit. Lots and lots of cash. This company is not privately owned, so the cash goes out as dividends to the share holders. Bad Wall Street taking all that cash. But looking deeper we see that EVERY 401K in America, except for those non military niche funds, have LM in their portfolio. So most everyone here on the Burg has a 401K and is benefiting from this tax dollar returning to America fund. So I have one last question, who do you want to make these military products? Mexico? Pumping $50 billion back into our economy for military products beat ONE USAID dollar going to Somalia, or any other dumb congressional pork product..
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/10/2019 11:46 Comments ||
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#9
What 49 Pan said. Also, the net profit margin is certainly in lower: free cash flow available to equity is certainly much smaller. So, no, LM is not ripping anyone off.
#15
The problem is that more profit for LM means that the unelected US government has an incentive to start more wars. The billions it makes enable it to lobby very effectively and create a system of graft, a revolving door of corruption. Government officials that represent LM's interests know that they'll be rewarded with lucrative jobs later.
It's what Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address.
"Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
-- Farewell Address, January 17, 1961
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
12/10/2019 15:56 Comments ||
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#16
Dont' stop there Herb -
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
#17
I actually worked for Lockheed for awhile, at NASA. I thought it was a pretty nice company. I didn't want to relocate to Houston and there was a job with SAIC at Aberdeen (Maryland, not Scotland). SAIC gets lots of DoD business, too. Lockeed gets more because they do good work. SAIC, at least the job I worked on, was rife with cronyism, buzzwords, and bullshittery. One database "expert" I had to work with didn't know what a view is.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/10/2019 19:45 Comments ||
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#18
As with any large organizations, you hope the engineers write the "mission statement" actual purpose. With ANY org there will be dilettante assholes. I made sure they didn't work for me - for long
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/10/2019 19:49 Comments ||
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#2
Someone is teaching them that the 'new socialism', married to Systems Theory, AI, and internet tech will be different.
That the old socialism was imperfect, it awaited a liberal distribution of empowering technology, self-defeating laws arranged by left interest groups, and rich facilitators ensnared by promises of grandeur in history. That this time, it's the perfect 'ism' to bring in the march of god on earth.
A lot of this teaching is being done in universities, by academics trained by other academics paid and propped up by shady foundations in Europe. The lowest rung proselytes actually believe the shit they teach and don't even need to be bribed. For them an invitation to a cocktail-soiree or the chance to be patted on the back by one of their academic deities is enough.
We've had to analyze a lot of their private communications and inner circle literature, you see.
"What ?! You've been spying on private commun... Dicktaytorrs ! I shall see you hung at the Hague !!" - 'erb
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Jpost] 
[American Thinker] The Democrats' obsession with impeaching President Trump by hook or by crook has devolved into a burlesque. It is as absurd as it is deadly serious. 
[Rudaw] Over the last several years, the State of Israel has become the strongest supporter of Kurdish rights and independence ‐ in a rhetorical sense if not a practical one. 
