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route22ny · 4 years

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ON 19 OCTOBER 2016, in the third and final presidential debate, Hillary Clinton opined that Vladimir Putin would “rather have a puppet as president of the United States,” meaning Donald John Trump, than a formidable adversary like her. As Trump short-circuited like a Star Wars droid on the fritz (“No puppet. No puppet. You're the puppet!”), she continued:

It’s pretty clear you won't admit that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him, because he has a very clear favorite in this race.

So I think that this is such an unprecedented situation. We've never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election. We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin and they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing.

As usual, HRC was right. But even the most cynical viewer could scarce have imagined, in the fall of 2016, just how on the nose she was.

Trump’s activities since taking office—the gutting of the State Department, the jackals in the Oval Office, Helsinki, Mueller obstruction, Ukraine skulduggery, and his willful non-response to the covid pandemic—make clear that the longtime mob money launderer has spent most of his presidency doing Putin’s bidding, just as Clinton predicted. Allow cyberattacks against the United States? Check. Encourage espionage against our people? Check. Spout the Putin line? Always. Sign up for his wish list? Like a porn addict on OnlyFans. Break up NATO? Western Europe is as divided now as it’s been since the forties. Continue to get help from him? Every fucking day.

Three years after that third debate, almost exactly to the day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stormed out of a meeting with President Trump concerning his strategically obtuse decision to withdraw US troops from Syria—a move that was ore in Russia’s interests than ours. “Why,” she exasperatedly asked the press, “do all roads lead to Putin?”

It’s actually quite simple: Trump has been mob property his entire life. The difference is that now, in 2020, the mobster who owns him is not “Fat Tony” Salerno, or “Big” Paul Castellano, or Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, or even Semion “The Brainy Don” Mogilevich. The mobster who owns him is Vladimir Putin—which makes Trump, by extension, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian government.

Previously, I wrote about Trump’s longtime association with the mob, both Italian and Russian, and his almost certain career as a top echelon Confidential Informant for the Justice Department. He is, as I said, “second generation mobbed-up.” Although he is not, and never can be, an actual mobster—a front can never be a member of the family, for obvious reasons—the unscrupulous Trump is an extremely useful asset to his underworld associates, and has been for decades. Front men, after all, are a vital cog in the global crime syndicate machine. That dirty money’s not going to wash itself.

While the Trump Organization does deals overseas, for most of his career Donald Trump was a stateside operator. The bulk of his revenue is homegrown. As a business professional of my acquaintance who worked for years in Russia colorfully put it: “The thing to remember about Trump is that he’s a venal crook, not some international criminal mastermind. His primary source of wealth, such as it is, comes from a string of golf courses, hotels, and mixed-use office buildings spread around the world, but the corn nuggets in his crown of shit are in the New York metro area and spread across the beaches of Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward County, Florida.”

So how did a Queens-born front-man and mob money launderer, whose business was overwhelmingly domestic, wind up an asset of a hostile foreign government?

To understand this transformation, it is instructive to think of Trump not as a human being but as an asset, in the strict sense of the word—a piece of property, like a beach house, a private jet, or an HBO Go password. Just as two different families can share a beach house, and your buddy down the street can use your login to stream Succession, so Trump can be utilized by more than one entity at a time. He can also be sold outright—or rather transferred, like the deed to a house. None of this is up to him. At all. To paraphrase Elvis Presley: he’s caught in a trap, he can’t walk out, because the mobsters own him baby.

As for Vladimir Putin, while he may have started as an intelligence operative, and he may pretend to be a diplomat and statesman on the world stage, his true profession, at this stage of his career, is mob boss—probably the most powerful mob boss in the world, more powerful even than his longtime associate from back in his Dresden days, Semion Mogilevich. (There was, and is, a lot of blur between IC and OC in Russia.)

Putin and Mogilevich are two foci of the small circle of oligarchs—there are subtle distinctions, but for all intents and purposes, oligarch is basically just a euphemism for mobster—who own almost everything of value in Russia. In mafia states, the mob runs the show—charging protection for businesses, taking bribes, imposing restrictions on airports, seaports, etc. The Russian mafiya is closer to the East India Company administering the entire colony of British India than some Scorsese picture. It steals from the people, and manipulates the weak central government, to keep itself in power.

(Sidenote: per Robert I. Friedman’s Red Mafiya, Mogilevich has complete control of Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. So if a self-styled NSA “whistleblower” contrives to spend 40 days there avoiding the media, coughEdSnowdencough, you can be damn sure the “Brainy Don” authorized it).

An ex-KGB chief, Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin as president in 1999. He’s been in charge ever since. Under his reign, Russia has regressed from a burgeoning democracy to a veritable dictatorship. Putin consolidated power, destroying the independent judiciary, clamping down on press freedoms, using false-flag operations to win popular support, and exploiting his power for personal gain. He is more like a tsar than a president—although the Romanovs did not possess nuclear weapons, and their wealth, obscene as it was, paled in comparison to Putin’s own.

Bill Browder, the American-born British national who was an early investor in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and who left the country after the government became too corrupt to continue doing business there, tells a hair-raising story about Putin: After the rise of the oligarchs in the early 2000s, Putin had the richest, most powerful oligarch—Mikhail Khodorkovsky, head of the energy concern Yukos—arrested. At a humiliating show trial during which the accused oligarch was kept in a cage, Khodorkovsky was found guilty of fraud. He was sent to prison, and his sizable assets seized.

After this sobering display, the other oligarchs approached Putin and asked what they needed to give him to avoid the same fate as Khodorkovsky, whose fate none of them wanted to share. Putin replied: “Half.” Since then, ill-gotten gains have poured into his coffers. The oligarchs boast fabulous wealth, but by virtue of claiming half of their money, Putin bests them all. Browder has suggested that Putin may well be the world’s richest individual.

And if this all sounds like the world’s greatest mob boss making the world’s biggest mob-boss flex, well, you say “tomato,” I say whatever the Russian word for “tomato” is. Whatever he might have been before that series of power moves, Putin emerged afterward as a no-doubt-about-it mob boss. Khodorkovsky, the fallen oligarch, himself said as much, in a recent interview.

Whether Putin is more powerful than Mogilevich is anyone’s guess. But only one of them is concurrently the head of state of a G8 country, one of a handful of nations that has nuclear capability—and, despite what revisionist historians at Fox News would have us believe, America’s chief adversary since 1945.

Donald John Trump’s association with the Russian mafiya—as opposed to the homegrown Italian one—began, best as we can tell, in 1984, when the Soviet soldier-turned-mobster David Bogatin purchased five of his condos for $6 million. Trump Tower was one of just two buildings in all of New York City that allowed units to be purchased by shell companies. Fishy deals like this did not deter Trump, who had traveled in underworld circles all his life.

By ’84, as covered previously, Trump was already a Confidential Informant for the FBI. He’d been on the radar of the KGB since 1977, when he married the former Ivana Zelníčková, a Czechoslovakian national who someone managed to emigrate from that Eastern Bloc country to Canada. As Luke Harding writes in his masterful and must-read book, Collusion (excerpted here by Politico):

Zelníčková was born in Zlin, an aircraft manufacturing town in Moravia. Her first marriage was to an Austrian real estate agent. In the early 1970s she moved to Canada, first to Toronto and then to Montreal, to be with a ski instructor boyfriend. Exiting Czechoslovakia during this period was, the files said, “incredibly difficult.” Zelníčkováa moved to New York. In April 1977 she married Trump.

According to files in Prague, declassified in 2016, Czech spies kept a close eye on the couple in Manhattan.…There was periodic surveillance of the Trump family in the United States. And when Ivana and Donald Trump, Jr., visited [her father] in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, further spying, or “cover.”

Like with other Eastern Bloc agencies, the Czechs would have shared their intelligence product with their counterparts in Moscow, the KGB. Trump may have been of interest for several reasons. One, his wife came from Eastern Europe. Two—at a time after 1984 when the Kremlin was experimenting with perestroika, or Communist Party reform—Trump had a prominent profile as a real estate developer and tycoon. According to the Czech files, Ivana mentioned her husband’s growing interest in politics. Might Trump at some stage consider a political career?

The KGB was really, really good. Are we to believe that the Soviets would not at least try to use Ivana—and her father Milos, stuck behind the Iron Curtain in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic—to get to Trump? Would not some cooperation be expected as the price of her being allowed to emigrate in the first place?

The Russians began to actively cultivate Trump in 1986, soon after his landmark real estate deal with Bogatin. As Harding tells it, Trump was invited to Moscow by Natalia Dubinina, the daughter of the Soviet ambassador to the United States, whom he met at a luncheon in New York in ‘86. The following year, he took her up on the offer. “On July 4, 1987, Trump flew to Moscow for the first time, together with Ivana and Lisa Calandra, Ivana’s Italian-American assistant,” Harding writes. “Moscow was, Trump wrote, ‘an extraordinary experience.’ The Trumps stayed in Lenin’s suite at the National Hotel, at the bottom of Tverskaya Street, near Red Square….The hotel was linked to the glass-and-concrete Intourist complex next door and was—in effect—under KGB control. The Lenin suite would have been bugged.”

Donald John Trump was a textbook KGB mark. The agents must have been drooling. Harding cites an internal memo circulated by the agency at the time, advising how to spot potential recruits: “Are pride, arrogance, egoism, ambition or vanity among subject’s natural characteristics?” Like a great baseball prospect, Trump was a five-tool player. Harding continues, writing about the internal memo:

The most revealing section concerned kompromat. The document asked for: “Compromising information about subject, including illegal acts in financial and commercial affairs, intrigues, speculation, bribes, graft … and exploitation of his position to enrich himself.” Plus “any other information” that would compromise the subject before “the country’s authorities and the general public.” Naturally the KGB could exploit this by threatening “disclosure.”

Finally, “his attitude towards women is also of interest.” The document wanted to know: “Is he in the habit of having affairs with women on the side?”

We don’t know what, if any, kompromat was gathered on that first trip to Moscow. But we do know that Trump is a serial philanderer, with a taste for Eastern European women. This wasn’t exactly a state secret; by ‘87, he was already a tabloid legend. Are we really to believe that the KGB—arguably the best intelligence agency in the world at human intelligence gathering—would not have tried to honeypot him?

It was upon his return from that fateful Moscow trip that Trump began to branch out in his interests. “For the first time he gave serious indications that he was considering a career in politics,” Harding points out. “Not as mayor or governor or senator.

“Trump was thinking about running for president.”

And indeed, in 1988, Trump flirted with the idea of entering the presidential race, going so far as to deliver a speech in New Hampshire. He toyed with running again in 2000, on the Reform Party ticket, even hiring his old friend Roger Stone to run the exploratory committee before ultimately dropping out. Is it really a coincidence that his dormant political ambitions manifested themselves immediately after his Moscow trip, and never went away?

So, yes, the Soviets were absolutely, positively recruiting Trump on his 1987 visit to Moscow—which began, not coincidentally, on the Fourth of July (Russians love that kind of symbolism). But the KGB was not the only spy network interested in the real estate developer. The trip also attracted the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency—the latter, by this time, becoming the bigger outfit, owing to the emphasis on signals intelligence collection that began in the late seventies.

As the pseudonymous mob expert known as Lincoln’s Bible put it, during our recent telephone conversation: “It’s 1987—the height of the Cold War. Ronald Reagan is president. The Russia desk is the largest, most important desk in the largest intelligence agency in the world (the NSA). And Trump was already a top echelon Confidential Informant for law enforcement. How could they not have known about that trip? It would have been gross negligence not to have known.”

And if our intelligence community knew, would they really not bother interviewing Trump upon his return from Moscow? He’d been wined and dined by the Party elite, after all, and they would have wanted to hear all about it. Beginning in 1987, then, Trump was not only a Confidential Informant for the FBI, but was also being utilized by the CIA.

Again: the two intelligence services were really fucking good. If the KGB was all over the guy, the CIA would have known, and thus taken some kind of action. “There is no universe in which he wasn’t being surveilled/tracked and used by our guys,” Lincoln’s Bible told me. “Not one that I can see.” If so, Trump’s counterintelligence file is over three decades old.

Moscow also marked a transition of sorts. Ownership of the mob asset known as Donald Trump began its gradual transfer from La Cosa Nostra to the Russian mafiya. Not long after the trip, Trump spent time aboard the Lady Ghislaine, the yacht owned by the British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell. That sounds perfectly above board, until you consider that Maxwell, born Jan Hoch in Czechoslovakia, was a seditious little fucker. His classified dossier at the British Foreign Office described him as “a thoroughly bad character and almost certainly financed by Russia.” He was affiliated with Israeli intelligence and the KGB. He was business partners with Semion Mogilevich, so he was mobbed up. And his daughter, Ghislaine Maxwell, would in 1991 begin a long and scandalous relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. For all we know, nothing untoward happened on that yacht. But given the nexus of key OC figures—Mogilevich, the two Maxwells, Epstein—it is hard to write it all off as mere coincidence.

Four-and-a-half years after Trump’s visit to Moscow, the USSR fell. Rapacious “oligarchs” raced to gobble up the country’s wealth and natural resources. Untold billions, maybe trillions, of dollars were removed from Russia, most to banks in quasi-Western places like Cyprus. This created unprecedentedly vast opportunities for willing money launderers in the West—and Donald John Trump was well positioned to benefit from the windfall.

Trump needed the help. By the early nineties, his casinos were going bust, US banks had stopped lending to him, and he desperately needed Russian capital to stay afloat. My business professional contact who lived in Russia explains what likely happened, incrementally, over the next two-and-a-half decades:

Take someone who cannot get credit from a bank headquartered in the English speaking world because he’s already burned every major US and UK bank in New York and London. Canadian banks don’t take American risk that American banks won’t take and Australian banks won’t touch him because their government blacklisted him from doing business in the country. But he has a massive cash need because if he does not have lines of credit to keep servicing his previous debts and his lifestyle and his next big thing, he can’t attract investors into his businesses to keep the ball rolling.

This is a critical point. Trump is not just greedy for his own sake. He has to keep earning, or he will have outlived his usefulness to his mafiya whoremasters. His very life depends on his ability to do deals.

The professional continues:

So Trump needs money that doesn’t ask a lot of questions. He’s happy to pay extra—and pay it he will—because in his mind interest comes without cost: he can write it off his taxes, or he can flush it in bankruptcy, or he can pass it on to his customers, or he can get his investors to give him enough to wash it all out, or he can refinance if and when the straight lending world comes back to him. He’s happy to take Russian money because in his mind, it’s an asset to him to have Russian lenders; it makes him more likely to play the real estate market in Russia.

But he knows that if his name and a Russian lender’s appear on the same finance document, that’s discoverable: by the IRS, by the agencies he probably reports to, by the gaming commissions, by the state regulators, by his ex-wives, by his last set of creditors, by the next bankruptcy trustee he has to deal with. So how does he get money from a Russian bank into his pocket, and how does he repay money to the Russian bank, without leaving that paper trail?

Simple. He does not borrow directly from the Russian bank. He borrows from a straw-man bank, like Deutsche, and has the Russian bank act as a silent guarantor.

The Mazars and Deutsche Bank documents almost certainly contain damning information that confirms all of this, and that will collapse his Trump Tower of Cards—which is why Trump has moved heaven and earth to keep them secret.

Whoever ultimately controlled the dirty rubles in the nineties, when Trump first opened his doors to the Russians, in the twenty-tens the kopek stops with Vladimir Putin. Would any Russian bank be able, in this day and age, to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to Deutsche Bank, or any other straw-man bank,” without Putin’s awareness, if not approval? If you borrow money from a loan shark, but the transaction is made through your local branch bank, guess what? You’re still borrowing money from a loan shark—and in that world, the penalties for nonpayment are brutal.

In the event, by the time Trump began his presidential run in 2015, the transition was complete. He was no longer a creature of the Italian mob. He was fully owned by the Russians—by Mogilevich and the mafiya, and ultimately by Vladimir Putin. The president really is Putin’s puppet, just as Hillary Clinton claimed.

What’s more, plenty of people in the intelligence community and the Justice Department know this is the case, because they have seen his counterintelligence file, or have worked with Trump in his capacity as CI. Robert Mueller must know. James Comey must know. Andrew McCabe must know. James Clapper and John O. Brennan must know. And while all of these individuals have dropped hints, none save Mueller have produced actual receipts—and a lot of his Report remains redacted. It’s no accident that Trump has done everything in his considerable power to impugn these people. He knows what they have on him, so he must attack their credibility.

To wit: When Lisa Page texted Peter Strzok that Trump is “not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” and Strzok replied, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” they were discussing national security, not Democrat/Republican politics; two of the FBI’s best Russian mob experts were highly, and rightly, concerned that an asset of a hostile foreign power would win the White House. No wonder Trump wants us to believe their text exchanges were romantic in nature, and constantly frames Page and Strzok as lovers—the truth could end his presidency.

Alas, Page’s worst fears were realized. The President of the United States answers to the Kremlin. That sounds like something from a bad movie, but in the time of the worst pandemic in over a century, it has immediate, and grave, real-world consequences.

“We have been taken over,” Lincoln’s Bible said, “and a quarter of a million innocent civilians are going to die because of it.”

***

As with “Tinker, Tailor, Mobster, Spy,” this piece was written with a lot of help from Lincoln’s Bible.

Photo: President Ronald Reagan Shaking Hands with Donald Trump and Ivana Trump During The State Visit of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia at The State Dinner in The Blue Room, 2/11/1985. From the Reagan Presidential Archive.

#greg olear #putin's puppet #covid times #organized crime #america is broken #lincoln's bible #long reads

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years

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It kind of drives me crazy when people make the argument that if you really care about women's rights you would be in the middle east right now, holding signs up, creating all female fighting units and overthrowing the hateful sexist rhetoric and religious governments of those countries. According to this argument, everyone who advocates for women's rights have absolutely no moral or intellectual integrity whatsoever, until all and by all I mean every single one of the 'so-called-feminists' here protesting in the United States, should be making some mass exodus oversees right now. And because they are not, they cannot in any way shape or form be credited as having made any significant point and cannot make any significant difference in western world, and in fact, by only mentioning issues pertinent to their country of origin and not mentioning the mistreatment of women in the middle east, they are therefore to be considered partially responsible for the mistreatment of women's rights in the foreign countries not mentioned.

Now, lets examine this 'argument.' The rights that many countries in the middle east are very bleak when it comes to women's rights, I agree if there is something that we in the United States can do about that, then I think we should. If you have the money to donate to organizations that help women in poorer countries acquire the necessary healthcare and education, or in some way have the power to intercede the criminalization of even a hint of female sexuality than we should do so. But lets break down what is expected of the modern feminist for them to be taken seriously according to those who argue this point with some very rhetorical step by step questions of logic.

How easy is it to get a passport to the middle east?

Does anyone even apply to simply gain a passport to many of these countries with bleak civil liberties?

Don't you have to have a very valid reason for even being allowed entrance to many of these places?

More specifically, how would a poor, working class, middle class or even in many cases an upper class citizen of the United States or Canada not only be able to finance such a a trip, but simply to fly into the country alone, without a valid reason to be there, and with limited resources with the open intent of starting a revolution?

Especially if this was done all at once for the sake of 'philosophical purity' does anyone really believe that our government or theirs would allow for this to happen?

Also, how would you simply 'start a revolution for change' over there?

They do not have a fair system of law in many parts of the world. You would have to take to the streets I imagine. And how do you think that the Saudi Arabian government for example would respond to that?

And honestly, if you haven't fully grasped what a poor plot this is yet, do you really think that seeing a bunch of privileged western women dressed and behaving with the understanding of western privileged women is going to inspire women of a completely different upbringing who have been abused by the only system of belief and law they have ever known to out of the blue simply jump out of their own skin and simply know how to overthrow the corrupt inequality they live under?

What I am trying to say here ultimately is, do you really believe that this very historically, sociologically and psychologically complex situation can be easily reduced to the end of Foot Loose where a town with no dancing can suddenly dance all they like?

If you honestly believe your own suggestion is feasible, then wow.

Also, I would suggest you look in the mirror. If you are one of those people who claim that feminism is irrelevant, that we should stop using the term women's rights and simply call them human rights, than I can safely assume that the rights of women in different countries, seeing as they are the 'humans' who's rights you profess to believe very strongly in, enough so that you would suggest tens of thousands of women who want more equality in the united states should simply give up what they are doing here and leave, than that kind of means that you aren't off the hook either.

I think perhaps you need to get your ass over to the middle east.

The truth is we live in a big corrupt world. Most people on this planet have limited success in anything they try to do, no matter how hard. Most of us have very limited resources and very small step that we could possibly hope to accomplish in fixing all that is wrong in the world. Just because we can't attack the biggest evils in the world, does not mean that moderate attempts to correct a wrong are not valid. There is no shame in fighting for moderate change where you are planted. For most of the world, that's all we can do.

And it's also never crossed my mind to accuse people who unite to raise money for the cure of one disease that they are total hypocrites for not raising money for another disease. This is clearly an attempt to discredit the voice of people you don't like, but as far as arguments go, it's actually a very weak fallacy.

Nor would i chastise someone for going to be a kindergarten teacher when there are places in the world that have a shortage of nurses.

#text

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englishchinesetranslations · 4 years

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Right-Wing Populism

Murray N. Rothbard

February 3, 2017

This was written in January 1992.

WHAT IS RIGHT-WING POPULISM?

The basic right-wing populist insight is that we live in a statist country and a statist world dominated by a ruling elite, consisting of a coalition of Big Government, Big Business, and various influential special interest groups. More specifically, the old America of individual liberty, private property, and minimal government has been replaced by a coalition of politicians and bureaucrats allied with, and even dominated by, powerful corporate and Old Money financial elites (e.g., the Rockefellers, the Trilateralists); and the New Class of technocrats and intellectuals, including Ivy League academics and media elites, who constitute the opinion-moulding class in society. In short, we are ruled by an updated, twentieth-century coalition of Throne and Altar, except that this Throne is various big business groups, and the Altar is secular, statist intellectuals, although mixed in with the secularists is a judicious infusion of Social Gospel, mainstream Christians. The ruling class in the State has always needed intellectuals to apologize for their rule and to sucker the masses into subservience, i.e., into paying the taxes and going along with State rule. In the old days, in most societies, a form of priestcraft or State Church constituted the opinion-moulders who apologized for that rule. Now, in a more secular age, we have technocrats, “social scientists,” and media intellectuals, who apologize for the State system and staff in the ranks of its bureaucracy.

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Libertarians have often seen the problem plainly, but as strategists for social change they have badly missed the boat. In what we might call “the Hayek model,” they have called for spreading correct ideas, and thereby converting the intellectual elites to liberty, beginning with top philosophers and then slowly trickling on down through the decades to converting journalists and other media opinion-moulders. And of course, ideas are the key, and spreading correct doctrine is a necessary part of any libertarian strategy. It might be said that the process takes too long, but a long-range strategy is important, and contrasts to the tragic futility of official conservatism which is interested only in the lesser-of-two-evils for the current election and therefore loses in the medium, let along the long, run. But the real error is not so much the emphasis on the long run, but on ignoring the fundamental fact that the problem is not just intellectual error. The problem is that the intellectual elites benefit from the current system; in a crucial sense, they are part of the ruling class.

The process of Hayekian conversion assumes that everyone, or at least all intellectuals, are interested solely in the truth, and that economic self-interest never gets in the way. Anyone at all acquainted with intellectuals or academics should be disabused of this notion, and fast. Any libertarian strategy must recognize that intellectuals and opinion-moulders are part of the fundamental problem, not just because of error, but because their own self-interest is tied into the ruling system.Why then did communism implode? Because in the end the system was working so badly that even the nomenklatura got fed up and threw in the towel. The Marxists have correctly pointed out that a social system collapses when the ruling class becomes demoralized and loses its will to power; manifest failure of the communist system brought about that demoralization. But doing nothing, or relying only on educating the elites in correct ideas, will mean that our own statist system will not end until our entire society, like that of the Soviet Union, has been reduced to rubble. Surely, we must not sit still for that. A strategy for liberty must be far more active and aggressive.

Hence the importance, for libertarians or for minimal government conservatives, of having a one-two punch in their armor: not simply of spreading correct ideas, but also of exposing the corrupt ruling elites and how they benefit from the existing system, more specifically how they are ripping us off. Ripping the mask off elites is “negative campaigning” at its finest and most fundamental.This two-pronged strategy is (a) to build up a cadre of our own libertarians, minimal-government opinion-moulders, based on correct ideas; and (b) to tap the masses directly, to short-circuit the dominant media and intellectual elites, to rouse the masses of people against the elites that are looting them, and confusing them, and oppressing them, both socially and economically. But this strategy must fuse the abstract and the concrete; it must not simply attack elites in the abstract, but must focus specifically on the existing statist system, on those who right now constitute the ruling classes.Libertarians have long been puzzled about whom, about which groups, to reach out to. The simple answer: everyone, is not enough, because to be relevant politically, we must concentrate strategically on those groups who are most oppressed and who also have the most social leverage.

The reality of the current system is that it constitutes an unholy alliance of “corporate liberal” Big Business and media elites, who, through big government, have privileged and caused to rise up a parasitic Underclass, who, among them all, are looting and oppressing the bulk of the middle and working classes in America. Therefore, the proper strategy of libertarians and paleos is a strategy of “right-wing populism,” that is: to expose and denounce this unholy alliance, and to call for getting this preppie-underclass-liberal media alliance off the backs of the rest of us: the middle and working classes.

A RIGHT-WING POPULIST PROGRAM

A right-wing populist program, then, must concentrate on dismantling the crucial existing areas of State and elite rule, and on liberating the average American from the most flagrant and oppressive features of that rule. In short:

l. Slash Taxes. All taxes, sales, business, property, etc., but especially the most oppressive politically and personally: the income tax. We must work toward repeal of the income tax and abolition of the IRS.

2. Slash Welfare. Get rid of underclass rule by abolishing the welfare system, or, short of abolition, severely cutting and restricting it.

3. Abolish Racial or Group Privileges. Abolish affirmative action, set aside racial quotas, etc., and point out that the root of such quotas is the entire “civil rights” structure, which tramples on the property rights of every American.

4. Take Back the Streets: Crush Criminals. And by this I mean, of course, not “white collar criminals” or “inside traders” but violent street criminals – robbers, muggers, rapists, murderers. Cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment, subject of course to liability when they are in error.

5. Take Back the Streets: Get Rid of the Bums. Again: unleash the cops to clear the streets of bums and vagrants. Where will they go? Who cares? Hopefully, they will disappear, that is, move from the ranks of the petted and cosseted bum class to the ranks of the productive members of society.

6. Abolish the Fed; Attack the Banksters. Money and banking are recondite issues. But the realities can be made vivid: the Fed is an organized cartel of banksters, who are creating inflation, ripping off the public, destroying the savings of the average American. The hundreds of billions of taxpayer handouts to S&L banksters will be chicken-feed compared to the coming collapse of the commercial banks.

7. America First. A key point, and not meant to be seventh in priority. The American economy is not only in recession; it is stagnating. The average family is worse off now than it was two decades ago. Come home America. Stop supporting bums abroad. Stop all foreign aid, which is aid to banksters and their bonds and their export industries. Stop gloabaloney, and let’s solve our problems at home.

8. Defend Family Values. Which means, get the State out of the family, and replace State control with parental control. In the long run, this means ending public schools, and replacing them with private schools. But we must realize that voucher and even tax credit schemes are not, despite Milton Friedman, transitional demands on the path to privatized education; instead, they will make matters worse by fastening government control more totally upon the private schools. Within the sound alternative is decentralization, and back to local, community neighborhood control of the schools.

Further: We must reject once and for all the left-libertarian view that all government-operated resources must be cesspools. We must try, short of ultimate privatization, to operate government facilities in a manner most conducive to a business, or to neighborhood control. But that means: that the public schools must allow prayer, and we must abandon the absurd left-atheist interpretation of the First Amendment that “establishment of religion” means not allowing prayer in public schools, or a creche in a schoolyard or a public square at Christmas. We must return to common sense, and original intent, in constitutional interpretation.

So far: every one of these right-wing populist programs is totally consistent with a hard-core libertarian position. But all real-world politics is coalition politics, and there are other areas where libertarians might well compromise with their paleo or traditionalist or other partners in a populist coalition. For example, on family values, take such vexed problems as pornography, prostitution, or abortion. Here, pro-legalization and pro-choice libertarians should be willing to compromise on a decentralist stance; that is, to end the tyranny of the federal courts, and to leave these problems up to states and better yet, localities and neighborhoods, that is, to “community standards.”The Best of Murray N. Rothbard

#populism

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courtneytincher · 5 years

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Libya's Haftar Comments on Tripoli's Offensive, Oil: Transcript

(Bloomberg) -- Libya’s eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar commented on his offensive to capture the capital, the future of oil exports and attempts to end the nation’s crisis peacefully in written answers to questions sent by Bloomberg News.Following is the full transcript of the interview:Bloomberg: Will the army’s command continue to secure oil fields against any acts of sabotage and calls for production to stop?Field Marshal Haftar: The national army’s soldiers and officers have sacrificed their lives to liberate and protect oil ports, so how would we allow any sabotage? The wealth and institutions of Libyans will be protected with our lives, there is no question about it. The Libyan National Army has proved in all of the battles how extremely careful it’s been to ensure the security of oil installations and not interfere in running them. The Libyan people know this well.Whoever is seeking to sabotage the installations and hurt the livelihood of Libyans will be dealt with severely and the army will stand in their way. This is our patriotic duty and we’re well aware of its weight and it’s not up for negotiations.Bloomberg: The head of the National Oil Corp. accuses the army of using oil airports for military purposes, what’s your answer?Haftar: I am answering you, not him. We didn’t need the oil airports so we didn’t use them for the military so far. But if we need to -- and it’s unlikely -- we won’t hesitate. We are in a state of general mobilization and all of the state’s capabilities are at the disposal of the armed forces.Bloomberg: Do you have any role in trying to convince OPEC or the United Nations to export oil through the national company based in Benghazi under the supervision of the army?Haftar: This is not a matter for the army. More importantly, the national company should live up to its name, working only for the benefit of Libyans, not under the control of any hegemony or foreign interventions, and for it to be devoid of any appearance of corruption. The company should not avail its capabilities to the service of terrorists and armed militias, and to avoid working against the army. It should only carry out the role mandated by law with all honesty. It should be accountable and under supervision. This is the basis of the oil sector. Anything else is just appearances.Oil is a vital sector that touches the livelihoods of Libyans. Its proceeds should be distributed through a just system that can benefit all Libyans equally. Manipulating it or using it for political purposes to serve certain parties is a violation that can’t be left unanswered. This is a public-sector company owned by all Libyans. It’s not a private company.Bloomberg: There was talk about the army selling oil illegally before. Did you do this?Haftar: The army is not a trader. The army is a regular defense force protecting the homeland. It doesn’t sell oil, neither legally or illegally. Selling oil is exclusively the work of the National Oil Corp., which the army addressed to take up its responsibilities in running and operating the ports and exporting oil in the same statement that we announced liberating the oil ports in September 2016 from criminal, terrorist gangs who were blocking its export and smuggling it for their own private benefit.The main issue about oil is the just distribution of its proceeds equally among Libyans. It should not be employed to support terrorist organizations and armed militias. The oil sector should also be devoid of any corruption. This is where the attention should be.The selling of oil is governed by laws and legislation.Bloomberg: Has pulling out of Gharyan affected the army’s operations to move toward the capital?Haftar: Advancing toward the capital is based on a comprehensive military operation and doesn’t rely on one certain positioning.Pulling out of certain positions -- regardless of the reason -- is in our military calculations from the beginning. A military withdrawal is part of fighting and an essential component of the plan of any battle. It doesn’t affect the entire operation because it’s part of military planning to begin with. The leadership that doesn’t put withdrawal under its consideration, and doesn’t plan for it for an emergency or to reinforce the positions of its forces and re-organize them or any other reason, is a failed leadership par excellence.A withdrawal doesn’t at all mean losing and it doesn’t mean backing away from achieving the target of the battle. The army that doesn’t know how to pull back has nothing but defeat. Advancing toward the capital is first and foremost subject to the safety of citizens, their property and possessions and the city’s institutions. It’s not subject to a technical withdrawal from one position to the other.This is what we have as our top priority, and will be clear to you when when orders are given to advance toward the heart of the capital and control it. This will happen soon, God willing.Bloomberg: Media reports suggested that Tripoli’s General National Accord forces found U.S.-made weapons and ammunition in your positions in Gharyan. How do you respond to this?Haftar: This is nonsense. We don’t own any American weapons and we didn’t strike any weapons deal with the United States, and the entire world knows that the United States is one of the strictest countries in imposing the arms embargo so how can it be believed that it’s exporting weapons to us.Even the countries that buy weapons from the United States can never give it to us because they will come under international condemnation and it will harm their ties with the U.S. In addition, the Libyan army hasn’t received any training on U.S.-made weapons even under the previous regime. So how can we get American weapons? These militias think they will achieve victories with these claims and harm us, while we achieve victories in the field and not through telling lies in the media.Bloomberg: What does the army’s command say about Turkey’s threat to target your forces?Haftar: I don’t follow what Turkey’s foreign minister says because our time is precious, and our people are waiting for the announcement that Tripoli has been liberated from terrorism. We are going ahead with our struggle regardless of any political statements here and there. What we care about is our relationship with the Turkish people, and we respect them. And in any case, if this was true, the interim government has a foreign ministry that can answer if deemed necessary. We won’t respond through the media.Bloomberg: It’s been 80 days since the army’s advance toward Tripoli and still the fighting is at the outskirts of the capital. What’s delaying the army’s advance and do you have a plan to do so soon? Do you have a time frame for the operation?Haftar: Many people superficially say that the national army was relying in its plan on liberating the capital in days or hours but failed to do so. This is nonsense that can only come from someone who is ignorant and doesn’t understand the lessons presented by the national army in military planning. We all understand the situation in Tripoli from all sides and we know the positions of the terrorist groups, their leaderships, movements and communications, their ammunition depots, backup, fighting capabilities and other accurate information using our professional intelligence-gathering methods.We also understand the great precautions needed to ensure the safety of innocent civilians first, and for the city’s institutions and installation to avoid destruction. If we didn’t put this into consideration we would have been done with a sudden storming of the capital in less than 24 hours. We take these precautions out of patriotic duty and not in response to any pressure because the operation itself is to protect the citizens, their freedom and dignity. We can’t accept for the citizens to become the victims. You won’t find anyone more careful about this than the national army.The various forces of terrorism and the armed militias didn’t spring up overnight to be wiped out in hours. They took years to form, expand their influence and tighten their grip on the capital, in addition to bringing in weapons and money, setting up ties with countries that support terrorism and recruit unemployed youths through money.The main element in the spreading of these groups is the slowness and the deliberate delay in reaching a peaceful political solution in order to safeguard the interests of those who are benefiting from the status quo. The longer the delay, the more that these groups will spread.The armed forces have, since the announcement of the liberation operation, offered them a peaceful solution that ensures their safety by dropping their weapons and letting our forces enter the city without a fight. But they preferred confrontation and bloodshed. The choice of war was theirs, which necessitates the liberation of the capital by force. However, the peaceful choice is still on the table for them to surrender their weapons before it’s too late.Tripoli is the capital of all Libyans and includes the main state institutions. A state cannot rise when its capital is ruled by militias with medium and heavy weapons, where terrorist leaders hide in its neighborhoods. This is something nobody can disagree with. The city has to be liberated and the army is the only institution that is qualified and ready for this.The time of the liberation is coming soon to announce an era that Libyans are waiting for.Bloomberg: Is there any time left for negotiations with the GNA? Any contacts through mediators to reach a settlement?Haftar: What we are doing now is a patriotic duty that has nothing to do with the so-called GNA. There is nothing to negotiate with them about. In reality, the GNA -- starting with its head -- is nothing but a mouthpiece for the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood organization and its armed militias, and a soft tool in their hands, does what it’s ordered to do.This is the truth that all Libyans know from the start and the world now knows. What the national army is doing is the continuation of a comprehensive liberation and not against any political process or societal dialogue: it’s specifically against terrorists and armed groups that have kidnapped the capital with all its political and economic institutions, and started to terrorize the people and blackmail them by force. They’re standing against the creation of a state and the transition to a period of security, stability and development.We don’t see any need for mediation with what you call the GNA because it’s outside what we do and it’s not the target of our military operation. Any in any case, it’s been proven from experience that it can’t commit to any pledge without taking the permission of the Muslim Brotherhood and the militias. This is a fact that everyone knows.Bloomberg: What’s your comment on Fayez Al-Sarraj’s initiative?Haftar: Unfortunately, the man can only say what he’s told to say. The decision isn’t his to make. It’s all echo that doesn’t deserve to be answered because our time is precious. Our attention is now focused on liberating the capital as soon as possible and with minimum losses, and then for the post-liberation phase.At the same time, we don’t oppose any political solution to resolve the crisis. Let the politicians present their peaceful initiative and with it disarm the militias of the tank and the missile and the rifle. We would be the first to support this. It would be great no doubt, because it will spare us the need to fight and its tragedies. We would announce then a ceasefire immediately.But the comic initiatives aimed for media attention, to gain time and give the fake impression that it’s for peace and the stemming of bloodshed -- they die at their birth.Bloomberg: In Al-Sarraj’s initiative, he mentions that it’s aimed at those who are against the militarization of the state. Is this a hint at your desire to militarize the state?Haftar: Since the launch of Operation Dignity in 2014 our military goals haven’t changed: eradicating terrorism, regaining sovereign control and security in the country. And before all this, to preserve the citizen’s dignity. The shape of the state and how it’s governed, this is something for Libyans to decide by their free will.Our role is to eliminate the obstacles facing the people and pave the way for them to be the decision makers. The armed forces can’t impose its will on Libyans. The opposite is true. And I am certain that Libyans mock the phrase you mentioned because they appreciate the role of their army in restoring the homeland and freeing it from terrorism. They also appreciate the sacrifices made. Libya didn’t suffer in its history since independence more than it did under the militias, the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorists.Libya at the end of the day will be, God willing, a free, civil and sovereign state according to what the Libyans decide. The most precious element of the state is the citizen who enjoys all of his constitutional rights without oppression.The Libyans’ wealth will be for them to spend on building their present, future and the future of next generations. Anyone who committed a crime against the Libyans will be dealt with only by the justice system the day when the state rises and victory is declared.As for convening meetings, the army has never intervened or stopped this before.Bloomberg: How do the U.S. and Russia as well as Arab states view the army’s advance toward the capital?Haftar: The entire world has recognized the nature of the groups that the army is fighting at the outskirts of the capital, and not just the United States and Russia. The entire world has believed that security and stability in Libya and its surrounding areas can’t be achieved as long as these armed groups are carrying weapons and imposing their influence over every institution in the capital.The thing that some countries fear the most is for the oil sector to be affected by military operations. Reality has proven that these fears are unfounded. Some neighboring countries fear that the military operations would lead terrorists to flee to their territories. To eliminate those fears, we are working to enhance joint security work to monitor the terrorists’ moves across the borders.To contact the reporter on this story: Alaa Shahine in Dubai at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Gunn at [email protected];Alaa Shahine at [email protected] more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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trunewsofficial · 5 years

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Pence Offers New ‘Incentives’ for Venezuelan Officials to Bolt from Maduro

Vice President Mike Pence addressed the Washington Conference of the Americas today at State Department headquarters and made note of the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, announcing the “next steps” coming from the Trump administration. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, he said, must go. Here’s a full transcript of the speech, provided by the White House: It is an honor to be here at the U.S. State Department, at the Crossroad of the Americas, the 49th Annual Washington Conference on the Americas. Thank you all for being here. And as I begin, let me bring greetings from a friend of mine and a great friend of all of those who cherish freedom across this hemisphere of freedom. I bring greetings from the 45th President of the United States of America, President Donald Trump. Before I begin, let me reflect on some welcome news. Last fall, we made clear to Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma that the arrest and jailing of two journalists was deeply troubling to millions of Americans. And we urged their release. Today, the world learned those two Reuters journalists were released after spending more than 500 days in prison, where they’d been jailed simply for doing their job: reporting atrocities committed against the Rohingya people. In America and across this hemisphere, we believe in democratic ideals, including the freedom of expression and the freedom of the press. And we welcome the release of these two journalists — (applause) — and we hope their release signals a positive and permanent respect for a free and independent press. But what brings us here today is to discuss the theme of this conference, which is “disruption and transformation” in the Americas. And it is unquestionable that over the last two years there has been profound transformation across Latin America. Since the earliest days of this administration, President Trump has worked with our partners in the region to build a safer, stronger, and more prosperous Western Hemisphere. And the results speak for themselves. Under the BUILD Act, we’ve pledged up to $60 billion in development financing to help our partners build infrastructure they need to grow. We’ve expanded access to affordable, American-made energy through our Americas Crece initiative. We’ve promoted free, fair, and reciprocal trade, forging a new trade deal, like the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement. We’ve also strengthened our security ties. And under the President’s leadership, the United States has conducted joint law enforcement actions across this hemisphere and reinvigorated the fight against illegal drugs by helping bring thousands of charges against dangerous gang members and money launderers. And it’s also been my honor to travel to Latin America five different times in our first two and a half years. And I’ve witnessed this transformation firsthand, and we’ve worked to strengthen the ties that bind freedom-loving nations and peoples all across this hemisphere of freedom. In Ecuador, I saw President Moreno support press freedom and renew the fight in his country against illegal drugs and corruption. In Argentina, President Macri and I eliminated longstanding trade barriers between our two countries for pork producers. In Brazil, we laid the groundwork for greater cooperation in space. And in Lima, Peru, I was honored to represent the United States at a historic conference where 35 nations pledged to fight against corruption in their governments and renew our commitment to freedom. Since my very first visit to Latin America two years ago, the people of the Western Hemisphere have voted in election after election for prosperity, for security, for transparency and the rule of law in their governments. And the United States has stood with them every step of the way. And America will always stand with our neighbors when they stand for freedom. As President Trump said in his first address to the United Nations, in his words, “Nations of the world must take a greater role in promoting secure and prosperous societies in their own regions.” And as the largest trading partner and source of investment in the Western Hemisphere, that’s exactly what America has done. As the President also promised, “a new day is coming in Latin America,” and so it is. “Across the Western Hemisphere, socialism is dying, and liberty, prosperity, and democracy are being reborn” right before our eyes. So there’s been transformation over the last two years. But as we all know, there’s been extraordinary disruption as well. And today, the single greatest source of disruption, the single greatest disrupter of peace and prosperity in the Western Hemisphere has come from the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, and from their desperate attempts to cling to power. Venezuela’s neighbors know better than anyone how hard it is to bring liberty to a land that has long lived under dictatorship. And today, the United States of America reaffirms our commitment to the Venezuelan people and to our partners in the region. We will continue to stand with the people of Venezuela until libertad is restored. And recent scenes out of Caracas have been heartbreaking and deeply troubling. It’s extraordinary to think of it. Last week, the world saw armored vehicles run over unarmed citizens; military forces firing tear gas at church goers; and hundreds of people, including children, be thrown into jail because they dared to protest the man who oppresses them. The struggle in Venezuela is the struggle between dictatorship and democracy. Nicolás Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power, and Nicolás Maduro must go. For six long years, the people of Venezuela have suffered under the heavy hand of oppression. The Maduro regime’s socialist policies have shrunk their economy by nearly half. It is remarkable to think that in what was once one of the wealthiest countries in our hemisphere, that 9 out of 10 people live in poverty. The average Venezuelan has lost more than 20 pounds through deprivation and malnutrition. Thousands of Venezuelan children are starving at this very hour. And infants in hospitals across Venezuela are dying for lack of basic medical care. It’s extraordinary to hear of it. As my wife and I traveled through the region on several occasions and met with refugees from Venezuela — to hear the story just broke your heart. I’ll never forget in Manaus, Brazil, a father surrounded by his three small boys who looked — looked me in the eye, as his boys looked on, and said that he had finally decided to flee Venezuela because he described how hard it was, the days that he had to come home and look at his boys and say, “We’re not eating today.” And as the translator repeated those words to me, the little boys nodded their heads, remembering those days. Or the grandmother, when we were in Colombia at a little church that had taken in thousands of Venezuelan refugees, told me that she finally fled Venezuela because her grandchildren were required to get up at four in the morning to go and claim a paper ticket so they could stand in line at four in the afternoon and turn the ticket in, in exchange for a single piece of bread. She said she’d had enough. She gathered up her four grandchildren and made the long journey to the west, to the Colombia border. The impact on families, on real lives — some three million people that have fled the country — a million more by the end of the year, projected — are stories that the world needs to hear. And under Maduro’s dictatorship, crime, violence, and lawlessness have also spread. We’re told that thieves in Venezuela don’t rob banks because with inflation at 1,000,000 percent a year, money is basically worthless. Instead, they rob restaurants for food. Vicious gangs and the notorious colectivos have turned the streets into warzones. And Venezuela now has the highest murder rate in the world. More than 70 people are murdered every single day. But the Maduro regime is not only a threat to the Venezuelan people. As we gather here today and we think of disruptions across our hemisphere, we must recognize it is also a threat to the peace and security of our region as well. The rising desperation in Venezuela has fueled a mass exodus, the likes of which we literally have never seen in the Western Hemisphere. As I said, more than 3 million Venezuelans have abandoned their beloved country. And it’s estimated that millions more will follow in the days ahead. Venezuela is a failed state. And as history teaches, failed states know no boundaries. Drug traffickers, criminal gangs, terrorists groups seeking to destabilize the region and profit from the misery of the Venezuelan people every day. And while the Maduro regime has stood aside as millions of its own people have fled in desperation, it’s been more than eager to accept the aid and comfort of regimes in Iran, and Russia, and Cuba. The Iranian regime has been working with Venezuela’s corrupt dictatorship to establish a safe haven for its terrorist proxies, and continues to do so as we gather here. Last month, a high-level delegation from Iran’s Foreign Ministry celebrated a very public launch of direct air service between Caracas and Tehran by Mahan Air, a blacklisted airline controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which President Trump recently designated as a terrorist organization. And one of Maduro’s top aides — a former Vice President and currently the Interior Minister, Tareck El Aissami — is a drug runner and a money launderer who partners with terrorist networks to bring Iran-backed terrorists into the country. And today, Hezbollah is working to extend its dangerous network throughout Venezuela, and from there, throughout our hemisphere. And while Iranian terrorists build safe havens, despite their denials, it’s clear that Russia also seeks a foothold in this hemisphere in Venezuela. Moscow is the Maduro regime’s biggest weapons supplier. In exchange for bartered Venezuelan oil, Russia provides military jet fighters and acts as a lender of last resort. Last month, Russia sent two military transport planes to Caracas in a show of support for the embattled regime. But no one has done more to support the corrupt Maduro regime than the Communist leaders of Cuba. For nearly two decades, the Havana regime has sent thousands of Cuban teachers, engineers to Venezuela to prop up a failing regime. Cuban agents control the levers of power in many government agencies, especially the military and intelligence services. And as we saw last week, key decisions about Venezuela’s future are as much made in Havana as they are in Caracas. Venezuela isn’t merely a Cuban client, the people of Venezuela are essentially Cuba’s hostage. And Cuba has robbed Venezuela of more than her freedom; she stripped her of wealth. Some estimates claim Cuba has extracted more than $35 billion in Venezuelan oil since 2005. In short, the struggling people of Venezuela aren’t just the victims of one dictatorship; the people of Venezuela are the victims of two dictatorships. So this is the company that Nicolás Maduro keeps. And the Americas will never fully realize our potential as a hemisphere of freedom until Venezuela is able to cast off Cuba’s control and once again take its rightful place as a free and independent nation. But for all of the suffering across the country in cities large and small, it is inspiring to see the Venezuelan people rising up. As President Trump said not long ago, “the fight for freedom [in Venezuela] has [just] begun.” Four short months ago, after Nicolás Maduro was sworn into a second term stolen in a sham election, the National Assembly — the only duly elected body in Venezuela — exercised its power under the constitution and recognized a new leader: Interim President Juan Guaidó. At President Trump’s direction, the United States was proud to be the first nation on Earth to recognize Interim President Juan Guaidó as the legitimate President of Venezuela. And now more than 50 nations around the world have joined us. And all across this Western Hemisphere, nations have been standing up to declare their support for President Guaidó. Two months ago, the Inter-American Development Bank voted to seat President Guaidó’s representative. Last month, the G7 foreign ministers issued a statement saying the May 2018 presidential election lacked legitimacy, and called on the Maduro regime, in their words, to, quote, “restore the authority of the National Assembly.” And the OAS — the oldest regional organization in the world — voted to stand with the Venezuelan people and recognize Guaidó’s government as the only true representative of Venezuela. As we gather here today, President Guaidó is meeting with members of the National Assembly, some of whom have come under harassment by the National Guard and intelligence services. So, let me take this opportunity to be very clear: The safety and security of President Juan Guaidó and his family are a priority for the United States of America. The United States has been tough — stood strong for freedom in Venezuela. And as the President has said, we can be “a lot tougher.” Under the Maduro regime, in particular, the Supreme Court of Venezuela has undermined its constitutional mandate. The Supreme Court was established to protect individual rights and the rule of law and, sadly, of late, it has become a political tool for a regime that usurps democracy, indicts political prisoners, and promotes authoritarianism. It is time for the Supreme Court in Venezuela to return to its founding purpose. If the Supreme Court of Venezuela does not return to its constitutional mandate to uphold the rule of law, the United States of America will hold all 25 of its magistrates accountable for their actions. So, I came today to be very clear: The United States of America will continue to exert all diplomatic and economic pressure to bring about a peaceful transition of democracy in Venezuela. But to those who continue to oppress the good people of Venezuela, know this: All options are on the table. Nations across the world have spoken with a clear voice and the time has come for freedom-loving nations also to begin to prepare — prepare for a brighter future for the people of Venezuela after Maduro is gone. Under President Trump’s leadership, I’m proud to say the United States has been standing with the people of Venezuela, and we have been committed to helping families and communities that have been devastated by the dictatorship and oppression of the Maduro regime. We’ve positioned more than 500 metric tons of food and humanitarian supplies on the Venezuelan border, ready for immediate distribution. The American people have provided nearly $260 million in aid to support displaced Venezuelans and the host nations that support them so generously. And today, I am announcing that, at the President’s direction, the United States Navy will deploy the USNS Comfort to the Caribbean, Central America, and South America this June. The Comfort will embark on a 5-month humanitarian mission to address the Venezuelan crisis. The United States military and medical personnel, working alongside their counterparts across the region, will be there to provide medical assistance to communities in need and help relieve countries overwhelmed by the influx of the suffering people of Venezuela. And while the United States has sanctioned more than 150 government officials and state-owned businesses loyal to the dictator, America has also made it clear that these sanctions need not be permanent. Just as the National Assembly has promised to provide amnesty to anyone who has not committed a war crime, so too the United States of America will consider sanctions relief for all those who step forward, stand up for the constitution, and support the rule of law — like General Manuel Cristopher Figuera, the former chief of the Venezuelan intelligence service, who just last week broke ranks with the Maduro regime and rallied to the support of the Venezuelan constitution and the National Assembly. In recognition of his recent actions in support of democracy and the rule of law, I am announcing today that the United States of America is removing all sanctions on General Manuel Cristopher Figuera effective immediately. As President Guaidó builds a brighter future for Venezuela, we hope the action that our nation is taking today will encourage others to follow the example of General Cristopher Figuera and members of the military who’ve also stepped forward and taken a stand for the Bolivarian constitution and libertad. We believe that Venezuela will one day again be free, that democracy will be restored. And once democracy is restored, the United States and the world community will not let a free Venezuela fail. We will help the fledgling Venezuelan democracy regain its footing. We’ll build a brighter future after Maduro is gone — creating jobs, fighting poverty, and expanding opportunity. We’re already hard at work. Freedom-loving countries of the Lima Group and the G7 are helping to build support for Venezuela at institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank. Together, we will get aid to Venezuelan families and rekindle access to trade finance so Venezuelans can get goods back on the shelves, extend lines of credit for new businesses, and help the Venezuelan government meet its basic needs. Once Venezuela’s democracy is restored, Venezuela’s future will be bright. And let me be clear: there can be no bystanders in the cause of freedom in Venezuela — across this hemisphere or across the world. And the United States, today, again calls on all nations of the Western Hemisphere to stand with the Venezuelan people as they rise up to restore freedom, democracy, and libertad to their nation. Freedom springs from the hearts of people all over the world. But as history records, it has always sprung, in particular, from the hearts of people here in the New World. And I believe, with all my heart, that freedom will continue to ring not only across this land, but across this hemisphere — across this hemisphere of freedom. And Venezuela will one day be free. For, in the words of Simón Bolivar, “A people that loves freedom will, in the end, be free.” So to all the people of Venezuela, on behalf of my fellow Americans, we say again: Estamos con ustedes — we’re with you. We will continue to stand with you and pray with you until your freedom is restored. And to the freedom-loving people in Venezuela and all the good people gathered here and nations that are standing with them, just know: As you stand, as you march, as you go, you do not go alone. We are all with you. Freedom-loving people across this hemisphere are with you. And I also believe that the author of freedom is with you as well, “for where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” That means when we labor for freedom, we make His work on this Earth our own. And freedom always wins. So, with faith in that great promise, gratitude to all who have joined us across their hemisphere of freedom in this great cause, and faith in the courage and strength of the Venezuelan people and the generosity and ideals of the American people and all our allies, I believe with all my heart the day is coming soon when Venezuela will once more be free. We will see “a new birth of freedom” in this nation in our hemisphere. And Venezuela will be a nation reborn to libertad, so help us God. (Photo Credit: The White House) source https://trunews.com/stream/pence-offers-new-incentives-for-venezuelan-officials-to-bolt-from-maduro

#TRUNEWS - Rick Wiles

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timclymer · 5 years

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Halloween – Samhain Teach Us To Overcome Fear

At its core, Samhain is about the night when the old God dies and the crone Goddess mourns him deeply for the next six weeks. The popular image of her as the old Halloween hag stirring her cauldron comes from the Celtic belief that all dead souls return to her cauldron of life, death and rebirth to await reincarnation.

After the Christian church to recast the sabbat, or seasonal season, by turning it into a day of fasting and prayer for saints (All Hallow Eve, preceding all Saints Day, is still one of the holiest days in Catholicism), Samhain lore and practice remained popular and the church was forced to diabolize it as a night “boiling with evil spirits.”

Masters of cultural blending, the church declared that the evil spirits were dispelled only the ringing of church bells on All Saints Day. Although terrorism has nothing to do with this pagan holiday, the idea of Samhain being a night of unleashed evil took hold in the collective mind.

The effect of this unfortunate misinterpretation is that a great opportunity to reflect on life and death, on the endless cycle of seasons, and extremely, on confronting and overcoming that which frigtens us, has become lost. Halloween has become an extremely commercial holiday, second only to Christmas in decorating and candy sales, or a celebration of the macabre, leading to fearful rejection by religiously conservative groups, or wanton abandon by those happy to unleash their versions of the hounds of hell.

Very few people however, seem to take the opportunity Halloween presents to face our fears, which is interesting – or maybe understandable — America appears to be one of the most frightened places on earth. According to a NY Times poll in 2006, nearly half of Americans feel “something uneasy or in danger.” Compared with five years previous, 39% of Americans said they feel less safe now, while only 14% said they feel safer.

While there does not seem to be any exact figures, turn on the television at almost any given time, and it’s clear that there’s been an increase, in recent years, in the number of crime dramas and crime related news coverage. We’ve got show like the venerable America’s Most Wanted reminding us that violent predators are loose in every city; CSI solving dramatic counters in at least three states; 20/20, PrimeTime and 48 Hours, with their companionable reporters warning us, with great concern for our well-being, about scams, crooks and thugs of every variety; and horrific slasher films, available on cable, right in our own homes and enhanced with the best blood-letting computer graphics to bring it all home.

In the early 1990s, there was a dramatic increase in the public perception of crime as the most important problem facing the country – 52% of Americans, in 1994, felt that crime was of utmost concern. Based upon data from 1978 through 1998, results suggest that this “big scare” was more a network TV news scare than a scare based on the real world of crime. The television news alone accounted for almost four times more variance in public perceptions of crime as our most important problem, than did actual crime rates, which – believe it or not – have actually gone down in the last fifteen years.

Yes – down: For the 10-year trend, from 1996 to 2005, the FBI reports that violent crime declined nearly 18%. Murder decreased 15% in 2005 compared to 1996. In this same time period, robbery offenses decreased 22%. Even motor vehicle theft decreased, down more than 11% in 2005 compared with 1996.

So just what are we so afraid of? If you’ve managed to avoid the crime scare, modern media has some other concerns for you: How about dying in an airplane accident? Getting cancer from … well, anything at all? Virulent breeds of superbugs resistant to every known antibiotic? Food safety? Organ trafficking? Killer bees? Having your child kidnapped? Hooked on drugs? Or finding a razor blade in their Halloween candy? Lead in toys?

For what it’s worth, the Halloween razor blade thing never happened, and most of those other concerns are overblown as well. Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear (Basic Books, 2000), calls these “pseudodangers”, and says the media, advertisers, politicians and various companies and organizations thrive on them and the money (or votes, which extremely translates to money ) that your fears bring them. Pseudodangers, suggests Glassner, represent an opportunity for us to avoid facing problems head-on. Rather than address – or sometimes, better said, because of our inability to address – poverty, we fear the criminals that poverty can create. Our inability to address foreign policy issues renders us terrified of terrorism.

“In just about every contemporary American scare,” says Glassner, “rather than confront disturbing shortcomings in society, the public discussion centers on disturbed individuals.”

Our fears, however, are often far worse than our realities.

According to John Meuller, the Woody Hayes Chair of national security policy and professor of political science at Ohio State University, we’re suffering from a national false sense of insecurity.

“Until 2001,” he writes, “far fewer Americans were killed in any grouping of years by all forms of international terrorism than were killed by lightning, and almost none of those terrorist deaths occurred within the United States itself. 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began counts) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer , or some severe allergic reaction to peanuts. ”

Further, Meuller noted that transportation researchers at the University of Michigan calculated than “an American’s chance of being killed in one nonstop airline flight is about one in 13 million (even taking the Sept. 11 crashes into account). risk when driving on America’s safest roads – rural interstate highways – one would have to travel a mere 11.2 miles. ”

Driving is, in fact, one of the most dangerous things we do, and yet most of us are quite willing to accept that risk. Author Bruce Schneier, in Beyond Fear (Springer, 2nd edition 2006), observes that, “In America, automobiles cause 40,000 deaths every year; that’s the equivalent of a full 727 crashing every day and a half – 225 total in a year. As a society, we effectively say that the risk of dying in a car crash is worth the benefits of driving around town. But if those same 40,000 people died each year in fiery 727 crashes instead of automobile accidents, you could be sure there would be Similarly, studies have shown that both drivers and passengers in SUVs are more likely to die in accidents than those in compact cars, yet one of the major selling points of SUVs is that the owner feels safer in one . ”

Many of our fears, of late, involve children – everything from being afraid for them to being afraid * of * them. Surveys have found that kidnapping tops parents’ list of concerns for their children. Yet the largest safety issue for kids is basic simple safety measures in homes and public places. The risk of kidnapping by strangers remains incredibly small – under 1% of the nation’s more than 64 million children are located by non-family members and actually returned. A far smaller number die.

And those killer Columbine type kids? They’re statistically almost non-existent. 80% of our nation’s counties never experience a juvenile homicide.

But are things getting worse? “There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know,” said Harry Truman.

“A new army of 6 million men are being mobilized against us, an army of delinquents.” Juvenile delinquency has increased at an alarming rate and is eating at the heart of America, “declared a Juvenile Court Judge – in 1946.

There are "predatory beasts” on the streets, hordes of teens and preteens running wild in city streets, “gnawing away at the foundations of society,” said a commentator – in the 19th century. In 1850 in New York alone, there were more than 200 gang wars mostly by teenage boys.

The youngest American ever executed for murder was 12 years old. She killed the baby in her care – in 1786.

So how did we get so scared? Our fears, suggests Glassner, are carefully and repeatedly fed by anyone who desires to create fear, often by manipulating words, facts, news, sources or data, in order to indict certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or policies (at home or abroad ), keep people consuming, elect certain politicians, or distract the public’s attention from allegedly more urgent social issues like poverty, social security, unemployment, crime or pollution. The most common techniques for social haunting include:

Careful selection and omission of news (some relevant facts are shown and some are not); (reporting that the number one problem teachers faced in 1940 was talking and gum chewing, and in 1990, pregnancy, suicide and drug abuse; , teachers today site problems parent apathy and lack of text books as their biggest problems)

Distortion of statistics or numbers (declaring 800,000 children missing each year, but failing to break those statistics down meaningfully)

Transformation of single events into social epidemics ; (going “postal” is not a postal service epidemic – that remains one of the safest occupations)

Corruption and distortion of words or terminology according to specific goals ;

Stigmatization of minorities , especially when associated with criminal acts or degeneration behavior;

Generalization of complex and multifaceted situations ;

Causal inversion (turning a cause into an effect or vice-versa).

None of this is to suggest we should not be cautious or aware or concerned, that we should not be proactive in caring for ourselves or our children, and taking normal precautions for health and safety. But simple things like wearing seatbelts and washing hands will do more to protect you than refusing to talk to strangers or carrying a gun.

“To fear is one thing,” says author Katherine Paterson, who wrote Jacob Have I Loved (HarperTrophy, 1990). “To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.”

Nobel Prize Laureate Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher, logician, essayist and social critic, suggested, in 1950 when we were dealing with all sorts of still familiar concerns, there are two ways of coping with fear:

“… one is to diminish the external danger, and the other is to cultivate Stoic endurance. The latter can be reinforced, except where immediate action is necessary, by turning our thoughts away from the cause of fear. of very great importance. Fear is in itself degrading; it easily becomes an obsession; it produces hate of that which is feared, and it leads headlong to excesses of cruelty. ”

In “ We are Not Afraid, ” Homer Hickam, author Rocket Boys (Delta, 2000) (which was made into the film, October Sky ), drew on his experiences growing up in the brave and resilient community of Coalwood, West Virginia, a town were the threat of death was constant, but fear was not. He said Coalwood residents take a four pronged approach to fearlessness that he sums up in something like a set of mantras:

We are proud of who are

We stand up for what we believe

We keep our families together

We trust in God but rely on ourselves

Hickam also says something substantially Buddhist early in his book. He says that despite the ills of our society, we large live among compassionate, kind and optimistic people who are striving to do good. “As an American,” he says, in a line that would make the Dali Lama proud, “you have a duty to be happy. pursuit of happiness. So do your duty. Learn how to be happy and keep this in mind: You can not be happy unless you stop being afraid. ”

Senator. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Puts it less poetically: “Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! wave. Suck it up, for crying out loud. You’re almost certainly going to be OK. a life worth living, is it? ”

Fear, Hickam says, is mostly a habit.

“The habit of fear and dread,” he writes, “can be compared to having a chronic disease. that we walk around with slumped shoulders and drag one heavy foot after another. We dread getting out of bed in the morning, certain that only awful things are going to happen when we do. We include ourselves. We do not like the way we look. We feel victimized. We’re envious of others and assume the world is filled with meanness. We always lose our views and we do not even know why. Worse, the disease we have is infectious. Innocent people we encounter are susceptible to catching fear and dread from us, including our children. wrong, but we do not know how to be cured. ’

One way to rid yourself of this infection, says Hickam, is to "stand up straight and …. be proud of who you are.” To do that, he says, it’s necessary to know who you are, and how you’re connected to your family and your community. That involves talking to family members, to community members – and passing their stories on to your children and other family members. To be unafraid, you have to be connected to something larger than yourself, says Hickam.

The habit of fear and dread also causes timidity, says Hickam, a tendency to avoid confrontation, especially in defending our opinion. That one’s probably not quite as big an issue here for us – we have lots of opinions and fling them around easily here. But how about “out there”? “If you act as if what you think is not important, it’s the same as believing * you * are not important,” wrists Hickam. “An attitude like that can squeeze the life right out of anyone.”

One of the best ways to overcome that aspect of fear and dread, he says, is “to take up for those who can not take up for themselves.”

“There’s always someone who needs you help. How can you be afraid if you’re the protector of someone else in a dangerous world?

But there’s more to it than just faking it till you make it. Hickam says you should also teach that person to stand up for himself, too, so that he can keep his dignity. Hickam cautions that standing up for what you believe "does not mean that every time you feel you’re slighted, you should erupt with loud, hateful behavior. of some perceived oppression. This attitude ahs to do with a quiet determination to have your opinion explained and heard. To be effective, it also has to be respectful and fair. The most effective way of standing up is always going to be the nonviolent way, quiet but determined. ”

Keeping our families together can actually be one of the harder tools for fearlessness, observes Hickam, but it’s a vital one. “An intact, functioning family works to not only provide a loving refugee, but also fills in the cracks of our own personalities. Smart he is, or how many muscles he ahs or anything else. The family can be a shield against the world, and also the springboard to a better life. ”

And finally, Hickam says trusting God but relying on yourself is a sure way to rise above fear. “The people of Coalwood were against calling on God any time they needed help,” he recalled. “For one thing, it was considered impolite. God had a lot of things to worry about after all, without including everything that got in the way of one particular human being. with most of what they needed to get past a scrape, including their own good common sense. ” Mostly, he said, they reserved their prayers for thanks.

While others often ponder why bad things happen to good people, Hickam ponders something he says as more amazing: “Why, in a universe and a world where everything must work hard to simply survive, did that which we think of as decent and fine get we are crave goodness, seek out honesty and strive to be honorable, even when evil is so much easier? our species and our world and our universe? Some great goodness is out there, and it’s here, too. It is everywhere. ”

We’re two parts, says Hickam, “one spiritual and the other physical. Both are important. us. But we also must use our hands and minds to keep our families safe and build a better world. ”

A world in which we are not afraid.

“We are not afraid.”

Say it slowly, and savor it, says Hickam, like we should savor the world and each moment. This sacred time of year honors the timeless changes of our lives, and offers us a rare opportunity to look death in the eye and give it a wink and a nod.

“There is no reason to fear life or dread what might be coming your way,” wrists Hickam. “Every hour of every day, recall all the people who came before you, all those who make up who you are, and stand tall and be proud. No matter how perilous the times, they will always be with you …”

Bertrand Russell would agree. “We want to stand up our own feet and look fair and square at the world,” he said. “- its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it … We bought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We bought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create. ”

As Samhain reminds us, death is not an end, but a transition, a time to look forward to new beginnings, when we will be born anew as the wheel of the year turns on and on.

And there is nothing to be afraid of.

Source by Theresa Willingham

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/halloween-samhain-teach-us-to-overcome-fear/ via Home Solutions on WordPress from Home Solutions FOREV https://homesolutionsforev.tumblr.com/post/184650014775 via Tim Clymer on Wordpress

#Home Solutions FOREV

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homesolutionsforev · 5 years

Text

Halloween – Samhain Teach Us To Overcome Fear

Very few people however, seem to take the opportunity Halloween presents to face our fears, which is interesting – or maybe understandable — America appears to be one of the most frightened places on earth. According to a NY Times poll in 2006, nearly half of Americans feel "something uneasy or in danger." Compared with five years previous, 39% of Americans said they feel less safe now, while only 14% said they feel safer.

While there does not seem to be any exact figures, turn on the television at almost any given time, and it's clear that there's been an increase, in recent years, in the number of crime dramas and crime related news coverage. We've got show like the venerable America's Most Wanted reminding us that violent predators are loose in every city; CSI solving dramatic counters in at least three states; 20/20, PrimeTime and 48 Hours, with their companionable reporters warning us, with great concern for our well-being, about scams, crooks and thugs of every variety; and horrific slasher films, available on cable, right in our own homes and enhanced with the best blood-letting computer graphics to bring it all home.

In the early 1990s, there was a dramatic increase in the public perception of crime as the most important problem facing the country – 52% of Americans, in 1994, felt that crime was of utmost concern. Based upon data from 1978 through 1998, results suggest that this "big scare" was more a network TV news scare than a scare based on the real world of crime. The television news alone accounted for almost four times more variance in public perceptions of crime as our most important problem, than did actual crime rates, which – believe it or not – have actually gone down in the last fifteen years.

So just what are we so afraid of? If you've managed to avoid the crime scare, modern media has some other concerns for you: How about dying in an airplane accident? Getting cancer from … well, anything at all? Virulent breeds of superbugs resistant to every known antibiotic? Food safety? Organ trafficking? Killer bees? Having your child kidnapped? Hooked on drugs? Or finding a razor blade in their Halloween candy? Lead in toys?

For what it's worth, the Halloween razor blade thing never happened, and most of those other concerns are overblown as well. Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear (Basic Books, 2000), calls these "pseudodangers", and says the media, advertisers, politicians and various companies and organizations thrive on them and the money (or votes, which extremely translates to money ) that your fears bring them. Pseudodangers, suggests Glassner, represent an opportunity for us to avoid facing problems head-on. Rather than address – or sometimes, better said, because of our inability to address – poverty, we fear the criminals that poverty can create. Our inability to address foreign policy issues renders us terrified of terrorism.

"In just about every contemporary American scare," says Glassner, "rather than confront disturbing shortcomings in society, the public discussion centers on disturbed individuals."

Our fears, however, are often far worse than our realities.

According to John Meuller, the Woody Hayes Chair of national security policy and professor of political science at Ohio State University, we're suffering from a national false sense of insecurity.

"Until 2001," he writes, "far fewer Americans were killed in any grouping of years by all forms of international terrorism than were killed by lightning, and almost none of those terrorist deaths occurred within the United States itself. 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began counts) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer , or some severe allergic reaction to peanuts. "

Further, Meuller noted that transportation researchers at the University of Michigan calculated than "an American's chance of being killed in one nonstop airline flight is about one in 13 million (even taking the Sept. 11 crashes into account). risk when driving on America's safest roads – rural interstate highways – one would have to travel a mere 11.2 miles. "

Driving is, in fact, one of the most dangerous things we do, and yet most of us are quite willing to accept that risk. Author Bruce Schneier, in Beyond Fear (Springer, 2nd edition 2006), observes that, "In America, automobiles cause 40,000 deaths every year; that's the equivalent of a full 727 crashing every day and a half – 225 total in a year. As a society, we effectively say that the risk of dying in a car crash is worth the benefits of driving around town. But if those same 40,000 people died each year in fiery 727 crashes instead of automobile accidents, you could be sure there would be Similarly, studies have shown that both drivers and passengers in SUVs are more likely to die in accidents than those in compact cars, yet one of the major selling points of SUVs is that the owner feels safer in one . "

Many of our fears, of late, involve children – everything from being afraid for them to being afraid * of * them. Surveys have found that kidnapping tops parents' list of concerns for their children. Yet the largest safety issue for kids is basic simple safety measures in homes and public places. The risk of kidnapping by strangers remains incredibly small – under 1% of the nation's more than 64 million children are located by non-family members and actually returned. A far smaller number die.

And those killer Columbine type kids? They're statistically almost non-existent. 80% of our nation's counties never experience a juvenile homicide.

But are things getting worse? "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know," said Harry Truman.

"A new army of 6 million men are being mobilized against us, an army of delinquents." Juvenile delinquency has increased at an alarming rate and is eating at the heart of America, "declared a Juvenile Court Judge – in 1946.

There are "predatory beasts" on the streets, hordes of teens and preteens running wild in city streets, "gnawing away at the foundations of society," said a commentator – in the 19th century. In 1850 in New York alone, there were more than 200 gang wars mostly by teenage boys.

The youngest American ever executed for murder was 12 years old. She killed the baby in her care – in 1786.

So how did we get so scared? Our fears, suggests Glassner, are carefully and repeatedly fed by anyone who desires to create fear, often by manipulating words, facts, news, sources or data, in order to indict certain personal behaviors, justify governmental actions or policies (at home or abroad ), keep people consuming, elect certain politicians, or distract the public's attention from allegedly more urgent social issues like poverty, social security, unemployment, crime or pollution. The most common techniques for social haunting include:

Distortion of statistics or numbers (declaring 800,000 children missing each year, but failing to break those statistics down meaningfully)

Transformation of single events into social epidemics ; (going "postal" is not a postal service epidemic – that remains one of the safest occupations)

Corruption and distortion of words or terminology according to specific goals ;

Stigmatization of minorities , especially when associated with criminal acts or degeneration behavior;

Generalization of complex and multifaceted situations ;

Causal inversion (turning a cause into an effect or vice-versa).

"To fear is one thing," says author Katherine Paterson, who wrote Jacob Have I Loved (HarperTrophy, 1990). "To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another."

"… one is to diminish the external danger, and the other is to cultivate Stoic endurance. The latter can be reinforced, except where immediate action is necessary, by turning our thoughts away from the cause of fear. of very great importance. Fear is in itself degrading; it easily becomes an obsession; it produces hate of that which is feared, and it leads headlong to excesses of cruelty. "

In " We are Not Afraid, " Homer Hickam, author Rocket Boys (Delta, 2000) (which was made into the film, October Sky ), drew on his experiences growing up in the brave and resilient community of Coalwood, West Virginia, a town were the threat of death was constant, but fear was not. He said Coalwood residents take a four pronged approach to fearlessness that he sums up in something like a set of mantras:

We are proud of who are

We stand up for what we believe

We keep our families together

We trust in God but rely on ourselves

Hickam also says something substantially Buddhist early in his book. He says that despite the ills of our society, we large live among compassionate, kind and optimistic people who are striving to do good. "As an American," he says, in a line that would make the Dali Lama proud, "you have a duty to be happy. pursuit of happiness. So do your duty. Learn how to be happy and keep this in mind: You can not be happy unless you stop being afraid. "

Senator. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Puts it less poetically: "Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! wave. Suck it up, for crying out loud. You're almost certainly going to be OK. a life worth living, is it? "

Fear, Hickam says, is mostly a habit.

"The habit of fear and dread," he writes, "can be compared to having a chronic disease. that we walk around with slumped shoulders and drag one heavy foot after another. We dread getting out of bed in the morning, certain that only awful things are going to happen when we do. We include ourselves. We do not like the way we look. We feel victimized. We're envious of others and assume the world is filled with meanness. We always lose our views and we do not even know why. Worse, the disease we have is infectious. Innocent people we encounter are susceptible to catching fear and dread from us, including our children. wrong, but we do not know how to be cured. '

One way to rid yourself of this infection, says Hickam, is to "stand up straight and …. be proud of who you are." To do that, he says, it's necessary to know who you are, and how you're connected to your family and your community. That involves talking to family members, to community members – and passing their stories on to your children and other family members. To be unafraid, you have to be connected to something larger than yourself, says Hickam.

The habit of fear and dread also causes timidity, says Hickam, a tendency to avoid confrontation, especially in defending our opinion. That one's probably not quite as big an issue here for us – we have lots of opinions and fling them around easily here. But how about "out there"? "If you act as if what you think is not important, it's the same as believing * you * are not important," wrists Hickam. "An attitude like that can squeeze the life right out of anyone."

One of the best ways to overcome that aspect of fear and dread, he says, is "to take up for those who can not take up for themselves."

"There's always someone who needs you help. How can you be afraid if you're the protector of someone else in a dangerous world?

But there's more to it than just faking it till you make it. Hickam says you should also teach that person to stand up for himself, too, so that he can keep his dignity. Hickam cautions that standing up for what you believe "does not mean that every time you feel you're slighted, you should erupt with loud, hateful behavior. of some perceived oppression. This attitude ahs to do with a quiet determination to have your opinion explained and heard. To be effective, it also has to be respectful and fair. The most effective way of standing up is always going to be the nonviolent way, quiet but determined. "

Keeping our families together can actually be one of the harder tools for fearlessness, observes Hickam, but it's a vital one. "An intact, functioning family works to not only provide a loving refugee, but also fills in the cracks of our own personalities. Smart he is, or how many muscles he ahs or anything else. The family can be a shield against the world, and also the springboard to a better life. "

And finally, Hickam says trusting God but relying on yourself is a sure way to rise above fear. "The people of Coalwood were against calling on God any time they needed help," he recalled. "For one thing, it was considered impolite. God had a lot of things to worry about after all, without including everything that got in the way of one particular human being. with most of what they needed to get past a scrape, including their own good common sense. " Mostly, he said, they reserved their prayers for thanks.

While others often ponder why bad things happen to good people, Hickam ponders something he says as more amazing: "Why, in a universe and a world where everything must work hard to simply survive, did that which we think of as decent and fine get we are crave goodness, seek out honesty and strive to be honorable, even when evil is so much easier? our species and our world and our universe? Some great goodness is out there, and it's here, too. It is everywhere. "

We're two parts, says Hickam, "one spiritual and the other physical. Both are important. us. But we also must use our hands and minds to keep our families safe and build a better world. "

A world in which we are not afraid.

"We are not afraid."

"There is no reason to fear life or dread what might be coming your way," wrists Hickam. "Every hour of every day, recall all the people who came before you, all those who make up who you are, and stand tall and be proud. No matter how perilous the times, they will always be with you …"

Bertrand Russell would agree. "We want to stand up our own feet and look fair and square at the world," he said. "- its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it … We bought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We bought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create. "

As Samhain reminds us, death is not an end, but a transition, a time to look forward to new beginnings, when we will be born anew as the wheel of the year turns on and on.

And there is nothing to be afraid of.

Source by Theresa Willingham

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/halloween-samhain-teach-us-to-overcome-fear/ via Home Solutions on WordPress

#Home Solutions Forev

0 notes

wetrumpfeed · 5 years

Text

Afternoon MAGAthread: YOUR WEEKLY PRESIDENTIAL RECAP!

GOOD AFTERNOON PATRIOTS!

Hope everyone is having a TREMENDOUS weekend so far! This is u/ivaginaryfriend here and I'm back with all things dank and spicy from the past week! For those that missed any past recaps you can check those out here!

Sunday, March 3rd:

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

After more than two years of Presidential Harassment, the only things that have been proven is that Democrats and other broke the law. The hostile Cohen testimony, given by a liar to reduce his prison time, proved no Collusion! His just written book manuscript showed what he..... ... ...said was a total lie, but Fake Media won’t show it. I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt that is illegal & should never have been allowed to start - And only because I won the Election! Despite this, great success!

“Look how they’re acting now and how we act when we’re in the majority. What the Democrats are doing is an abuse of power. They couldn’t find anything...they took a Fake Dossier & couldn’t find any Collusion. Now they have a fake witness in Cohen.” Congressman Mark Green, (R-TN).

My wonderful daughter, Ivanka, will be interviewed tonight by Steve Hilton on “The Next Revolution.” @FoxNews 9:00 P.M. She works so hard and has achieved so much for the U.S.A.(and gets so little credit!). Then watch Mark Levin at 10:00 P.M., a great show!

The reason I do not want military drills with South Korea is to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the U.S. for which we are not reimbursed. That was my position long before I became President. Also, reducing tensions with North Korea at this time is a good thing!

Presidential Harassment by “crazed” Democrats at the highest level in the history of our Country. Likewise, the most vicious and corrupt Mainstream Media that any president has ever had to endure - Yet the most successful first two years for any ... ....President. We are WINNING big, the envy of the WORLD, but just think what it could be?

For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the “walk.” Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!

(Retweeting Ryan Cale) Jon Stewart “Listen up everybody, the Trump Justice Dept is doing an excellent job administrating the 911 compensation act” This is why we voted for an outsider... Trump gets it done! #MAGA #TheFive #MondayMotivation #MondayThoughts

(Retweeting CC) President Trump made America great again! #MAGA Now it’s up to us to help him keep America great. #KAG #TRUMP2020

(Retweeting Mollie Hemingway) Man, conservatives haven’t been this united on Twitter since the Kavanaugh confirmation!

Schumer & the Democrats are hurting our Country. Senate Republicans must take BOLD ACTION!

And also illegally leaking to Fake News CNN & others?

To the great people of Alabama and surrounding areas: Please be careful and safe. Tornadoes and storms were truly violent and more could be coming. To the families and friends of the victims, and to the injured, God bless you all!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Thanks to this gentleman, Trump has announced that he's signing a new executive order that will force college campuses to either start supporting free speech, or lose all federal funding, including grant and research funding. Thanks, man.

Fake news.

As their expectations dissipate before our very eyes.

In Italy, Salvini doing some immigration math on live television. He says that of the 130, 000 migrants who arrived by boat a year ago or so, 60 000 have gone underground while 2853 of the 70 000 who applied for asylum were real refugees. He ends with “all of Africa won’t fit in #Italy”

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Never Underestimate The Power Of Trump

Polish Collusion

dRuMpF BrOKe CamPaIgN FiNaNcE LaW

This was said 2300 years ago.

ANYONE ELSE HERE MAD?!? 🙄

Monday, March 4th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

Executive Order on Supporting the Transition of Active Duty Service Members and Military Veterans into the Merchant Marine

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individual to a Key Administration Post

President Trump Meets with the 2018 Division I FCS National Champion North Dakota State

First Lady Melania Trump Visits The Children's Inn at the NIH

President Trump Meets with the Prime Minister and President of Vietnam

President Trump Meets with Chairman Kim Jong Un

President Trump Delivers Remarks at the National Association of Attorneys General

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

FEMA has been told directly by me to give the A Plus treatment to the Great State of Alabama and the wonderful people who have been so devastated by the Tornadoes. @GovernorKayIvey, one of the best in our Country, has been so informed. She is working closely with FEMA (and me!).

The military drills, or war games as I call them, were never even discussed in my mtg w/ Kim Jong Un of NK—FAKE NEWS! I made that decision long ago because it costs the U.S. far too much money to have those “games”, especially since we are not reimbursed for the tremendous cost!

“Now that the Dems are going to try & switch from Collusion to some other reason, it makes them continue to look like sore losers who didn’t accept the WILL OF THE PEOPLE in the last election - they will do anything to get rid of the President.” @AriFleischer It will never work!

“There is no Collusion. All of these investigations are in search of a crime. Democrats have no evidence to impeach President Trump. Ridiculous!” @DevinNunes @FoxNews

(Retweeting The White House) President Trump's message to those affected by the tornadoes in the Gulf states: "We grieve by your side and we pledge our unwavering support to help you rebuild from the very depths of this horrible tragedy."

Presidential Harassment!

“The American Media has changed forever. News organizations that seemed like a big deal are now extinct. Those that remain have now degraded themselves beyond recognition, like the New Yorker - or they’ve been purchased by Jeff Bezos to conduct unregistered lobbying for......... ... .... Amazon, like the Washington Post. It’s hard to remember that not so long ago America had prestige media outlets, but not anymore.” @TuckerCarlson The Fake News Media is the true Enemy of the People!

(Retweeting Judicial Watch) Right now, our borders are being used as gateways for drug cartels & violent criminals – each day adding to the millions of illegal aliens already in the country. That's why JW fights illegal immigration in the courts. Sign the petition + help us win.✏️📋

“We the people will now be subjected to the biggest display of modern day McCarthyism....which is the widest fishing net expedition....every aspect of the presidents life....all in order to get power back so they can institute Socialism.” @seanhannity

Representative Ilhan Omar is again under fire for her terrible comments concerning Israel. Jewish groups have just sent a petition to Speaker Pelosi asking her to remove Omar from Foreign Relations Committee. A dark day for Israel!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

President Trump welcomes the 2018 Division 1 FCS National Champions to the White House for...Chick-fil-A! 🐔🇺🇸

MUH WAGE GAP: Google internal study found it was underpaying more men than women. #StopTheBias

Top Kek: Anti-CNN Billboard Appears Outside their Fake News Headquarters

“Socialism’s Millennial fans don’t even know what it is”

In Hollywood, "Artists" Put White People in MAGA Hats on Leashes & 'Walked' Them on Donald Trump's Star in Hollywood, giving new meaning to the word “Cuck.” Degrading mockery like this is meant to serve one purpose: To Celebrate their hatred of you. Remember these people want you dead and replaced

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Any volunteers?

Well, BTFO Bernie

Leftist Logic

She's an experiment gone wrong.

God bless this great nation. #fuckliberals

Tuesday, March 5th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individuals to Key Administration Posts

Executive Order on a National Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End Suicide

Ten Nominations and One Withdrawal Sent to the Senate

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate a Key Individual to an Administration Post

President Trump Participates in a Signing Ceremony

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Now that they realize the only Collusion with Russia was done by Crooked Hillary Clinton & the Democrats, Nadler, Schiff and the Dem heads of the Committees have gone stone cold CRAZY. 81 letter sent to innocent people to harass them. They won’t get ANYTHING done for our Country!

“HIV Is Cured In 2nd Patient, Doctors Report.” @nytimes Such great news for so many. Tremendous progress being made!

The greatest overreach in the history of our Country. The Dems are obstructing justice and will not get anything done. A big, fat, fishing expedition desperately in search of a crime, when in fact the real crime is what the Dems are doing, and have done!

PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!

Republican Approval Rating just hit 93%. Sorry Haters! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Our great First Lady (@FLOTUS) will be doing a LIVE show TODAY at 1:00 PM PT with the terrific @EricBolling at the @WestgateVegas Resort. She’s on her #BeBest Tour, helping address the #OpioidCrisis. Free admission for the first 1,500 people!

Just a few moments ago, I signed an EO addressing one of our nation’s most heartbreaking tragedies: VETERANS SUICIDE. To every Veteran—I want you to know that you have an entire nation of more than 300 million people behind you. You will NEVER be forgotten.

Scott Gottlieb, who has done an absolutely terrific job as Commissioner of the FDA, plans to leave government service sometime next month.... ... ....Scott has helped us to lower drug prices, get a record number of generic drugs approved and onto the market, and so many other things. He and his talents will be greatly missed!

“(Crooked) Hillary Clinton confirms she will not run in 2020, rules out a third bid for White House.” Aw-shucks, does that mean I won’t get to run against her again? She will be sorely missed!

(Retweeting Sarah Sanders) Statement on Chairman Nadler’s fishing expedition.

(Retweeting Ronna McDaniel) While @realDonaldTrump was successful in the private sector, career politicians enrich themselves by spending decades in DC. Now they're attacking his success through a fishing expedition. They know there was no Russia collusion. These are investigations in search of a crime.

(Retweeting Jim Hanson) @JerryNadler admits on #CNN they have no proof of Obstruction by @realDonaldTrump it's just his "personal opinion" Meet the new #WitchHunt Same as the old #WitchHunt cc @DonaldJTrumpJr

Hans Von Spakovsky, “I haven’t seen any evidence of actual violations of the law, which is usually a basis before you start an investigation. Adam Schiff seems to be copying Joseph McCarthy in wanting to open up investigations when they don’t have any evidence of wrongdoing.”

(Retweeting Laura Ingraham) Tune in tonight for blockbuster analysis of the Dems’ colossally stupid decision to overreach with overbroad subpoenas...my sit-down with @Jim_Jordan too. @FoxNews #IngrahamAngle

(Retweeting Donald Trump Jr.) Weird that all of a sudden the Fake Dossier author (paid for by Hillary and the DNC etc) no longe wants to show up and testify!?! Spooked? Christopher Steele Cancels Appearance After Cohen Testimony Destroys Dossier Allegation | Zero Hedge

Weirdo Tom Steyer doesn’t have the “guts” or money to run for President. He’s all talk!

(Retweeting Donald Trump Jr.) Jim Jordan: No evidence of Trump colluding with Russia, but 'all kinds' showing Clinton campaign did

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Felony charges filed against alleged attacker of conservative activist at UC-Berkeley

Hillary Clinton rules out 2020 bid: ‘I’m not running’

Terry Crews is receiving backlash for saying that children should have a positive father figure in their life

CNN has no black employees reporting to the boss.

Justin Trudeau's office told his former AG that if she'd break the law for them, They would have all kinds of media write op-eds to make people believe it was legal.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

so free speech is apparently bad now 🤔

Recipients can refuse to comply with document requests and seek court relief from any harassing subpoenas...The House could be made to go to federal court 80 different times to pursue its harassment of @realDonaldTrump...

Were the Democrats always this entertaining?

"What the filthy democrats are doing to President Trump is the equivalent of an officer pulling you over while you are obeying the law and detaining you until they can figure out a reason to arrest you.

Wednesday, March 6th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

Executive Order on Revocation of Reporting Requirement

Two Nominations Sent to the Senate

President Trump Participates in an American Workforce Policy Advisory Board Meeting

"We Will Bring More Americans off the Sidelines and into the Workforce"

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Senate Republicans are not voting on constitutionality or precedent, they are voting on desperately needed Border Security & the Wall. Our Country is being invaded with Drugs, Human Traffickers, & Criminals of all shapes and sizes. That’s what this vote is all about. STAY UNITED!

It is shameful that House Democrats won’t take a stronger stand against Anti-Semitism in their conference. Anti-Semitism has fueled atrocities throughout history and it’s inconceivable they will not act to condemn it!

American Workforce Policy Advisory Board Meeting at the @WhiteHouse!

Congressman Chris Stewart: “No one is accusing the President of a crime and yet they (the Democrats) are issuing hundreds of subpoenas. This is unprecedented.” They are desperately trying to find anything they can, even a punctuation mistake in a document!

Wall Street Journal: “More migrant families crossing into the U.S. illegally have been arrested in the first five months of the federal fiscal year than in any prior full year.” We are doing a great job at the border, but this is a National Emergency!

Democrats just blocked @FoxNews from holding a debate. Good, then I think I’ll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election debates!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Trump fulfills terminally ill man's dying wish with phone call

Hot-Mic Catches CNBC Host Calling Dem Rep’s Talking Points ‘A Crock of Sh*t’

This is unreal. Nancy Pelosi Defends Ilhan Omar: Not ‘Intentionally Antisemitic...’

White House: 'Absolute embarrassment' that Congress is using all their time, resources to attack President Trump

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

777: The mark of the MAGA beast.

I just wanna say Rest In Peace to my uncle, a desert storm vet, and true patriot for this country. He passed away today.

UK now banning things that considered "haram" in Islam. Reddit: "IsLaM dOeSnT CoNfLiCt WiTh WeStErN cUlTuRe". Guess those redcoats will have to turn to goats next! Sad!

"Hillary....Are you now saying there is still a chance you would run in 2020??"

ERROR: UNABLE TO FIND VALID RESPONSE

I call this hate speech

Thursday, March 7th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Trump Meets with the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

It was not a campaign contribution, and there were no violations of the campaign finance laws by me. Fake News!

We are on track to APPREHEND more than one million people coming across the Southern Border this year. Great job by Border Patrol (and others) who are working in a Broken System. Can be fixed by Congress so easily and quickly if only the Democrats would get on board!

Breaking News @MSNBC: “Cohen’s lawyer contradicts Cohen’s testimony about never seeking a Presidential Pardon.”

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Tim Cook changes Twitter name to Tim Apple after The Donald christened him so

NYT ': Trump Is a Liar For Saying There Is An Emergency At the Border. NYT One Month Later: The Border is at a 'Breaking Point'

LEAKED AUDIO: GOOGLE Discusses 'Steering' the Conservative Movement | Exec Says Company $$ Can Suppress CPAC ‘Sideshow Circus’ of ‘Nationalistic’ Voices.

And there it is folks. What we all knew but no one would say. It’s only about votes for Democrats. Speaker Pelosi: We Should Not Be ‘Suppressing the Vote of Our Newcomers to America’

Jim Clyburn's defense: Ilhan Omar's experience is 'more personal' than Jews who had parents in the Holocaust- It's spreading through the Dems like a plague. Wooooooooow Clyburn tells Holocaust survivors to check their privilege. It's really getting weird now.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Name Something the Leftists Hate UPDATED

What in the actual fuck?!?

Are we going by our superhero names?

The_difference

So Persecuted She Wrote A Book

Friday, March 8th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individual to a Key Administration Post

President Trump Delivers a Statement Upon Departure

President Donald J. Trump Announces Judicial Nominees

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Personnel to Key Administration Posts

First Lady Melania Trump at the 2019 International Women of Courage Awards

President Trump's Remarks at a Disaster Relief Center

President Trump's Remarks at Lee County Neighborhood

President Trump and the First Lady Visit Alabama

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

The Wall is being built and is well under construction. Big impact will be made. Many additional contracts are close to being signed. Far ahead of schedule despite all of the Democrat Obstruction and Fake News!

Thank you @foxandfriends. Great show!

I cannot believe the level of dishonesty in the media. It is totally out of control, but we are winning!

PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!

Both the Judge and the lawyer in the Paul Manafort case stated loudly and for the world to hear that there was NO COLLUSION with Russia. But the Witch Hunt Hoax continues as you now add these statements to House & Senate Intelligence & Senator Burr. So bad for our Country!

“This is as good a time as I can remember to be an American Worker. We have the strongest economy in the world.” Stuart Varney @foxandfriends So true!

We are apprehending record numbers of illegal immigrants - but we need the Wall to help our great Border Patrol Agents!

Women’s unemployment rate is down to 3.6% - was 7.9% in January, 2011. Things are looking good!

On International Women’s Day, we honor women worldwide for their vital role in shaping and strengthening our communities, families, governments, and businesses...

Heading now to the Great State of Alabama!

Bad lawyer and fraudster Michael Cohen said under sworn testimony that he never asked for a Pardon. His lawyers totally contradicted him. He lied! Additionally, he directly asked me for a pardon. I said NO. He lied again! He also badly wanted to work at the White House. He lied!

Congratulations to Heather Wilson, who is the sole finalist to become the next President of University of Texas at El Paso effective September 1, 2019. Heather has done an absolutely fantastic job... ... ....as Secretary of the Air Force, and I know she will be equally great in the very important world of higher education. A strong thank you to Heather for her service.

(Retweeting Paul Sperry) Now that even some MSM acknowledging there never was a "collusion" scandal, when will MSM start investigating the real scandal of Obama DOJ/FBI & Clinton campaign making it look like there was? Oh that's right, the MSM were accomplices in that scandal. Never mind. #MediaCollusion

(Retweeting Paul Sperry) Glenn Simpson & Christopher Steele r 2 of biggest villains in Russia collusion hoax, yet neither has faced serious scrutiny. They manufactured & seeded the dossier lies & disinformation. Yet Simpson still hasnt been subpoenaed to testify publicly before Senate. Ur move Sen Graham

(Retweeting Paul Sperry) Despite running informants/stings on Trump camp, electronically spying for yr,unmasking NSA intercepts, rummaging thru Trump fixer's files, recordings, garbage, exploiting British intel & probing by CIA, FBI/DOJ, DOS, SSCI/HPSCI, MSM & SCO, Deep State still cannot prove collusion

(Retweeting Paul Sperry) BREAKING: Democratic Rep. Jerry "Joe McCarthy" Nadler, who just yesterday declared that Trump obstructed justice, just now on CNN admitted he doesn't have the facts to prove obstruction of justice but just personally knows it to be true and will investigate. #DemFishingExpedition

Aluminum prices are down 12% since I instituted Tariffs on Aluminum Dumping - and the U.S. will be taking in Billions, plus jobs. Nice!

Sessions didn’t have a clue!

(Retweeting Tom Fitton) NEW: Cohen Testimony is Abuse of @RealDonaldTrump: Deep State Abuse and Leaks Targets Trump Family/WH On Security Clearances; and Clinton email scandal witnesses set to testify to @JudicialWatch attorneys. Big Judicial Watch Update! https://youtu.be/c2RkB6vbvY0

(Retweeting Tom Fitton) .@JudicialWatch exposed that Clinton operation and FBI paying Steele at the same time here: https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-fbi-records-show-dossier-author-deemed-not-suitable-for-use-as-source-show-several-fbi-payments-in-2016/ …

(Retweeting Lou Dobbs) #AmericaFirst – @marc_lotter: Democrats couldn’t condemn anti-semitism. That’s because the radical, left-wing socialists have taken over. Nancy Pelosi is having a hard time keeping Dems together. It is a shameful display of how our democracy works. #MAGA #TrumpTrain #Dobbs

(Retweeting Lou Dobbs) Radical Dimms embarrass themselves: Debate over anti-Semitism charges exposes divide in Democratic Party. http://news.trust.org/item/20190307212317-7g2o3/ … #MAGA #AmericaFirst #Dobbs

(Retweeting Charles Payne) Jobs Report: Most Important Highlight Non-Supervisory Wages continue to surge and outpace overall wage increases. This is amazing news for all Americans #Winning

(Retweeting Mark Levin) Ron DeSantis, America’s governor

(Retweeting Mark Levin) Victor Davis Hanson is on next. His new book, the Case for Trump, is out now!

(Retweeting Ivanka Trump) Happy International Women’s Day! #IWD2019 #WGDP @USAID @WhiteHouse

(Retweeting Melania Trump) Happy #InternationalWomensDay2019

(Retweeting Ivanka Trump) Thank you for your exemplary service to our nation Secretary Wilson!

Unimaginable loss - Such great people!

(Retweeting MSNBC) President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump view memorial crosses for the 23 people killed in the Alabama tornadoes.

.@RepMikeTurner “The only time that Michael Cohen told the truth is when he pled that he is guilty.” Also when he said no collusion and I did not tell him to lie!”

(Video)

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

BRUCE OHR TRANSCRIPT - Georgia Rep. Doug Collins unilaterally released a 268-page transcript Friday of a deposition that Justice Department official Bruce Ohr gave to Congress in August. (PDF)

Leftists rage when judge hands down ‘light’ Manafort sentence — that has nothing to do with Russian collusion

President Trump Delivers a Statement Upon Departure to Alabama

House votes in favor of illegal immigrant voting

Indict Schiff immediately for criminally conspiracy with Michael Cohen for having Cohen lie repeatedly to Congress

BUSTED! Jussie Smollett Update: 'Empire' Actor Indicted On 16 FELONY Counts By Chicago Grand Jury...

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Happy International Women's Day!

Happy International Women’s Day!

We're kicking off International Women's day by honoring Zuby, the inspirational black woman that recently SMASHED women's weightlifting records!

I want to take the opportunity on this International Women’s Day to remind this little criminal in the making that she will never grow up to be the president!

Saturday, March 9th:

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Border Patrol and Law Enforcement has apprehended (captured) large numbers of illegal immigrants at the Border. They won’t be coming into the U.S. The Wall is being built and will greatly help us in the future, and now!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Trump’s ‘Hire American’ Policy Delivers Fastest Wage Growth Since 2009

Somehow American socialist see post-apocalyptic Venezuela and think "that's where we need to be"

Nothing to see here. Just a Bible signed by Ronald Reagan and another by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t recall any faux outrage.

Fake reviews for captain marvel on google right now. There are 100 more on there with the exact same review wording and different names.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

I almost pissed myself laughing, surely they can't be serious

This Is My Boomstick

Just got me a free copy of the WP Mueller Report book, had to share it here... Enjoy!

Respect To This Based Patriot - Rep. Doug Collins . HIGH ENERGY FOLKS !!!

NEVER GOING TO GET TIRED OF WINNING!

Without further ado, some tunes to get you jamming through all these links:

Save My Soul

Rock It For Me

Wonderland

Lone Digger

Rock With Me

Black Betty

MAGA ON PATRIOTS!

submitted by /u/Ivaginaryfriend [link] [comments]

0 notes

newstfionline · 5 years

Text

Brazil’s Violent Drug Trade Overruns Paraguay: ‘Scenes You Only See in Movies’

By Ernesto Londoño, NY Times, Dec. 15, 2018

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay--Even Paraguay’s antidrug chief couldn’t believe what was happening.

In October, officials there said they had foiled a plot to deploy a car bomb packed with 187 pounds of explosives to free a jailed drug lord.

Days later, heavily armed men threatened in a video to kill the country’s attorney general. “There is a price on your head,” the men warned.

Then came two chilling murders: A lawyer who represented drug kingpins was assassinated as she stepped out of a meeting, and a young woman was stabbed to death with a dinner knife while visiting a drug trafficker in prison.

“These past incidents are like scenes you only see in movies,” said Arnaldo Guizzio, the head of Paraguay’s counternarcotics agency.

These crimes have one thing in common: The chaos is spilling over from Brazil. After fueling a record level of violence in Brazil, the drug war is spreading beyond the border, preying on Paraguay’s already weak institutions.

Much of the mayhem in the region has been fueled by American guns. So many American weapons were being shipped into Paraguay that officials in the United States took the rare step of halting commercial arms exports to the country this year.

American officials took action after noticing that arms suppliers in the United States had sent nearly 35 million weapons and rounds of ammunition to Paraguay in 2017--more than three times the amount sent the year before, according to United States government data obtained by The New York Times.

Many of those weapons were then secretly funneled to parts of Brazil’s biggest cities--Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo--that were under the control of drug gangs with tens of thousands of foot soldiers.

Paraguay shares a thinly policed, 848-mile border with Brazil, and has long been a hub for smuggling and money laundering. The country is a major producer of marijuana, has a vibrant arms market and acts as a conduit for cocaine shipped from neighboring Bolivia.

But now, powerful gangs from Brazil are exploiting Paraguay’s lax gun laws, police corruption and weak justice system to establish a more permanent foothold. These criminal organizations “no longer treat Paraguay like a foreign country, but rather part of their criminal domain,” Mr. Guizzio said.

Eradicating the gangs’ influence poses a significant institutional challenge for Paraguay, senior officials say.

“Organized crime is permeating Paraguay,” said Senator Georgia Arrúa, who represents a border state that has become an increasingly deadly battleground as rival drug gangs square off for control of smuggling routes. “The only way to battle that is with laws and a strong judiciary. But the judicial branch has become one of our most corruptible.”

Signs that Paraguay faces a worsening organized crime problem have been mounting for years.

In April 2017, criminals set cars on fire across Ciudad del Este, a city close to the border with Brazil and Argentina, to divert police attention while they stormed a Spanish cash transporting company and used a bomb to blast into the safe room. After stealing millions of dollars, some of the assailants fled on boats across the river into Brazil.

But nothing has highlighted the scope of Paraguay’s security challenges and the weakness of its institutions more than the events set off by the detention last December of Marcelo Pinheiro Veiga, a Brazilian drug lord at the center of much of this havoc.

Mr. Veiga, known by the alias Marcelo Piloto, had been a fugitive from Brazilian law since 2007, when he fled from prison 10 years into a 26-year sentence. He became a top target for Brazilian and American law enforcement officials after escaping to Paraguay in 2012 and escalating the smuggling of weapons and drugs into districts of Brazilian cities controlled by the Comando Vermelho gang.

In the final weeks of 2017, after months poring through intercepted communication and gathering intelligence from human sources, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration at the American consulate in Rio de Janeiro discovered that Mr. Veiga was operating out of a nondescript house in Encarnación, a small city in southern Paraguay.

The Americans passed the coordinates of the house to their counterparts in Paraguay, and waited to hear back.

On Dec. 13 of last year, Paraguayan counternarcotics agents stormed Mr. Veiga’s three-bedroom home and found him in his living room, crouched next to a Christmas tree decked with twinkling lights. They placed him in handcuffs without incident. Officials celebrated the arrest in the American consulate in Rio de Janeiro, which in recent years has come to play a more assertive, if largely invisible, role in Brazil’s drug war.

“There were high fives all around,” said a senior American official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the raid. “It was a big deal for us.”

Paraguay’s counternarcotics agency billed the capture as a watershed moment in the fight against organized crime. But Brazilian and American officials grew impatient as the request to extradite Mr. Veiga--who was being held on document forgery charges in Paraguay--seemed to stall.

Early last month, Mr. Veiga held a news conference in an apparent bid to further stall his extradition to Brazil, which had become an urgent priority for officials in Paraguay after they unraveled the car-bombing plot to free him. Holding court surrounded by a crowd of journalists, Mr. Veiga angrily denied any complicity in the plan to attack the police compound where he was detained.

Then he rattled off a number of crimes he said he had committed in Paraguay, an admission of guilt that appeared intended to avoid being sent to Brazil. He accused a top police commander of having been on his payroll, acknowledged trafficking weapons for years and admitted killing people in Paraguay.

In an interview in his jail cell several days later, Mr. Veiga said Paraguay was eager to extradite him to Brazil because prosecuting him locally would expose the thick web of collusion between politicians, the security forces and drug dealers.

While Mr. Veiga said he was resigned to spending a long time behind bars, he said his detention conditions in Paraguay--where he was held in a small room with a refrigerator, a television set and a private bathroom--were superior to what he would face in a maximum-security facility in Brazil.

“I am a trafficker, but there are many,” he said. Men like himself, according to Mr. Veiga, are relatively low-level, easily replaceable links in the chain. “They don’t want to find the real traffickers,” he said, referring to government officials.

Shortly after the interview ended around noon, Lidia Meza Burgos, 18, from a poor village in southern Paraguay, signed in as a visitor and was led into Mr. Veiga’s cell. The authorities in Paraguay said she was working as a prostitute.

Once she was inside, police officials said, Mr. Veiga stabbed the teenager in the neck and torso 16 times with a dining knife, killing her.

The authorities described the crime as an audacious attempt to force the Paraguayan government to put off extradition and prosecute him for murder.

The government did the opposite: President Abdo Benítez invoked a legal mechanism that gives the state the right to expel people on national security grounds.

Two days later, Mr. Veiga was flown to Brazil to serve out the remainder of his 26-year sentence and probably face a long list of new charges.

Explaining his decision, Mr. Abdo Benítez said, “May our country not serve as a land of impunity for anyone.”

#Paraguay #Marcelo Pinheiro Veiga #Marcelo Piloto #Brazilian drug gangs

0 notes

newsnigeria · 6 years

Text

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/politics/legendary-nigerian-general/

The Legendary 'No-smiling' General Every Young Nigerian should know

It does not require clear thinking for one to see how shameful and revolting things have become in our country. Saudi wahhabi lead goverment has been used for ages as proxy to supress the future of Nigeria and if integrity was a man, they would have called him Idiagbon.

The world, especially Nigeria, is what it is today because of our inability to live a life of integrity. The pillars of our guiding principles are no longer standing on the foundation of value. Instead of dignity and morality to be the watchful directors of our course, we decided to let vanity and impunity to rule over us.

Regardless of any other opinion, it was this senseless decision of ours that Gen. Idiagbon tried to dethrone from our mind.

But in vain he tried.

Born on the 14 September 1943, in Ilorin, Kwara state, Babatunde Abdulbaki Idiagbon received his secondary education at the Nigerian Military School, Zaria between 1958 and 1962.

He would join the Nigerian Army by enrolling in the Nigerian Military Training College (NMTC) in 1962: NMTC was renamed the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in February 1964.

In April 1965, Idiagbon was commissioned second lieutenant upon his arrival from Pakistan Military Academy where he had obtained a BSc in economics.

From 1966 to 1967, he served as an intelligence officer, 4th Battalion and General Staff Officer, 3rd Intelligence, 1st Sector.

It was during this time that he got promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and also to the rank of captain two years later.

At the age of twenty-five, Idiagbon had already become the commanding officer, 125 Battalion.

Owing to his intelligence, qualification, and personal ability, his promotion kept coming until he rose to become Brigadier General in 1983.

For his uncompromising stance against indiscipline, incorrigible fight against corruption and dying at a relatively young age under a most mysterious circumstance, Major General BABATUNDE ABDULBAKI ‘Tunde’ IDIAGBON has become a legend of sorts and some will say, a martyr and true hero. But who was this stern-looking,Ilorin-born General many said never smiled? Was it true he never smiled? No. He did smile.

Nigeria before 1983 had already taken side with lawlessness. In addition, the nation’s resources were handled with recklessness.

The depth of corruption among public officials had succeeded in dragging the country into a state of economic shambles and the government in charge at the time seemed to be very okay with the situation.

The Shehu Shagari’s government succeeded in creating a group of dark kleptocratic thieves whose heartless goal would not be reached until the nation is plunged into a well of hopelessness.

As a matter of fact, record has it that in the space of four years, between 1979 and 1983, Shehu Shagari administration had mismanaged Nigeria into debt.

In fact, Nigeria was at the time counted among the most indebted countries in Africa.

Owing a colossal sum of about fifty billion dollars, inflation found a fertile soil to sprout. The result could only lead one end, hardship.

And of course, where there’s hardship, insecurity is always present.

At the time, a radical Islamic insurgent called “Maitatsine” operating from present-day Gombe state was inflicting all sorts of atrocities.

The Shehu Shagari government could not contain this vicious and dangerous Islamic fundamentalist. The nation was in a state of disarray.

It was during this time of national disorganization that the military ousted the Shehu Shagari administration in a coup d’etat.

Thus, Gen. Buhari became the Head of States and made Idiagbon chief of staff at Supreme Headquarters (de facto vice president).

Spearheading the control of all visible instruments of national, political, governmental and administrative powers, Idiagbon made use of power the way power should be used.

With ruthless zeal and determination, he introduced and implemented policies like War Against Indiscipline, which comprises of five phases:

Phase One – Queuing (launched on 20 March 1984)

Phase Two – Work Ethics (launched on 1 May 1984)

Phase Three – Nationalism and Patriotism, launched on 21 August 1984

Phase Four – Anti-Corruption and Economic Sabotage, launched on 14 May 1985

Phase Five – Environmental Sanitation, launched on 29 July 1985

Gen. Buhari

To enumerate, the first phase was forcefully introduced to encourage customers and citizens to always line up to board buses.

And to always do the same whenever they find themselves vying for services with high demand. Anyone who deemed himself too important to comply was met with the military’s wrath.

The purpose for which this phase was implemented was to bring social order back to society.

In like manner, the second phase was launched to encourage hard work: Civil servants must be punctual, arriving work at the strike of the clock.

Frog jumps and sometimes kobokos from soldiers were the lots of those who usually arrive late.

Interestingly, the war was also extended to the classroom; making cheating during examination a very serious crime.

The third phase was launched to foster nationalism and patriotism. And this was supported by the implementation of import substitution industrialization policy; based on the use of local materials.

Thus, importation was tightened. The sole aim of the policy was to ensure the growth of local industries.

And it was further supported by the implementation of the Go Back to Land Programme which was part of the government’s farming policy that encouraged massive agricultural food production.

In a bid to implement the fourth phase, which was to counter corruption and economic sabotage, Idiagbon announced the introduction of a new currency for Nigeria.

He said the new currency would keep the same name, but the colors of bills would be different.

It was reported that some former politicians including ministers, governors and local government chairmen were holding large amount or sum of stolen monies in their houses.

The move was to render those monies useless.

Notice was given to the public, a time frame to withdraw their old naira notes from the bank and re-change it to the new ones.

Idiagbon had already announced that the exchange limit was 5000 naira; exchanging in excess of the limit had to explain where the money came from with government clearance.

He had affirmed that the deliberate sabotage of the Nigerian currency through large-scale illegal trafficking was the major cause of the nation’s economic problems.

So ruthless was the implementation that when Fela was caught at the airport with more foreign cash than was stipulated by law, not even the truth that he was known for could set him free from paying the prize.

Even a huge consignment of Abiola’s imported newsprint, which was on the government contraband list was seized.

Without conformance to bias nor sentiment, the no-nonsense general blasted corrupt politicians on a radio programme known as Military in Action; promising to smoke them out of their holes to face justice.

Shehu Shagari

It might interest you to know that it was during this administration that late Alhaji Barkin Zuwo, a former senator and Governor of Kano state, was slammed for corruption with an imprisonment sentence of two hundred and fifty years.

Like the Great Thomas Sankara, Idiagbon believed that Nigeria was strong enough to develop from within; that should Nigeria be focused, she could become a creditor nation.

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In fact, it was with this conviction that he blasted the International Monetary Fund when he said: “International Monetary Fund (IMF) cures no sick state, in most cases, they worsen the ailment.”

Idiagbon’s ruthlessness wasn’t born out of foolishness; he was intelligent and prudent enough to know what he was doing.

In April 1985, he was heavily criticized for executing a drug trafficker. In replying his critics, he said, “a uniquely Nigeria solution is necessary to curtail the get-rich-quick mania that encourages serious crime.”

Also, when he was blasted by some senseless critics, for jailing corrupt Second Republic politicians, Idiagbon blasted back: “All these criminal racketeering and swindling went on while the salaries of local government employees and teachers were left unpaid for months.”

But how could he have smiled with a country like Nigeria? A country whose thought alone calls depression to the thinker’s mind.

Nigeria has always been an organization of disarrangement. A nation where sentiment and bias ride upon the horses on its Coat of Arms. A state where religion and tribalism make mockery of patriotism.

It does not require clear thinking for one to see how shameful and revolting things have become in our country.

A country where the people’s representatives pocket in a year, what an average citizen won’t earn in three earth lives if we are to go by the minimum wage.

However, one major highlight of Buhari/Idiagbon’s regime was the Umaru Dikko saga.

Umaru Dikko was a special adviser to Shehu Shagari and also the minister of transportation. He exiled himself from Nigeria and took refuge in the UK when he sensed that danger was coming for him

Accused of looting a whopping sum of $1billion, he was declared Nigeria’s most wanted.

With an intent to bring him back home alive, Umaru Dikko was kidnapped, injected into a state of unconsciousness and packaged inside a specially made crate.

Luckily for him, the move was somehow double-crossed by a British customs officer known as Charles David Morrow.

Though the Nigerian government denied involvement, Idiagbon was, however, angry that the British government foiled the plan.

He was clear in his assertion that Nigeria was not going to ask for restoring relations with Britain, and that if anyone was to ask for forgiveness, it should be Britain.

Umaru Dikko

As expected, the Nigerian Airways plane that was sent to bring Dikko, with its crew, was detained by the British government.

The no-nonsense general would retaliate by detaining a British Airways passenger plane at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport.

It was not long before it became clear that his style of leadership had earned him a long chain of elite enemies.

In August 1985, while on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, news reached Idiagbon that Buhari had been overthrown and detained in a coup led by Ibrahim Babangida.

He was cautioned to stay away from the country or he will be dealt with.

Upon hearing this, the late King Fahd Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud called Idiagbon and made an offer. The Saudi king told Idiagbon that he would get him a magnificent mansion to stay for his retirement for life and forget about the idea of returning to Nigeria.

Idiagbon politely declined the offer. He was too rugged and brave to hide behind closed doors.

A few days later, he was unwelcomed by soldiers armed with all sort of weapons. And for forty horrible months, he was placed under house arrest in Benin and Bauchi state.

His reign as vice president lasted for only twenty months.

With no millions of dollars to his name, Idiagbon took to farming and detached himself from public activities.

Nigeria had chosen not to be better, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Still remembered for his simple and humble lifestyle, Major-general Idiagbon passed away on May 24, 1999; leaving Nigeria to the darkness she preferred over the light.

#Tunde Idiagbon

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