I owe you an apology, dear readers, for not posting during long stretches; however, there is only so much war-promoting pre$$ one can take:
"America’s influence, once so dominant, waning under Trump" by Tim Sullivan Associated Press, December 8, 2019
It’s whispered in NATO meeting rooms and celebrated in China’s halls of power. It’s lamented in the capital cities of key US allies and welcomed in the Kremlin.
Three years into Donald Trump’s presidency, America’s global influence is waning. In interviews with the Associated Press, diplomats, foreign officials, and scholars from numerous countries describe a changing world order in which the United States has less of a central role, and in many ways, that’s just fine with the White House, but once-close allies — France, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mexico, Turkey, Germany, and more — have quietly edged away from Washington over the past three years.
Do they mean a New World Order, the phrase Bush coined on that infamous date?
This is a major change. For generations, America saw itself as the center of the world. For better or worse, most of the rest of the world has regarded the United States as its colossus — respecting it, fearing it, turning to it for answers.
“We are America,” said Madeleine Albright, secretary of state in the Clinton administration. “We are the indispensable nation.”
OMG! They actually quote that loathsome and arrogant war criminal who claimed half-a-million Iraqi kids were worth the price of sanctions. You go from Bush I smashing the place after double-crossing and setting up Iraq in Kuwait as a justification for a U.S. presence (the PNAC-Yinon plan in its early stages) to Clinton sanctioning them into submission to Bush II committing a war of aggression based on lies that has led to the current situation.
To be sure, America is still a global superpower, but now, the country’s waning influence is profoundly redrawing the geopolitical map, opening the way for Washington’s two most powerful foes — Russia and China — to extend their reach into many countries where they had long been seen with suspicion.
Those longtime friends of Washington? Many are now looking elsewhere for alliances. Very often, they look to China or Russia.
In Islamabad, for example, where the United States was once seen as the only game in town, Pakistan’s government now gets military aid and training from Russia and billions of dollars in investment and loans from China. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte is nurturing closer ties to Beijing despite his nervousness over its expansionism in the South China Sea. In Egypt, long one of America’s closest Middle Eastern allies, Cairo now lets Russian military planes use its bases and the two countries recently held joint air force exercises. In Ukraine, which has looked to US military aid for years to try to keep an expansionist Russia in check, Trump’s questionable loyalty is seen as creating a dangerous vacuum.
They end that paragraph by inferring that the president is guilty of treason while hurling charges at Russia and China of which America itself is guilty.
“Once the US role in Europe weakens, Russia’s influence inevitably grows,” Vadim Karasev, head of the Kyiv-based Institute of Global Strategies, said.
I don't know who he is or who they are; however, one can't help but notice the impartial and unbiased pre$$ changing Kiev to Kyiv in what is described as a zero-$um game -- making it clear that they see no win-win and nothing but war.
Or there’s France, whose friendship with America goes back to the days of George Washington. Perhaps more than any other Western leader, French President Emmanuel Macron has made clear that Europe should look to Beijing, not Washington, when it comes to addressing global issues from trade wars to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Macron’s recent trip to China was choreographed in part to convey that the European Union has little faith in Washington anymore. Europe is on “the edge of a precipice,” Macron told The Economist magazine in a recent interview.
Yes, his domestic unrest has been all but forgotten.
Perhaps no US ally is more worried than the Kurds, America’s longtime battlefield allies. They bore the brunt of the combat as the Islamic State group was driven from the territory it held across a swath of Iraq and Syria.
Ah, yes, the grand plan and wars for you-know-who, got it.
“Betrayal process is officially complete,” a Kurdish official said in a WhatsApp message sent to journalists after Trump’s defense secretary announced US troops would fully withdraw from northeastern Syria. That pullout paved the way for a Turkish offensive against Kurdish fighters and signaled to the world that the United States may no longer be as reliable as it once was.
I'm tired of the false impression that he pulled out the troops because they are stealing, 'er, protecting the oil fields, but beyond the pre$$ falsities and distortions, I'm sure the world breathes a collective sigh of relief that "we" are no longer "reliable." We are still interfering in their affairs with destabilization campaigns, but we are not overtly bringing the hammer of the military down on them.
The Kurds weren’t taken completely by surprise. Kurdish officials had been holding back-channel talks with Syria and Russia for more than a year before the announcement. The Kurds feared they would be abandoned by Washington.
No, the only ones taken by surprise were the Deep State idiots running foreign policy and the American people who rely on the pre$$ for information because that is the impression they gave at the time. Like a thunderbolt out of the blue!
China has been delighted by what it sees as the voluntary abdication of US leadership, particularly on free trade and climate change.
Trump’s pullout from the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership, for example, opened the way for Beijing to push ahead with its own alternative free-trade agreement.
I'm confused. Are they saying China was not included in the TPP, and if not, whose harebrained idea was that?
Meanwhile, China has gone from being a climate change curmudgeon to sometimes reaping praise as a global leader on the issue.
Tell it to the kids in Hong Kong, where the New York Times tells me the "huge turnout was a reminder to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, that the monthslong campaign against his authoritarian policies still had broad support."
Related:
"When US prosecutors charged an Apple Inc. engineer in January with stealing trade secrets for a Chinese startup, a search of his home turned up something else, they say: a classified file from the Patriot missile program that belonged to his former employer, Waltham-based Raytheon Co. The discovery adds a striking national security wrinkle to an otherwise routine corporate espionage case, and the government says it merits keeping Jizhong Chen under close scrutiny. Chen, a US citizen who was arrested on his way to catch a flight to China, is awaiting trial on charges that he collected photos, schematics, and manuals from his work on Apple’s tightly guarded self-driving car project as he prepared to take a job with an unidentified rival......"
A "routine corporate espionage case(?)," and whatever happened with the woman in Canada anyway?
Maybe Trump can cut a deal like with Iran, 'eh?
Also see:
"China’s trade with the United States sank again in November as negotiators continued working on a possible deal to end the tariffs war. Exports to the United States fell 23 percent from a year earlier to $35.6 billion, customs data showed Sunday. Imports of American goods were off 2.8 percent at $11 billion, giving China a surplus with the United States of $24.6 billion. Exports to some other countries including France rose, helping to offset the loss. The US-China dispute has disrupted global trade and threatens to depress economic growth. Financial markets have repeatedly risen on optimism about the talks only to fall back when no progress is announced....."
Meaning Bostonians may want to wait a bit longer on 5G service, but don't worry, your health will thank you for it.
The White House’s National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment about this story.
Now that Bolton is out they no longer get any leaks.
Trump insists he is not pulling the United States off the world stage. He cites partnerships with other nations to fight terrorism, and his administration highlights a recent high-profile raid in Syria that killed the leader of the Islamic State group.
That is where I cut short my print version.
The web version added this:
Some former administration officials have cited Trump’s business background to describe him as having a ‘‘transactional’’ approach to foreign policy. He has pulled out of multilateral agreements, such as the Iran nuclear deal, yet he needs international support to pressure Tehran for its regional aggression and nuclear program. He gets credit for opening dialogues with the Afghan Taliban and North Korea, although efforts to end America’s longest war and get Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons have so far been unsuccessful.
See: North Korea says it carried out ‘very important test’ at missile-engine site
He also has set about negotiating bilateral trade agreements with many countries because he says deals made by previous administrations were unfair to the United States. He had success with South Korea, yet has not yet sealed a deal with China.
In some ways, Washington’s declining influence is simply a reflection of history: America is no longer the singular economic and military giant that overshadowed nearly every other nation.
Were Albright to reflect on it, she would find there is no indispensable nation and never has been.
In 1945, America had the world’s only nuclear weapons and produced roughly half the world’s gross domestic product. Today, it has perhaps 15 percent of global GDP, and even North Korea has nuclear weapons. Other countries have grown immensely. China, once a poverty-battered behemoth, has become a financial giant and an emerging superpower. Countries from Brazil to India to South Korea have become serious regional powers, but if history plays a role, the diplomatic shifts of the Trump years are more about a White House unapologetically focused on the United States.
That reminds me, how are things in Kashmir?
Globalism was once one of Washington’s few unifying themes. Now, it’s an insult in the capital, and the United States gets more attention for rejecting multilateral agreements, from Trump pulling out of the Asia-Pacific deal to his rejection of the Paris climate accords. The president has hosted only two state dinners and has repeatedly sought to slash the State Department budget.
America still has enormous power.
Thanks to the dollar's denomination as the world's reserve currency; once that goes, America will become Zimbabwe. That's the real truth behind the endless wars for empire, not all this other propaganda and garbage.
A 2018 Pew Research Center survey done across 25 countries found that only 25 percent of people believed the United States plays a less important role now than it did a decade ago.
Another of the survey’s findings: People in nearly every country said they preferred a world order led by the United States.....
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What is noteworthy is what is not mentioned in the article: no mention of Israel, Iran, Yemen, Palestine, or South America (other than Brazil) -- and thus the regime change efforts in Venezuela and Bolivia must have nothing to do with America, right?
Israel and Iran did receive brief mention elsewhere:
"Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday welcomed a Lebanese-born Swiss real estate mogul who purchased Nazi memorabilia at a German auction and is donating the items to Israel. Rivlin called Abdallah Chatila’s gesture an “act of grace.” Chatila, a Lebanese Christian who has lived in Switzerland for decades, paid some 600,000 euros ($660,000) for the items at the Munich auction last month, intending to destroy them after reading of Jewish groups’ objections to the sale. Shortly before the auction, however, he decided it would be better to donate them to a Jewish organization. Among the items he bought were Adolf Hitler’s top hat, a silver-plated edition of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” and a typewriter used by the dictator’s secretary. The items are to be donated to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. Chatila said he initially bought the items for personal reasons. “He is the personification of evil — evil for everyone, not evil for the Jews, evil for the Christians, evil for humanity,” he said. ‘‘And that’s why it was important for me to buy those artifacts,” but Chatila decided that he “had no right to decide” what to do with these artifacts, so he reached out to Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal, a nonprofit fund-raising body that assists Israeli and Jewish causes. It then decided to pass the items on to Yad Vashem because of its existing collection of Nazi artifacts....."
Because what is “of great importance at this time” is preserving the Holocau$t legacy for future generations.
It is what it is, folks, and one wonders why Finland gets a pass.
"Iran’s president said on Sunday his country will depend less on oil revenue next year, in a new budget that is designed to resist crippling US trade embargoes. Iran is in the grip of an economic crisis. The United States reimposed sanctions that block Iran from selling its crude oil abroad, following President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. ‘‘The budget sends a message to the world that despite the sanctions, we will manage the country,’’ President Hassan Rouhani told the opening session of Parliament. The proposed budget will counter ‘‘maximum pressure and sanctions’’ by the United States, he said. Iranian media, including the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, said that the submitted budget would raise taxes, sell some government-owned property, and add more government bonds, but it wasn’t immediately clear from Rouhani’s speech whether these proposed measures would fully compensate for plummeting oil revenues. Rouhani added that Iran will also benefit from a $5 billion loan from Russia that’s being finalized. He said the United States and Israel will remain ‘‘hopeless’’ despite their goal of weakening Iran through sanctions....."
Nothing about protests in print, and for good reason!
Of course, everything has been overshadowed by this:
FBI investigating base shooting as act of terror
It's the "updated" New York Times version for the web after my print copy gave me AP:
"Pensacola shooting being investigated as terror attack, FBI says" by Brendan Farrington and Mike Balsamo Associated Press, December 8, 2019
PENSACOLA, Fla. — The Saudi gunman who killed three people at the Pensacola naval base had apparently gone on Twitter shortly before the shooting to blast US support of Israel and accuse America of being anti-Muslim, a US official said Sunday as the FBI confirmed it is operating on the assumption the attack was an act of terrorism.
I am now officially skeptical of this entire event, sorry.
Investigators are also trying to establish whether the killer, Second Lieutenant Mohammed Alshamrani, 21, of the Royal Saudi Air Force, acted alone or was part of a larger plot.
Which is odd because they always rush to proclaim a lone gunman in this situations.
Alshamrani, who was killed by a sheriff’s deputy during the rampage at a classroom building Friday, was undergoing flight training at Pensacola, where members of foreign militaries routinely receive instruction.
“We are, as we do in most active-shooter investigations, work with the presumption that this was an act of terrorism,” said Rachel L. Rojas, FBI agent in charge.
I'm confused. What was he doing off the base and shooting up a classroom?
I mean, they are throwing so many agendas into these false flag, perception management exercises that they are starting reek of desperation and madness.
Authorities believe the gunman made social media posts criticizing the US under a user handle similar to his name, but federal law enforcement officials are investigating whether he authored the words or just posted them, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
What would be the difference? Charges of incitement for all, is that what this is? More ways to take down blogs and JouTube channels?
Also, investigators believe the gunman visited New York City, including Rockefeller Center, days before the shooting and are working to determine the purpose of the trip, the official said.
(Blog editor simply rolls his eyes and shakes his head)
All foreign students at the Pensacola base have been accounted for, no arrests have been made, and the community is under no immediate threat, Rojas said at a news conference. A Saudi commanding officer has ordered all students from the country to remain at one location at the base, authorities said.
How can they know that in such short a time after missing this?
What it tells you is this whole tale is a pile of stink.
“There are a number of Saudi students who are close to the shooter and continue to cooperate in this investigation,’’ Rojas said. “The Saudi government has pledged to fully cooperate with our investigation.”
These are the same guys who allegedly lured a guy to their embassy and cut him up with a bone saw, right?
The same ones who -- according to the official story -- helped finance the 9/11 hijackers, right?
Just wanted to clear that up before inserting some print that the web version snipped:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the investigation was proceeding under "the presumption that this was an act of terrorism"and he called for better vetting of foreigners allowed into the U.S. for training on American bases. Speaking at a news conference Sunday afternoon, DeSantis also said the gunman had a social media trail and a "deep-seated hatred of the United States." He said he thought such an attack could have been prevented with better vetting. "You have to take precautions" to protect the nation, DeSantis said. "To have this individual be able to take out three of our sailors, to me that's unacceptable," the governor added.
If anyone perceives my commentary to be a deep-seated hatred of the U.S., you are wrong.
I love my country, but I despise its mass-murdering, war-criminal government that does not speak for us. I'm trying to save my country from the awful judgment of history before it is too late.
Okay, back to your regularly-scheduled propaganda:
Earlier in the week of the shooting, Alshamrani hosted a dinner party where he and three others watched videos of mass shootings, another US official said Saturday.
So they would know how to act for the movie?
Alshamrani used a Glock 9 mm weapon that had been purchased legally in Florida, Rojas said.
Family members and others identified the three dead as Joshua Kaleb Watson, a 23-year-old graduate of the US Naval Academy; Airman Mohammed Sameh Haitham, 19, of St. Petersburg, who joined the Navy after graduating from high school last year; and Airman Apprentice Cameron Scott Walters, 21, of Richmond Hill, Ga.
The official who spoke Saturday said one of the three students who attended the dinner party hosted by the attacker recorded video outside the classroom building while the shooting was taking place. Two other Saudi students watched from a car, the official said.
In a statement, the FBI confirmed Sunday that it had obtained base surveillance videos as well as cellphone footage taken by a bystander outside the building, and had also interviewed that person.
Rojas would not directly answer when asked whether other students knew about the attack beforehand or whether there was anything ‘‘nefarious’’ about the making of the video. She said that a lot of information needs to be confirmed by investigators and that she did not want to contribute to “misinformation” circulating about the case.
!!!!
Rojas said federal authorities are focused on questioning the gunman’s friends, classmates and other associates. ‘‘Our main goal is to confirm if he acted alone or was he part of a larger network,’’ she said.
President Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, said on CBS’ “”Face the Nation’’ that the shooting looked like “terrorism or akin to terrorism.’’ But he cautioned that the FBI was still investigating.
“Look, to me it appears to be a terrorist attack,’’ he said. “I don’t want prejudge the investigation, but it appears that this may be someone that was radicalized.’’ O’Brien said he did not see evidence so far of a “broader plot.”
The US has long had a robust training program for Saudis, providing assistance in the US and in the kingdom. More than 850 Saudis are in the United States for various training activities. They are among more than 5,000 foreign students from 153 countries in the US going through military training.
“This has been done for many decades,” Trump said on Saturday. “I guess we’re going to have to look into the whole procedure. We’ll start that immediately.’’
I guess so, huh?
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At least the price of gas dropped a penny, 'eh?
The Globe's lead feature is more gaseous spew:
In warming winters, a new method of preserving snow for skiing
I'm not going to bother you with the inherent contradictions in which "winter temperatures have been rising, snowfall has been dwindling (they have the nerve to say that after the 18+ inches or more that fell last week), and a sport that is a driver of the state’s winter economy faces a perilous future [in spite of] enough snow left to cover between 2 and 3 kilometers of trails" in what has become a pattern of extended ski seasons on the front and back end the last few years.
How can anyone believe anything they write anymore?
Also see:
Patriots’ home unbeaten streak ends against Chiefs
You see the big picture, right?
(flip below fold)
Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away..... (see the fine print):
"Joe Biden offers up fire and folksiness on his ‘No Malarkey’ tour in Iowa" by Jazmine Ulloa Globe Staff, December 8, 2019
WAVERLY, Iowa — Midway through Joe Biden’s eight-day bus tour across Iowa last week, a voter in one of about two dozen audiences he addressed wanted to know whether the former vice president who has been preaching political rapprochement had enough fight in him to take on President Trump.
“You’re such a nice guy, Joe,” said David Kuethe, 73, a retired English professor, sparking thunderous applause from a crowd of largely veterans and their family members here on Wednesday. “But here’s the problem, when you get on that stage with that orange guy in the White House — and I hope you’re on that stage with him to debate — you can’t be such a nice guy.”
Biden didn’t hesitate on a trip that showed he was more than willing to deliver some punches — and not just at Trump.
“I am used to bullies,” Biden countered, citing a childhood stutter that made him a target, but he argued he didn’t have to stoop down to their level to win the next presidential election.
The exchange captured the delicate balance that Biden tried to strike as he barnstormed through cities and small towns from one end of this crucial early voting state to the other, giving short speeches in packed but small events with remarks that often laced tender talk of the values of the American heartland with acid-tipped criticism of Trump.
Throughout his stops, Biden positioned himself as a “nice guy,” a candidate who could restore decency to the Oval Office and “do the job on day one,” without delving into the partisan fray at a time when some Democratic voters have signaled a weariness and distaste for political mud fights, but Biden also showed flashes of anger as he attempted to jumpstart his campaign in Iowa, where he has slipped from the polling lead, and to prove he had the stamina to handle a grueling campaign schedule.
In community centers and recreation halls, often strung with lights and plastered in Biden posters — some handmade and picturing his signature aviator shades — he struck a nostalgic tone as he laid out his personal history: a member of a middle-class family who endured his father’s job loss and became a politician who said he remains deeply connected to the values of Middle America. He described such places as Iowa “the core of our human values and decency,” but his voice became elevated, his words more impassioned, as he spoke of his ability to navigate world crises and willingness to take on what he called bullies, cowards, and dictators. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not want him to be president, Biden said to cheers.
What would he know of decency?
He took shots at his Democratic opponents in feisty interviews with reporters. One day after he was told in Waverly that he shouldn’t be too nice, Biden demonstrated he wasn’t. He got into a confrontation with an Iowa voter who raised the unproven claim that Biden had “set up” his son to work at a Ukrainian gas company.
It's only unproven to those who fail to investigate -- like the Globe here!
Just watch the video or read the transcript.
“You’re a damn liar, man,” Biden shot back before challenging the man to an IQ test and a push-up contest. Biden later said he probably shouldn’t have challenged him to the pushups — but showed no regret for aggressively pushing back on Ukraine, a controversy that some voters and analysts worry will burden him if he wins the nomination.
WOW!
That voter really must have hit a nerve for Joe to get all defensive like that, and is that really the kind of temperament we want in the White House? Joe needed to prove he is still a man despite the shriveled dick?
Still, he said, he didn’t need to provide a counter narrative to the Ukraine allegations, contending that would only play into the hands of Trump, who was “the only one who did anything wrong.”
“Anybody who knows me in politics, including Trump, knows that I don’t screw around,” he said, sitting with reporters on his bus Thursday night. “But that is not what this [campaign] is about. I think what the American people want to know is how am I going to make their life better.”
Yeah, you better not mess with the godfather of the Biden crime family!
Iowa has been a difficult place for Biden in the past. He lagged in the polls here during his 1988 presidential campaign and abruptly ended his bid before the caucuses after a plagiarism controversy. Two decades later he placed fifth in the 2008 caucuses.
This time around, Biden has kept his edge in national polls even as he has fallen behind in Iowa and New Hampshire this fall. His staffers brushed away concerns about his drop here, saying there was still a clear path to victory because of his polling lead in the other early voting states of South Carolina and Nevada.
Starting his Iowa bus tour on the state’s western edge Nov. 30, Biden was joined by high-profile backers as he headed east. Tom and Christie Vilsack were on the first leg — he the former US agriculture secretary and Iowa governor and she a literacy advocate and political force in the state.
Former secretary of state John F. Kerry announced his endorsement of Biden on Thursday and hopped on the bus tour Friday in Cedar Rapids, making three campaign stops with Biden as well as a late-night pizza run.
More pizza, and what was the carbon footprint on the trip?
Longtime friends from their years together in the Senate, the two touted each other’s credentials so heavily it was at times hard to tell who was campaigning for whom.
“The only team that has worked more closely than us is Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin,” Kerry said.
Do you ever wish some people would just go away?
A few voters expressed dissatisfaction over Biden’s refusal to discuss his son Hunter’s dealings in Ukraine. Some came to Biden’s appearances with concerns he would “flub up” or meander, which he sometimes did. Others doubted he had the “oomph” or oratory skills of Senator Elizabeth Warren, and there were frequent comparisons to South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a centrist like Biden who has taken the lead in recent Iowa polls, but many people who saw Biden on the last several days of the tour in audiences that skewed older and whiter came away pleased, if still undecided. Voters said they trusted him because of his lengthy experience and relationship with Barack Obama and were relieved Biden appeared livelier in person than in his lackluster debate performances. “Sometimes, charisma doesn’t come out until you’re in the same room,” said Lori Kappmeyer, 64, a librarian retired from Iowa State University, where she and her husband, Bob, saw him speak.
Kappmeyer sees in charisma in him, huh?
The trip helped dispel concerns for some over Biden’s age. The 77-year-old, who generally has maintained a light campaign schedule, finished the bus tour strong at meetings with labor leaders in Cedar Rapids Saturday.
As he campaigned through Iowa, he recorded greetings and birthday wishes on cellphones for attendees’ friends and family who weren’t able to make it, handed children $20 bills for ice cream, and leaned into his own persona. “Look folks,” he often said as he made a point. Even the title of his Iowa tour — “No Malarkey” — emblazoned on his purple and maroon bus, an old-fashioned phrase for “no nonsense,” seemed to resonate with people, although some younger voters were unfamiliar with it.
I would keep your kids away from him if I were you.
“People are voting for him because he is the friendly uncle who is not going to ruin anything, and it fits the brand” said Jacob Schrader, 20, a Republican student at Iowa State who is considering voting for Biden and was one of the few young people who knew what “No Malarkey” meant.
The friendly uncle, huh?
So says Schrader, 'eh?
Never mind that Biden is using a term of my grandfather's generation, and he has been dead for 20 years.
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Nothing about creepy Uncle Joe there, which is odd in the age of #MeToo and Epstein.
Maybe you will buy this brand of campaign:
"Senator Elizabeth Warren on Sunday night released new details about the legal work she took on during her years as a law professor, revealing she made about $1.9 million on cases dating back to 1985. The disclosure comes as she faces fire from South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, whose aides have fended off calls to open up his closed-door fund-raisers to the press and reveal more details about his work at the consulting firm McKinsey by pointing out that some of Warren’s past legal compensation remained a mystery. Warren has staked her bid for the presidency on a fiery populism and promises to rein in corporate greed, but for more than 20 years during her career as a law professor she occasionally advised, represented, and served as an expert for corporations including Dow Corning and the insurance company Travelers on cases that sometimes were controversial. At the time, Warren was one of the nation’s foremost experts in bankruptcy law, and her campaign has said her work involved balancing various competing interests in as fair a way as possible. Now, Warren’s website has been updated to reflect the compensation she received from dozens of legal clients, for cases dated between 1985 and 2009, that she had already disclosed in May. The disclosure undercuts one of the Buttigieg campaign’s main counterattacks on Warren at a time when tensions between the two campaigns are increasing after Buttigieg spent months slamming Warren’s health care plan. Warren’s allies have called on Buttigieg to disclose the names of his clients during his stint at McKinsey, which he has said he can’t do due to a non-disclosure agreement he’s asked to be released from. Warren took the rare step of calling Buttigieg out by name last week to say he should open his closed-door fund-raisers to the press and name his bundlers. Warren has sworn off exclusive fund-raisers......"
She has done that in the hunt for votes before the election, and Bloomberg would be proud.
If not, there is always the incumbent:
"Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a close ally of President Trump, broke from him Sunday to express concern that Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, traveled to Ukraine as House Democrats are poised to move ahead on Trump’s impeachment. “It’s weird that he’s over there,” Gaetz said on ABC News’s “This Week.” “It would seem odd having him over there at this time.” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said he saw nothing wrong with Giuliani’s trip. “If he is finding something that is inappropriate, should he bring that to Congress? Yes,” Meadows said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” a reference to unproven allegations against former vice president Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate. Trump said Saturday that he did not know what Giuliani was doing in Ukraine but that he “has a lot of good information” he would detail in a report to the Justice Department and Congress......"
So Barr can bury it.
I would say let the counting begin, but the Globe led the Nation section with this:
Nadler says committee vote on impeachment possible this week
He says there is a sense of urgency regarding the political suicide, that Trump will soon be removed from office, and thus the report on the Obama administrations spying and attempted infiltration of the Trump campaign will be overshadowed:
"Watchdog expected to find Russia probe valid, despite flaws" by Eric Tucker Associated Press, December 8, 2019
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s internal watchdog will release a highly anticipated report Monday that is expected to reject President Trump’s claims that the Russia investigation was illegitimate and tainted by political bias from FBI leaders, but it is also expected to document errors during the investigation that may animate Trump supporters.
The insults never stop, do they?
Yes, those who care about the rule of law and justice will now get animated -- much like the Democrat crazies pushing for impeachment.
The report, as described by people familiar with its findings, is expected to conclude there was an adequate basis for opening one of the most politically sensitive investigations in FBI history. It began in secret during Trump’s 2016 presidential run and was ultimately taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller.
This is either a piece of preemptive deception by the pre$$ (nothing to see here) or the report is a whitewash.
The report comes as Trump faces an impeachment inquiry in Congress centered on his efforts to press Ukraine to investigate a political rival, Democrat Joe Biden, a probe the president also claims is politically biased. Still, the release of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s review is unlikely to quell the partisan battles that have surrounded the Russia investigation for years.....
That is where my print copy ended.
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Also see:
Houston police sergeant shot and killed
Slain Arkansas officer ‘ambushed’ in patrol vehicle
#BlueLivesMatterMost and thank God for body cams.
The Globe is of the opinion that the health care system is extremely complicated to navigate and it’s becoming exponentially more expensive, so they have read all your letters and will help you choose and use your coverage with a crash course that will take your breath away and help you avoid diabetes.
