Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Poisoning The Well

Handling Rattlesnakes,

So anyway, Pompeo is asked by some ridiculous twat what he’s going to do in the event of a Corbyn-led Kristallnacht, and WaPo reports on his response as follows:
​ ​Pompeo said, “It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best,” he said to fervent applause from attendees.
​ ​“It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened,” he said.​..​

​ ​“President Trump and his officials’ attempts to decide who will be Britain’s next prime minister are an entirely unacceptable interference in the UK’s democracy,” The Guardian quotes a Labour spokesperson as saying in response to the revelation.
​ ​“STOP: The Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just promised ‘Jewish leaders’ in the United States that he would stop Jeremy Corbyn coming to power here,” tweeted former British MP George Galloway. “Is this normal now? Is this what we’ve been led to? Is this good for Jews? For Britain? Really?”
​ “They did it in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Now the US government wants to overthrow democracy in Britain,” tweeted The Guardian’s George Monbiot. “Still waiting for a UK government spokesperson to express their outrage. Hello???”
​ ​ “Hmm. Hard to spin this any other way: the US secretary of state secretly promises US Jewish leaders to prevent Corbyn from becoming UK prime minister,” tweeted British journalist Jonathan Cook“Hard too not to suspect that the US is *already* helping to ensure Corbyn doesn’t become PM. Because the obvious implication of Pompeo’s comment is that the US knows it can damage Corbyn without leaving fingerprints at the crime scene — presumably through black ops, image management etc. The elephant in the room: Why assume the US isn’t already using those techniques?”  

​ ​Trump appears unwilling to go down in history as the president responsible for kicking off nuclear Armageddon. But what about the next president? The deep state in control of US politics would surely be able to place into office someone who would advance the final justification for a headlong confrontation with Moscow and Beijing.
​ ​If you think I am exaggerating, take Pompeo, a representative of the deep state, and his recent answer to the question of whether Trump was sent by God to save Israel from Iran. “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible”, he responded.


​If only we could elect Joe Biden president, he would "Cure Cancer"!

​ ​Tulsi’s own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged “focus on the issue of war and peace” to “end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.” She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.
​ ​In a recent interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, Gabbard doubled down on her anti-war credentials, telling the host that war with Iran would be “devastating,” adding that “I know where this path leads us and I’m concerned because the American people don’t seem to be prepared for how devastating and costly such a war would be...
​ ​Gabbard, and also Carlson, did not hesitate to name names among those pushing for war, one of which begins with B-O-L-T-O-N. She then asked “How does a war with Iran serve the best interest of the American people of the United States? And the fact is it does not,” Gabbard said. “It better serves the interest of people like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia who are trying to push us into this war with Iran.” ​...​ 

​ ​Tulsi Gabbard had previously called for an end to the “illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government,” also observing that “the war to overthrow Assad is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis, and pose a greater threat to the world.”  ​...
​ Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting “unarmed protesters” in Gaza, a very bold step indeed given the power of the Israel Lobby.​..
​ ​Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years, and that is why the war party is out to get her.

​ ​Two day after a massive, 1+ million protest took place in Hong Kong, with demonstrators demanding the end to a proposal allowing extraditions to China, a follow up protest took place with thousands of people blocking local streets, and Hong Kong police defended the use of tear gas and rubber bullets to control a “riot situation” after protesters tried to storm the chamber where lawmakers were expected to take up - and pass - the controversial bill...
 ​ ​As we noted last night, a repeat protest erupted early on Wednesday, and it only got worse as the day progressed as  demonstrators - many of them clad in goggles, face masks and helmets -fled to different areas, running through plumes of smoke - threw bricks, bottles and umbrellas at riot police guarding the city’s Legislative Council; they dragged metal barriers and linked arms across roads surrounding government headquarters, in scenes reminiscent of the 79-day street protests that paralyzed parts of downtown Hong Kong in 2014...
 So much tear gas was used that commuters waiting at nearby subway stations and people in shopping malls were coughing and tearing up, and many sought medical attention.
​ ​Many of the city’s lawmakers, from both the pro-democracy camp that opposes the contentious extradition legislation at the heart of the protests and the pro-Beijing majority that supports it, failed to arrive at the council for a scheduled debate on Wednesday morning, after protesters surrounded the complex and blocked traffic.
​ ​Some financial services were also disrupted. HSBC Holdings PLC closed two banking-service outlets in the Admiralty area until further notice, while other banks including Standard Chartered PLC, Bank of East Asia Ltd. and China Citic Bank Corp. temporarily suspended operations at branches near the protest area.
​ ​Even though the opposition bloc in the city’s legislature has been weakened after authorities ousted several democratically elected lawmakers through court orders and barred others from running, opposition to the proposed law came from many corners of society, including businesspeople, lawyers and activists, who say the changes would undermine Hong Kong’s relative autonomy and independent judicial system...
​ ​“The government needs to acknowledge that my voice matters,” said Candy Wong, a 27-year-old shop assistant who said she was angered after authorities pressed ahead with the bill even after more than a million people—including herself—took to the streets in protest. Ms. Wong took a day off to join the rally. “If I didn’t come today by next week I may no longer have the freedom to do so.”

 
​Dan sends this well researched and written "long read" on how the opioid epidemic came to nest in Appalachia.​
​ ​In chemical terms, carfentanyl is as mortal a threat as nerve gas – more poisonous by median lethal dose (one nanogram) than the venom of the Mojave rattlesnake. It was once unregulated, but after containing its production, the Chinese government made a pointed statement:
​ ​America consumes 80 per cent of the world’s opioids. 2. China, a country in which these substances could be purchased online at wholesale prices, does not have an opioid problem. 3. If America has an opioid problem, it is not because of pharmaceutical imports but American-manufactured prescription drugs.
​ ​All true. At the heart of this domestic consumption is the region of Appalachia, set in mountainous seclusion between Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Appalachia, when it is thought of at all, occupies a kind of ‘herrre be dragyns’ place on the American mind map of most Americans, occupied by doodled stereotypes: coal, hillbillies, Deliverance playing on repeat. Opioid addicts were just added to the stereotypes, a single letter changed to neologize them as ‘pillbillies’...
​ ​Pastor M. told me about an early Pentecostal missionary, a barely tolerated presence in some mining camp full of hard men. They ignored him, and let him know he was ignored, until one day the whole camp arrived en masse to his tent, bending the brims of their hats in their hands, asking to join his ‘congregation’.
​ ​‘May I ask,’ said the missionary, ‘what made you change your minds?’
​ ​‘Well,’ said their leader, ‘we have been poisoning the water in your well, and as you are unaffected, we figure you must have something to teach us.’

​Being Persistent​

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