Thursday, December 08, 2016

If Mr. Trump conducts his business while leading the Executive Branch, the walls will have ears.

They won't get away with it for four years.

Mechanization of the entire production industry will destroy the American economy. There won't be customers. I am sure the robots haven't taken over the USA yet, right? Oh, how silly, robots don't eat.

I hope the mechanized USA is getting used to the idea of bankruptcy.

Trump's hubris only entertains half of the country. By looking to the popular vote for Hillary Clinton and the tainted vote counts that Jill Stein is encountering, there is a solid base of facts that prove Donald Trump is a very marginal president. The rest of the country hasn't laid down and died; at least not yet. 

The protests have quieted, but, they haven't gone away.

The threat against Muslims that is palpable today is directly related to several ideas. The Donald Trump dialogue includes "radical Islamic terrorist" and the American people are encouraged to "See something, say something." The deaths in San Bernardino (click here) had it's first anniversary. The country is aware of danger at every turn and there are too many guns on the street. The assassinations of police prove that. Yet, the gun lobby is catered to by the incoming administration.

The inflammatory language of Mr. Trump will continue. His a hubris president. He was a hubris candidate and he has no turn off switch. I am not surprised there is seething ethnic hatred surrounding some Americans with a White Supremacist in the Oval Office. We are going to have trouble. The streets of the USA are getting more dangerous. The gun load in this country is demanding expression. 

Did the Republicans actually think all these guns were for hunting? Really? 

"See something, say something" is permission. If you link that with the hatred in the population it adds fire to the hatred. That is my opinion. The FBI has to decide how effective "See Something, Say Something" is for the protection of citizens opposed to the increased vigilantism we witnessed in pizzagate (click here). The FBI should conduct regular assessment of that paradigm. It will give Comey something to do that is actually valuable to the country.

I like Chuck.

He reminds me of my Dad. The people always came first and there was no politics. The unions have always been about the people and their well being. It was important to have a healthy, skilled and dedicated work force. Within that definition was health care, education of children, good pay and a future retirement to enjoy with family and friends. There is nothing exploitative about that.

The labor in any business is vital to profits and share or stockholders. Union leaders bring the company's interests to the performance of the labor. It is a vital connection and it is a place to mitigate that relationship with equity. Union leaders have a great sense of purpose. They have a great sense of purpose for their role in the company's product and that great sense of purpose to elevate the people in their achievements within their work and their loyalty to their jobs by attendance and good humor during the work day.

I had a great Dad. He was admired and considered important to the people he worked with. He never had more than a high school diploma, but, he was a leader. By the time he reached retirement he was the Plant Manager's right hand man. 

He had no other boss by the age of retirement. When he retired after working in that plant for 30 years he was called back within two months as a consultant. During that time as a consultant he wrote volumes of text. He would write it by hand and give it to the secretary in the Plant Manager's office. The text was about the production line, the safeguards to product and personnel and the entire fire department of the plant was codified by him. They had the only chemical foam truck within 100 miles of the plant. He was chief of that fire brigade for a long time. He would travel to Texas for regular educational and application training. He was great. 

He was more than a worker, he was a great friend and enjoyed the company of his fellow employees and their wives would bring a holiday party to life. Of course, my Dad always brought the cake.

Union leadership is about life. It is not about money. Money enters into the picture because we live in an economy based in capitalism. Wall Street makes it expensive and the cost of living increases. Good employees need to feel a sense of appreciation to make this entire scenario work. It is a profitable picture and it is America. 

It isn't going to do Mr. Trump any good to victimize the working man and the leaders they admire. Chuck is telling the truth, not defaming anyone and given the fact Mr. Trump has wrapped his victory to the presidency in the average person and their struggle to live a happy and healthy life' he needs to be honest and truthful. That means people like Chuck receive respect and not ridicule. It is extremely important the truth win out in the USA, today. The truth telling will continue.

December 8, 2016

Last night, (click here) United Steelworkers 1999 president Chuck Jones became instantly famous when President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter to attack him. The Trumpian tweets were the result of Jones’ appearance on CNN, talking about the criticism he had lobbed Trump’s way over what he felt was the incoming POTUS lying about the number of jobs saved at Carrier.

Following Trump’s insults, the Twitter hashtag #ImWithChuck began trending, with Jones getting a lot of sympathy and support for being targeted by the President-elect....

Senator Harry Reid should ask Hillary Clinton to join voter recount.

December 4, 2016
By Paul Kane

Washington — Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden (click here) will headline a star-studded send-off for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday as the Nevada Democrat ends his 30-year run in the chamber.

With Congress aiming to end the legislative session this week, Reid’s last big day in office will conclude at a gala in the Kennedy Caucus Room at the Russell Senate Office Building, according to senior advisers. Behind the scenes, Reid is dispensing parting wisdom to his caucus, with his most senior political adviser giving an address to Democrats about how Reid delivered Nevada for Clinton and won every key congressional race....

When does the border war with Mexico start?

December 7, 2016
The AP

(Washington)— Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly (click here) carved out a reputation as a highly respected, but often outspoken commander who could roil debate with blunt assessments or unpopular directives on issues ranging from women in combat to the treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

But the man chosen by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Department of Homeland Security holds a more somber distinction. The battle-hardened veteran, who served three tours in Iraq, is the highest-ranking officer to lose a child in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.

That status, as part of what the military calls a Gold Star family, puts him in the Cabinet of a presidential candidate who verbally attacked a Gold Star family: the Khans, Muslim-American immigrants who lost a son in Iraq and had criticized Trump at the Democratic National Convention....

This nomination is more proof of the absurd nature of this administration. Kelly is more a character actor that will take over the iconography of the defeated Sherrif Arpaio. So, in selecting Kelly the politics are intact.

This shelling is directly due to the missile testing by Kiev. That shelling is Russia in support of the fall of Kiev.

December 8, 2016

Ukrainian observers reported 162 shells (click here) hit government controlled village of Vodiane.

Over the last day Russia-controlled forces attacked Ukrainian army positions and civilian settlements 20 times, which is comparatively not so much, Anti-Terrorist Operation HQ reports. The hardest attacks noted in the village of Vodiane near Donetsk – it was pounded with heavy artillery of 152mm and 122mm calibres. Also Ukrainian military report militant attacks with 120mm and 82mm mortars, light armour, grenade launchers.  

Ukrainian observers from Joint Centre for Coordination and Control specified: "During the last day the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were hit by 61 projectiles of 152mm calibre, and 64 projectiles of 122mm calibre. Overall 9 cases (230 shots) recorded of militants use of the weapon, which should be removed from the front under the Minsk agreements. Armed Forces of Ukraine did not use any types of heavy weapons in response."...

The economics between Turkey and Russia is happening quickly. Of course, Turkey is NATO.

Only a day ago, Presidents Putin and Erdogan agreed to normalize relations. (click here)

It is perfectly obvious Russia had a hand in the 2016 elections. It is also perfectly obvious the American people need to pay attention to NATO and it's strength in the region. Ukraine could suffer more land loss and/or it's democratic identity. Europe has to be concerned over these rapid changes within the relationships between Russia and Turkey.

There are differences in the relationship between Russia and Turkey. The economic relationship has a long history, but, Erodgan is coming to terms with a military alliance with Russia regarding Syria. This is a very big change in understandings with these two countries.
December 6, 2016
Call it the anti-Ukraine pipeline, (click here) but after some fits and starts the alternative Russian gas route into the E.U. via Turkey is about to be made official on Tuesday in Moscow.
Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim arrived in the city today for a two-day visit at the invitation of his Russian counterpart Dimitry Medvedev. According Turkey's Daily Sabahnewspaper, Yildirim is also scheduled to discuss the Turkish Stream pipeline deal with Vladimir Putin. The Gazprom-Botas Petroleum pipeline was proposed last year by both governments but fell apart after the Turkish military shot down a Russian fighter plane over Syria. Relations were put on ice and have since thawed. The pipeline deal is the manifestation of cooler heads prevailing between the two old allies.
Turkey's leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan ratified the agreement this week. The deal was published in the official government paper Resmi Gazete and removes all legal restrictions to building the pipeline. The Russian side has not yet ratified the agreement, but that is expected this week. The most obvious stumbling block is Russia failing to remove sanctions on Turkey agribusiness, which could hinder the deal if Turkey is left to felt the relationship is not yet fully mended....

The anti-Ukraine pipeline serve agreement began to take shape in October.

13 October 2016

Moscow has ended the contract (click here) to maintain oil pipelines in Ukraine. The order was signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and details published on the government website.

According to the 1995 agreement, oil pipelines passing through Ukraine were operated by subsidiaries of Russia’s oil transportation monopoly Transneft. However in February 2016, the Ukrainian section of the pipeline was sold to a Swiss-registered company, International Trading Partners AG.

Thus the Kremlin said further Russian participation in the agreement is "impractical.” The deal was approved by Russian and Ukrainian antitrust agencies at the end of 2015....

According to the reporting in The Independent, Turkey is pursuing a relationship with Russia to end the very real potential of a spark that begins a world conflict between the USA and Russia.

I have long stated, Syria is an ally to Russia. That view hasn't changed. This move by Erodgan will facilitate Russia to work near the Turkey border without concern to any conflict.

The USA does not belong in Syria. As far as I am concerned the USA is carrying on a proxy war with Russia. There is no room for that if Daesh is to be defeated. 

The United Nations has been taking measures for humanitarian aide, but, there is still a civil war in Syria. Assad will never change his capacity in Syria so long as the Alawite people are under threat in coastal Syria. Most, if not all Assad forces, have moved to secure the coastal region. The Alawite were forced into a refugee status as of about a year ago. The Alawite are a singular ethnicity within Syria that comprise about 13 percent of the total population of Syria. That measure of demographics is valid before the escalation of civil war in Syria.

The actual population numbers are about 2.6 million Alawites in a total population of 22 million. The Alawites are not the only small ethnic populations in the region, however, Assad is an Alawite and his family have protected that coastal population for over half a century. 

The history of Assad's overreach into Lebanon goes back dedcades. Assad has supported Hezbollah in Lebanon to protect the border between Lebanon and the coastal Alawite people.

The violence in Beirut was horrible. However, with political forces within Lebanon established a peace in that city and it has been sustainable with sporadic attacks on significant leaders in Lebanon. The country of Lebanon has been able to resist instability while Syria has simply become the central war with Daesh.

I think it is prudent to monitor the relationship between Russia and Turkey to discover adverse circumstances in Europe. At this time, a stabilized economic relationship is normal, however, the new military cooperation is new and could be a threat to Europe. Ukraine has approached NATO for membership. (click here) This is not a new posture for Ukraine. It has longed for economic relationships with Europe for decades. It is up to NATO to include Ukraine in a relationship that benefits it and Ukraine. To include Ukraine in NATO would provide for stability along the Russian border, but, there is no guarantee for peace there even with membership. The conflict still rages in that region.

November 29, 2016

Talks in Minsk on resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine (click here) have ended with the foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany all saying no new breakthroughs were made.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the November 29 meeting in the Belarusian capital concluded with negotiators far from reaching a political agreement that includes local elections -- one of the key points of the February 2015 Minsk Agreement.

But Steinmeier said he still hopes for progress on implementing the Minsk accords in order to bring an end to fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Steinmeier also held out the prospect that full implementation of the measures agreed in Minsk in September 2014 and February 2015 could lead to the lifting of international sanctions imposed against Russia over its role in Ukraine's conflict....

With Donald Trump in the White House Russia is looking forward to the end of sanctions. This assault into Ukraine by Putin and the overt annexation of Crimea was in complete violation of a treaty that allowed the removal of nuclear capacity of Ukraine as a Post-Soviet state. Currently, Ukraine is perfecting it's missile capacity to take on a greater capacity to protect it's sovereign borders. 

The elections in Ukraine is what facilitated this instability in the first place. The past President Viktor Yanukovych used his power to remove dilute the national military making it completely dysfunctional in any national security. Instead, Yanukovych instilled militias through Ukraine with Oligarchs he could trust. Those militias were being called up for service when Yanukovych left the country in shame. Those elections are coveted by Russia to return a communist regime back into power in Kiev. 

The civil war at the Russia border and the annexation of Crimea clearly shows Russia has no interest in support of any Minsk Agreement and will participate as a support to rebels within Ukraine under the nationalism of "Russia people." NATO is a vital partner to Ukraine and the new administration should not increase instability by shifting support for the Kiev government.

If Trump goes forward with idiotic ideas of dissolving NATO there needs to be real questions by the USA Congress to determine his fitness to serve as president. NATO is a strong alliance and is vital to the interests of the USA.

17 October 2016

The US and Russia could drive the world into a global war if the conflict in Syria is not resolved, Turkey has warned. (click here)


Tensions have become increasingly heightened between Washington and Moscow in recent weeks. Last week, the US and UK warned Russia and its ally the Syrian government that new economic sanctions could be imposed if the bombing of Syria's besieged Aleppo continues.
On Sunday, Russia condemned Washington for making “unprecedented” threats of cyber attacks following accusations by the Obama administration that Moscow had hacked computers belonging to American political organisations....

I want an investigation into the type of malfunction that occurred and why it wasn't avoided.

They are stopping the hand count in Michigan even in the face of finding inconsistencies. Jill Stein should take it to the next court. This is simply wrong. The decision was based on the fact the court doesn't consider Jill Stein an aggrieved candidate. Take it to the next level. Jill Stein is as much a USA citizen as a former candidate for President. There is every reason for the recount to go forward considering the obvious miscount in the final total. 

Either Jill Stein takes it to the next level of Hillary Clinton's attorneys come out of the shadows and demand the count to go forward.

6 December 2016
By Sam Theilman

Broken polling machines (click here) may have put vote counts in question in more than half of Detroit’s precincts and nearly one-third of surrounding Wayne County, possibly throwing the Michigan recount into chaos.
If the discrepancies can’t be solved by recounting every paper ballot in question by hand, a recount in those precincts simply won’t happen.
Donald Trump’s slim margin over Hillary Clinton means any chance of the state flipping on a recount likely hinges on Wayne County, where the Democrat won by a landslide. Clinton lost by 10,704 votes in Michigan; Wayne’s population of 1,759,335 makes it the likeliest candidate to contain errors bigger than that margin....
...Eighty-seven of Wayne County’s decade-old voting machines broke on election day, according to Detroit’s elections director, Daniel Baxter. He told the Detroit News, which first reported the story, that ballot scanners often jammed when polling place workers were trying to operate them. Every time a jammed ballot was removed and reinserted, he suspects the machine may have re-counted it.

Preliminary investigation by election officials in Wayne County found that 610 of the area’s 1,680 precincts could not reconcile the number of votes cast according to the machines with the number of ballots issued according to the electoral rolls. Detroit contains 662 of Wayne’s precincts; in 392 of those, the number of votes didn’t match up....
...Computer scientists have been sounding the alarm about shoddily made, insecure and incompatible voting machines for several years. The only way to find out whether technical problems or even malicious hacking have contributed large errors to the electoral tally is to audit the vote, wrote the University of Michigan’s J Alex Halderman in an affidavit supporting Stein’s call for a recount. Now that a recount is under way, Michigan officials are indeed finding major technical problems.

Jeremy J Epstein, a researcher with SRI, successfully campaigned in 2015 to have Virginia’s WinVote machines decertified when he discovered that the factory-set network passwords for WinVote voting machines were often “abcde” and “admin”.

Participants listen to a speaker at a rally at the Pennsylvania Capitol in support of a Green Party-backed quest for a recount of Pennsylvania's Nov. 8 presidential election, Monday, Dec. 5, 2016, in Harrisburg, Pa

Hillary Clinton has to be involved, other wise Trump's attacks on Jill Stein will sideline the recounts. The counts are too close and legitimate errors in the count are being found.

December 8, 2016
By Roger Schneider and Ed White

Detroit (AP) — Michigan's presidential recount (click here) was halted Wednesday after three days, assuring Republican Donald Trump's victory in the state, when a federal judge said he'll abide by a court ruling that found the Green Party candidate Jill Stein couldn't seek another look at the vote.

Meanwhile, the fate of Stein's request for a recount in Pennsylvania must wait at least until a federal court hearing on Friday, just four days before the Dec. 13 federal deadline for states to certify their election results.

Trump narrowly defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in both states and Wisconsin, which started its recount last week....
December 6, 2016

Pawnee, Okla. (AP) – The U.S. Geological Survey (click here) has recorded five small earthquakes in northern Oklahoma, including a magnitude 3.9 temblor near Pawnee where the state’s largest earthquake was recorded in September.

A 3.6 magnitude quake also struck overnight near Cushing, one of the world’s major oil hubs. Five quakes have been recorded in the state since Sunday night.

No injuries or damage have been reported.

The USGS says one quake hit at 9:22 p.m. Sunday, about 9 miles east of Pawnee. That was followed by the temblor about 3 miles north of Cushing at 2:58 a.m. Monday.

A 3.2 magnitude quake was recorded at 11:39 a.m. Monday, nine miles west of Perry, while magnitude 2.7 and 2.8 quakes were recorded Sunday night and early Monday near Pawnee.

Oklahoma’s earthquakes have been linked to oil and gas production.


No injuries or damage have been reportedThe USGS says one quake hit at 9:22 p.m. Sunday, about 9 miles east of Pawnee. That was followed by the temblor about 3 miles north of Cushing at 2:58 a.m. Monday.A 3.2 magnitude quake was recorded at 11:39 a.m. Monday, nine miles west of Perry, while magnitude 2.7 and 2.8 quakes were recorded Sunday night and early Monday near PawneOklahoma’s earthquakes have been linked to oil and gas production.

           

The 1800 Jeffersonian Democracy reversed.

The harsh public antagonism of the 1790s (click here) largely came to an end with the victory of the Democratic- Republicans in the 1800 election. "THE REVOLUTION OF 1800," as Jefferson described his party's successful election many years later, was "as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776 was in its form."

To Jefferson and his supporters, the defeat of the Federalists ended their attempt to lead America on a more conservative and less democratic course. Since the Federalists never again played a national political role after the defeat in 1800, it seems that most American voters of the era shared Jefferson's view....

Does anyone, besides me, find it very odd the current trend in nominations for the Trump White House are extremists. There are few that aren't billionaires. 

Donald Trump has completely drank the Tea Party kool-aid. No lie. The ideology of the Tea Party is being instated to the Executive Branch of the USA. Donald Trump is rolling the path of the USA back further than the 1950s as "W" did. He is rolling the path of the country straight back to the beginning of the country. 

The Tea Party is an extremist wing of the Republican Party. They believe the original documents of the USA are the only valid documents to the governance of the USA. The instillation of billionaires to the Executive Branch, Donald Trump is living the ideology that the wealthy should only have the power to run the country.

This insanity of the nominations of the Trump administration is not based in democracy or freedom. The nominations are based in an ideology that believes the only people that should vote in the USA are the wealthy. According to the Tea Party the 'land owners' in 1800 were the wealthy. The loss of the election of 1800 is being reversed in the ideology of the Trump administration. It is about as demented as a modern day administration can get.