monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Quote:

The lawsuit by Mr. Nunes had the perhaps unintended effect of sharply increasing the reach of @DevinCow, the parody account that had around 1,200 followers before the lawsuit was filed. The account was up to 46,000 followers as of Tuesday morning and rapidly growing.

How rapidly? By last night, the "Devin Nunes' Cow" account had over 217,000 followers. As I type this morning, it has over 327,000 followers.

In fact, the comedic account, created to mock Devin Nunes, now has nearly as many Twitter followers as Devin Nunes.

This might be an interesting suggestion — if Brazil was located somewhere between Greece and Britain. NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization and is a European-North American alliance, which is, in many ways, tailored to the two regions. To add Brazil, Trump wouldn’t just have to “talk to a lot of people,” but he also would need to get all NATO member states to agree to change Article 10 of the alliance’s 1949 founding treaty, which states that only European countries can join, besides Canada and the United States.

To be fair, others have similarly suggested that it might be time to modify that part of the treaty and open the alliance to new members such as Australia, Japan and New Zealand. More than a decade ago, James M. Goldgeier, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that adding new countries from outside Europe could be beneficial, “especially at a time when Europeans are having trouble meeting their own defense commitments.”

But unlike Trump, advocates of changing the founding treaty were arguing in favor of a stronger and emboldened NATO. The president has often appeared interested in achieving the opposite.

Although Trump frequently lashes out at European NATO members for not spending enough on defense, granting membership to Brazil would not be viewed as a way to correct the balance sheet — but instead as another attempt by Trump to disrupt the alliance. Some of Trump’s remarks have raised doubts about the core principles that underpin the alliance’s mechanisms, and members would approach any Trump suggestion with caution.

”Unlike every president since 1949, President Trump has been inconsistent and unpredictable regarding his commitment to NATO, leaving allies in doubt. So, suggesting offhand a change that would require American leadership to gain consensus to revise the treaty seems a reach,” said Douglas Lute, who was the U.S. permanent representative to NATO between 2013 and 2017.

Even if the founding treaty were changed in Trump’s favor, the United States would not be able to add countries by itself, but would need the approval of all other members. Nations such as France and Germany probably would object to welcoming a right-wing president who has been accused of attacking democratic institutions and whose polices may violate NATO accession rules.

Article 5
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Article 6 1
For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.

Those hoping or expecting to read that report, however, will likely be disappointed. It probably won’t see the light of day. That prospect, however, is not as troubling as it might seem, because the inordinate focus on Mueller’s closing report is misplaced. The document might be only one of three or more “reports” to emerge when the Russia investigation ends. The other reports, which will be submitted to Congress and parts of which may well become public, are likely to be far more revealing and more significant than what’s being called “the Mueller report.”

There are other non-European allies that enjoy NATO friendly "global supporters" such as Australia and Argentina., so Brazil isn't that much of a stretch.

We all ready have the United Nations. Isn't this duplication?

We all ready have the United Nations.

We all ready have the United Nations. Isn't this duplication?

Iran is a member of the UN.

United Nations Appoints Iran to Global Women's Rights Commission

A UN court has rejected an appeal by Bosnian Serb former leader Radovan Karadzic and increased his sentence to life in prison.

The tribunal on Wednesday ruled that his initial sentence was too light.

In 2016 Karadzic, 73, was found guilty of genocide and war crimes by a UN tribunal in The Hague and given a 40-year prison sentence.

He planned the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 - the worst atrocity in Europe since World War Two.

Karadzic had said his conviction was based on "rumours". He launched an appeal against his sentence last year, telling judges that the expulsion of Muslims and Croats in the 1990s had been "myths".

Karadzic, a former psychiatrist, was president of the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War in the 1990s.

The tribunal rejected the majority of Karadzic's appeal.

Judge Vagn Joensen said the original sentence was too lenient, given the "sheer scale and systematic cruelty" of his crimes.

An Oklahoma sheriff and all of her deputies have quit in protest of dangerous - possibly lethal - conditions at an old rural county jail.

Nowata County Sheriff Terry Barnett said the dilapidated jail had near-toxic carbon monoxide and mould levels and no fire alarms, among other issues.

Prisoners have been housed in another jail since the end of February due to these safety concerns.

The officers quit after a judge ordered them to return prisoners to the jail.

At a news conference on Monday, Ms Barnett announced that she, along with her undersheriff, deputies, head dispatcher and the majority of the jail staff, were resigning over the "inexcusable" conditions.

The rural jail's carbon monoxide levels were just two points away from lethal and four employees had been taken to hospital as a result, she said. The jail has been closed since that incident.

Other problems at the facility include exposed wiring with outlets that have shocked inmates, no surveillance cameras, faulty sewage lines with methane leaks, inadequate staffing and even "an episode of a snake falling on the head of a prisoner when opening a door".

An audit from the American Correctional Association had listed out all of the facility's issues in a 69-page report earlier this month, local media reported.

But Judge Carl Gibson said he would hold Ms Barnett in contempt of court if she would not re-open the jail.

"I cannot do so in good conscience," Ms Barnett told reporters. "I believe in doing the right thing."

The sheriff, who took office in November, also alleged the judge suggested he could raise her salary during a meeting where he tried to convince her to re-open the facility.

The judge has declined to comment on the allegations, local media say.

"Under no circumstances will I shove anything under the carpet concerning Nowata County," Ms Barnett said.

"I see without support it is only continuing to create a dangerous situation. Instead of looking for solutions many would continue to hope and pray that nothing would happen.

"I too hope and pray that nothing happens, that our prisoners remain safe wherever they are, and that our employees remain safe."

On Wednesday, the county appointed an interim sheriff, the Tulsa World newspaper reported.

At least five sheriffs have previously resigned from Ms Barnett's role since 2015, according to the newspaper.

Ms Barnett replaced the incumbent sheriff, who had been charged with embezzlement for allegedly using donated school supplies to promote his own election campaign.

Reaction to Ms Barnett's resignation has been mostly positive, with many on social media calling the officers true role models for following their ethical beliefs and protecting the safety of all residents.

People often misquote Winston Churchill as having said that we can judge the level of civilisation in a society by the way it treats its prisoners. In fact, it was Fyodor Dostoyevsky who said: "The degree of civilisation in a society is revealed by entering its prisons." Winston Churchill actually said that a society's attitude to its prisoners, its "criminals", is the measure of "the stored up strength of a nation".

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For those who deny the Srebrenica Massacre occurred, the law thinks very differently.

While I am personally convinced that the official narrative about Srebrenica (a deliberate mass murder or even genocide organized by the Bosnian-Serbs) is false, I have also come to believe that this was not a “simple” false flag attack either. Srebrenica was a simultaneous combination of the following:

1. Combat operations between regular Bosnian-Serb forces and Bosnian-Muslim forces attempting to break out of Srebrenica.
2. The “spontaneous” execution of a number of civilians and POWs by Bosnian-Serbs seeking revenge.
3. The deliberate execution of a number of civilians and POWs ordered not by Bosnian-Serbs but by some Yugoslav (Federal) officials.
4. A deliberate PSYOP by the USA to grossly inflate the number of victims and blame the Bosnian-Serbs.

That's one scumbag who won't be seeing the light of day.

U.S. Islamist Leader Calls for Stigmatizing Words He Calls 'Islamophobic'

Anyone who uses terms including "jihadist," "violent jihad," "Islamist terrorism" or "Islamic extremist" is a hater who deserves to be shunned, an influential Muslim political leader argues.

"Anyone who uses the following terms is Islamophobic and must stop their hate," Omeish said.

NY Times Rewrites History, Claiming Most Jaffa Arabs Expelled in 1948

No Indication of Any Forced Expulsions

LeBor’s detailed book contains considerable descriptions of the Arab flight from Jaffa, and no indication of any forced expulsions. Historian Dr. Petra Marquardt-Bigman has noted that Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, a political-science professor who left Jaffa in May 1948 (and was also quoted by LeBor), likewise documented the flight of Jaffa’s Arabs. He wrote in an Al-Ahram (Egyptian newspaper) special from 1998 that the Arab National Committee levied a tax on those who left, an exodus that began with the wealthy. He himself volunteered to help collect the fee:

“I worked in a branch of the committee based in the headquarters of the Muslim Youth Association near the port of Jaffa. Our job consisted mainly of harassing people to dissuade them from leaving, and when they insisted, we would begin bargaining over what they should pay, according to how much luggage they were carrying with them and how many members of the family there were. At first we set the taxes high. Then as the situation deteriorated, we reduced the rates, especially when our friends and relatives began to be among those leaving.

“We continued collecting this tax until 23 April, when the combined force of the Haganah and the Irgun succeeded in defeating the Arab forces stationed in the Manshiya quarter adjacent to Southern Tel-Aviv. On that day, as we realised that an attack on the centre of Jaffa was imminent, I and my family decided that they had to be evacuated temporarily. We rented a van, into which we crammed all the women and young children and sent them to Nablus.”

On what basis does The New York Times report that “most” of Jaffa’s Arabs were “forcibly removed”? What historical documentation substantiates this claim, contradicted by Arab eyewitnesses?