(11-12-2020, 06:29 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 12-Nov-2020 World View: Hamstringing Biden
(11-11-2020, 09:08 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Hamstringing the incoming Administration is a horrible idea. An
> administration getting help from a foreign power in achieving its
> domestic ends out of its own design is unconscionable. An
> administration requiring its successor to seek non-government
> assistance from special interests or, worse, from foreign powers,
> is unthinkable.
"Hamstringing"? Don't you mean that it's racist, sexist and
homophobic? This is the usual crap that Democrats to use to
intimidate tea partiers and Trump supporters from asserting their
rights, in this case the investigation of the growing instances of
voting irregularities during the election.
Did I say anything about racism, sexism, or homophobia in that post? Did I say that such colored the decision?
Quote:However, what I'm telling
you is that I've heard one analyst after another make it clear that
there is a groundswell of furious activism growing among the 71
million tea partiers and Trump supporters, and your cheap intimidation
tricks aren't going to work nearly as well.
If I were to tell you that there were a groundswell of militant activism among America's neo-Nazis (or Commies, but Commies seem largely in hiatus or at least irrelevant in American political life), would you speak well of such?
Joe Biden won 51% of the popular vote and officially so far 290 electoral votes (which will almost certainly become 306 when Biden's lead in Georgia passes the recount). 270 clinches the Presidency this year as it has in every Presidential election since 1964. Joe Biden won in 2020 just as Trump did in 2016; the popular vote does not count and the majority of electoral votes do.
Democratic elections are decided by the number of the votes, and not the intensity of the feelings of those who voted. If you are talking about Tea Party types who are now Trump supporters, then I have no way of determining whether their intense support of Donald Trump is stronger than the intense contempt that many of us on the Left side of the political spectrum have for Trump. I can say this: I could never have said about John McCain or Mitt Romney what I said of Donald Judas Trump.
Quote:As a proud American, you should be applauding the investigations,
because they'll establish the validity of America's voting system, and
prove that they we aren't just Stalinists. You should be thrilled
that the investigations provide the opportunity to prove to everyone
that Biden's election was legitimate. I'm sure you'll agree that
stopping the investigations is a "horrible idea." If it's stopped
early, then the 71 million tea partiers and Trump supporters will be
absolutely convinced once and for all that it was rigged. That would
be terrible for Biden. What you call "hamstringing" is the best thing
for Biden. Once it's over, he can brag about it every day.
We have never had an investigation after an election. We have generally accepted the results of all Presidential elections in our history, including 2000 when there actually was some hanky-panky. The one time in which many Americans decided to not accept the result of a Presidential election was in 1860, and we all know how that went.
Quote:But still, your post is nonsensical on several additional levels
requiring a response.
First off, we now know that, along with Hunter, Joe Biden is
completely compromised with the governments of China, Russia and
Ukraine. This is going to be problematical in all intelligence
briefings, since it may be a security breach to reveal top secret
information to Biden.
Donald Trump was in Putin's pocket. Xi knows how to play either side in American politics. Trump put the lawfully-elected government of Ukraine in jeopardy for the sake of discrediting a potential rival.
Quote:The second problem is that CIA intelligence briefings won't do Biden
officials any good, if they don't have the solid information background
that lets them understand what they hearing, and I've seen no
evidence that anyone in the Democratic party has a clue what's going
on in the world.
Obama did well enough, fostering a cozy relationship with the intelligence services. That was how he could order the underworld-style hit on Osama bin Laden: the CIA found where he was, and Seal Team 6 could whack him. I expect Biden, who was in on the plot to rub the world's most infamous terrorist out, to have learned how to deal with the CIA. The CIA can be useful; just don't step on its toes or use it as a political football. If I use language characteristic of Chicago gangsters to describe how Obama could eliminate Osama bin Laden, then that is because such was how it had to be done.
Quote:It's not just Democrats. I learned in 2007 that the "experts" in
Washington are unbelievably stupid about the Mideast.
** Guess what? British politicians and journalists are just as ignorant as Americans
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...m#e070114b
What I learned was that I knew more about the Mideast than the
Washington "experts." Now, 13 years later, having written thousands
of articles and several books, I'm pretty sure that I know more about
what's going on in the entire world better than any of the Washington
"experts." This becomes obvious to me almost any time I see one on
tv.
Like you, I recognize that the talking heads on television on the whole know about as much about the Middle East as they do about (picking a profession at random) veterinary medicine -- or their 'knowledge' is corrupted by their underlying assumptions. .
Quote:When Obama came into office, he knew absolutely nothing, and did one
stupid thing after another. His entire foreign policy was based on
only one rule -- do the opposite of what Bush did. Over the next
eight years, it was obvious that he learned nothing, as his former
defense secretary Robert Gates suggested in his memoir.
Obama is a trained attorney. Attorneys need know nothing other than law and the mandated preparation for studying law and (if they practice law in a courtroom) some theatrics. What Obama can do if something is outside his current knowledge is to find a reliable source of valid knowledge as needed and apply that. He need not be a physician to make solid medical policy or be an engineer to set good people on the task. He certainly did not have to be an intelligence officer or a soldier to arrange the elimination of Osama bin Laden.
Quote:I'm still completely appalled that Obama chose John Kerry as Secretary
of State. Not only is Kerry incredibly stupid, he also hates the
military and has repeatedly said so, he thinks that soldiers are
stupid (even though they're a lot smarter than he is), and his
selection was a big thumb in the eye of every American soldier and
veteran. But this is what we expect from Obama, and Democrats in
general.
Everybody makes mistakes, and Obama made a mistake with Kerry.
Quote:I'm reminded of an article I wrote last year about Chris Murphy:
*** 23-Oct-2019 World View: The stupidest person in Congress - Chris Murphy
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5168&p=48065#p48065
I wrote that after watching a speech by Murphy broadcast on
al-Jazeera. Murphy is the leading Democratic foreign policy "expert"
in Congress, and his ignorance and stupidity were breathtaking, at AOC
levels. Al-Jazeera simply broadcast the speech with no comment,
presumably because they wanted to show their Arab audiences how stupid
the Americans are.
So maybe there was someone in the Obama administration (after Gates)
who had some clue what was going on in the world, but I never saw it,
and the choice of the idiot Kerry indicates to me that none exists.
I was amazed to discover that John Kerry is an intellectual mediocrity dumber than Dubya. Kerry does a good talk; that's for sure.
Quote:When Trump began running, I was extremely contemptuous of Trump's
foreign policy knowledge, and I mocked him by suggesting that he knew
nothing except the locations of his golf courses. But then he did
something completely unexpected -- he hired Steve Bannon, one of the
country's leading and most knowledgeable military historian, and also
an expert on Generational Dynamics. By the time Trump took office, he
had been educated by Bannon, and he was already extremely
knowledgeable about foreign policy, and was able to hit the ground
running. But that wasn't because of some worthless transitioning
briefing from Obama, but instead was because he had already been doing
the hard work attending briefings by Bannon and others for over a
year.
Yes... Steve "Caught on a Yacht" Bannon, unwise enough to pull a scam that violated laws against mail fraud, wire fraud, and bank fraud that got him under the custody of the Postal Inspection Service, which has authority over most fraud schemes that involve solicitation of funds by mail or other communications (wire fraud includes broadcasting by radio, TV, and the internet as well as telegraph and telephone), transfer of funds to himself by the mails and wire transfers (the usual means of sending bank deposits), and of course withdrawing funds expected to be used for some other purpose for individual use. If I were to guess what offenses are most likely to put a white-collar offender in a federal prison, it would be mail-wire-bank fraud to a greater extent even than tax fraud. (The IRS can get the cash if it is there, and that takes away the prison term, and gets a prison term only if it has some other offense involved, like intimidation of others into violating the law or some nasty conspiracy).If you are thinking of securities fraud, then such (including insider dealings and pump-and-dump schemes) often are prosecuted for mail fraud, wire fraud, or bank fraud. Solicit or grab the money through dishonest means and you are guilty of fraud. Turn the money over to yourself for a self-indulgent behavior instead of the purpose that you promise, and you commit mail fraud, wire fraud, or bank fraud.
Trump's foreign policy is a disaster except for cutting a deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (who share a common enemy in Iran). Big deal!
Quote:It was this deep knowledge that made it possible for Trump to
impressively manage the situations in North Korea, China and the
Mideast, and mediate three peace agreements in the Mideast, as well as
one in the Balkans. In the case of China, Trump was able to reverse
three decades of appeasement for all kinds of things, including
intellectual property theft. Responding to your statement, what's
"unconscionable" is that Biden's relationship with China is completely
compromised, and he may simply let China get away with everything
again.
If you believe that Donald Trump has gotten anything more out of North Korea than some 'beautiful letters", then I have a bridge to sell you connecting Muskegon and Milwaukee.
Quote:It's worth repeating that Trump hit the ground running, but not
because of a couple of days of Obama intelligence briefings. It was
because of over a year of hard work and serious study with Bannon, not
a year hiding in his basement.
Biden was hiding from COVID-19, the plague that Trump has bungled into nearly 250,000 deaths in America... and counting.
Quote:During Trump's 2016 campaign, he was out campaigning and attending all
sorts of briefings, learning everything he needed to know to be an
effective president.
Trump broke the rules. A genius can break the rules (strange harmonies in Bach, establishing new forms like Haydn, exploiting but making parodies of the banal Alberti bass in Mozart, blending Gypsy music into classical forms as did Brahms or east-Asian musical patterns into opera as did Puccini, and I say this only in music) but gets away with it because he knows what he is doing and suppresses his failures. A fool breaks the rules for the sake of breaking the rules or out of some sick compulsion or (at worst) getting what he wants illegally. Check the website for the Darwin Awards for people who mostly got killed for doing something creatively stupid or the police blotters for those who break the rules to make illicit income, take what isn't theirs, or do even worse.
Francisco Goya and Albert Einstein are geniuses for breaking the rules and convincing people after the fact that they were right and the rules were wrong. Criminals, hardly a cerebral lot, are more likely to lament something like "I broke the law/ and the law won".
Quote:During Biden's 2020 campaign, he hid out in his basement all year,
learning nothing, part of a Democrat party that purposely censors
any news that the Democrats don't like. Biden is abysmally incompetent
and unprepared for the presidency. A couple of days of briefings
won't change that. Biden is simply a dolt. Missing the briefings
won't be "hamstringing" Biden. Biden is already hamstrung.
Uh... no. SARS-2 was not stalking people in 2016 as it was during the 2020 campaign. Trump went out campaigning in Castro-style mass rallies that have since proved super-spreader events. Biden did not do that. Trump's rallies have killed people, mostly Trump supporters. How many?
Margins in the five states that made the difference between 2016 and 2020
AZ 10 016
GA 14 198
MI 146 121
PA 37 192
WI 19 540
Nowhere that many Trump supporters died in Michigan and not quite enough died in Pennsylvania of COVID-19 to make that big a difference, but that many could have in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. That is not definitive proof, but any margin is significant.
Quote:We may see one consequence if the Pfizer rollout succeeds. Democrats
are desperately looking for a way to stop that, since it will make
Biden look like a pathetic idiot, who has no plan except "masks and
lockdowns." Pfizer is not likely to agree to any slowdown. I know
someone at Pfizer, and he's told me that the company has shut down
almost every other project, in order to invest all resources on the
virus vaccine. In other words, they've bet the entire company on the
vaccine, and they're not about to stop now, just as they're
approaching their big payday.
People must wear masks to prevent the spread of the virus and to protect their mouths so that they can be alive to receive the vaccine! That is one of the easiest things that I can do. I associate wearing a mask with the ability to visit bookstores and libraries, the places that I most missed during the lockdown in Michigan.
Quote:So this brings us back to these transition briefings. Biden
administration officials are, as far as I can tell, completely
ignorant about the world and foreign policy, so the briefings would be
harmless, but probably otherwise useless, since they wouldn't even
understand them. Since they'd be harmless, it probably would be a
good idea for the Trump administration to provide them.
Have you considered the other side -- that the Trump Administration is either incredibly ignorant of foreign policy or that even its foreign policy is so hideously corrupt (like everything else involving that horrible person) that the Trump Administration has something to hide?
Quote:If Biden REALLY wants to use this time intelligently so he won't be
hamstrung, he could start right now by hiring someone with the stature
of Steve Bannon to educate him. Or he could arrange for himself and
his staff to attend zoom briefings put on by foreign policy experts at
various think tanks and universities. The only problem with that is
that he would select only people presenting left wing nonsense, but
it's better than nothing, and nothing is what he currently knows,
after he's hidden in his basement for a year.
Yeah, sure. And he might consult Bernard Madoff on monetary policy and Jeffrey Skilling on solid principles of commerce. [/snark]
Quote:Another option is that he could take is to hire me to give a zoom
briefing. Since I know more about what's going on in countries around
the world than the "experts" in Washington, I could provide more
intelligent and accurate information than the left-wing stuff his
advisors will give him. I could also ask "Navigator," a military
history expert in my forum, to help out with the briefing. That would
be one of the best choices that Biden would make. I'll look forward
to hearing from him.
(11-12-2020, 04:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > John, we have never had a sleazier administration than the Trump
> administration.
You're a complete idiot. Biden is already sleazier.
‘Plausible deniability’: Tony Bobulinski says Joe Biden knew about
Hunter Biden’s China deal pursuits
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/...l-pursuits
What expertise do you have that people in the CIA and DIA do not already have? Trump has criminal behavior to conceal.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
