Saturday, April 27, 2019

The Lexicon of Today's Left

The Lexicon of Today’s Left Antifa Anti-Semitism BCE BDS Bi BLM CE CIS(gender) Cultural Appropriation Democratic Socialism (An oxymoron) Diversity First Nations Hate Speech Homophobic Indigenous Population Inequality Injustice Insensitivity Inter(sexual) LGBTQ Liberation Theology Microaggressions Occupiers Oppressors Political Correctness Racist Rainbow Coalition RBG Reparations Safe Spaces Sensitivity Training Sexist Social Justice Social Justice Warriors Trans Trigger Warnings Victimhood White Nationalist White Supremacist Woke Woke Patrol White Privilege

Saturday, April 13, 2019

What Happened to the "Harasser" Joe Biden? The Attacks Did Not Work

The United States faces tremendous issues today: China Expansionism Russian Expansionism Iranian Terrorism Venezuela Syria Sudan Yemen Turkey and the Kurds Israel and the Mideast Hamas and Hezbollah Al Qaeda ISIS Rise of Anti-Semitism Cyber Security Russian Hacking Chines Hacking Iranian Hacking North Korean Hacking Terrorism Immigration Legal and Illegal Global Trade Opioids Energy, Electricity, Environment & Climate Change College Tuition and Student Loans Free Speech on Campuses Affirmative Action Inequality Homeless Criminal Justice Reform Prison Reform Public Pension Liabilities What are we obsessed with? Vice President Joe Biden’s hugs. We spent two weeks with democrats obsessed with Joe. The Democratic Presidential candidates sounded like an out of tune chorus railing against Joe. Will the #MeToo Movement claim Joe? Joe Biden is an empathetic, warm hail fellow well met. He hugs people – men, women, and children. He does not discriminate. He hugs – not grope. And now the sounds of silence on Joe. Why silence? It wasn’t working. Polls currently show Joe Biden with solid leads in California, Iowa and New Hampshire. Americans know Joe. He is a known quantity. The others are not. They know he’s a shaker and hugger. They know he misspeaks all the time. He’s transparent. They also know Joe is one of them – the “Common Man” if we can still use that phrase. He will never appeal to the AOC-Omar-Tlaib generation unless he becomes the Democratic nominee. He’s too old, too old school, not radical enough for them. He appeals to the non-elites, the blue collar workers, steel workers, voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He’s one of them. He’s paid his dues. All the attacks did was remind the American voter that Joe Biden is authentic. Of course, Joe Biden’s judgment is often wrong on economics, foreign policy, and national security!

Friday, April 5, 2019

Did Turkey's Erdogan Lose Ankara and His Base of Istanbul? Maybe, but He Can't Let the CHP Opposition Party Take Control of Istanbul and Ankara

The Results from this week’s election in Turkey Show the opposition CHP (Republican People’s Party) Party flipping AKP strongholds Ankara and Istanbul, giving the opposition the three largest cities in Turkey. The third, Izmit, has long been held by the opposition. Ekrem Imamoglu, the CHP candidate, is reported to have carried Istanbul by roughly 22,000 votes out of 9 million cast. Mansur Yacas, the CHP candidate, carried Ankara by a roughly 4% margin with 50.9% of the vote compared to 47% for President Erdogan’s handpicked candidate, Mehmet Ozhaseki. Istanbul has been under AKP control since 2002. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become a “strongman,” somewhere short of a complete dictator. He has purged the military, police, judiciary, bureaucracy, and institutions of education, both public and private. The former President of the Supreme Judicial Council of Turkey was imprisoned. Erdogan has won every election from Mayor of Istanbul to Prime Minister and President of Turkey. He has amassed power in the Presidency. He has imprisoned Kurdish politicians. Over 700 Kurdish politicians and party members have been arrested since campaigning began in January. He accused his opponents of terrorism. He controls the media, shuttering newspaper, magazines, radio and TV stations. Hundreds of journalists have been arrested and some killed. Scores of newspapers, magazines, TV and Radio stations have been closed. Only media friendly to the Government remain, shutting off access to the opposition, except for a few hours. Hundreds of journalists have been imprisoned. I used to daily read Today’s Zaman on the internet. The government shut Today’s Zaman down on March 4, 2016 and destroyed its archives. The government has blocked over 100,000 websites, including Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter, Wikipedia, and YouTube. Even China has been unable to totally block social media. It’s not easy to hide the truth in today’s world. President Erdogan built his success on a combination of a strong belief in Islam and economic prosperity. The economy was booming for ten years until his egocentric responses after the failed coup. The Turkish people are paying for his vengeance. The once booming Turkish economy is in a free fall. The Turkish Lira plunger 30% against the dollar last year. Unemployment is 10% with 30% among the young. Production dropped 4% last year. The tourist industry is hemorrhaging. The people know, see, and feel the pain. The Kurds, comprising 15% of population, will vote overwhelmingly for the opposition. So too will the families of the tens of thousands of Turks arrested after the failed coup and the over 160,000 ousted from their public and private jobs. The opposition also ran a well-conceived campaign. Up to three opposition parties challenged the AKP in past elections, splitting the anti-AKP vote. Not this time. The Kurds decided not to run any candidates this election cycle in Ankara or Istanbul, concentrating on their strength in southeast Turkey. The two remaining opposition parties united on a single candidate. They were also well-organized at a grass roots level. They knew the AKP has stuffed the ballot box in the past. They at poll watchers at each polling station President Erdogan is a vindictive, sore loser. More than that, he cannot personally afford to have the two largest cities fall into opposition hands. Ekrem Imamoglu pledged an audit of Istanbul’s budget. Any decent audit should uncover a trail of corruption. President Erdogan is corrupt. We know that from a 2014 leaked tape with him and his son. The police officers that exposed the corruption were sentenced to life imprisonment. We also know that corruption is a rag on a country’s rconomy. Loss of Ankara and Istanbul will result in the loss of patronage in those cities. The combined municipal budget of the two cities is roughly $5.79 billion (U.S. dollars). President Campaigned extensively for his party, making it a referendum on himself. The people rejected him – a blow to his ego. The next step is a recount, and then a recount of the recount, and a recount of the recount of the recount, until it comes out the desired way. Minnesota did that in the 2008 Senate race, ultimately giving Al Franken a 312 vote victory. Binali Yildirim of the AKP said there are 31,136 ballot boxes in Istanbul. All he needed was one additional vote from each ballot box. Ekrem held onto a 18,742 vote lead after a recount in 17 of Istanbul’s 39 districts. The AKP has now demanded the Istanbul votes be annulled. Hence they could start over. The government party is also contesting 319,570 ballots in Ankara. The AKP protests are ironic. It has a history of ballot stuffing. The 2017 election, which gave the President; i.e. Recep Erdogan, extraordinary powers, was accompanied by both ballot stuffing and ballot suppression with police actually watching voters casting their ballots with cautions against voting No. 960 ballot boxes contained only Yes votes. One estimate was that up to 2½ ballots may have been fraudulent. The President barely won the election 51.4% -48.6%. The 2018 election was characterized by widespread voting “irregularities” favoring the President. President Erdogan said two days ago “Everything is still ongoing.” President Erdogan ominously now said that now the elections process was over, it was time for the judicial process. Remember, he purged the judiciary; it is now of his creation. If the AKP cannot reverse the election results, watch the President do to the new city officials what he did to Kurdish cities: dissolve the government and imprison the leaders for treason. His government seized over 100 Kurdish municipalities in 2014 and jailed 60 Kurdish mayors in 2016. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cannot afford to lose Ankara and especially Istanbul.

Monday, April 1, 2019

Reflections on the Mueller Investigation

Representative Adam Schiff, who sees Russia Collusion everyone, is becoming the Tail-Gunner Joe McCarthy, who saw Communists everywhere, of our generation If the Democrats really want the full report released quickly, they can try to enact a law, signed by the President, requiring full disclosure of grand jury testimony, intelligence sources, and investigative materials instead of postulating. President Trump said two years ago that After 22 months, 19 anti-Trump lawyers, 40 FBI agents and experts, 500 interviews, 2800 subpoenas, $34 million, and grand jury powers, the Mueller Investigation found absolutely no collusion between the President or his campaign staff, with the Russians. What makes the Democrats in Congress think they will find anything meaningful? Our top intelligence and Justice Department authorities were engaged in a cabal, also known as a conspiracy or collusion. They tried to become the modern version of the Roman Praetorian Guard and the Ottoman Janisaries. Release it all: The full Mueller Report The FISA warrants The pen registers Phone records Release it All Emails The Page/Strzok emails Comey’s emails and files Brennen emails Clapper emails Clinton’s emails Release it All Benghazi Uranium One Clinton Foundation The Clinton emails Fast and Furious IRS/Lois Lerner records The unmaskings The attempts to directly or indirectly bug/wiretap Donald Trump, his aides, and Trump Tower Haul Them Before a Grand Jury The DOJ Roberta Lynch Sally Yates Bruce Ohr (and Nellie Ohr) The FBI James Comey Andrew McCabe Peter Strzok Lisa Page Rod Rosenstein James Rybicki Mike Kortan David Laufman James Baker Bill Priestap Josh Campbell James Turgal Greg Brower Michael Steinbach John Giacalone The CIA John Brennan David Cohen Director of National Security James Clapper Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson Christopher Steele The State Department Samantha Powers The Lawyer Michael Sussman& Perkins Coie Sally Rice Daniel Richman Hillary Clinton Cheryl Mills Heather Samuelson Huma Abedin Yes, Let’s Get It All Out Let’s Futher Learn About the Comey-Clapper-Brennan Collusion/Conspiracy - the conspiracy between intelligence agencies that attempted to select, not elect, the President of the United States. Let it all out, or appoint a new special prosecutor. The biggest winner in the past two years is Vladimir Putin. His goal is to seed discord among the American people. He succeeded.