Saturday, May 20, 2017

Unsuccessful Saturday

Sorry, readers, but I have once again failed you after a tough night's sleep:

The top story -- and rightly so, I think -- is the son-in-law is now in the bullseye.

Then there is Farragher's feature, and there is no denying it.

Looking underneath the wig I find a bridge to good health (with the hound of private equity hell making sure none of you escape). 

As I open the paper there is a moment of silence. It's a long walk after the service and before the final committal:

"Authorities pulled a man’s body from the Charles River on Friday afternoon. “State Police detectives assigned to the Suffolk DA’s office, with the State Police Marine Unit and other assets, are at the Charles River in the area of Massachusetts Avenue for the body of a deceased adult male in the water,” said Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office in a statement. Prosecutors said the body will be taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for an autopsy. “There are no further details at this time, and updates will be provided as meaningful information comes in,” the statement said. Prosecutors said that foul play was not suspected. The man’s name was not released."

They say that before any real investigation. Who wants to do any work?

"Two men are facing murder charges Friday for killing a Reading man who was beaten to death on Sunday with a brick, authorities said. Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett’s office identified the two suspects as Werner Garcia Figueroa, 19, and Selvin F. Garcia, 29. They were arraigned in Lynn District Court Friday on charges of murder, armed robbery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Judge Cathleen Campbell entered a plea of not guilty on their behalf, and ordered the two men held without bail, Blodgett’s office said. The two men allegedly attacked Sergio Sanchez, 39, and a 33-year-old Lynn man near 22 Blake St. around 1:30 a.m. Sunday after the victims left a nearby establishment, prosecutors said...."

"A murder suspect was tracked down in the Dominican Republic and arrested by members of the Boston Police Fugitive Unit early Friday, authorities said. Charlie Brea, 31, was charged with the murder of Luis Montanez, 25, nearly seven years ago. Investigators believe the slaying may be drug related. Montanez was shot to death Oct. 23, 2010, on Blue Hill Avenue outside the Breezeway Bar, police said. A Boston police spokesman said Brea was apprehended after the Fugitive Unit and US Marshals conducted surveillance in the Dominican Republic. “My detectives never consider any case ‘cold,’ ” Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans said...."

Yup, all files remain open.

"The scene was set for Boston’s first “Write-In.” Inspired by the sit-ins of the civil rights movement, organizers hoped that people would take time to type out their own stories — and even deliver a speech — to show solidarity with immigrants and refugees. The event was organized by GrubStreet — a Boston nonprofit that offers writing classes and workshops — to celebrate its 20th anniversary, according to Eve Bridburg, the organization’s founder and executive director. “We believe that when people share their stories, a connection is made,” Bridburg said. “People begin to understand each other and feel real empathy, something that’s really lacking in the world.”

I wrote Palestinians directly underneath the quote.

Then there is reception, and what were they saying, heart attack? That's odd timing. I suppose any form of transportation (it's Tulsa and the SJC all rolled into one) is a risk and hazard

Oh, I didn't mean to spoil the party

You kids got a room for the night, or are you just going to part ways?

"The video shows Zuckerberg in his pajamas, sitting at the edge of his bed...."

With mother looking over his shoulder.

Probably the only place on Earth you can get an honest election and it blows up in their face.

"Attorney General Rodrigo Janot’s charges dramatically increase the threat to drive President Michel Temer out of office and represent an extraordinary escalation of the corruption probe. The formal presentation of evidence is the latest revelation related to a secretly recorded audio that purportedly captured Temer endorsing hush money for an ex-lawmaker now serving a 15-year prison sentence for corruption...."

That's Nixonian, and given Obama's propensity for spying, the Rod Blagojevich case looks differently through the lens of history -- and remember, Rod didn't get in trouble until he stood with workers and stopped payments to banks while governor of Illinois.

"Two Chinese fighter jets flew too fast and too close to a US military aircraft patrolling the East China Sea, prompting a formal protest to the Chinese government, the US Air Force said Friday. The incident Wednesday involved a US WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft and two Chinese SU-30 jets that both flew in an “unprofessional” and dangerously close way, according to a spokeswoman for the Pacific Air Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Lori Hodge. The “speeds and proximity” of the two Chinese planes, coupled with the “maneuvers” of one of the pilots, raised the concerns, she said. The protest over the military maneuver by the Chinese jets appeared to be the first since President Trump took office."

That is against the backdrop of the U.S. military scooting around the Korean peninsula.

"Russia and Syria denounce US airstrike on pro-Assad militia" by Anne Barnard New York Times   May 19, 2017

NEW YORK — Russian and Syrian officials Friday strongly condemned a US airstrike on pro-Syrian government forces in southern Syria a day earlier, calling it an act of aggression and rejecting the United States’ justification for the attack.

That's not only an act of war, it's a war crime.

“It is illegitimate, it is unlawful, and the latest gross violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic,” Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said in Cyprus, according to the state-run Russian news agency Tass.

US defense officials said Thursday that American warplanes had struck a convoy of progovernment militia forces because it was approaching a base where US and British special operations troops trained Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State.

The officials said the convoy had ignored a warning strike, but the Syrian government countered that the United States had no right to defend a base established in Syria without government permission or to declare areas off-limits to progovernment forces.

They don't.

This could get messy awfully quick!

The attack Thursday came against the backdrop of a broader contest to take control of areas of eastern Syria held by the Islamic State, as well as of the highway from Damascus to Baghdad, which passes through the area where the strike took place.

Two competing coalitions — backed by air power from the United States in one case and from Russia in the other — are racing to the same goal, creating a potentially volatile situation and increasing the likelihood of clashes such as the one Thursday. 

(Blog editor is astounded)

SANA, the Syrian state news agency, said the strike unmasked “fake claims” by the US that they were fighting terrorism, adding that anyone claiming to be fighting the Islamic State and Al Qaeda should “direct strikes against them” and not against Syrian and allied forces.

Video posted online showed what was described as the aftermath of the attack. Voices speaking with an Iraqi accent in Arabic bolstered accounts that Iraqi militias — many of which have fought on the Syrian government side with Iranian support — had been hit.

A day before the attack, Iraq’s national security adviser, Faleh al-Fayed, who acts as a go-between for Iran and the United States on the battle against the Islamic State in Iraq, had visited President Bashar Assad in Damascus to reaffirm Iraqi and Syrian government cooperation against the extremist group.

The militia Sayyid al-Shuhada, or Master of Martyrs, said in a statement that the United States had forgotten the role played by the resistance in Iraq during the war there and accused US forces of interfering in their fight against the Islamic State.

“Targeting our presence in Syria is targeting us in Iraq, too, and we will strike the enemy and its supporters everywhere,” the statement said.

The recriminations came as talks in Geneva on the Syria crisis wrapped up with little progress, with the parties failing to even touch on four “baskets” of issues that were to be discussed.

Need I even say it? Anytime there is a chance for peace, the U.S. government sabotages it.

Although the United States has covertly aided some Syrian rebels fighting Assad, it has directly struck progovernment forces only twice before — in 2016 in what it called an accident, and this year in retaliation for chemical attacks it blamed on Assad’s forces.

Thus the "competing coalitions," and not only did the crematoria crap burn up quick, the chemical weapons charge has dried up, too.

The area where the convoy was struck is strategically important to the United States, which wants to stabilize Iraq and to Russia, which wants to strengthen the Syrian government’s control of as much territory as possible.

The area is also critical to Iran, which wants secure corridors from its borders to the Mediterranean to reinforce its influence in Lebanon and to maintain an ability to challenge Israel....

YUP! 

This is about blocking the land route from Syria through Iraq and to Iran, and vice-versa. It's geopolitical globe-kicking by psychopathic elites and I think it stinks.

--more--"

 So those strikes came on the very day that Trump left for his trip -- and is it not strange that the word "Trump" never appeared in the article? That means the MIC has one testicle and Israel the other.

So no new FBI director yet, huh? Need another guy at Treasury, too.

A Penney saved....

 ‘‘If you took a week off, you probably thought you didn’t miss much, because we’re at about the same levels today as we were last Friday,’’ said Sean Lynch, co-head of global equity strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. ‘‘And yet, we spiked to a new all-time high on the S&P on Monday, we suffered the worst decline of the year on Wednesday, and again we’re back within 1 percent of that all-time high today.’’

Maybe I'll take a week off.

So what are you going to be doing later tonight, and does that mean no movie and the end of the relationship?

I've tried to give an independent voice all these years, readers, but I find that I am not only overwhelmed and exhausted these days with the layers and layers of false narratives and endless mind manipulations when there are far more astute folks than I (or is it me?), but am also filled with doubt.

Could it be I, however noble were my intentions, have become part of the problem?