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What Independent Voters See

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Today, most opinion polls agree that fewer than 20% of the voters approve of the job Congress is doing. Why the failing grades? Part of it is the broad public reaction to the spectacle the lawmakers have made of themselves these past 15 months.

barack hussein obama, notorious national socialist, joined at the hip with the Democratic majority in Congress has nationalized/socialized:

Student Loans
General Motors
The Banking Industry
The Healthcare Industry
The Insurance Underwriting Industry
Well over 30% of what was private industry in 2008 is now owned by the Federal Government. This is the same Federal Government who brought you failure after failure to effectively financially manage literally everything it has touched from the post office to social security.
Did this run of nationalizing generate any sort of private sector job creation? No, in fact it only made things worse. Don’t point to an increase of government jobs as anything hopeful. That increase is fueled on the back of increased government debt heaped on the back of American taxpayers.
The Democrats made a Faustian deal with barack hussein obama, hoping that his popularity would prop them up, but it hasn’t worked. And sadly for the Democrats and for the Republicans, both need the 25-30% block represented by independent voters to win a national election at a time when, by any measurement, the prestige of the legislative branch has sunk to a historic low. And we’ll see whether the 2010 elections bring a change from the disastrous 2008 elections that put the Democrats in power.

>>CLICK HERE<<

75 Years Ago – This Morning

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WH press secretary says WWII veterans should 
get over their ‘bitterness’ about Pearl Harbor attack.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is planning to visit Pearl Harbor, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the attack and I have no problem with that. However, the unprovoked, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor is something that we shouldn’t ever forget. Barack urged us a couple of years ago to get over the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Center (and the aborted attack on the White House). 
It’s not about getting over something and moving on. It’s about recalling history without any politically correct, revisionist lens. People who can do that are willing to make plans to avoid the situation that made it possible to successfully attack Pearl Harbor or New York and Washington, DC.
The classic book on the attack on Pearl Harbor is “At Dawn we Slept” by Gordon Prange. 
One of the best books on the Battle of Midway is “The Shattered Sword” by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully.
There is a move in the US and in Japan to remove the necessity for dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese homeland, which ended the war. Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard deal with this issue appropriately in, “Killing the Rising Sun“.  The way I see it, (a) it saved American lives and (b) the Japanese had it coming. They could have surrendered and chose not to after having been warned.
But that was in the future on December 7, 1941.

Valentine’s Day is for Women

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Do I love Valentine’s Day?              No.

It’s impossible to get restaurant reservations at anyplace a woman might want to go. If you get them, there will be a limited special menu that is vastly over-rated and certainly over priced. The price of red roses triples. Chocolate (candy is dandy but liquor works quicker) can be viewed as either an indulgence or the subliminal hint that your woman is fat. It’s a dangerous choice for a Valentine’s day present. Proceed with that at your own risk. – – roll the dice on your own and don’t blame me.
The cards sell out quickly and if you are one of those thoughtless oafs that have waited until you read this blog to head out in a mindless panic to buy love supplies – you will have the unwanted cards to pick from. The flower arrangements at Costco will have sold out by the lunch hour.
Women: If a man cares about you, you will know it because of the subtle things that he does every day to show it. Does he do thoughtful things? Does he care about your feelings? Is he in touch with your worries and concerns? If the answer is yes and he disappoints you on Valentine’s Day, give the poor, dumb, mooch a pass.

Revisionist History

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Aztlan
Have you ever wondered WHY Mexicans who are protesting Donald Trump are waving the Mexican flag as part of that protest? It doesn’t make much sense until you understand their mindsets. Diogenes’ Middle Finger had a good blog post on the subject. Let’s begin there and I’ll elaborate as best I can.
It starts with a twisted bit of thinking and the fictional nation of Aztlan, which Mexicans or Chicanos wish to reconquer.  More on Wikipedia. Part of this angst comes from the war between the US and Mexico that took place between April 25, 1846 – February 3, 1848. Some in the radical Chicano movement feel that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was unjustly arrived at by Mexico. They would like to annex most Western US States to form a new nation, populated by Hispanics, free of white people. (It’s only racist if you’re white and say something like that)
That’s it. That’s the movement and that’s why they wave Mexican flags. 
Trump Rally Protest Photo
Their goal is to reconquer the American Western States, expel anyone who isn’t Hispanic and install their own (communist) government.
It’s something that I haven’t heard on Fox News or any of the mainstream media outlets. Do the research, you’ll see what I mean.

And that brings us to Donald Trump, the least likely American leader to cede US territory to a few hundred Chicano racists. It’s not surprising that his talk of deporting the foot soldiers that these grievance peddlers want to mobilize must keep them awake at night. They hope for a guerrilla movement where Mexico rises again…except it was Spain, not Mexico, that explored some of the western portion of North America. And that the thing that makes Mexican food good was the French occupation of Mexico and their distinctive love of sauces.

Nobody celebrates Cinco de Mayo in Mexico. But you can bet your last pound of carnitas that the radical Chicano movement will be swilling cerveza and gulping pulque by the gallon (peasant liquor). They don’t have much sense of themselves, but they’d like to retake California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

I Don’t Blame Bush

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George W. Bush and family don’t deserve the credit/blame for dismantling Barack’s legacy. To be fair, they weren’t invited to the party. 

Jeb! tried to crash the party, but he left before the booze started to flow and returned to his home in Florida where he remains a malevolent hector, downing martinis at the country club, lamenting his loss to all who will lend an ear.
The Bush family are in large part responsible for the presidency of Barack…which is their legacy as well. And they can take a victory lap for the presidency of Donald Trump because in the end they didn’t have any more credibility with the voters than Barack did.
“Legacy candidates” Jeb! and Hillary, who felt that the nation owed them the presidency will go down in the history books as a dim corner, soon forgotten. Though Michelle Obama may be remembered by historians as one of the ugliest and least gracious of first ladies in modern time. I guess it’s something to make the history books if only as a footnote.

Christmas Around the World

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The Holiday Season (which began with Thanksgiving) is now underway. It’s December. And there are expectations that come with the season – not on my part, but on the part of the population as a whole.

To many including me, it means that some of my favorite food of the year will be served. I will avoid the crowds to the extent humanly possible and will buy wares on-line and have them shipped.

Saint Nicholas and his assistant, Black Pete
Different countries, different customs.

For children in Europe, there is the fear of Black Pete, appearing as if by magic, to kick the crap out of them if they’re bad. In the USA, there is no negro to accompany Santa Clause/Kris Kringle on his journey.


Is that fair? Some opine that it’s racist to discourage a person of color from helping the Jolly Old Elf on his rounds.

Black Pete, adds insult to injury by stealing back the presents that Santa delivered if children don’t measure up. In Detroit, Baltimore, the St. Louis suburbs, Watts, the Dallas slums, Harlem, and Chicago’s South-Side, Santa himself is often waylaid while ringing a bell, collecting offerings for the poor – usually by Black Pete.

A Question of Adequate Narcissism

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Should We run for Congress?

I was commenting on Old NFO’s Blog and the thought struck me…

I was recently appointed to legislative public office in Arizona. True story. I know that I haven’t been here long, but long enough and I’m a registered voter. For those of you who know me, I vowed never to be a politician (better to own one than to be one has been my mantra). But with AOC, Ali and the rest of those freaks sitting in Congress, I think that I might be the perfect fit, because I would have NO INTEREST in a second term
If not me, possibly WSF, LSP, SiGraybeard, Ed, Mike_C, Jim, Raven, The Bayou Renaissance Man or even Old NFO (the great one), himself. Any one of us would speak of the Mohammedan scourge against Christians. (Juliette (born troublemaker), you’re a British Citizen – you have to stand for Parliament, not the US House of Representatives). John Derva, you could depose the present King of Norway. (Job opening for me as Chief of Assassins guild?)
Put any one of us on Fox New Sunday with that Trump hater, Chris Wallace, and let US speak for the President and for the bullshit that pervades. The Deep State thinks that they hate President Trump. They’d really hate any one of US

https://oldnfo.org/2019/04/23/words-they-mean-things/#comment-96662 

Hey, OLD NFO, what if we nuked (tactical nuke) the black meteorite that the Muslims worship in Mecca (not during hajj, so you don’t kill a million of them)? Would that be “somebody somewhere did something to someone?” 
I also found it interesting the Somali-American congresswoman said that we killed 1,000 Somalis during the “Blackhawk Down” action. My reaction was, “That was all we killed, how embarrassing. There must have been more than that.” Sometimes those Army guys can be weak when figuring the body count. It swings with political wind, but in a place like that, you always invoke the law of averages. 
Had I been king (and lucky for the skinnies that I wasn’t), I’d have dispatched every AC-130H in inventory and would have ordered a ship full of 20 MM in to refill the guns, and replacement barrels, and would have placed a round every six inches in Mogadishu. I lost a friend there and another took 3 rounds from an AK-47 in his back and barely survived 
I need to run for Congress in Arizona so that I can sit on the floor of Congress and call those people to account. Sure, I’d be a one-term hero, but who cares? 
LL for Congress. Send cash only to my exploratory committee

I’m only kidding about Congress, but you can still send cash if you really want to. It will go to my favorite charity. I’d like to buy a backhoe & trailer, but the price point currently frightens me.

And no, I will not release my tax returns.

Mind’s Eye

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The blog post only contains open-source information.

 

There is concern, with ample cause for concern, that Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) programs will be focused on the American domestic population now that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has openly stated that white Americans are the greatest threat to the nation.

The Mind’s Eye program seeks to develop in machines a capability that exists only in animals: visual intelligence.

This program pursues the capability to learn generally applicable and generative representations of action between objects in a scene directly from visual inputs, and then reason over those learned representations.

A key distinction between this research and the state of the art in machine vision is that the latter has made continual progress in recognizing a wide range of objects and their properties – what might be thought of as the nouns in the description of a scene. The focus of Mind’s Eye is to add the perceptual and cognitive underpinnings for recognizing and reasoning about the verbs in those scenes, enabling a more complete narrative of action in the visual experience.

Mind’s Eye is designed to add artificial intelligence to Gorgon Stare, which we discussed on the blog yesterday.

The research to make Mind’s Eye a reality began a decade ago.

 

Scoring

We look at China, and China’s surveillance and scoring system, and a lot of people say, ‘well, thank goodness we don’t live there.’ In reality, we’re all being scored, all the time, including here in the United States.

We are all grappling, every day, with algorithmic determinism. Somebody’s algorithm somewhere has assigned you a score, and as a result, you are paying more or less money for toilet paper when you shop online, you are being shown better or worse mortgages, you are more or less likely to be profiled as a criminal extremist in somebody’s database somewhere. We are all being scored. The key difference between the United States and in China is that China is more transparent about it.

You ask about the future – that’s it. Scoring of EVERYTHING you do and say.

 

— On the Lighter Side ——————————

The Athiest

An atheist was taking a walk through the woods. “What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals”, he said to himself.

As he continued walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes. Turning to look, he saw a 7-foot bear charging towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path. Looking over his shoulder he saw that the bear was closing in on him. His heart was pumping frantically and he tried to run even faster.

He tripped and fell to the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw the bear raising his paw to take a swipe at him.

At that instant, the atheist cried out, “Oh my God!”

Time stopped.

The bear froze.

The forest was silent.

It was then that a bright light shone upon the man and a voice from heaven asked, “You deny my existence for all of these years, teach others I don’t exist and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?”

The atheist looked directly into the light. “It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps, could you make the BEAR a Christian?”

“Very well”, said the Voice. The light went out, and the sounds of the forest resumed.

And then the bear lowered his paw, bowed his head, and spoke: “Lord, bless this food which I am about to receive and for which I am truly thankful, Amen.”

 

Red Mist Update

The Novel Red Mist now has a publisher. Soon I’ll have a sense of when the book will be available. It will be available to you on every electronic platform and in softcover. The sequel (no working title yet) is underway. It will be a trilogy.

 

Meme-of-the-Day

 

Name the Mystery Aircraft

No, it shouldn’t be tough at all.

 

Sunday Sermonette

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Life, Death and Politics
On January 29, a bill came to the floor of the US Senate, which if passed, would ban late-term partial birth abortion. In this procedure, the baby is dismembered in utero and pulled piece by piece from the mother. One key lobby that opposed the bill banning the practice was the so-called Catholic lobby – members of the Senate who publicly identify as Catholics and receive political contributions on that basis.
The Catholic senators who vote to allow partial birth abortion to continue in America are (in alphabetical order for your convenience):
Maria Cantwell – Washington
Susan Collins -Maine
Dick Durbin – Illinois
Kirsten Gillibrand – New York
Heidi Heitkamp – North Dakota
Tim Kaine – Virginia
Patrick Leahy – Vermont
Ed Markey – Massachussetts
Catherine Cortez Masto – Nevada
Claire McCaskill – Missouri
Bob Menendez – New Jersey
Lisa Murkowski – Alaska
Patty Murray – Washington
Jack Reed – Rhode Island
Far more children are slain by Planned Parenthood in one day than are slain by all firearm violence in one year. While all slaying for fun and/or profit is a tragedy, the one most easily put on hold is the one supported by your tax dollars.

By way of disclaimer, I am not Catholic, but I found that lobby in the Senate voting this way seemed ironic in the extreme. I found the lack of condemnation from the Catholic Church against these US Senators to be shocking. Nothing in the press (besides the usual hatred toward President Trump), nothing in print, nothing from the Pope – no hint of excommunication of these most Catholic senators. I’ve waited two weeks to hear the response of the Catholic Church before posting this. At best a whimper – business as usual. 
The ‘Vicar of Christ on Earth/Lion of Christ’ is very vocal on the subject of ILLEGAL immigration, and on the need to embrace Muslim savages. Not so vocal on the subject of carving up a baby in utero like a Thanksgiving turkey. The man is a whited sepulcher — that’s just how I look at him. Are no lines drawn anywhere? Sure, they’re elected, sitting senators and can vote as they wish, but should they do so and remain Catholic?

Mish-Mash (British Theme)

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A Question of Staffing
A person recently e-mailed me and asked me whether or not there were any white wolves at the White Wolf Mine. You be the judge. He’s not covered in gore from his latest kill, more’s the pity. The wolf is fastidious by nature. Maybe he doesn’t want his camouflage scheme messed up?

LSP, he’s not holding a Chinese menu in his paw – not a British wolf. Even so, if you run into him, don’t fear the reaper. 

Dark Side of the Moon (the album)

I’ve been listening to Pink Floyd since the above captioned album came out. I was in Scotland (a serving American officer) when I first heard it. There was a lot of music in that era like Thin Lizzy that I listened to and I still like it. Yes, it dates me. I mentioned Metalica to a friend the other day and — uh, I guess that dates me too. 
BREXIT
The British elites are calling for another vote. And if they don’t get the results they want, they will call for still another vote. Elites are like that everywhere. They wanted another referendum on President Trump vs Crooked Hillary in the hopes that the results would change (maybe change the way that votes were counted – it’s working very well for Democrats).  They are your betters and feel that they deserve to rule. Will Britain stay in the EU so that millions more military age Muslim men can pour across the border to make the nation more Sharia compliant? I guess that it’s up to the Brits.
Picking on the Tommys
(LINK) The knife crime epidemic spreads farther across the island and the national response has been to ban knives rather than to deal harshly with the people who sink them into their fellow Brits for fun and profit.
The US has a gang problem too. The solution is to cage them for the rest of their lives. And it works, but it’s expensive. Texas executes murderers (God bless Texas) to send a message.
And to my point…the parts of the country where citizens can carry what sort of firearm they want, as they are moved to has shown a severe downturn of violence and little or no knife violence. 
Though the map doesn’t show it, the increase of knife crimes is directly proportional to the rise of Muslim gangs. It’s literally illegal to say that or publish figures in the UK. Crime will increase. Good luck Old Blighty.
(h/t John D)

The Mysterious Case of Seth Rich

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John Podesta, satanist and Hillary
Clinton campaign manager.
Was Seth Rich, former DNC staffer the source of information to Wikileaks? Somebody should ask Hillary Clinton or John Podesta. I’m sure that they know the answer. I don’t know how long Podesta would last on a water board but my hunch is ‘not that long’. He never served in the military and never went to SERE and hasn’t been trained to resist ‘enhanced interrogation’. 
If it was Rich who tipped off Wikileaks and sent them John Podesta’s incriminating e-mail that illuminated some of the corruption within the Clinton Campaign, it would let the Russians off the hook — at least to some degree. The Russian government is denying that they leaked John Podesta’s e-mail to Wikileaks. 
If Hillary Clinton was behind Seth Rich’s murder, it wouldn’t exactly be the first time there were whispers that she had one of her disloyal staffers eliminated. In fact, to many cynics, it would hardly be news at all. The typical response might be, “another one?”
Read more here.
(Fox News) One reason for the speculation that Rich may have leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks is that Assange offered a $20,000 reward leading to the arrest of the killers. That sum, added to Republican lobbyist Jack Burkman’s $100,000 reward and the D.C. police’s $25,000, tally more than any other reward offered in such a case in the nation’s capital. 
During an Aug. 9 interview on Dutch television and in subsequent media interviews, Assange implied that Rich was killed because he was the WikiLeaks source of emails from top DNC officials showing they conspired to stop Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont from becoming the party’s presidential nominee. That controversy resulted in Debbie Wasserman Schultz having to resign as DNC chairperson. 
“We’re interested in anything that might be a threat to alleged WikiLeaks sources, Assange later told Fox News Channel. 
On the morning of his death, Rich had left his favorite watering hole, Lou’s City Bar, about 1 a.m. to walk home, something that normally took 20 or 30 minutes. He tried twice to call his father, who had gone to sleep. He then called a fraternity brother and after that had two separate conversations with his girlfriend, Kelsey Mulka. Around 4:17 a.m., when Rich was about a block and a half from his home, his girlfriend heard other voices over the phone but was reassured by Rich that he was nearly home. Two minutes later, Rich was shot multiple times. Rich died at a nearby hospital. 
Security footage from a nearby market showed two men following Rich through a crosswalk by his home moments before he was shot, FoxNews.com has learned. The camera only captured the assailants’ legs and Rich after he was shot and fell onto the street. 
Police said Rich, who was shot twice in the back, was likely the victim of a robbery, though nothing of value, including his wallet, phone, keys, watch and gold necklace, were stolen. 
“The Metropolitan Police Department is committed to bringing the person or persons responsible for Seth Rich’s death to justice, D.C. police told FoxNews.com in a statement. “As we mark the six-month anniversary of his death, we urge anyone with information to come forward and help bring his family the answers they deserve.”

Mondegreen

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A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near homophony in a way that gives it a new meaning. It most commonly is applied to a line in a poem or a lyric in a song.

Personal favorite: AbbA – See that girl, watch her scream – kicking/licking/tickling/sticking the dancing queen…




First Runner Up: Toto- I left my brains down in Africa


Obama – Chavez

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President Barack Hussein Obama promised to reach out to our enemies and to embrace them as friends. It was one campaign promise he made good. The president has a talent for embracing third world potentates and petty dictators. Chavez may be the very worst of the coterie of fans who have pandered to the narcissistic American.

Chavez bullied a referendum through on February 15, 2009 which means he can be “president for life”. It’s a goal that his good friend Barack Hussein Obama aspires to but it may not work out the same for Obama. Chaves said that he “needs another ten years in office for Venezuela’s socialist revolution to take root properly.” (Time) At present, Venezuela’s ambitions are not imperialistic, however since Russia is now their principal military supplier and they are arming for war, it may only be a matter of time before they start finding reasons to expand their borders at their neighbors expense – and for the sake of spreading their brand of national socialism throughout South America.

Where will the US be in all this? Are we now an ally of Venezuela in Chavez’s vision of an expanded and “enlarged” nation? The US contained Castro – Obama seems content to get into bed with Chavez.

The British seem to love him as much as Obama does. (video above)
Personally I think the US should assist in regime change in Venezuela with extreme prejudice but we need to wait for another president to make that dream a reality.

Random Friday

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Julia Ioffe, classless prog harpie

SCUMBAG NEWSIE


The News media’s war against President Trump, which most Americans ignore,  reached a new low:

Julia Ioffe, a now-ex Politico writer is set to join The Atlantic – after Ioffe tweeted regarding Ivanka Trump: “Either Trump is f—ing his daughter or he’s shirking nepotism laws. Which is worse?”

Politico swiftly cut ties with Ioffe, who subsequently deleted the tweet and apologized for the “crass joke.”

It’s interesting that it’s the same corrupt elite media who accuses President Trump of being “classless”.

One of the sacred cows of the news business is the daily White House press briefing. Being tapped to be the White House Correspondent from any of the corrupt media outlets is seen as an honor. However it may well be that when networks put out patently fake news, that they find their press credentials pulled. Seating order in the White House briefing room is another sacred cow…and it’s going to change. (haha)

BY WAY OF FOLLOW-UP

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
The other two developments are related to the CPEC. The first significant public action by General Bajwa, after his appointment and promotion, was his visit to Quetta, Baluchistan.
Quetta, Pakistan is the capital of Baluchistan Province, where a simmering Baluchi separatist movement has had a practice of targeting infrastructure projects. It has been the base of the Taliban’s leadership council since 2001. It also is a key node in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and one of the more insecure nodes because of the blend of insurgents, terrorists and drug and smuggling enterprises that operate in, from or through Quetta. A vulnerable leg of the CPEC passes through Baluchistan and terminates at the port of Gwadar.

“We are fully cognizant of the challenges to security of CPEC and Gwadar port.” Dawn reported that challenges to Pakistan’s maritime security have traditionally come from India. But Chinese involvement in Gwadar port and the launch of CPEC has complicated the security environment. India sees Gwadar as a foothold for China in the Arabian Sea and as a counter-strategy to threats at Malacca. Therefore, India is alleged to have stepped up its activities in the broader region surrounding Gwadar to undermine the project.”

The common thread in the developments relating to the CPEC and the Port of Gwadar is the closer identification of Pakistani security interests with Chinese security interests. In cooperating with China in the construction of CPEC and Gwadar port, Pakistan has compromised its sovereign control of its own national security. It must protect the huge Chinese investment in CPEC and must listen to Chinese advice as to what is best for Pakistan.  What is best for Pakistan from now on is increasingly dictated by what is best for China. That is a new strategic condition that must govern Indian policy towards Pakistan.
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

According to sources who were briefed on conversations that FBI Director James Comey had with President-elect Donald Trump, Comey told Trump that there was no credible evidence to suggest that the Russian government played any part in the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, or the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Townhall reported late Wednesday that during the same phone conversation, Comey told Trump that National Intelligence Director James Clapper agreed with the FBI’s stance that there was no evidence to suggest Russian influence in the election.
Comey allegedly told Trump that there was only one U.S. intelligence official who was convinced the Russians were behind the hacked emails, and that was CIA Director John Brennan. Comey also added, “And Brennan takes his marching orders from President Obama.”
If Obama stopped suddenly, Brennan would be neck deep in Barack’s ass. Naturally the corrupt elite media doesn’t report that. They have a different agenda, suggesting over and over that President Trump is in Russia’s pocket.


WWM UPDATE

The architect delivered preliminary plans for the White Wolf Mine residence/shack. I wanted to ask him whether he actually looked at my drawings which were more than gentle suggestions on my part. But I’m working with him on refining the plan.  Part of the problem with the mindset in the remote area there is that people build weekend get-away cabins. There is a difference between where you are going to spend the weekend and where you are going to live.  I told him that I prefer an open concept with space. He understands that but almost doubled the “space” from my drawings/scratchings. Double the space is double the price. As the design moves forward, the price tag naturally increases and managing that makes me sound cheap, but building a hovel (to code) isn’t cheap. I would prefer to pay cash for the place and not have any sort of mortgage/building loan. Since President Trump took office, my business expanded exponentially (Thanks Donald) but there will come a time when I want to become a gentleman of leisure, not a slave to a bank.

Ahmadinejad’s last trip to New York?

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Welcome back to New York!

The White House hands Iran’s Ahmadinejad a global megaphone

Just a few days after the anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will travel to New York City. Once he arrives he will be handed a platform to incite violence and hostility from the center of the UN universe, just a few miles from Ground Zero.
This is a man who openly advocates genocide, brazenly endeavors to commit terrorist attacks on American soil, kills and kidnaps Americans abroad, brutalizes his own people, sponsors terrorism around the world, and is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear bomb. Fox News

Why is the US prepared to allow this visit to take place?** Congress had stipulated that nothing in the agreement diminished or weakened “the right of the United States to safeguard its own security.”

**President Obama would argue that the 1947 Headquarters Agreement between the UN and the U.S. leaves no room for him to maneuver on this point. The deal that was struck states that the U.S. government “shall not impose any impediments to transit to or from the headquarters district” (a defined area in New York City’s east side) to a representative of a UN member state. However, USGOV denied Yassir Arafat the right to visit New York, citing security concerns. Given that it’s likely that the US will be at war with Iran within six months at most, this would certainly apply.

And still, the centrifuges spin and President Obama contended in April 2012: “we haven’t given away anything — other than the opportunity for us to negotiate and see if Iran comes to the table in good faith.” Four barren months later, the administration is still using “good faith” in the same sentence as Ahmadinejad.
Since Ahmadinejad has openly stated his plan to attack both Israeli and US interests with nuclear weapons, and continues to move forward to implement that plan, perhaps this will be his LAST visit to New York…



Tajikistan Exports

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Riding Bicycles
Riding a bicycle along the Silk Road along the Pamir Highway at the roof of the world from Dushanbe (Tajikistan) to Osh (Kyrgyzstan) has become a thing to do if you like to cycle. And while Tajikistan (95% Muslim and one of the poorest nations on Earth) is generally full of nice people, the exports are returning.
      Which means that: 
I have no idea how anyone could be so (f-ing) stupid as to voluntarily bicycle across Tajikistan, but they did and earned a set of Darwin Awards. On 29 July, a motorist drove into a group of foreign cyclists riding in Danghara. The encounter was deliberate and killed two US cyclists, one Swiss and one Dutch cyclist. Three others also were injured by the car, which then drove off.
Tajikistan Responds
Two people suspected of involvement in the incident were later killed by authorities in a special operation. According to the interior ministry, another four people were arrested in the same operation and a damaged car believed to have been involved was recovered. Another three suspects were “rendered harmless” after being traced to a village, officials said. You have to hand it to the Soviet-trained Tajiks, they do manage to torture information out of everyone suspected of involvement. Once that information is in their hands, they kill everyone suspected of involvement and their family pets as well and I admire that. The trial is handled on the streets of Daghera. No need to feed prisoners awaiting trial or to involve lawyers when a confession obtained by pulling finger nails out rendered the truth.
ISIS Takes a Bow
The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack on “citizens of the crusader coalition.”
The Islamic State’s Amaq Agency posted a report on the killing on 30 July. 

“After placing their trust in God Almighty, a detachment of caliphate soldiers set out toward a gathering of Crusader coalition state citizens in the area of Danghara in Khatlon in Tajikistan, running them over and attacking them with knives. This left four dead and four wounded, praise and thanks be to God! We gladly announce to the Crusader coalition state citizenry what shall befall them, for what shall come will be more destructive and bitter, God willing!”

The mention of knives strengthens the credibility of the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility. Most reports omitted that information that the deceased also had been knifed.
The nation’s primary income earners are cotton and mineral ores. One of its less attractive exports has been Tajik recruits for the Islamic State in Iraq and in Syria. One concern is that Tajik fighters might now be returning from the Middle East to establish a presence in Tajikistan.

Reporting In

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ID The Tank

More on this tank on the next VM blog. For now, can you ID it?

 

A Few Notes

China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec, is a Chinese oil and gas enterprise based in Beijing. It is listed in Hong Kong and also trades in Shanghai. Sinopec Limited’s parent, Sinopec Group, is the world’s largest oil refining, gas, and petrochemical conglomerate, headquartered in Chaoyang District, Beijing.

I have business with Sinopec as far as the energy side of my consulting business goes. Dealing with the Chinese energy sector is challenging.  If it was easy, everyone would do it. It’s not that the Chinese bureaucrats at Sinopec are trying to be difficult. That’s not the case. The system that they operate in is so highly moribund that you need to run an op to get anything done.

China has an oil supply problem. I don’t care what you read in the publications or watch on the news.  The news, whether American. or Chinese is so ladened with propaganda that it’s very difficult to get at the truth unless you’re very close to the situation. A lot of problems that Sinopec faces have to do with thousands of layers of guanxi. The cultural burden that overlays even simple transactions creates an environment where nothing gets done. Even sending people to cut the proverbial Gordian knot is often not enough. And this situation applies to every single transaction. Sinopec Corp recorded a 6.9% decline in net income for 2022.  It’s not surprising.

Then there are the teapot refineries and their political patrons…

I should be happy that things are f-ed up. If they weren’t, nobody would need me and pay the absurdly high rates that I charge.

 

 

China – Spicy or Mild?

 

 

Bullet Points:

** What about a glass of wine – or even a screwtop bottle or a box of the finest Costco vintage?

** Americans who make for than $200,000 per year have filed for unemployment benefits at a record pace in recent weeks. That could ultimately give employers more leverage over employees and lead to slower wage growth.

“An estimate of 113,793 unemployment claims were filed by Americans earning over $200,000. This is the highest level since the pandemic and the trend shows this is accelerating higher, with this week likely to be the crossover point where the unemployment claims of over $200,000 earners exceed unemployment claims of under $25,000 earners,” Fundstrat’s Tom Lee explained.

** As mentioned on Old NFOs blog – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s name will soon appear on a federal building in her hometown thanks to an item slipped into a massive must-pass spending bill that Congress is rushing to approve this week.

Tucked away on page 610 of the 1,455-page tome is a provision to rename the federal building located at 90 7th St in San Francisco, California, as “Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building” to honor the California Democrat who is stepping down from her longtime leadership post.

** The CBO report found that the debt limit plan would drastically cut the growth of spending between 2023 and 2033. The nonpartisan analysis agency found:

The bill’s cap on discretionary funding would result in savings of $3.194.5 trillion over ten years

Scrapping energy tax credits would save $569.5 billion

Reducing funding for the IRS would save $119.7 billion

Implementing work requirements [for] Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) would save $120 billion

Rescinding funding for unspent coronavirus aid would save $29.5 billion

Requiring the Department of the Interior (DOI) to conduct oil and gas leases would save $3.4 billion

 

Swalwell

*

Your Thought of the Day

Voter Fraud?

16
The smug, corrupt, progressive, elite mainstream media howled with laughter when President Trump complained of massive voter fraud and ordered an investigation. The Democrats made the rounds on the cable news shows mocking President Trump and suggesting that he was insane – and they made the point that no investigation was necessary.
What a contrast from their support for Communist/Green Party Candidate Jill Stein who demanded recounts after the election of Donald Trump. Stein who didn’t carry 1 county in the USA had very little standing, but the Democrats and the corrupt, elite, mainstream media stood solidly behind her. You don’t see the same support for a nationwide investigation into voter fraud…and it gives me pause.
This article is making the rounds today and you can give it whatever weight that you’d like to assign it:

(Washington Times) Hillary Clinton garnered more than 800,000 votes from noncitizens on Nov. 8, an approximation far short of President Trump’s estimate of up to 5 million illegal voters but supportive of his charges of fraud. 

Political scientist Jesse Richman of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, has worked with colleagues to produce groundbreaking research on noncitizen voting, and this week he posted a blog in response to Mr. Trump’s assertion. 

Based on national polling by a consortium of universities, a report by Richman said 6.4 percent of the estimated 20 million adult noncitizens in the U.S. voted in November. He extrapolated that that percentage would have added 834,381 net votes for Clinton, who received about 2.8 million more votes than Mr. Trump.

The truth is that nobody knows how much voting fraud took place. There are counties in the USA where 100% of the vote is always cast for the Democrat (Pennsylvania comes to mind). That’s statistically unlikely. 
Historically American Mexican groups such as Hermindad, operating in Orange County, California, openly registered every single illegal alien that they could reach to vote in local or national elections. Investigations by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office into these corrupt practices twenty years ago led to conclusive proof of widespread voter fraud. Is it happening today? Does a bear crap in the woods?
The dead who vote ‘early and often’ in Chicago are a cliche but still, they vote. 
There are ways to fix the voter fraud problem and I suspect that President Trump’s investigation will show enough fraud to require a fix. The Democrats, who historically benefit from voter fraud, are not interested in a fix or the requirement that people show citizenship documents in order to vote.
In Mexico you need a government issued voting card/ID card in order to cast a vote, and they punch your ID when you vote. Every few years you need a new card. If you don’t vote at all in something like seven voting cycles, you lose your national identity card (required for a passport). Obviously the Mexicans take voting integrity a lot more seriously than the Americans do.

A Pause for the Cause

14

 

 

 

Bullet Points:

** The Golden Arch Empire

** Pedo Joe and Biden Crime Family ValuesMail – UK

I find myself (because I’ve chosen to alienate all my friends and family and employees and you and the kids and my kids etc..) very alone in dealing with rebuilding an income that can support an enormous alimony and my kid’s costs and myself,’ he wrote, ‘dealing with the aftermath of the abduction and likely assassination (that’s what NYT’s suspects) of my business partner the richest man in the world, the arrest and conviction of my client the chief of intelligence of the people’s republic of China by the US government, the retaliation of the Chinese in the ouster and arrest of US suspected CIA operatives inside China, my suspected involvement in brokering a deal with Vladimir Putin directly for the largest sale of oil gas assets inside Russia to China, a tax bill that Eric [Schwerin, his Rosemont business partner] left hanging over my business and… Dads running for president.’

** According to Heinlein: