USA TEARING ITSELF APART —DIVIDED WE FALL

One thing is clear. In the 2016 election an unconventional but popular non-politician outsider candidate—Mr. Trump won against massive odds.  Trump  was massively outspent in the campaign by his opponent.  He was  lampooned, upbradieded, castigated and actively and vigorously opposed by every political power block including : the Democrats, the powerful and corrupt Clinton machine, Sanders Democrats, the Republicans, Tea Party GOP, the main-stream-media, late night TV hosts, Hollywood, the powerful lame-duck Obama President and the leadership of the powerful  elites of the FBI, CIA, and Justice Department.—-yet Trump  was able to win 30 out of 50 states, and an electoral vote landslide.  The voting public was al that Mr. Trump had.  He won handily with only the support of his wide national voter base..who went to the polls to vote for him.  This kind of a political upheaval of the establishment—a  watershed election —-could not have occurred in any other “democratic” western nation, all of whom tout the breath and legitimacy of their democracies.  It happened here in the USA...where thanks to our Constitution and the Founders—the freedom and access of the ballot box actually counts.

But after that great event came the whining and dissatisfaction and attempts at delegitimization of the people’s choice by the establishment in both parties and the Clinton cadre of losers...who simply do not want to accept the legitimacy of the people’s will.  They reject the decision of the ballot box! .  That historic 2016 election event has, rather than being touted as an massive accomplishment and reaffirmation of our democracy, has been sadly overshadowed and maligned by the powerful establishment losers.  They—the rejectionists—are after all—rejecting the legitimate actions of our cherished democracy—the voice of the people made manifest in the ballot box.

So this is what has become of our nation.  It’s difficult for a patriotic American to turn on what used to be a “news” program these days when all one sees and hears is hysterical Trump hatred.  Walter Cronkite and objective news reporting is long gone and forgotten.  The cable networks we are now saddled with are, it seems, mostly organs of propaganda.  The Stasi would be proud of them.

The 99% negative news emanating from the main-stream-media cable news centers about our nation and its leaders in Washington is so blatantly partisan the programs have become unwatchable for an objective, intelligent—older American.  We oldsters can remember what objective news reporting was like.   One is aware that FOX news can on ocassion tip too far toward the right.  But there is actual honest factual reporting there too.   After watching a segment one can still say, “well that had a bit of a rightward slant, but was not overly biased.”  However,  after watching  CNN or MSNBC one feels contaminated with an obvious  and unmodulated hatred, almost proud expression of blatant bias,  unsubstantiated accusations, uncorrorborated “facts” as well as implied connections between the “dots”...when it is so clear to any independent observer that the “dots do not have even a likely and a  certainly unproven connection”.  The bile and hatred seems to drip like molassses out of the TV screen.  One feels the need for a good bath after watching a few segments.  

The constant focus on the negative is disconcerting and downright embarrassing.  I wonder what my British friends and relatives think—seeing this news.  A nation with large elements that delight in tearing down the homeland’s legitimately elected leader, reporting and exaggerating only the negative, the peccadillos (imagined, false, and perhaps some true)  can not long last.  Yes, divided as we are today a nation can not long last...as Lincoln said in a better way.

Those rejectionists who continue to work so assiduously and unwisely to undermine the government and it leaders are tearing at the very fabric of our nation, of our democracy.  Do they reject our legitimate national elections?  Those who suggest that are skating on very thin ice.  Mr. Trump was legitimately elected.  Trying to destroy him by undermining popular confidence in our electoral system , by stealth legal investigations into phony “Russian collusion”, by illegitimate means to weaken and politically damage him, only undermines our nation as a whole.

 The “rejectionists” should focus on a political candidate to support—-write their Senators and Congressmaen and women—rally around a viable candidate for President in the next election.

Keep our citizenry confident in the strength and legitimacy of our democratic processes.

BIDEN: TOUGH TALK NOW BUT NO COJONES IN 2016

TOUGH TALKING JOE BIDEN DIDN’T HAVE THE COJONES TO GO FOR IT IN 2016

NOW HE EMBARRASSES US ALL WITH WITH PHONY CHALLENGE TO “BEAT UP TRUMP”

Former VP Joe Biden was talking tough recently, promising to take President Trump  “back behind the (high school) gym and beat the hell out of him”.  He embarrassed himself and his nation.  It’s so easy to talk tough.  Real men go out and fight for what they want. 

History will remember Biden as a weak man.  When Joe had the chance (he was the Vice President—it was his to take). he didn't have the cojones  to take on Mrs. Clinton.  He wasn’t tough or macho enough to face up to the Clinton machine— and a woman.   Trump was.  Trump stood up for the working classes.  That was supposed to be Biden’s forte.   Biden was not there when the working people of the nation actually needed him.  We all knew how weak and tarnished a candidate Clinton was.  Many thought Uncle Joe would stand up for them. He had played that role so often to his advantage.  But in the end we learned it was just an act. 

Perhaps after those big billion dollar deals the sitting VP opened up for his son Hunter —-with the Chinese government....made his celebrated working class roots fade from his memory.  

Biden had his chance to be tough and manly.  He just didn't have the guts.  

Talk is cheap after the battle is over.   

TRUMP CORRECT WITH CONGRAT CALL TO PUTIN!

The President made a pro forma call of congratulations to the President of Russia—on the eve of Putin’s electoral success.  The anti-Trump crowd were quick to attack the President about the call.  One Senator even stated: “ I wouldn’t talk to a criminal.”

The Presient was ablsolutely correct in keeping the lines of communication open to a powerful nuclear armed nation—one of our most powerful competitors—and one  with which we must deal with effectively.  President  Trump was right to call President Putin, as was former President Obama when he made a similar call.

The hypocrites in Washington who shoot off their mouths without thinking like Senator McCaine ( a bitter illogical and insistent critic of the President) are apparently supportive  with the President making plans to speak with Kim Jung Un of. North Korea, a real criminal and terrorist, but according o these “knee jerk” critics he must not speak to Mr. Putin with whom we have more potential problems and potential areas of cooperation.

Typical DC stupidity— and the reason Mr. Trump was elected.

CHRISTOPHER STEELE—SERGEI SKRIPAL CONNECTION.

LOOKING FOR FOREIGN ACTORS WHO IMPACTED OUR ELECTION?   SEE CHRISTOPHER STEELE AND SERGEI SKRIPAL

THE COMPLEX WEB CHRISTOPHER STEELE WOVE TO TRY TO UNDERMINE OUR ELECTION.

Christopher Steele and Sergei Skripal were known to each other and very likely collaborated on the infamous Steele “Dodgy Dossier”.

SOURCE OF DODDGY DOSSIER

The Steele dossier was a category of documents known as “opposition research”.  These are research papers  prepared to embarrass and defeat a political opponent.  They need not be true and are most often based on fiction, innuendo, rumor and perhaps fantasy.  They are  NOT “intelligence” i.e., state funded verified information.  Intelligence documents are  the result of formal, on-site research which is used to inform heads of state regarding possible existential threats or threatening actions of leaders of other nation states.  This particular  “dodgy dossier” document was initiated by Steele’s company Orbis for a  well-heeled anti-Trump Republican activist looking to defeat that candidate in the GOP primaries.  But a short way into the project when Trump was victorious in those contests, the anti-Trump Republican donor understandably dropped his support for Steele’s “research” efforts.  Now Steele had put effort into the nucleus of a document but had no buyer.  He  proceeded to remedy that fact by assiduously working to create a market for his product. 

Steele, was well aware that the US Presidential campaign was awash in money.  This  with his two page summary document in hand, he headed to the USA and cash-flush markets.   He began shopping around for new clients.   To give a patina of legitimacy to the data he was selling, his first stop was in Washington DC at the  FBI offices.  Steele was known to the FBI for whom he had performed other, perhaps more legitimate, work.  They agreed to purchase his product, when he probably exaggerated when he claimed being “shocked” and “concerned” by what his Russian “contacts” had unearthed.  The FBI were the victims of a form of bait and switch as they naively attributed the same level of integrity and veracity to this document as they did to Steele’s former legitimate research efforts.      Remember that this so-called research was designed only to smear an opposition candidate.  After getting the FBI to promise to pay for his services. He now could now add that claim to his sales pitch presented to his subsequent clients. He next approached media outlets in the USA...leaking his opposition research to “BuzzFeed”.    That act insured his dodgy product’s wide dispersal and market demand.  Finally, he offered the dossier to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party, both of whom contracted with Steele for further work for which they eventually paid more than a million dollars.    What did they get for that sum?   An unverified thirty-five page document  which makes wild, bizarre and salacious allegations about candidate Trump while he was visiting in Russia.  

STEELE DOSSIER USED AS EVIDENCE FOR ILLEGAL POLITICAL DOMESTIC SPYING 

During the presidential campaign, the FBI used Steele’s original documentation—dressed up and falsely presented to a compliant FISA judge  as if it was actual “research”—not political opposition research”.  Thus the fake “intelligence” known as the Steele dossier became the centerpiece of “evidence” presented to the USA FISA court to justify  government spying of a minor, unofficial member of the Trump transition team: Carter Page.  

Why bother with Page? Because by tapping Page’s telephones and gathering in his personal and business, text messages and other electronic data, the  FBI and other government agencies were able to access conversations and messages of any of Trump’s campaign members who had any communications with Page.  Spying on Page—a relatively un-important person in the team— was simply a convenient way to bypass legal obstacles to domestic spying by our intelligence agencies.  But more egregiously they used that data illegally against a political candidate they happened to dislike. 

If our investigators are looking for some foreigner who actually had a strong and unwarranted impact on our elections in 2016–right next to Putin— it should be foreigner,  Christopher Steele—- a British citizen who had no business poking his nose with disastrous effect into our affairs. he should be investigated for this.    

SERGEI SKRIPAL

Sergei Skripal was a Russian military officer and probable Russian spy who was posted to Spain.  While he served in the Russian Embassy in Madrid, he came into contact with a Spanish national (and British spy) who befriended him, and encouraged a business partnership (wherein the pair were to market Spanish wines in Russia).  When the partnership needed cash to expand,  Skripal’s Spanish parter revealed his work for the UK as a spy and indicated that the  British would pay handsomely for Russian military information.   He introduced Skripal to. Christopher Steele (the Spanish spy’s handler) who was at that time a MI 6 agent operating out of Moscow.  Steele became Skripal’s “handler”,  collecting Russian military secrets from Skripal for which Steele handed over thick bundles of cash.  Steele was eventually outed when his poorly run operation was exposed in Spain.  The Spanish national on the British spy payroll was convicted to 13 years in jail.  Skripal was called back to Moscow, tried there and imprisoned for a similar period of time.   Steele was soon ushered out of MI 6 and —still a young man—retired to London where he and a partner utilized their skills, reputations and contacts as former government agents  to begin an “information service” called Orbis.   Orbis was successful enough to make Steele and his partner rich men, who lived the life of country gentlefolk. .  

Back to Skripal.  After serving about three years in a Russian prison, Skripal became part of a“spy swap” set up by the British government which held twelve useless (to them)Russian spies in their jails.   As part of the deal, the Russians would repatriate twelve British spies.  Sergei Skripal (who was a Russian national but a British spy) was part of the group which was released to the British.  He soon took up residence in Salisbury in the UK where he paid a quarter of million pounds in cash (about $350K) for a modest four bedroom home.  He was for all intents and purposes ....a retired spy.  But perhaps he was not completely retired.  

SKRIPAL-STEELE INTERACTION

The Guardian (UK) newspaper has suggested in a March 8 report that it was Skripal who worked with Steele to develop the “dodgy Steele dossier”.  The Guardian (and Independent) indicate that Skripal and Steele were tied together by a third party who is known to have been in contact with Skripal regularly,  and who actually bragged about his work for Orbis (Steele’s company) on his LinkedIn account.  

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Then on March 3 Yulia, Skripal’s 33 year old daughter arrived from Moscow.  The next day March 4, 2018, traveling in Sergei’s new, burgundy BMW sedan, the pair left their home early in the morning and are observed in the burgundy sedan in various areas around Salisbury.  They are reported to have arrived in the town center where they first visit the Mill Pub.  They soon leave there to have lunch at Zizii’s Italian restaurant, from which they depart at 3:30PM.  But by 4:15 PM the two Skripals are found in a comatose state on a near-by park bench.  Both were rushed to a hospital where they remain in critical condition, apparently having been poisoned by a chemical agent known as “Novichok” alleged  to have been developed by the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, but which since then, has been distributed widely.  States which are known or suspected of having samples of the nerve agent are: the UK, USA, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and probably others nations as well. 

WHY? 

The question is who would want to kill Skripal?  The British have blamed Russia—but their accusation is based only on the fact that the poison was originally developed in the Soviet Union— which collapsed in the 1990s and from it arose modern Russia.  

Was Russia’s secret service angry with Skripal who was a traitor to his nation and exposed to assassination a number of Russian agents?  They could have killed him while he was in a Russian prison.  

Was his attempted assassination repayment by the Russian secret service for his work with Christopher Steele?  Steele 

Was the attack on Skripal and his daughter a “message” from Putin?  

Should Christopher Steele, keep a low profile?

The story is still developing.  

2016 COUP ATTEMPT SCANDAL —DEEP STATE—CORRUPTION

We now know that it was not the Russians (they helped)  but our own deeply embedded elite government officials who attempted to alter the outcome of the 2016 election and then when that failed they attempted to disrupt the operations of and unseat a legitimately elected President.  That is a scandal of existential proportions.  

Government officials,  are to be held to high standards of ethics and behavior—they are to remain as politically neutral as is possible— and under no circumstances should they use the awesome power the people have vested in them to undermine the very will of the people they serve. 

Mueller’s investigation into Russian-Trump collusion is by all measures—over.  Today, after the recent revelations regarding the corruption in the highest ranks of the FBI, the FISA court, the Justice Department and elsewhere in Washington DC we must conclude that Mueller’s investigation is hopelessly compromised.  In fact, Mueller’s inquiry is lost on a side trail and not focused  on the actual perpetrators. Mueller’s cadre of high-powered attorneys, his empaneled Washington DC jury and his massively expensive inquiry is now just a national distraction and a waste of time and TAXPAYER’S  money.  

What does remain of Mueller’s investigation is not of his doing— but thanks to the hard work of Congressional Committees—we now know that the Russians did have an impact on our election and the post-election period.  If the intention of Mr. Putin was to show the weaknesses and corruption of the US political system and as some have stated to “disrupt”our democratic processes, we can conclude —to some superficial extent he was very successful.  But the very fact that the people’s will was made manifest in the 2016 election and an outsider like Mr. Trump was elected..loudly proclaims that we in the USA are a free people who can and do control who lead us.  Not so the Russians or others who claim the democratic mantle.  

But our democracy has been threatened FROM WITHIN.  We now know the Russians fed false, scurrilous and malicious information to a former FBI operative, Christopher Steele, who then passed this “information” on to a government establishment eager for “dirt” on a candidate they abhorred.  The establishment, the FBI,  the Justice Department and former President Obama and his officials were eager and primed to put their thumbs on the election scales and “turn the election” in the direction that these “deep state” establishment types preferred.  These officials—with names you already know—former President Obama, Susan Rice, John Brennan, Comey, Clapper, McCabe, Strzok, Page,  etc.etc., are all guilty of crimes against democracy.  They forgot that—no matter how smart and  important they considered themselves—our Constitution makes it clear—- it is THE PEOPLE WHO DECIDE— not the past president, his henchmen and women, or the leadership cadre in the FBI and the Justice Department or and in the government establishment.    

These individuals in the “deep state” knowingly and unknowingly colluded with the Russians  in an attempt, to at first, alter the outcome of the election, then, after the people had clearly expressed their will at the ballot box, these same men and women treasonously attempt to undermine and disrupt the administration of a legitimately elected President.  They were doing the work of the Russians whether they were aware of it or not. 

This embarrassing and existentially threatening scandal —still being exposed—is the most egregious ever perpetrated against our democracy.  Some claim the Watergate Scandal as the most threatening —but in that instance one man went off the rails (President Nixon attempted to gather damaging information about his political enemies, illegitimately using the power of the Presidency—then lied about it).   The Watergate scandal is the equivalent of a toothache to the body politic, versus the potential impact of the Deep State Coup Attempt of 2016—which is the equivalent  of a deadly cancerous  brain tumor.   The Nixon “toothache” was painful and temporary...the 2016 Deep State Coup Attempt, and effort to alter the outcome of an election—then undermine and disrupt the administration of a legitimately elected President , could have extinguished our Democracy.

Those who were involved must be exposed and punished.  

Mr. McCabe former Deputy Director and for a brief time Director of the FBI is only the first of many who will face the music. He was rightly fired and should lose his pension. 

The punishment of McCabe is NOT VENGENCE.  McCabe’s punishment is appropriate, coming as it does from his own department and its arbiters of professional behavior.   Punishment is not simply to “get back” at an existential threat and an evil doer...but is rightly designed to warn others (in the FBI and elsewhere) that unprofessional, illegal acts will result in grievous, painful  repercussions.  Government officials,  are to be held to high standards of ethics and behavior—to remain as politically neutral as is possible— and under no circumstances should they use the power the people have vested in them to undermine the will of the people they serve. 

USA RUSSIA MASS HYSTERIA JUMPS POND INFECTS UK

USA RUSSIA-MASS-HYSTERIA—JUMPS POND—INFECTS THE UK

A FALSE FLAG ATTACK?

US  leaders are in quandary—they want us to be frightened of  “super wise and evil ” Mr. Putin—but also believe he is stupid enough to leave his name on the Salisbury UK poison victims. . 

On March 3, 2018, former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found comatose on a Salisbury park bench in the UK.  They were helped by a passing police officer and first responders who moved them to a hospital.  There it was discovered that the Skripals had been poisoned  with a military grade nerve agent called  Novichok (“newcomer” in Russian).  The British citizens who came in contact with the Skripals were contaminated as well. The Skripals remain in comas. The  police officer is in stable but critical condition.  

Skripal was jailed in Russia in 2006 for selling state secrets to British intelligence officers, but was released in 2010 as part of a high profile spy-swap between Russia and the UK. He moved to the UK where he was supposedly living in retirement. 

We know that the nerve agent Novichok was developed by the Soviet Union in the 1980s in designated chemical weapons plants in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.   Kazakhstan, was a major center for Soviet era chemical weapons development and  is, at present, cooperating with USA agents who are engaged there to clean up the site under an international grant.  So both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and other cooperating nations, as well as elements of the US government had access to samples of this weapon prior to the March 3rd attack in Salisbury in the UK. 

British Prime Minister Theresa May, stated that the poisoning of the former Russian spy, Mr. Skripal and his 33 year old daughter, was an assault on UK sovereignty and a violation of the Chemical Weapons Ban Treaty of 1993. She stated that “either Russia was directly involved, or it had lost control of a chemical weapon.”  President Trump when asked “did the Russians do it” responded with: “It looks like it.”  There seems to be no proof that Russia was involved. 

However, in  retaliation for the attack, which was attributed to the Russians (with only circumstantial evidence), British PM May announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats, claiming they were involved in espionage, and also suspending  all high level meetings between British and Russian individuals.  

The Russians have denied they had anything to do with the attempted assassination.  Foreign Minister Lavrov stated that the allegations were “boorish and unfounded”.    Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov stated that Russia had ceased weapons development after joining the Chemical Weapons Convention Ban  in 1993.  Immediately after that date they began to destroy their chemical weapons stockpiles as per the convention and have completed that process, as per the Treaty agreement.  He reiterated that Russia has not developed the nerve gas Novichok and claimed the pretext for the US and British claim that Russia was responsible was an effort to delay the US final destruction of its own (US) chemical weapons stockpiles which the USA has not completed as of this date.  The US states that it will have completed its destruction by 2023.  

Nations which could have had small stocks of this chemical weapon, aside from Russia are: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,  as well as the USA which is presently aiding Kazakhstan to “clean up” the stockpile of chemical weapons in that nation.  The Russians have requested a sample of the poison used so as to help identify its source..but the British have not complied. 

If the Russians wanted to assassinate Skripal they had better opportunities while he was in their custody.  If they had reason to “take him out” later on, while he lived in the UK,.why would they use Novichok—a well-known USSR military grade weapon, which would immediately lead investigators to Russia?  Furthermore, Novichock is claimed to be tens of times more virulent than other known poisons..The fact that the Skripals are still alive and will probably survive suggests that the dosage used was sub lethal.   Why?   The facts around the poisoning seems uncharacteristically dumb, for Putin who the same USA-hysterically-anti-Russian folks want to attribute to Putin the characteristics of an evil genius and super spy.  According to the the anti- Putin crowd—the Russian leader has unimaginable powers to destabilize nations, control multi state USA election processes, and muster unknown cyber powers permitting him to hack  into national electrical grids, water treatment plants  and nuclear sites.  These folks can’t have their myths both ways.  its either Putin is a genius,  or that he is dumb enough to leave his calling card behind in the form of a nerve agent with a Russian sounding name—Novichock. 

The timing seems odd as well. Why would such a high profile attempted assassination be planned by super-intelligent spy-chief Putin to occur only a few weeks or so prior to his re-election.  The event was timed perfectly so as to create a massive news media stir  just prior to the Russian federal elections on March 18.  This also does not seem to fit the character of Mr. Putin who our leaders want us to believe is the master of cyber warfare, international election tampering, and world strategy games. 

So who is responsible?  This attack smells to me of a “false flag” operation. That is a nation who commits a crime and then leaves evidence to suggest some one else did it.  If this is so, who would prosper?  The enemies of Mr. Putin by encouraging more sanctions and economic penalties.  The enemies of Mr. Trump, as well, perhaps to help “smoke him out from his unwillingness to come down hard on Mr. Putin.  And then there are some Arab enemies of Mr. Assad of Syria —who is a client of Mr. Putin—who would like to keep the “chemical weapons” story on the mast head of newspapers. It’s a complex story line, too complex for me,  perhaps it is best left to a master spy author like John Le Carre and his inimitable character  George Smiley to work out.  

Like Jeremy Corbyn the unconventional but insightful Labor Party leader of the UK, I remain unconvinced that the Russians did it.  

Sadly, the dangerous Russian-mass-hysteria-pushed by the Democrats (for base domestic political purposes) and with the mindless collusion of our main stream media continues unabated to carry us closer to real conflict with another superpower. .  

     

FLORIDA TO UP DEATH TOLL AT BROWARD SCHOOL SHOOTING

FLORIDA GOES FOR DEATH PENALTY FOR CRUZE—A MISTAKE

The Broward County, Florida prosecutor has revealed today  that he will go for the death penalty in the trial of killer Nicholas Cruze who shot and killed 17 youngsters and adults at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day last month.

After all the missteps of the state and county officials in regard to this individual, this announcement seems to suggest that these officials want to make the disaster many of them are complicit in complete by burying the evidence.  

Cruze deserves no sympathy...but neither does the state, county and school officials who seem to have stumbled at every opportunity to avert a disaster and instead at each juncture they, instead, swept the problem of a disturbed and dangerous teenage under the rug.   Does it make any sense at all now to add to these errors by making it 18 kills?  

The county Sheriff’s office   and police departments made more than thirty visits in response to calls at the home where Cruze was living—and did nothing, His school teachers, advisors, school psychologist,  and the school principal  were all well aware that this person was a danger to himself and others and was a problem student.  These adults in positions of authority ignored all the signs and  and simply expelled Cruze and banned him from school grounds.  Even the FBI ignored several calls tipping them off to a possible violent shooter. At every turn this person was ignored and pushed aside by the adults in his life.  Now they want to execute him. 

What will the expensive and painful death of another kid prove?  

That the state and officials in Florida and in Broward County are not only ineffective and prone to error...but vengeful as well?

Those who favor the death penalty for Cruze should forget the expensive and waste of effort to put  Cruze to death, and  work instead for more effective procedures to identify problem students and more quickly remove them from circumstances in which they might harm themselves and others. 

Suppose young Cruze’s school psychologist, his principal or one of the many other adults in  authority in Cruze’s ;life—all who were presented with so many opportunities to identify a dangerous situation developing—-suppose just one of them actually  did something positive about this problem youngster?  Today,  Cruze might be serving time in a school for psychologically troubled youngsters and his seventeen victims might still be alive and well with their families.  There is a lot of blame to go around here. 

HASPEL-BLACK SITE LADY—A BLACK EYE FOR CIA AND NATION

NO TO HASPEL AS CIA DIRECTOR

“BLACK SITE” TORTURE LADY WILL BE A BLACK EYE FOR NATION

Ms Gina Haspel has been a secret CIA agent since 1985.  She has been picked by President Trump to be the next Director  of the CIA to replace Mike Pompeo.  Haspel’s choice drew praise from  the 007 crowd.  But she may come with just too much baggage for Director of CIA.  She is praised  by those who have worked with her as a person “who gets things done”. Like many of those who work themselves up through the ranks  of an organization, she is imbued with the culture (good and bad) of that organization.  And perhaps in the case of the CIA—and Ms Haspel—- the encomium that she “gets things done” is true. But “getting things done” even if they are immoral, illegal and unconstitutional may be a positive trait for a near invisible subordinate. Such traits and personal history would be an embarrassment,  and millstone around the neck for the formal head of a prestigious organization of the USA. 

Gina Haspel ran a “black site” in Thailand in 2002 codenamed “Cats Eye”.  Haspel was stated by some observers and commentators as being “up to her eyeballs” in torture.  She is our first openly designated female torturer.  Is that what those who are favoring her appointment as “the first woman CIA Director” would be able to tout or be proud of?

Haspel was in charge of the brutal, illegal and gruesome torture and detention of Abu Zubaydah a Saudi citizen who was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and remains in indefinite illegal detention with no chance of a trial sixteen years later.  Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one month, he was forced into stress positions in a small box, subjected nudity, to sleep deprivation, loud noises, dietetic stress, and  beaten to the point of losing an eye.  His illegal torture made it impossible to use any charges against him in a formal tried...and although he provided no meaningful evidence or useful information he remains in legal limbo in Guantanamo.  After his brutal treatment, at the hands of Haspel and his other torturers they concluded that he had not provided them with any “useful” information.  

Finally, after her misdeeds were revealed and were being investigated by the Senate, Haspel played a vital role in the destruction of the CIA torture tapes at the sites she ran and at other black sites. For that she has been charged with destruction of evidence among other crimes.

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights pressed criminal charges against Haspel and others for their abuse of detainees.   In 2017 a public arrest warrant for Haspel for crimes against humanity, in relation to the Zubaydah case,  was issued by the Public Prosecutor General of Germany.  

In response to charges of criminality against Haspel in her role as chief US “black site torturer” Haspel and her misguided supporter have sadly attempted to use the embarrassing and now infamous: “I was just following orders” defense, made by Nazi criminals during the post WWII Nuremberg Trials, and later was used by other heinous criminals like Adolph Eichmann.  These ignoramuses should be condemned to watch the tapes of those trials in their entirety for this horrible lack of historical knowledge and sensitivity. 

Haspel the” black site lady”will give any organization she heads a black eye.  The CIA already has its image problems—imagine what the detractors of that organization would say and do  with a head spy—who is accused as a criminal, and would be arrested were she to land in Europe.

Ms. Haspel was no doubt effective and useful as a dutiful subordinate who would “get things done” and “go all the way” under orders...even illegal or immoral orders.  But  such obedience and personal obsequious characteristics do not make such an individual an acceptable or effective DIRECTOR.  In the exposed and publicly known role as head of a prestigious national organization he or she must represent a higher order of allegiance—to the nation and its laws.  Ms Haspel’s past history and character prevents her from effectively assuming that role.  

  

BUILDING SHOOTER PROOF SCHOOLS -LIMITS FUNDS FOR REAL EDUCATION

A NO BRAINER—KEEP KIDS SAFE—-LIMIT BATTLEFIELD WEAPONS TO THE BATTLEFIELD.

SHOOTER-PROOFING SCHOOL  MEASURES USE FUNDS THAT CAN NOT BE SPENT ON EDUCATION

The Wall Street Jounral reports today (March 13, 2018) that many of the nation’s 100,000 public schools are or will be undergoing expensive modifications and or redesign to help protect students from wouldbe shooters.  Rather than make sensible decions to restrict military grade weapons from the civilian market our schools will spend vast sums on making fortresses out of our public schools and in the process restrict limited funds which would be spent on basic education.

 The WSJ article focuses  on a recently designed modern elementary school in Texas, The George H. Bush Elementary which was designed with the intention to help foil  potential shooters.  But ideas change with each new tragic school shooting; there have been 32 of them since 1990.  .  This new school has classroooms with large windows “so teachers can see out into the hall where intruders might come from”.  But after the tragic event in Broward Counnty, Florida on February 14, 2018, school officials now fear that the glass windows would also permit a shooter to “see potential victims in the classroom”.  Officials are uncertain and the debate continues there.  What would be better, covered or opened widows on doors?

The vast sums of money being spent by communities, even in face of the likelihood that these protocols and designs may change after the next tragic event, gives some of us pause.  Perhaps instead of showering vast sums of money on bullet proof glass, steel doors, high tech security cameras and similar hardware, communities were to focus on limiting access to banned weaponry and use those funds for improved education purposes rather than uncertain safety measures.

Another consideration is that expending funds for “safety” means restricting funds for needed educational purposes.  When the choice is between placeing bullet proof glass on all the windows in a school versus purchasing desperately needed basic computers for classrooms—-what administrator will go for the computers?


The decision for computers and educational excellence would be possible were our nation to face up to the fact that we MUST  restrict access of military weapons like the AR15 and other similar gas-operated, rapid-fire, high velocity cartrige, large magazine, automatic and semiautomatic weapons.

Keep our kids safe in school.
 

BUMPSTOCKS AND BALONEY

STUDENTS RIGHTS TO SAFE EDUCATION  VS GUN OWNER RIGHTS TO OWN MILITARY WEAPONS —WHO IS STANDING UP FOR STUDENTS? 

55 million innocent students vs 9 million gun owners.  More balance of rights is needed!

Governor Scott Walker of Florida just signed a $400 million dollar school safety bill that broke a legislative  impasse, but sadly will not do much to protect the lives of students in and around the  schools of the state.    Florida, at present, still permits almost anyone to carry concealed weapons.  The misguided legislature has encouraged senseless legislation  such as the “stand your ground” law which encourages a “Wild West’ mentality and has has led to deadly  confrontations.  However, in the “Wild West” of Florida, Gov Walker’s less than adequate actions are being attacked by the NRA on one side, and lauded as a watershed moment in the gun rights/student rights debate, on the other.  In other parts of the nation the bill seems to be more about “baloney and bump stocks”, but little else.  

The Florida school safety bill will spend vast sums to “harden” buildings by installing windowless metal doors, and bullet proof glass—but do nothing to limit access to military grade weapons.  The bill reasonably raises the age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21 years.  It stipulates a sensible three-day waiting period for most gun purchases and bans the sale of “bumpstocks” ( which effectively change a ‘semiautomatic” AR 15 into an automatic weapon).   The bill also includes a proviso to permit certain school personnel to carry concealed arms.  Most teachers groups are rightly opposed to allowing more concealed weapons on school grounds.  The opponents of arming teachers and staff envision the likelihood for even more mayhem and bloodletting with children in a crossfire between potential armed groups.  

What seems to be forgotten in the politicized  rush to “do something” is the need to balance the existential rights of one group of citizens to a safe education against the legal right to own any kind of weapon of another.  We seem to forget that one of the most important functions of any state or nation is the education of our young.  There are about 55 million elementary and secondary students in this nation.  These millions of students have as much (or more) rights to “life and pursuit of happiness (and an education)” as the approximately 9 million gun-owners of the nation.    These gun folks are guaranteed the right to own and “bear weapons” by our Constitution—-but that guarantee does not extend to any and all weapons systems.  We rightly restrict  Tommy guns, Browning Automatic Rifles,  hand-grenades,  armored vehicles and half tracks.  Our national laws clearly restrict automatic weapons.  But weapons like the AR15 which fire as many rounds as automatic weapons at similar rates, fall through the cracks in the law. These lethal weapons of war can still be purchased by anyone. 

But that “baloney” distinction between automatic (banned) and semiautomatic (pull the trigger for each shot) is meaningless under the present state and national laws in the USA.  The distinction between automatic and semiautomatic is a form of useful but meaningless  terminology which permits the powerful weapons-manufactures in this nation to aggressively hawk military-equivalent hardware designed to kill as many humans as possible to any one with the cash to purchase one—teenagers, addicts, felons, illegal aliens, the mentally unstable.  

In the recent deadly massacre at Florida’s, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, 19 year old, mentally disturbed perpetrator—Nicholas Cruze is known to have fired off 150 rounds in six minutes.  That fact is significant.  It means that teenager Cruze, armed with his military-style AR15, with a thirty round magazine (he must have carried at least five magazines) was in effect armed as one of our Marines or Special Forces would have been.    Cruze was not a formally-trained marksman—and even with time expended to reload five of his 30 round magazine clips into the weapon and time to take aim at his innocent young victims —was still able to  fire off on average 25 rounds per minute, or one deadly, high-velocity bullet @ every two seconds!   

The M16  that Cruz’s weapon was styled after has been the standard arm of the US military since Vietnam.  This is the weapon issued to all our military forces since the Vietnam War, and was used and remains in use in all our wars and military actions since then.  It is perfectly effective for what it was designed to do.  Kill as many enemy soldiers as is possible in the shortest possible time. 

Cruze’s AR15 is the semi-automatic version of the M16. But the difference between them is just as thin as a see-through slice of baloney.  The M16 weapon in the hands of a trained US military marksmen has a safe sustained rate of fire of 15 rounds a minute, and as much as 60 rounds a minute, firing in its semi-automatic mode.  So Cruz’s rate of fire was well within the range of what one would expect from one of our troopers fighting for his life in Afghanistan or Iraq.   Faster rates of fire will heat up the M16 barrel and could cause disastrous barrel failure.  

Thus it is plain that there is no significant difference in lethality of the two weapons.  The M16 fires the same ammo, has the same sights and mechanisms, and the same gas-fired reloading action as Cruze’s  AR15.   The only difference is that the M16  can fire automatically as well as semiautomatically.  In battle, that (automatic) mode of use is almost never used.  It burns up too much ammo too fast and can cause the barrel to heat up and  burst.  

The  weapon that youngster Cruz purchased and used with such tragic effect—the AR15 which can fire off 25 rounds (or more) in a minute is designed for the theater of war...not for recreation, hunting or target shooting.  It does not belong in the hands of civilians.  It should be banned. 

No one is proposing that our citizens give up their legitimate weapons..as per the Second Amendment.  But the government has the right and the duty to protect all of its citizens from the deadly misuse of lethal weapons of war.   The government has a clear right to limit automatic weapons and equally lethal semiautomatic weapons which have no other function than to kill humans effectively.   Then too, we must balance conflicting rights.  The rights of citizens to own and use military weapons of war does not trump the rights of students to a safe, gun-free, anxiety-free school where they can be secure in their devotion to the important goal education. Though the public debate and the resulting legislative actions would seem to belie that fact. 

What is plain as a baloney sandwich, is that it is necessary to restrict the possession of weapons like the AR15 (and others just like it)—-designed only for the theater of war—- from every civilian Tom, Dick and Harriet in the State of Florida.  Had that proviso been part of the Florida bill—-it  would have been something to crow about.