pianogonzology: foreign

Showing posts with label foreign. Show all posts

Sunday, June 16, 2019

Right? . . .

(from https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/america-must-take-trump-s-comments-about-foreign-election-interference-ncna1017836)

". . . Following the April release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, this hope seemed vaguely justifiable — at least for those who were desperate to feel it. Perhaps, Trump had learned from his brush with the law. Perhaps, if only for self-preservation, he wouldn’t again encourage, implicitly or explicitly, Russian interference that would distort the will of American voters. Perhaps in 2020, Trump would cease to be Trump. . . the president dispelled any such notion by declaring that if he was offered dirt on a Democratic opponent by a foreign agent, he would probably accept it. “I think I’d take it,” the president told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired on Wednesday. . . If Trump has learned anything since 2016, it’s that he can get away with almost anything, including working with a foreign adversary to influence an American election. Now that Mueller has completed his investigation, Congress continues to display limited willingness to act on his findings — mostly due to Republicans’ shameful betrayal of the Constitution and their oaths of office, in addition to naive caution among some Democrats. Is it any wonder that Trump believes himself to be above the law? . . ."

. . . and according to the behavior of Congressional Republicans . . . he's right!

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Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Opinion . . .

. . . Yes . . .

. . . Valid? . . . Yes. . .

(from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/opinion/government-shutdown-trump.html?fallback=0&recId=1FnBiZChWWMxiCy80XJKcQ6qEim&locked=0&geoContinent=NA&geoRegion=MD&recAlloc=top_conversion&geoCountry=US&blockId=most-popular&imp_id=658501061&action=click&module=Most+Popular&pgtype=Homepage&fbclid=IwAR0Q9YKgn51w9FHlhd2m7tPST9DoltrlI0xBldm-DmO2KwlmCiFUde9DYBQ)

". . . Then there’s the Trump effect. Normally working for the president of the United States is a career booster, something that looks good on your résumé. Trump’s presidency, however, is so chaotic, corrupt and potentially compromised by his foreign entanglements that anyone associated with him gets tainted — which is why after only two years he has already left a trail of broken men and wrecked reputations in his wake. . . So who is willing to serve him at this point? Only those with no reputation to lose, generally because they’re pretty bad at what they do. There are, no doubt, conservatives smart and self-controlled enough to lie plausibly, or at least preserve some deniability, and defend Trump’s policies without making fools of themselves. But those people have gone into hiding. . . "

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Saturday, December 22, 2018

Good . . .

. . . Things????!!!!

(from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/14/is-there-anything-trump-touches-that-isnt-corrupt/?fbclid=IwAR04ICqGKb_Tcc9IeDV_zvciOvg30K8FG-ebBwvrtc9WMnJWGaZU0V-R1Ko&noredirect=on&utm_term=.a5e09b861827)
*Trump’s campaign is under investigation for possible hidden dealings with Russia and a possible conspiracy to violate campaign-finance laws.
*Trump's administration has been beset with a shocking number of scandals of various types.
*Trump is currently being sued for allegedly violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause, since foreign governments are directing money his way by booking large numbers of rooms and holding events at his properties.
*The attorney general of New York is seeking to have the Trump Foundation dissolved, citing a pattern of "persistently illegal conduct" that made the foundation little more than a scam devoted to self-dealing.
*In October, it was revealed in an exhaustively documented investigation that Trump, his father and his siblings engaged in a conspiracy to commit tax fraud on an absolutely epic scale, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
*Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump repeatedly misled buyers and investors about properties they were developing in order to acquire funding and pump up sales.

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Sunday, November 25, 2018

Examples . . .

. . . of bad U.S. choices do NOT justify the current administration's stance of Saudi Arabia, but indeed illustrate is error, IRRESPECTIVE of relative administrations' political affiliation. . . ((It's not blue against red, black against white, liberal against conservative, them against us. It is CORRECT against INCORRECT)

(from https://allthatsinteresting.com/us-dictator-alliances)

". . . In 1964, the U.S. overthrew (Brazilian President João) Goulart in one of the most violent CIA-backed coups up to that time. . . Goulart’s U.S.-backed successor, General Castelo Branco, would have a devastating impact on the Brazilian population. . . The Branco regime had tens of thousands of Brazilians — many of whom supported the coup — arrested and tortured to death. . . General Augusto Pinochet, who was grateful to the US State Department for its help in making . . . (itss) coup possible. . . Security officials herded labor leaders and other troublemakers into the National Soccer Stadium and forced them to sit in the stands while military police took them down by ones and twos to the field and shot them. Pinochet dispatched Allende ally General Ramos in a helicopter “Caravan of Death” to the north, where he had tens of thousands of “leftists” rounded up and disappeared. . . (During Nicolae Ceausescu's) 23 years in power, the regime liquidated all potential political opposition at home and funneled Romania’s resources out through an elaborate network of public-private partnerships that made the Communist dictator one of the world’s richest men. . . And through it all, as Romania’s foreign debt more than tripled, the US Treasury-backed IMF was always there with an open line of credit to ensure Ceausescu never had to reform. . . the CIA-supported, anti-communist Syngman Rhee (who) ran the Republic of Korea in the south. Rhee regularly arrested and occasionally even killed those he suspected of harboring communist sympathies, even presiding over several massacres. . . Indeed, In 1950, just before the Korean War, Rhee had approximately 20,000 supposed communists imprisoned, and in June of that year ordered the execution of those who he believed posed a threat to his regime. . . Then, in 1961, South Koreans — who were at this point poorer than North Koreans — saw the rise of Park Chung-Hee, who seized leadership via a coup tacitly supported by the U.S. Upon entering office, Park declared the rule of martial law and amended the constitution to support his own authoritarianism. . . While the South Korean economy did begin its decades-long boom under Park, it came at the cost of political repression, corruption, and even violence. Park used sham elections to legitimize his rule by decree, which on the less harmful end of things, included dictating the length of men’s hair and women’s dresses. . . While all of the dictatorships mentioned so far ended long ago, Uzbekistan’s continued until very recently — a fact that Washington doesn’t seems to mind much, likely due to the nation’s geography and its erstwhile leader’s shared interest in combatting Islamic extremism. . . The Karimov regime engaged in what the United Nations has called “institutionalized, systematic and rampant” acts of torture, which Karimov directed toward the Muslim community in particular. . ."

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Thursday, November 16, 2017

Mature? . . .

. . . not especially in the case of our "President". . .

(http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-back-from-asia-knocks-%E2%80%98loser%E2%80%99-cnn/ar-BBEZeYo?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=ientp)
". . . Trump bashed CNN upon his return from a 12-day Asia trip, calling it "fake" in an early morning tweet on Wednesday. . ."While in the Philippines I was forced to watch @CNN, which I have not done in months, and again realized how bad, and FAKE, it is." Trump wrote. . . "Loser!" . . .Trump by contrast tweeted that "Fox and Friends" would be showing more footage of his "successful" trip overseas. . ."Believe it or not, even when I'm in Washington or New York, I do not watch much television," Trump told reporters. "People that don't know me, they like to say I watch television - people with fake sources. You know, fake reporters, fake sources.". . ."

Meantime, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, "I have never been so ashamed of a foreign trip in my years. It's just inside-out," Schumer said. "We attack our friends and the people who have given us the most trouble, China and Russia, we mollycoddle - that is so bad for the future of this country."

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Thursday, July 16, 2015

Bernie Information . . .

Voted YES on $156M to IMF for 3rd-world debt reduction.
Vote on an amendment that would transfer $156 million from foreign military financing to the Highly Indebted Poor Countries [HIPC] Trust Fund. The HIPC Trust fund is designed to help debtor countries pay off the money they owe to multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Reference: Amendment sponsored by Waters, D-CA; Bill HR 4811 ; vote number 2000-397 on Jul 13, 2000

Voted NO on cooperating with India as a nuclear power.
Congressional Summary:US-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Nonproliferation Enhancement Act:
Approves the US-India Agreement for Cooperation on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy.
Declares that it is US policy to prevent the transfer to India of nuclear equipment, materials, or technology from other participating governments in the Nuclear Suppliers Group or from any other source; and
any nuclear power reactor fuel reserve provided to India for use in safeguarded civilian nuclear facilities should be commensurate with reasonable reactor operating requirements.
Approval of this agreement undermines our efforts to dissuade countries like Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. By approving this agreement, all we are doing is creating incentives for other countries to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Reference: US-India Nuclear Agreement; Bill HR.7081 ; vote number 2008-S211 on Oct 1, 2008

Voted YES on deterring foreign arms transfers to China.
To authorize measures to deter arms transfers by foreign countries to the People's Republic of China, A YES vote would grant the President the ability to place sanctions on any individual or country that violates the arms embargo, including:
Denial of participation in cooperative research and development
Prohibition of ownership and control of any business registered as a manufacturer or exporter of defense articles or services
Removal of all licenses relative to dual-use goods or technology
Prohibition of participation of any foreign military sales
Reference: East Asia Security Act; Bill HR 3100 ; vote number 2005-374 on Jul 14, 2005

(from http://www.vox.com/2015/6/18/8800683/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy)
On this issue, then, Sanders isn't far off from your average liberal Democrat. He's generally skeptical of the use of force, but willing to endorse it in very narrow and limited cases where he thinks it could save lives or advance American interests. That doesn't make him a warmonger who is "to the right of many liberal Democrats," but it is a notable divergence in his reputation as a champion of the left and challenger of the Washington status quo.

Sanders supports a two-state solution, one for Israelis and another for Palestinians. While he can be critical of Israel, he does not refrain from criticizing Palestinians as well.
"The Palestinians must fulfill their responsibilities to end terrorism against Israel and recognize Israel’s right to exist," Sanders said in a 2013 Playboy interview. "In return, the Israelis must end their policy of targeted killings, prevent further Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes, businesses and infrastructure."

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Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Wearing Stripes . . .

(from http://www.politicususa.com/2015/02/08/israeli-official-boehner-netanyahu-conspired-to-defy-humiliate-president-obama.html)
". . . His action was also illegal according to 18 U.S.C. § 953. The Logan Act “forbids unauthorized citizens” like John Boehner “from negotiating with foreign governments.” The law expressly prohibits “Any citizen from directly or indirectly commencing or carrying on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence or defeat the measures of the United States.” Netanyahu, an anti-Obama foreigner, cannot be punished under federal law, but Boehner can be and should be charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced to serve time in a federal penitentiary. . . for breaking the law. . .

(from http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/01/24/fox-news-actually-expresses-shock-and-outrage-over-boehner-and-netanyahu-undermining-president-obama-video/)". . . Since the announcement, Beohner and Republicans have felt a major backlash. But the last place they thought they’d receive outrage from, if at all, is Fox News. Well, that shipped sailed on Friday. Shephard Smith began by reading a quote by former Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk. Indyk slammed Republicans for crossing the line and disrespecting the president. “Netanyahu is using the Republican Congress for a photo-op for his election campaign, and the Republicans are using Bibi for their campaign against Obama,” Indyk said. . . In response, Chris Wallace said he agreed “100 percent,” with the statement and proceeded to express his own disappointment with what Boehner and the Republicans did. . ."

. . . that smacks of “dicey politics.” . . ."

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My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music will be released April 7, 2014 Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Unsavory. . .

. . . characters. . .

Be on your guard
Watch over your shoulder
Mind every step that you're planning to take
But remember
You called them
Unsavory characters

Yes you're entitled
Speak as you wish
Just give some thought if your statement is true
And remember
You called them
Unsavory characters

Might you consider
Someone else different
Just to appreciate not criticize
There's no need for
your saying
Unsavory characters

What have they done
What have they taken from you
What have you won
Tarnishing innocent reputations
Does it make you feel good
Right
High
Holier

Sit in your perch
High up in your tower
All by yourself is there comfort in that
But remember
You called them
Unsavory characters

You can see much
And you can see many
Living their lives in a harmony foreign someone
Who called them
Unsavory characters

©2012 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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