Clueless Facebook responded by insisting that it’s too successful to break up.

This might sound like big banks insisting that they’re too big to fail. Except that it’s even more absurd and self-serving. In fact, it’s more like clueless President Trump insisting that he’s too successful to impeach.

Related comment:
Amazon, Facebook, spying…
Facebook exploiting you…
Facebook friends/guinea pigs…

The post UPDATE: Facebook, Too Good (a Friend) to Break Up…? appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

The latter includes the following:

In this Information Age, tech companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, and WikiLeaks are masters of the universe. But they have created a schizophrenic human species – whose members share everything about everything, yet claim to be zealous about their privacy. Only this explains the growing outrage over the government’s National Security Agency (NSA) monitoring their promiscuous and indiscriminate digital footprints.

But there’s no explaining why these nincompoops think it’s okay for tech companies to spy on them to sell them stuff, but not okay for the NSA to do so to keep them safe.

Except that the schizophrenia users evince reflects the insidious influence and control these tech companies now wield. And it speaks volumes that so many are so willing to sacrifice so much just for the human conveniences tech companies peddle as human advances.

In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin famously admonished the American people on liberty and safety as follows:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

To admonish them on privacy and technology, I can do no better than to paraphrase Franklin as follows:

They will rue the day who give up fundamental privacy for anthropomorphic technology.

In the meantime, no tech company is profiting more from spying on the American people than Amazon.

Depending on how much you shop, watch and read with Amazon, the e-commerce behemoth may know more about you than any other company on earth.

The big picture: Naturally, they know what you’ve browsed or bought on their main service. They also know what you’ve asked Alexa, watched on Prime, and read on your Kindle. They know even more thanks to their ownership of Whole Foods, Ring, Eero, Twitch, Goodreads, IMDB and Audible.

(Axios, May 2, 2019)

Now come reports that they know not only what you’ve asked Alexa, but also whatever you’ve said within earshot of her. It turns out that she is as much of a listening device, which records and sends your private conversations to a Big-Brother data center, as she is a virtual assistant, which answers your idle-minded questions and executes your couch-potato commands.

A MailOnline investigation into these ‘secret’ archives has revealed an eerie snippets of users’ friends, families and children being recorded while they were completely unaware –  and without a clear or legitimate wake word being uttered.

One user found his Alexa repeatedly activated to record the same guest in their house gossiping about work colleagues, while another was recorded in a private discussion about their insurance policy – and another about their dream job.

(MailOnline, May 8, 2019)

So, if you are among those wondering how Amazon could possibly know what you’re interested in buying even before you begin shopping, wonder no more.

Incidentally, Apple stands out among these high-tech snoopers. This, because it continually hurls self-righteous criticisms at Facebook and others for peddling their customers’ private data. But beware that Apple’s Siri eavesdrops on your personal conversations every bit as much as Amazon’s Alexa.

Alas, the only way to escape their passive-aggressive spying is to stop using their devices – assuming you’re not too addicted to do so. After all, his own disillusioned engineers have confessed that “Zuckerberg Designed Facebook ‘Like’ an Opioid,” November 13, 2017.

Apropos of this, I suspect similar disillusionment finally compelled the damning indictment Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes laid out in today’s edition of The New York Times. In calling for the government to break up Facebook, Hughes decried and warned about the control Zuckerberg wields as the wizard behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp:

Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government. … I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks. … With much of the world’s personal communications in hand, it can mine that data for patterns and trends, giving it an advantage over competitors for decades to come.

With all due respect to George Orwell, more than any government, a tech company like Facebook is the Big Brother that is not just watching but controlling you. Which is why it’s only a matter of time before an equally influential voice sounds the clarion call to break up Amazon.

Related commentaries:
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The post Amazon’s Alexa Is Listening, and She’s Recording You appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

The literary allusion in my title is decidedly more flattering. But I hope it makes the same point without being so needlessly offensive.

That said, it is self-evident that Netanyahu enjoys stroking Trump’s ego almost as much as Trump enjoys having it stroked. Granted, every world leader knows that a little flattery goes a long way with this gullible narcissist – who is now acting as president of the United States.

But Netanyahu is hell-bent on getting Trump to go so far that his flattery extends to hailing him variously as a latterday Cyrus the Great and Moses. Never mind that Trump probably finds Netanyahu’s promise to name a new Israeli settlement after him most flattering.

I have lampooned this flattery in many commentaries, including most recently in “Trump – Sent by God to Save the Jews?” March 26, 2019. But I hasten to concede that there’s serious intent behind Netanyahu’s idle (or idol) flattery.

In fact, his intent is so sinister, one has to look to fiction for a precedent, namely the way Shakespeare’s Iago flattered Othello. Here is how I warned of Netanyahu’s intent in “Celebrities ‘Boycotting’ Israel the Way They Boycotted South Africa,” April 25, 2018:

Netanyahu knows that flattery goes a long way in getting Trump to do his bidding. He clearly hopes that will include getting Trump to do everything from turning a blind eye to the atrocities Israel perpetrates against the Palestinians to launching preemptive strikes against Iran – under the ironic pretext of saving the Jews from the country Cyrus begat.

That is why this comes as no surprise:

The United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East in response to a ‘number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings’ from Iran, US national security adviser John Bolton said Sunday.

(CNN, May 6, 2019)

Nor does this:

Israel passed information on an alleged Iranian plot to attack U.S. interests in the Gulf to the U.S. before national security adviser John Bolton threatened Iran with ‘unrelenting force’ last night, senior Israeli officials [said]. …

‘It is still unclear to us what the Iranians are trying to do and how they are planning to do it, but it is clear to us that the Iranian temperature is on the rise as a result of the growing U.S. pressure campaign against them, and they are considering retaliating against U.S. interests in the Gulf.’

(Axios May 6, 2019)

Frankly, “it is still unclear to us what the Iranians are trying to do and how” does not square with claims of “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran. Just as “[it was unclear to us that Iraq ever] possessed WMDs and had connections to al-Qaeda terrorists” did not square with claims that it “posed an imminent threat to the United States” – as MSNBC reported in “How the Bush administration sold the Iraq war,” March 22, 2013.

Meanwhile, it was not enough for Netanyahu to get Trump to betray world leaders (from China due west to Canada) by

• withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear deal;
• imposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran; and
• threatening to sanction countries, including European allies, that do business with Iran.

Now he’s trying to get Trump to provoke a cause to attack Iran. Never mind that just getting Trump to withdraw from the nuclear deal was combustible enough – as I asserted in “Iran Nuclear Deal: Trump Withdrawal Explosive,” May 9, 2018.

No doubt you’ve heard Netanyahu’s Chicken-Little cries about the existential threat Iran poses to Israel. Except that Iran has been threatening “death to America!” much longer than it has been threatening to “wipe Israel off the map!”

Moreover, as it was with Iraq, Iran would sooner attack a fellow Muslim country like Saudi Arabia before it even thinks about attacking either the United States or Israel. And every (warmongering) right-wing neocon in the United States and right-wing Zionist in Israel knows this.

Besides, if the US invasion of Iraq taught the leader of Iran anything, it is how to avoid giving any US president any cause to attack. Not to mention that Iran is far more capable of coping with a US-led embargo than Cuba was when the United States imposed that infamous embargo in 1958. And we all know how that turned out. Therefore, if the United States is waiting for sanctions to trigger regime change, it might as well be waiting for Hell to freeze over.

All of the above explains why this deployment will amount to more saber-rattling and kabuki dancing than shock and awe … then mission accomplished.

Granted, it also smacks of  wagging the dog. And it might seem consistent with Trump’s unrelenting efforts to detract from the truth and consequences of his high crimes and misdemeanors, which are outlined in the Mueller Report. But his criticisms of the invasion of Iraq loom so large that it would be too foolhardy even for him to launch another never-ending, unwinnable war in Iran.

Even so, the neocons who goaded Bush into invading Iraq are trying their damnedest to goad Trump into invading Iran. Nothing demonstrates this quite like Vice President Pence sounding alarm today about Iran building a terrorist “beachhead” in Venezuela to launch attacks against the United States. Of course, this mirrors the way Vice President Cheney sounded alarm back then about Iraq allowing terrorists to set up training camps to launch similar attacks.

I readily concede, however, that Pence was probably also trying to appease both his fellow neocons and his boss because of this:

A chummy discussion between Vice President Pence and former vice president Richard B. Cheney quickly turned into a vigorous back-and-forth over President Trump’s foreign policy at a private gathering Saturday, with Cheney comparing the president’s instincts to those of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. …

‘I worry that the bottom line of that kind of an approach is we have an administration that looks a lot more like Barack Obama than Ronald Reagan.’ he said.

(The Washington Post, March 11, 2019)

As it happens, I opened my May 5 commentary on Venezuela by noting that nothing gets under Trump’s thin skin quite like observations that he’s behaving just like Obama.

In any event, the following from “Netanyahu, Obama’s Iago; Iran, His Desdemona,” October 2, 2013, puts this latest development into perspective:

____________________

The chutzpah of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never ceases to amaze me. …

Netanyahu is continuing his mercurial goading to get Obama to do his dirty (military) work. This was evident during their White House meeting on Monday. He warned Obama that he should not be misled by the peace offerings of Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, who Netanyahu caricatured, with self-righteous indignation, as nothing more than a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing.’ …

It cannot be lost on Obama that, if he had his way, Netanyahu would have already misled him down a primrose path to war against Iran similar to the one neo-cons misled his predecessor, George W. Bush, down to war against Iraq 10 years ago. …

Netanyahu has given Obama just cause to be far more wary of him than he quite properly is of Rouhani.

____________________

Still, think whatever you will of Netanyahu, not only did he hang on as prime minister long enough to outlast Obama, but he now has in Trump an Othello ripe for misleading.

Related commentaries:
celebrities boycotting…
Trump sent by God…
Iran nuclear deal…
Mueller report…
Netanyahu, Obama’s Iago…

The post Preview of Gulf War 3 Starring Netanyahu as Iago, Trump as Othello, and Iran as Desdemona… appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

No doubt you recall Obama declaring that Assad must go:

The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.

(The Washington Post, August 18, 2011)

Yet he stood by as Assad not only defied him but outlasted his presidency. Unsurprisingly, citizen Trump led the chorus of those who ridiculed Obama as

• incompetent for sticking America’s nose in the middle of Syria’s civil war; and
• weak for failing to back up his declaration with force.

Is everyone seeing how incompetently our country is being run by watching the mess with Syria? Our leaders don’t know what they are doing!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2013

Except that President Trump has made an even bigger mess of America’s involvement in Syria. I duly noted how he was aping Obama in many commentaries, including “In Finally Criticizing Russia re Syria, Trump Criticizes Himself,” February 26, 2018.

Now he’s sticking America’s nose in the middle of Venezuela’s civil unrest. What’s more, he too is failing to back up his (red-line) declaration – that Maduro must go – with force.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told the Security Council on Wednesday the Trump administration is determined to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela, preferably through diplomatic and economic pressure, but ‘all options are on the table’ — and Russia and others need to step aside.

(The Associated Press, April 10, 2019)

Yet, like Obama, Trump is standing by as Maduro is not only defying him but threatening to outlast his presidency too.

Trump administration officials had expected that Wednesday might turn out to be the [third] beginning of the end for President Nicolas Maduro with senior government figures withdrawing support and the opposition launching a mass uprising with military backing. …

But the promised defections didn’t happen, the military uprising never materialized and Maduro still appeared to be firmly in command of the South American nation.

(The Associated Press, May 1, 2019)

Frankly, the only thing missing from this unfolding symmetry is a Trump-like buffoon ridiculing Trump the way he ridiculed Obama.

What is not missing, however, is the Machiavellian hand (or, in this case, the Manchurian string) of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Because, just as he championed and enabled Assad’s defiance against Obama, Putin is doing the same for Maduro’s against Trump. And nobody should be surprised that Trump seems even less inclined to risk confrontation with Putin over Maduro than Obama was to risk it over Assad.

To be fair, Putin has far more vested in keeping Maduro than Trump has in seeing him go. This, not least because Trump couldn’t show less regard for (or knowledge of) quaint geostrategic principles like spheres of influence and the Monroe Doctrine (more on these under sub-heading of the Cuban Missile Crisis below).

By contrast,

The Kremlin is doing its utmost to prevent Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s administration from collapsing. …

[A]n absolute breakdown of the Venezuelan economy, prompted by political transitions in Caracas, may even end up with losing billions of dollars invested by the Russians.

(Warsaw Institute, February 21, 2019)

In any event, despite his bluster, Trump is faring no better in Venezuela than Obama fared in Syria. As it happens, I presaged Trump’s fecklessness in “Cry for Venezuela,” March 4, 2019. I noted, among other things, that

• Trump does not have the cojones to take out Maduro – the way former President George H.W. Bush took out Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega; and
• Maduro could easily tame his bluster by stroking Trump’s ego with idle flattery – the way Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and other dictators have done so effectively.

Not to mention that Trump is betraying his military bluster by waging ham-handed psychological warfare against Maduro. It was on full display last week when his administration tried to explain or deflect from its failure to make Maduro go:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed Tuesday that embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was preparing to leave the country for Cuba, but was talked out of it by Russia.

‘He had an airplane on the tarmac, he was ready to leave this morning as we understand it and the Russians indicated he should stay.’

(CNN, May 1, 2019)

Even worse, though, is the hapless and confusing way the Trump administration is dealing with credible reports about Russia propping up Maduro:

On the one hand, as indicated above, his secretary of state is telling the world that

The Russians have people working over there in the hundreds, if not more. These are the folks who are actually controlling the direction of travel for Venezuela. It’s largely Cuban security forces that are protecting Maduro in his hiding place.

(The Washington Post, May 3, 2019)

On the other hand, Trump is telling the world that

[Putin] is not looking at all to get involved in Venezuela other than he’d like to see something positive happen for Venezuela. And I feel the same way.

(Bloomberg, May 3, 2019)

How’s that for the idiomatic right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing? And this bungling is not a forgivable exception; it’s a foreboding feature of the Trump administration.

No doubt you recall the international humiliation Trump caused when he stood shoulder to shoulder with Putin at their Helsinki summit. This, because he told the world that he believed Putin’s “strong and powerful denial” that Russia invaded US democracy during the 2016 presidential election. In doing so, he made a mockery of his own intelligence agencies’ strong and consensus finding that Russia did. I denounced him in “Helsinki Summit: Trump Hails Russian Propaganda, Rejects American Intelligence,” July 17, 2018.

You probably thought the puppetry Putin played with Trump back then was so surreal, it had to have been a fluke. But here is Trump showing yet again (re: Venezuela) that he has no compunction about defying US intelligence agencies and his own Cabinet secretaries to tow Russia’s party line.

Incidentally, one can understand this arrogant narcissist refusing to acknowledge that Russia invaded to help him get elected. And only his narcissistic hope that Russian will invade to help him again in 2020 explains his dogged refusal to order any effort to stop it – American democracy be damned.

But it defies logic – to the point of being incriminating – that he’s refusing to acknowledge that Russia is propping up Maduro. Hell, Trump is behaving like such a patsy, I suspect he’s becoming an embarrassment even to Putin – who would undoubtedly prefer a more worthy adversary as a matter of professional honor.

This is why the Manchurian allusion I coined in “Trump Framing FBI, Appeasing Russia. Treasonous?” February 1, 2018, seems so apt. #Kompromat! #Useful Idiot!

Granted, Trump is behaving like a patsy with North Korean President Kim Jong-un too.

After all, it’s humiliating enough for the United States, and surely embarrassing enough for North Korea, that Trump is crushing on Kim like a giddy, teenage girl.

Even so, Trump publicly declared that Kim conducting any nuclear tests would be a red line for their relationship. Kim conducted a nuclear test. But, like a typical doormat of a girlfriend, Trump pretended it never happened.

He then publicly declared that Kim firing missiles would be a red line. Kim fired a barrage of missiles on Saturday. Again, Trump pretended it did not happen. (Sympathetic pundits are helping him save face by redrawing his red line at the firing of long-range missiles to overlook the short-range ones Kim fired.)

Anything in this very interesting world is possible, but I believe that Kim Jong Un fully realizes the great economic potential of North Korea, & will do nothing to interfere or end it. He also knows that I am with him & does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 4, 2019

That, my friends, is the very definition of a (dangerous) fool in love.

I warned about the unrequited nature of their relationship in “Trump Loves Kim. Kim Loves Nukes. And Never the Twain Shall Greet,” October 1, 2018. But God help us if Trump’s vainglorious pursuit of a Nobel Peace Prize is the driving force behind his antic wooing of Kim. Never mind the prevailing suspicion that Trump’s strongman ideations are such that he just can’t help evincing more affinity for dictators like Putin, Jong-un, and Xi than democrats like May, Macron, and Merkel. But I digress …

Trump would have you believe that Juan Guaidó is his dog in this Venezuelan fight. Except that, besides barking hollow threats, the United States is supporting Guaidó’s fledgling uprising only with hard cash. And whatever amount it is funneling to him will be a pittance compared with the amount Russia (and China) are using to bribe military leaders to continue supporting Maduro.

In any event, it’s probably only a matter of time before Guaidó pulls a Julian Assange … too:

Spain has said it will not allow Venezuelan authorities to enter its embassy in Caracas and arrest a leading opposition figure, Leopoldo López.

Mr López sought refuge there on Tuesday after appearing with opposition leader Juan Guaidó to call for a rebellion to oust President Nicolás Maduro.

(BBC, May 3, 2019)

As I argued in “Cry for Venezuela” cited above, the only way Maduro will go is if military leaders decide that local protests are becoming too destabilizing for him to stay. And they will not take cues from political leaders in the United States.

Instead, they might take them from military leaders in Algeria, where local protests recently compelled the military to oust strongman Abdelaziz Bouteflika after 20 years; or from military leaders in Sudan, where local protests recently compelled the military to oust strongman Omar al-Bashir after 30 years.

I suggested in that same commentary that, if the United States thinks political pressure and economic sanctions will force Maduro to go, it will be waiting for as long as it waited to see Fidel Castro go. Which brings me to:

Cuban Missile Crisis: the Spin-Off

The analogies are unavoidable, especially given the notorious ways President JFK tried to make Cuban President Fidel Castro go. But nothing defined the way Castro defied and outlasted JFK (his assassination notwithstanding) quite like this missile crisis.

As it happens, I put this Cold-War precedent into context in “Trump – Sent by God to Save the Jews…?” March 26, 2019. The title aside, I had cause to comment on the dim-witting license Trump gave when he allowed Putin to fly military bombers into Venezuela without nary a tweet. This led me to

• lament that, instead of standing up to Putin the famous way JFK stood up to Khrushchev, Trump is appeasing him the infamous way Chamberlain appeased Hitler; and
• ridicule chicken-hawk Republicans – who would’ve been squawking their guts out if Obama had allowed Putin to fly bombers into Venezuela without nary a comment.

Now Republican congressman Mario Diaz-Balart is making the Trump administration look even more hapless and confused with this bit of missile symmetry:

Russia has secretly installed nuclear missiles in Venezuela a US politician has sensationally claimed in a chilling echo of the Cuban Missile Crisis. …

Diaz-Balart told Fox News if Maduro stays in power it could be ‘an open door for the Russians and for the Chinese and for others to increase their activity against our national security interest.’

(The Sun, May 1, 2019)

Granted, Diaz-Balart might just be scaremongering for attention. But, even if he’s right, the only thing we might have to fear is fear itself. Here are some of the reasons why:

• The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was so scary because, by deploying nuclear weapons in Cuba, the Soviet Union was attempting not only to gain tactical advantage but to do so in America’s generally recognized sphere of influence.
• The US enjoys considerable tactical advantage today with its forward deployment of weapons in five NATO member states: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. (Arguably, this violates the spirit of the agreement that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis, which required the United States to remove missiles from Turkey and the Soviet Union to remove missiles from Cuba.)
• The wonder is that, before now, Russia never tried to counter the US’s tactical advantage by forward deploying weapons in Cuba or other friendly countries in the Western Hemisphere. If the US objected, it would look like an imperious hypocrite. Besides, as I indicated above, Trump probably knows nothing about spheres of influence and even less about the precedent the Cuban Missile Crisis set.
• Despite bellicose rhetoric and provocative maneuvers, Putin knows the principle of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) will prevent, or certainly limit, any direct confrontation between the United States and Russia.

Meanwhile, China has been busy wielding superpower influence throughout this Hemisphere, making a mockery of America’s Monroe Doctrine. This doctrine holds that “intervention by any external power in the politics of the Americas is a potentially hostile act against the United States.”

But China has been doing just that with impunity for years – using its money instead of its military. I refer you to such commentaries as “China Buying Political Dominion Over Caribbean (Latin America and Africa),” February 22, 2005, “China Invading US Sphere of Influence in the Caribbean,” April 11, 2012, and “China Buying the Global Influence Russia and US Fighting For…” October 19, 2016.

I just happened to crystallize much of the geostrategic dynamics afoot in “The Americas: China Encroaching, Migrants Caravanning, US Retreating, CARICOM Flailing, Russia Reclaiming… It’s All a Trumpian Mess!” April 1, 2019.

It’s just that Putin’s interventions tend to be more sensational and destabilizing pursuant to what I call Russia’s Manifest Doctrine. This doctrine holds that sowing discord in the United States and undermining its global influence further Russia’s geostrategic interests.

Exhibit A of course is the aforementioned cyber invasion during the 2016 presidential election. But you can bet Putin is doing all he can to exacerbate the migration crisis at the US-Mexico border.

He knows this could make the discord Castro sowed with the Mariel Boat Lift pale in comparison. Moreover, he knows Trump will blame the Mexicans even if reports show that the coyotes orchestrating the migrant caravans are predominantly Russians.

Alas, all of the above only provides further fodder to assert that Trump is turning the United States into a Banana Republic. Until he came along, nobody could have even imagined a US president fraternizing with and kowtowing to this country’s enemies while challenging and alienating its friends. Yet Trump has been doing this from day one of his presidency.

In his accidental crusade to “Make America Great Again,” he is making a mockery of the founding principles and values that made America great in the first place.  He is also making America an international laughingstock. But I fear he will leave behind an America so divided against itself, it won’t even notice China (or even Russia) replacing it as “the indispensable nation.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden is right. Our only hope is that a Democrat defeats Trump so resoundingly in 2020 that his presidency goes down in the annals of history as a black-swan aberration. If that happens, history books will surely show that America rectified and recovered from it with gusto.

Not so coincidentally, I’m already on record declaring Biden as the best presidential candidate to lead this restoration: “Biden-Harris 2020: That’s the Ticket!” January 14, 2019.

Related commentaries:
cry for Venezuela…  Trump finally criticizing Russia…  Obama still warning Assad…
Obama in Syria like Bush in Iraq…  Syria: mission accomplished?…  Syria: don’t bomb, boycott…
Helsinki summit…  Trump defies US to parrot Putin… Treasonous Trump Manchurian president…
Trump loves Kim…  Julian Assange…  Omar al-Bashir…  Trump sent by God…  China buying political dominion…
China invading US… China buying global influence… The Americas: China, Russia, Venezuela, migration crisis…  Biden-Harris 2020…

* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Sunday, at 11:06 a.m.

The post Maduro Defying (and May Outlast) Trump, Just Like Assad Did Obama (and Castro Did Kennedy) appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

Back on May 6

The post Gone Fishing appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

The return of this scourge has been driven by one factor in particular: misinformation, spread by vaccine critics, that scares parents into not immunizing their children.

Along with rumors that vaccines cause autism or that the trace amounts of mercury and aluminum in them are dangerous — falsehoods that were long ago debunked — have come innuendos aimed at deeply religious parents. …

As New York’s current measles outbreak has spread, the more obscure ingredients of the measles vaccine — which is often delivered in a shot mixed with vaccines against mumps, rubella and chickenpox — have become an issue for some Orthodox Jews.

(The New York Times, April 26, 2019)

The post Stupid and Dangerous Anti-Vaxers Must Be Only New Yorkers Who Support Trump appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

President Trump said Friday that the United States did not pay any money to North Korea, which had issued a $2 million bill for the hospice care of American Otto Warmbier, the comatose University of Virginia student sent home from Pyongyang in 2017. …

Warmbier, who was 21, fell into a coma for unknown reasons the night he was sentenced to 15 years in prison in North Korea with hard labor in March 2016.

After his sentencing, the North Koreans held on to the comatose student for 15 more months, not even telling American officials until June 2017 that he had been unconscious all that time.

(The Washington Post, April 26, 2019)

But you should suspect Trump is lying – not just because he’s a pathological liar, but because he also said he didn’t pay porn star Stormy for silence about their romp.

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, testified before Congress on Wednesday that the president reimbursed him for payments he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels to maintain her silence about an alleged affair with Trump before the 2016 election.

‘He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it, which I did,’ Cohen said in his opening statement before the House oversight committee.

(Huffington Post, February 27, 2019)

#Lyin’ Don

Related commentaries:
Trump, Kim and Otto…
Stormy Daniels…

The post Trump says he didn’t pay Kim for comatose Otto. Do you believe him? appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

The amazing clip shows the primate holding a smartphone in one hand and clicking on the screen with another. …

When he gets bored, he goes back and clicks on a video of men playing with a snake.

The ape seems to get disinterested quicker this time and soon clicks on another video of a monkey and a human.

(Daily Star, April 25, 2019)

You probably think this is cute. It’s not.

For starters, this ape is only, er, aping the way humans spend so much time wasting their brains away. All it has to do now is master the narcissistic trick of taking selfies to look as dumb as so many humans do these days.

Ultimately, though, this viral clip shows what portends for the human race: evolutionary regression back to the Australopithecus-afarensis state of consciousness from whence we evolved.

That said, I’ll spare you my diatribe on the anthropomorphic cruelty inherent in domesticating this ape to ape the worst of human traits.

Related commentaries:
selfies…
social media zombies…

The post Ape Scrolling Instagram Says More Humans than Apes appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

I advocate a pragmatic and parochial strategy for combating climate change. The adage “clean up your own back yard…” pretty much sums it up.

Pursuant to this strategy, I have always championed conservation and anti-pollution measures. In doing so, I have eschewed the handwringing that characterizes concerns about global warming and climate change.

The cyclical nature of all weather phenomena informs my strategy. I have elaborated in commentaries like

• “Global Warming or Just Hot Air?” February 16, 2005;
• “Global Cooling? Yes!” October 21, 2008;
• “Climate-Gate: Emails Expose Scientific Doubts about Climate Change,” December 4, 2009;
• “Beating the Dead Horse Global Warming Has Become,” February 10, 2012; and
• “Pioneer Climatologist Calls Paris Climate Deal ‘Bullsh*t,” December 15, 2015.

But the following quote from “March to Save the Planet? Get Real!” September 23, 2014, synthesizes my take on and strategy for combating climate change:

I have written far too many commentaries on this topic to count. Unfortunately, they’ve done little more than lump me together with the ‘heretics’ trying to temper increasing alarms about climate change with calming facts about environmental protection and conservation.

Therefore, on behalf of all proud heretics in this respect, let me hasten to clarify: We acknowledge climate change as a fact but hardly an existential threat. We simply maintain that there are many “Global Priorities Bigger than Climate Change” – as the critically acclaimed Danish environmentalist, Professor Bjorn Lomborg, proffered in his now seminal TED talk in 2005.

That said, my pet peeve is the myriad ways humans are polluting every body of water on our planet. No doubt this stems from growing up in the Caribbean, where I spent so many days swimming in the sparkling turquoise waters of The Bahamas.

But it should not take hailing from the Caribbean for one to decry pollution like this:

The world’s largest collection of ocean garbage is growing.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of plastic, floating trash halfway between Hawaii and California, has grown to more than 600,000 square miles, a study found. That’s twice the size of Texas.

(USA Today, March 22, 2018)

And, more existentially, pollution like this:

Scientists across the globe are increasingly finding wildlife that has been killed after ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic.

The estimated 19 billion pounds of plastic that ends up in the ocean every year is expected to double by 2025. These plastics will not only kill more animals; they’ll decimate coral reefs, and damage human health as microplastics enter the food chain.

(The New Republic, April 16 2018)

All the same, my pragmatic and parochial strategy moved me to criticize Caribbean countries for signing on to climate-change accords (from Kyoto to Paris). After all, they did so with high-polluting countries (like the United States, China, and India) that invariably dominated negotiations. This created the predatory dynamic of minnows swimming among sharks, making those high-polluting countries a greater existential threat than climate change.

More to the point, even I knew from Kyoto days that, despite accords, these worst polluters would continue to increase their “planet-warming gases.”

Global emissions of carbon dioxide are reaching the highest levels on record, scientists projected Wednesday, in the latest evidence of the chasm between international goals for combating climate change and what countries are doing.

(The Washington Post, December 5, 2018)

This is why I exhorted Caribbean countries to pool their political clout. Because that would enable them to draft and enforce strict environmental regulations to protect and preserve our eco-region and its most precious natural resource: the Caribbean Sea.

I envisioned them levying behavior-modification fines on local polluters across the region for dumping everything from sewage to garden-variety trash.

For major Caribbean cities, the amount of solid waste collected can be as low as 50% of the total amount generated.

Where does the rest of this garbage go?

(“The Fight for a Trash Free Caribbean Sea,” UN Environment re Kingston, Jamaica, February 17, 2017)

Mind you, this is happening despite The Protocol on the Control of Land Based Sources of Marine Pollution (LBS Protocol). Member states adopted it in 1999 to promote “cooperation for pollution prevention, reduction and control.”

But I also envisioned Caribbean countries levying far greater fines on foreign polluters for dumping all manner of waste from their private yachts, cruise ships, cargo ships, and oil tankers.

Apropos of this, here is what I wrote over twelve years ago in “Americans Can Afford Fashionable Concerns about Global Warming.  We Cannot!” March 8, 2007:

____________________

The following is the clarion call Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador Deborah-Mae Lovell sounded during a seminar the OAS held to impart that ‘Climate change in the Caribbean demands urgent mitigation’:

The possibility that our climate may change is enough for us to take notice and to be pro-active. We stand to lose nearly everything, if the predictions of the scientists come true.

(OAS.org, January 18, 2007)

It is imperative that we cut pollution, conserve energy, and protect our environment. The sustainable development of the eco-tourism economies of the Caribbean depends on it.

Accordingly, we should reject any notion that the existential alarms of climate-change Cassandras are forcing us to do these things. Likewise, we should take umbrage at fearmongering claims that, if we don’t do as others say, God will break his covenant and flood our islands with the heavenly waters of the Caribbean Sea.

In fact, we should be taking pride in keeping our sea and beaches clean; instead of worrying about ‘the possibility that our climate may change.’ And, our leaders would do well to get the OAS and other international organizations to support our efforts to stop the dumping of waste off our shores; instead of parroting their alarms about climate change.

____________________

Unfortunately, Caribbean countries ignored my criticisms. To see how willfully so, just google “cruise ships fined for dumping waste.” Results will show the United States levying all kinds of fines for dumping off its shores. For example:

In December of 2016, Judge Seitz placed Carnival Corporation on probation and fined it a record $40,000,000 for widespread pollution and obstruction of justice. Carnival has a long history of getting caught committing environmental crimes dating back to 2002 when it pled guilty to numerous felonies for discharging oily waste into the sea. …

On March 8, 2019, the Office of Probation filed a motion to revoke probation on the grounds that the cruise corporation implemented a ‘brazen and secret’ scheme to send ‘SWAT teams’ to the cruise ships to ‘scrub’ them before the third-party auditors performed their compliance inspections.

(Walker & O’Neill Maritime Lawyers, April 11, 2019)

But you’d be hard-pressed to find a single result showing any Caribbean country levying similar fines. (If you know of any that has dared to do so, I would welcome being so informed.)

The point is that, if Carnival’s cruise ships are dumping waste in US waters as Judge Seitz found, just imagine what they are doing in ours … with impunity.

This is dismaying enough. But it becomes even more so in light of the fact that Caribbean countries are parties to The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972 (a.k.a. London Convention and London Protocol).

This protocol requires vessels to dump and treat waste on land. Therefore, you’d think Caribbean countries would recognize the categorical imperative (i.e., the joint and several benefits) of enforcing anti-dumping regulations. After all, the region is relatively small, and all economies depend heavily on tourists who visit primarily to revel in our “beautiful-by-nature” habitats.

Yet they have failed to enforce those regulations in any meaningful way. And the reason is all too familiar to anyone who knows anything about the race-to-the-bottom, beggar-thy-neighbor politics of the Caribbean.

Simply put, Caribbean countries compete against each other to lure cruise ships and other commercial vessels to their ports of call. This invariably has them granting vessels de facto permits to dump all manner of waste off their shores, respectively.

Incidentally, I have always wondered why cruise liners do not think this dumping is jeopardizing their own bottom line. I know they’re trying to make their ships so all-inclusive, each might eventually feature a “Caribbean beach” on board. But surely even uncultured Americans would think twice about cruising the Caribbean Sea if news about it being contaminated with human waste goes viral.

Meanwhile, the looming spectre of waste washing ashore anywhere is obviously a threat to tourism everywhere in the Caribbean. Yet, evidently, regional countries couldn’t care less about this law of the sea.

No doubt this is why I vented utter exasperation when regional environmentalists seemed too busy combating Japanese whaling in international waters to notice cruise ships dumping waste off our shores:

Environmentalists are up in arms about people hunting whales. But these avengers would prove far more useful to Mother Nature if they could get cruise ships to hold their crap to dump back home, instead of leaving it behind like bobbing logs in our Caribbean Sea.

(“Fatuous Anti-Whaling Argument: Free Willie or We’ll Destroy Your Economy,” The iPINIONS Journal, June 23, 2006)

Clearly, I’ve been decrying the failure of Caribbean countries to act pursuant to their interdependent interests for years. I refer you also to such commentaries as “OAS Summit Dramatizes the Failure and Marginalization of CARICOM,” June 6, 2005, and “CARICOM and Its Groundhog-Day Meetings,” February 21, 2013, which includes this abiding testament:

I believe in cleaning up my own mess before complaining about that of others. Therefore, what I decry most in this context is that The Bahamas, the country of my birth, often seeks more ways to opt out of CARICOM agreements than ways to codify common cause among member states.

Again, I fully appreciate that climate change is causing hurricanes, fires, and rising sea levels to wreak unprecedented devastation. But the United States can’t even combat gun violence, which kills tens of thousands of Americans each year.

Therefore, it’s foolhardy to think it will ever combat climate change, effectively – no matter the increasing toll of related deaths. And, it’s probably even more so to think the Chinese, Indians, and other major polluters ever will.

Of course, it hardly helps the cause when no less a person than the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is a denier. He’s among an alarming number of Americans who still think climate change is a hoax.

This is why I reiterate my pragmatic and parochial plea for Caribbean countries to do what little they can to preserve and protect our habitats.

We do not have the power to stop any of the weather-related effects of climate change. But we do have the power to stop some of the human-related effects. And it’s in our enlightened regional interest to do so.

Related commentaries:
Americans can afford…
global warming…
Paris talks…
Pioneer climatologists…
fatuous anti-whaling…
CARICOM…

The post The Only Way Caribbean Countries Can Help Fight Climate Change… appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

This is why, even though laughable, the results of Sunday’s presidential election in Ukraine evoked more affirmation than consternation.

Ukraine entered uncharted political waters on Sunday after an exit poll showed a comedian with no political experience and few detailed policies had easily won enough votes [with 73 percent] to become the next president of a country at war.

The apparent landslide victory of Volodymyr Zelensky, 41, is a bitter blow for incumbent Petro Poroshenko who tried to rally Ukrainians around the flag by casting himself as a bulwark against Russian aggression and a champion of Ukrainian identity.

(Reuters, April 21, 2019)

Perhaps it’s worth noting that Trump only played a glorified version of himself on TV. By contrast, Zelensky played a president before daring to run to become one in real life.

Arguably, this made him far more qualified than Trump. But the election of both affirmed the Byronic proverb that truth is stranger than fiction.

Indeed, Zelensky’s election might seem like a case of life imitating art. Except that there was nothing artistic about his signature TV show, Servant of the People. It was pure farce.

No doubt Ukrainians are thinking things can’t get any worse than they were with presidents like Viktor Yanukovych and Petro Poroshenko. But Americans thought things couldn’t get any worse than they were with presidents like Richard M. Nixon and George W. Bush. Then along came Donald J. Trump …

Apropos of which, Zelensky’s triumph is just the latest manifestation of politics in the dystopian world Trump has wrought. And, like Trump, Zelensky has demonstrated that, in this world (of resigned disillusion and dysfunction), people elect presidents who either make them laugh or appeal to their fears … or both.

Meanwhile, norm-busting results like those in Ukraine are making a mockery of American-style democracy. Even worse, they are making Chinese-style totalitarianism seem like a truly viable alternative. And no less a person than Trump is dimwittedly championing this alternative.

Case in point, former President Barack Obama exhorted Egyptians, during the Arab Spring, to oust President Hosni Mubarak – who wielded dictatorial powers for nearly 30 years. Yet Trump induced them, during President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s recent visit to the White House, to grant Sisi constitutional authority to wield those same dictatorial powers. Egyptians meekly obliged during a three-day referendum that ended on Monday.

But forget Mubarak, because Sisi – who can now rule for life – will wield powers that will make even Chinese President Xi Jinping green with envy.

In any event, many reputable pundits are citing Ronald Reagan, the B-Movie actor, as the precedent for both Trump and Zelensky. But they should know better.

After all, Reagan spent years honing his political skills as president of the Screen Actors Guild. He then served two terms as governor of California, the biggest state in the Union. Not to mention that he ran and lost twice before his third presidential campaign got him elected president of the United States.

Clearly, compared with these two jokers, Reagan was an ace politician.

That said, Ukrainian politicians have provided so much soap-opera drama since independence in 1991, voters can be forgiven for electing Zelensky just for comic relief.

As it happens, I wrote commentaries on many of the twists and turns that have dogged Ukrainian politics. The following lists titles to just a few of them:

• “Alas, Most Ukrainians Believe in Constant Change, If Not in Complete Chaos,” March 4, 2010;
• “The Rise and Fall of Ukraine’s Yulia Tymoshenko,” October 14, 2014;
• “Ukraine’s Orange Revolution Turns ‘Red,’” February 25, 2014;
• “A Ukraine Divided against Itself Is the Only Way It Will Stand,” May 6, 2014;
• “Ukraine’s Never-Ending Europe Spring,” December 3, 2014; and
• “Russia to Ukraine: Be My Valentine or I Kill You!” February 14, 2015.

But the irony is not lost on me that I started off mocking this soap opera in “My Favorite Ex-Communists: the Ukrainians,” July 25, 2006. It includes this pithy but now-prescient note:

Winston Churchill famously agreed that ‘Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ In that vein, I agree that American democracy is the worst ever practiced, except for all other democracies that have been tried and found even more wanton. Unfortunately, an unintended consequence of America’s bad practices is that many new democracies are emulating them.

Sure enough, in electing this popular comedian as president, Ukraine is only emulating America’s election of a reality-TV star. And, if you don’t laugh as the world laughs at this dystopian farce, you’ll cry, and cry alone.

Related commentaries:
complete chaos…
rise and fall…
orange turns red…
country divided against itself…
never-ending Europe spring…
be my valentine…
favorite ex-communists…

The post If America Can Elect a Reality-TV Star as President, Surely Ukraine Can Elect a Popular Comedian appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

The country celebrated its first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. The environmental practices it inaugurated have become routine and universal, so much so that the symbolic replenishing of Earth’s natural resources (e.g., by planting trees) now seems trite, if not contrived.

Granted, to hear all the alarmist talk about climate change, you’d think it was Al Gore who transformed public consciousness in this regard only years ago. This, because of the remarkable success of his one-man crusade to spread the gospel of his environmental bible, Earth in the Balance.

But this celebration of, and deference to, Earth’s natural wonders should be distinguished from Gore’s convenient truths about climate change. Truths, incidentally, that included using fake images of melting glaciers in his documentary An Inconvenient Truth just to scare people.

Earth Day ushered in conservation and greening trends that have led to cleaner air, more potable (lead-free) water, and a much less polluted environment; whereas, for all his prophesying, Gore has had no impact.

Nobel Peace Prize-winner Al Gore said in an interview published Monday that there had been no improvement in the fight against climate change since his Oscar-winning film on the issue was released.

(Agence France-Presse, April 20, 2008)

In any event, representatives from 194 countries marked Earth Day in 2016 by gathering at the United Nations in New York to sign the landmark Paris Climate Accord.

As CNN reported, scientist hailed this agreement as the “world’s biggest leap forward in climate change policy in history.” It committed the world to ending our dependence on fossil fuels by the end of this century, which would limit global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.”

Past being prologue, I feared that getting each country to ratify this agreement, to say nothing of getting each to abide by its terms, would devolve into a terminal winter of discontent. I delineated my abiding doubts in “Paris Talks on Climate Change to Avert an Apocalypse? Hardly…,” December 2, 2015.

The United States is competing with China to be the world’s biggest polluter. This is why I thought my cynical fears would come true when President Trump made such a show of withdrawing the United States from the Paris accord. But I was exceedingly heartened when governors like Jerry Brown of California and philanthropists like Michael Bloomberg began filling the breach.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he will pay $4.5m (£3.2m) to cover some of the lapsed US commitment to the Paris climate accord.

He said he had a responsibility to help improve the environment because of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the deal.

(BBC, April 23, 2018)

In fact, thanks to public-private partnerships across the country, Trump’s boneheaded decision is having little to no effect. And, thanks to those partnerships, it will hardly matter when AOC’s Green New Deal turns out to be little more than hot air.

Related commentaries:
Paris talks…
Save the planet…
green new deal...

The post Earth Day appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

As worshipers gathered on Sunday at Roman Catholic churches across Sri Lanka to celebrate Easter Mass, the culmination of Holy Week, a wave of explosions rocked the congregations. …

A senior presidential aide said it appeared that the attacks [which killed 290 people and injured nearly 500] had been carried out by suicide bombers.

The attacks also targeted high-end hotels in Colombo, the capital, including the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury.

(The New York Times, April 21, 2019)

This puts last week’s accidental burning of Notre-Dame, which we all mourned as a 9/11-like tragedy, into perspective, no?

Of course, the greater tragedy is that similar terrorist attacks have become the norm in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Somalia, and Nigeria. And they don’t even register in our consciousness, let alone evoke sympathy.

To be fair, though, Yellow Vest protesters took to the streets of Paris again yesterday, vandalizing stores and setting vehicles alight, to put the burning of Notre-Dame into perspective:

[A]fter billionaires, companies and worshipers quickly pledged more than a billion euros for the cathedral’s reconstruction, protesters’ anger appeared to have been renewed.

Trade union leaders and Yellow Vest organizers denounced the flood of donations amid the battle over the country’s stark inequalities. They said the country’s elite needed to get back to reality and support low-income workers first.

(The New York Times, April 20, 2019)

In any event, we would do well to take this Easter Sunday of renewal to consecrate our lives to our shared humanity. This will make us more mindful of the suffering of the less fortunate. Moreover, it will make us more eager to help alleviate that suffering than we are to mourn the loss of iconic buildings.

Happy Easter? How can it be?

Related commentaries:
Notre-Dame…
Yellow Vest protests…

The post Aping Al-Qaeda, Terrorists Bomb Churches and Hotels Across Sri Lanka appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

For the past 30 years, Mr. Lamb has hosted a Sunday night program, interviewing everyone from Richard Nixon to the leftist historian Howard Zinn. Mr. Lamb says he hasn’t missed a week since 1989.

That streak will end May 19, with a finale featuring the historian David McCullough.

(Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2019)

I missed a week here and there over the years. But nothing has been more must-see TV for me than Lamb’s Book Notes and Q&A on C-SPAN. With every episode, he proved that informative TV can be entertaining too.

Here’s to a happy retirement, Brian.

The post I’m Going to Miss You (on C-SPAN), Brian Lamb. appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

In fact, by the time I was ten, my mind, body, and soul had become inured to “inspired” sermons from the pulpit, all of which I could parrot (almost verbatim) from my church pew. Only the wife of a vainglorious politician could possibly relate.

Yet I never grew tired of the rituals that attended the Easter season. Indeed, I could never disguise the spirit of suspended animation that got me through it all — even as others affected the countenance each occasion warranted (i.e., by being appropriately maudlin on Good Friday to mourn the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and joyous on Easter Sunday to celebrate his resurrection).

Never mind that my animated countenance was due entirely to the anticipation of what fun Easter Monday would bring — as the first beach holiday of the year in the Caribbean Commonwealth.

But oh! the guilt I suffered for supplanting religious pathos with this hedonistic inspiration during Christianity’s holiest days!

Thank God I deduced before my puberty was in full bloom that He will forgive me: Not only for my sinful thoughts, but also for the diabolical pleasure I derived from playing one of the soldiers who flogged Jesus Christ (as he crawled his way to Golgotha) in the passion plays our Church performed every Easter.

This brings me to the essence of my Good Friday sermon. I address it particularly to those Christian parents who will force their children to abide church services throughout this weekend, just as my parents forced me to do when I was a child:

God will forgive the little ones for not getting all worked up each year for the scripted homage to his son’s crucifixion and resurrection. He will even forgive them for not writhing with the Holy Spirit on cue at revivals, at which it seemed only the souls of mischievous children, not those of sinful adults, needed salvation.

Moreover, he will not ruin their lives if the only spirit that moves them at Easter time is the one they hope will get them to the beach on Easter Monday; trust me!

Amen.

That said, if you really must wallow in the macabre passions of the season, I suggest you watch Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ today. Because, more than any Easter homily or play, this movie will evoke the funereal emotions and convey (in refreshing and entertaining fashion) the expiatory significance of these familiar words:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

(The Holy Bible, John 3:16)

Given the above, it would probably surprise none of you to learn that the elders of my church damned me to Hell for being a “backsliding reprobate” long ago. But this had more to do with the Pharisaic standards that govern conduct in most churches than any unpardonable sin I may have committed.

Indeed, I believe it is duly recorded on God’s Heavenly scroll that I am more spiritual, and live a more Christ-like life, than almost all of the tartuffes who bored me to distraction with their sermons in my youth!

The post My Good Friday Sermon appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

Therefore, I shall suffice to share what CNN published as the “11 key lines from the Mueller report,” which Attorney General Barr (a.k.a. Trump’s new fixer) finally released today:

____________________

1. Trump campaign ‘expected’ help from Russians but did not conspire.
2. Trump asked campaign aides to find Hillary Clinton’s emails.
3. Mueller ‘does not exonerate’ Trump on obstruction.
4. Aides refused to help efforts to obstruct.
5. Mueller says Congress can pursue investigation of Trump obstruction.
6. Trump’s written answers to Mueller’s questions were ‘inadequate.’
7. Could not prove Trump Jr. ‘willfully’ broke law with Trump Tower meeting.
8. Ivanka and Hope Hicks knew Don Jr. was seeking dirt on Clinton.
9. Trump misled the public on the Trump Tower meeting, but it wasn’t criminal.
10. Sarah Sanders misled the media about the firing of the FBI director.
11. Trump dropped F-bomb after Mueller got the job.

____________________

Ironically, the most newsworthy thing about this report was the way Barr channeled Trump to mis-characterize it before releasing it. Most notably, he parroted Trump’s “big lie” about no obstruction. This, even though he knew full well that Mueller cited at least 10 counts.

If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.

(“Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election,” Volume II, March 2019)

Barr should be holding his head in shame. But, like Trump, he clearly has none.

In fact, Mueller made clear that he felt obligated to honor the DOJ’s ban on indicting a sitting president. This is why he also made a point of exhorting Congress to use its “Article I powers” to hold this rogue president to account.

Except that this is like a parent telling two two-year-olds to clean up their own mess, which will only result in a bigger mess: Democrats who control the House could easily file articles of impeachment against Trump. But they would need Republicans who control the Senate to convict him. And Republicans now worship Trump like such a Golden Calf, the report could have indicted him on 10 counts of murder and they would still spin themselves into pretzels to exonerate him.

This means that they’re just going to treat us to sound and fury signifying nothing like nobody has ever seen before. And it will be thus until the 2020 presidential election either finally exonerates Trump or condemns him to a post-presidency purgatory.

Apropos of which, there’s no denying the damning indictment Mueller lays out against Trump. But the far more consequential indictment is the way the American people have normalized all manner of political lies, obstruction, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.

I would be remiss, however, not to note the way Mueller documents Trump repeatedly scheming to get aides to lie and fire people … to protect him. After all, Trump makes a bullying pretense of being a tough guy. Granted, his notorious cowering in the presence of strongmen like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un betrayed that pretense long ago. But, given the cowardice he displays in this report, Trump should have a capital “C” for coward etched on his forehead.

That said, enjoy the circus! Trust me, we’ll never see another like it in our lifetime, especially with the inimitable Trump as ringmaster.

Related commentaries:
No collusion conclusion…
Golden calf…

The post Mueller Report: Obstruction Enough to Make Nixon Blush… appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

Sudanese protesters have been forced to block an apparent attempt to break up their sit-in outside the defence ministry in Khartoum, where demonstrators have been pushing for a quick transition to civilian rule after Omar al-Bashir was ousted as president.

On Thursday, Sudan’s army announced it had removed and detained Bashir after three decades in power and was setting up a transitional military council to run the country [for two years].

Since then the heads of the council and Sudan’s powerful intelligence services have both been replaced, as protesters have continued to call for change.

(The Guardian, April 15, 2019)

We’ve seen this kind of surprising uprising before. And, given how it played out in neighboring Egypt, these Sudanese protesters would do well to take heed.

No doubt you recall the mass protests of 2011 (a.k.a. the Arab Spring). They triggered the ouster of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak after three decades in power … too.  But just the titles to some of my commentaries on what followed there give a sense of what portends in Sudan:

• “Army Pledges No Force against Protesters,” February 1, 2011;
• “Protesters Return to Tahrir Square,” June 6, 2012;
• “Egyptians Continue March Back to the Future,” December 20, 2013;
• “Egypt’s Arab Spring Spawns Brutal Military Dictatorship,” March 25, 2014;
• “Egypt Sentences Morsi to Death: Exposes Fecklessness of US Mideast Policy,” May 20, 2015;
• “Sisi Completes Egypt’s Vicious Cycle by Releasing Mubarak,” March 24, 2017; and
• “Egypt’s Sisi Aping Russia’s Putin to Continue Serving … for Life,” March 26, 2018.

The first of these turned out to be most prescient, including as it does this sobering and equally relevant observation:

With all due respect to the protesters, the issue is not whether Mubarak will go, for he will. … The issue is who will replace him. And it appears they have not given any thought whatsoever to this very critical question. …

The devil the Egyptians know might prove far preferable to the devil they don’t. Just ask the Iranians who got rid of the Mubarak-like Shah in 1979 only to end up with the Ayatollah Khomeini — whose Islamic revolution they’ve regretted (and have longed to overturn) ever since.

I fear that, like the Egyptians, the Sudanese will end up replacing one devil with another. I just hope theirs is more benign.  

In the interim, precarious is the fate of any civilian leader who succeeds Bashir. One need only look at what has befallen Mohamed Morsi.

He presumed Egypt’s military leaders, including then General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, would allow him to govern according to his historic democratic mandate. But today he’s rotting away in prison – perhaps even thanking Sisi for commuting his death sentence.

Now president, Sisi is doing all he can to help Sudan install a leader like him. He is clearly doing so because championing “democratic dictatorships” in surrounding countries will help secure his own in Egypt.

But he’s also doing so in furtherance of a new world order of metastasizing dictatorships – headed by Xi of China and Putin of Russia. Indeed, it’s noteworthy that, like Sisi of Egypt, Déby of Chad is following this China-Russia model of the strongman leading for life. And, like Sudan, both Libya and Algeria have wannabe strongmen now engaged in a deadly battle of wits to emulate Sisi, respectively.

Meanwhile, President Trump seems more interested in comradery with dictators wielding autocratic power than fraternity with protesters seeking democratic freedoms.

At the White House today, President Trump hosted his Egyptian counterpart, and the two addressed each other like old friends. That worries human rights groups. The Egyptian government has jailed tens of thousands of people as it cracks down on political activity, and it is trying to tighten state control even further.

(NPR, April 9, 2019)

In fairness to Trump, though, the fraternity his predecessor, Barack Obama, showed Egyptian protesters did them no good. This might explain why no Western leader seems even remotely interested in what becomes of Sudan. Of course, Brexit has European leaders so awash in political futility these days, they could be forgiven feelings of utter fecklessness where Sudan is concerned.

In any case, the result is that, for the first time in modern history, democratic leaders from the West are effectively ceding influence all over Africa to dictatorial leaders from the East.

That said, I couldn’t be happier to see Bashir ousted. To give a sense of the many reasons why, here is an excerpt from “Alas, the ICC Charging President Bashir of Sudan with Genocide Means Nothing!  July 15, 2008:

____________________

The only reason Bashir has been able to get away with his alleged crimes is that the US has not deemed stopping him a matter of national (economic) interest.

This raises the question: What is the point of charging him if the ICC has no power to arrest him?

I submit that the ICC has announced these feckless charges in a vain attempt to assuage the collective guilt of western countries. After all, they did not lift a finger to stop Bashir’s Arab militias from killing over 300,000 black Africans and forcing another 2 million to flee their homes in Darfur. This, because they dared to oppose his Islamic-based government.

The UN, US, and EU had promised that, never again, would they allow anyone to perpetrate another Rwandan-style genocide in Africa. This genocide made a mockery of that promise.

____________________

Bashir knew he had nothing to fear from the ICC but fear itself. This, especially given the lengths to which even democratic countries like South Africa were willing to go to help him escape justice. I vented dismay in “Abetting Sudan’s Bashir Betrays All That’s Wrong with African Leaders,” June 15, 2015:

____________________

African leaders are beaming with foolish pride today over the way they conspired to help Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir abscond from justice. They perpetrated this conspiracy during an African Union summit in South Africa last weekend. …

Instead of abetting him, you’d think black African leaders would want to tar and feather Bashir. Except that far too many of them have more in common with him than their own people. None more so than Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe — who has implemented policies and ordered brutal crackdowns that have killed and displaced as many, if not more black Africans during his 35-year dictatorship.

____________________

This is why I cannot blame the people of Sudan for taking matters into their own hands. And I commend the Sudanese Professional Association and other NGOs for coordinating non-violent efforts to keep the eyes of protesters on the prize: a civilian-led government and a re-secularization of the country away from the Islamization Bashir imposed.

But I fear that, despite making one political concession after another, Sudan’s military leaders will continue to wield the kind of power they did during Bashir’s dictatorship. They have too much vested in seeing another military strongman succeed Bashir – the way Sisi succeeded Mubarak. Again, one need only look at what has become of Egypt’s “civilian-led government.”

In a similar vein, I fear that, despite pretending to prosecute him, Sudan’s military will make sure Bashir lands with a golden parachute, eventually – the way Egypt’s made sure Mubarak landed, eventually.

This is why protesters would have banked some consolation if they had completed the job – the way the people of Libya did when they ousted Muammar Gadaffi after four decades in power. I duly commented/celebrated in “Gadaffi Is Dead,” October 21, 2011.

In any event, I wish the people of Sudan well. And, for what it’s worth, if I were there, I’d be protesting too.

Related commentaries:
Sisi completes cycle…
charging Bashir…
Abetting Bashir…
Gaddafi is dead…

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A few places of worship transcend religion. Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris is one. Indeed, it speaks volumes that it was a must-see even for a convicted apostate like me. As the opening line of this commentary indicates, Victor Hugo’s classic The Hunchback of Notre-Dame inspired my pilgrimage in 1983.

Yet I cannot put into words the emotions I’m feeling as I watch (helplessly, hopelessly) this devastation unfold:

A fire has broken out at the famous Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris and has spread rapidly across the building.

The cause is not yet clear, but officials say that it could be linked to renovation work.

A major operation to tackle the blaze is under way at the 850-year-old Gothic building, but the cathedral’s spire and roof have collapsed.

(BBC, April 15, 2019)

This damage cannot be repaired; nor can it be measured in euros. And I’m not even thinking of all the iconic art and religious relics Notre-Dame housed. Besides, if you’re concerned about such artifacts, you’re probably still bemoaning the far more consequential damage the US invasion of Iraq triggered. No?

Reports are that the fire broke out after closing. This made it easy to evacuate staff and others who remained in the cathedral. Therefore, as of now, there are no fatalities.

Even so, I cannot escape flashes of the Twin Towers in New York City burning to the ground. And I’ve had cause to comment too often in recent years on the way disillusioned immigrants and aggrieved workers alike were setting so much of Paris alight. Those commentaries range from “World Beware: French Riots Affect Us All,” November 8, 2005, to “The Yellow Vests: Paris Is Burning … Again,” December 6, 2018.

Accordingly, the only possible consolation in this case is that restoration efforts, not arson or terrorism, appear to have sparked this fire. But oh! the irony, especially unfolding as it is during this Holy Week of Easter …

In any event, like so much of Notre-Dame right now, I stand utterly gutted.

Related commentaries:
yellow vests…

The post Notre-Dame Is Burning appeared first on The iPINIONS Journal.

A moment was delivered on Sunday in Augusta, Georgia, that many thought they’d never see again in this lifetime. With a final round 70, Tiger Woods cruised on Sunday to his fifth victory at The Masters. …

The 2019 Masters victory serves as the 15th major win of Tiger’s career, which now puts him just three back of the legendary Jack Nicklaus (18).

(CBS Sports, April 14, 2019)

You don’t have to be a golf fan, or even a sports fan, to appreciate this historic comeback/redemption. Frankly, if you feel no impulse to hail Tiger, you’re either inhuman or have been living under a rock for the past 11 years.

But, as CBS suggests, you’d be hard-pressed to find a sports analyst who is on record declaring his belief that this day would come. This, because

1. the humiliation of Tiger’s notorious sex scandal sapped his once-invincible spirit; and
2. the pain from Tiger’s chronic back injuries hobbled his body.

The confluence of these two made winning again seem impossible.

I duly commented on his travails in commentaries like “Tiger’s Wife Serves Him a Fat Lip for Thanksgiving,” November 29, 2009, “Tiger’s Back, but His Back Won’t Let Him Play?! Puhleeze,” February 6, 2015, and “Tiger! Tiger! Driving Drugged,” June 1, 2017. More to the point, though, I laid out the path to his redemption early on in “Tiger Escapes to Safe Haven,” December 14, 2009:

I just hope he takes time out from his counseling (marriage and psychological) to practice. That way, whenever he returns, there will be more public interest in his victories on the tour than in his conquests in the bedroom.

Fans will readily forgive him of course. But winning tournaments in his inimitable fashion is the only way to eradicate bacchanalian images of his private life from public consciousness – even if not from the tabloids.

Still, I never doubted this day would come. And I’m on record declaring so as far back as “Tiger! Tiger! Losing Fight,” August 15, 2011, and as recently as “US Open: Tiger Woods Becoming the Hugh Hefner of PGA Players,” Monday, June 18, 2018.

As the latter indicates, I did so even as I mocked his historic failure to win another major. After all, Jack’s inevitable winless streak on the way to his record-setting 18 majors lasted six years. Tiger’s on the way to his record-chasing 15 lasted eleven.

The point is that I remained mindful of the great expectations Tiger had for his own career after he won his 14th major in 2008. Here is how I put this into context in that June 2018 commentary cited above:

____________________

Tiger will win again; and not just some rinky-dink tournament, but a major. The problem is that Tiger himself made surpassing Jack’s 18 majors the standard by which we should judge his career.

Tiger knows better than anyone that he will not be able to fully redeem his professional reputation until he wins another 5 majors (i.e., from among the Masters in April, US Open in June, British Open in July, and PGA Championship in August).

(“Tiger Won…Finally,” The iPINIONS Journal, December 5, 2011)

____________________

Apropos of which, what I noted in that August 2011 commentary – also cited above – puts today’s win into further context:

To appreciate how difficult it is for one player to dominate the majors the way Tiger did, bear in mind that 13 different players have won the last 13 major championships.

In a similar vein, bear in mind that no single golfer has won more than three majors over the past decade. And Tiger needs to win three more just to tie Jack’s record.

Well, as much as I believed this day would come, I do not believe that day ever will.

But, hey, today is a day to celebrate. Let us rejoice and be happy for Tiger…and for golf!

Related commentaries:
Tiger’s wife…
Tiger driving drugged…
Tiger escapes…
Tiger’s back…
Tiger becoming Hef…
Tiger losing fight…

* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Sunday, at 7:39 p.m.

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As it happens, I featured this photo in “Separating Migrant Children from Parents. This Is America…Too!” June 20, 2018.

Its plainly heartrending nature compelled me to begin that commentary as follows:

On too many occasions in the course of human events, man’s inhumanity to man provokes commentaries that inflame passions more than shed light. This is one of those occasions. But I hope what follows sheds light more than inflames passions.

Given that, this comes as no surprise:

A viral image of a crying Honduran child at the U.S.-Mexico border has won the 2019 World Press Photo contest’s Photo of the Year prize.

The Amsterdam-based World Press Photo Foundation announced the winners of the annual awards on Thursday, honoring the best photojournalism of the prior year.

(Huffington Post, April 12, 2019)

Except that no viral images have shown more heartrending depictions of human migration than those of Africans crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Not least because, instead of children crying, those images often showed them dying.

What’s more, I have been bemoaning such images for years. I refer you to such commentaries as “Lampedusa Tragedy Highlights Europe’s ‘Haitian’ Problem,” October 7, 2013, and “Europeans Erecting Fences to Maintain Good Relations with African Neighbors,” October 8, 2005.

Which raises the question: Why did this image of a crying Honduran girl at the US-Mexico border win the Photo of the Year prize, but no image of any dying African child in the Mediterranean Sea ever did?

Related commentaries:
separating migrant children…
Lampedusa tragedy…
Europeans erecting fences..

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Reprinted from Caribbean News Now

By Caribbean News Now contributor

Around this time each year, Anthony L Hall, a weekly op-ed columnist for Caribbean News Now, delivers a collection of his frequently outspoken and controversial thoughts and opinions concerning the preceding political year and this year is no exception, with the publication of “The iPINIONS Journal Volume XIV – Commentaries on the Global Events of 2018”.

Once again, Hall has connected a diverse list of compelling world events, immensely varied and of the utmost significance to anyone concerned in global events and politics. Delving straight into it in his introduction, the author addresses the unprecedented risks many journalists are taking these days to defend the news against “the war on truth,” the sensational murder of The Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and that no person had greater influence on the global events of 2018 than President Donald Trump.

Apart from his commentaries on Trump, Hall covers a truly extensive and varied set of topics covering all continents; his sections including Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas and, of course, a large part on the United States alone. This comes before he delves even further into The Global Sphere, Sports and Entertainment.

Within his sections and chapters, there is much weighty material to digest, he displays sound writing on topics such as Brexit, the yellow vest protests in Paris, the political crisis in Venezuela, Russia taunting Britain with brazen assassinations, the Venezuelan situation, confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to United States Supreme Court, Special Counsel Mueller’s Russian investigation and the ban on Muslims entering the United States.

In the sports section, Hall gives witty “iPINIONS” on the world of sports from the NBA, Danica Patrick, Tiger Woods, the Stanley Cup, Kentucky Derby, the Winter Olympics and other milestones in 2018.

In the entertainment section, Jay-Z gets political and criticized Trump for taking credit for lowering black unemployment, which led to a war of words between the rap mogul and Trump on Twitter. Hall also gave his views on Jay-Z being snubbed at the Grammys.

Without a doubt, all of the bases are covered in “The iPINIONS Journal Volume XIV”, which contains useful information combined with clever opinions for any booklover, as Anthony Hall flexes his in-depth understanding and wide-ranging awareness on a seemingly infinite range of worldwide matters.

Hall sets the stage in his introduction which uniquely qualifies him to voice his “iPINIONS” on diverse world events:

“I grew up in the Caribbean; I attended schools in the United States and England; I have degrees in political economics and law; I am licensed to practice in four foreign jurisdictions; and I have traveled extensively. All of this gives me a relatively unique perspective on global events and frames my commentaries.”

This is a highly recommended go to book for all those that are yearning to stay well-versed and informed on global events, politics, sports and entertainment.

The iPINIONS Journal Volume XIV – Commentaries on the Global Events of 2018 is available at all major booksellers, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Caribbean News Now is the most widely read newspaper in the Caribbean, my home region. I have been one of its featured columnists for nearly 15 years. It also syndicates my commentaries to other news outlets across the world wide web.

Chances are you are one of the many readers who have contacted me over the years to share your surprise at coming across one of my commentaries in some nether region of the Internet. Never mind that far too many news organizations republish them without permission.

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