Closing Thought–07May18

I spend a lot of time on the ‘net researching all sorts of stories and subjects that I write about here on IST…..and in all that time I have analyzed why the US is in bed with the thugs in Saudi Arabia……we hear almost yearly that the kingdom is becoming more inclusive and modern in its thinking….and each time I call bullsh*t where it needs to be called.

One of the punishments that the Kingdom dolls out is beheading……can be given out for a wide array of crimes…..but the first couple of months this year has a goal……

Human Rights Watch is calling on Saudi Arabia to fix its “notoriously unfair criminal justice system” after revealing that over the past four months, 48 people have been executed in the country. Half of those people were put to death over non-violent drug charges, the group says. Rights experts are also concerned that, as HRW says in a statement, Saudi Arabia’s justice system “doesn’t provide for fair trials.” Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia is carried out via beheading, the Guardian reports. The country has executed almost 600 people since 2014, and more than a third of those were drug cases. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently suggested the country may change the penalty for certain crimes other than murder to life in prison rather than execution.

A great country to align ourselves with (that is sarcasm in case you were not sure)…….this country is the birthplace of the extreme Islam that most right wingers are so worried about…..this country should be shunned until it actually comes into the 21st century.  But that will not happen as long as they have cash to throw at our politicians…..

One Thugocracy to another.

OMG! It Is Official!

Holy crap!  I got a good chuckle when I heard that a bunch of spineless Congressmen signed a petition to nominate Trump for the Nobel…..but it is not so humorous for it is official he will be nominated……

Republican lawmakers have nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Eighteen House members penned a letter Wednesday to the Nobel Prize Committee praising the president’s efforts to broker peace in the Korean Peninsula, reports the Hill. “President Trump has worked tirelessly to apply maximum pressure on North Korea to end its illicit weapons program and bring peace to the region,” the letter says. The lawmakers credit the president for the recent historic meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in which the leaders agreed to rid the Peninsula of nuclear weapons and bring a formal end to the countries’ 68-year-old war. Although the countries entered into an armistice in 1953, they never signed an official peace treaty.

If the two countries can resolve their differences, Trump deserves the prize, Sen. Bob Corker told CNBC Wednesday, but the senator issued a caution. The Foreign Relations Committee chair said that North Korea has made several overtures in the last two decades, only to reverse course. In a separate interview with CNBC, retired Gen. Michael Hayden credited progress with North Korea to four things: “The president squeezing the [North] Koreans, the economic sanctions, the diplomatic isolation, the military demonstrations.” He added, though, that Trump’s earlier tweets about Kim, in which he famously called him “Rocket Man,” were not helpful. Trump plans to meet with the North Korean leader in the next month or so. If the meeting takes place, it would be the first time a sitting US president has met with a North Korean leader.

Obama got the prize for nothing and Trump has been nominated for nothing… if he, Trump, does broker an agreement then I say he gets the prize….but right now NO he deserves none.

He was a bully and then turned into a warm and fuzzy participant……so far right now it is a bit absurd…..

The nomination for the 2019 prize came in a letter from 18 of Trump’s Republican supporters in the House of Representatives to the Nobel Committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen, which starkly resembled the narrative of fakery the President delights in. Trump, went the signers, should receive the prize “in recognition of his work to end the Korean War, denuclearize the Korean peninsula, and bring peace to the region.”

The Republicans seem to have things the wrong way around.  Rather than incite instability, Trump supposedly calmed the waters.  Rather than creating teeth-chattering fear amongst allies, he brought accord where there was disagreement.  “Since taking office, President Trump has worked tirelessly to apply maximum pressure on North Korea to end its illicit weapons programs and bring peace to the region.” He was the great unifier, bringing on powers such as China “to impose one of the most successful international sanctions regimes in history.” (Never let history get in the way of a good tale.)

Stay Tuned…….

Happy Birthday (Belated)

I was writing and remembered that I should have posted something on 05May18……it was the birthday of Karl Marx.

Marx is an interesting individual….his thoughts with Engels had influenced so many activist and political tacticians that to ignore his contributions is just silly.  I know that there are many that do not like Marx because of his influence of Communist and to some Democrats…..but the truth is that NO self-respecting socialist/communist would every describe hi/her self as a Democrat…..and yet the mental midgets keep making the comparisons.  The funny thing I that Marx was right on many aspects of society and politics and yet the typical Rightie continues to ignore Marx’s contributions and blaming all liberal policies and ideas as somehow socialistic in nature+.

Like I said Saturday was the birthday of Karl Marx……

On May 5, 1818, in the southern German town of Trier, in the picturesque wine-growing region of the Moselle Valley, Karl Marx was born. At the time Trier was one-tenth the size it is today, with a population of around 12,000. According to one of Marx’s recent biographers, Jürgen Neffe, Trier is one of those towns where “although everyone doesn’t know everyone, many know a lot about many.”

Such provincial constraints were no match for Marx’s boundless intellectual enthusiasm. Rare were the radical thinkers of the major European capitals of his day that he either failed to meet or would fail to break with on theoretical grounds, including his German contemporaries Wilhelm Weitling and Bruno Bauer; the French “bourgeois socialist” Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, as Marx and Friedrich Engels would label him in their “Communist Manifesto”; and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin

In an op-ed in the The Week magazine there is a call to “normalize” Marx and his teachings…..I cannot wait for the freak out……



I await the debate.

Nicaragua–That Magical land

Back in the days of Ronny Reagan there was this magical land known as Nicaragua……and he presided over his domain……and the CIA worked its magic over the land…..

From time to time, the mainstream media (MSM) likes to reflect on the historical legacies of U.S. interventions in the name of American-style democracy. On May 7th, 2016, The New York Times published a story by Frances Robles on a former Contra fighter who wished for U.S. aid to fight a covert war against Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan government titled ‘Ortega vs. the Contras: Nicaragua Endures an ’80s Revival’ which paints a different picture in regards to what actually happened during the civil war in Nicaragua. The article is about a rebel fighter by the name of Tyson who lives in the mountains of Nicaragua who was “longing for the days when covert American funding paid for overt warfare.”

Why would I dredge up this nugget from our sordid past?

It seems that Nicaragua is on the brink of revolt once again…..



The US may once again become embroiled in the internal struggles of Nicaragua……something we seem to not be capable of avoiding.