Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
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Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
By Tom Vanden Brook @ USAToday.com, March 22, 6:29 pm
WASHINGTON — President Trump fired his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, Thursday and named John Bolton to succeed him, according to the White House [....]
Comments
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/22/2018 - 6:55pm
McMaster out, Bolton in as National Security Adviser by Jonathan Swan @ Axios.com, 27 min. ago
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/22/2018 - 7:00pm
Trade war and actual war..?
Iran most likely? War with Iran "easy win?"
UAE and Saudis are for it and have been using $$$ to control Jared and cozy up with Trump.
by NCD on Thu, 03/22/2018 - 8:08pm
UAE and Saudis are for it
Good point but you forgot Israel. Wouldn't a top neo-con theorist just love the idea, ah, a future with Sunnis and Jews welcoming each other with flowers and sweets....
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/22/2018 - 8:23pm
P.S. Plus there's this: Persia and China go way way way back as trading partners, I heard tell.
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/22/2018 - 8:26pm
Here's one of Wily E. Bolton's favorite cartoons:
So I went to check on what Bibi was up to. I.E. is he still PM or in jail? Has he said anything on Bolton yet?
And what I found sounds sooo familiar:
Netanyahu says ‘flood’ of African migrants worse than Sinai terrorists
Prime minister says border wall only thing keeping vast numbers of illegal migrants out of country
By TOI STAFF 20 March 2018, 5:42 pm
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/22/2018 - 8:44pm
Bolton is an Islamophobe. He said Obama was weak in fighting America’s enemies yet he has no problem with Trump’s cowardice on Russian. Bolton had no problem writing the forward to the book written by another Islamophobe, Pamela Geller.
Link to Geller and Richard Spencer
https://thinkprogress.org/john-boltons-pamela-geller-and-robert-spencer-problem-8219c2906319/
Link to connections with other hate groups
https://www.thenation.com/article/john-boltons-cozy-relationship-with-anti-muslim-hate-groups-should-disqualify-him-from-public-service/
Link to the Geller book
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003LL2YOU/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 8:18am
I don't know what it means, but there it is.
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 10:18am
Too much stuff coming in every hour to keep up with. Press conf @ 10am EST - hold on.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 10:31am
Anti-Iranian ammunition for the new National Security Advisor:
Justice Dept.: Iranians hacked thousands of US professors and many others
By Tal Kopan, @ CNN, Updated 10:31 AM ET, Fri March 23, 2018
But as the WSJ and many others have pointed out this morning, there's a problem there:
Bolton, Trump In Sync on Iran Nuclear Deal But Hold Different Views on Russia
This is what I wonder about: Nobody can get Trump to understand da part of da geopolitics where if he supports Russia, he supports Iran, and he therefore can't be on the other axis of Sunnis? Things always get a little problematic for Trump when Russia does stuff he doesn't like in Syria, so he just put his hands over his ears and says "I don't want to hear it"?
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 10:50am
new presidential news conference announced via tweet on a whim coming in like 15 mins, sposed to be @ 1pm
On the too much stuff coming every hour, this is a an intriguing point:
as he never says anything about the adultery accusers, i.e., he wants diversions, distractions whenever his brain goes there
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 12:46pm
This take on Bolton from Greg Sargent in WaPo this morning makes sense to me, unfortunately: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/03/23/the-real-re...
The National Security Advisor's actual job is not to advocate for their personal view of the best policy choice but to fairly and accurately present the president with a range of views and options from differing sources. (In Trump's case he also needs but will not suffer basic facts to have even a prayer of avoiding a disastrous decision.) People who know or have worked with Bolton are expressing skepticism that he has the temperament for this role, as reported by Jennifer Rubin also in WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/03/23/reaction-t...
by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 11:20am
A lot of writing I ran across last night reminded me of how on the personality front, Bolton is a notorious asshole, an extremely abusive person to work with. There were so many stories over the years that showed that. So it's quite an unknown how he's going to do in the boss' sycophant role.
Edit to add: One thing I can certainly see him doing is feeding Trump very cherry-picked options, much worse than McMaster was reported to do, and in a much more ideological manner.
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 11:35am
A better take from Jon Chait, who understands Trump and Republicans better than almost anybody:
by NCD on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 12:03pm
yes, good stuff, NCD, really helpful
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 12:41pm
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 1:15pm
When Republicans Rejected John Bolton
Op-Ed by Antony J. Blinken @ NYTimes.com, March 23
He was feared for twisting intelligence to back his bellicosity and for trying to remove anyone who objected.
Also the Times' Editorial Board says
Editorial: Yes, Bolton Really Is That Dangerous
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 4:53pm
Julian Borger @ TheGuardian.com, March 23: John Bolton: foreign policy radical who backs war with Iran and North Korea
And Robert Mackey @ TheIntercept.com, March 23:
Here’s John Bolton Promising Regime Change in Iran by the End of 2018
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 4:59pm
WaPo editorial this afternoon, also expressing alarm: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/john-boltons-ext...
Throw in the trade war that Trump may be triggering and a potential constitutional crisis if Trump fires Mueller and the human vanity exhibit on display in the WH seems to be aiming for a trifecta of sorts.
Pulitzer Prize-winning WaPo editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes has a new book out called "Trump's ABC". She gave a talk about it in late January that C-SPAN recorded: https://www.c-span.org/video/?440199-2/trumps-abc During her 30 minute or so event, mostly audience questions and her responses, she reads the book in toto--this takes maybe 3-5 minutes as there is very little text--and the cartoons for each letter are projected on the screen so the viewer can see. Interesting stuff, also poignant near the end when she talks about being assaulted in broad daylight in DC not long ago, as a woman now in her late 50's. She says to try to mitigate her sleeping issues she doesn't take in news after the evening news. Even so, when she gets up in the morning she needs to pick up a pen and start drawing.
by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 5:34pm
Not to be conspiratorial, but....meanwhile Mr. Cybersecurity Advisor-to-Trump Rudy Giuliani has been in Albania visiting MEK (radical Iranian kook organization always working for overthrow of the Iran regime, among other things) membership for Nowruz:
Close Trump Ally Calls For Iran Regime Change Policy
By Heshmat Alavi , Contributor @ Forbes.com, March 21
In what capacity and who is paying for it, I dunno. Must admit he made "foreign policy" trips to all kinds of places when he was mayor. (Famous ego problem himself.) Here's Forbes' photo:
meets with Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi. Credit: NCRI
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 7:24pm
Here's Juan Cole boiling over, mentions the MEK ties, along with many other things:
Let’s call Bolton what he is, a War Criminal with Terrorist Ties, not just “Hawkish” @ juancole.com, March 23
by artappraiser on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 7:28pm
What if Bolton can’t get a security clearance...I’m not sure he can.
by CVille Dem on Tue, 03/27/2018 - 8:28am
That is an excellent point.
His past monkey business with classified materials has got to have an effect on his overall score.
by moat on Tue, 03/27/2018 - 9:35am
George Will may well be correct that thinking of Trump as someone with convictions to contradict (by hiring John Bolton, for instance) is a "category mistake."
On the other hand, Trump now has the quiver of arrows he started when he was flanked by Micheal Flynn.and Steve Bannon.
Bolton provides the apocalyptic narrative Bannon used to deliver and Pompeo has the means to get the party started.
BYOB.
by moat on Sat, 03/24/2018 - 1:05pm
Trump Brings "Christmas For Neocons"
Welcome to the Donald Rumsfeld–Liz Cheney restoration.
@ BuzzFeed.com, March 26
by artappraiser on Tue, 03/27/2018 - 12:49am