Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Kunstler: The Odor Of Democrat Desperation


The swamp abides. The latest news media dumpster fire over President Trump’s phone conversation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is a three-way ruse. Ruse 1: deflect attention from the main issue, which is Joe Biden’s trolling for payoffs on his missions to foreign lands as vice-president, first Ukraine, where son Hunter was gifted a board of director’s chair and $50K-a-month salary with Ukrainian gas company Burisma, and then a $1.5 billion “private equity investment” to Hunter Biden’s wealth management fund from the state-owned Bank of China. Ruse 2: to deflect attention from the damage soon to be inflicted on the Deep State by the forthcoming DOJ Inspector General’s report on FISA court abuses. Ruse 3. To set in motion yet another obstruction of justice trap for Mr. Trump on the basis of false charges.

This comes at the instigation of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who was formerly senior legal counsel to John Carlin head of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice, deeply implicated in the FISA court matters of 2016 under investigation by federal prosecutor John Durham. Mr. Atkinson cited a complaint by an unnamed whistleblower who claims to have heard from a source that the President offered a quid pro quo to Ukrainian President Zelensky for reopening the Burisma case. The “whistleblower” may be Mr. Atkinson himself.

Of course, gaffe-prone Joe Biden spilled the beans on video earlier this year, when he bragged about shaking down Ukraine’s then-president Petro Poroshenko over a billion-dollar loan guarantee unless he fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma, which he did. Is there any ambiguity here?


The coordination between the news media and the Deep State is impressively blatant in this new gambit, with former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe (dismissed for cause in 2018), in his new position as a CNN “contributor” (while awaiting prosecution) teeing up a new “Trump collusion” narrative with The New York Times, WashPost, and NBC marching in step. In this new age of disinformation, narratives are the political weapon of choice in the campaign to harass and disable the winner of the 2016 election. The big play of RussiaGate failed, the play of “racism” is failing, so UkraineGate is next up.

It’s also obviously an effort to reenergize the impeachment operation in congress, badly botched so far by Jerold Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee. But it’s hard to imagine a better entertainment than an impeachment of Donald Trump in congress. Unless the Deep State wants to throw former President Obama under the bus, along with dozens of his associates (including Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Biden), they might be advised to call off that circus. A trial in the Senate, where the GOP runs the proceedings, would be an even better table-turner than the rousing climax of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

I have a new theory about where the 2020 election is heading: if the Democratic Party candidate happens to lose, the party’s lawyers will unleash a blizzard of litigation in every voting district where the outcome was a couple of thousand ballots against them. It will be the 2000 “hanging chad” fracas on steroids and they will go so far as render the election inconclusive, therefore provoking the most parlous constitutional crisis since the start of the Civil War. In other words, they will dare to disable the republic.

Something or somebody will have to put a stop to these seditious turpitudes. The machinery of the law must be turned on the “resistance” and its operatives in the Deep State. Mr. Barr has the opportunity to do that. A globe of silence has enclosed his doings for many months. Impatient observers jump to the conclusion that the silence means he is doing nothing. I am not so sure of that. Given the purposeful hysteria ginned up so dishonestly in the press — and so injuriously to the actual public interest — don’t you suppose he would want to avoid tossing dynamite into that dumpster fire? By the same token, those actively stoking the dumpster fire are revealing their utter desperation. The unexpected consequence will be the suicide of the Democratic Party. But then people don’t necessarily get what they expect, they get what they deserve.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Hong Kong Local Explains What is Happening There

HK now is a classic example of the ever increasing power of the oligarchy (mostly property tycoons) and the ever increasing power of the State (or perhaps forceful state as its slowly morphing into) colluding for today at the expense of tomorrow.

The oligarchy – top local tycoons and legislators – were called to a meeting in Shenzhen – where they were pressed upon by the communist party to distance themselves from, and indeed condemn, the protests. This was on news sites…so they’re not even pretending there……

In truth, the extradition bill is just the last straw in a 20+ year of corrosion of the laws and autonomy that enabled Hong Kong to advance into a world class post-industrial connected economy.

From another local, a Tom Yam:
“Many young people feel they have no future. They see the economy controlled by a cartel of tycoons in collusion with the government. They see the hypocrisy of the pro-Beijing establishment. Government officials urge them to go study and work on the mainland, while sending their own offspring to the West. Affluent owners of second passports and second homes in Western democracies tell them to be patriotic and accept creeping authoritarianism.
Worse, they see no chance of change for the better. The chief executive is not accountable to the citizens of Hong Kong. She answers to the Chinese Communist Party leaders who anointed her;
Meanwhile, the legislature rubber-stamps colossal and unnecessary infrastructure schemes like the HK$1 trillion (US$128 billion ) Lantau reclamation project, which will transfer Hong Kong’s fiscal reserves to mainland companies bound to secure most of the construction contracts. Youngsters understand opportunity cost: That money won’t be spent to improve housing and healthcare for Hong Kong people."
Welcome to China under Xi Jin Ping…..who wants to take China back to the future …to the ‘glorious era of Qin Shi Huangdi, the First emperor who started construction of the great wall’….

Communists do not know how to make money….They are brilliant, and quite ruthless at taking your money…..