RFE/RL - Pompeo Inks New Defense Pact With Greece, Criticizes Russia, Iran, China https://t.co/ghBRJLJWQq
— Small Wars Journal (@smallwars) October 6, 2019
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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In the News
What a fight over the local library in my hometown in rural Arkansas taught me about my neighbors’ go-it-alone mythology — and Donald Trump’s unbeatable appeal.
Guest op-ed by Monica Potts @ NYTimes.com, Oct. 5 (Ms. Potts is working on a book about low-income women in Arkansas.)
[....] The battle began on the Facebook post, which had 240 comments by the end. The first comment came from Amie Hamilton, who reiterated her point when I interviewed her several months later. “If you want to make $25 an hour, please go to a city that can afford it,” she wrote. “We the people are not here to pay your excessive salaries through taxation or in any other way.”
There was general agreement among the Facebook commenters that no one in the area was paid that much — the librarian’s wages would have worked out to be about $42,200 a year — and the people who do actually earn incomes that are similar — teachers and many county officials — largely remained quiet. (Clinton has a median income of $34,764 and a poverty rate of 22.6 percent.) When a few of us, including me, pointed out that the candidate for the library job had a master’s degree, more people commented on the uselessness of education [....]
When will the police nationwide take responsibility for their awful reputation?
Trumpian "we can do what we want", with continual judicial cover for even the worst abuses, has brought us to our own kind of Apartheid - ironic when black advancements & acceptance in other areas are historic.
By Eileen Reslan @ PageSix.com, Oct. 4
Wedding planner Veronica Morales is disputing Beyoncé‘s claim that Blue Ivy Carter is a “cultural icon” in a trademark battle over the moniker, according to new court documents obtained by The Blast. The “Formation” singer and husband Jay-Z have been trying to trademark their daughter’s name since 2012, and are battling Morales, who argues that she has been using the name Blue Ivy for her company long before the world knew about Blue Ivy Carter [....]
The President knows a new word now that he says should happen to Republicans who criticize him, impeachment ..!
"President Trump resumed his years-long vilification of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) Saturday morning, calling the 2012 GOP presidential nominee a “pompous ‘ass’ ” and calling for the senator’s impeachment a day after Romney criticized Trump..."
Economic appeals are not going to sway any Trump voters, who view anyone who is trying to increase government spending, especially to help other people, with disdain, even if it ultimately helps them, too. And Trump voters are carrying the day here in Van Buren County. They see Mr. Trump’s slashing of the national safety net and withdrawal from the international stage as necessities — these things reflect their own impulse writ large.
They believe every tax dollar spent now is wasteful and foolish and they will have to pay for it later.... That a hundred thousand of them have the voting power of twenty million Californians is insanity.
President revels in mutual flattery during White House event organized by pro-Trump Turning Point USA
By David Smith in Washington @ TheGuardian.com, Oct. 5
Through the looking glass, and a wormhole, in the farthest reaches of a parallel universe, Donald Trump is not facing impeachment. Instead he is truth-teller, a healer of divisions and such a moral champion of African Americans they wonder if that Obama chap was a bit overrated.
To be in the East Room of the White House on Friday afternoon was to step into this alternative reality. More than 200 African American students and young professionals roared with delight and adulation, chanting “USA! USA!” and pointing camera phones, as Trump walked in and gave a typically jarring speech that veered off teleprompter.
In this reality, Trump can do no wrong. He is a stand-up comic who lines always land. Millennials praise him for “saving America” and demand “four more years!” His pal Kanye West is a seer. The agent provocateurs of social media are venerated for their contrariness. The enemies are the liberals, the Democrats and their deep state cronies and the fake news media, all of which are to blame for everything from inner city crime to colluding to impeach [....]
By Martin Pengally @ TheGuardian.com, Oct. 4
[....] according to Steve Bannon, Trump’s former 2016 campaign chair and White House strategist, a prime mover in the formation and propagation of the deep state conspiracy theory, it should not be taken seriously.
Bannon states his opinion in a new book, Deep State: Trump, the FBI and the Rule of Law by James B Stewart, which will be published on 8 October. The Guardian obtained a copy.
The “deep state conspiracy theory is for nut cases”, Bannon is quoted as saying, because “America isn’t Turkey or Egypt”.There is a formidable government bureaucracy in the US, he adds, but “there’s nothing ‘deep’ about it. It’s right in your face.”
Bannon, a leading voice of the alt-right, left the White House in August 2017 [....]
By Brooke Seipel @ TheHill.com, Oct. 4
[....] according to a new report from climbing magazine Rock and Ice. Rick Weber — a 75-year-old retired engineer, and active rock climber certified by American Mountain Guide Association as a Single Pitch Instructor — writes that he has built a replica of an 18-foot tall section of steel border wall and has invited rock climbers to compete in the climb on Oct. 11 and 12 [....]
First Trump extorts an investigation. Then he'll demand that it leads to "conviction"... that any nation on the globe MUST lie for him, just like Fox News, Hannity and Republicans do. He thinks he is King if the world, and that he can corrupt the entire globe to serve him.
“Someone should inform the president that impeachable offenses committed on national television still count,” Clinton tweeted
By Anatoly Kurmanaev and Andrea Zarate @ NYTimes.com, Oct. 1
Peru is facing its deepest political crisis in at least three decades, with the president dissolving Congress, Congress then moving to suspend the president — and the vice president, who had stepped up to lead the country, renouncing her position as well.
The vice president, Mercedes Aráoz, said late on Tuesday that she gave up her post because “the constitutional order in Peru is broken.” The head of the dissolved Congress, Pedro Olaechea, who learned of her resignation in the middle of an interview with CNN en Español, said he would also not assume power — a tactical win for the president, Martín Vizcarra, but not the end of turbulence for Peru.
Peru’s dysfunctional and corruption-ridden political system has courted crisis for years, with three former presidents under investigation and another dead after shooting himself during his arrest. But matters came to a head when Mr. Vizcarra confronted the conservative forces controlling Congress and accused them of stonewalling his efforts to fight corruption and pass political reform [....]
You can ignore any editorializing herein, as wherever you're coming from, this is important news.