North Korea: Kim’s Men ARTE Reportage
Den tyske TC kanal Arte, har lavet et interessant portræt af Nordkorea, der forsøger at forklare, hvorledes et fattigt og isoleret er i stand til at udvikle atom-våben.
Den tyske TC kanal Arte, har lavet et interessant portræt af Nordkorea, der forsøger at forklare, hvorledes et fattigt og isoleret er i stand til at udvikle atom-våben.
Som den amerikanske Kongres høringer og efterforskning af deres efterretningsvæsen skrider frem, tegnes et stadigt mere detaljeret billede af en flig af den modstand, der er og har været, også her, mod selve ideen om Trumps præsidentskab. Forleden blev endnu flere tekstbeskeder offentliggjort fra den tidligere FBI agent Peter Strzok, der sammen med sin hemmelige elskerinde i FBI, juristen Lisa Page, havde en overvældende korrespondence om deres fælles had til Trump, afsky for hans vælgere og, som det naturligste i verden, konspiratoriske planer om ikke at se Trump som Præsident.
Og det kan de næppe have stået alene med, som The Daily Caller skriver
The text messages were revealed Monday by North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, a member of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee.
“Our review of these new documents raises grave concerns regarding an apparent systemic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at the FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations,” Meadows wrote to U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the letter, which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation and first reported by Sara Carter.
Meadows pointed to text messages Strzok sent to Page on April 10, 2017, and April 12, 2017.
In the first message, Strzok, who then served as deputy chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, wrote to Page that: “I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go.”
Strzok was at that time the lead investigator on the FBI’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. He joined the special counsel’s investigation after it was formed in May 2017.
Der er grund til at være varsom med at tolke alt for meget langt i Strzoks skriverier. Folk i mellemlederstillinger, der mener at være sat til at ændre historiens gang, overdriver også deres eget virke. Det er næppe JustitsministeriET!, som har sat sig for at konspirere med Strzok og bemærningnen om en ‘media leak strategy’ kan også referere til . Men tydeligt mener Strzok at hans ‘patriotisme, som han kalder det, vinder genklang blandt nogler personer i Justitsministeriet og at dette bare er en del af en normal - hvilket også er skræmmende, for de der kerer sig om retsstaten. Og Folkets valg.
Reaktionerne på den amerikanske senator og tidligere præsidentkandidat John McCains død var et tydeligt eksempel på Trump Derangement Syndrom. Medierne studsede end ikke ved at hans datter Meghan McCain, mindedes sin far i lyset af alting Trump i hendes mindetale. Det vakte, ifølge medierne, enorm begejstring fra gæsterne, der talte tidligere præsidenter som Obama, Bush og Clinton, da datteren, med gråd i stemmen, sagde “the America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great”. Måske ikke for alle, bemærker Breitbarts Virgil
The Establishment, of course, never cared that, as a result, social chaos was increasing, wages were declining, regions were de-industrializing, and young Heartlanders—not Establishmentarians, of course—were getting killed and maimed overseas. So when Meghan McCain defined those days as “greatness,” well, that was what the Establishmentarians came to hear. She was patting the big shots on the back, and they were glad for the pat. And John McCain, of course, was the champion of that sort of Beltway bonhomie—and, especially, the bipartisan “fun” of foreign wars.
McCain havde før sin død, stærkt frabedt sig, at den siddende præsident skulle være til stede blandt gæsterne ved hans begravelse. “That seemed like a funeral not so much for McCain, but for an ideology which had once sustained America’s imperial hegemony, and is now on the way out” bemærkede en på Twitter og en anden kommenterede at “Donald Trump wasn’t invited to John McCain’s funeral, because Republican presidents are usually not invited to Democrat campaign rallies”.
Det er ikke blot Breitbarts vinkel, selv The New Yorkers Susan B. Glasser bemærkede fraværet af sorg for et menneskes død til fordel for en tidsbunden dydssignalering. Da Obama med tydelig adresse til Trump beskrev tidens politiske debat som “small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult, in phony controversies and manufactured outrage” var der samhørighed i katedralen
Heads nodded. Democratic heads and Republican ones alike. For a moment, at least, they still lived in the America where Obama and Bush and Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney could all sit in the same pew, in the same church, and sing the same words to the patriotic hymns that made them all teary-eyed at the same time. When the two Presidents were done speaking, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” blared out. This time, once again, the battle is within America. The country’s leadership, the flawed, all too human men and women who have run the place, successfully or not, for the past few decades, were all in the same room, at least for a few hours on a Saturday morning. The President of the United States, however, was not.
McCain’s grand funeral—the Obama adviser David Axelrod called it an exercise in “civic communion”—underscored a fact that is often lost about Washington these days. The city is much more bipartisan, in some respects, than it has ever been, more united than it may currently seem, in its hatred of Donald Trump.
Med til begravelsen var dog repræsentanter fra det Hvide Hus, som Trumps Datter og svigersøn, Trumps sikkerhedsrådgiver og Det Hvide Hus chief of staff. siddende der i fjendeland spekulerer Glasser
What were they thinking as they heard the speeches? Why did they come? Were they embarrassed? Ashamed? Should they be? They should not be under any illusions, and I imagine they weren’t: this was a room full of people who hate much of what their boss is doing, and that they are letting him do it. Was a tax cut for the wealthy worth it? A few dozen judicial appointments and two Supreme Court seats?
Overvejelser der helt bygger på den præmis at den elite, som de har sat sig for at vælte har magt til at skamme dem ud. Mit gæt, uden at kende indersiden af deres hoveder, er, at de nok har fået bekræftet hvad det er de er oppe imod - og hvorfor de kæmper. Som Glasser lægger ser et håb i McCains bemærkelsesværdige begravelse symboliserer at “the final chapter has not yet been written in the Republican drama over what to do about the crude interloper who has taken over their party“, så går Breitbarts Vergils håb den modsatte vej. Med en dramatisk historisk reference til Kong Edward VII af Englands begravelse i 1910 - “remembered as a kind of Indian Summer for that earlier imperial era”. Trods pomp og pragt og besøg fra alle førende royale overhoveder “it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again”. Den gamle orden havde udlevet sig selv og den gamle elite fra helt løsrevet fra virkelighedens udfordringer. 4 år senere udbrød Første Verdenskrig.
Og Trump? “Midway through [Meghan McCains] remarkable speech, a pool report from the White House was released. Trump, wearing a white “Make America Great Again” hat, and having tweeted his morning complement of bile, directed at Hillary Clinton, Robert Mueller, and his own Justice Department, had departed to play golf.“
Men har længe kunnet læse om hvorledes dyrene sulter i de zoologiske haver indtil de bliver spist af lige så sultende borgere, folk, som Enhedslisten ’stærkt fordømmer’ og kalder “[T]he right wing opposition in Venezuela (…) dominated by extreme, fascist-like, tendencies” i dødelige kampe med sikkerhedsstyrker, der ikke går af vejen for at køre sine egne borgere over med pansrede køretøjer, drastiske stigninger i børnedødelighed og kvinder der dør i barselsengen, som sundhedsvæsenet bukker under, under manglen på alt, forretninger der plyndres for resterne, børn der dør af sult - hvilket er bagernes skyld, fiskere der bliver pirater, hyperinflation. Alt dette er “systematic distortions of the events in the international press” - ifølge Enhedslisten.
Daniel Pipes skriver i Wall Street Journal at især politikere (og akademikere generelt må jeg tilføje) er til fals for fikse ideer
As John Maynard Keynes put it, “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. . . . It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”
The story of Venezuela makes this point with singular clarity. In 1914 the discovery of oil brought the country vast revenues and produced a relatively free economy. By 1950 Venezuela enjoyed the fourth-highest per capita income in the world, behind only the U.S., Switzerland and New Zealand. As late as 1980, it boasted the world’s fastest-growingeconomy in the 20th century. In 2001 Venezuela still ranked as Latin America’s wealthiest country.
Venezuela’s troubles, however, had begun long before. Starting around 1958, government interference in the economy, including price and exchange controls, higher taxes, and restrictions on property rights, led to decades of stagnation, with per capita real income declining 0.13% from 1960-97. Still, it remained a normal, functioning country.
“The problem of Venezuela is no longer one of internal politics. It is a threat to the harmony of the whole continent” siger Brasiliens præsident Michel Temer, som begrundelse for, at Brasilien nu har sat deres væbnede styrker ind mod grænsen til det socialistiske eksperiment. Og det er noget af et eksperiment, med historien og bagklogskabens klare lys at opløse en førende oliestats økonomi på et par årtier. Fra Chaves tog magten i 1998 begyndte hans regime af ligesindede at plyndre landet sideløbende med ødelæggende socialistiske programmer. En failed state indrømmede selv The New Yorker.
En journalist og en fotograf fra Reuters tog sidste år på en bustur gennem landet for at bese elendighederne, der nu kun er blevet værre. Og Amy Horowitz leverede en stemningsbeskrivelse som modpol til socialistisk drømmende amerikanske vælgere
Det meste er bag en betalingsmur, inklusiv deres leder(?), så jeg vil ikke forholde mig til indholdet af Politikens fremlægning af alting Trump, der sikkert er i tråd med Jyllands-Postens, andet end at lade det illustrere via omfanget af omtale og skæbnesymfoniske overskrifter. En anden artikel på Politiken om “Trumps Inderkreds: De sigtede, de mistænkte og de forsvundne” indledes med sætningen “Den særlige anklager i Trump-Rusland sagen står stærkt efter dom over Trumps kampagneboss”. Den er også bag betalingsvæg, hvorfor man ikke kan hvorfor en dom over Manafort, der var kampagnechef i to måneder og som blev fyret efter det kom frem at han tidligere havde havde lavet lobby arbejde for ukrainske interesser uden at oplyse det til de relevante myndigheder og er blevet dømt for banksvindel og skattesnyd begået for ti år siden, skulle være knyttet til Trump, Rusland eller Trump-Rusland sagen.
Cohen, der tidligere har fastslået at betalingen af tidligere påståede elskerinder af Trump for deres tavshed, ikke var kampagnebidrag, har nu, hvor han har indgået et forlig, plea-bargain, om anklagerne imod ham for banksvindel og skattefusk, med ‘Muellers 17 vrede Demokrater’, hvis egentlige mål er Trump, erklæret sig skyldig i alligevel at have givet et kampagnebidrag af en ulovlig størrelse på vegne af en velvidende Trump. Cohens advokat, Lanny Davies, er en del af Clinton og Demokraternes kreds
SÅ lidt ekspertise er er vel på plads. Andrew C McCarthy sætter lidt perspektiv på forbrydelsens omfang, skulle Trump have begået en sådan
The Justice Department has a history of treating serious campaign-finance transgressions as administrative violations, not felonies. A prominent example: The 2008 Obama campaign accepted nearly $2 million in illegal campaign contributions, but was permitted to settle the matter with a $375,000 fine. Of course, the force of that argument is undermined considerably by the fact that Cohen’s infraction has been treated as a felony (as was Dinesh D’Souza’s comparatively tiny one, also prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York).
Still, as we’ve repeatedly pointed out, Justice Department guidance does not permit the indictment of a sitting president. (A president may be prosecuted once he leaves office.) The issue for President Trump is not whether he has committed a crime but whether he has committed a high crime and misdemeanor. On that score, I will repeat what I said about mitigation in the aforementioned column, drawing on the lessons of the Clinton impeachment misadventure in the late Nineties:
The further removed misconduct is from the core responsibilities of the presidency, the less political support there will be for the president’s removal from office. This is critical because impeachment is a political remedy, not a legal one. The way the Framers designed the process — which requires just a simple House majority to file articles of impeachment, but a two-thirds Senate super-majority for removal — no president will ever be removed from office absent misconduct egregious enough to spur a consensus for removal that cuts across partisan lines. Such misconduct would surely have to involve either (a) an abuse of power involving core presidential powers; or (b) an extremely serious crime (if unrelated, or only tangentially related, to presidential power).
The conduct here is not of the egregious nature that rises to high crimes and misdemeanors — it is an infraction committed by many political candidates and often not even prosecuted. More to the point, it is remote from the core responsibilities of the presidency, implicating pre-election actions to conceal alleged indiscretions that occurred a decade earlier. And while the president has denied the indiscretions, it is not like the allegations come as any surprise to the public, who, while well aware of his flaws, elected Donald Trump nonetheless.
(Mere om det udramatiske i Obamas 2008 kampagnerod kan man læse hos Politico, for fuld nørderi). Og Andrew C McCarthy, Alan Dershowitz, Mark Levin og herunder Derek Hunter i Town Hall, har svært ved at se, der overhovedet skulle være tale om en lovovertrædelse for Trumps vedkommende
But in the guilty plea Cohen claims he committed campaign finance law violations to “influence the election.” This is where the wheels come off.
It doesn’t matter what Cohen thought he was doing, or why he thought he was doing it, what matters is the law. If Donald Trump had Cohen pay off these women then paid him back, that’s not illegal. Anyone, even a politician, can pay off anyone they want to keep quiet. Cohen’s plea says he did it to influence the election, but his motivation is irrelevant. What matters is the money.
If Trump paid to have his lawyer keep these women quiet, he was allowed to. Theoretically he wouldn’t have wanted this public because he’s married with children, and he was running for president and didn’t want it to be an issue. Whether he did it or not doesn’t matter, what matters is if he used campaign funds to pay Cohen or he paid out of his own pocket.
He’s allowed to pay people to sign non-disclosure agreements on any topic as long as the money comes out of his bank accounts or that of his business, no matter the motivation (though he’d have several unrelated to the campaign). He can’t use campaign funds to pay Cohen or pay himself back, and there’s no indication that he did.
Og Mark Penn fra The Hill, der ikke tilhører nyhedsorganisationer, der normalt indeholder et forsvar for Trump, spekulerer videre
The plot to get President Trump out of office thickens, as Cohen obviously was his own mini crime syndicate and decided that his betrayals meant he would be better served turning on his old boss to cut the best deal with prosecutors he could rather than holding out and getting the full Manafort treatment. That was clear the minute he hired attorney Lanny Davis, who does not try cases and did past work for Hillary Clinton. Cohen had recorded his client, trying to entrap him, sold information about Trump to corporations for millions of dollars while acting as his lawyer, and did not pay taxes on millions.
The sweetener for the prosecutors, of course, was getting Cohen to plead guilty to campaign violations that were not campaign violations. Money paid to people who come out of the woodwork and shake down people under threat of revealing bad sexual stories are not legitimate campaign expenditures. They are personal expenditures. That is true for both candidates we like and candidates we do not. Just imagine if candidates used campaign funds instead of their own money to pay folks like Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about affairs. They would get indicted for misuse of campaign funds for personal purposes and for tax evasion.
There appear to be two payments involved in this unusual agreement. Cohen pleaded guilty to a campaign violation for having “coordinated” the American Media payment to Karen McDougal for her story, not for actually making the payment. He is pleading guilty over a corporate contribution he did not make. Think about this for a minute. Suppose ABC paid Stormy Daniels for her story in coordination with Michael Avenatti or maybe even the law firm of the Democratic National Committee on the eve of the election.
By this reasoning, if the purpose of this money paid, just before the election, would be to hurt Trump and help Clinton win, this payment would be a corporate political contribution. If using it not to get Trump would be a corporate contribution, then using it to get Trump also has to be a corporate contribution. That is why neither are corporate contributions and this is a bogus approach to federal election law. Note that none of the donors in the 2012 John Edwards case faced any legal issues and the Federal Election Commission ruled their payments were not campaign contributions that had to be reported, both facts that prosecutors tried to suppress at trial.
Argumentet om at pengene var et de facto kampagne bidrag fordi det ville gavne Trumps kampagne rammer ind i en myriade af spørgsmål, thi man kan tænke sig allehånde eksempler på forbrug af penge, der kunne gavne en valgkamp fra nye tænder til kandidaten. Og, påpeger Dershowitz, “You don’t charge people with a crime when the law is vague”. Og Penn spekulerer videre
Contrast what is going on here with the treatment of the millions of dollars paid to a Democratic law firm which, in turn, paid out money to political research firm Fusion GPS and British spy Christopher Steele without listing them on any campaign expenditure form, despite crystal clear laws and regulations that the ultimate beneficiaries of the funds must be listed. This rule was even tightened recently. There is no question that hiring spies to do opposition research in Russia is a campaign expenditure, yet no prosecutorial raids have been sprung on the law firm, Fusion GPS or Steele. The reason? It does not “get” Trump.
So, Trump spends $130,000 to keep the lid on a personal story and the full weight of state prosecutors comes down on his lawyer, tossing attorney-client privilege to the wind. Democrats spend potentially millions on secret opposition research and no serious criminal investigation occurs. Remember that the feds tried a similar strategy against Democratic candidate Edwards six years ago and it failed. As Gregory Craig, a lawyer who worked both for President Clinton and Edwards, said, “The government theory is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. It is novel and untested. There is no civil or criminal precedent for such a prosecution.” Tried it there anyway and it failed.
For noget andet seriøst nørderi kan jeg anbefale dette indlæg af Andrew C McCarthy, hvor bl.a kernen i ovennævnte John Edwards eksempel forklares.
Et billede på danske mediers dækning af USA og Trump, her ved Jyllands-Posten, den borgerlige avis
Det tåbeligste af vejen først, artiklen om advokaten, der påstår at Cohen har oplysninger af interesser for efterforsker. Det er Cohens advokat, der er sat til at varetage sin kriminelle klients interesser, som antyder at Cohen kan sandsynliggøre at Trump vidste at ‘russerne’ ville hacke Demokraternes servere (ingen ved om serverne er blevet hacket eller om at der er lækket fra dem - det sidste er det mest sandsynlige). Den historie forudsætter at ‘russerne’ har henvendt sig til Trump og afsløret deres planer om “at ødelægge det amerikanske demokrati” i sikker forvisning om, at Trump ikke ville gå til myndighederne med denne eksplosive viden, hvis ikke fordi han var et lovlydigt menneske eller en patriot, så for at score nogle gode politiske point midt i den amerikanske valgkamp. Stor tillid en af verdens dygtigste efterretningsvæsener viser en storskrydende forretningsmand og TV stjerne - og svindler, som vi skal kigge nærmere på.
Søren Espersen fra Dansk Folkeparti, indrømmer ikke at vide “meget om” “amerikansk statsjura”, men “forstår på dem, der har forstand på det, at dette er en meget alvorlig situation for præsidenten”. Han lytter til de forkerte. Artiklen indledes med dramatisk at slå fast at “Der er uhørt stærkt pres på USA’s præsident, Donald Trump, som undersøges for ulovlige forbindelser til Rusland i valgkampen i 2016″. Og så opklares følgende rod
Trumps tidligere kampagnechef Paul Manafort blev kendt skyldig i svindel med skat og banker og for ikke at oplyse om sin udenlandske bankkonto.
Kendelsen ses som den hidtil største sejr for specialanklager Robert Mueller. Han undersøger, om der var forbindelse mellem Trumps kampagnestab og Rusland.
Tirsdag erklærede Donald Trumps tidligere advokat Michael Cohen, som i mange år var hans nærmeste rådgiver, sig skyldig i skattesvindel og ulovlige bidrag i valgkampen.
Michael Cohen forklarede under ed, at Trump beordrede ham til at begå en forbrydelse, da Cohen i 2016 betalte to kvinder for at tie om deres seksuelle forhold til Trump. Præsidenten afviser, at han havde et forhold til kvinderne.
Så Trumps tidligere kampagnechef og hans tidligere advokat er i fedtefadet for intet at have med Rusland at gøre, intet at vide om Rusland, men derimod for noget de har gjort førend Rusland overhovedet kom ind i billedet. Men godt at få nævnt Rusland, nu historien er gået fra at undersøge alting russisk med det perspektiv at Kreml har begået amerikansk statskup - en decideret krigshandling - og de facto regerer USA gennem deres marionet Trump, til et pinligt torskegilde for en tidligere ansat.
Tidligere kampagnechef for Trump, Paul Manafort blev arresteret ‘at gun point’ midt om natten i sit eget hjem, hvor hans kone blev visiteret i sin egen seng, for eventuelle skydevåben gemt i hendes nattøj, da FBI åbenbart ikke mente at kunne udelukke at hun ville skyde sig selv og familien fri af anklagerne om ’svindel med skat og banker’ og for at hendes mand ikke havde oplyst om sine udenlandske konti. Men intet Rusland. Intet vedrørende Trump eller valgkampen. Dette er den største sejr ifølge artiklen, der ikke kan se at det er et de facto nederlag. Manaforts skattearrangementer ligger et ti-år tilbage og er helt og holdent hans egen og hans lurvede partners affære.
Anderledes er det med Trumps tidligere advokat Cohen. Heller ikke her er der skyggen af russere, hvis man ignorerer hans advokats mediestrategiske udgydelser, men der er skyggen af valgkamp og Trump. To kvinder, hvoraf den ene er en tidligere voksenfilm-skuespillerinde, påstår at have kendt Trump intimt, back in the days, hvilket Trump skulle have (og grangiveligt har) bedt Cohen om af ‘fixe’ ved at betale de to kvinde nogle hundrede tusinde dollar hver, for ikke at blabre ud om disse, for den amerikanske nation så trivielle forhold, midt i en valgkamp. Dette er, i modsætning til hvad mange i pressen tror for tiden, helt lovligt.
Men, hvis man tolker betalingerne som et indirekte kampagnebidrag, så overstiger beløbet så langt, hvad der er tilladt førend man skal underrette myndighederne. Og dette er ikke gjort. Hvis vi holder os til tolkningen om, at der reelt var tale om et kampagnebiddrag, i og med at man forsøger at holde saftige oplysninger om Trumps væsen ud af den politiske debat og ikke at Trump blot ville sikre sit ægteskab mod sladder - hvad der jo er en realistisk mulighed - så er det stadig ikke Trumps problem. Trump bad sin advokat om at ordne et par kedelige forhold, advokaten har ansvaret for om løsningen holdt juridisk.
Så tilbage til Trump som svindler, som en ekspert Jyllands-Posten har talt med kalder ham. Hun mener at vide “at Trump lige nu er ualmindeligt nervøs” fordi Cohen tilhører “hans absolutte inderkreds”. Eksperten Mette Claushøj er dog ikke juridisk ekspert, hvilket måske forklarer udsagn som
»Hvis Cohen bliver kendt skyldig, så bliver han kendt skyldig i noget, som præsidenten er medskyldig i, og det er meget skadeligt for Trumps ry både politisk og blandt befolkningen,« siger eksperten, som vurderer at »man skal være mere end almindelig konspirationsteoretiker, hvis man skal forestille sig, at Michael Cohen skulle sige det her, hvis det ikke passer«.
Det sidste først. Cohen har indgået en ‘plea-bargain’, en aftale med anklageren, hvor han tilstår nogle af anklagerne mod at andre droppes, hvilket sparer alle for besværet og usikkerheden med en retssag. Så, ja, hvad kan Cohen dog have af interesser i at sige noget, som måske ikke er helt sandt, til de af hans anklagere, hvis egentlige mål er på den ene eller anden måde at inkriminere Trump i et eller andet, russisk eller ej? Og igen, klienten er ikke i udgangspunktet medskyldig i advokatens håndtering af hans opgaver, hvorfor eksperten Claushøj ikke kan konkludere, at “hvis Cohen bliver dømt, så har Trump løjet.”
“Nu er det slut med at lade, som om at præsidenten er en stor uskyldighed, når han selv har bedt ham om at bryde kampagnefinanieringsloven” forsætter eksperten håbefuldt - og afslørende. Hvem har ladet som om Trump er en stor uskyldighed? End ikke Trump selv, der på forhånd advarede sine vælgere om, at de jo vidste hvad han var for een. Hvilket selvfølgelig også var et smart træk af ham fordi det samtidig var et gulvtæppe til at feje allehånde lurvede transgressioner ind under.
Spørgsmålet er jo derfor ikke om han er en stor uskyldighed, men om han er skyldig i hvad han bliver anklaget for, nemlig i samarbejde med den russiske regering “at ødelægge det amerikanske demokrati” og/eller “bryde kampagnefinanieringsloven”. To anklager det er svært at have med i samme sætning uden at fnise. Det sidste antager den forudsætning af Trump ikke kan være den politiske analfabet som han også er blevet beskyldt for at være. Men hvad, han er alting dårligt.
Det afslørende for Claushøj er den stråmand, der lufter sin frustration over at ingen af de anklager, som har været luftet i medierne, har haft fugls føde på sig. Skuffet gang på gang over at Trump ikke har ødelagt de amerikanske demokrati på hverken den ene eller anden måde, er der nu endelig et håb om at han på en eller anden måde må være skyldig i et eller andet. Han er måske i det mindste ikke en stor uskyldighed længere, hurrah - man må tage hvad man kan få.
Faktisk, forsætter hun optimistisk “begynder [Trump] at ligne den svindlertype, som han hele tiden er blevet anklaget for at være” - hvis vi ser bort fra ødelægger af det amerikanske demokrati. Og som Claushøj og Jyllands-Posten og det meste af MSM hele tiden antager, at han er, hvorfor de ikke reflekterer over, hvorledes to års spekulationer om russisk sponseret statskup er endt i torskegilder og pornostjerner. Ekkokammeret er selvforstærkende og en journalists formulering om at Trump “har betalt penge til to kvinder for deres tavshed i forsøget på at påvirke det amerikanske valg” (gennem at holde tand for tunge med forhold fra før Trump meldte sit kandidatur) fører direkte til socialdemokraten Nick Hækkerups spekulation i det “dybt bekymrende, hvis vi har en amerikansk præsident, som i et eller andet omfang har snydt sig til sin valgsejr”.
En kæde af crazy, der bliver forstørret i hvert led.
Der er et par kulturpersoner der er døde inden for de seneste dage. Soulsangerinden Aretha Franklin døde i går. Da hun var på toppen, spændte hendes stemme over 4 oktaver (Julia Andrews klasse) og hun var en rigtig kvinde, der forstod at man godt kunne ønske sig en mand, der kunne sætte hende på plads som en boss så hun vidste, han kerede sig for hende, uden dog at miste Respekt. Nu har musikken mistet hende, som vi danskere har mistet Benny Andersen.
Ja, Andersen var ikke så plat med sine små tø-høer, som jeg og hvor fuglene fløj i flok når de var mange nok, udnyttede han sprogets nuancer og dobbelttydigheder til det gode. Derfor er det også en stadig kilde til undren, når sådanne mennesker med raffinerede sind, bliver så platte som mine Franklin referencer, når de skråsikkert tramper sig ind i den politiske debat.
I Danmarks Radios lille artikel træder Andersens kunstneriske virke i baggrunden for hans meninger i islamdebatten. Så her mindes Andersens ven Mustafa Gezen, “vicerektor og formand for organisationen Dialog Forum, der vil bygge bro mellem folk fra forskellige kulturelle baggrunde”, hvorledes den ‘folkekære’ digter i 2008 var “rejst fra Lyngby til Aarhus for at deltage i ramadanmiddagen, fordi han var nysgerrig”. Som en 3 timers køretur i bil eller tog bliver beskrevet som ‘en rejse’, således opfattes en Ramadan middag også som et kulturmøde, der skulle tjene til inspiration for danskerne. Middagen, uden den månedslange faste, var rigeligt til at inspirere Andersen til at gøre op med danskernes ‘fremmedfrygt’ og fordomme om islam og i 2015 skrev han bogen ‘Sådan kan islam også være‘ i et forsøg på at “nuancere og korrigere en række af de usandheder, der florerer om islam og integration”. Det belønnede Dialog Forum med en dialogpris og i samme år. Også i 2015 var Mustafa Gezen fortaler for en “rummelig og brobyggende stormoske” i København - da som talsperson for Muslimernes Fællesråd.
At tale muslimernes interesser er en god dialog. Plads til mangfoldighed er for muslimer også kun plads til muslimernes propaganda i bybilledet såsom burkaer - det er ikke plads til bøsserne.
Det hører Andersen ikke. Ja, han “kunne beskrive danskerne med humor og ironi” fordi han var god til at lytte til de mindste nuancer i det danske sprog. Han var virkeligt meget, meget dansk. Men han var tonedøv i mødet med det fremmede, der vedblev at være en abstraktion og ikke noget konkret. Det fremmede var blot en spejling af dig selv, det samme, bare anderledes.
Nej, det fremmede er virkeligt fremmed og ikke et spejlbillede af ønsketænkning. Vidia ‘V. S.’ Naipaul havde rejst meget i de muslimske lande, observeret, talt og lyttet og havde så skrevet Blandt De Troende - det var forlægget for Martin Krasniks ‘De retfærdige - en islamisk stafet’. David Pryce-Jones mines Naipaul i National Review
In March 1979 I interviewed him for the BBC. He said to me, “I know that Trinidad, like India, the other ancestral strand, is a place without any possibility. If a place has some positive element you like to feel for it, it gives you a little hope. There is intellectual nullity there nowadays. No mind at all.” That last sentence is key. Mind is a universal value; everybody can acquire it just the way he did, and then they are civilized.
Those, and only those, who use their mind are able to escape from injustice and cruelty. Among the Believers and Beyond Belief are books of reportage on the horrors that he encountered in Muslim countries where mindlessness has taken control.
Liberals were slow to realize the extraordinary damage Vidia was doing to their aspiration that the world be what they would wish it to be. Some Indians have described him as a traitor to his race, and I once heard a Jamaican professor criticize him as “too brown.” The West Indian poet Derek Walcott accused him of fouling the nest and caricatured him in print as V. S. Nightfall (though he later apologized for this). In Marxist clichés, the academic H. B. Synge called him “a despicable lackey of neo-colonialism and imperialism.” But even those who disliked what he stood for acknowledged his mastery of the English language.
Vidia the writer had complete inner certainty. Inevitably he generated controversy, but he hardly bothered to read what was written about him or to respond to it. Nadira, whom he married after the death from cancer of Pat, filled his final years with grace. On the morning when the Swedish Academy announced his Nobel award, I rang to congratulate him. “Oh, you’ve heard of my little spot of luck, have you.” Nadira and he invited me to accompany them to Stockholm. The moment we reached the hotel, Vidia was swept off to a television studio. On the program with him were two previous Nobel winners, Nadine Gordimer and Günter Grass. They were agreeing that poverty is the whole motivation of Islamist terror. Vidia shot back that like millions of others he came from a poor family and did not commit terror. Infuriated by the liberal twaddle, he went to his room without dinner. About 2,000 people attended the ceremony, and Vidia was instructed to speak to them for not more than three or four minutes. On a podium, he then held up his watch, whose strap had just broken, and said that Julius Caesar invading Egypt had slipped on the sandy beach. An omen! Getting up, Caesar rallied his officers, “What I have, I hold.”
Vidia was a free spirit.
Ja, en køretur kan ses som en rejse og islam som værende mange ting. Men mange af de ting, er der grund til at frygte. Islam kræver magten og i så tilfælde må du sluge hele pakken. Og det er ikke blot den månedslang faste, der skal overholdes, hvis man ikke vil ‘mærke at man lever’ på sine rygstykker.
Palæstinenserne er i krig med Israel og har derfor en krigsøkonomi, hvor ressourcerne ledes hen mod terrorsektoren, skriver The Tower
A Palestinian terrorist, who murdered a 31-year-old Israeli man in the West Bank community of Adam on Thursday, has been declared a “martyr” by the Palestinian Authority and is entitled to a one-time payment of $1,600, as well as monthly salaries starting at $380, under the PA’s “Pay to Slay Program.”
The 17-year-old Palestinian terrorist Muhammad Tareq Dar Yusuf fatally stabbed Yotam Ovadia, a father of two young children, and wounded two other Israelis, in a frenzied attack in Adam last week.
A day after the murder took place, Yusuf was hailed a “martyr” in an article published in the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Shiri Moshe reported in The Algemeiner on Monday. According to a translation by Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli research and advocacy organization, the same description was used in a Facebook post published the same day by the Bethlehem branch of Fatah, the party of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
Men palæstinenserne er, som muslimer flest ikke kun prosaiske og der er masser af åndelige værdier der motiverer jødedrab, fortæller de gladeligt herunder. Det er ligemeget om det er civile eller endda børn, fortæller en palæstinenser om sine terrordrømme. En anden har ambitionen om at blive martyr, for alle elsker sådan en. Min mor ville blive kisteglad fortæller en tredie. Allehånde forskellige drømme der motiver disse unge mennesker om de foretrækker kniv, pistol eller bombe, alle har deres egen stil. Men det grundlæggende er, at tro på Allah får vi fortalt, og de døde lever i Paradis, hvor de får 72 jomfruer - og den kvindelige martyr er den smukkeste af jomfruerne, så der er noget til alle. Det er ikke bare noget de selv finder på, det står skrevet
PALESTINIAN JIHAD from Pierre Rehov on Vimeo.
Det er svært, at diskutere sameksistens på de præmisser.
“[W]hen do we see almost a shadow government come out and say, ‘We cannot side with the government, whether it’s the cabinet or the Senate” spurgte den tidligere terrorekspert for både CIA og FBI Philip Mudd retorisk CNNs Anderson Cooper. Og guderne skal vide, at det ikke er manglende vilje blandt efterretningsvæsenets top. Foragten for folkets mand Trump og frygten for, hvad han kan gøre mod ’sumpen’ er tydelig, som Victor Davis Hanson gør opmærksom på
No federal official, in the manner of Andrew McCabe, should be in charge of investigating a suspect whose campaign affiliates have recently donated huge amounts of money to the investigator’s wife’s prior political campaign. And a DOJ official is required to state whether he has conflict of interests that affect his performance in the manner in which Bruce Ohr allegedly did not cite his own spouse’s employment for the Clinton-funded Fusion GPS Steele project, or his own contacts with those concerned.
No doubt the idea of impeaching Rod Rosenstein may be misplaced. But Rosenstein himself must know that in such politically charged times he has by needs played some sort of prior role in the Uranium One investigations, the Clinton email investigations, the FISA court warrants, and the collusion investigations, and that these issues swirl around both his current prosecutorial choices and may at some future date put himself in legal limbo. Clearly, if there exists such a doctrine of recusal, he should have long ago recused himself in the fashion of Jeff Sessions, who may have had far less exposure to charges of conflicts of interest.
It wins the Mueller investigation no favors that its origins, by the admission of former FBI director James Comey, were instigated by the leaks of confidential presidential memos by Comey himself — and then coincidentally led to the selection of Mueller, a friend of Comey and for a moment, before his special-counsel appointment, an apparent willing aspirant to be Comey’s replacement as FBI director.
A second worry, of course, is the necessary appearance of political neutrality, crucial for public support for any high-profile federal special inquiry. Robert Mueller needlessly incurred criticism by his own appearance of conflicts of interests, when, for example, he did not disclose promptly the reasons for the departures of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok from his investigative team, and delayed notice until much later after their severances, and seemingly staggered their reassignments to cloud any inference that they were related and prompted by their shared incriminating texts.
Mueller did not need to include counsels on his team, again in such a politically charged atmosphere, who had earlier represented either the Clinton Foundation or contractors for Hillary Clinton under suspicion for the destruction of key evidence.
It would have also been wiser to have gone beyond the law and either have insisted that his legal team’s members had not been donors to either presidential candidate, or, barring that, to have included roughly equal numbers of 2016 partisans. No doubt there are individual complexities and extenuating circumstances surrounding the retirements, resignations, firings, or forced reassignments of a spate of FBI and DOJ officials. But it is not conspiratorial or improper to suggest that something is wrong in Washington when the public was never really told the initial circumstances surrounding the fates of James Baker, Peter Kadzik, Michael Kortan, David Laufman, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Lisa Page, James Rybicki, and Peter Strzok.
Baseret på en rapport, Steele rapporten, udarbejdet på uverificerbare kilder fra Rusland, af alle steder, på vegne af Trumps direkte modstander til præsidentposten Hillary Clinton, gik FBI til domstolen for udenlandsk spionage (FISA court) og opnåede tilladelse til at aflytte og spionere mod Trumps valgkampsmaskine. Dommeren fik ikke at vide at FBIs viden ikke var viden og interesserede sig heller ikke for at få det afklaret, så spioneret blev der.
Det kom frem da Justitsministeriet offentliggjorde en bunke dokumenter, der kastede lidt lys over baggrunden for efterretningsvæsenets grundlæggende interesse for alting Trump. Men det meste i disse dokumenter var censureret (redacted) af hensyn til… Statens ansattes gode navn og rygte. Men hvad der gemte sig i mørket, mente republikanernes formand for sikkerhedsudvalget Devin Nunes, var endnu værre
“If people think using the Clinton dirt to get a FISA was bad, what else that’s in that application is even worse,” Nunes recently told the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel.
“There’s a stall game going on at DOJ and FBI – they’re trying to stall as much as they can, hoping and betting that Republicans would lose the House in the fall,” Nunes said. “And if that happens … it essentially shuts down everything. Rod Rosenstein will not be held in contempt, FBI will not be held accountable, all these investigations will shut down, everything will be buried…. That’s why the sooner the president declassifies this, the better.”
Det er noget af en rådden gestalt, efterretningsvæsenet der holder sig. Et giftigt meningsfællesskab har set sig selv, som på en særlig mission, hvor overordnede hensyn tilsidesatte de regler, der definerede selvsamme hensyn. Drengepolitik, med andre ord og denne opfattelse af at være en del af de få udvalgte med en højere mission rykker grænserne for almindelig moral umærkbart for den enkelte. Jeg tror Bombards Body Languages analyse, skønt dansende med selvbekræftende observationer, af Peter Strzok er rigtig. Strzok blev fyret fra Muellers hold, for at have udtrykt sin foragt og had til Trump i en masse korrespondancer han havde med sin ligesinde elskerinde i FBI Lisa Page
Mette Frederiksen foretrak at være en god mor frem for en god socialdemokrat, da hun efter at have skoset danske forældre for at fravælge den lokale folkeskole til fordel for en privatskole og således svigte at bære den samfundsbyrde som især er kommet tilrejsende med Socialdemokratiets stemmer. Det var en pinlig pille af hykleri hun måtte sluge, men da aviser skrev om at det var mønsteret over hele den humanistiske fløj, var det hurtigt overstået så idag kan hun kalde sig formand efter at have ventet Helle Thorning Schmidt ud.
Ingen politikere med blødende hjerter for Folkeskolen fravalgte deres lokale folkeskole, istedet tilvalgte de alternativet fordi deres poder alle som en havde specielle behov. En københavns lokalpolitiker argumenterede med at siden hans børn var adopteret for Asien, den charmerende del og ikke der hvor Pakistan ligger, så havde de bedst af at være omgivet af hvide, som blommen i et æg. Ikke megen tro på de multikulturelle lyksaligheder man ellers arbejdede intenst på at indføre for almuen. I solidaritet med den ængstelige middelklasse med værdierne i orden begyndte man derfor at arbejde på at skabe ressourceskoler, folkeskoler der satsede på netop de værdier, som tiltalte selvsamme humanister, som kreativitet og musik og som således sikrede hvidheden. På den måde købte man sig lidt respit på fortsat at støtte Folkeskoleideen uden at skulle ofre sine egne børn på ens fine menneskesyns alter.
Jyllands-Postens leder skrev forleden om det besynderlige i at de fleste folk ikke foretrak, selv at leve i deres humanistiske idealer
På en villavej i Tønder med det emblematiske navn Lærkevej er der gået skår i idyllen. Årsagen er den pikante, at en bosnisk muslimsk forening har købt et lille, gult murstenshus på vejen med den tanke at indrette det som »forsamlings- og bedehus«; beboerne fik en e-mail fra kommunen med det ordvalg.
Det var de ikke begejstrede for og startede derfor en underskriftsindsamling, ligesom de gjorde indsigelser under den kommunale høring. Flere end 30 husstande på Lærkevej har skrevet under på protesten, men da pressen – in casu Kristeligt Dagblad – opsøgte Lærkevej, var det langtfra alle, der havde lyst til at stå frem, og heri er noget karakteristisk. Mon ikke de fleste beboere på danske villaveje godt kan forstå de bekymrede borgere på Lærkevej i Tønder, sådan inderst inde og i det dulgte? Hvis man er vant til at leve stille og almindeligt mellem studsede hække og en fælles vejfest en gang imellem, kan det virke forstyrrende, hvis en religiøs forsamling pludselig flytter ind. Det er forståeligt. Men man forstår jo også beboernes ulyst til at sige for meget, for det skulle jo nødigt hedde sig, og man kan jo blive kaldt både det ene og det andet. »Nej, vi skal da ikke begynde at være decideret imod de her mennesker. Det er ikke noget racistisk,« som en beboer siger til avisen, hvormed han ligesom tager forskud på den forudsigelige fordømmelse af de frygtsomme beboere på Lærkevej, deres intolerance og fremmedangst, deres islamofobi.
Og efter at have draget en fin parallel til nabostriden på Sundvænget ved Strandvejen i det nordlige København, hvor en hovedrig plebejer truer Uffe Ellemann Jensen og hans distingverede naboers udsigt med sine byggeplaner - en skræmmende “yderligere fortætning i kommunen” - konkluderer Jyllandsposten
Eliten, der prædiker tolerance, bor langt fra de steder, hvor forandringerne føles. Det er ikke på Sundvænget, juletræet står til at blive afskaffet. Alligevel kender man også der til følelsen af ubehag ved det fremmede, ja, der skal faktisk meget lidt til at vække det, meget mindre end et bedehus. Blot tanken om at miste en flig af sundudsigten er nok til at få de tolerantes fremmedangst til at bryde ud i lys lue.
Idealer er altid lettest at opretholde på afstand, virkeligheden er en grum læremester. Mere diversitet betyder flere konfliktzoner, ikke bedre vilkår for frisindet. De fleste kan ikke tænke og må føle og det er venstrefløjens dilemma, skriver Thomas B. Edsall i New York Times
Ryan Enos, a political scientist at Harvard, published a book last year, “The Space Between Us,” suggesting that the ideological commitment of liberals in these and other similar communities may waver, or fail entirely, when their white homogeneity is threatened.
Not only is the upscale wing of the Democratic Party an unreliable ally of the left on economic issues — as I have noted in this column before and as Lily Geismer and Matthew D. Lassiter eloquently pointed out in The Times last week — but Enos demonstrates that the liberal resolve of affluent Democrats can disintegrate when racially or ethnically charged issues like neighborhood integration are at stake.
Enos havde ved et kompliceret forsøg, udsat hvide globaliseringsparate Demokrater for en lille symbolsk dosis diversitet i form af pendlende spansktalende og registreret en faldende velvilje overfor den slags i nabolaget. Og Enos skriver i “The Space Between Us”
The negative effects of diversity may be responsible for some of the profound differences between places such as Denmark and Zambia or Singapore and India. Noting that these four countries are all democracies, we see the consequences of voters — normally separated by geographic, social, and psychological space — coming together to govern and having to make decisions and allocate resources. It appears that when people are faced with these decisions in a diverse democracy, rather than a homogeneous one, they often choose not to do the things that “make democracy work,” failing to bridge the space between groups by cooperating to share resources and provide for the common welfare.
Og Edsall fortsætter sin læsning af “The Space Between Us”
Liberal democracies endorse diversity, Enos writes,
indeed, it is often considered one of our strengths and liberal individuals usually favor diversity as a matter of ideology and public policy. We often support diversity out of a genuine ideological commitment and because we rightly perceive that diversity can improve the performance of many organizations, such as universities and businesses.
But, he continues, “looking across the world and even across states and cities within the United States, most of us would rather not live with some of the social, economic, and political consequences of diversity.” This is what Enos calls “the liberal dilemma.”
Enos cites Gordon Allport, formerly a professor of psychology at Harvard, who described “contact theory” in his 1954 book, “The Nature of Prejudice.” Under the right circumstances, Allport argued, interracial contact could reduce hostility. Those circumstances, Enos notes, include “economic equality and social integration.”
In practice, Enos points out:
Allport’s conditions for prejudice reduction are seldom fulfilled. One of these conditions was that interpersonal contact would reduce prejudice when members of each group were of equal social standing.
In reality,
not only does equality between groups not exist, but true interpersonal contact across groups seldom takes place, even when groups are proximate. Two groups can live in the same area without having meaningful interpersonal contact.
It almost goes without saying that the patterns Enos describes have been crucial to President Trump’s political success.
Napoleon skulle have sagt at man aldrig skal forstyrre fjenden, når denne er i færd med at dumme sig. Og dummer sig, det gør Donald Trumps mange fjender. Det største fejltrin var at gøre brug af efterretningsvæsenet til at bedrive spionage imod hans valgkamp, for derefter, gennem lækage, at rejse et politisk postyr for at få ham og hans stab underkaster diverse efterforskninger for at have samarbejdet med Vladimir Putin, hans regime, disses støtter og bare russere i al almindelighed. Politisk har man fra mediernes side brugt selve eksistensen af processen imod Donald T til at deligitimere ham og hans præsidentskab, mens man har opvirglet allehånde venstreekstreme og entertainere til en fysisk revolte.
Donald T er dog ingen Josef K og går ikke i spåner over de mange diffuse anklager eller søger at rense sit navn. Han afviser kategorisk vanviddet og lader processen vikle sig ind i sit eget spind. Mens den tidligere administration forregnede sig på at Hillary ville føre den korrumperende arv videre så karrierebureaukraterne kunne fortsætte deres lyssky aktiviteter, stolede Trump både på sin evne til at vinde, sin egen uskyld og det amerikanske folk. Og hele det amerikanske folk kan man ikke snyde hele tiden.
FBIs interesse for Trump hviler, som det har været fremme før, på en rapport, som blev sammenfattet af en tidligere britisk efterretningsofficer ved navn Christopher Steele. Baseret på uunderbyggede kilder tegner Steeles rapport et fantastisk og kulørt billede af Donald Trump og hans russiske forbindelser, der er så tætte at det russiske efterretningsvæsen GRU har videobånd af Donald Trump og et par prostituerede der leger tisselege i et hotelværelse i Moskva. Således i lommen på russerne var det eneste logiske skridt at få Trump valgt som præsident, fordi den slags er noget man bare gør.
FBI brugte Steeles rapport som de bærende oplysninger, oplysninger der ser ud til at være grebet ud af den blå luft, til at opnå dommerkendelser for overvågning af Carter Page, et medlem af Trumps stab, blev det i sidste uge bekræftet, da FBI offentliggjorde hundredevis af dokumenter. National Reviews Andrew C McCarthy har tidlige benægtet at noget sådan kunne forekomme, og afvist de der spekulerede i sumpens målrettede angreb på Trump som konspirationsteoretikere. Men, indrømmer han nu med sorg i hjertet, “the crazies were right”
Now that we can see it all in black and white — mostly black, as they are heavily redacted — it is crystal clear that the Steele dossier, an unverified Clinton-campaign product, was the driving force behind the Trump–Russia investigation.
Based on the dossier, the FBI told the FISA court it believed that Carter Page, who had been identified by the Trump campaign as an adviser, was coordinating with the Russian government in an espionage conspiracy to influence the 2016 election.
This sensational allegation came from Christopher Steele, the former British spy. The FISA court was not told that the Clinton campaign was behind Steele’s work. Nor did the FBI and Justice Department inform the court that Steele’s allegations had never been verified. To the contrary, each FISA application — the original one in October 2016, and the three renewals at 90-day intervals — is labeled “VERIFIED APPLICATION” (bold caps in original). And each one makes this breathtaking representation:
The FBI has reviewed this verified application for accuracy in accordance with its April 5, 2001 procedures, which include sending a copy of the draft to the appropriate field office(s).
In reality, the applications were never verified for accuracy.
Homosexualitet er en aktivitet, der bør fejres over helheden, fordi detmener Københavns Universitet i tråd med tidens ånd.
I Behaviour Patterns of Child Molesters (1988, Erickson et al) kan man læse at ud af 229 dømte pædofile betagnede 86% af dem sig selv som enten homo- eller bi-sexuelle. I det tilfælde ville det være på sin plads at fejre den heterosexuelle pædofile med en parade rundt i fængselsgården for deres bidrag til diversiteten thi “Child molestation and pedophilia occur far more commonly among homosexuals than among heterosexuals” skriver Jon Dougherty på WND om den seneste forskning inden feltet blev oversvømmet af politik
Baldwin says his research not only “confirms that homosexuals molest children at a rate vastly higher than heterosexuals,” but it found that “the mainstream homosexual culture” even “commonly promotes sex with children.”
“The editorial board of the leading pedophile academic journal, Paidika, is dominated by prominent homosexual scholars such as San Francisco State University professor John DeCecco, who happens to edit the Journal of Homosexuality,” Baldwin wrote.
During his research, he also found:
- The Journal of Homosexuality recently published a special double-issue entitled, “Male Intergenerational Intimacy,” containing many articles portraying sex between men and minor boys as loving relationships. One article said parents should look upon the pedophile who loves their son “not as a rival or competitor, not as a theft of their property, but as a partner in the boy’s upbringing, someone to be welcomed into their home.”
- In 1995 the homosexual magazine “Guide” said, “We can be proud that the gay movement has been home to the few voices who have had the courage to say out loud that children are naturally sexual” and “deserve the right to sexual expression with whoever they choose. …” The article went on to say: “Instead of fearing being labeled pedophiles, we must proudly proclaim that sex is good, including children’s sexuality … we must do it for the children’s sake.”
- Larry Kramer, the founder of ACT-UP, a noted homosexual activist group, wrote in his book, “Report from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist”: “In those instances where children do have sex with their homosexual elders, be they teachers or anyone else, I submit that often, very often, the child desires the activity, and perhaps even solicits it.”
- In a study of advertisements in the influential homosexual newspaper, The Advocate, Reisman found ads for a “Penetrable Boy Doll … available in three provocative positions. She also found that the number of erotic boy images in each issue of The Advocate averaged 14.
- Homosexual newspapers and travel publications advertise prominently for countries where boy prostitution is heavy, such as Burma, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Fordi mange homosexuelle, selv har oplevet overgreb, typisk i puberteten, gentager de en adfærd indlært af et psykologisk traume. “[C]hild molestation is an integral part of the homosexual movement” fortsætter Balwin derfor. En selvbekræftende svikmølle, med bøsser, der vidner om tidlig sexualdebut med en mand, promoveres gladeligt henover de mange ofre for samme mænds overgreb, der bruger resten af livet på at fortrænge barndommens traume.
Desmond er muligvis en fantastisk 9 årig dreng, men også et hypersexualiseret barn
On July 11th, Desmond was featured in an uncomfortable live streamthat unfolded on Facebook. The host of the stream was an adult drag performer who goes by the name “Bella Noche”. During the course of this video, Bella references the use of Ketamine and Desmond imitates sniffing the drug almost instantly as if he’s seen or done it a thousand times. This is learned behavior, and more proof that this child is in a toxic and abusive environment.
I England vil den siddende regering gøre det ulovligt at kurere homoseksualitet, skriver Daily Mail, der samtidig og uden ironi oplyser at 300 børn medicinsk er under behandling for at være ‘det forkerte køn’.
Spengler minder om årsagen til de senere års forsuring at forholdet mellem USA og Rusland
The United States supported the 2014 Maidan uprising in Ukraine and the overthrow of the Yanukovych government in the hope of repeating the exercise in Moscow sometime later. Then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland pulled whatever strings America had to replace the feckless and corrupt Victor Yanukovych with a government hostile to the Kremlin. She didn’t say it in so many words, but she hoped the Ukraine coup would lead to the overthrow of Vladimir Putin. Evidently Nuland and her boss, Hillary Clinton, thought that the Ukraine coup would deprive Russia of its Black Sea naval base in Crimea, and did not anticipate that Russia simply would annex an old Russian province that belonged to Ukraine by historical accident.
At the time, liberal opinion evanesced with the notion that Moscow would follow Maidan. The Christian Science Monitor reported in February 2014:
Some in Russia’s liberal community see in the Maidan a hope that the Kremlin, no matter how solid it looks, could one day crack under similar popular pressure. “What we are seeing in Ukraine is the realization of the Ukrainian people’s aspiration for democracy, of the right to revolt,” says Sergei Davidis, a board member of Solidarnost, a liberal opposition coalition. “It doesn’t mean we’re ready to follow that example. Russian conditions are different. But in the long run, as the contradictions pile up, we may well come to the same pass and find ourselves with no alternatives but the Ukrainian one.”
Of course, no such thing occurred.
The Maidan coup was the second American attempt to install a Ukrainian government hostile to Moscow; the first occurred in 2004, when Condoleezza Rice was secretary of State rather than Hillary Clinton. As I wrote in Asia Times a decade ago, “On the night of November 22, 2004, then-Russian president - now premier - Vladimir Putin watched the television news in his dacha near Moscow. People who were with Putin that night report his anger and disbelief at the unfolding ‘Orange’ revolution in Ukraine. ‘They lied to me,’ Putin said bitterly of the United States. ‘I’ll never trust them again.’ The Russians still can’t fathom why the West threw over a potential strategic alliance for Ukraine. They underestimate the stupidity of the West.”
Hverken Spengler eller Monokultur er fans af Putin og hans bøllestyre. Men proportionerne, proportionerne. Rusland har ikke andet at tilbyde Verden end olie/gas og våben, som tidligere præsident Obama mindede om da han afskrev dem som en seriøs trussel mod USAs demokrati. Så mens Robert Mueller har skudt sine teorier ud i uvished ved at anklage en række russere der aldrig kommer til at afkræve beviser for deres påståede memfabrikker og arrangementer af besynderlige demonstrationer ved en amerikansk domstol, så mener FBI at Kina er den store spionagetrussel. Og Riget i midten sammen med EU den største største trussel mod internettets frihed, frygtsomme som de begge, på hver deres måde, er, for dissens fra det herskende meningsparadigme.
Rusland og USA har ikke noget at tilbyde hinanden, skriver Bryan MacDonald for Russia Times, så de kan lige så godt søge at få en forståelse for hinanden, og holde spændingerne imellem dem i ave. Topmøder tjener mest som teater for offentligheden, mens det virkelige møde sker bag lukkede døre (Demokraterne vil derfor have udleveret tolkenes referater) og som de fleste store værker forstår samtidens kritikere af hysteriske vanetænkere og selvsvingsdogmatikere. Mark Davis er ædruelig i Townhall
The strength his base expects every day is not some empty political theater designed to win praise from CNN. There is only one battle that matters in the short term, and that is the attack on his presidency from the Mueller probe and the weaponized subsets of the FBI and Department of Justice.
The slightest hint of a Trump denunciation of Russian meddling would have been instantly, virally blasted around the universe as a confession that his election was indeed illegitimate. The hounds baying for his demise gleefully conflate Russians hacking Democrat emails with the Trump campaign conspiring to deny Hillary Clinton her rightful victory. They know that an underinformed public will lap up that narrative if they can hammer it forcefully enough.
We will never know the exact language Trump may use to address past meddling or discourage it in the future. But anyone who was expecting some high-drama public showdown in Helsinki is ignorant of what Trump seeks to do long-term with Russia, and is oblivious to the baseball bat he would have handed his enemies to beat his brains in.
That is excusable among the general public. But for those who pay attention to these matters for a living, the blindness is willful.
Og der har Trump ikke givet efter for russerne “on anything“, skriver Daniel Greenfield - tværtimod
The media is outraged over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But when that happened, Ukraine asked for weapons and the only aid that Obama offered their country was MREs. It took months for Obama to come through with boots and tires. Meanwhile Trump has delivered actual weapons.
Why did Obama refuse to provide Ukraine with weapons? According to senior officials, to avoid antagonizing Moscow. Trump isn’t afraid of Russia. Obama however was shaking in his loafers.
While Trump approved anti-tank missiles for Ukraine, Obama slow-walked shipments of boots, putting them on trucks instead of planes so that they took months to arrive, so as not to upset the Russians. Meanwhile the Trump administration cut the red tape by dipping into its own European stockpiles.
In the time it took Obama to ship boots to Ukraine, Trump shipped Javelin missiles.
Obama shelved missile defense for Poland and the Czech Republic. Trump cut a multi-billion deal for selling Patriot missiles to Poland. When Obama provided Patriot missiles to Poland, he neglected to mention that the batteries would not actually contain missiles. The ambassador to Poland, had noted, “The Poles have not been told that the battery will rotate without actual missiles… but it will also not be operational, and certainly interoperable… this will be a question of basic definitions for the Poles: is it a Patriot battery if it doesn’t have live missiles?” Trump’s missile deal comes with actual missiles.
“After my election I have more flexibility” forsikrede Obama Putins Medvedev et par senere. Obamas udenrigspolitik var at give efter for russerne ved enhver konfrontation og se bort fra deres overtrædelser af aftaler. Trump ophidser de mennesker, der hyldede denne ‘leading from behind’, “smart diplomacy” blindgyde, der empowerede af mediernes guldfiskehukommelse, overser at Trump ikke blot styrker USAs økonomiske magt, opruster militært, presser NATO landende til det samme, mens de chores over at Trump har den frækhed at underminere Tysklands milliard investering i russisk gas. Måske har Roger L Simon ret, når han påstår at dette kunne være ‘Trumps finest hour’
He is, as Greg Gutfeld noted on The Five, his own good cop and bad cop all rolled into one. The good cop part is what we saw with Kim Jong-un and now with Putin — complimenting tyrants to an almost uncomfortable degree. It’s oddly a Christian love-the-sinner-but-hate-the-sin kind of thing.
The bad cop part is what Trump actually does concretely — and, as Putin certainly knows, this is far more important than photo ops and press conferences with all the attendant words. Trump’s actions vis-a-vis Russia have been considerably more stringent than his predecessor’s — opening the energy spigots, increasing sanctions, arming the Ukrainians, ejecting 60 Russian agents, etc. As Walter Russell Mead pointed out, if Trump is in Putin’s pocket, he’s doing a terrible job of it.
Og de hader ham for det, men Breitbarts John Nolte “saw Trump choose, at great personal cost, to do the moral and patriotic thing over what would have earned him that adulation and praise”.
Den har været død længe, dødfødt faktisk, men nu begraves den. Den specielle efterforsker Robert Mueller har sigtet nogle flere russere, denne gang agenter, for at have koordineret en indsats med det formål at påvirke det amerikanske præsidentvalg. Ingen af de tiltalte er under amerikansk myndighed så bevisernes stilling vil aldrig blive anfægtet. Og alle formodes uskyldige indtil det modsatte er bevist efter retspraksis, som Andrew C McCarthy minder om i National Review
There is no known evidence that Trump-campaign officials had any involvement in hacking by the Russian intelligence services. Mueller’s new indictment powerfully suggests that this could not have happened — the Russians were expert in their cyberespionage tactics, they did not need anyone’s help, and they took pains to conceal their identity from everyone with whom they dealt.
Moreover, even though Trump-campaign officials have been charged with other crimes (having nothing to do with the 2016 election), and some of those Trump officials had “contacts” with Russians, Mueller has never charged one of them with a crime related to Russia’s espionage attack on the election, nor has he ever elicited from any defendant who pled guilty an admission of any such crime.
Den eneste eksistensberettigelse for Robert Muellers ’specielle efterforskning’ var at afdække alting relateret til et muligt samarbejde, lovligt eller ej, mellem Trump og hans præsidentkampagne og russere. Det har længe været McCarthys pointe at den slags efterforskning hørte hjemme under kontraspionagevirksomhed, da det ikke er så vigtigt at få domsfældelser, som at få afdækket trusselsbilledet. Og som en bekræftelse på den logik har Mueller netop ved sine sigtelser af russere, der aldrig vil komme for en amerikansk domstol - og derfor aldrig vil udfordre validiteten af Muellers bevismateriale - begravet den videre efterforskning i justitsministeriets “National Security Division, the home of other non-prosecutable foreign counterintelligence work that is never intended to see the light of day in a public courtroom”
Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was never something that the Justice Department was unable to investigate in the normal course. In fact, for months, the Trump Justice Department was investigating it in the normal course, just as the Obama Justice Department had done. Then, President Trump fired FBI director James Comey. It was this event that prompted Rosenstein to appoint Mueller. We got a special counsel not because of Russia’s espionage or any evidence indicating actual Trump-campaign complicity in it; we got a special counsel because Rosenstein was deeply involved in Comey’s ouster and wanted to fend off Democratic attacks on him over it.
The only point of the new indictment is to justify Rosenstein’s decision and Mueller’s existence. Proponents of the unnecessary special counsel want to say, “See, we really needed this investigation.” But that can be said with a straight face only if the goalposts are moved.
Muellers efterforskning har kostet en del penge, så noget skal skatteyderne have for penge, om det så bare er lidt røg.
Mediernes og oppositionens igangværende hysteri over opretholdelsen af loven er et udtryk for desperation over at det endnu ikke er lykkedes at etablere en substantiel kritik af Trumps foreløbige præsidentperiode. Økonomien går godt, tåbelige internationale aftaler ophæves, en fredsproces er sat igang med Nordkorea. Talkshow værten Bill Maherønskede derfor en økonomisk recession, hvis det kunne tvinge Trump fra magten. Andre frygtede gode nyheder fra topmødet mellem Nordkorea og USA/Sydkorea, da det ville gavne præsidentens popularitet, hvilket er værre end udsigten til et ‘nuclear showdown’. Som de gode nyheder fortsætter blev Trumps fresproces anklaget for at normalisere det nordkoreanske regime og glemt var Obamas fremstrakte hænder mod Iran og Cuba, som blot bed tilbage. Hadet til Trump trumfer virkeligheden. For medierne og venstrefløjen handlede valget ikke om, hvem man mente kunne gavne landet og dets indbyggere mest, men om ren æstetik.
Time havde en dramatisk forside, hvor en nådesløs Trump betragtede et grædende barn hans stormtropper havde reddet ud af armene på sin desperate mor. Men faktisk var pigen, Yanela, stadig i armene på sin mor, der tidligere var blevet udvist fra USA efter at have krydset grænsen illegalt (jævnfør retsforfølgelsen), og begge havde det efter omstændighederne fint, fortalte hendes mand til pressen, hjemme i Honduras. Og, hæftede manden sig ved, så var de nu i sikkerhed, hvad de ikke havde været på den lange tur, som bl.a indeholdt at krydse Rio Grande på en tømmerflåde. Moderen havde længe drømt om at udleve den ‘amerikanske drøm’ selvom manden sagde at “things back home were fine” og nu skulle det være - uden hendes mands vidende. Eller andre af de yderligere tre børns fra 6 til 14 år, som moderen efterlod med sin far efter at have betalt en menneskesmugler 6.000$ og rejst de 2.500 km.
(billedet kan være bearbejdet)
Time stod ved deres historie, som selv CNN fik kvaler med fordi dens essens var sand, nemlig at Trumps politik betød grædende børn. Talsmand for Det Hvide Hus Sarah Huckabee Sanders sagde derimod, at historien var blevet adskilt fra fakta. Det er der meget der er.
Det Hvide Hus talsmand Sarah Huckerbee Sanders blev, sammen med sin familie, nægtet betjening på en restaurant, skriver Breitbart, der samtidig ironiserer over at det har været venstrefløjen så meget for, at tvinge bagerier til at udsmykke kager med budskaber, der strider imod bageriets værdier. En gruppe aktivister havde sat sig for, at chikanere chefen for Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, som de beskylder for at være “a modern-day Nazi” der, ved at opretholde den af Demokraterne vedtagne lov, begår forbrydelser imod menneskeheden, skriver Think Progress. Ved at forfølge hende og skabe et venstrefløjs spetakel hvorend hun bevæger sig er det deres håb at udskamme hende (som den første i rækken) til underkastelse. Og en Demokrat afspillede en optagelse af grædende børn i Kongressen i håbet om at udskamme det republikanske flertal. Hans kollega fra Kongressen, Maxine Waters, uartikulerede sin foragt således for åben mikrofon
“I have no sympathy for these people that are in this administration who know it’s wrong for what they’re doing on so many fronts. They tend to not want to confront this president or even leave, but they know what they’re doing is wrong. I want to tell you, these members of his cabinet who remain and try to defend him, they won’t be able to go to a restaurant, they won’t be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store. The people are going to turn on them. They’re going to protest. They’re absolutely going to harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president, ‘No, I can’t hang with you.’ This is wrong. This is unconscionable. We can’t keep doing this to children.”
Dickens kaldte omsorgen for det fremmede andet på bekostning af omsorgen for det nære for ‘teleskop filantropi’, skriver Bruce Thornton i Frontpage Magazine. Og efter en hurtig litteraturhistorisk gennemgang af begrebet, skriver han videre
So too today, with those beating their breasts over sloppily vetted illegal aliens who endanger their children by bringing them across the border or sending them off with “coyotes.” They can’t seem to summon similar compassion for the victims of the criminals allowed into the country and kept here despite serial felonies. And remember the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the terrorist murderers held in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib? And how about the “Palestinians” who use their own children as shields behind which to launch lethal attacks on Israelis? When do we hear the same lamentations over innocent Israeli children and families murdered by homicide-bombers, scud missiles, and knife-wielding terrorists?
Then there is today’s favorite venue for politicized conspicuous compassion––the postcolonial Third World. Our morbid fascination with the misery and suffering there serves both our need to signal our superior virtue, and the leftist melodrama of the Western colonial and imperialist oppression allegedly responsible for that suffering.
This combination of conspicuous compassion and ostentatious self-loathing is the essence of Third-Worldism, that idealization of the non-Western “other” combined with self-flagellation over the original sins of imperialism and colonialism. French philosopher Pascal Bruckner wrote a brilliant analysis of this cultural neurosis in Tears of the White Man. Bruckner describes how Third-World suffering has become a lucrative commodity for the modern media, who provide the images that we consume in order to enjoy cost-free pathos and smug superiority about our righteous compassion. In this way, we compensate for our “certain essential evil,” as Bruckner calls the West’s original sin, “that must be atoned for.”
Which is to say, conspicuous compassion is about political power, since this neurosis empowers the foreign policy favored by globalists and leftists alike –– foreign aid and “development” even if they’re not in our national interest and don’t help to protect our security. Domestically, for decades, including during George W. Bush’s bout of “compassionate conservatism,” the progressives have slandered conservatives as heartless and ruthless racists, bigots, and xenophobes who fear the dark-skinned “other” and seek to “roll back the clock” to the time when their “white male hetero-normative privilege” was unchallenged.
That caricature reinforces as well progressives’ self-image as more enlightened and tolerant, more caring about the suffering victims of conservatism’s crimes. Both caricatures serve political theater by giving us a melodrama in which good and evil, white hats and black hats, are easily recognizable without having to think too much about, say, the long track-record of progressivism’s failures, both at home and abroad, to improve the lives of those they have so much compassion for.
En hel politisk fløj går og dens medier går fuld Helen Lovejoy.
Under den besynderlige titel “Danmark skal hjælpe med at brødføde en klimaramt klode” advarede Dan Jørgensen i 2014. Han havde læst i en FN rapport, at fremtiden, også den lige om hjørnet, ville byde på fødevaremangel grundet flere og værre tørker med oversvømmelse vil ødelægge verdens afgrøder. Alle ved hvor svært det er at få noget til at gro i troperne.
Hvis man ville vide hvad klimaforandringerne vil bringe, skrev det ventreorienterede Think Progress sidste år, skulle man blot se på den irske kartoffel hungersnød (1845-89). “Economic inequality and rampant xenophobia make environmental disasters worse” - hvorfor det sikkert var derfor Dan Jørgensen mente, at det vil være op til danskerne, med deres xenofobe rigdom, at redde resten af verden.
Think Progress indrømmede, at deres lære af klimaforandringer, fra et tilfælde førend mennesket på nogen meningsfuld måde kunne have påvirket klimaet, ikke havde nogen årsag i klimaet, da selve kartoffelpesten var et parasitangreb. Men fordi de engelske protestanter udbyttede de livegne irske katolikker og fortsatte med at eksportere deres rigelige afgrøder af anden slags til England, havde de fattige irlændere stort set intet andet at spise end de kalorierige kartofler, der nu var ramt af parasitter.
“Basically, what you had is a society controlled by what we would today call neoliberal capitalism, in which the rich viewed poor people as totally superfluous” citerede de en professor for at sige. Og fordi alt bliver slemt med klimaforandringer vil det, der er slemt allerede, som det neokapitalistiske samfund, blive endnu være med klimaforandringer. 1 million irlændere døde i de år og en million emigrerede til USA, hvor de også fandt og selv udviste xenofobi. Og så stod der noget med automatiseringer og Trump, men hvorom alting var, så var det perspektivet ifølge Think Progress.
Men på Politico hæftede man sig ved et andet problem ved klimaforandringer end hvad Think Progress, Dan Jørgensen. FN frygtede nemlig, at der kommer til at gro for store afgrøder grundet den CO2 rige atmosfære. Også det vil være galt, for alt der forandrer sig fører kun ulykker med sig, hvis ikke i den ene retning så i den anden. Så fremtiden bringer en omvendt kartoffelkrise, hvor folk kvæles i kalorier.
Det er historier, som disse, der gnaver i folks tillid til den brovtende ekspertise. Og klimasagen er også reelt set helt død, skrev Steven F Hayward for Wall Street Journal
A good indicator of why climate change as an issue is over can be found early in the text of the Paris Agreement. The “nonbinding” pact declares that climate action must include concern for “gender equality, empowerment of women, and intergenerational equity” as well as “the importance for some of the concept of ‘climate justice.’ ” Another is Sarah Myhre’s address at the most recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in which she proclaimed that climate change cannot fully be addressed without also grappling with the misogyny and social injustice that have perpetuated the problem for decades.
The descent of climate change into the abyss of social-justice identity politics represents the last gasp of a cause that has lost its vitality. Climate alarm is like a car alarm—a blaring noise people are tuning out.
Det var forudsigeligt, skrev han videre, ikke fordi det var en tosset ide, hvilket det var, men fordi den slags politiske bevægelser har en livscyclus ifølge Anthony Downs. I den første fase slår nogle eksperter og aktivister alarm over et eller andet de finder er et problem. Denne fase afløses af ‘dopamin’ fasen, hvor aktivister overvejer mulighederne i løsninger på katastrofen. Dernæst indses det at omkostningerne vil være astronomiske for at forhindre katastrofen og til slut taber offentlig langsomt interessen, som dommedagsbasunerne bliver færre og mere fjollede.
A case in point is climate campaigners’ push for clean energy, whereas they write off nuclear power because it doesn’t fit their green utopian vision. A new study of climate-related philanthropy by Matthew Nisbet found that of the $556.7 million green-leaning foundations spent from 2011-15, “not a single grant supported work on promoting or reducing the cost of nuclear energy.” The major emphasis of green giving was “devoted to mobilizing public opinion and to opposing the fossil fuel industry.”
Scientists who are genuinely worried about the potential for catastrophic climate change ought to be the most outraged at how the left politicized the issue and how the international policy community narrowed the range of acceptable responses. Treating climate change as a planet-scale problem that could be solved only by an international regulatory scheme transformed the issue into a political creed for committed believers. Causes that live by politics, die by politics.
På Verdensnaturfondens hjemmeside kan man læse at “Klimaforandringerne er en kendt synder, og er medskyldig i det markante insektfald overalt i verden”. Så overalt i Verden, fra troperne til polarcirklen, lever der insekter som nu dør fordi de rammes af klimaet.
Der er masser af undersøgelser i det amerikanske juridiske system, ikke blot af den siddende præsident Trump og hans modkandidat Hillary Clinton og allehånde personer tilknyttet de to og deres valgkampsorganisationer, men også af systemet selv. Justitsministeriet har i ugens løb har Justitsministeriet offentliggjort en rapport (af flere og kommende) om FBIs gøren og laden under præsidentvalgkampen. Og det viser sig at der var mange, der havde en ide om, hvorledes de kunne hjælpe amerikanerne med at træffe et kvalificeret valg; et læk-o-rama kaldte Allah-pundit det.
56 årige James Wolfe, “security director, responsible for receiving, maintaining and managing all classified intelligence shared with the [Senate Intelligence Committee] by U.S. spy agencies (or is it informant agencies?)” havde en affære med en journalist først i tyverne, ved navn Ali Watkins, som han forsynede med allehånde fortrolige oplysninger fra sit arbejde, så hun kunne få sit scoop og han bevise at han endnu kunne. Begge havde de et anstrengt forhold til udsigten af 8 år under Trumps præsidentskab. Andrew C McCarthy giver en smagsprøve
For example, in spring 2017, Wolfe tipped Ms. Watkins that Russian spies had attempted to recruit Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page back in 2013. This leak did not occur in a vacuum. It had been revealed that the Obama Justice Department used the unverified Steele dossier, generated by the Clinton campaign, to obtain FISA-court surveillance warrants against Page. To control the damage, Democrats and other, uh, non-partisans wanted to claim that the FBI had reasons independent of the dossier to suspect that Page was a clandestine agent of Russia.
Wolfe obliged with the leak, enabling Watkins to write a BuzzFeed article provocatively headlined “A Former Trump Adviser Met with a Russian Spy” — although the story could just as easily have been entitled “A Former Trump Adviser Helped Justice Department Prosecute Russian Spies.” (Page voluntarily provided information that prosecutors used to arrest Moscow’s operatives.)
The indictment implies that Watkins’s story was based in part on top-secret intelligence provided to the committee by a U.S. intelligence agency on March 17. On that day, Wolfe and Watkins exchanged 82 texts, in addition to having a lengthy phone call. On April 3, the day the story was published, they exchanged 124 texts and spoke on the phone after Watkins appeared on national television to discuss her report.
Wolfe cultivated other journalists, too, using what the indictment calls “anonymizing messaging applications,” and arranging surreptitious meetings in restaurants, bars, private residences, and secluded areas of the Hart Senate Office Building. Wolfe gave one unidentified reporter a heads-up that the committee had subpoenaed Page, and he even provided that reporter with Page’s personal contact information. Later, after the reporter’s story was published, Wolfe extended congratulations: “Good job! . . . I’m glad you got the scoop.” The reporter responded with thanks, noting that Page was not “pleased” but did not deny being subpoenaed. Page complained to the committee about media leaks, to no avail.
For skønt Trump mener at han ville vinde en meningsmåling blandt FBIs medarbejdere ‘med en større margin end nogen nogensinde har vundet en meningsmåling’ er kulturen i dele af FBI degeneret til, at flere fandt det naturligt at støtte ‘modstandsbevægelsen’, den del af den politiske opposition, der ville yde Trump modstand uanset hvad - uanset hans førte politik. Foragten for Trump og hans vælgere, der af en FBI medarbejder blev kaldt fattige, uuddannede, dovne skiderikker, som skal bekæmpes, var tilsyneladende så almindelig, at man på direktionsgangene ikke syntes at have haft kvaler med at begå ulovligheder
Eller sådan synes det at se ud, hvis man skal tolke på tidligere stedfortædende direktør Andrew McCabe forsøg på at opnå immunitet mod at vidne foran Kongressen. McCabe har haft en ledende rolle både i efterforskningen af alting Rusland og i Hillary Clintons email sag. Mens FBI på forhånd gav ledende medlemmer af Hillary Clintons stab immunitet, selv om de bl.a. havde medvirket til at destruere bevismateriale så var man anderledes nidkære med at retsforfølge Trump medarbejdere for ikke at være konsistente i deres vidneudsagn.
In fact, the most hair-raising section of the report, an entire chapter, is devoted to communications among several FBI officials (not just the infamous duo of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page), which overflow with abhorrence for Trump (“loathsome,” “an idiot,” “awful,” “an enormous d**che,” “f**k Trump”) and his core supporters (“retarded,” “the crazies,” one could “smell” them). More alarmingly, the agents express a determination to stop Trump from becoming president (e.g., Strzok, on being asked if Trump would become president, says “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it”; and on being assured that his election is highly unlikely, opines that “we can’t take that risk” and that the bureau needs “an insurance policy” against him).
Med det målrettede had, der her demonstreres kan der næppe herske tvivl om at enhver antydning af bevismateriale mod Trump for at have et uheldigt forhold til ‘russerne’ var blevet lækket for længst. De har overspillet deres kort og satset på at de kunne finde et eller andet inkriminerende hvis blot de roede længe nok. Men Trump var smart. Han viste at der ikke var noget at finde og har brugt tiden på at styrke amerikansk økonomi og amerikanske interesser, mens hans fjender skaffede sig selv mere reb af hænge i.
To medlemmer af det norske Fremskrittspartiet indstiller Trump til Nobels Fredspris for sin rolle i fredsprocessen i Korea. Lidt tidligt vil jeg mene, men i det mindste har Trump udrettet mere end blot ikke at være Bush, som hans forgænger Barak Obama vandt prisen for - eller var det for ikke at være hvid? Det var en anden tid dengang skrev Robert L Erlich Jr National Review, som minderne skyllede over ham med stemninger
Recall a lifetime ago (actually it was 2008), when a certified dove won the presidency in a landslide. One of his first official acts was to undertake a trip to a number of Muslim countries, wherein apologies were offered for America’s “imperialist” past. Assurances were also made: The cowboy Bush and his warmongering neocons were gone. Mr. Obama would now inform the world that America had learned its lesson. The U.S. would no longer manifest its arrogance on the world stage. We would henceforth strive to have the world like us — especially our charismatic but unthreatening young president, who was counterintuitive himself, seeming to act on the premise that if the United States was ostentatiously embarrassed about its dominance and power, we would be better liked. And we were better liked, but much more endangered and much less intimidating.
American withdrawal from world hot spots followed. Where we did show up, we made sure to provide the enemy with the date and time of our engagement. Where we did take action, only tentative commitment followed. Who can forget Secretary of State John Kerry promising a “unbelievably small, limited kind of [bombing] effect” against Bashar al Assad’s murderous regime, or a famously failed “red line” in that same country; or the description of deserter Bowe Bergdahl as having served with “honor and distinction”; or freezing defensive missiles in Poland to placate Vladimir Putin; or our feckless response to Russian aggression in Ukraine and Crimea; or the specter of funding the Iranian ballistic-missile program and the mullahs’ terror activities throughout the Middle East?
Alas, too many voters within flyover America saw all this as a step too far — too much weakness — too many vacuums — too many “kick me” signs displayed for consumption by America’s bullies. With apologies to Austin Powers, American had lost, indeed given away, its “mojo.”
And then one day the unlikeliest of political leaders appeared. Many voters (including some who ended up voting for him) saw Mr. Trump as unprepared to tackle the world’s most intractable problems. Another subset of supporters maintained serious concerns about “policy by tweet” and the man’s propensity to engage in sideshow fights with antagonistic politicians, reporters, and celebrities.
But there was one aspect to the Trump phenomena that all of his supporters firmly believed: that the “kick me” sign that had hung around America’s neck for eight years would be gone. Good riddance.
Victor Davis Hanson fangede også tendensen, pyjamasdrengens selvoptagede og egocentriske regime
Det var aldrig meningen at Israel skulle blive, som det er idag, skrev Göran Rosenberg f.eks i Information sidste år. Rosenberg var skuffet på den Første Zionistiske Kongres vegne over at Israel i de 121, der er gået, med alt hvad der er sket af uforudset ting i historien, ikke har været efter den oprindelige og lettere diffuse plan. Rosenberg sammenligner simpelt hen nogle drømme med et nutidsbillede uden hensyn til at vilkårene har ændret sig - hensynet til virkeligheden er den mangel han stiver sin indignation af med. For eksempel kollapsede det Osmanniske Rige, hvis velvilje planen afhang, som følge af 1. Verdenskrig. En anden udvikling man ikke havde set i 1898 var at det ellers stort set tomme land omkring Judæa og Samaria ville tiltrække allehånde arabere, som jøderne skabte økonomisk liv. Det var heller ikke med i planen at araberne ville erklære jihad mod selv ideen om at jøder ikke levede ydmygede under muslimsk fod, men havde deres egen bestemmekalot på issen. Virkeligheden optræder faktisk ikke i Rosenbergs domfældelse af Israel.
6-dageskrigen blev, ganske rigtigt, et afgørende vendepunkt for Israels identitet og forhold til araberne. Fra at Israel kunne overleve arabernes forsøg på folkemord, beviste Israel i juni ‘67, at de kunne ’settle all family business’ til den arabiske og muslimske Verdens store ydmygelse - og de var ikke uskyldige. Og vist førte den sejr til en brovtende selvforståelse og det er alt hvad Rosenberg mener er relevant. “Uanset årsagerne til krigen” indleder han således et afsnit, og fortsætter
…varede det ikke længe, før Israels erobring af Østjerusalem og Vestbredden blev beskrevet som en historisk tilbagevenden. En bred politisk bevægelse på tværs af partier under navnet ’Hele Landet Israel’, Eretz Israel Hachlema, krævede, at ’Judæa’ og ’Samaria’ skulle beholdes. Den faktiske – og senere formelle – annektering af Østjerusalem (inden for stærkt udvidede bygrænser) blev forholdsvis hurtigt sat i værk. Få år senere var de første jødiske bosættelser på besat jord et faktum, deriblandt den aggressivt national-religiøse enklave i det centrale Hebron.
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Med tilbagekomsten til Hele Landet Israel skabtes de militære, politiske og territoriale forudsætninger for jødiske bevægelser baseret på forestillingen om, at jødisk nationalt herredømme over den erobrede ’hellige jord’ var en opfyldelse af bibelske profetier. De millioner af palæstinensere, som endnu beboede og benyttede området, var reduceret til en hindring på jødernes vej.
Med den jødisk-ortodokse tænker Yeshayahu Leibowitz ord, blev det jødiske folks stat “et statsapparat for jøders tvangsherredømme over et andet folk”. Uanset årsagerne, vold er forkert, så spar ham for “den selvmedlidende tone” om selvforsvar “uanset om der måtte være nogen sandhed i disse påstande eller ej”.
Men desværre, sandheden kan ikke forskastes. Araberne forkastede FNs delingsplan og derved også deres krav på jorden. Jorden mente de, at de kunne erhverve sig uden om FN ved at tage den med magt og slagte jøderne. Derved afsværgede de sig også retten til det, der ikke var Israel (Israel anerkendte FNs delingsplan og har efter international lov, ret til det land, som Delingsplanen definerede) og det blev, som det stadig er, omstridt land.
I ‘48 blev Østjerusalem besat af Jordan, der straks ødelagde alle synagoger og jødiske kirkegårde med mere. De millioner af palæstinensere, som endnu boede og benyttede området havde ingen kvaler med den manøvre. Området tilhørte altså ikke dem, men en hvilken som helst repræsentant for arabere eller muslimer. Omstridt land besat af trediepart… hvem besætter Israel det fra? Jordan eller de millioner af palæstinensere, som endnu beboede og benyttede området?
Og hvorfor er hellig jord sat i citationstegn, når det var araberne der erklærede hellig krig? Og hvorfor benyttes navnet ‘Palæstina’, som det korrekte, når det hverken er arabisk eller jødisk (det er et romersk hånenavn) - og ikke indkluderer Jordan, som ellers var en del af det Palæstinensiske Mandat? Fordi fakta ikke betyder noget, kun anklagen.
Rosenberg medgiver at det er “givetvis korrekt”, at Israel bliver bedømt med en anden målestok end andre stater, men det syntes altså så uvæsentligt at han end ikke finder det væsentligt om det faktisk er korrekt. For hvis Israel bliver målt med andre alen, så hænger det sammen med at “at forventningerne helt naturligt blev eksalterede og frygten apokalyptisk”, ved vores civilisations udsigt til “Jødernes tilbagekomst til ’det hellige land’”. Det er altså jødernes egen skyld at de ikke har levet op til vores forventninger.