monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

You geezers are always fun.

Meanwhile, hurricanes keep blowing; thousands of kids detained in the US, separated from their parents, and nobody has a clue when it will end. Cops keep shooting black folks like rabbits on the first day of hunting season... The American people keep being disempowered, manipulated, and lied to. Any of this stuuf is far more important than Ms. Warren's genetic make up.

The US has asked Turkey for a recording said to provide strong evidence that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed at Istanbul's Saudi consulate.

"We have asked for it, if it exists," President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House.

Mr Khashoggi has not been seen since entering the building on 2 October. Saudi Arabia denies killing him.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post has published the last column Mr Khashoggi wrote before his disappearance.

In the column he talks about the importance of a free press in the Middle East.

The newspaper's Global Opinions editor Karen Attiah said its release had been delayed in the hope that Mr Khashoggi would return safely.

"Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post," she wrote. "This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A freedom he apparently gave his life for."

What did the last column say?
Mr Khashoggi presented a strong criticism of the state of press freedoms in the Arab world: "The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power.

"The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events. More important, we need to provide a platform for Arab voices."

He mentioned the case of his fellow Saudi writer, Saleh al-Shehi, who he said "is now serving an unwarranted five-year prison sentence for supposed comments contrary to the Saudi establishment".

"Such actions no longer carry the consequence of a backlash from the international community," he wrote. "Instead, these actions may trigger condemnation quickly followed by silence."

My take is that this recording does exist, but is was not made with the apple watch but by other means. By disclosing the tape the Turks run the risk of exposing how they are spying on foreign embassies/consulates.

My take is that this recording does exist, but is was not made with the apple watch but by other means. By disclosing the tape the Turks run the risk of exposing how they are spying on foreign embassies/consulates.

(...)

McInnes is open about his glorification of violence. In a speech explaining Proud Boys, McInnes described a clash with antifa outside a speech he gave at NYU last year: “My guys are left to fight. And here’s the crucial part: We do. And we beat the crap out of them.” He related what a Proud Boy who got arrested told him afterward: “It was really, really fun.” According to McInnes, “Violence doesn’t feel good. Justified violence feels great. And fighting solves everything.”

He proceeded to mock the fighting prowess of antifa: “They’re easy prey”; “it feels sexist to beat them up, cause when you punch them it feels like a girl”; “it’s only fun to beat up the first three.”

Then, in keeping with his stance that the Proud Boys simply represent a return to groups that used to play a large role in American civil society (you know, like the Shriners), he declared the Proud Boys “normal.” All they want to do is have kids, live in the suburbs, and love America.

(...)

Trump's reticence isn't surprising, considering the complete lack of authenticity in the controlled media, but in this instance, the planet needs to see some justice, and soon.

the Jewish house of Saud 

Quote:

the Jewish house of Saud 

That says a lot...

Washington (CNN)Ever since reaching a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller, Paul Manafort has kept the Russia prosecutors busy.

The former Trump campaign chairman and his lawyers have visited Mueller's office in Washington at least nine times in the last four weeks, a strong indication that the special counsel is moving at a steady clip.

September and October at first glance appear to be quiet periods for the investigation, under the Justice Department's guidelines to avoid public political acts before the midterm elections. But the quiet period has seen a persistent murmur of activity, based on near-daily sightings of Mueller's prosecutors and sources involved in the investigation.

In addition to Manafort, Mueller's team has kept interviewing witnesses, gathered a grand jury weekly to meet in Washington on most Fridays, and kicked up other still-secret court action. Plus, the discussions between the President's legal team and the special counsel's office have intensified in recent weeks, including after the special counsel sent questions about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. The President's attorneys are expected to reply to the questions in writing.

People around Trump and other witnesses believe more criminal indictments will come from Mueller.

Attorneys who have dealt with Mueller's investigators and other officials expect that the special counsel's efforts, now 17 months in the works, will include an active post-election period a much-anticipated report where Mueller will outline what his investigators decided to prosecute and what they declined.

Why a US Divorce from Saudi Arabia would be Good for Us and Them

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Voices from the Right wing, prominently featured in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, are warning that the grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi by a hit squad made up of persons close to crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman should not mean the end of the close US relationship with Saudi Arabia.

I would concur with one part of this argument, which is that we should wish the country of Saudi Arabia well. But the current relationship of Washington and Riyadh is pathological in a lot of ways, and a policy rethink on both sides would benefit both countries.

Saudi Arabia is not the largest oil producer in the world, but it is the largest oil exporter, which is what is important. The US and the Russian Federation produce similar amounts, but they use most of it domestically. Saudi Arabia is important because it is the world’s swing exporter. It can export a lot or much less, and still get along because of its relatively small population.

The US has used the security umbrella it provides to the wealthy but weak Saudis as a leverage to have them up their production and flood the market at key points. They do this to weaken countries like Iran, which have far less flexibility and suffer when prices of petroleum are low. Or they do it to lower US gasoline prices to help the party in power.

The US also depends on the Saudis to buy US arms. Since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have wound down, companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing would suffer if they did not sell weapons abroad.

But both of these bases for the Saudi relationship with the US are very bad for everyone on earth. Burning petroleum to fuel cars puts billions of tons of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, which is threatening human welfare and civilization.

Petroleum has to be kept in the ground and the governments of the earth must marshal all their resources to make a rapid, as in 10-year, transition to public mass transportation and electric vehicles fueled by the wind and sun. The cynical US use of Saudi Arabia to flood the market must stop. Indeed, this tactic often lowers gasoline costs as an incidental side effect even where that isn’t the main goal, thus delaying the transition to electrical vehicles.

Saudi Arabia itself must get off its own dependence on oil exports, which Riyadh recognizes, and develop sustainable industries that will allow the country to develop normally after the end of oil.

Massive arms sales are also bad for both countries. The US is spreading around highly sophisticated death and destruction machines. Owning them has tempted the Saudis into the disastrous Yemen war, which threatens the civilians of the latter country with mass starvation. If the Saudis think such an event will not boomerang on them, they are sorely mistaken.

Lockheed Martin and Boeing employ phalanxes of smart engineers and scientists and they should turn their talents to fields like batteries and renewable energy, which will save humankind rather than destroying it.

So both petroleum and arms sales as the basis for the US-Saudi tie are bad for both countries and catastrophic for the globe and for human welfare.

For the US to throw the Middle East into more tumult, impelling mass migration to Europe and pushing that continent politically toward xenophobia and ultra-nationalism, is madness. Trying to contain Iran by keeping it from selling petroleum will fail, though not completely. But petroleum will be worthless in as little as a decade to a decade and a half, and that source of Iran’s wealth will dwindle into insignificance. For the US to risk Middle East stability when Iran’s riches are so ephemeral is poor strategy. We can wait the mullahs out. Imagine if Reagan had not rushed into an Afghanistan guerrilla war to foil the Soviets, at a time when the Soviet system was on life support and would soon die of its own accord. 9/11 would never have occurred without the Reagan Jihad in Afghanistan. Trump shouldn’t make the same fatal error with regard to fighting an Iran that will sink from its own obsolescence.

Saudi Arabia has acted as a profoundly anti-democratic force in the region. It backed the 2013 military coup in Egypt. It backed the radical Army of Islam in Syria, sidelining more democratic civil organizations. It is at daggers drawn with democratic Tunisia. It is increasingly at odds with Turkey, which at least has regular elections, whereas the Saudi royal family wouldn’t recognize a free and fair election if it fell on their heads from a great height. The US should be containing this authoritarianism, not enabling it, in the region.

The US needs to go into overdrive to promote electric vehicles and end world petroleum sales. It needs to contain Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian foreign policy, which has blighted hundreds of millions of lives. It needs to stop selling the world’s most advanced weaponry to a Saudi boy-king who likes to blow up civilian bridges in Yemen.

I genuinely say this not out of any dislike of Saudi Arabia. It is a great country with an impressive civilizational contribution, and its people deserve to flourish. But it is an absolute monarchy where no hint of dissent is allowed on pain of being subjected to a bone saw, and where the heir to the throne is a monstrous serial murderer. The US needs to pressure King Salman to find a different heir, who is a normal human being, for his throne, perhaps going back to the old more oligarchic power sharing of the past.

These steps would be good for Saudi Arabia, good for America, and good for the world.