Beneath the façade of Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney and most of Hollywood’s production before it was taken over by the limousine left, the United States is a jungle, and that is its strength and its weakness. It assures an immensely competitive Darwinian society in constant fermentation with high levels of achievement in practically every field, but it also causes inordinately large numbers of people to be ground to powder. The land of opportunity is the place where anyone can accomplish almost anything, but there is a threadbare safety net and more than 30 million people live in poverty. It has six to 12 times as many incarcerated people as other large, prosperous democracies, including Canada. And like all jungles, it is run, even if from a little behind the scenes, by the human equivalent of 30-foot constricting snakes and 700-pound cats. Trump’s offence, and his strength, is that he doesn’t make much effort to disguise the fact that he is a fierce, tough and often ruthless alumnus of the very tough schools of American capitalism, entertainment and politics.
Trump is a man of his times. It’s sad that the times are such that only a Trump can promote America’s interests successfully, but that’s reality as recognized by a plurality of voters. Trump, unlike most elected Republicans in national office, gets results and that’s what counts. The media clerics will always misrepresent what’s going on, not only because of their partisan bias but because they deal in words and Trump is a man of action. Trump doesn’t play their game and they are unwilling or unable to understand what he does. Ordinary voters are probably more clear-headed.
“The media clerics will always misrepresent what’s going on, not only because of their partisan bias but because they deal in words and Trump is a man of action.”
It goes even deeper than that, I think. Most of the media types, and most academics, seem to be purely deductive thinkers, whereas Trump is more of an inductive-intuitive pattern-finding thinker.
Years ago, I found ‘The Art of the Deal’ difficult to read…despite a strong professional interest in the topic…largely because of its lack of coherent structure. But I also have enough of the inductive-intuitive thinking mode to have some comprehension of Trump’s thought process and its value, whereas most of the media people and academics do not.
The U.S. criminal justice system, because of the corruption of the plea bargain system that facilitates the prosecutors’ extortion of perjured inculpatory evidence with impunity, is just an immense kangaroo court.
At first I thought it was odd that Trump retained Rudy Guiliani, but now it makes sense. Having succesfully prosecuted the five NYC mafia families using the RICO law before he was mayor, Rudy was best qualified to block attempts by the FBI to use RICO tactics designed for charging conspiracy or racketeering.
However, it looks like they overplayed their hand with Ukraine. By sending Rudy to look into Ukraine, they poked the beast. The fact that the so-called whistleblower (LOL) came from the CIA is proof that this whole thing leads deep into the bowels of the Deep State. Deeper than anyone will want to go.
Black knows Trump well and his biography is then best book on Trump I have read. His biography of Nixon is also outstanding.
Black knows well the political prosecution as he was pursued for a non-crime by nPatrick Fitzgerald of Scooter Libby fame.
He is very bitter, understandably, at the US legal system. The prosecution by Fitzgerald was clearly political. Black’s book about it is worth reading.
I think his opinions on incarceration are colored by his own experience. I have no idea what to do about black crime. Interracial crime is now 90% black on white.
Trump is an enigma to me, but one of which I have increasingly grown fond. He is a wealthy man, but at some point he realized he was never going to be in the elect; puts ketchup on his steak, talks like a foreman, doesn’t read the right thinkers. Made his money in dirt, steel and concrete, union bosses and cargo containers full of gypsum and metal and glass.
He is a flatterer and a panderer, but he flatters and panders to the forklift driver, the ER nurse and the beat cop. This drives the elite crazy; Why is he not pandering to the professor, the editor and the senator?
He took a bright red ballcap and put it on his head with garish letters. The kind of thing you would find at a roadside gas station. Wore it like it was the most natural thing in the world. All across the country, the wrong people cheered; “FU Wellesley, Berkeley, the Atlantic, NPR!”
I watched Narendra Modi introduce President Donald Trump. I realized then, what sets Trump apart. Narendra Modi does not trust a man who does not like, does not respect his own people. Trump does not lecture his people on what they should become, what they should aspire to, what they are not. Trump accepts America and Americans for what they are…the pretty and the ugly…and that is very powerful.
“However, it looks like they overplayed their hand with Ukraine. By sending Rudy to look into Ukraine, they poked the beast.”
Interesting stuff from May:
The former New York City mayor told POLITICO he was planning to leave Sunday and return Wednesday. But late Friday, Giuliani said he had canceled his trip, explaining his change of plans in a text message that the original offer for a meeting was a “set up” orchestrated by “several vocal critics” of Trump who are advising Ukraine’s new president-elect. “Only got name yesterday and told pres elect is in hands of avowed enemies of Pres Trump,” Giuliani wrote. “Useless meeting.”
“It is all part of one large conspiracy that has a two or three parts to it. … So I’ve decided I’m not going to go because I’m walking into a group of people that are enemies of the president,” Giuliani said on Fox News Friday night.
“The fact that the so-called whistleblower (LOL) came from the CIA is proof that this whole thing leads deep into the bowels of the Deep State. Deeper than anyone will want to go.”
I actually think this is because Trump & Barr *do* want to go there. I think this is defensive, basically their last desperate act to try to prevent what Hillary allegedly predicted back in 2016: “If I lose, we all go down and that Fascist F**k will have us swinging from nooses!” They have nothing left. They’re cornered. If they had played nicely, Trump would probably have let them walk away. They chose another route. They chose poorly.
It [America] has six to 12 times as many incarcerated people as other large, prosperous democracies
Theodore Dalrymple’s writings, drawing on is work in prisons and hospitals, strongly suggest that the UK does not incarcerate nearly enough people or for nearly long enough…and it is non-criminal poor people who suffer the greatest harm as a result.
I mean, does it sound like it’s Trump & Rudy who are desperate right now?
“Joe Biden’s presidential campaign made an extraordinary request to executives of top news channels on Sunday, asking them to no longer book Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on their programs.”
The New York building trades are corrupt, and have been since the early 19th century. The unions, the building officials, many contractors and most especially the politicians. The same is true for anywhere that have unions controlling. A developer either learns to deal with it, working one against another and making provisions for the unavoidable pay-offs, or goes broke and disappears without finishing his first condo rehab.
And where do you think Trump has been the last however many years? I would just remind everyone that the fake popcorn butter is not healthy and recommend we all lay in a supply of the real stuff.
it’s all deja vu, re how they created this kerfluffle against conrad black, but fitz did much to hide david radler’s crimes, and excuse the Hollinger board, like Kissinger and Thompson, who had to have knowm
https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/28/the-press-gang-that-couldnt-keep-its-story-straight/
“Joe Biden’s presidential campaign made an extraordinary request to executives of top news channels on Sunday, asking them to no longer book Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on their programs.”
I remember contrasting Rudy with Romney’s collapse in the debate with Obama and Candy Crowley,
Rudy was in an interview on CNN with an aggressive woman pundit, Soledad O’Brien. Rudy was debating someone else but she kept interrupting.
Finally, he said “How many people am I debating here?”
If only Romney…..
I remember contrasting Rudy with Romney’s collapse in the debate with Obama and Candy Crowley
Now, just for fun, imagine Trump’s reaction to the obvious collusion between our dusky lord and master and the obese “moderator.”
Obama: “Check the transcript!”
Crowley: “Well, by lucky chance, I happen to have that right to hand.”
Miguel,
There are actually good reasons to use capitalization, proper punctuation and spelling, not running sentences together with commas, etc. You usually have interesting things to write, but your posts are tedious to re-read and try to tease the connections of phrases and context. I know I have to re-read my posts and edit before posting. I don’t catch all of my errors, but I don’t expect others to try to mentally edit my stuff so they can make sense to them. Give your ideas the effort they merit and thanks for posting here. Please take this in the spirit it is offered.
Death6
Brian— Separately, the president said he felt it “would be an appropriate thing” to speak to Attorney General Bill Barr about launching an investigation into Biden, or his son, Hunter, over their actions in Ukraine. But the president said he has not done so. Still, the comment was swiftly rebuked as a trampling of the long-held norms that the White House does not influence Justice Department decisions.
Ahahaha, it feels good to have a good laugh in the morning. Obama weaponized the Department of Justice under Holder and Lynch to wage war against the southern border, what was left of the free press, and worst of all, the peaceful transition of power.
what didn’t you understand, black’s partner, david radler, the two unindicted members of the Hollinger board, Kissinger and jim Thompson, or fitzgerald and the handover he enabled to Stephen breeden,
It’s hard to believe that they sent Black to prison for what ultimately turned out to be a dispute over a few hundred thousand dollars in compensation. No one was ever sent to jail for the global financial crisis which wiped out trillions of dollars. In many ways, we still haven’t recovered from it and are worse off in terms of centralized control of the financial system. Meanwhile who today cares about the Sun-Times or whatever?
I originally thought Fitzpatrick was doing a good job when he pushed the Daley dynasty out of office. He eventually went off the deep end. Probably another guy who was told to get with the program or else (hello, Chief Justice Roberts).
Remember also that Fitzpatrick’s conviction of Blagojevich was mostly thrown out on appeal. All the counts having to do with the Senate seat were vacated.
Blago is now officially in jail for perjury and shaking down the children’s hospital for campaign contributions, which I’m sure never, ever happened elsewhere in Chicago. They only have a multi-gazillion dollar palace erected on prime Gold Coast real estate. There’s no way anyone got their palm’s greased for that project. No sir, not in Chicago.
It’s quite overt now that this is basically all about discrediting FISA-gate, etc.
Sorry for the garbage NYT link:
“President Trump pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call.”
Of course, they’re too stupid and/or dishonest to accurately describe what the DOJ is up to–it’s not trying to “discredit the Mueller investigation”, which is totally unnecessary at this point, but rather to hopefully put those responsible for the abuses during 2016 behind bars. The Dems are going to try to paint the IG FISA report and related material as some sort of distraction from this Ukraine garbage, which of course is absurd because the investigation has been going on for 2+ years now.
It is safe to say that the IG FISA report must be seriously bad news for the culprits, and may go very, very high in the Obama IC community and administration.
I wonder if the corruption in the US political system will finally defeat Trump and anyone else who attempts to drain “The Swamp.”
There seem to be so many co-conspirators and so few Trump defenders. Maybe it’s just the dark before the dawn but it does make me grateful to be old.
I’m just rereading a book about the First World War and reflecting on how the corrupt British ruling class of the day led them into the catastrophe with which we are still living.
The book is “The Sleepwalkers, which disputes the Barbara Tuchman thesis that it was all Germany’s fault. France played a role.
Now, we may be living through the destruction of our civilization through gross incompetence and the corruption of our elites.
More evidence that Barr and Durham are making some progress.
(Washington Post) Attorney General William P. Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials seeking their help in a Justice Department inquiry that President Trump hopes will discredit U.S. intelligence agencies’ examination of Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.
[…] The direct involvement of the nation’s top law enforcement official shows the priority Barr places on the investigation being conducted by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, who has been assigned the sensitive task of reviewing U.S. intelligence work surrounding the 2016 election and its aftermath.
Notice that they are getting worried.
Barr has already made overtures to British intelligence officials, and last week the attorney general traveled to Italy, where he and Durham met senior Italian government officials and Barr asked the Italians to assist Durham, according to one person familiar with the matter. It was not Barr’s first trip to Italy to meet intelligence officials, the person said. The Trump administration has made similar requests of Australia, these people said.
[…] David Laufman, a former Justice Department official who was involved in the early stages of the Russia probe, said it was “fairly unorthodox for the attorney general personally to be flying around the world as a point person to further evidence-gathering for a specific Justice Department investigation,” and especially so in Barr’s case.
Laufman is a member of “Lawfare” the Resistance group attempting the coup.
Barr is learning how few he can trust in DoJ.
Hes also monica mcleans atty who in turn was blasey fords
Imagine the level of incompetence manifest in our various intelligence agencies who carried the water for this coup.
And at an annual expense of untold billions of dollars per year. With these agencies holding all of the face cards,
yet unable to make their case stick against Trump. Of course our nation’s adversaries have known this all along, now
the American people know this as well. These agencies should be razed to the ground, burned and salted. Then maybe start
from scratch. Maybe.
Trump’s offence, and his strength, is that he doesn’t make much effort to disguise the fact that he is a fierce, tough and often ruthless alumnus of the very tough schools of American capitalism, entertainment and politics.
That is, he’s human. Capitalism is the human condition. Human societies that stray from capitalism always go to hell. Yeah, the collectivists/socialists wish they could change humans from natural capitalists into socialists:
Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.
Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (1924)
Problem is, humans didn’t evolve as collective beings like ants or bees. Men are competitive individuals like any other mammal. Forcing them to be collectivists always results in tragedy. US capitalism proves that man’s natural competitiveness can be productively channeled for the (much) greater good.
“Imagine the level of incompetence manifest in our various intelligence agencies who carried the water for this coup.”
Yeah, they weren’t sending their best. Of course, everyone should know that the image we have of spooks from the movies bears no resemblance to reality. The IC agencies are huge bureaucracies, so they reward people who are good at navigating bureaucracies, not people who are good at the purported mission.
One thing that has been mostly overlooked recently, and has never been covered in the MSM, is the role that Adm. Rogers at the NSA played. He apparently cut off the plotters’ access to NSA databases, so they had to change their approach, and probably curtailed their actual exploitation of collected material, since they knew they had been discovered.
Their “backup plan” was to get a special counsel set up and lead an impeachment effort, quickly if at all possible but slowly if necessary. And still they came up with nothing. It’s quite impressive, actually. Any similar effort to look into most politicians would have landed them and all their friends and associates in prison for life.
@TJ,
President Trump well understands that his empire was built through the wages paid to the working man. He also knows the chattering class is useless when it comes to getting things done in America and operates accordingly.
Which infuriates the nattering nabobs of uselessness. (with apologies to late Mr. Agnew)
And makes me smile.
The USA has indeed become a lawless jungle.
And the rule of law is a withered husk here now.
Few know this!
Sad!
I didnt know this 10 years ago, but one of my relatives was the brigade commander at playa giron, he was strsnded on a beach with few weapons, because the company hireups dulles cabell and bissell didnt know it was fidels summer shack, only accesible by one road
They had liatened to kennedy who had it movef from trinidad the base of thr resistance, the escambray mountains held out for nearly 5 years