Good or Bad for the Jews

"Good or Bad for the Jews"

Many years ago, and for many years, I would travel to Morocco to visit uncles, cousins, and my paternal grandmother. Some lived in Tangiers;...

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Saturday Musings & The Shutdown Apocalypse!

The Diplowife is in Spain with her sister celebrating el dia de San Sebastian in, well, San Sebastian (Donosti if you prefer). She keeps sending me pictures of amazing food. Two kids have left for a sports bar in Raleigh; one for apartment hunting in DC; and one with his wife (read her stuff!) for some rightist event in Manhattan. I am left with the dogs, and tasked with folding towels, and running the washing machine. Tough duty. So, of course, I am at the computer instead.

I must first remark that this, the first day of the #SchumerShutdown, dawned cold and bleak; the sun struggled to make itself felt, and its weak light cast long, sinister shadows throughout the woods surrounding my house. Those shadows, of course, come from the dying trees and the gasping fauna, unable to survive without the EPA having a full budget. The streets, too, are now almost impassable from the stacks of dead bodies, and from those millions of zombie-like Americans and immigrants left helpless and hopeless from the government shutdown, wandering the avenues and boulevards, crying, pleading, begging, all to no avail . . . I write in the full knowledge that by the time I post this piece, there will be no survivors to read it. I, therefore, leave it as a testament which might be read by alien visitors hundreds of years from now. Aliens in the sense of folks from the planet Xenon, not Mexico, you understand . . . Well, actually, I guess I will be OK as long as the people who write those Foreign Service retirement checks are deemed essential . . .

The strangeness grows every day.

It SEEMS (please note that word) that there is some sort of memo in the hands of Congress that will blow the lid off the Russian collusion investigation and could result in some serious political, legal, and bureaucratic shake-ups. The Republican Congressmen who have read it swear this is so, the Democrats not so much, but argue that it must be kept secret for "national security" reasons. I love it when the Dems get concerned about national security. Release the hounds memo, and let the chips fall where they might.

The biggest threat to national security (aside from Mexican interference in our national life) is the ongoing turmoil caused by the Russian collusion story so assiduously pushed by the Dems. If this memo has something important to say about it, let us see. I have no doubt that if the memo contained the smoking gun PROVING Trump-Putin collusion, the Dems would have leaked it to the NY Times long ago regardless of any threat to means, sources, and methods. My experience is that these "bombshell" memos often turn out to be something less than that, but, yet, however, nevertheless, perhaps, maybe, possibly it might well be in the national public interest to release this one. Let the American people judge. FREE THE MEMO!

This government shutdown is truly the weirdest such shutdown in my lifetime.

The Dems are shutting down the government because the President won't give them what they want on DACA. In other words, the Dems are more "concerned" about hundreds-of-thousands of illegal aliens, than they are about the proper functioning of our government and the well-being of hundreds-of-millions of Americans and LEGAL immigrants. Their "concern," of course, discussed at length many times in this humble blog (example, example, example) is with bringing in millions of poor and dependent voters. That's all. The Dems are losing some of their traditional supporters and need to replace them. The GOP would be idiotic to give in to the Dems' demands on DACA. So far, President Trump has played the Dems masterfully and I just hope he is not betrayed by GOPers going "wobbly," in Maggie Thatcher's wonderful phrase.




24 comments:

  1. The Shutdown is a red herring to divert attention away from that FISA memo.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Trump has been phenomenal, especially considering the forces arrayed against him

    ReplyDelete
  3. Here is my guess on what the “memo” says.
    1) Elements within the FBI, and Justice Dept., allowed Fusion GPS employees to make queries to the NSA intelligence databases.
    2) The information gleaned was used to construct the “Steele Dossier”, and that the dossier was authored by Fusion GPS. Mr. Steele was just the recipient of a lot of money, in exchange for editing the document to sprinkle in some Queen’s English to make it appear the dossier originated from him, and not Nellie Ohr.
    3) Possibly showing that elements within the FBI and Justice department, either requested or fraudulently used the clearances of high ranking Obama admin officials to submit unmasking requests to the NSA. Specifically, the use of Samantha Power’s credentials for unmasking requests. Recall she testified to congress when asked why the U.N. Ambassador would need to request unmasking of intelligence some 260 times, to which she replied, “The unmasking requests were in her name, but she didn’t make them.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think you're pretty close on the memo. In a sense it's in the public domain, we just don't have names.................yet.

      Delete
  4. I'd advise Diplomad avoiding C-Span whenever the "General Speeches" going on ... I happened to catch a snippet of one and upon hearing some male-type voice wailing, "We must protect America's children!" I paused thinking finally, my Congressman's got up his gumption.

    I was mistaken. Almost to the point of 911 and the ER.

    But remembering the shutdown, went with a beer instead.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Back somewhere between 1990-1992, we had a shutdown while I was in Thailand. As "essential personnel", I was at my post on the visa line and worked for free, supposedly. Uncle Kepha's family survived, and I went home and had a wonderful green curry over long-grain rice which our maid--a good, competent person hired after a string of sleazebags and would-be Hazels who didn't count on a tough Taiwanese Hakka lady of the house--dutifully prepared. As a nod to necessary economy, I walked home; but it was actually because at that time of day, the 4.5 miles from Embassy to apartment would've taken me about an hour (provided I didn't get sidetracked by a bookstore), while hailing a cab, bargaining down the price to something reasonable, and being patient while the driver negotiated a Bangkok rush hour would've taken two.

    But, despite its legendary traffic jams, our post keeping hardship status because an inspector was bitten by a banded krait on Embassy grounds (we suspect some of our colleagues who do not exist may have planted the reptile), and a language for which I collected incentive pay (when we weren't on shut down), Bangkok, Thailand was no s***thole. The medical care was about two weeks behind the States (because back then, that was how long the New England Journal of Medicine took to reach the local physicians) and no more; you could buy just about whatever you wanted (except on Chinese New Year, when all the stores shuttered like Mea She'arim in Jerusalem on Shabbat); you could get top-notch food of any cuisine imagineable; and the people were polite and likeable.

    ReplyDelete
  6. What you must not overlook is the near-superhuman competence of the various branches of the US Securitate.
    http://www.orrazz.com/2018/01/british-15-year-old-gained-access-to.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's garbage... mcconnel could simply hold a vote to change the senate rules to allow a 50+1 majority. This is all theatrics by both sides. "Oh! Nobody's ever shutdown the government like this before!" "Why how DARE they shutdown the government over protecting our illega...err undocumenteds!"

    Hold the vote, change the rules, pass the funding. This should be a no-brainer. There's no constitutional commitment to minority veto like this, and there isn't for a reason.

    - reader #1482

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What I don't get, is that there *are* no allegations of collusion.
      Nobody has been able to enumerate a *single* allegation of collusion.
      Somebody, particularly Mr. Mueller, *must* make *some* allegation of collusion... some hypothesis of who might have done what, when, and how.

      It's just a bunch of: "Well there *may* have been collusion!"
      There also *may* have been an alligator in my pants.

      - reader #1482

      Delete
  8. Will there be some (more?) unfortunate demises afore this FISA-dossier-Fusion GPS-Uranium One-email server-Clinton Foundation evidence disappear into Mueller's overly fat briefcase?

    ReplyDelete
  9. There's something ironic in the fact that the memo could be released, or not, according to how pi**ed off the Bernie wing remains.

    Of course the MSM will not cover it and the Democrat base will not care even if it is released.

    About the only positive thing is that occasionally in offices of the powerful some people will roll their eyes when talk of doing business with Hillary and Bill comes up. Please, let that happen with Obama, too.

    another fred

    ReplyDelete
  10. "one with his wife (read her stuff!)" How do I do that? I'm always wanting to increase my knowledge base.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ahhhh, "The MEMO!"

    I do not understand why a 4-page memo has not leaked yet. If it incriminated Trump or his family, it would have been on the front pages of the NYTimes last week. But now that it is known "heads will roll," as Congresscritters speaking to Fox News claim, Democrat members of the Committee cannot even find the time to read it, much less speak knowledgeably about it.

    Now I wonder if possibly the Republicans have over-hyped it, and that is the reason it has not yet come out. Does it really implicate high-level White House operatives like Ben Rhodes? Or just hint that "improper things were done?"

    I hope you're right, Salvorhardin. That's pretty much my analysis of it too, but I have seen too many things that were characterized as "heads will roll" type of material, but turned out to be less than promised.

    A Congressman on Fox promised last night that "The MEMO" would be released within two weeks. I continue to hold my breath. . .

    ReplyDelete
  12. if the fisa memo isn’t kabuki then why not some congressperson with a spine just release it into the congressional record, consequences be damned. it appears to be classified mainly to hide embarrassment or criminality. it would be fun to pass the popcorn watching the releaser sit back and dare to be prosecuted for telling the truth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Could be as much "Noh" as "Kabuki".

      Lots of masks; just ignore the "characters in black"; they are stage hands, and thus, not there.

      Delete
  13. 2 Things.
    1)I don't think the memo can be leaked because Nunes may have the only copy? The congressmen have had to go into a SCIF to read it

    2) On the DACA thing. I keep hearing things like 80% of nation or 60% of Deplorables want to legalize or protect the DACA "kids". I don't and I don't know one person that does. Do your 6 readers think these poll numbers are suspect?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't believe those polls. As for the memo I just remember that the State of the Union address is due in about a week. I've got a feeling that that the shutdown and the memo are all tied together.

      Delete
    2. I'm certain that every working journalist, particular those who took up their career's in college in order to 'change the world', all agree with each other that everybody wants to save the DACAs. Personally, I assume they'll thank the US when they're returned to their socialist utopia of free healthcare.... give us 'more examples to learn from'
      ... or maybe not...

      Delete
  14. With regard to the "shutdown:" When has a single Federal employee failed to get paid during these episodes? The real complaint from the Federal Workforce is that it is happening in January, instead of giving them some days off in, say, May or October.

    Moreover, one needs to regard this tantrum for what it is; the Democrats are doing this to raise donations to the DNC, which has fallen far behind the take of the RNC. In this, it is similar to the Republicans' use of the "Border Adjustment Tax" back in the Spring of last year - they never intended to enact it, but it sure did raise campaign revenues!

    As far as the FISA memo goes, and in particular where suggestions about prosecutions stand, I recommend for your contemplation the status of the case against Learner.

    Green Bear

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Moreover, one needs to regard this tantrum for what it is;"

      Purely coincidence regarding the timing?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inauguration_of_Donald_Trump

      One wonders ...

      Delete
  15. More important than releasing the memo is to actually charge those who committed the crimes the memo revels. The Republican DOJ sucks at enforcing these kinds of things. My money is none of these perps ever gets punished.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Well, all very interesting. Down here in OZ if there is a deadlock between the two houses of Parliament (House of Representatives and the Senate) ultimately this becomes the trigger for a double dissolution of both houses by the Governor General (at the request of the Prime Minister) and a general election must be called.

    ReplyDelete
  17. We rove 1200 miles this weekend to plan an event in California. Traffic coming back today was better than Friday. Maybe the "shutdown" is working ! I am off to work as a DOD contractor tomorrow, and will probably get paid after the election as I assume the shutdown might last that long. It's OK with me as things might improve a lot in the absence of bureaucrats.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thanks for the link to your Daughter in law's writings. After viewing her online bio with photo, it appears that your son learned well from his father as I did from mine and "married UP".

    ReplyDelete